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ENGINUITY an exhibition of design and technology, opened at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum, near Telford, Shropshire on Tuesday and is expected to attract 100,000 visitors a year.

The museum's latest attraction apparently took five years of planning and two years to build, and is part of the National Design and Technology Centre. It will be the 10th major feature at the world's first Industrial World Heritage Site at Ironbridge Gorge.

The other exhibits showcase the industrial era from the early eighteenth century to Victorian times, although communications appear to be staying firmly fixed in the Victorian era - a search for the museum's address on BT's postcode ADSL checker resulted in the following message:

For Postcode TF8 7AW
We are sorry but this exchange is not in the current review process. The size of your exchange indicates that ADSL may not be viable, as such we are reviewing alternative Broadband technologies and partnerships with public and private sector funding.
We have now introduced a pre-registration scheme to enable potential customers to register their interest, through their Service Provider. In this way the local demand will become clear and will influence our roll-out programme. We will monitor demand levels in your area and investigate the costs of providing a viable Broadband solution for your area.

Enginuity chief executive Glen Lawes told the BBC: "It is fitting that the very place which shaped the modern world by pioneering the use of iron as a structural material is to get the UK's first dedicated design and technology visitor attraction. Visitors will leave with a greater understanding of the role that design and technology has played in building the world we live in," added Lawes.

Too right they will. They'll understand that unless you live 200 yards from Oxford Circus, broadband in the UK will play no bloody role at all.

A couple of weeks ago I moved house. Not to a croft in the Scottish Highlands, or even a shepherds cottage in Snowdonia, but to a village 20 miles from Oxford - this is the middle of nowhere as far as BT - the only telco offering a service (what was all that BS about unbundling the local loop?) is concerned. I asked the engineer installing my pitiful 64K ISDN line (128K if I'm prepared to pay for two phone calls) if my local exchange (Evesham) would ever be ADSL-enabled.

He just laughed.

Having lived around here for almost 20 years, I can vouch for the number of high-flyers and chief execs of blue chip companies I've spotted on the train home from London. These people want a nice Cotswold retreat, but they are also the very people who want to use 21st century telecommunications, but they can't.

It's all very well BT claiming impressive-sounding percentages of the population using broadband, but a more meaningful figure would involve geographical location. This is not available for some mysterious reason.

BT's official line is "the size of your exchange indicates that ADSL may not be viable", so I have a simple question for the telco:

How did rural areas get telephone access in the first place? When the first voice lines were installed, probably only one or two (rich) people in each community had phones. Why were they not told there was insufficient demand and would have to stick with carrier pigeons?

And, of course, we all know the answer to that: BT wasn't involved.