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ADSL roll-out
- To go to
BT's ADSL Availability checker, or to register an interest for
ADSL
at your exchange click here
- For Oftel's
latest ADSL fact sheet click here
The roll-out
of ADSL was a commercial decision taken by BT and was not mandated
by Oftel. Oftel's role has been to ensure that BT complies with
its obligations under the relevant legislation. For example, BT
must offer its wholesale products to all service providers/operators
on the same terms & conditions and must not unduly prefer its
own service provider business.
ADSL is a relatively new technology and it requires considerable
investment to enable an exchange so that it can offer ADSL services.
Oftel does not, therefore, propose to require BT to roll-out ADSL
to all exchanges or to include specific exchanges in its roll-out
programme. Oftel will however continue to encourage BT to roll-out
ADSL to as many exchanges as possible.
BT has introduced
an ADSL order registration system that will enable consumers and
service providers to register interest in receiving ADSL services.
Where demand in an area is high enough to make it economically viable
for BT to enable the local exchange, it will do so. The registration
system will cover all exchanges in the UK, though targets will only
be published for the 900 exchanges that BT has reviewed the costs
of enabling. Should demand levels for other exchanges be high enough,
BT will review the cost of enabling those exchanges.
At the end of
June 2003, 1,424 BT exchanges had been enabled to deliver ADSL.
This means 71% of UK households are covered by an ADSL enabled exchange.
ADSL is a distance
dependant technology and as a result of this is only available to
those living less than 5.5km from an enabled exchange. BT is working
on new technology to increase the range.
Oftel is keen
to ensure that everyone who wants broadband service is able to obtain
it by encouraging BT to roll-out ADSL to more exchanges and develop
alternative methods of providing broadband services eg via satellite.
Cable broadband
provides wholesale competition to BT's services and in the future
so will Local loop unbundling. Further information on what broadband
services are available can be found here.
Wholesale
Products
BT offers several main wholesale ADSL products, which have different
speeds and are priced accordingly. Operators and SPs can use these
products to supply ADSL services to end-users. All these wholesale
products are available to all operators and SPs, including BT's
own SP business, on the same terms and conditions.
Other Information
Some examples of other sources of Information on ADSL are:
(these are not
Oftel sites, Oftel cannot be held liable for the content and information
on the sites, or any advice associated with them.)
See also: What
is Oftel's role on ADSL?
(If you have
been following the steps to contact Oftel and this FAQ has not helped
then proceed to Step
3)
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