89% of lines fibre-enabled by 2012

But the telecommunications giant says the data used by the watchdog does not include details on the speed and take-up of a technology called fibre-to-the-cabinet, which is rapidly becoming the most pervasive broadband technology here.

Fibre-to-the-cabinet involves BT laying a fibre optic cable to the street cabinets allowing them to offer much higher broadband speeds (both download and upload) than traditional broadband over phone lines.

BT said 89 per cent of lines in Londonderry would be connected to a fibre-enabled street cabinet by 2012.

The firm also claimed its own research suggests the average broadband speed in Londonderry was 23Mbits/s.

The Sentinel recently reported how the Ofcom map showed over 20 per cent of addresses in Londonderry had broadband connections with a modem sync speed of less than 2Mbits/s: poor.

Only 56 per cent of Londonderry addresses had a broadband connection: also poor.

And the average modem sync speed in Londonderry - the speed at which a customer’s broadband modem communicates with an Internet Service Provider’s - was 6.5Mbits/s: poor again.

Ofcom did, however, score Londonderry well on superfast broadband availability. Superfast broadband is available to 97 per cent of homes here: excellent.

In response to the Sentinel article a spokesperson for BT said: “We welcome the initiative by Ofcom to produce an interactive online map.

“However, unfortunately for Northern Ireland, the data does not include details on the speed and take-up of a technology called fibre-to-the-cabinet, which is rapidly becoming the most pervasive broadband technology here.

“Fibre broadband is being rolled out faster in Northern Ireland than any other part of the UK and indeed Europe.

“Major investments by BT both directly, and in partnership with DETI in the Next Generation Broadband Project, will result in 89 per cent of all lines being connected to a fibre-enabled street cabinet by March 2012.”

The spokesperson explained how Londonderry is benefiting already from investment in the technology.

“Indeed, in Derry City, fibre will be deployed in 100 per cent of these street cabinets by this Autumn, due to investment by BT in the area.

“Our own research suggests that the broadband reality is that the average broadband speed in Londonderry, for example, is more in the region of 23Mbs, if all technologies were combined.

“And we expect this figure to rise as our roll-out progresses and technology advances. More information on availability and speeds is available at www.nibroadband.com,” the spokesperons stated.

Ofcom recently published the online map, which allows users to zoom in and out of administrative authorities of the UK and provides a range of data to offer a picture of broadband provision in each area.

Each area has been ranked on how they score on four broadband metrics, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 the highest or fastest, and 5 the lowest or slowest.

The individual scores have been combined to provide an overall view of broadband in each area.

Despite scoring poorly on average sync speed; the percentage of addresses getting less than 2Mbit/s; and broadband take-up generally; a good score on superfast broadband availability meant Londonderry came out with an overall average ranking of 3.

In Londonderry broadband take-up was a poor 56 per cent, the second lowest score possible.

Across the UK as a whole, 68 per cent of UK premises had a fixed broadband connection,

and the average maximum speed was 7.5Mbit/s (excluding superfast broadband connections).

By comparison to Londonderry’s 56 per cent take-up the City of Brighton & Hove had the highest take-up of fixed broadband services with 80 per cent.

In terms of sync speed Londonderry also achieved the second worst score possible with 6.5Mbit/s.

Londonderry’s most dismal score was on the percentage of households receiving less than 2Mbit/s. Each area was ranked from 1 to 5 on the percentage of broadband connections that had modem sync speeds of less than 2.2Mbit/s. Londonderry had 20.5 per cent - the worst score possible.

Notwithstanding the poor scoring across the three indicators above the widespread availability of superfast broadband in Londonderry was 97 per cent.

This was the best score possible and despite poor scoring elsewhere ensured an overall ranking of 3. Only 58 per cent of addresses across the UK were in areas served by a superfast broadband enabled telephone exchange or cable network.