"ADSL priced high for consumer" (30 July 1999) Reasonably specific details of the ADSL rollout have finally been announced by BT, and our overall verdict is a mixed one although there are many important details still to be revealed. First of all, thank goodness for flat-rate "always on"; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, no metering by data transferred, no metering by time spent online. No complaints there. The price is problematic, though. £40pcm for 512kB/sec downstream, 128Kb/sec upstream - assuming Internet Service Providers actually offer the service at £40pcm - is acceptable but £150pcm for 2Mb/sec downstream, 384Kb/sec upstream - that currently enjoyed by the London triallists - is a lot, even though what the triallists paid (£30pcm) was never going to happen 'in real life'. One-off installation charges, one-off costs of the ADSL equipment and ISP monthly costs have not been stated. BT is making great play of these being wholesale rates to other ISPs - including BT Interactive - so that whoever actually provides the service may be able to subsidise the monthly subscription through advertising, bundling with voice telephone services or, no doubt, a hundred and one other methods that will spring up. We shall see; ISP costs could be a potentially large addition to the wholesale rate, which ISPs have no choice but to accept for the time being. Quite apart from yet another complex and confusing mass of tariffs being encouraged to develop, we see users having to strike a Faustian bargain between a relatively expensive service with unadorned bandwidth and a relatively cheap service with distractions such as video adverts being pushed at them. And will many small-business-oriented ISPs be willing to cut their own throats? Many, such as mine (Alastair writing), offer leased line and managed ISDN services whose tariffs and technical capabilities BT has instantly undermined. As for the geography of the rollout, it is no surprise that BT has concentrated on major population centres to start with and is encouraging potential subscribers to register their interest. Many of these cities are cabled by Telewest or CWC [now NTL], who are well behind with their cable modem rollout plans; even those that are on the NTL cable modem rollout plan will probably have NTL's monthly subscription fee (£40) more or less matched. And, for those not reached by the original rollout, a quote by Bill Cockburn (Group MD) is slightly ominous: [He] said if the initial roll-out is a commercial success it could be extended to cover up to 75 per cent of all BT customers over a two-to-three year time frame. "We are looking very closely at extending the roll-out but the initial plan must make a commercial turn before we decide." Too many ifs and buts; even when and if the full [sic] rollout eventually completes fifteen million people will still be left out. A positive outcome of the selective rollout, though, is that ISPs will once again become local to their users. This can only be good for everyone; cybercafés, freenets and all manner of community facilities will surely spring up. In fact, ADSL could be the saviour of many subscription ISPs currently struggling to compete with subscription-free ISPs. All in all there's much for CUT to do; plenty of room at the bottom for the telephone modem, and we are reminded of a story an MP told us a few weeks ago. He took a representative of a mobile operator along to meet BT ... who said that they wanted high local call rates from BT! This was because such rates gave the mobile operator room to manoeuvre under BT.