BT speeds up broadband rollout scheme

BT is revamping its broadband demand registration scheme, a move which should see exchanges upgraded more quickly than before.

From today, BT will begin upgrading a local exchange to ADSL as soon as enough local residents indicate that they want to get broadband. Up until now, ISPs have had to go back to these people and confirm their interest first through an 'advance orders' procedure, which added up to six weeks to the process.

The broadband demand registration scheme was launched this summer as a way of letting BT hear from people who want broadband but can't get it. For hundreds of locations across Britain, the telco calculated how many broadband customers it would need before it was commercially viable to upgrade the local exchange. These 'trigger levels' vary from 200 to 750, which some people have complained is simply too high to be achievable.

By cutting out the advance order process, BT says it will significantly cut the time it takes for ADSL to reach those places where there is enough broadband demand.

"This will bring broadband to exchanges where there is genuine demand sooner than was previously the case," a BT Wholesale spokesman said.

"Exchanges that would not otherwise have been upgraded until early May - because of the six week advance order process - will now be upgraded before the end of March," he added, indicating that the move will help BT to achieve its aim of rolling out broadband to an average of one new exchange a day up until the end of March 2003.

Ten local exchanges have already been upgraded to broadband after hitting their trigger levels, and another 15 are currently being upgraded. A further 18 exchanges have also achieved their trigger levels, but no work has been carried out yet because ISPs had been still trying to obtain advance orders - today's news means upgrading work can now begin at these 18 exchanges.

As previously reported, the registration scheme has been hit by fraud - where people submitted hundreds of false registrations in an attempt to bring broadband to their area. In some cases, exchanges that had hit their trigger level saw hundreds of 'registrations' deleted after ISPs found that they couldn't obtain enough advance orders because the data was largely false.

BT insists, though, that removing the advance orders process won't make it easier for people to fool it into upgrading exchanges where there is little demand.

"We've put a whole range of tests in place to detect false registrations, including robots that work on the data. People at BT Wholesale check the registrations, and we're also working closely with ISPs," the BT Wholesale spokesman explained.

Graeme Wearden writes for ZDNet UK