Belfast gets Super-Fast Broadband as BT goes live with BT Infinity

Super-fast broadband is now available to BT consumer and business customers in the Balmoral exchange area in Belfast. The new 'fibre to the cabinet' (FTTC) technology offers speeds of up to 40Mb/s to households and businesses with the prospect of those rising to up to 60Mb/s. As part of BT's UK wide rollout plan Balmoral is the first exchange area to get the service in Northern Ireland and will be closely followed by the Lisburn and Bangor exchange areas, which will have the service by the end of the summer 2010.

BT Infinity, the new consumer service, uses fibre optic technology to offer download speeds of up to 40Mb/s from as little as £19.99 per month, a saving of £7.47 per month on Virgin Media's XXL highest speed service. Upstream speeds, at up to 10Mb/s, will be the fastest in the UK, more than six times faster than Virgin Media's fastest service*, giving customers far greater interactivity.

BT Infinity will transform the consumer's experience of the internet. Households with multiple computers/internet devices will enjoy simultaneous use of services such as HD catch-up TV, social networking and the sharing of photos or films, amongst others.

The faster service will also benefit those who log-on for entertainment services, offering high-quality streaming of popular video content from iPlayer and YouTube, and downloads up to seven times faster on iTunes. Online gaming will be up to 30 per cent faster, giving gamers a real advantage over the competition.

Peter Morris, Consumer Director, BT said: 'The internet is essential to our customers' lives and they are demanding more and more as richer and even more compelling services become available. We are delighted to offer our customers a service which can offer them the capacity and reliability they need in an instant and at a great value price they can afford. We want to give all our customers the best possible online experience and are committed to rolling out super-fast broadband speeds for all of our customers across Northern Ireland and we are looking forward to next phase in which we will be extending the service to our customers in both Lisburn and Bangor by the end of the summer.'

Kellie Ann McNally, Dunmurry, Belfast, has noticed a huge difference since she upgraded her broadband to BT Infinity. 'We have more than one laptop in the house and with BT Infinity we can all use them at the same time without losing connection or a slow down which is great. But the most dramatic difference has been noticed by my son who spends a lot of his time gaming on his Xbox. He thinks that BT Infinity is 'awesome' which really says it all!'

The service will be made available to four million homes and businesses across the UK by the end of December 2010, following the roll out of the technology by BT's local access division.

BT's longer-term programme is to make super-fast broadband available to at least 40 per cent of the UK, some 10 million homes and businesses, by the summer of 2012. The company has pledged to spend £1.5 billion, the UK's biggest single commercial investment, in rolling out fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) and fibre to the premise (FTTP) services.

BT is also launching a new super-fast broadband service to businesses which will be known as BT Business Total Broadband: Fibre. The new service will support business enhancing tools including VOIP, high-definition video conferencing and business-grade cloud applications. Seamus Murray, partner of accountancy firm G. Brennan & Co, one of the first Northern Ireland companies to avail of the new service said, 'We specialise in dealing with all aspects of small businesses particularly business start-ups and company formations. Now more than ever, businesses need reassurance and support in their early days so it is important that we provide the best service we can and that means employing the best technology available.

'We're finding that we are much more productive because we can multitask - the fibre can cope with a lot of things going on at once, like VOIP, videoconferencing and transfer of large FTP files'.

New and existing BT Total Broadband and BT Business customers in an enabled exchange areas will automatically be eligible for the up to 40 Mb/s broadband service.**

BT Infinity Consumer

Option	Option 1	Option 2
Standard price per month	£19.99	£24.99
Connection charge	£50	Free
Download Speed	Up to 40Mb/s	up to 40Mb/s
Upload Speed	Up to 2Mb/s	Up to 10Mb/s
Monthly usage allowance	20GB***	Unlimited***
Wireless router	Free BT Home Hub	Free BT Home Hub
Contract Period	18 months	18 months
Security	Basic security	Advanced security
Storage	5GB Digital Vault	5GB Digital Vault with auto back-up
Wi-fi minutes	250 unlimited minutes	250 unlimited minutes

BT Infinity comes with all the extras you enjoy with BT Broadband and a qualified BT engineer will be on hand to come and install the product for our customers.

For more details on BT's up to 40Mb/s broadband service please visit:
For Consumers: www.bt.com/infinity
For Businesses: www.bt.com/superfastbroadband