>> Am I right in thinking these people are offering the sort of technology that
>> will be 2-4 years away for those of us who wait for BT to get a round tuit?
yup. that would be BT's so called 21st century network (21CN) that'll probably be in place some time by the 22nd century... unless you're in Birmingham in which case they're running ADSL2+ trials there already...
>> Am I also right in thinking that they are "cherry picking" customers who live
>> close to the exchange (ie people who can already get at least half of the
>> mythical "up to 8 Mbps") because the rest of us dangling on the end of
>> 2-10 Kms of copper wire cannot get a fast speed until light guide
>> technology replaces copper ?
not exactly. They run an ADSL2+ system on LLU (non-BT hardware) as oposed to bt's ADSL (the usual "up-to" 8Mbps), which straight away means you're likely to get a faster connection. i'm not sure if they turn away people too far from exchanges, though BT are likely to do the same thing. i know for a fact i only get 2.5 Mbps off an up-to 8 Mbps and they're quite happy to sign me up. The problem is, because they have to install their own hardware in each exchange, they obviously haven't enough time or money to do it everywhere. here's a list of where is / isn't enabled:
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/dsloperator.php?provider=be
they're also owned by O2 who have just started their own BB package, so they're likely to start enabling many more exchanges in the future.