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Apparently BT could in 1992.

I keyed in my post code on BT's availability checker page, and it replied with this helpful message:

BT has no plans to upgrade your exchange in the near term.
BT is working on partnerships with local and national government bodies to evaluate the possibilities of bringing broadband to your area in a cost effective way.
We are also investigating alternative technologies, such as, Satellite Services. We will be providing you with more information on this site at the end of June.
Alternatively you may be receiving service from another telecomms supplier.

It's clear to me that they have no plans to offer DSL in the small town where I live. Ever. They will just cherry-pick the big cities. Small surprise really, as they are in pretty bad shape financially. Good thing that national highways and railroads weren't built like this...

There might be an excuse for this sort of dribbling geographic coverage in the US or Canada, where the distance between cities is enormous. There is little excuse for it here in the UK.

Even compared to European prices from other ex-state owned Telcos the price is up to 40% more.

http://www.broadband4britain.com and the ever useful 'reg give the full story.

For a real usable service (I have 2Mb with static IP) you are looking at over $300 per month..

My own experience is that you are encouraged to move to the most appropriate access method - I was urged that a move to a full leased line (at $30k per year!) was ideal for me...

Looks like the BBC is re-posting the BT press releases.. :)

Yes we do. BT Together for example.

And as for unmetered access - my Cable Modem is £20/month totally unmetered.

I do agree with your point about considering the non-US world, though.

The link for BT's IPv6 trial network is here Click on "BT Trials" and then the link for "BT's IPv6 ISP Trial" (in the page), and you get all the details you need.

The '91 predictions.

There's some patents he owns and a vitae, as well as other info. He didn't yet learn to put links, so basically it's just a large text homepage...

He didn't yet learn to use hyperlinks, so basically it's just a large text homepage...

Ian's Homepage

Check out his future for human evolution. Rise of robotus multitudinous predicted within the next 50-100 years...

Are they going to sue me now?

Availability is less than stellar, but it's getting better.

NB: UK users should check ADSLGuide for info on ADSL in the UK.

I don't think anybody can deny that the 24/8 netblock contains the biggest source of DoS attacks, open relays, warez FTP servers, Nimda-infected boxen, open SOCKS proxies, Usenet spammers, and the largest army of zombies (trojan-infected PCs) on the Internet today. You are quite correct about not everybody on @home being a moron... a lot of my friends in the U.S. use @home as their service provider... but they knew this was coming and decided to change to something else (even dialup) before the big switch was flicked!

I laugh in your general direction.

Would you want DSL from these people ?

BT's Colossus's knees wobble
UK hit by major ADSL outage

Did I point out that I don't need a measly 512kbit/s of bandwidth at home because the company I work for has a 155Mbit/s pipe ? - perhaps I should laugh in your general direction that at the time I write this my connection will work in the morning and yours will not :-p

My connection gets used for just two things: remote login to other machines and multiplayer gaming. You get lower latencies with ISDN than you do with cable.. so even if you offered me a cable modem, one, I don't need the bandwidth and I don't need the higher latencies a cable connection would give me.

I don't find any of this particularly funny, but everybody who reads this forum knows that Excite@Home has been teetering on the edge for some time... if you haven't made suitable arrangements for a replacement service provider, then tough nuggies to you.

PS: Please die

Sorry. I don't do requests.

PPS: In the likely event that you decide to respond because you need to defend your manly-hood, dont bother, I will not read it. I am not here to have a conversation, just pointing out that you are a moron.

Too bad. I didn't read your pathetic notice until I got to the bottom of your equally pathetic reply. If you don't want to read my reply then that is perfectly okay with me... the whole point of a discussion forum is that people share thoughts and ideas... you didn't bring much to this discussion and you just happen to reinforce my view of the typical @Home user (apologies to all those who don't fit that category and actually have a clue on how to secure an Internet-connected machine).

Thank you.

GPS will aid GSM, but you can do without it.
In cities, GSM can give you position information in with an accuracy of about 100m. Which suffices for several location based information.
PHS systems will provide an accuracy from up to 100m, too.
Telcos currently know in which cell you are and how far you're away from its base station. Sometimes, they even know your distance from a second base station.
This is already used to offer differentiated price schemes and (e.g cheaper rates in your home cell (no pun intended)) location based services in at least Japan and Germany, and BT has invested quite a amount for wcities, some location-based information service provider (a new buzzword, rejoice).
As you may see it's not far fetched, it's already (to some degree) there and it is considered as the next goldmine (or at least the investors hope so)

This doesn't necessarily requires advertisement as it can be seen as a advertisement in itself.
The providing telco can use it as argument to differentiate itself from other telcos.

Nonetheless, I think it'll surely lead to advertisement. The whole thing reminds somehow of yahoo.com.

Actually there's 15 free-to-air Digital Widescreen channels.

The $150 (such a huge amount) pays for the BBC, which has no commercials, think of it as a subscription if you will.

You can get hundreds of channels through SkyDigital (satellite), ITV-Digital (digital terrestrial), ActiveDigital (digital cable), or BT Digital (through your phone line).

So there's actually lots of channels and competition, 1/3 of UK households have DigitalTV, which is the highest in the world.

In short yes... but those little circuits do 3DES, Blowfish etc and also contains your private keys which means people can't swipe your cards (when they finally dump the magnetic strip anyway).

Basically the PDQ (CC machine) sends a challenge response and public key to the card from VISA etc... then it encrypts your details and sends them back to the processing house. It doesn't matter if the data is intercepted then finally decrypted since they contain time sensitive one time codes.

You also have PIN numbers which means they no longer have to rely on flaky signatures. If somebody gets their hands on your card it will be useless to them without the PIN. Of course, this only makes sense when the old system is phased old, since today you have the Chip and also the anachronistic swipe.

They've been using a similar system in France for years and their fraud rates are less than one tenth of the UK's, who went with the swipe system.

You find these cards used for all sorts of stuff in Europe, all GSM phones need one of these SIM cards to function, and of course you can put that SIM into another handset and that then becomes your phone. BT phone boxes also use them on Phone Cards, you can also stick your credit cards into these phones, even the swipe ones.

They've been used for analogue satellite for years and more recently the DVB digital satellites, I believe DirecTV use DVB. Digital Terrestrial uses them too (DVB-T), in the UK you need a card to watch the free-to-air digital channels, a way of enforcing TV licensing no doubt. Like the swipe, this only makes sense when they kill off the analogue signals in 2006.

I've seen them used for general security on EPOS systems and the like, I've even seen them on 'pay as you' go gas/electric meters, they fit these to houses where the occupant has trouble paying bills, no card, no electric, so it stops the utility companies getting shafted.

Slighly Off-topic, but British Telecom are planning to launch a Broadband Satellite Internet service across the UK in the next couple of years. However BT is currently struggling with a massive debt mountain, so it's not too clear if the timescale will hold.

You're right, this patent is ridiculous. This whole thing is just as ridiculous as British Telecom believing that they own the patent for hyperlinks, and that they can license the techology and thus collect on its use.

Global broadband will stay around the corner until companys like Britain's BT wake up and realise that their customers aren't going to pay £40($57)/month for a 512kb ADSL line with a fucking 50:1 contention ratio!

Not that they piss me off or anything....

----------------------------

In fact there are loads of these MultiPhones around London, and the Internet access is completely free until the end of June. As a result, I rarely see one that is not being used!
More details on the phones here. Incidentally, the BT phones run QNX - they decided NT was not appropriate for a device that had to run continuously and reliably!

Well BT have got quite a few of their internet phones in use in the UK and they seem pretty vandal-proof.

Actually there seem to be two types at least:

• one with a larger colour LCD monitor (as spotted in main railway stations, e.g. Waterloo). Full web browser etc. Called the Multiphone.
• a more heavy duty vandal proof version (as seen in my local neighbourhood, Hackney in East London). It's a Text and Email phone, no web access but lets you email for 20p a time (same as a local 3 minute phone call).

Well BT have got quite a few of their internet phones in use in the UK and they seem pretty vandal-proof.

Actually there seem to be two types at least:

• one with a larger colour LCD monitor (as spotted in main railway stations, e.g. Waterloo). Full web browser etc. Called the Multiphone.
• a more heavy duty vandal proof version (as seen in my local neighbourhood, Hackney in East London). It's a Text and Email phone, no web access but lets you email for 20p a time (same as a local 3 minute phone call).

It just so happens that BT's initial attempt at the web / email / phone combo was too expensive for most people. So right now, all BT's netphones are FREE for internet, email and text messaging. Which, predictably, makes them very popular. Presumably, BT wants to encourage use before re-applying the charge.

This is exactly what I do right now.

My ISP (Demon Internet) gives you unlimited email addresses at your own domain (albeit a sub-domain of demon.co.uk). This way I can sign up to anything with a unique name, e.g.: unique@myhost.demon.co.uk, and then I can tell where the spammer got my email address from.

Using this technique I have been able to tell that BT sell their customer's email address to sports.com, and Virgin Radio will sell their user's addresses to almost anyone selling junk!

Sure is interesting to find out where the spammers harvest the email addresses from.

Apparently we're all in the charge of this dude , a BT "Futurologist". The life he describes is incredibly bad, however...
--

THIS

link.

SO SUE ME TOO, BITCHES !

Counting the days, eh?......more like counting the years....

I have been waiting for some sort of broad(ish)band connection in the UK for over three years now. There are still no products that can offer me the features I want for the price I am willing to pay.

This is all down to BT.

BT are Scum. Because of BT, the whole of the UK is being left behind the rest of the 'developed' world to such an extent that we may never catch up.

OFTEL are not helping matters, this is the company that is supposed to govern telco's in the UK. They do a shit job to put it mildly. The way things are going, we're gonna need a governing body to govern the governing body that is OFTEL.

The affordable (less than or equal to £40/month) products available at the moment are laughable: 512Kbps with a 50:1 contention ratio all sitting on a NAT!? I'll stick with my modem thanks.

The products that can offer you static IP and a decent speed / contention ratio are ridiculously priced and aimed towards businesses. This, again, is BT trying to jam as many pound notes into it's fat pockets as it can before it loses it's monopoly on the Local Loop.

Until the time when BT do lose their Local Loop monopoly, we will not see any competetively priced products, and even when this time comes it's gonna take a while before other companys get their products out.

I'm not holding my breath.

BT are really taking the piss out of UK residents. If this annoys you, please email Iain Vallance (CEO of BT) and give him a piece of your mind.

NT Swerver

----------------------------

> The only downside is its limited to 512kbps downstream.

Hardly a downside - the BT ADSL "service" is also at 512kbps. At least, that's about all I can find out from the BT ADSL website.

Actually, this is all the fault of good old British Telecom.

British Telecom are a bunch of greedy, scum-sucking, sons-of-motherless goat-pigs (to put it a lot milder than I would like). Their monopoly over the British telecommunications infrastructure has prevented any kind of competition in terms of broadband internet connectivity. This has left the UK way behind the rest of the 'developed' world, possibly to the extent that we will never catch up.

If these facts annoy you, please send an e-mail to Sir Iain Vallance (the CEO of BT) and give him a piece of your mind.

I Thank You.

----------------------------

Actually, this is all the fault of good old British Telecom.

British Telecom are a bunch of greedy, scum-sucking, sons-of-motherless goat-pigs (to put it a lot milder than I would like). Their monopoly over the British telecommunications infrastructure has prevented any kind of competition in terms of broadband internet connectivity. This has left the UK way behind the rest of the 'developed' world, possibly to the extent that we will never catch up.

If these facts annoy you, please send an e-mail to Sir Iain Vallance (the CEO of BT) and give him a piece of your mind.

I Thank You.

----------------------------

Sirt Peter Bonfield Comments

• SIN 329 (ADSL, technical details of 10BaseT product)
  
• SIN 336 (ADSL, technical details of USB Product)
  
• SPIN 029 (Mildly technical overview of ADSL products)
  

I'd love to link directly to these, but the sight appears to be down right now. :-(

-Dom

We have an incumbent monopolistic telephone supplier, British Telecom, who have a monopoly on most of the local loop. We also have cable operators and a few business oriented suppliers but outside of the large cities BT gets the lions share of the cake.

The are offering a service to ISPs for ADSL. It operates over a customer's existing line and the ISP incurs all costs. BT havedeveloped a 2.4Gbps nationwide ATM network over which all ADSL traffic is carried. When a customer is connected they are connected directly into this, they authenticate and a virtual channel is created allowing a direct IP connection to their chosen ISP. This costs a minimum of £40 per month plus VAT (17.5%) for the ISP per customer. The ISP must also purchase a "Central" link into the ATM network which costs upwards of £5000 per year for a 512kbps link (Currently the Central link is limited to 34Mbps but will be offered soon at 155Mbps and multiple central links may be bought)

This provides a basic 512kbps level of service with a single IP offered over an Alcatel Speed Touch USB modem, which is owned by BT, on a maximum contention ratio of 50:1. For a faster or network capable service you must go to a more expensive service which starts at £68 for 512kbps, a router and 20:1 contention ratio rising to £110 for a 2Mbps variant.

All these prices are before ISP service is applied, all lines have to be BT, the service is not yet available (Launches next month).

To make it even worse all contact, ordering, support has to be provided through the ISP. There is no way of checking with BT regarding faults or resolutions of problems.

I don't know wether this is better than the US way of things or not as I don't have experience of the US DSL situation but I thought some people might like to know whats going on in the other side of the pond. Visit ADSLuk if you're interested in any more details.

I have just sent the following communications to BT and Oftel:

To BT I wrote:

I am very unimpressed with the severe limitations placed on the ADSL service BT is offering.

I was very much looking forward to hosting my own web server, but it appears that not only is this impossible under the current service offering, I will also be unable to use my own SMTP server or any kind of server at all.

I know from ADSL users in the US that this is not due to any technical limitations imposed by necessity but is simply due to a policy decision by BT to limit the service in this way. It seems more than likely that BT intends to force users to pay for a web hosting service when this is not really necessary for any technical or practical reasons.

I feel that this is yet another clear example of BT leveraging their monopoly over the local loop in an improper way. I will be therefore also be contacting Oftel to request that they either remove this monopoly or force you to stop forcing Network Address Translation on ADSL users and allow us to run our own server software.

BT's new ADSL service has been deliberately designed with unnecessary limitations which damage the value proposition for end users.

The worst of these is that it is not possible for users to run any sort of server software. There is no technical reason why this should be so, but they have inserted a layer of Network Address Translation (NAT) between the users and the internet which prevents servers from being accessible from the outside world.

I have no doubt that BT seeks to force their users to pay for web hosting services etc. in the expectation that they will get some of the business. I am utterly incensed by this; it is yet another clear example of BT cynically abusing its monoply over the local loop. The customers yet again find themselves robbed of any alternative.

Please note that in other countries such as the Netherlands and the US where ADSL has been available for some time, customers are indeed able to run their own servers as a part of the standard service.

I am therefore requesting, in the strongest possible terms, that OFTEL immediately takes one of the following two actions:

i) to force BT to remove the NAT which is hiding the servers in my ADSL connection

ii) to remove BT's monopoly on the local loop forthwith, i.e. not to wait until next year.

As I implied there are other problems with BT's ADSL offering but the NAT restriction is plainly intolerable. BT continues to take advantage of their monopoly by refusing to provide the full service available in overseas telecoms markets which have been fully privatised.

I look forward to an early reply.

Suitable online complaint forms can be found here at BT and here at OFTEL.

Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction

One of the ones that got me was a report that ADSL, which was supposed to be released in April (the London exchanges have been for the most part open since March) was delayed because BT told OFTEL that there wasn't enough interest in their trials.

That's interesting, since I know about 20 people who couldn't get on one. Then I managed to coax out of a customer service operator an ADSL department phone number. Asked to join a trial, and was told that tons of people ask that but they're full up. Interesting, I say, referring to your company's refusal to release ADSL because you don't have enough triallists. Hemm, hawww... Uhhh... I absolutely swear that three days later this phone number wasn't working anymore.

So this is what us UKers face. ADSL for roughly 65-70 US dollars a month (when you can get 2 Mbps no contention in the US for 40 dollars a month) at a 50:1 contention ratio, ethernet not allowed, only USB modem. Did I say 50:1 contention ratio? Did I mention that some urban areas of London have such bad copper lines that you can hear the connection break when the wind blows?

Or you can get their damned Home Highway ISDN service, which is what I have opted for. Starting in June, with Surftime it should cost roughly 67 pounds for 24 / 7 dual channel ISDN and two seperate analog lines for phone calls (this is great for my setup, as my roommate and I need our own phone numbers and lines, and we can play Counterstrike together on the Net using a 64k channel each). But it gets even better, as I've just found out. BT always inadverently screw up the installation. What most people don't know is that the agreement you sign indicates they owe you a month of rental for each day that the installation is late. They don't tell you this, you have to read the fine print and bitch. Well, as a result, I now have 5 months free ISDN rental. Woo hoo! Starting to love this company's inefficiency. We've started joking that next week when the engineer comes we'll chop down the telephone pole until BT owes us for 30 months compensation.

One last thing about HH. It makes you sign a year long contact that is unvoidable by any means. If you move, you're screwed. No transferring the account. If you got HH before April 25th, you can switch to ADSL for free... If you sign a 3 year binding agreement. Nice company, huh? And make sure you don't use the BT Terminal Adapter. Pings of 70-100 compared to 30-40 in a net game.

For further reading, check this message board: Wireplay's forum for broadband. There's always insider info and tips here.

I hate to correct something that's already been moderated to a 3, but it's between 2Mb/s and 512kb/s download and 256kb/s upstream. The rest was correct.

BT are rolling out to 400 substations by March 2000 (that's not a lot of areas - major towns/cities only). Also it appears that BT won't be an ISP for DSL initially - they're telling people to wait until other ISP's release pricing plans.

See BT's ADSL site for up to date details.

Okay, the $20 reduction is probably not going to filter down to customers and the installation time isn't going to get any better but at least you guys in the US have got DSL available!

BT's ADSL site tells us nothing other than "exchanges will be upgraded by March 2000" and that most of the major cities will have access to the service shortly afterwards.

It's still going cost a bomb and installation lead times are probably going to be in the region of 6+ weeks if their budget ISDN (HomeHighway) service is anything to go by.

I'm looking forward to a 2mb downstream and a 640k upstream internet connection and I admit to some jealousy to you guys in the US who already have access to this technology.

Okay, the $20 reduction is probably not going to filter down to customers and the installation time isn't going to get any better but at least you guys in the US have got DSL available!

BT's ADSL site tells us nothing other than "exchanges will be upgraded by March 2000" and that most of the major cities will have access to the service shortly afterwards.

It's still going cost a bomb and installation lead times are probably going to be in the region of 6+ weeks if their budget ISDN (HomeHighway) service is anything to go by.

I'm looking forward to a 2mb downstream and a 640k upstream internet connection and I admit to some jealousy to you guys in the US who already have access to this technology.

2MByte or 2MBit, either way mobile telephone bandwidth can only help the most bandwith-starved areas of the world- the rural ones.

I live a bit out in the sticks as my wife points out ( Cotswolds, UK ). Whilst I'm only 500 metres from the telephone exchange, my 'phone line takes a 4 kilometre detour through three neighbouring villages before it gets there. Which means that ADSL and BT ISDN Highway are out of the question.

I consider myself pretty lucky to get 49.3kbps from my telephone line. People in rural parts of America, Asia or Africa will be getting far less.

Yet it is rural areas that need the Internet most. Why would townsfolk want cable TV, teleshopping, multi-user chatlines and home offices when the video shop, supermarket, pub and place of work are on their doorstep? These amenities are often not available to rural users where not only remote location, but sheer lack of numbers, make even subsidised facilities uneconomic.

It is high-bandwidth wireless services like GPRS that will lead the revolution, not cable.

If the post office has to send written data nationwide, regardless of urban or rural boundaries, for the same price, why shouldn't telecoms operators be forced to send digital data nationwide, regardless of urban or rural boundaries, for the same price?

--

2MByte or 2MBit, either way mobile telephone bandwidth can only help the most bandwith-starved areas of the world- the rural ones.

I live a bit out in the sticks as my wife points out ( Cotswolds, UK ). Whilst I'm only 500 metres from the telephone exchange, my 'phone line takes a 4 kilometre detour through three neighbouring villages before it gets there. Which means that ADSL and BT ISDN Highway are out of the question.

I consider myself pretty lucky to get 49.3kbps from my telephone line. People in rural parts of America, Asia or Africa will be getting far less.

Yet it is rural areas that need the Internet most. Why would townsfolk want cable TV, teleshopping, multi-user chatlines and home offices when the video shop, supermarket, pub and place of work are on their doorstep? These amenities are often not available to rural users where not only remote location, but sheer lack of numbers, make even subsidised facilities uneconomic.

It is high-bandwidth wireless services like GPRS that will lead the revolution, not cable.

If the post office has to send written data nationwide, regardless of urban or rural boundaries, for the same price, why shouldn't telecoms operators be forced to send digital data nationwide, regardless of urban or rural boundaries, for the same price?

--

ADSL will be made available in the UK in the next year or so, OFTEL has commanded, BT will obey.

"Commercial" services are expected spring 2000, with "consumer" services being offered later in the year. Expect 2M downstream 512K upstream, and for it to cost a small fortune (£40-£150 a month including equipment, but excluding call charges, for commercial access).

It hasn't been available before because of "technical issues" and the cost of equipment.

VDSL (up to 25Mbps) is still being standardised so dont hold your breath...

Read this and Enjoy!

Anony Mouse Cow Ard

Ditto s/Canada/UK/

Free healthcare, everything is within a day's drive (even most of Europe), ADSL and GPRS are being rolled out nationwide next year, no mad people with guns (not even the police), we have strong beer and even stronger cider, you can get laid at 16 and drunk at 18, we don't have daft crypto laws, and most people are atheists.

London sucks, petrol (gasoline) prices suck (70p/litre, US$5/gallon), but other than that it's a pretty cool place to be.

I know a couple of people who telecommute to jobs in the States. Once you have remote reboot installed on your machine, being on the same continent doesn't really matter anymore.

--

Is here: http://www.isntrial.bt.com/
I have a couple of friends on the trial and they report that their IP changes about every 20 minutes - this is how BT stops people hosting services.

This particular site is just using common or garden analogue scanners. American/Canadian mobiles are still analogue (can you imagine that! No international roaming, loads of static- it must be like still living in the 80's).

If US/CA citizens are stupid enough to broadcast their private conversations on an open channel, that's their look out. They can have all the laws they like but it doesn't change the fact that analogue transmissions are no more private than standing on top of a hill and shouting (and what kind of idiot would draft a law that makes it illegal to own a pair of ears?).

I too live near Cheltenham and I take your point about GCHQ. However if GCHQ have a need to listen in to anything, no matter how it is transmitted or encrypted, they will. GSM or GPO, PCN or PGP it makes no difference. The most obvious way of doing this is by being present at the time of encryption or decryption, or by stealing the key physically, NOT by doing the maths. That's why we still pay our spies- to break in to places, plant bugs, and steal things.

The question is... do they WANT to be listening in to your or my lives? The answer I'm afraid is that they have loads more important things to do.

I know enough people there to know that, on the whole, they're an okay bunch of people. Sure there must be more than a few maneovolent bad apples but on the whole, they're good guys.

If you are going to worry about people hacking GSM or PCN then you are going to go very, very mad.

--

Although I don't know this for sure - most old English country mansions like Bletchley were named after the family who first built them.

You can search the UK phone directory for 'bletchley' here, but you'll need to do it region by region. :(

Per minute for all calls. There are 3 "Inland" bands - local, regional (up to 35 miles) and long distance, plus international/ 1-900 type/etc. Local calls are 1 pence/minute weekends, 1.5 pence/minute evenings, and 3.95 pence/minute during the day. Full details from BT's website: http://www.s erviceview.bt.com/list/current/docs/Call_Charges/0 0161.htm