Communication used to be so simple. Once upon a time we each had one basic phone line provided by one telephone company.

Today, Oxfordshire residents and businesses have a vast choice. Not only must they decide who should deliver their phone service and provide their connection to the Internet, but also how they want to connect in the first place.

Broadband is the buzz word at the heart of the telecoms explosion. But what is it and how is it already benefiting Oxfordshire businesses and homes?

Broadband is the umbrella term to cover technology such as cable and ADSL which is making the Internet quicker and more powerful than ever.

Access to the web can be more than ten times faster, enabling a wider range of services to be delivered to your home or office.

An Internet connection can be left on, allowing you to dip in and out, and to receive simultaneous telephone calls on the same line.

It enables businesses to send and receive large files, while domestic users can access the flashiest websites, listen to high quality, digitally-produced music, play fast-moving online games and watch videos.

It will only be a matter of time before you can select a film online, download it and watch a crystal clear version on your computer monitor or TV.

No figures are available for the county, but nationally more than one million people now have some form of broadband connection.

Most of the major Internet Service Providers, such as AOL, Freeserve and BT, offer broadband technology of some kind, but most people use their local cable provider -- in Oxfordshire, NTL.

The problem in this county is that cable does not serve many of our rural areas.

BT offers ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line), but you must live within 5km of a suitably upgraded exchange. There are such facilities in 14 locations in Oxfordshire, but it costs up to £500,000 to modernise an exchange.

BT runs a registration scheme to monitor how many people want to use ADSL before it considers an upgrade. Regional spokesman Jason Mann said: "There is a trigger level for exchanges to be updated but even if this is not reached and there is sufficient interest, we will look at activating it, wherever it is commercially viable."

Treve Willis, information technology director for Oxford Innovation, is responsible for broadband connections at 12 innovation centres, housing scores of technology-based start-up firms.

"We use six different systems which is expensive and inconvenient but it depends on what is available," he explained.

But despite the mix of provision, he said broadband had become a routine business tool. "We could not go back to the bad old days of a dial-up service," he added.

Another option could lie with Oxfordshire County Council which this year launched its own broadband system.

The Oxfordshire Community Network will be operating within all schools and libraries. Businesses and households could soon benefit too.

It is costing £16m, with some funding coming from the Government, but the council believes it is money well spent.

Economic regional and European policy manager Jenny Ashby said: "Once the infrastructure is in place, we plan to roll it out to the health service and further areas of public service and commercial organ- isations.

"We are confident it will serve the county well into the future."