If you live more than 5 kilometres (3.125 miles) from your nearest telephone exchange, as far as ADSL Broadband is concerned, you’re in a “Not-Spot”. While the rest of the country is enjoying download speeds of 8, 20 or even 50 megabits per second, you’re stuck back in the dark ages with a dial-up modem running at 56 kilobits per second. With server-side web compression, you might be lucky enough to achieve effective speeds nearer 1 megabit per second.
Downloading your email takes forever, watching TV and video online is out of the question, and spending hours surfing or chatting on social networking sites costs a fortune because you’re paying by the minute.

Now, in the UK, you might just be in with a chance of getting broadband as BT announce BET, or Broadband Enabling Technology. This new system extends the range of ADSL broadband lines from 5 kilometres to up to 12 kilometres (7.5 miles).

The broadband speeds at this range are limited to 1 or 2 megabits per second, but that is quite sufficent for many people, and if it meant the difference between dial-up and a permanent connection, I wouldn’t complain about it.

The BET system has been successfully trialled in Scotland, and BT are now planning to extend the trial to 8 other regions of the UK, including Twyford in Berkshire, Badsey in Worcestershire, Llanfyllin in Powys, Leyland in Lancashire, Ponteland in Northumberland, Wigton in Cumbria, Horsham in West Sussex, Wymondham in Norfolk, Inverness Culloden in Scotland and Dingwall in Scotland.

This is just the beginning of attempts to connect the 3 million homes in the UK that are currently unable to use ADSL broadband.

Campaigners for better broadband services have criticised the system, saying it’s not broadband. Considering that the first broadband services available in the UK were a mere 0.5 megabits per second, I’d say they were lucky to be getting 2 megabits. Technology moves on and you can bet that BET is an interim solution. Just be thankful that the engineers at BT are working hard to bring you a broadband service at all. If you’re going to be ungrateful, they might not bother in future!