Tonight’s Midlands Today program had a familiar topic: businesses out in the sticks whinging about broadband speeds, and then various political types and business types saying what a bad show it is.

It *is* a bad show, or at least, it would be if I lived in the sticks, but it’s not entirely the the full picture.

Along with the fibre optic hype (of the type Virgin Media and BT both trot out now), and hopes of a brave new world enabled by faster data connections, it’s smoke and mirrors. Trust me, you can already get faster connections out in the wilds: you just need the cash, and to talk to a good, commercial ISP rather than a domestic-grade one- the problem here is that many people think broadband=ADSL, which isn’t true. Our friends at BT (other telecoms providers are available!) will happily provide you a fat pipe [snigger] to all sorts of places. It may cost you the earth, but to say it can’t be done is untrue- indeed in the very area mentioned, this project are doing just that by the looks of things, and then sharing it out wirelessly in the local area to multiple subscribers to cover the costs.

There’s other variations on a theme: You could bond together multiple DSL lines at a location sufficiently clsoe to the exchange and then make further hops wirelessly, or do what one rural group did and come to an arrangement with local farmers, dig trenches, and lay fibre.