Alton and Bishop's Waltham have emerged as two of the UK's front runners in a BT initiative to extend the availability of high-speed broadband communications.

They are the first in Hampshire and among the first in the country to hit the demand target set by BT under the company's broadband registration scheme.

The registration scheme, launched in July, allows businesses and households in areas not served by ADSL broadband to log an interest in ordering the service. Once there is sufficient demand to make the investment commercially viable, an exchange will be included in the ADSL build programme.

BT today announced that Alton had achieved its target of 350 registrations and Bishop's Waltham had reached its target of 200. They are among a group of about 20 exchanges across the UK which have so far reached their trigger levels.

Service providers are now being asked to confirm the demand at Alton and Bishop's Waltham so that work can begin on upgrading the exchanges for broadband. BT today said that the confirmation process was progressing well at both locations with Bishop's Waltham expected to achieve the required number of confirmed orders later this week.

Trigger levels, based on the cost of providing broadband, have so far been individually set for more than 650 exchanges across the UK. At present, more than 66 per cent of households are connected to ADSL-equipped exchanges.

Bruce Stanford, BT Wholesale director broadband, said: "This is another significant milestone showing the strength of our demand-led approach to the next phase of ADSL rollout.

"Other exchanges are nearing their trigger levels and the wider broadband availability this scheme is delivering will help toward BT's target of one million ADSL connections by summer 2003."

Campaigns from local residents, service providers and newspapers, which have explained the benefits of broadband, have been commended by BT Wholesale.

Bruce Stanford added: "There is no doubt that local campaigns have helped drive demand. We are still in the early stages of the confirmation process for Bishop's Waltham and Alton, but already we are well on our way to getting enough confirmed orders to allow both exchanges to be included in the ADSL broadband upgrade programme. Bishop's Waltham, in particular, is now only a handful of confirmations short of the required number."

For more information on the broadband registration scheme visit the www.bt.com/broadband website.