Earlier this week BT launched their trials of G.fast – new ultrafast broadband technology that promises speeds of upwards of 300Mb/s. The trial builds on years of research into ultrafast broadband, working with international companies such as French firm Alcatel-Lucent and the Chinese company Huawei.

The trials take place in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire and Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, selected because of their network infrastructure variety. Approximately 4,000 businesses and homes (2,000 in each area) are to be affected in the trial to test the best methods of deploying ultrafast broadband and to gather more information about the speeds that can be expected. The trial is to run for 6-9 months. Though delivered by BT Openreach, eight service providers are taking part in the trial, giving customers a range of options to choose from.

G.fast builds on the existing Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) infrastructure, which means BT hope to keep disruption to a minimum. They also hope this will improve the speed G.fast can be rolled out across the country, should the trials go well. BT say they hope to start deploying the service across the country in 2016/2017, and aim to see speeds increase to over 500mb/s as the technology develops and matures.

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale commented on the trial: “We want to stay ahead of the competition and so it’s good to see this continued investment and innovation in the industry. BT is harnessing its world-class technology and engineering expertise to help the UK lead the way on ultrafast broadband and remain a world leading digital economy.”

As with existing fibre services, BT highlight that ultrafast broadband speeds will be effected by the length of a customer’s line, or by other factors that cannot be avoided. Still, in trials conducted in 2013, 150mb/s speeds were achievable over 250m lines, considerably more than the UK average speed at the moment.