Nice to see the final parts of Wales not yet wired up for broadband are finally going to get the goods, thanks to the Welsh Assembly. The end of the month also marks the big upgrade BT has planned for the country:
From 31st March, BT will upgrade over 5,300 UK exchanges to Max DSL, serving more than 99.6% of homes and businesses. Only 159 remote exchanges will remain on standard DSL.
Customers’ ability to receive up to 8Mb speeds will be dependent on line quality and distance from the exchange. Results from the BT Wholesale IPStream Max Trial indicate that the average speeds achieved are 5-6Mb. BT estimates that 78% of BT phone lines should support broadband at line rates of 4Mbit/s and above, with 6Mbit/s and above available to more than 42%. For those living or working close to their local telephone exchange, line rates of up to the maximum 8Mbit/s should be achievable.
BT anticipate that it will take several months to regrade the total existing end user customer base to DSL Max products.
I'm glad of this, especially since I've just upgraded to an ADSL2+ router - my last one was a bit flaky, only capable of ADSL and could only deal with speeds up to 4Mbps. At the moment though, despite being based in London, I can still only get 1Mbps on my line, thanks to being too far from the exchange to get even 2Mbps - let alone the 8Mbps of Max DSL or the 24Mbps of Be*.
That's with Zen, who are charging me £29.99 a month for the privilege. They're reliable and know what they're doing, but I'm not sure I can justify that any more, given the other offers available. But with so many tales of woe from broadband users around the country, dare I risk the move? Can anyone recommend a good ISP that gives a reasonable speed at a reasonable price?
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