Six indicators measure broadband speed and costs, and research shows that rural areas fall behind urban areas on every one.
The six indicators are: local-loop unbundling; services from ISPs such as Talk Talk, Sky or BT telephone exchanges enabled for its 21st Century Network; the Virgin Media cable network; broadband services of at least 2Mbps downstream; next-generation access (NGA) superfast broadband services at the end of 2010; and projected NGA services for the end of 2015. These indicators can be combined to provide a single Broadband Infrastructure Index (BII): while urban areas in Britain scored 67% in mid-2010, rural areas rated only 25%.
