AAISP to Offer Pricey 1 TeraByte Home ADSL Broadband Package

UK ISP Andrews and Arnold (AAISP) has announced that they intend to launch a new package for bog standard ADSL2+ (up to 20Mbps) based home broadband lines, which will give customers 1 TeraByte of monthly usage (a huge increase on the current 100 GigaByte [0.1TB] cap). But it’s not cheap.

At present the existing Home::1 package costs £25 per month for 100GB or £35 for a 200GB usage allowance, which includes a free wireless router with IPv6 support (plus one IPv4 address) and a 6 month contract term. Additional usage can be added at £10 per 50GB and you can upgrade to an FTTC (VDSL) line for another £10 per month. Similarly Line Rental (+£10) is also optional.

By comparison the forthcoming service will cost £40 per month, but you’ll get 1000GB (1 TeraByte) of monthly usage and few people on such connections ever use even close to that much data. The service is also very close in price to their existing £60 per month Home::1T package, but that one adds an ‘up to’ 80Mbps capable FTTC service and includes line rental.

AAISPs Statement

“Following the recent launch of our special Home::1 VDSL Terabyte package we are planning a new ADSL version.

Home::1 ADSL Terabyte will be just like normal Home::1 ADSL services but offering 1TB download allowance per month, then slowing to 3Mb/s if you hit the limit. No top-up or excess charges.

The service will be £40/month including VAT, but not including the phone line. You will need a phone line with someone, or we can provide a broadband only line for £10/month as usual.

The service is only available on TalkTalk back-haul, so not available everywhere. Anyone on BT back-haul will have 14 day lead time and a short outage on the line to regrade. Anyone on TalkTalk back-haul will just have this as a normal tariff change applied from the next bill date. Either way, no cost to change to this. The install price as a new service is the same as normal Home::1”

At present AAISP have yet to resolve a capacity issue with TalkTalk’s back-haul supply across their core network and they won’t introduce the new service until that is fixed, which should happen later this month. It’s important not to confuse TalkTalk’s wholesale connectivity with their low rated retail ISP; the two are very different solutions.

However the appeal of AAISP’s new package, even given the provider’s reputation for strong customer support and business features, is likely to be a tough sell at £40 for just an ADSL / ADSL2+ based broadband connection. Plenty of other good quality ISPs will now do “unlimited” usage for significantly less than £40. But existing customers may welcome the upgrade.