// Home / News

BT offers to fill broadband notspots - if Government pays

By Barry Collins

Posted on 15 Sep 2009 at 12:00

BT is rolling out a new technology that could help bring ADSL broadband to so-called "notspots" - but it's asking for Government money to fund a full deployment.

BT's Broadband Enabling Technology (BET) effectively doubles the distance ADSL lines can stretch, extending the reach from 6km from the local exchange to 12km.

BT claims this could bring 140,000 of Britain's 166,000 notspots within range of an ADSL line.

The technology works by applying elements of SHDSL technology to ADSL lines, and then by bonding two copper lines together to deliver connection speeds of between 1Mbit/sec and 2Mbits/sec.

BT Openreach - the wholesale arm of BT - says it's been sitting on BET for a while. "We offered it communications providers previously, but there was no interest in it because of the additional costs involved," a BT spokesperson told PC Pro. Consequently, it claims extra funding will be required if the company is to reach all of the affected notspots.

Conveniently, the Government is setting money aside to help achieve its commitment of universal 2Mbits/sec connections by 2012, and BT says it will be applying for slice of that pie. "If we were going to apply for funding, this would be part of universal commitment fund," the spokesperson claims. "We need to wait for the [Government] Network Design and Procurement group to be set up."

BT says it's also talking to local authorities about funding for the technology.

Pilot test

In the meantime, BT will pilot BET in eight locations across the country, from Horsham in West Sussex to Wigton in Cumbria. BT has already tested the technology in two towns in Scotland.

BT says customers won't have to pay any extra for the BET connections and that they will be offered to all ISPs on a wholesale basis.

The pilot programme will start at the end of the month.

Subscribe to PC Pro magazine. We'll give you 3 issues for £1 plus a free gift - click here

From around the web

User comments

That's generous of them

I'd like to throw my hat into the "Filling broadband notspots if the Government pays me."

I'm only one guy so I'm sure I'd cheaper than BT.

By steviesteveo on 15 Sep 2009

No, no money from tax payers please

So they can't get broadband in the coutryside, ah didums.
I would like to look out over mountains, fields and meadows when I look out of my windows in the morning. Perhaps the governemnt would be kind enough to fund that too? No thought not.

By darkhairedlord on 15 Sep 2009

My windows looks out over fields and meadows

darkhairedlord - I think your being a bit simplistic, broadband is nowadays becoming a necessity for business ( even farmers (-: ) would you rather keep the countryside poorer and have you pay extra income taxes etc? No thought not.

The problem is that BT is a private company, if the tax payer funds this do we get shares in openreach? Or does BT get a pile of free money and new customers?

By JStairmand on 15 Sep 2009

No more freeloading

Absolutely agree JStairmand. If the government are going to invest my money in a private company then I would like my share of the profits please.

Definition: Invest

To commit (money or capital) in order to gain a financial return

Am I missing something Mr Brown ....

By koshthetrekkie on 15 Sep 2009

I'd like a reliable connection. Doesn't need to be super fast, just reliable.

By bubbles16 on 15 Sep 2009

That's generous of them

I'd like to throw my hat into the "Filling broadband notspots if the Government pays me."

I'm only one guy so I'm sure I'd cheaper than BT.

By steviesteveo on 15 Sep 2009

BT has too much of a grip on our Communications network. It should be brought back into the public domain or at least the company needs to be broken up to encourage progress on our dated infrastructure which BT won't update and we are rapidly loosing ground on other countries.

By slypie on 15 Sep 2009

Rural File sharing?

I'm pretty certain that the main beneficiaries of rural braodband are likely to be rural Facebook users and rural file shares rather than small business people and the average man on the street.

People seem to have this misty eyed vision of rural no spots as being the Archer on steriods, but in reality we're probably going to see rural exchanges being jammed up by file sharing from bored kids living in the sticks.

In my own personal opinion, and you may disagree, people are jumping up and down and getting excited over the internet and are saying that it's essential to modern life, and even that internet access is a basic human right, when in reality probably as musch as 80% of internet traffic is games, spam, pirated music/movies, and people wasting time on social networking sites.

It's possible to live without the internet, Facebook is not a basic human right, and rural broadband is going to give another 100,000 people access to P2P networks.

Some people will get soe genuine benefit out of it, but most of it will be used for entertainment purposes.

By Perfectblue97 on 15 Sep 2009

Rural Skype, more like

My Dad works as a consultant for a company based in America and regularly has long Skype conversations with co-workers. He lives about 6km from the exchange and broadband which doesn't cut out regularly would help a lot.

I don't think that another 100 000 people using P2P networks are really going to put that much extra stress on the national network; and in any case my London exchange has 30 000 users while his rural one currently has 14 000 so there's no inherent reason why more users should make his access speeds slow.

Lastly, the proportion of teenagers in the urban and rural populations is similar (though there are fewer 20-30-year-olds in the countryside), so P2P usage probably won't be any worse than in the cities. Anyway, isn't iPlayer the Sweeney Todd of bandwidth usage?

By motmot on 15 Sep 2009