Following successful trials, BT has confirmed that its ADSL Max broadband services will be launched on a national basis from 31st March'06. Over 5,300 exchanges are being upgraded to support higher speed broadband, serving more than 99.6% of UK homes and businesses:

This development will allow people to obtain line rates of up to 8Mbit/s, enabling them to get more out of their broadband connection. The ADSL broadband speed that can be supported on an individual line is governed by a wide range of physical factors. BT estimates that 78 per cent of BT phone lines should support broadband at line rates of 4Mbit/s and above, with 6Mbit/s and above available to more than 42 per cent. For those living or working close to their local telephone exchange, line rates of up to the maximum 8Mbit/s should be achievable.

In addition to faster speeds, BT has deployed new technology to better manage the line stability and customer experience. Higher speed and more reliable broadband services will help ensure that people can run more bandwidth hungry applications, including video, gaming and music downloads at the same time, as well as email and surfing the web.

The ADSL broadband speed that can be supported on an individual line is dependent on a range of factors, including the length and gauge of the line from the exchange, the number and quality of joints, electromagnetic noise from other lines in a cable or wiring within a customer’s premises, and the modems used.

While the faster broadband speeds will be available to service providers for new orders from March 31, 2006, it will take several months to regrade the total existing end user customer base that service providers wish to be regraded to ADSL Max services. Plans relating to bulk regrades to Max services are being discussed with service providers on an ongoing basis.

BT’s line checker at http://www.bt.com/broadband is being updated to show the expected speeds available for individual lines. This will be available for all exchanges upgraded for the ADSL Max products from March 31, with those exchanges involved in the trials already showing the expected speeds possible.

It's also worth pointing out that MAX has a faster upstream speed, being capable of up to 448Kbit/s in ideal circumstances. Interestingly BT's Max Premium (business) derivative can do up to 832Kbit/s upstream.

BT's press release also makes a small mention of its ADSL2+ trials, which they anticipate as being deployed under the 21st Century Network programme. This should be taken with a pinch of salt though, especially while VDSL technology is still being strongly considered.

Interestingly this would mean that any official ADSL2+ deployment, if that were to be the case, is still nearly two years away (2008).