BT announced the winners of its Race to Infinity super-fast broadband competition this week.

The winners are:

• Baschurch, Shropshire
• Blewbury, Oxfordshire
• Caxton, Cambridgeshire
• Innerleithen, Scottish Borders
• Madingley, Cambridgeshire
• Whitchurch, Hampshire

Several areas just missed out on making it into the top six. They are Marton in Warwickshire, Capel in Surrey, Burley in Wharfedale in Bradford and Lindfield in West Sussex.  It was disappointing that none of the exchanges that did so well in the “Battle for the Downs” were included.  Somehow, Kent is not seen as being rural as it is in the South East – yet 85% of households in Kent are rural!

Although, not among the winners, BT says that by participating in the survey, communities have made their voices heard.  BT has promised to engage with any community not winning the competition, where at least 75% of homes and businesses have voted for their exchange.  This is to see if those exchanges can either be included in future commercial phases of fibre broadband – if the exchange is commercially viable – or enabled because of either public sector or community support as has already happened in some parts of the UK.

BT says it supports the government’s vision of creating the best super-fast broadband network in Europe by 2015. The company has pledged to invest £2.5bn to deliver super-fast fibre broadband to two thirds of the UK by 2015. It is planning a technical trial of one Gigabit broadband speeds in Kesgrave, Suffolk, and is including up to 40 rural market towns in the next phase of its super-fast fibre broadband rollout.  BT announced a separate list of 41 exchanges earlier in the week.

The six successful exchange areas will be added to BT’s deployment and enabled by early 2012 at the latest.