BT Openreach yesterday revealed the names of a further 156 locations in the country which will benefit from its next phase of roll-out of super-fast fibre broadband services, and it includes Madingley Exchange.

Several of the exchanges in the list will be fibre-enabled by the end of 2011, whilst the remainder are expected to be upgraded before the end of 2012. Openreach will provide a more specific date for the enablement of each exchange six months prior to an exchange being upgraded to fibre broadband.

The new locations announced today include the 10 exchange areas that won the recent BT Race to Infinity competition, where members of the public were asked to cast votes for their community to be upgraded to the BT Infinity fibre broadband service. Madingley Exchange was one of the original 6 winning exchanges in the Race to Infinity which concluded in December 2010. A further 4 exchanges which had a significant number of votes cast were subsequently included by BT.

The connections to the exchanges will be a combination of fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) which offers speeds of up to 40Mbps and fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) which offers speeds of up to 100Mbps.

Openreach confirmed that of the 156 strong list, only the 10 winners of BT’s Race to Infinity competition, will get the faster FTTP connectivity, while the rest of those on the list will get slower FTTC. These speeds will allow customers to benefit from an enhanced online experience when uploading or downloading files, gaming, social networking or watching streamed video.

This is much welcome news for the communities served by Madingley Exchange, and even more thrilling news to members of the MadX Race Group who worked tirelessly for several weeks in bitter winter conditions of 2010 canvassing and collecting votes from all the residents in Caldecote, Childerley, Dry Drayton Estates, Hardwick, Coton and Madingley thus ensuring our winning position in the Race to Infinity. Our communities can now look forward to enjoying the best that super fast broadband technology has to offer.