Citizens as important as the UK government’s e-Envoy Andrew Pinder ‘who is charged with persuading the nation to embrace the latest technologies’ ought to be fully tooled up for broadband Internet by now.

Yet embarrassingly for the government, BT’s ADSL broadband service is not available in Pinder’s home town in south Shropshire and is unlikely to arrive there before 2005, if at all.

A bigger embarrassment for communications giant BT is the fact that at least one of its own directors cannot get themselves a high-speed line because of the current shortcomings of the technology.

Perhaps they should contact cable operators such as NTL or Telewest and see if they can get a cable modem line installed instead?