The telco announced on Wednesday that it has now upgraded a total of 2,652 local telephone exchanges to offer its ADSL product. Although this is only around a half of all its exchanges, it's enough to reach all but 10 percent of its telephony customers.
After suffering years of criticism over its approach to broadband, BT is keen to trumpet that it is now outperforming most of the rest of the world, according to figures published last week by the OECD.
"BT has put the UK at 90 percent ADSL coverage today with our closest competitor countries in the G7 aiming for this level by the end of 2004," said BT Wholesale chief executive Paul Reynolds.
"By that stage we'll be past 95 percent and well on the way to topping 99 percent by summer 2005."
BT has already warned that around 560 local exchanges are unlikely to ever offer ADSL, because they are too remote and serve too few people for an upgrade to be economically viable. Other technologies, such as wireless, could be more suitable for these places, many of which are in Scotland.
At 90 percent, BT's broadband network now covers twice as many businesses and homes as its main rivals, NTL and Telewest, combined. But the two cable companies are also enjoying broadband success.
Telewest said on Wednesday that it had signed up its 500,000th broadband customer. This compares to BT's estimated 2.4 million wholesale ADSL customers.
The lucky Telewest customer in question is Serena Davies of Bristol. She signed up for Telewest's 256Kbps product, but is being upgraded to a 3Mbps service for a year.
Talkback
I am one of the 10% who still cannot get broadband.
I live to far from my local exchange and find it very hard to believe that only 10% can not get it.
I live in Featherstone near the city of Wolverhampton. The BT exchange is ADSL enabled, however I am still too far from this exchange to receive ADSL.
Thus although BT claims 90% of exchanges enabled, it may be more pointed to ask what percentage of customers can get ADSL, I would suspect the figure to be much lower.
I can only hope the upcoming Milton Keynes trial to extend the distance from the exchange from 6 KM to 10 KM is successful and will enable all those who fall outside the existing range to be able to receive the service
THE TRUE FIGURE IS NOT 90%
If the cable from the exchange to your house is more than 6km long then you can't currently access broadband. Therefore, even if 90% of exchanges are connected, less than 90% of customers can use broadband. Is there any information on the actual percentage of customers who could have broadband if they wanted?
BT 6km range is a myth.
I live about 3km from my enabled exchange and still cannot receive broadband. BT tests show that "I live too far from the exchange..." "..but I live much less than 6km from the exchange..." "Ah, but you don't know that the cable does not run in a straight line. The distance is not as the crow flies.." I agree, but I know where the cable runs - along the main road, as in most towns. Essentially, the cable is of inadequate quality for ADSL, but BT couldn't care less. Their contractual requirement is only for voice quality.
The really annoying thing is that I can see an NTL terminal box from my window, but this part of the street is not cabled. Roll on WiMax.
There may be widespread coverage of Broadband in the UK, but you need to look at the quality of it. There is a serious lack of bandwidth in many places, with the service from some suppliers often slowing to well below steam modem speeds. Also in the UK most subsribers have ADSL with those wanting DSL having to pay a much higher price, whereas DSL is a much lower cost in the rest of Europe. At present total service interruptions are common with the excuse of upgrading. The present UK broadband scene is "maximising the bums on seats" without measuring the quality
IMHO I think BT must be short for Butt which is what they appear to talk out of.
If it is such a great innovative, techno supreme company, then why hasn't it got to 100% yet and why does my dodgy steam phone line still only reliably connect me at 28k - anything higher and no dice.
No doubt my line has been multiplexed with one of my unfortunate neighbours who is also having the same problems, because BT can't be bothered to run a new pair.
Get off your Butt BT and get on with it.
I live in Shareshill, which is about a mile up the road from Mike Garner at Featherstone. His exchange is Wolverhampton. Ours is a sub-exchange of Walsall, Cheslyn Hay, in the opposite direction. I am also too far from the exchange.
I agree that it is about time that Ofcom started imposing a consistency about the coverage figures. It should be the percentage of the population who can actually use braodband, not the numbers who live in broadband-enabled exchange areas.
I like the headline facts but what's the detail? When there is no service at 6Km why? Incorrect survey? faulty kit? poor installation? and at 10Km what's the story?
Nothing succeeds like success
Satellite broadband is available as an alternative but is not promoted enough. It is a viable option that should be considered and waiting on ADSl is like waiting for a train to turn up.....it always arrives later than expected, so get investigating today!