BT broadband plan slammed for ignoring rural folk

BT has told people living in rural Britain that their only chance of receiving high-speed web access is to fork out for satellite broadband.

The telco has come in for fierce criticism for saying it is not going to roll out any more broadband exchanges in the countryside.

Among the critics is Bob Jones, UK telecoms entrepreneur, who said BT is creating a two-speed Britain with fast ADSL in the cities and satellite broadband in the countryside, which he said is inferior to ADSL in speed and general ability - not to mention more costly.

BT announced a satellite broadband offering earlier this week that will cost users £400 to install, plus another £15 per month in rent and around £30 per month in ISP charges.

That compares to around £25 per month for self-install ADSL.

Jones accused the telco of shirking its responsibilities as the UK's dominant fixed line operator by refusing to roll out ADSL exchanges to enough non-urban areas.

Jones said: "After the government has spent months waffling on about 'Broadband Britain', BT has just turned around and said it's not going to do it. So who is? If BT isn't going to accept its responsibility, it must be forced to."

A BT spokesman said: "We should not have a universal service obligation to supply ADSL to areas of Britain where the demand for it is low. There isn't the demand for broadband in the countryside at the minute to justify spending our shareholders' money on enabling exchanges."

He added: "If the government says we should roll out ADSL to the whole of the UK we would look for government funding to do that, which has happened in other countries."

A spokeswoman from telecommunications industry watchdog Oftel agreed with BT. She said: "BT has to look at both ADSL and satellite broadband as a commercial decision."

The Department of Trade and Industry said the government has no plans to subsidise a countrywide rollout of ADSL.