UK Broadband Penetration and Pricing (Score 1)

The UK measures the proportion of the population able to theoretically get Broadband if they want it on the basis of the number of enabled telephone exchanges. Unfortunately - there are customers with telephone lines connected to exchanges who live too far out to get a stable ADSL connection - so this measure overstates the real number of people who can get access. I have a friend living in East London who can't get broadband because the line noise is too high due to his distance from the exchange - and he lives in recently built development in the capital city. UK pricing tends to ignore the 10UKP (19USD) you have to pay BT for telephone line rental in order to get most broadband connections. I currently pay 14UKP (~26USD) for my 8mbit ADSL connection. But in practice I get 4mbit throughput (from bandwidth tests) since I'm too far from the exchange to get the top speed. My ISP (BT) upgraded me from 1mb last month for free though. (Actually better than free they actually dropped the price from 18UKP to 14UKP presumably as a response to other special offers in the UK from Orange and Talk Talk). Talk Talk are currently offering telephone line rental, 8mbit broadband, and unlimited europe wide telephone calls for 20UKP a month.