Don't believe the hype, there a large chunks of the country cursed by aluminium pairs.

Aluminium is a fair enough conductor, unfortunately over time it get brittle, then the slightest disturbance (Mr Prescott's call for more houses for example) causes fractures, and bye bye broadband.

I thought part of the plan with the migration was to replace the aluminium with copper. One thing I that is not clear with this 21CN is what exactly is the advantage for the consumer, particually with regards broadband. Currently I can only get 512k as I live too far from the exchange? is this going to change, and if so will I have to do anything, or will I be forced to change to BT as the provider, or one of their supsidarys?

Broadband speeds are (almost) entirely dependant on the local access network, so I suspect your 512K would not improve. Though, having said that, ADSL2 does make more efficient use of the spectrum - it may lead to a speed boost.

Hi Steve - I'm not sure what you are referring to - ADSL in the UK is not provided on lines where the last mile is delivered using aluminium.

For a few years therefore, those with lines delivered using aluminium could not get broadband. Later however, BT devised a process whereby those people, when ordering broadband, would be provided with brand new copper lines.

The areas where aluminium provided cannot be described as 'large chunks' - that is over-egging it - those in this position are very much a small minority. I am sure if you look you will find figures for this...

Very early on (we talking a number of years ago), some broadband may have be provisioned on aluminium before BT realised this was a bad thing I suppose.

If you yourself are unlucky enough to have an aluminium line with broadband on it, i suggest you contact a good ISP and ask them to provide you with broadband on copper. A provider who is smaller and a bit more technical than most like Zen, Entanet, Andrews & Arnold are more likely to understand this issue than some of the larger consumer ones like BT, Orange, Carphone etc.