Posted: 03rd Dec, 2003 By: MarkJ
Today will see BT upgrade a little known local exchange in Howden (East Yorkshire) to support broadband ADSL services. The move is only of any real significance because it marks the 2,000th exchange to be upgraded for broadband:
The Howden exchange was ADSL-enabled after 200 local people registered their interest in getting broadband, following active campaigning that was supported by shadow home secretary and local MP David Davis. This was enough to hit the trigger level BT had given the area.
More than 800 local exchanges have now been broadband-enabled as a result of BT's trigger registration scheme on top of 1200 exchanges that had already been enabled, mainly in areas of high population density. The scheme launched in June 2002 and has attracted over half a million expressions of interest. ADSL is currently available to over 80 percent of the population.
Davis attended an event at Howden on Tuesday to mark the milestone, where he said it was crucial that everyone in the community had access to key technologies such as a high-speed Web link. He also congratulated the people whose campaigning work had helped to hit the trigger.We can only hope that demand for broadband will continue into 2004 and that even more local exchanges become enabled. More @
ZDNet.