UK telecoms incumbent BT has announced plans to roll out fibre-based, super-fast broadband to as many as 10 million homes by the time the Olympics rolls into London in 2012.

The £1.5bn programme will deliver a range of services with top speeds of up to 100 Mb/s with the potential for speeds of more than 1,000 Mb/s in the future, claims the carrier.

BT CEO Ian Livingston said: “We now want to make a step-change in broadband provision which will offer faster speeds than ever before. This marks the beginning of a new chapter in Britain’s broadband story. We are keen to partner with people who share our vision for the next phase of the broadband revolution. We want to work with local and regional bodies to decide where and when we should focus the deployment. Our aim is that urban and rural areas alike will benefit from our investment”.

BT expects its initial investment in the programme will result in around £100m of incremental capital expenditure in each of the 2008/09 and 2009/10 financial years, taking the total expected capital expenditure in those years to around £3.2bn and £3.1bn, respectively. The remaining incremental spend of £800m will be spread over the following three financial years.