BT has revealed the extent of its failure and reason for the recent suspension of its business broadband SDSL rollout. Many of its 729 SDSL enabled exchanges have hardly any customers:

BT suspended SDSL rollout last week, blaming poor take-up caused by high prices. SDSL is aimed at small businesses, such as design agencies, and branch offices which need a fast uplink to the Internet. Unlike ADSL, SDSL offers high speeds for both uploading and downloading.

Some Internet service providers have already expressed disappointment at BT's decision to stop at 729 SDSL-enabled telephone exchanges, rather than hitting its target of 800.

"It is a little bit of a setback that BT has backtracked on its SDSL rollout," said Luke Lang, marketing manager at ISP Eclipse Internet, who claimed that SDSL demand had picked up in recent months.

Despite showing a lack of confidence in its own product and refusing to reveal specific customer numbers, BT is still hoping that November’s forthcoming price cuts may improve the situation.

Sadly some providers, such as Plusnet, have expressed concern that the pending 30% reduction may still not be enough to boost demand.

Typically most businesses see greater benefit in the cheaper merits of ADSL and forthcoming ADSL2+, despite their lower reliability levels. Meanwhile Easynet has had no problems with SDSL take-up, suggesting that marketing also plays a key role. More @ ZDNet.