#Bideford First to get High Speed Broadband

BIDEFORD will be the first place in North

Devon to have new fibre optic broadband installed by BT which can see internet

speeds increase by 100s of mega bits per second.

More than 10,000 homes and businesses in

the town will benefit from faster broadband set to be put in place within the

next year.

The news follows Barnstaple, South Molton,

Braunton and Holsworthy already having improvements made to the existing

service on copper wires but not with fibre optics.

The increased speed will enable a family to download a movie, watch a TV replay

service, surf the net and play games online simultaneously.

A whole music album could be downloaded in

less than 30 seconds and a feature length HD movie in less than 10 minutes,

while high-resolution photos can be uploaded to Facebook in seconds.

BT has announced the upgrade as part of a £2.5 billion BT roll-out of fibre

broadband across the UK.

High-speed fibre broadband will be rolled out to another 41,700 South West

homes and businesses during 2013, which will take the total number for Devon to

nearly 223,000.

By spring 2013 BT aims to make speeds of 330Mbps commercially available in any

area where fibre broadband has been deployed.

The UK's current average broadband speed is 7.6Mbps, according to the regulator

Ofcom.

Councillor Roger Johnson, (corr) Torridge District Council's deputy leader and

lead member for the Torridge economy, said "This is excellent news for many

people in Bideford - they're the latest in the region who will soon have access

to the next generation of internet services. "Reliable, fast connections can

make all the difference to education and business, and give people much greater

scope for interaction with the world around them. "In a tough economic climate,

this local investment from BT will help make Bideford region an even better

place to live, work and do business."

BT's local network business Openreach is making fibre broadband available to

around two-thirds of UK homes and businesses by the end of 2014.

BT will be announcing more locations due to

have the upgrade every three months.

Full story and source:  http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/Fibre-optic-broadband-coming-Bideford/story-16456460-detail/story.html