UP TO 20,000 Weymouth homes and businesses are set to benefit from super-fast broadband, BT has announced today.

The resort is among 114 communities included in the latest phase of the company’s £2.5billion roll-out of fibre broadband across the United Kingdom.

It comes just 10 days after another big announcement by BT, of its role in installing fibre optic broadband infrastructure to the Olympic and Paralympic sailing venue and athletes village at Osprey Quay, Portland for the 550 athletes and officials in 2012.

The infrastructure will remain on the island afterwards as an Olympic legacy for residents and businesses.

Today’s announcement is being hailed as a major development for Weymouth and ‘significant investment for Dorset’.

BT’s local network business Openreach expects to make super-fast fibre broadband available to more than 800,000 South West homes and businesses by autumn 2012 and two-thirds of UK homes and businesses by the end of 2015.

It is building the new network using a mix of fibre to street cabinets (FTTC) and fibre to the premises (FTTP) technologies.

Openreach is planning to roughly double the broadband speeds offered by FTTC – currently up to 40Mbps download speeds and up to 10Mbps upstream speeds.

FTTP, where the fibre goes directly to homes and businesses, will offer speeds of up to 100Mbps.

Jon Reynolds, BT’s South West regional director, said: “BT’s roll-out of super-fast broadband is marching on at a rapid pace.

“Residents and businesses in these latest locations can look forward to choosing a high-speed connection over a network offering an unrivalled choice of suppliers, which keeps competition thriving and costs down.

“Our latest investment in the South West will propel internet users at home and at work into the 21st century fast lane, and marks another milestone in the development of the region’s next generation communications.”

Mr Reynolds called for the private and public sector to work together to ensure that rural communities also benefited from faster technologies, as has been ‘successfully demonstrated’ in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

He added: “As today’s investment demonstrates, BT is playing its part in delivering faster broadband across the UK – but there needs to be a collective effort to ensure no part of the South West is left behind.”

David Fursdon, chairman of West of England 2012 Board, said: “The arrival of super-fast broadband is a very important development for Weymouth and represents a significant investment for Dorset.

“There is no doubt that faster broadband is a real benefit to householders and provides businesses with a competitive advantage.

“Today’s announcement is a welcome step in the right direction and will give a long-term boost to our local economy.”