Radio Free Europe

While telecoms giant BT continues to plod on with its glacial roll-out of ADSL in the UK, a company from Luxembourg of all places is looking to head them off at the pass .. using radio masts. Tele 2 are offering their "Wireless DSL@Home" service, which involves installing a "compact radio receiver" on your roof and then attaching it to a "Speedbox" inside your house. This plugs into your network hub, or an ethernet card if you don't already have a LAN in your home. The whole job should only take two or three hours.

The trial service costs just £9.99 per month, but before you get too excited it only provides a data rate of around 150Kbps. Looking on the bright side though, it won't tie up your phone line, doesn't incur any per-minute call charges, is faster than a modem or ISDN, and is a true "always on" service, meaning that you are connected to the internet through it for as long as you have the power switched on. At the moment only a few areas are covered, but by a quirk of fate they include my own home town of Leicester. Other regions included in the trial include Nottingham, Leeds, Bradford, Reading, Thames Valley, Bracknell and Wokingham. To find out more, or to see if your area is covered, check the Tele 2 website.