Re: Rural Broadband

["drownedrat" <fluff@xxxxxxx>]

--- In ukha_d@y..., "Mark McCall" <Mark@L...> wrote:
> User, Password?
> 
> Can you cut and paste text?
> 
> M.
Silly me. Here is text originally published on silicon.com & owned by
them etc, etc.
---------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday 22nd October 2002   12:15pm 
  
Todmorden: Three steps to rural broadband... 

1. Trigger level met
2. Users signed-up by ISPs
3. Exchange to be ADSL-enabled next month
Is BT's scheme actually working...?





  


Todmorden is set to become the first area in the UK to be upgraded to 
broadband thanks to public demand and a new pre-registration scheme.

As reported last month, the Todmorden exchange was the first to hit 
its "trigger level" on BT's broadband pre-registration scheme
when 
200 local residents said they would pay for a broadband connection if 
it were available.

Once the trigger level was reached, 75 per cent - 150 - of these 200 
residents had to sign up with a broadband ISP before BT would 
actually upgrade the exchange, and this target has now been achieved. 
Work at the exchange is now underway and the first customers will get 
broadband service in November, said BT.

"Todmorden has done the business," a BT spokeswoman said. 

BT's broadband pre-registration scheme allows people who can't 
currently get ADSL in their area to register their interest in high-
speed internet service. Trigger levels of interest have been set for 
hundreds of exchanges, depending on BT's estimate for how much it 
will cost to upgrade the exchange.

Internet service providers (ISPs) only had some six weeks to sign up 
the necessary number of customers once Todmorden hit its trigger 
level, and it is understood that some of the UK's largest ISPs 
initially failed to start converting expressions of interest into 
firm orders.

"It's fair to say that the sign-up process got going later than 
hoped. Some ISPs took a while to get into the swing of things," the
BT spokeswoman explained.

However slowly, the sign-up process does appear to be progressing. 
Six further exchanges - Irby on the Wirrall, Paddock Wood and Pembury 
in Kent, Penn in Buckinghamshire, Ponteland in Northumberland and 
Twyford in Berkshire - will also now be upgraded after demand was 
confirmed by service providers. They are expected to go live in 
December.

In addition to the seven exchanges where demand levels have been 
confirmed, a further three exchanges - Leek in Staffordshire, Bishops 
Waltham in Hampshire and Kesgrave in Suffolk - are just a handful of 
confirmations short, BT said, and are expected to be confirmed in the 
broadband upgrade programme later this week.

A further 10 exchanges have hit their trigger levels and service 
providers are now validating demand so work can begin on upgrading 
further exchanges.

BT's chief executive Ben Verwaayen was characteristically upbeat 
about the programme. "People in these areas put themselves in the 
vanguard of the movement to be the next to get ADSL broadband. BT is 
now pulling out all the stops to match their enthusiasm and deliver 
the broadband connections they've asked for," he said in a
statement.

"For the next exchanges service providers have confirmed demand 
levels faster, so broadband conversion work can begin immediately. 
This speed gives us increasing confidence in our new registration 
scheme and our ability to predict accurately the level of interest we 
need to make broadband upgrades economically sound."

Since the demand registration scheme was launched in July more than 
160,000 customer registrations have been logged.

Graeme Wearden writes for ZDNet UK

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