Sussex surfers have been left waiting for access to a revolutionary internet technology which has been taking the world by storm.

ADSL (Asymetric Digital Subscriber Line) offers an internet connection ten to 40 times faster than conventional modems. It operates over standard telephone lines owned and operated by BT for a flat monthly fee, starting at £40, rather than a dial-up pay-as-you-go system, and has been marketed by providers as advantageous for both the frequent internet home user and small businesses.

The telecommunications watchdog OFTEL has laid down a timetable for BT to provide access to its telephone exchanges, allowing direct competitors to operate services independently.

BT has an ADSL service for its own customers and also arranges access to its network for competing ADSL providers.

Karl Robinson, sales manager at Brighton-based ISP Mistral, said: "Our ADSL service for small businesses in Sussex and beyond has become so popular we have been waiting for more lines to be allocated to us from BT.

"We have gone from being able to supply the service within seven days to having waiting times of 30 to 60 days because of demand."

Steve Andrews, president of BT Ignite Broadband, acknowledged the huge interest in ADSL and said the telecom giant had been working hard to provide the service to all.

He said: "BT's aggressive implementation plan to upgrade telephone exchanges to enable ADSL capabilities has now reached just over 650 exchanges and will be over 800 by March - this is one of the most aggressive roll-outs in the world.

"BT has invested heavily in training a team of 1,200 field engineers trained in the complex uplift procedure on the current systems in order to meet the high demand for ADSL."

Lee Cowen, 31, from Hove, won an ADSL installation and a year's free connection from a competition in a national newspaper.

He said: "The ADSL service I won was provided directly from BT. I heard I had won the prize in May last year but all sorts of problems with the local exhange meant that I finally got my access on January 3.

"It is absolutely great though and I couldn't possibly imagine going back even though it can slow down at peak times."

Martin Charlton, sales and marketing director at Horsham-based SAS Group of companies, has researched ADSL as a comm-unications solution.

He said: "There has been some criticism of ADSL because it is not always made clear you may be competing with up to 50 other users for the same bandwidth which can slow everything down.

"If you want guaranteed bandwidth you will need to pay for an ISDN connection. But for the general consumer ADSL is a great step forward."

ADSL is not the only high bandwidth solution being introduced to the area. Many of the large cable companies have developed technology suited to the fibre-optic networks they already control.

Crawley-based Eurobell has recently been taken over by national cable and telecommunications provider, Telewest.

Phil Innocent, business and marketing director for Eurobell, said: "We looked into ADSL but we then decided to concentrate on high bandwidth cable modems.

"We are a running cable modem trial in Crawley at the moment using the cable TV circuit and aim to launch the service this summer."