AAISP UK Reveals Pricing for its 80Mbps FTTC Superfast Broadband Service

The boss of business focused internet provider AAISP (Andrews & Arnold) UK claims to have “pretty much decided the plan” for its forthcoming 80Mbps (Megabits per second) capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) based superfast broadband launch. The 80Mbps service will carry a premium of around £12 inc. VAT per month extra (on top of what you already pay).

At present AAISP already offers an up to 40Mbps FTTC (“Basic“) service that costs from around £30 per month (2GB+ peak and 50GB offpeak data usage allowance), although BT’s planned April 2012 upgrade means that a maximum speed of up to 80Mbps will now be possible for some people (most will get a lot less, depending on their distance from the local street cabinet).

As a result the new 80Mbps (“Premium“) package would probably cost from around £42 per month, which includes an elevated weighting within BT and priority in AAISP’s network for better avoiding congestion. It should also be said that the ‘Basic‘ 40Mbps package will come with upload speeds of up to 10Mbps, while the new ‘Premium‘ 80Mbps service will offer uploads of up to 20Mbps.

Adrian Kennard, Director of AAISP, said:

“Note that the premium is not guaranteeing to be faster than the basic if you have a line that will not do more than 40/10 but will still cost more for the “elevated weighting” within BT and priority in our network.

The only issue here is that some people do not fit this. e.g. People on 40/2, or on 40/10 with elevated weighting. These people will pay for basic or premium based on the elevated weighting and have the option to upgrade the sync speed for £10+VAT and restarting the 12 month minimum term. Even so, upgrading to 80/20 will not always work in that a long line may not manage those speeds – in such cases the “premium” option is still provided by elevated weighting in BT and priority in our network for the extra £10+VAT per month charge.”

Sadly AAISP hasn’t announced a launch date for its new service, although BTOpenreach is expected to end its current trials and make the service officially available to ISPs and their customers from 10th April 2012. We’ll cover this more on launch day.