BT's self-imposed deadline for implementation of Dsl MAX on exchanges across the UK is now only a matter of hours away. Reports on a number of fora would suggest that there has been a LOT of activity at people's exchanges right across the country with more than 75 exchanges already enabled to provide the upgraded broadband services.
Once upgraded your DSL service will be enabled to provide a MAXIMUM of 8Mb/0.45Mb download/upload speeds...remember these are under optimum conditions (line length, cable quality, hardware in your house !) and for the first 10 days or so the 'rate-adaptive' service will sit on your line 'learning' the optimum speed at which it can synch with your hardware.
Here's a useful site that gives an indicative linespeed you might expect for MaxDSL.
This is a tremendous site giving a lot of information on your exchange status.
If you have other useful Broadband-related resources please post them here in reply and I will update the post and most probably make sticky.
Scott