KNIGHTON is part of nearly 90,000 homes and businesses across Wales that now have access to faster broadband, BT announced this week.
The Radnorshire town is among 17 communities in the country including Ammanford, Crickhowell, Llanelli, Llanrwst, Mold West, Tenby and Welshpool to benefit from the roll-out of BT’s next generation broadband service delivered over copper lines.
The BT investment makes available download speeds of up to 20 megabytes per second (Mbps) – more than double the speed previously available from the company.
It is already available in communities right across Wales in places such as Caerleon, Holyhead, Newport, Merthyr Tydfil, Mumbles, Mayals, Pwlheli, Swansea and Usk.
Other local communities also earmarked for upgrades in the coming months include: Builth Wells, Cowbridge, Llanidloes, Menai Bridge, Monmouth, Mountain Ash, Newtown, Prestatyn and Saundersfoot.
The new service is available on an open, wholesale basis to all companies providing broadband.
Ann Beynon, BT director for Wales, said: “This is an important step forward for Wales. In these challenging economic times, faster broadband can help businesses become more competitive, find new customers and work more flexibly as well as greatly improving the online services available to families, homeworkers and other internet users.
“By the summer, around 71 per cent of homes and businesses in Wales will be served by an exchange that has been upgraded to deliver these higher speeds,” she added.
This investment in the copper network is in addition to BT’s £2.5 billion roll-out of fibre-based broadband, which will bring even faster speeds to around two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.