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I know many people that are in 'broadband poverty' and only live a short distance from a broadband enabled exchange, even in city centres. It is crazy in this day and age that simple signal boosters cannot be placed along the line.

I live on the top of a remote fell in Cumbria and can only get a dial-up connection from BT, it was touch and go even getting a landline! Thanks to our Regional Development Agency who wanted to tackle 'broadband poverty' they have subsidised a microwave link service; we now have a 10MB dedicated link that beams across the fells to a base station.

99% coverage of the UK is just not good enough!

Not to sound churlish, but what is to complain about next? "Supermarket poverty" because all the big supermarkets are in towns and cities.

If they want broadband access to the fastest speeds in the country, then move closer to the towns? ADSL has technical limitations, and this move to FTTC and FTTH is designed to help change that somewhat.

The cost of wiring up those communities outside the main population areas is massive compared to the returns made... Why should people living in towns and cities subsidise that?

Oh, and you try and find cable in a street where I live, and I'm 5 miles outside of the city centre of Birmingham!!

The 99% figure is totally misleading for a service that is dependent on distance from the exchange. Anywhere where the exchange covers a wide geographic area, you are going to get a number of people with similar problems to Adrian Linney.

I feel sorry about people having no broadband access. It would be a clincher for me, I simply would not live somewhere that did not have access.

Can I also highlight the only area in the country - Hull - where there is only one broadband provider (Karoo) - a total monopoly which is both illegal and extremely annoying.

99% coverage, IMHO is good enough. If BT invests like they say they will, it may get even better. Nothing in life is perfect, and broadband falls in this category.

This is another example of Utility services being provided by Commercial companies, rather than a service for all paid for by all; where those who are expensive to connect are subsidised. The necessary infrastructure should be provided for all, then commercial companies can compete for add-ons.

The village I live in had a local telephone exchange at its centre. This was sold off as a small house when a new digital exchange was built between us and an adjacent village. This results in neither of the villages having full ADSL bandwidth as the exchange is too far away.
BT inherited the national telephone infrastructure, but does not provide a Utility service. Me thinks they did not pay enough for this infrastructure!

Until everyone has applied for broadband we probably won't know an accurate figure.

1% of the UK population is still a sizeable number though.

For those that tried to get broadband (ADSL) before April/May 2006 with the advent of the up to 8Mbps services it is worth trying again if the systems will still let you place an order. Why?

Well the up to 8Mbps will connect at right down to 160Kbps, which while not fast is better than dial-up and cheaper than most alternatives. This means for some it may work where even previous 500Kbps services did not work.

This problem is not just a rural one, there are urban areas without broadband due to things like TPON (fibre) and line concentrators, or just a line that is too long.

Living in a rural location has its benefits but you need to remember that the clue is in the name - rural!

Don't expect commercial organisations to spend money in areas where they aren't going to make a profit.

If you want 50Mb broadband, delivery pizza etc etc move to a city or town and don't expect it if you live in the back of beyond.


Mind you, I live on Dartmoor and get an ADSL line that d'loads at 7Mbs so I can't complain. Now I just need to get Dominos or Perfect Pizza to move in....

I live near a town and I am very happy to get broadband.

I also believe that the tax payer should pay for every single home in the entire nation to recieve optical broadband.

With this if any company wants to use it, be it for business use or an ISP to offer internet access, then 50% of all profit goes straight back in to the tax pot.... for the life of the service.

If ISP's are still using our paid for optical infrastructure for 100 years, then they pay 50% of earnings to the tax man for 100 years! Simple as that, paid for by us... and payment recuppurated!

Whilst I appreciate the frustration of not having easy access to a broadband connection. As a self-employed designer, do you not owe it to yourself to find work space that can deliver the required services.

With mobile network coverage now nearing 100%, have you throught about a datacard for your laptop, or USB-stick broadband available from all 4 major mobile networks. This would be considerably cheaper than satellite broadband.

Rural areas are always going to be 'behind the times' with technology. The fact that there is great financial cost for service providers, who are not obliged to provide these services, means rural areas have the comprimise of fanstastic surroundings, peace and quiet, and less pollution with services that cannot compete with hectic city centres.

Supply and demand is what has driven us to a 2 car per household society, we cannot pick and choose which privately owned enterprises are allowed to work to supply and demand.

In normal circumstances I may agree with all the "if you want it, don't expect it, move to a city or town" arguments but when the Government has specificaly said it aims to get broadband to every home of the UK by 2012 (or whatever the new date is) then I think it is in fact a very fair argument to expect such a service; if not right now this minute, then for BT to atleast advise you they are planning to bring it to your area.

Personaly I don't have this issue. I've had a cable connection since the cable lines were first put in the ground and have had an ADSL broadband connection since Blueyonder (now Virgin Media) was first created and quite frankly I simply would not move to an area without a Virgin Media cable line after being spoilt with it for so long, but I can understand the feelings of those without.

BT claim they are a company and therefore have no community obligations, but that simply is not true. BT own the cables in the ground (including most of Virgin Media's optic fibre lines) and they own the entire phone exchange system. Company or not, that puts them in a position where they MUST have responcibility for local communities, regardless of where that community is. This is really one of those situations where the Government should be stepping in to force BT's hand and put their money where their mouth is.

Its all the Tory parties fault anyway, when BT were the world No. 1 the Tories stopped them innovating because it was unfair on other companies.............................

...frankly I couldn't give a damn if some telecomms company operating in France or USA fell further behind...

And then they decided it was appropriate for the sake of nation and their service recieved that BT would be privatised.............................

...frankly I am annoyed they sold the best telecomms company in the world for a relative pittance and let shareholders decide what is best for us...

And ofcourse failed to help those who left without a job because the huge state run money making machine that the entire world envied was not making enough money.............................

...frankly I find this part most annoying considering that what profit BT made in a decade could buy a country above the poorest 50% marker line!

Tories stopped BT innovating? don't make me laugh. Have you ever had an dealings with BT? any reputation of quality of service went out of the window years ago.

I paid them £120 for a new line install and was given two different install dates, about five answerphone messages and the date changed by a day in the end.

BT were slow bringing in ADSL despite the US and other countries having it. They were only too happy raking in the cash for second line installs and dial up costs.

Rory

If you want to learn about the truth of the UK broadband "not-spots", and the real potential for FTTx in the UK, then you should talk to Malcolm Corbett from the Community Broadband Network (www.broadband.coop).

BT's recent announcement on fibre investment is a fudge designed as a holding position to keep the politicians onside thinking that the market will solve the issue (which it won't) while the haggling with Ofcom over a return on the investment can continue, and also opens the door for the RDAs and local authorities to come through waving bundles of cash.

Why invest in 40Mbps technology when it will have to replaced in 10 years with true FTTH at 100Mbps plus anyway? It simply does not stack up (unless you are BT, that is).

Broadband, and fibre, is an essential utility today, in the same way that electricity is. To have people, regardless of their location, that do not have access is to create an unfair playing field with areas that will suffer increasingly from economic decline.

Connectivity is the new real estate. Businesses simply will locate where they can get good connectivity, taking jobs and prosperity with them.

The real solution, as neatly set out by Malcolm Matson over at www.oplan.org is to create a new network of networks, each owned and run by the community it serves, interconnected with each other and the world, and open for the private sector service providers to run the services across.

FTTH is a disruptive technology. History tells us that whenever a new disruptive technology arrives, the incumbent players do not work in the interests of the citizen consumer in enabling that technology. They act - quite reasonably - to protect their vested interests. Hence BT's plans to roll out FTTC, when FTTH is what will deliver the sustainable benefit that consumers and communities really need.

My advice to Adrian Linney: start a campaign to create a community owned fibre network in his locality. If he waits for BT, he may well be waiting a very long time.

I can't believe that 1% is an accurate figure. I live less than 4 miles from the centre of Colchester but just over five miles from my exchange. If I type my postcode into the BT checking system it tells me I can have broadband; but if I type my telephone number it tells me I can't.

This is true for most of the small villages around me. We have been able to overcome this by using a local company who set us up using wireless, providing there are at least twenty people in each village who will take it up. There are now around eight or nine villages on line - in an area of some eight square miles.

It's really irritating to hear that we will also miss out on the new BT plans as well.

I thought I would add a couple of comments in response to some points that have been mentioned in these posts.

Before moving to this rural location, I did the usual broadband availability check via the BT website, which, as Rory mentioned, reports that I should be able to receive a connection. Should the test have reported that I would not be able to receive broadband, then it may have had an effect upon my decision to move here.

With hindsight, I should have made more thorough checks.

My main issue is the statistic. Because the broadband availability checker states that I should be able to receive broadband, then does my household fall WITHIN the 99% of the UK that CAN receive it? I would like to know exactly how the 99% is produced as there could be many people in 'not spots' who, as far as the statistics are concerned, can be connected. As long as this 99% issue is left unchallenged, then it is unlikely people like me will get connected anytime soon.

Alternatives? Satellite offers an expensive way to get on-line, but I was given a grant from Advantage West Midlands to cover the installation costs. Satellite connections do have latency issues - and have very high monthly fees, but at least I am on-line. 3G? Non-existent here.

I understand the augment regarding why should people living in cities have to pay to cover the costs of connecting people in rural areas. My reply is that I AM paying for the investment into city dwellers connections - through my BT landline rental and call charges. People who live in cities who choose not to have broadband are also sharing the cost in this respect - it is unlikely that all of the £1.5 billion investment is coming solely from the revenue of existing broadband customers.

connectivity can depend on your ISP.

I believe that if you get connected with BT, they can tweak the line to give you the service. Other ISPs don't do this, and simply report that the service isn't available.

Why don't those who live in rural areas subsidise me to allow me to have complete and unfettered access to cows, sheep and the countryside? Why don't they contribute to the costs of dampening road noise? And while you're at it, can you subsidise the house prices?

There are benefits to living in rural areas and there are downsides - the same for us urban dwellers. If your need for broadband is greater than your need for the other benefits - move. It is not a "right" to have broadband, it is a product supplied by a commercial organisation.

Other commercial organisations may decide to deploy fibre from an exchange to a rural area and from their deliver broadband over a much shorter (and perhaps newer) copper infratsructure. This is likely to cost more per customer, but the service will be available - if you cannot wait, move, if you won't pay the premium, move alternatively stop whining, you have a great deal to be happy about.

Many have said that people who need faster broadband should move nearer towns don't you realise that farms are not normally found in city centres.
You need to understand that not every business can operate in a town or city thats why they are in a rural area.

I too know of many people who cannot receive broadband, in spite of being assured by BT that they can. But BT have another, even more infuriating trait ... charging people for connection speeds they cannot deliver. I have a connection speed of 1 meg at home, BT had to be dragged screaming to acknowledge I could not get the 4 meg connection that people literally at the other side of the street enjoy. The resulting argument ended up with me severing all ties with BT after they tried to increase my direct debit to £90.00 per month. I now pay about £20.00 per month to Tiscali, for the same service, who presumably still make a profit from that. (those prices include calls)

BT have too much of a stranglehold on communications in the UK, they are little more than corporate thieves who treat their customers with utter contempt. In Japan even the fastest UK broadband connection would be laughed at, and BT have access to the same technology.
Why is that here in the UK, where many of the things that go to make up high speed internet and communications were first thought of and invented, are we once again left behind like some third world backwater? It's true that BT is not a charity, and one would expect them as a business to make a profit, but maybe they should concentrate on making a little less profit, address their reputation for being unhelpful, arrogant and unapproachable, and just for once, do what it says on the box and make broadband, and broadband at reasonable speeds, available to all.

So, to paraphrase: "Boo hoo. I live in my dream house in the countryside and can't get broadband! I'm a sad geek and my life is incomplete if I can't ignore my local environment and just surf the internet all day instead." And do these same people complain if they're on a sess-pit instead of mains drains? What if someone proposed building a new telephone exchange right next to their property - they'd then be trying to block the planning permission. These people are not living in "Poverty". How much are their properties valued at - even without broadband? Sorry, my sympathy lies elsewhere.

My reaction to the announcement that BT would be spending billions on fibre optic broadband was similar to other bloggers. I live mid-way between Southampton and Bournemouth. We are 60 minutes from the M25, 75 minutes from Heathrow, we two international airports within 20 minutes drive and yet we are in the wilderness as far as communications are concerned. We still cannot get Channel 5 television, DAB Radio or, until recently, broadband. Cable television is a bad joke. Even mobile phones are a bit of a lottery. I manage to get Broadband only thanks to a heroic BT engineer who hijacked a brand new line from the Ringwood exchange to our local "box". From the box to our house, the signal wends it way through copper wires along country lanes. We are at the lowest end of acceptable speed.

I doubt we shall ever see fibre optic cables.

Having lived in Rural locations most of my life, you have to accept that this carries some disadvantages... How many rural locations do not have a mains gas supply???Many that i know of,without seeming rude if this is necessary for your employment, would you not have checked broadband availablity before moving there..I would love to live in an isolated rural location again, it is not possible because of my work commitments and that's a choice I have to make. We have become a society used to instant gratification and supply upon demand. BT is a business, striving to make profit thus increasing shareholder value.They are not a social service a point that needs to be remembered.

DSL works by utilising a greater 'frequency' space ( up to 2MHz) which is ultimately carried over your normal copper connection to the home.

The issues are:

1.
In the days of voice alone, the network was designed to block higher frequencies as normal 'voice' frequencies gave an upper limit of 8kHz. Loading coils were used here.

2.
Frequency leakage, crosstalk, etc. result in impairment and this is more pronounced at higher frequencies (as required to achieve broadband). Also, the greater the distance of your home, the greater the impairment, i.e. proportional to distance. Here, note thatADSL 2+ only works better if you are closer to the local exchange.

One can 'sub-tend' DSLAMs to reach far out homes. The long term approach would be to ultimately have a fibre optic connection to your home. This is a very expensive proposition. Why, BT's 21CN endeavour is expected to cost £10billion ans even that is a proving to be a nightmare, so I guess 'broadband poverty' will be with us even at the turn of this decade.

Note that countries that elad in the broadband space include Korea and Japan. The UK is actually quite low in the rankings (amongst developed nations).

People who live in the country have a great deal of benefits to those of us who live in the city or the burbs.

Having access to the internet is just one benefit that we have over the out of towners.

However, WiMAX had been tested in the UK and was successful. WiMAX provides better than most current broadband connections over the airwaves over many kilometers.

BTW, have they they never heard about mobile broadband? They should visit www.carphonewarehouse.com, DOH!!!

I can understand the predicament that you find yourself in. My office is located 1.75 miles from the nearest exchange but I'm VERY lucky when I can receive a download speed of 100kb/s on BTs 'up to 8meg' business service where I should be getting anything between 6-900kb/s.

This is costing my company £35 per month for a below par service and would you believe me when I tell you what their excuse for this is.... my phone line is too old. That's right, I'm well within exchange limits but my phone line is too old to accept anything better. But this is where we have another problem, the area that I work in was built around 17 years ago, long enough some might say but pretty young in terms of phone lines.

I have tried contacting BT about this many times asking if there's anything that they can do for me and it's as simple as... nothing. I understand that there are many other providers out there but there aren't many available to me based on my location. Some will also say that I should move premises to obtain the best for my clients but that's not an option either as my clients are the local community.

Given the high cost of BT for a useless service, I literally live just around the corner and use Virgin Media's 20Mb/s package and although I don't get exactly that due to over subscription and the need to update my hardware I manage to get around 1.8mb/s downloads which is pretty damn good and 18 times faster than my office. I do believe however that even if BT decided that they were going to upgrade their services everywhere, my location would be one of the very last to receive anything of the sort.

To back that claim up... where I live:
Natural gas lines are now gradually being installed
Virgin Media's digital TV service (although heavily advertised as being in my area) doesn't exist and most likely never will
Starbucks have just recently opened for the first time ;)

There are so many things that I can't think of right now but the lack of is noticeable. Now some might say I'm rural but I live within the city limits... how can BT explain that?

We live 18 miles from heathrow, not exactly in the sticks! we get almost no mobile phone coverage, certainly no 3G coverage and download speeds of 512kb from BT.

I do not live in a 'ideal' rural area, but in a typical modern housing estate in a town within two miles of the BT exchange which according to BT was idealy placed to receive their broadband service.

From day one I got slow connection speed and increasingly over that last few months total loss of service for serveral hours at a time.

Despite numerous complaints and line testing by BT Engineers both externally and internally no improvement to either the broadband or the telephone service were possible.

My final conversation with the Help Line became a farce as neither of us could hear each other until I was called my mobile. This was partly due to my phone line, but judging by the quality of the mobile connection was as much caused by BT's own links. Its doesn't say much for a communications company that can't even provide a quality connection to it's own services!

At that point BT finally admitted that my line will not support more than 0.5mps and have released me from my contract.

I now use a mobile broadband connection, which is cheaper that BT and so far totally reliable.

At least BT provide 99% coverage.

Virgin Media love to go on about how good their broadband is, yet its not available in vast areas of the UK.

Its at the top of my street, and at the bottom, yet my bit in the middle isn't connected. Figure that one out.

The way they advertise this "Mother of all broadband" makes me laugh. I can visit my Mother. I can't visit Virgin Medias.

Why is the UK behind on technology roll-out?

One possibility is the state of the ADSL roll-out. Plenty of countries that beat us in speed league tables have brilliant connections across parts of the country, but do not even offer a chance of 0.5Mbps is smaller villages.

We see lots of press coverage of S. Korea being a broadband dream, but then journalists spend some time there away from the guided tour and find out that things like 'up to' and speeds of ADSL are still an issue.


There are problems in the UK, but I think all too often we are not seeing the problems that exist in other countries. From the outside 40-50% of UK homes have access to 20Mbps cable now, with 50Mbps on its way this year apparently. That looks pretty good.

Fibre is hardly new or disruptive, if we want to be truly disruptive then push for a wireless world and things like moving home and taking our phone/TV/broadband service to another location become easy.

Fibre should be good news for 'not spots' but may turn out to be 'no news' for them.

Thanks to Ofcom and the requirement on Openreach (BT) to provide space and connectivity in their local exchanges there is a choice of core network infrastructures for telephone and data services to residential users. The story is different for the access network (distribution from the local exchange to homes).

The most universal coverage access network is owned and maintained by Openreach. Because of this unique market position, Openreach is subjected to constraints by Ofcom. The size of the investment (including the disruption required to lay under the road a new distribution network) is the governing factor which deters potential competitors from moving to break Openreach's de facto monopoly.

Incidentally, Ofcom do instruct Openreach to provide universal connectivity but allow Openreach to plead commercial reasons for failure to provide (hence 'not spots'). Ofcom is reluctant to enforce the requirement by regulation but always has this potential threat as its main leverage with Openreach.

Openreach is the most likely investor in change to the infrastructure in the access network (sometimes referred to as 'the last mile') because it owns much of the containment as well as the cable that passes through the containment. It also has special provision to dig up roads etc.

There are two basic topologies for connectivity in the last mile- 'one to many' and 'one to one'. 'One to many' is a tree structure with one cable leaving the exchange and split into branches close to the point of delivery for final connection of each home. 'One to one' is one cable for each home connected all the way to the exchange.

When replacing the current infrastructure there is a clear commercial imperative to lower the investment by running fewer fibres down the chain of distribution but also spreading the investment over a longer period by using the current copper as long as possible.

However, Openreach has chosen the one to many topology even for new developments where the copper in the ground and the disruption of digging up streets is not relevant.

I suspect that Openreach favours 'one to many' because the trunk of the tree would have to be shared by multiple service providers which ensures that there has to be a single owner of the tree to support and maintain it. If the 'one to one' topology is chosen, Openreach's competitors could argue that the network should be split and each service provider maintain and support any fibre through which it provides services (ie. if BSkyB supplies your tv, telephone and data, why shouldn't they own the physical connection by which it is supplied?).

Openreach make money by selling access to service providers. Investment increases the cost and therefore the price to service providers. Service providers can only justify an increase in cost to consumers by either a service differential (improved service) or by selling new services. The investment by Openreach can only be recouped by take up of services.

Part of the problem is that with current technologies there are no new services and little differentiation between services that can be provided over fibre and services that can be provided over copper. The greatest differentiator is the 'up to' (the rider on your broadband distribution that allows services to be sold on the headline of a potential speed instead of the actual speed you receive). Fibre is not necessarily going to provide greater bandwidth and because of the investment will find it difficult to compete on price with ADSL but it can promise a bandwidth and deliver (there is a limit to the distance from the exchange but signal does not degrade over that distance unlike copper). That's why the debate about 'up to' is increasing in volume and being stirred up by Openreach.

There is the possibility of new services which is TV and in particular HDTV being provided over the infrastructure but that requires investment by the television service providers in core technology to bring the television service to the local exchange and possibly in new set top boxes to connect to the new infrastructure (an ip connection instead of an rf aerial connection). The major television services are reluctant to invest in any service just to prop up Openreach's position in the market (especially as they have already invested in other distributions systems and technologies). The result is a stalemate. Openreach is waiting for service providers to invest in new technology. The service providers are waiting for Openreach to provide the distribution network from which they can recoup their investment by sales.

The more that fibre is used in the network, the better the chances that 'not spots' get coverage because of the longer distances fibre can reach instead of copper. But until the stalemate between Openreach and the service providers is broken, investment in fibre distribution will be slow and revolve around newbuild developments and high catchment areas (cherrypicking).

Similar stalemates in Europe have been broken by local authorities setting up their own fibre distribution networks and there are both indications and plans from local authorities to take the same role here in the UK. What would really help this take off in the UK, is the major television service providers (Â鶹Éç, BSkyB and Virgin) to state their intention to provide services over such networks. The Â鶹Éç have taken the lead before. BSkyB and Virgin will be very reluctant to give up the investment in their current infrastructures which allow them the tie up both the service and the distribution network.

@rare_glass
I don't mean this to be negative at all.
If you are going to write long posts like that, you should get your own blog, stick some Google ads on it and make a bit of money from it. Otherwise you're just providing the Â鶹Éç with better tech journalism!! :)

Does anyone know anything about wi-max? I was told that might solve the exchange problem which, I agree with most posters here, is a much bigger problem than 'only one per cent'. I have been known to get better connection speeds on a train than at the house - and, theoretically, we have broadband.

we run a non-profit radio broadcasting studio for single parents and do it all for free.
we pay virgin media £37 per month for a 20mg connection and have NEVER had more than 6mg

6 being the best and 1mg being the worst.

we need in our line of work as a radio studio a good upload as well as download speed and thats why we went for the virgin media max of 20mg

we feel this is nothing less than highway robbery ..... 6mg for £37
SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE

gaz
studio manager
opfradio.com

what i dont understand is if the government really wants uk business to be able to compete then why dont they invest into the fibre infrastructure???
im working for a company that is not expanding from 1 to 5 offices and are currently using a technology called 'ISP load balancing' for higher bandwidth and resilience at the moment. the only alternative we have is to wait for the government..........zzzzzzzzzzz

Less than 1%?! Hah! If they asked that question in my town, they'd have 1 in 5 people tell them they are internetless.

I live in Hampshire, and *both* of our local exchanges are full. When we call BT to find out when either of our local exchanges will be having their capacity upgraded we're forwarded on to goodness knows how many people before we eventually give up.. all I would like to hear is a simple "yes/no" or preferably a date!!

The thing that makes me mad, is we moved back to BT from TalkTalk because we worked out we'd be saving ourselves money. We were perhaps just a little wrong-at least we had the services we wanted before!

I'm a web developer/software engineer, and having no internet access like a librarian without access to books.. absolutely pointless!

I think one of the issues to address is these useless 'broadband checker' sites that BT and the ISPs provide. I checked online and my postal code suggested I was able to get broadband from a certain supplier who promises speeds of upto 24Mb. I then checked using the actual telephone number and was told I lived too far away? As I live less than 1 mile from the BT exchange, I contacted said provider and was informed I was too far away. I disputed this and the follow up was that my line length is an amazing 9.5km! If even a tenth of the country are like me then BT could reclaim a considerable amount of copper which on todays copper market could pay for itself. Oh and I live in a large town not the countryside and the exchange is unbundled with several ISP providers other than BT operating.

TO all those people that cant get traditional broadband via BT etc may I suggest that they have a look at their mobile phone. My daughter cant get a decent broadband service where she is using land line technology so I bought her a USB mobile phone network dongle. It works a treat, has never dropped the connection once and is very good value for money at £15 a month for effectively WiFi anywhere.

BT as a monopoly is quaking in its boots now that Virgin has taken over the 2 cable companies, as Virgin continues to roll out its Fibre network and will be able to offer the magical 100mps BT is realising that to stand a chance of being around in 10 years time it must soil the playing field to suit its own business plan.

Once the digital TV switch-over is complete I suspect Virgin will use a combination of it fibre network and local wireless base stations to WiFi the UK and then its BT WHO?

first will people please stop complaining about not getting 20mp/s on virgin cable bb

the download speed on that service is 2mbps and not 20mbps

also BT should be made to make sure everyone who can have a telephone line with them can also have bb at a respectable speed and price.

as i used to work for NTL before they became Virgin Media i can confirm that they will not be laying any new cables unless there is a significant amount of people requesting the service making it financially viable

Broadband poverty, I love the phrase, so headline friendly.

Lets ignore mobile broadband for a sec, even though I'm sure one of the mobile networks would cover almost everyone in the remaining 1%.

I'll make you a deal, I'll move to a rural area and pay £70 for broadband, you can move to zone 2 in London (where I my 8Mb broadband was downloading at 890kbs just last night) and pay my rent.

We all make lifestyle choices so lets stop moaning about them.

@raven2751

One post you're saying BT should provide BB at a reasonable speed, and the next you're saying Virgin Media won't provide more cable.

Virgin Media won't invest in low return projects, so why must BT outlay the cost for upgrading exchanges for little return?

They're both private companies after all.

Why should we rural leeches bother sending all our food to those living in towns and cities? Its expensive for us to keep sending our produce to support those who are too feckless to grow their own. If they want food they should think about moving closer to the countryside perhaps?

They can keep their broadband and we'll keep our food.

People in rural areas pay more for petrol, more for food, more in council tax (proportionate to the services we receive), more for heating oil, more for everything... mostly to subsidise people living in stinky towns.
We do, of course, have fresh air rather than petrol fumes and chemical muck to breathe and therefore, tend to be healthier.
But we'd quite like faster broadband too, plz!

I am in the same boat, I live 4.5 lilometers from the exchange and I cant hardly recieve a speed at all, yet I am paying the same monthly broadband for people who live in towns and cities, and are getting superfast speeds.
I hear they are trying out ADSLS+2 in the midlands so they can get it even faster, and like you say we are left weith nothing, is this not unfair practis discrination, etc.
What really gets up my goat is my nearest village is only about a mile away and there is no telephone exchange at all there, why dont they put one in for the houses around this area.

I was told by Bt I could not get broadband..im about 6 miles from the exchange very rural. I spent 8 hours talking to BT until I found someone who would switch me on to try....and it works great only 1.2mps but far better than dial up by far..I have now been on a year and very satisfied. A neighbour has also switched on after 3 hours to explain we shared the same pole outside in the garden and they switched her on too. So do not accept NO as an answer ask them to try at least...you may be surprised and they gain a new customer.......BT give us all a chance.