Superfast broadband reaches Newbury

BT has announced that more than 17,000 local householders could join the high-speed revolution

SUPERFAST broadband is now available to the first homes and businesses in Newbury, meaning music lovers could download a whole album in 30 seconds.

BT has announced that more than 17,000 local householders and firms in Newbury could join the high-speed revolution as engineers complete the local upgrade in the coming weeks.

The firm has also announced plans to pass another 120,000 premises in the county with its fibre network either later this year or during 2012.

BT's local access network business, Openreach, expects to make super-fast fibre broadband available to two-thirds of UK homes and businesses by the end of 2015, using a mix of fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) and fibre to the premises (FTTP) technologies.

Both are much faster than those speeds previously available to most UK homes and businesses, and would enable users to download a feature length HD movie in 10 minutes.

According to a recent map of broadband speeds across the UK released by communication regulator Ofcom, in terms of speed West Berkshire is relatively slow in comparison to the rest of the UK with an average of 7Mbits per second, however the take-up across the district is one of the highest, at 77 per cent.