BT Targets Rural Broadband Notspots With BET Technology

BT’s Openreach arm is kicking off trials of a new broadband technology tailored to reach users currently living too far from local telephone exchange to have accessibility to high-speed internet connection.

The technology, dubbed as “Broadband Enabling Technology (BET)”, is to be tested in eight locations in the UK beginning from this month’s end, after successful initial trials at Dingwall and Inverness in Scotland.

BT’s new technology has the capability to deliver seamless broadband connectivity to locations up to 12 kilometres away from the nearest telephone exchange, surpassing the five kilometre limit for current broadband implementations.

The new technology seems to be of great help in helping the government to reach its ambitious goal of providing broadband access to all, as enunciated in the Digital Britain report.

Touting that the technology could come handy in offering stable broadband services in the so-called “notspots”, John Small, MD for service delivery at Openreach, said: "We are really excited about the potential of BET to extend broadband to the remaining not-spots".

BET employs a broadband standard, referred to as "Single-Pair High-Speed Digital Subscriber Line", and has the potential to deliver broadband speeds of up to 1mbps, which can further be increased to 2mbps by joining two channels operating over different copper pairs.

The eight new locations selected for the BET trial include Leyland in Lancashire, Wigton in Cumbria, Twyford in Berkshire, Horsham in West Sussex, Badsey in Worcestershire, Wymondham in Norfolk, Ponteland in Northumberland, and Llanfyllin in Powys.