BT plans to deliver what it claims will be the fastest possible reliable broadband services over the phone lines of more than two million homes and businesses in the West Midlands.

New higher-speed services are to be introduced which will result in most broadband users in the region benefiting from speeds between two and four times faster than those now available.

The higher line rates will help enable people to run more "bandwidth hungry" broad-band applications at the same time, such as video, gaming and music downloads as well as e-mail and surfing the internet.

In the West Midlands, BT will this year upgrade all 437 exchanges as part of a UK-wide project to provide more than 5,300 exchanges with the fastest broadband capability that the current ADSL technology will support.

Nationally, it is estimated that more than three quarters of phone lines should support new broadband download speeds of four megabits per second (Mbit/s) and above. And for those living or working close to their local telephone exchange, line rates up to 8Mbit/s should be possible.

These faster speeds will be provided over BT's network and delivered to homes and businesses taking broadband from about 200 broadband service provider companies. The service provider companies will set prices for their customers for services based on the faster line rates.

Frank Mills, BT's West Midlands regional director, said: "BT has invested more than £1 billion to bring broadband to more than 99 per cent of homes and businesses across the UK over the past six years.

"Now we are investing again to provide communities large and small - cities, towns, villages and rural communities - with the fastest broadband services that technology will allow.

"BT is committed to making these 21st century high speed communications available to as many communities as possible over the widest area, for everyone who lives and works in the West Midlands.

"Faster broadband does not just mean faster emailing or faster surfing on the net. These higher speed services make it possible to do a whole range of new and exciting things in education, leisure, recreation and, of course, in the office: things which aren't yet possible for most customers.

"For example, people can choose from a distant library of really high-quality, high-definition films and videos at a time that suits them."

Broadband take-up among West Midlands customers is currently 23.6 per cent - slightly lower than the UK average of 28 per cent.

Many broadband service providers, including BT, have already increased speeds four-fold to up to 2Mbit/s. Some services - in particular those offered by cable firms such as Telewest - are even faster.

BT says that the ADSL broadband speed that can be supported on an individual line is governed by a wide range of physical factors including the length and gauge of the line from the exchange, electromagnetic noise from other lines in a cable or wiring within a customer's premises and the modems used.

Whilst the faster broadband speeds will apply to new orders received from service providers from March 31, it will take several months to transfer all existing customers. BT's line checker at www.bt.com/broadband is being updated to show the expected speeds available for individual lines. This will be available for all upgraded exchanges from March 31.

Those exchanges already involved in trials of these new services will already show the expected speeds possible.

Meanwhile, the UK's telecoms and media industry regulator said the number of households with high-speed internet access has pushed through the ten million barrier.

In its review of the communications market in 2005, Ofcom said there were 9.792 million broadband connections in the UK by the end of December, with 70,000 new subscriptions being signed every week.

The ten million milestone was reached in just over seven years, said Ofcom.

Retail revenues from all telecoms services rose six per cent to £37.2 billion in the 12 months to the end of September, buoyed by continued growth in the wireless sector, said Ofcom.

Mobile revenues grew by 16 per cent to £13.6 billion, while turnover from domestic and business services dropped nine per cent to £10.3 billion over the period.