THE Forest of Dean and Wye Valley is falling into a high-tech black hole as the rest of Britain climbs on the internet "superhighway."

The district needs a huge surge of interest from local businesses and private subscribers to enable broadband – the super-quick internet access system – to be supplied by BT.

They need a minimum of around 400 subscribers for each exchange – but so far the Forest can muster only a handful, 16 in Cinderford, nine in Coleford and eight in Lydney. Chepstow has 44 and Ross 15, while Monmouth has 18 expressions of interest.

Throughout the rest of Britain 66 per cent of household and business internet users are already connected to the broadband service.

"Basically broadband converts the two wires which serve your telephone into a high speed line, like a motorway, able to move things much, much quicker," a BT spokesman told the Review.

"Broadband satellite access can be achieved anywhere in the UK but this tends to be a more expensive service."

However it costs BT between a quarter of a million and half a million pounds to install the equipment at each exchange which was why they had to ensure a certain number of customers ahead of the work.

"This will bring benefits not only to businesses small and large but will also benefit households and influence the whole way we do things – downloading video games of music and that sort of thing," said Toni Fagan of Lydney Area Partnership.

"As for businesses, anyone who has had to move large files knows how it can lock up machines – this will be a boon."

And Chepstow businessman Roy Parkhouse said it needed quite a few more to register before the Chepstow exchange – threshold 400 – qualified for an update, even though there were 44 registrations.

It is now possible to register an interest in BT through an ISP (internet service provider) of your choice, who will forward details to BT to add to threshold totals.

Website http://www.bt.com/">www.bt.com/ broadband/ gives details of how to register.

Once broadband is introduced a basic BT plug-in-and-go service will cost (including VAT) £85 installation and £29.99 monthly for householders for unlimited access and slightly more for business users.