BT has announced that from today (18 August 2009) it will be boosting broadband speeds from 8Mbit/s to 20Mbit/s in all available areas for free.

The speed increase applies to all times of day and is available to new customers and existing customers that sign up for a new contract. Existing customers in the middle of a contract will be stuck with 8Mbit/s broadband.

As well as improving download speeds, BT has announced that the new broadband package will have an upload speed of 1Mbit/s, up from just 448Kbit/s.

Currently there are 549 telephone exchanges covering 40 per cent of UK homes and businesses that have been upgraded to 20Mbit/s; this figure is set to rise to 55 per cent by March 2010.

Customers that order online will receive a free BT Broadband Accelerator (£1.20 postage applies). This is a plate that fits into the master telephone socket to reduce interference and improve ADSL speeds.

"The BT Broadband Accelerator can make a big difference to the speed of your broadband. We think it is so important we've taken the decision to offer it to our customers for just the cost of the postage," said John Petter, managing director of BT's consumer division. "Between that and us more than doubling headline speeds for millions of homes and businesses, most customers should start to see a rapid boost in the performance of their connection. We have a track record of not charging customers any more when we increase the speed and this time is no different. BT broadband customers won??t have to pay any more to get higher speeds."

Customers interested in taking advantage of the free upgrades should visit BT's broadband website.

Mine are their usual High speed

You need to sign up for another 12 month contract, but we want to move to Sky, so will have to wait until existing contract has expired! Doh!

Now with O2, same line, up to 12x the speeds and one third of the cost. I won't be going back to BT, no matter how much junk they stuff through my letterbox.

I'm getting close to 10Mb with VM for under a tenner these days, and a 1Gb download limit with their mobile broadband for £5 a month - B@stards? Totally! are the worst company I've ever seen for net services, short of the dreaded Tiscali

Having had the benefit of being with both Virgin Media and BT, I'd choose Virgin Media any day of the week.

Ditto, and I will be taking advantage of their 2 moths free

Having had the benefit of being with both Virgin Media and BT, I'd choose Virgin Media any day of the week.

Cool! Free moths...personally I just leave a light on and a window open.