The surprise announcement that BT is to consider installing ADSL at 500 exchanges it had previously written off as uneconomic will be cold comfort to the millions of people still excluded from BT's low-cost broadband service.
For about 10% of the population, ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) will always be tantalisingly out of reach. That's because the service only works up to about 5.5km from the local telephone exchange.
Although BT is working to extend this, many homes in rural areas are simply too remote. Urban areas also have their ADSL black spots, either where houses are too far from the exchange or where the lines between the exchange and the home are not standard copper ones.
But there are alternatives - apart from cable, which is unlikely to be available if you can't get ADSL. You may still be able to get a fast internet access by using a wireless service, from either a terrestrial mast or a satellite.
The problem with terrestrial wireless services is that there simply aren't many of them. The good news is that coverage areas are increasing as existing operators expand and as more radio frequencies are auctioned off by the government.
If you are lucky enough to live in one of the few areas where a terrestrial wireless service is available, the sort of service you can expect depends on the technology being used. The simplest is called a point to multipoint (P2MP) system: each customer is connected by a rooftop antenna to a single base station via a radio link, and the base station is connected to an internet service provider. BT is about to start a trial of P2MP technology in Porthleven, Cornwall, using a system made by the Israel-based firm Alvarion, and a similar system is already being used by Firstnet, an ISP based in Leeds. Firstnet has a national 3.6-4.2GHz radio licence and offers its service in densely populated areas around cities including Leeds, Bradford, Nottingham, Reading and Coventry.
Firstnet can offer broadband services to customers up to 10km away from any of its base stations, as long as there is a clear line of sight to the customer's premises. Roger Walker, Firstnet's systems manager, says its P2MP service has several advantages over a typical ADSL service.
"Along with an antenna, we install a speed box at each customer's site, so we can manage the service individually. We can offer two-way 512Kbps, 1Mbps or even 5Mbps services and we can even change the speed of the service in a matter of minutes," he says.
Firstnet's 512Kbps service costs around £40, higher than a typical £27 ADSL service. But while home ADSL has a contention ratio (a measure of how many other customers are sharing the connection) of 50:1, Firstnet's contention ratio for this service is only 30:1. How does it compare to ADSL? "It's generally quite fast, but I have tried ADSL and I have to say that ADSL is better," says Aaron Brailsford, a Firstnet user from Slough.
Firstnet is planning to exploit its national radio licence - which could be used for wireless broadband services - by expanding its coverage area over the coming months. As a result of the 3.4GHz spectrum auction on June 17, other services may start to appear. Such 3.4GHz services could be available up to 25km from a base station.
Since no radio licence is needed to use the 2.4GHz frequency to operate low-powered but low-cost wireless networks using the 802.11b standard known as Wi-Fi, these are popping up all over the place, despite the relatively low bandwidth of thefrequency. Kencomp Internet, based in Kendal, uses six base stations attached to television masts around Cumbria to offer a Wi-Fi service.
Paul Haigh, the managing director, says each base station can deliver broadband to homes within a five-mile radius. "We're using 802.11b kit modified for outdoor use, and as we operate in rural areas and we have exclusive use of the TV masts for 802.11b, we don't get any interference." Kencomp offers a 1Mbps 100:1 contended service, with a minimum guaranteed speed of 600Kbps, for £20 a month.
If, like me, you live in an area where no terrestrial wireless services of any type operate, then your only broadband option is a satellite connection. And although satellite internet systems are often thought of as the last resort - expensive, unreliable, ugly and not particularly fast - my experience is different. Some services cost the same as, or less than, terrestrial broadband services, speeds are often faster and I have had less downtime than many friends with ADSL. Ugly? I quite like the hi-tech look a satellite dish gives my cottage.
Satellite systems come in two varieties: one-way and two-way. One-way systems use a normal dial-up internet connection from the home to the internet, with web pages, email and downloads returning via a roof-mounted satellite dish and a satellite decoder. Two-way systems receive and send data by satellite.
Until recently, satellite equipment was prohibitively expensive for home users, but prices have fallen sharply, and a satellite decoder now costs as little as £60. Some satellite services can be received through a Sky mini-dish without interfering with the television service, so if you already get Sky TV, you may not need to buy another dish. Using a mini-dish, Hampshire-based Silvermead offers a 512Kbps service for £29.99 a month with a 30:1 contention ratio, or a 1Mbps service for £39 a month.
With satellite, it is also possible to get "bandwidth on demand": faster connection speeds when you are in a hurry. SatDrive, the Hampshire-based company I use, offers a service that can be shifted through a series of gears during downloads to a theoretical maximum of 16Mbps. I have downloaded a 4.5MB file in under 15 seconds. Try doing that using ADSL!
The catch is that each time you go up a gear, you pay an additional few pence for each megabyte downloaded. SatDrive has a relatively high start-up charge of £399 including equipment, but costs only £14.99 a month (excluding higher-gear download charges).
Two-way satellite services are far more expensive than one-way, but the prices are also falling fast. Silvermead, for example, is preparing to launch a 512Kbps download/128Kbps upload service for £59.99 a month. However, a two-way dish installation will cost £999.
So why bother with terrestrial wireless services if satellite - particularly one-way satellite - is so wonderful? The main disadvantage of satellite is the high latency - the time it takes for data to travel the 44,000-mile return trip from the internet up to the satellite and back to earth.
This causes a delay of between half and three-quarters of a second before data starts arriving - a relatively long time compared to the latency delay of about 10 milliseconds typically experienced with ADSL or terrestrial wireless systems. This isn't a problem during a big download, when you don't notice an extra half-second. But the delay does make online gaming and video conferencing impractical. Web browsing, too, is still annoyingly slow: the half-second delays add up when you jump from page to page.
Many satellite services also impose a severe limit on the amount of data that can be downloaded - typically about a gigabyte per month. File downloaders with ADSL can download a gigabyte a day. With one-way services, the telephone line is tied up when the satellite system is in use.
Over the next few months, other promising alternatives to ADSL may emerge. BT is beginning trials of a technology called mesh radio in September, using a 5.8GHz system developed by the Essex-based Radiant Networks. Mesh radio networks link customers using roof antennae, so that data can "hop" up to two kilometres from rooftop to rooftop, from a base station to an outlying customer.
Also, Scottish and Southern Energy is holding commercial trials of a system that uses electricity lines to deliver 1Mbps connections to homes. Denis Kerby, a spokesman for the company, says that if the trials are successful, the £29.99 a month service could be launched as early as next year, and may be franchised to other electricity companies.
Further out, there's a new standard called 802.16a, which is backed by a group called Wimax (World Interoperability for Microwave Access), including Intel and Nokia. This will enable M2MP services to offer ADSL-like wireless connections to hundreds of homes within 50km of a single base station, without the need for a clear line of sight. But 802.16a-based Wiman services - wireless metropolitan area networks - are unlikely to appear until 2005 at the earliest.
Of course, there is another way to get broadband internet access: a service called The Cloud has installed Wi-Fi hotspots in 1,000 pubs throughout the country. So if you are feeling thirsty and need a fast connection, the best way out of the broadband wilderness may simply be to pick up a laptop and head for the pub. Access costs £6 an hour, drinks not included.
Links
BT ADSL availability checker
www.bt.com/broadband
www.adslguide.org.uk/availability/btprereg.asp
Wireless broadband
www.firstnet.net.uk
One- and two-way satellite services
www.silvermead.co.uk
· Send comments to online.feedback@theguardian.com
