BT to accelerate $4bn fibre plan by a year

BT Group Plc, the United Kingdoms largest Internet service provider, will accelerate its 2.5 billion-pound ($4bn) roll-out of fibre broadband as it competes with operators including Virgin Media in high-speed Web services.BT would advance the roll-out by one year by bringing forward 300 million pounds of funding, the London-based company said on Monday in a statement. BT now plans to reach two-thirds of British homes by the end of 2014, rather than 2015, according to Bloomberg.Our roll-out of fibre broadband is one of the fastest in the world and so it is great to be ahead of what was an already challenging schedule, Chief Executive Officer , Ian Livingston, said in the statement, adding that, We are investing when others are merely talking about it.BT is building out high-speed fibre services to counter declining revenue from traditional fixed-line offerings. The company, which won market share from rivals including Virgin Media and TalkTalk in its fiscal first quarter, announced plans this month to double the speed of its main fibre product to as fast as 80 megabits-per-second.Virgin Media, based in Hook, England, is already rolling out a 100 megabits-per-second service.The company also faces potential competition from Fujitsu Limited, Japans biggest computer-services provider, which said this year it wanted to tap BTs infrastructure to build a rival fibre network to five million homes and businesses for as much as two billion pounds.BT, which reports second-quarter results on November 3, rose by 0.4 per cent to 188.7 pence at 8:56am in London trading.
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