Rural broadband rollout hits roadblock

Did the good folk of Knaresborough get cold feet - or are there 'dark forces' at work...?

Yorkshire market town Knaresborough has fallen foul of BT's ADSL registration scheme after only a quarter of residents who had earlier expressed an interest in broadband actually signed up for a high-speed net connection. BT launched the scheme in June this year, giving people whose local exchange isn't ADSL-enabled the chance to show BT that they want it upgraded. BT set "trigger levels" of interest for the exchanges on the list, which for Knaresborough was 400. The requisite number had registered their interest by early October; ISPs then had six weeks to convert 75 per cent (300 registrations) into firm commitments. But now, seven weeks later, only 99 people have actually signed on the dotted line. Knaresborough is the first area in the UK to reach BT's trigger levels, but then fail to see enough people sign-up to get the job finished. Worryingly, neither BT Wholesale - which operates BT's fixed line network - nor ISPs such as AOL and BTopenworld can explain this disappointing response. "It could be that some people have changed their mind about getting broadband, or it could be that there was some fraudulent data in the system," suggested a BT spokesman. Industry insiders have suggested, though, that ISPs are failing to contact people who have indicated that they would pay for broadband if it was available in their area - which, if true, is further bad news for those people trapped on the wrong side of Britain's broadband divide. BTopenworld insists that it isn't responsible for Knaresborough's plight. A company spokesman said: "BTopenworld had a good response. We contacted the vast majority of customers who had initially registered with us, and a sizeable majority confirmed their interest." According to AOL UK, one reason for Knaresborough's failure could be the complexity of BT's pre-registration scheme. "It's not an ideal way to roll broadband out across the UK, because it's a manual process. ISPs have to individually contact everyone who expressed interest in the first phase, ask if they want to order broadband, process this list, and only then does the information enter BT Wholesale's automated system," explained Jonathan Lambeth, head of corporate media relations at AOL UK. "Clearly it's not an easy process, and there's more opportunity for potential customers to 'fall through the gap', perhaps because they change their mind or spend the money on something else. Or it could be that some ISPs just can't process the information in time," Lambeth added. For now, Knaresborough has been returned to the BT registration scheme, which now shows that 229 people have registered their interest. This 229 is probably made up of the 99 customers who confirmed their interest with ISPs, and another 130 who have signed up since the trigger level was first hit back in early October. BT hasn't given up hope that broadband might reach Knaresborough - eventually. "We're keen to do something on a local level to increase broadband awareness, either through marketing or through a local interest group," said the BT Wholesale spokesman. Graeme Wearden ZDNet UK