The provision of broadband access for computer users in Wales is moving into a new and potentially difficult phase.

The so-called geeks and adopters - affluent business people - are signing up at an even faster rate than Londoners, but the providers of broadband now want to crack the mass market nut.

To the uninitiated, broadband is the name given to systems designed for high-speed transmission of huge amounts of electronic data - with the potential to change the way we use both the internet and television.

The way ahead, though, is complicated by concerns that without high speed networks in rural Wales, small companies and job seekers will migrate to towns and cities.

The south Wales Valleys are a key catchment area

Businesses and home users in the south of England already see the cheap, quick application of broadband as a huge asset, but the picture is quite different in Wales.

Telecommunications regulator Oftel report that across the UK, 30,000 people a week are signing up to broadband with 1.4m signed up to broadband.

There are numerous projects in Wales - Arwain, Dawn 2, eFro, e-communities - aimed at getting more people connected online.

But in urban areas where broadband connections exist, only 1 in 50 people are signed up and the picture is even worse in rural areas - counties such as Gwynedd have just a handful of broadband users.

Broadband in Wales:

50% of schools signed up by April 1.8% of homes with broadband access are connected BT has 10,000 broadband customers

Providers such as British Telecom, NTL and Total Network Solutions are anxious to provide a cost effect network across Wales.

There are disputes about how to provide large areas of rural Wales with broadband connections.

BT are in favour of ADSL links - fibre optic cables - for the majority of urban customers and are trialling other compact methods of reaching smaller, rural audiences.

Total Network Solutions (TNS), on the other hand, are enthusiastic about wireless connections - linking up users via signals from radio masts on hilltops, which beam down to users.

On Wednesday, the business group CBI Wales was told good quality internet connections were a major requirement in a survey of firms in Wales.

The take-up of broadband to date in Wales is very low

On the plus side, BT hopes that the majority of local authorities in Wales and 50% of schools will be signed up to receive broadband before the end of March.

Currently, the number businesses and home users of broadband in Wales is in the low tens of thousands - British Telecom have just 10,000 subscibers.

TNS - who target businesses and local authorities - admit wireless broadband covers only a small number of areas, but they want to rapidly expand.

Wales is lagging behind the rest of the UK, with just 1.9% people who have access to broadband networks signing up.

Now providers have turned to the Welsh Assembly to enlist their support in stimulating the market and putting Wales on the information technology map.

Large parts of rural Wales fall into the bottom third of the rollout programme for broadband, where connecting up outlying areas will require a clear strategy and assembly investment.

Running costs

British Telecom is spearheading its own strategy to bring councils and schools across Wales online.

School pupils, for instance, would benefit from high speed connections to access material for researching projects and other more ambitious schemes.

Home users currently number among the professional classes, those who are eager to have a quick, fixed cost service they can log onto in an instant.

Firms also benefit from being online all day for a fixed cost and from being able to search the internet quickly and download and send large items of data quickly, such as new software.

Businesses - particularly those on industrial estates - are hampered by both connection issues and set up and running costs.