ISP Aquiss Launch 500Mbps and 1Gbps Full Fibre Broadband for UK Firms
Shropshire-based ISP Aquiss has today introduced two new Managed Business Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) “full fibre” broadband products, which offer top speeds of up to 500Mbps and 1Gbps (symmetrical) for businesses in 14 towns and cities across the United Kingdom.
The “fully managed” service appears to make use of Cityfibre’s fibre optic / FTTP network and is initially available to businesses in parts of Aberdeen, Bracknell, Bradford, Bristol, Coventry, Edinburgh, Huddersfield, Hull, Leeds, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Reading, Sheffield and Peterborough.
Customers of the service will typically pay from £300 +vat per month for the 500Mbps option or £400 for 1Gbps, which both include unlimited usage, a 9 hour Service Level Agreement (SLA), Static IP address, 36 month contract and a free installation (including all the needed customer hardware). Service setup (lead time) typically takes 45 working days and this includes any site survey work required.
Description
Aquiss GPON is an extremely effective way for businesses to benefit from the exceptionally high speed and reliability provided by a full fibre connection, at a relatively low price point compared to other access methods. As such it is positioned between hybrid fibre/copper or FTTP broadband and more costly fibre Ethernet options such as dedicated leased lines.
As a full fibre service akin to a fibre leased line, our GPON solution provides essential benefits to business customers. Unlimited usage, and the absence of upgrade charges and downtime when accessing up to Gigabit speeds gives you the flexibility you may seek; while our comprehensive Service Level Agreement, rapid return to service guarantee from our technical specialists underpins your need for reliability and connected confidence.
Apparently further locations are already in deployment (final build stages) and will be added to the availability in the coming months.
UPDATE 23rd Jan 2018
Separately Aquiss are also offering the first month of service free on their unlimited ADSL2+ broadband packages for home users, as part of a “try before you buy” style promotion. However this offer is not applicable to new line installs or transfers from unbundled (LLU) ISPs.
Services start from £19.00 per month, based on a rolling monthly contract and include a static IPv4 / IPv6 as standard. The offer runs until March 2nd 2018.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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As long as the capacity planning is as it should be a business-grade symmetrical gigabit service, albeit one that’s not dedicated, for that price is sweet.
Well played Aquiss.
I’d happily pay for that if I could get it – I am a business after all
Why do business need faster 500Mbps or more. No ones in this UK country don’t need it for the next 10 – 15 years. Anything from 40Mbps to 80Mbps is more than enough for every days use.
Your reply is a generalisation and it also appears to confuse business with consumer needs. Every business will have different needs (a graphic design firm with 50 staff is radically different from a fish and chip shop or cafe etc.) and those with more employees have to share that connection between many users, not to mention perhaps needing it for other things like web hosting, order systems and so forth. It’s also not just about speed, but things like latency and reliability, which can be important.
ABBA – Try uploading a 30 min 4K video to Vimeo or you-tube (on a 30-40 mb Connection) you will understand why many firms need that type of speed
Having very fast Internet access for a few hundred a month can make the capital purchase of on-site hardware for servers and storage entirely unnecessary, meaning that spreading the workforce between multiple offices, and having a DR plan becomes a ton easier as well. Don’t just think in terms of being able to browse the Internet quicker.
I work from home and find the upload a problem at times. This on Virgin Media Voom 3. More really is better.
@ Salek – And how long does it take for Youtube/Vimeo to process those videos?
On my internet connection – upload process 2-3 hours (5-7 Gig File)
I’m referring to the time it takes for Youtube/Vimeo to process the videos on their servers and then distribute them around their CDNs.
It takes 24-48 hours for YouTube to make the videos available in 4K. It’s currently being discussed on the Product Forums with their staff.
Vimeo and YouTube processing speed(s) depend on the subscription level that you are on. The more you pay the higher the priority you get.
I am lucky in that my business pays for one of the more expensive Vimeo offerings so the limiting factor is usually the upload speed.
However the additive time of a slow upload and then processing can be an interest killer.
At one of our offices we do have 1G/1G and it really makes this kind of thing a pleasure as you just don’t worry about doing it. At home on 20Mb/s upload it is painful.
When uploaded to youtube – a low quality video is available instantly i usually have to wait couple hours more for the HD streams to be available
“I’m referring to the time it takes for Youtube/Vimeo to process the videos on their servers and then distribute them around their CDNs.
It takes 24-48 hours for YouTube to make the videos available in 4K. It’s currently being discussed on the Product Forums with their staff.”
Vimeo videos depending on your subscription level (which can cost several hundreds of pounds) videos can be made available instantly, you can even stream live in 4k (if your connection is capable). Vimeo even now have sub packages available see you can if you wanted basically be your own Netflix through them (assuming you are some cinema tycoon). They also FULLY (unlike youtube) support x/h265 formats, which is why new music videos often end up on their first (modern pro 4k and 8k cameras shoot using a H265 variant).
Youtube videos depending on how busy the servers are and if you stick to the recommended encode settings for your videos. If you do then the re-encoding typically for 4K take around 3 times the length of the file you upload (IE a 40 min file would take youtube 120mins to encode and make available publicly).
If you are a verified user on youtube, then this time is normally a touch shorter (around 2.5x or 40min video available within in 100min) the same applies if you are a recognised creator.
ANY video you upload should almost instantly be available in 360/480 resolution.
720p will normally appear within a few minutes of you finishing the upload (biggest delay for them appearing is frame formatting being too high for 720p spec).
1080p should appear within 2 hours no matter how long the file (even if the video was itself 2 hours long).
ANYONE that is having to wait 24-48 hours there is either something wrong with the video they are trying to upload, the uploading process has brain farted (which can happen for numerous reasons including user or user connection at fault) or they are trying to upload in some obscure format or a recognised format that is massively outside of the recommended specs.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171
The longest ive had to wait for an 4K upload to appear was just over 4 hours, the video was 58mins long and at the time server load was high. I even had a message on the uploading pages telling me that my video may take longer than normal to appear due to high server load, it did take a little longer but nothing significant and certainly not 48 hours.
48 hours and longer times is what it was taking when youtube first allowed 4K, not now it shouldn’t. For anyone evening trying to pretend 48 hours before your 4K video appears is normal is ridiculous, so can we please not going down that road.