BT announces "super-fast" broadband pioneers

"Super-fast broadband is essential to the UK's future," he exaggerated.

Can't say I agree with your closing line of this article. Faster broadband really is essential to future of the UK. In the real world speed is essential - time is money. Without money where is the economy?

If "super-fast" (ie, nearly as fast as Japan!) broadband is "essential" for the future of the UK, why has Ofcum just given BT carte blanche to vastly overcharge for it?

Is it somehow "essential" that the UK have the slowest internet access and the highest prices *forever*? So that other countries can continue to enjoy taking the mickey out of us about it, perhaps?

Well, we fully deserve it.

WHERE IS MILTON KEYNES?

for a 'city' that's supposed to be cutting edge our broadband SUCKS! Half the city can barely get over 1.5mbps due to poorly planed BT exchange locations. basically 1 in the centre serving most of the city and a few dotted around the edges

Other nations will be on gigabit connections for a fraction of the price by the time this rolls out.

An will this super-fast broadband connection work in both directions, or only in one (like a TV). Can BT customers host their own services, like web servers, e-mail, ssh, remote-control of the heater etc., or is access from the Internet to BT customers being blocked by technical means or terms? Just curious to see what BT means when they talk about the Internet. Quite frankly, all those upgrade schemes I have seen server mostly one purpose, namely to deliver more mindless TV channels. Internet access itself is just another way to charge the customers twice.

As mentioned above, they are mis-using the words 'Super-Fast' and everyone seems to be buying into it. There putting fibre optic cables to the EXCHANGE BOXES and then running it through COPPER CABLE to our homes making any advances pretty much null & VOID!!! The copper wires in Britain's telephone lines are old and of poor quality also. And with OFCOM not monitoring there 'charges' now they can pretty much do what they like! BT must be laughing all there way to the bank. Gordon Brown got vested interest in BT or something???

Other country's have Fiber Optic to there houses, BT will struggle to get the 50MB that Virgin offer to your homes, never-mind anything more! People sold on mis-information and smoke screen. Same as anything else really then ain't it!!!

I'm not a BT fan. They are fat, useless, over-priced, and inefficient.

However, I partially understand their case. If they have to put the fibre in, its not cheap to do so, and they should be allowed to set the price, at least in the initial areas.

To be fair to them, BT get the raw end of having the life sucked out of their market because they are 'the monopoly'.

One day, hopefully soon, we will see the costs of all internet being reasonable, including the massively priced leased lines.

BT put a lot of cable trunking in the ground back in the 80s because they had to because the copper wire just wasn't good enough to last the next 20 years and provide the number of telephone's that it would be called to support.

BT needed the FO in the ground or it wouldn't be able to provide all the phone lines that it should be able to as the monopoly (which they still were back then).

That they put more in to provide other services, such as the internet now, doesn't mean that they should be allowed to charge a premium on those extra services, for something that they had to do anyway (the actual FO was cheap it was the implementing the FO infrastructure that cost).

Openreach replace or fix the cable when it goes down. 20 years ago they never saw anything like what we are going to have. I work on the network and there is no space inside the ducts.

Ernie i know your pain and i know your exchange very well and i does serve alot of Center MK and surrounding areas right out to broughton miles away from Fishermead where your exchange is.

Ian the fiber netwrok will be FTTC (fiber to the cab) on existing home, new sites will have FTTH (fiber to the home) While there will be copper still there you are decreasing the length of copper enabling to get 40-60mb lines. The lines aren't as bad as you think and copper is still the best conductor to use for telephony unless you want to pay for platinum. Why shouldnt BT charge what they want for the fiber network, yes they took over the Network from the GPO without having to pay for anything hence why OfCom watch them so closely and i agree with that but put yourself in there pistion, you are willing to fork out £1.5b but are still subject to the same rules as the copper i know if that was the case i would so no i'm not installing if i cant have a viable return on my investment.

One last thing a review is happing right now on the wholesale price of standard lines as we speak. BT is trying to set a higher price for line rental and it could well go through, I don't know what this means for us customers yet though.

Even here in the centre of London it is clear that we will not and apparently will never benefit from BT's super-fast broadband. I came here to sit up a web development/consultancy business and even simple broadband access from BT is slow (128kbps at worst, 2Mb at best) and so patchy (7 days with no connection in the last month) it is unusable. Luckily I'm in a position to take my business out of the UK and benefit from proper broadband in a more technically savvy country (unfortunately in this case it means the UK is losing the money and jobs to Thailand). Due to a shoddy infrastructure, poor planning and lack of action the UK has become a technical desert in world terms and this bodes horribly for the future.