Well it really depends on how close you are to the newly laid fibre optic and the new roadside cabinet containing newly installed DSLAMs (the bit that converts the fibre into a copper connection to your premises)

Live over 1km (as the crow flies) from your roadside cabinet (1.5km by cable) - There is not much chance of BTInfinity.

It really does depend on how many new cabinets containing fibre (in addition to the existing ones) are actually deployed 'next to where you live'. The roadside cabinet is what is important here - the nearer the better.

The technology used by BT for BTInfinity is FTTC (Fibre to the cabinet) The technology implemented (modem protocols etc), is VDSL2, this is a copper based technology, like ADSL and ADSL2+. Its copper based? - YES. BT utilise this between the Premises/Home and Cabinet.

Existing ADSL2+ is limited to speeds of approximately 24Mbps and 2.2Mbps, downstream and upstream, respectively. ADSL/ADSL2+ beyond 3.5Km are approx the same in terms of speed - upto 5Mbps, downstream. Therefore ADSL2+ would not provide much improvement outside this distance, ie. beyond 3.5km from the exchange.

VDSL2 can provide theoretical speeds of 100Mbps over copper, both downstream and upstream within 300m from the cabinet containing the backhaul fibre (the technology is also better able to cope with poor lines and offers a more stable connection speed, as it can adapt to line fluctuations better than ADSL).

Note the distance: 300m though- very close to the cabinet, the maximum is 1.5km, it drops off quickly - from 100Mbps theoretical max to 10Mbps at 2km from the cabinet. ADSL2+ is 10Mbps at 2km from the exchange. BT therefore realistically quote upto 40Mbps, because the chance of higher is very slim.

The Roadside Cabinet: The fibre optic cable deployment (FTTC) is extended from the exchange to the cabinet, and the DSLAMs are fitted in the cabinet rather than the exchange, so its a similar technology to ADSL - just where the kit is placed and a better, copper transmitting technology to deliver the final part of the signal, with significantly better upload speeds.

VDSL2 appears to be backwards compatible with ADSL/ADSL2+, whether that is implemented by BT - unsure, but if they did, ADSL2+ seems to be 15% more efficient using this VDSL2 protocol to the roadside cabinet. Whether this is due to the shorter distance because its to the cab, and not the exchange - unsure.

Data rates in excess of 25 Mbps are available for distances up to 1.2Km (by cable) from cabinet, but tail off quickly after this, minimum guaranteed deployment BT offer is 'upto' 15Mpbs/1.5km from the cabinet, below this speed BT don't deploy BTInfinity. Aluminum Cabling as opposed to Copper will affect things a lot too.

In this case, existing technologies will be deployed instead like ADSL2+ and might actually work as well at this distance as VDSL In terms of download speed (10Mbps) you receive, (not what you can upload) and are improved because we're talking distance to the roadside cabinet, not back to your exchange.

To summarise - BTInfinity's potential is looking at between 'upto' 15Mbps (distance 1.5km from cab) and a max of 'upto' 50Mbps (distance-300 metres from the cab), beyond 1.5km from the cabinet- ADSL2+/ADSL will still be deployed.

Problem is FTTC/VDSL2 - beyond 2km, from the cabinet the download speed is similar to ADSL2+ from the exchange - upto 10Mbps. ADSL, ADSL2+ are pretty much identical after 3.5km from the exchange - upto 5Mbps.

I've also read that where speeds likely to be obtained are less than 15Mbps, BT won't accept an FTTC order on that line (approx 1.5km) from the cabinet - so this maybe the current physical limit to its deployment, but might have been imposed to prevent you paying extra for something you couldn't receive in terms of service.

The technology is potentially, capable of faster speeds than the up to 40Mbps (Advertised by BTInfinity)- near to the cabinet (within 300m) but as always its very dependent on distance from the cabinet and realistically 40Mbps-50Mbps is the max. Its the same method BT describe ADSL2+ as an upto 20Mbps technology, though some users could get higher very close to the exchange (upto 24Mbps)

It really depends on how BTOpenreach deploy things - ie. If more roadside cabinets containing fibre are installed nearer to Villages outside the town containing the exchange, then it might be worthwhile method of delivering High Speed Broadband.

If BTOpenreach keep the infrastructure the same, then it is not that good for areas outside the town away the exchange/roadside cab itself - areas more than 1.5km from the roadside cabinet - these will be the new BTInfinity NOTSPOTs.

Existing Cards are been reclassified by online systems to be now recognised as Visa Debit Cards instead. This happens when using an existing Visa Electron card and choosing 'Electron' as the card payment type when paying for the transaction.

The transaction will state the card has not being recognised as a Visa Electron Card (even though it is) allowing you to continue the transaction, but then charge your Visa Electron card the fee associated with Visa Debit Cards.

Using a Cooperative/Smile Visa Electron Card, this was tested against the flybe.com website - which, even though it showed flight details with card payment fees of 0.00 when Visa Electron was selected, submitting the card details came back with the card not being recognised as a Visa Electron and a subsequent fee of 18.00 was adding to the booking of the two flights. 4.50 fee per person/per flight each way.

Phoning Cooperative, they denied changes has been made to the bin codes issued by the bank, and stated existing Electron cards starting 4508, should still be recognised as 'Visa Electron' and the fees associated with this, but stated that it had 'merged' all cards issued to Visa Debit. Co-operative has also issued no changes to terms and conditions confirming this change as regard to existing Electron cards being treated as Visa Debit type transaction.

Flybe stated that the wrong card bin information is currently associated with Payment Cards relating to Cooperative/Smile, so that all Smile cards are now recognised only as Visa Debit. But stated there was nothing currently they could do.

The current flybe.com website is therefore misleading as regard to the prices advertised, as it appears there is no way of obtaining flights at the minimum advertised price, by paying Visa Electron.

To the consumer, who has a Visa Electron card in their hand, and have selected payment type as 'Electron' in order to avoid fees, it looks as if the banks are trying to phase out Visa Electron long before the existing expiry date of the cards, by this subtle back end system change.

If you are charged this fee on an Electron Card, I suggest you query it with both your bank and flybe.com, if neither back down, pass you complaint to 'UK Payments' on 02032178200.

merit - any admirable quality or attribute? Did that apply to IE v Netscape? I'm not sure it did if my history serves me right, and the subsequent Legal battles in which Microsoft settled. And this battle of so called 'merit' is still goes on.

Its in the detail: Installing on XP - Internet Explorer 8 - the Address bar, its features regarding web site history are only fully implemented if MS Windows Search has been installed. The 'basic' address bar has a constant 'Nag' in bold blue (which changes to bold blue underlined (as a link) when your mouse hovers over it. This nag appears every time you type in the address bar and is very distracting, unless of course - you take the advice of MS and install Microsoft Search V4.

That is the problem with IE8, compared to Firefox (which deserves merit). Its like been in a room with pushy MS Salesmen hovering over you and its a big turn-off. Be it the install process or using the product - one slip 'using any MS express install' and you have defaulted to another MS Product, be it Live Search (Bing), Search V4, Live Blog, Office Live. The sheer desperation of MS Bing to win against Google Search is very apparent, but then Chrome is the same but with Google Salesmen, looking slightly more hip, but recording everything you say,do, eat - toilet breaks etc, and comparing your tastes against the curtains you have chosen from the acquired front view of your house - street view. No large dominant company comes up smelling of roses in this regard - until regulatory bodies starts to take interest, 'oh didn't mean it - honest' see Apple/Google recently. Sadly, Microsoft has set the line, in terms of what is 'acceptable' in terms of Market Dominance Abuse - they wrote the text, that the rest now follow.

A Simple Version of History and how it continues. * Netscape come up with a new type of program, a browser. MS ties Internet Explorer (for free) into Windows 95 (Windows Desktop Update), IE becomes part of the standard interface as part of Windows 98. Netscape disappears into a cloud of dust. Realplayer has a pretty good media player. MS ties Windows Media Player (for free) into Windows. Realplayer (pretty much) disappears into a cloud of dust. Europe Union force MS to release a Version of XP known as Version N, without the Windows Media 'tie-in'. No one buys it, no direct seller dares to install it. With the EU watching them closely - No longer able to 'tie-in' programs into Windows, instead MS seem to use the 'stepping stone' put in place several years before (see * above) and now a rock solid part of Windows - Internet Explorer, 80% of users at the time, use this on their Windows Systems. 100% have it installed. Google release Desktop Search - MS unable to compete on search- MS ties MS Search V4 into IE8. This next bit is in work in progress... (Thats why the 'nag' I mentioned above is so important) Its whether having Internet Explorer now a ubiquitous part of Windows, means that any tie-ins into IE8 are in effect tie-ins into Windows, and therefore this sorry mess continues.

Microsoft deal with the EU, to include 'Microsoft Browser Choice', has helped smaller browsers gain recognition, using Automatic Update. The detail is again evident - have your Windows Updates set to Download and Manually install, rather than Automatic Updates, and the tick box against the Microsoft Browser Choice update is 'unticked' by default - its a subtle difference, compared to all the other updates which are ticked and selected by default.

Looking ahead to the MS Tablet, it will be lit up like a Christmas Tree - MS Products a plenty, already installed by default. So is the new MS Tablet, the new IE8, in the context of above? I think so. - process continues.

In a similar scheme to the original ADSL 'vote to register interest' in Fibre, you can now register with BT, and once three quarters of residents have declared an interest, BT will have active dialogue on their enablement. Only 5 of the 5000 BT Exchanges will actually 'win' the lottery though and actually be enabled.

You need a minimum of 1000 Votes/Residents to register their interest to be eligble.

In reply: Its all very good of BT hyping broadband availability in mostly Central London boroughs and a few major cities. 12 Millions homes enabled with FTTP* or FTTC* doesn't really help if it is nowhere near where you live.

..and 5 exchanges out of 5000, feels like a BT ploy to suppress communities from following their own 'real' fibre solution, by giving them hope by attempting to win what is effect a lottery.

Unlike their product names - BT seem to have no 'inclusive' Vision for the UK. The insult being that the so called 50p Broadband tax has been added by BT anyway without any obligated commitment to universal broadband availability.

BT should never receive subsidies for anything which uses a part copper wire solution for Broadband.

Subsidies for Fibre to Premises maybe (but its uptake is pretty much guaranteed, so its hardly taking a gamble, in gambling terms) - even then I'd rather see subsidies to communities enabling their own solutions, at least they'd own their network- and then aren't paying twice in terms of excessive future rental charges, for something BT didn't pay fully to install.

For past mistakes in terms of freebies to BT, see the subsidies paid to BT in Northern Ireland for ADSL.

FTTC* is still a half way house, line quality will effect the upto 40Mbps and upload speeds will be much lower too - it would be better if we all rally together and do it without BT - and that means fibre to the premises and utilising existing ducts, sewers, poles to keep costs down. Open access to all data on the final loop kept by BT Openreach - existing ducts, sewer routes is essential for this to happen. We need an ebay infrastructure model, where open data enables cables to be laid, cabinets to be installed and fibre to be connected end to end, as cheaply as possible, whether by communities themselves, or commercial - and not all owned and controlled by one company, trying to get the last ounce out of outdated copper delivery methods.

Anything that is part copper in its solutions will have a variable speed based on distance from the cabinet or exchange, its out of date. It could even allow BT to get subsidies for installing second hand technology/equipment rurally they are ripping out else where 'as outdated'.

One of BT proposals is BET - 'Broadband enabling Technology' (and part of the proposal for Cornwall) is based on copper solutions - old technology being given a fresh coat of paint). Its about time copper was given the elbow. BET removes the phone line element from the cable and BT only use it for a broadband signal - its hardly revolutionary - it allows a longer transmission distance over copper, not faster broadband.

It would be criminal if BT were being subsidised by the EU to install Technology in Cornwall they have ripped out of exchanges from Central London.

As a minimum: We really need 'strategic towns' within a set distance of 100% of the population, that allow Fibre to the Premises Broadband availability (which is constantly upgraded) having with the best London has to offer, so the whole of the UK Busiiness sector is on par in terms of technology and cost. Allowing people access Fibre in or near areas they already live. This is key.

Its not perfect, but this could act as a catalyst for neighbouring towns, branching off the fibre, e.g towns along the A38 such as Buckfastleigh, could tap into the fibre route which is heading for Cornwall.

The best approach would be switch all TV broadcasts to BBC iPlayer technology and give a basic broadband service which allowed bandwidth for the transmission of two channels of TV simultaneously to everyone as part of the license fee, with basic broadband included - the freed airwaves could be sold/used for mobile data, allowing pretty much 100% enforcement of the license fee.

*FTTP - Fibre to the premises - 100Mbps or greater. *FTTC - Fibre to the cabinet + copper to premises (upto 40Mbps - variable because of copper line quality for the final leg- 'upto' as usual, and depending on copper line quality could actually turn out to be not much better than your current ADSL.

With a General Election here in the UK next Thursday, as a population we do seem obsessed with presentation over substance, so how does this relate to Ubuntu 10.04?

Well, there are resolution/display issue problems with the new 'plymouth' splash screen and Nvidia's own/proprietary drivers (ones from their website or the ones offered up by the helpful Ubuntu 10.04).

For 10.04, it really is worth thinking twice about installing the Nvidia drivers over the open source/built in Nouveau video drivers. It is an important point- they will cause problems with Ubuntu 10.04, but the problems they create are cosmetic, and only relate to the start-up and shutdown.

The problem is, the opening splash screen does a lot to convince people and a partly shown misplaced opening graphic doesn't help convince you to giving over all your precious work to Ubuntu. Cosmetic issues mean when a problem occurs for a user, such as a paper jam- they will be quick to blame Ubuntu.

In a way it is a shame they have make it so easy to upgrade the drivers to the Nvidia proprietary drivers from the dock/taskbar, because they do throw a spanner in the works regarding the new 'plymouth' graphical splash screen. Ubuntu have also opened up a reliance on Nvidia hopefully developing a better driver to take advantage of these new features, which just might not turn up.

The idea behind 'plymouth' is to offer a seemless startup without flashes of text cursors, resolution changes, but while Nvidia own/ proprietary drivers don't support this, the display reverts back to basic 16 colour VGA support – its not a good look in 2010 as any politician will tell you. Its important to remember that this is only the splash screen on startup and shutdown, once you reach the log in – everything works fine graphically until you shutdown, when it reverts to plymouth again for the splash screen – and things look messy again.

There are a few workarounds but some effect suspend/standby mode, so its best to stick with the open source drivers and 2D graphics, until the Nvidia drivers catch up. If you happy with a slightly messed up startup/shutdown screen (and it doesn't show for long) – install the Nvidia driver, then you get the substance - 3D support within Ubuntu 10.04.

You can be the most charismatic politician in the world, but if you don't look the part, you'll have a job convincing people with the substance of your argument. Just not sure its best placed putting Ubuntu's opening presentation ability at the mercy of Nvidia.

Vista SP2 is really the holy grail of places to reach from a standard Vista RTM Installation using this installation method described by Jamie (See his post the Agony of Installing Vista) But sadly, this is probably the way a typical end user would go about restoring Vista. It would have been nice to document in pictures, along with time elapsed, but you can see from the responses Jamie's post has hit a chord.

There are not many that have the patience or time and there are a lot of cravasses along the way. The end result thankfully -Vista SP2 isn't too bad and very similar to Windows 7 but by that time I can understand you probably couldn't care less.

You have to weigh up your time, with the cost of buying replacement media. If your doing it for someone else, having a replacement laptop you can lend them while you obtain the media saves you a lot of headaches (and time)

I've done it this way, but imaging/backing up along the way too (add that time in!), using either Acronis, or more recently Paragon Hard drive Manager 2010 (Excellent). As a backup takes around 10-15mins, so a backup every 1-2 hours depending on how much work has been involved. Do something wrong, its just a case of reverting to the last backup (which I've had to do many times)

A Better method would have been to obtain an upto date Iso/disk image of Windows Vista SP2 (Microsoft do provide this for a fee if you have a previous retail licence (cost of postage&packing), If you phone MS with your retail licence info, they may even offer a download link nowadays. (I find MS pretty helpful, unlike HP). Most machines don't have a retail licence but an Vendor OEM Licence, so MS will refer you to them.

Many companies such as HP (for a fee) also provide recovery disks to restore the system to Vista SP2 (with bloatware) for each make/model. HP and others expect you to create three DVD's when you first get the laptop so you never have to follow the above process.

Again - Backup before this happens!

Another method is to slipstream Service Packs into the Original Installation CD/DVDs, but if you have never done this - Microsoft don't make it an easy process for the average user, so most stick to the standard installation method and use Windows Update. With slipstreaming -the updates are merged into an image of the original disk, so when you run the installation these updates don't need to be installed via Windows Update.

For large numbers of installations - Its also possible to use Microsoft Update Server, so that Updates are stored within the company on a server and downloaded once, and distributed throughout your organisation locally, from your own server (also allows the company to pick which Windows updates are installed)

Had Jamie opted for Windows 7, the result might not have been that easy either, as the vendors such as HP don't always provide Windows 7 Drivers for vendor specific hardware. eg. fingerprint readers,card readers etc on older 'unsupported/obselete hardware'. Several months since release even Windows 7 now has a fair number of upgrades and sizeable ones at that.

Its the typical case of throwing out the old and cheaper to buy the new

It does make a case for using a good piece of imaging software, and though the usual ones are good, I recently purchased Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2010 (has both standard and professional versions). The Professional version allows for dynamic disks such as used by Windows 7, Apple Machitosh. It works perfectly with Windows 7. I recently did an installation of Windows 7, then backed it up (10 mins) and restored it in 8 minutes, when I accidently installed a Vista driver, rather than a Windows 7 driver.

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2010 Pro is a bargain- best imaging bar none. Works perfectly with Windows, Mac, and Linux (even EXT4!), and dynamic disks. The only problem I've had with it was trying to image to a smaller disk (the size of the data on the partition was less than the size of the new partition, but the partition itself including free space was bigger), where it wouldn't do this on the fly, whereas Acronis products do. You had to resize the partition to a smaller size first then copy it.

It also will automatically find unbootable Windows Systems and correct the boot information automatically - this works too!

On a postive note... Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Installed Ubuntu 10.04 Beta over the weekend on a HP DV Series, Paragon came in very handy moving round EXT3 and EXT4 Partitions, aswell as keeping Windows 7 intact. Backing up beforehand-always a good idea!. Ubuntu installed pretty well perfectly, one really nice touch is that you can surf the web while its installing.

One thing was the progresson bar worked perfectly upto 95%, but the last 5% took about half the time again, so don't give up at this point and think its frozen, it still working away. The boot time is phenomenal, the new layout,as is the way it offers proprietary drivers for wireless cards, nvidia cards. Actually it hardly displayed the ubuntu logo bit (mine seemed to be text at the moment, but as you don't see it , it didn't matter.

As a beta, its pretty much working fine for me except for a few cosmetic issues, still wouldn't recommend using it for anything other than checking it out - but this LTS Version (Long term support) is really promising. I'd actually say I like it better than Windows 7! New colour scheme, menus are much nicer, but I had got used to the brown.

I still prefer XP to Windows 7, but Microsoft have done miracles to turn Vista into Windows 7, and as we all have to use MS Products during a daily life, because of convention - I'm pretty glad they did.

Many will definitely start to question the logic of why everyone is still buying/using MS Products when they start to use Ubuntu 10.04.

9.10* is Ubuntu's Vista in comparison to Ubuntu 10.04 beta, which looks to be Ubuntu's 'Windows 7 RC', I mean in terms of build quality. This early beta is an extremely high standard, as was the early Windows 7 RC. In recognition, I've given the 10.04 beta a permanent partition on my laptop. *(I thought 9.10 was rushed out for Windows 7 launch)

When you compare Windows 7, Snow Leopard, and Ubuntu 10.04 - they all have their own plus points and negative ones- I don't think there has ever being a time though, before this where the choice between products was so small in terms of quality.

The price has been all over the place up, down, anything but stable, compare this to the Mac Snow leopard upgrade that has stayed a consistent 25, maybe the unstable price is reflecting Windows 7 in more ways than one. The so called 4 week window of opportunity at launch lasted less than a day at Amazon.co.uk, to order your copy at 44.97. Then in September Tesco, via Ingram Micro repeated the offer, well 49.97 (44.97 with a 5 voucher) Tesco took the money upfront, it was the most popular item ever on hotukdeals.com. Due to looming postal strikes, some suppliers such as Dixons were given permission to deliver on or after 19th October. Tesco followed suite and my copy was delivered early on 22nd October at 5.50pm, trouble was I was away for a week. No card appears to have been left. Re-deliver was attempted on the 29th at 11.50am. On returning on the 29th that evening, there was a card from City-link stating that a delivery had been attempted that day. On the 30th I checked to find City-link had strangely already sent the item back to Tesco, I couldn't pick it up. No email had been received from Tesco to say the item was been delivered early, and their online webpage doesn't cross-reference the tracking info, so you can't check its progress from there. I emailed Tesco to ask for the item to be resent, due to being sent early, and therefore returned early by Citylink, as to when it would have been expected, given the Worldwide launch and the delivery being 1-2 days after this normally. I had no response via email from Tesco. On phoning Tesco today they point-blank refused to re-send the item, instead offered a refund, with the option of re-purchasing at 95, instead of the 44.97 I'd paid. I phoned Microsoft to discuss the matter as I felt it made Microsoft look bad, in light of poor customer service from Tesco/Ingram Micro. Initially Microsoft were helpful, as I pointed out that people legitimately purchasing software shouldn't have to put up with such practices, but once through to their customer response unit they gave way to the might of Tesco, and refused to get involved. I feel Tesco made a mistake of not notifying Citi-link that the early delivery of Windows 7 should have meant slightly longer than 7 days before the item was returned, to take into account the early shipments. But forcing customers who missed the item by a day ie. the 30th to have a refund and re-purchase at twice the price is just plain dishonest. Tesco you should be ashamed.