BROADBAND campaigners in rural areas will know at the end of June how changes to the registration system will affect their efforts to bring faster internet access to their communities.

BT announced on Tuesday that it had scrapped its pre-registration scheme, under which a telephone exchange must sign up a specified number of interested customers before it could be converted for broadband.

BT says the move speeds up the programme and will bring the service to 99.6pc of UK homes and businesses by August 2005. Full details will be announced at the end of June.

Communities such as Hawes, which reached its trigger level only six days before the announcement, are unaffected by the change. Those which have reached 90pc would also be connected as planned, said BT chief broadband officer Alison Ritchie.

A campaigner at Hawes said: "We were always worried that BT would move the goalposts before we could hit all the trigger levels for the exchanges in Wensleydale, but we were also arguing that the most efficient way BT could enable certain exchanges was to do them in groups rather than piecemeal according to when they reached the trigger level."

The new system involves connecting groups of exchanges, rather than individual ones as they reach their trigger. BT was also working on alternatives to telephone-based broadband, including wireless and satellite, said Ms Ritchie.

The new system was welcomed by the Country Land and Business Association, which has lobbied for two years for rural broadband connection.

CLA Yorkshire regional director Dorothy Fairburn also backed BT's efforts to extend the reach of broadband from each exchange.

"If this could be increased from 5.5km to 10km then virtually everyone would have broadband," she said. She urged people to continue to register their interest, as this could help prioritise demand.

Communities which have not yet reached 90pc of their trigger levels, set in July 2002, will have to wait until June to find out when they are to be connected. They include Gunnerside and Melmerby and Kirkby Malzeard.

Very small exchanges, such as Coverdale and Jervaulx, which did not have trigger levels, will not be included in the roll-out programme. BT said it would continue to work with local authorities and other organisations to bring broadband to these areas.

Wensleydale broadband campaigners vowed to work with those in Coverdale to raise a petition to demonstrate the high demand for the service.

* MP calls for swift action: page 1