Initial trials to pave the way to offering higher broadband speeds across the UK are planned by BT by the end of the year. They will be held within selected exchanges in the Strathclyde region of Scotland and in Greater London from next month. Up to 2,000 businesses and consumers will be involved in the trial which will test the capability of lines operating at their maximum reliable speed between 2Mbits/s and 8Mbits/s for ADSL broadband services. BT Wholesale will be working with broadband service providers to identify the individual lines selected for the first phase of the trial. This selection will be based on specific technical criteria, as wider network and system developments being implemented over the next six months are required before new higher speed services can be launched across the country. The lines to be involved in this phase of the trials will be identified by BT Wholesale and end users will be contacted by their broadband service provider. They will include lines on both BT IPstream and BT Datastream wholesale services. When further systems developments and network upgrades have been completed, BT Wholesale plans to widen the geographic scope and types of lines involved in the trial with a view to launching higher speed wholesale broadband services across the UK in the autumn.

From April 1, and in parallel to the trials in Scotland and Greater London, BT Wholesale will be beginning trials of the ADSL2+ technology. The use of ADSL2+ should provide speeds of up to 18Mbits/s, initially as an internal trial with BT employee lines in selected locations.

www.bt.com