AAISP Launch New UK G.fast Ultrafast Broadband Service Trial
Internet provider Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) have today become the latest to launch a 160Mbps download and 50Mbps upload capable (maximum potential speed of the tier) G.fast based “ultrafast broadband” package as part of a new trial, which may be followed later by a 330Mbps capable plan.
At present the new hybrid fibre G.fast technology is only available to a little over 1 million UK premises, although Openreach are aiming to cover 10 million by the end of 2020 (see the latest rollout announcement). AAISP will charge a premium of +£10 extra per month for the new service above their existing Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) product, which means that their cheapest option with line rental will start at £55 inc. VAT per month with 200GB of usage or £70 with 1000GB.
A&A will also cover the cost of the install/migration on an existing phone line (i.e. FREE install) and a discounted ZyXEL VMG3925 router is available for £25. The installation will be carried out by an Openreach engineer who will provide the modem (Huawei MT992).
Alex Bloor, General Manager of A&A, said:
“We have reached a point where, practically speaking, many users will not notice the difference between an 80Mbit service and a 160Mbit service most of the time. Even a 4K video stream, for example from Netflix, will only use a fraction of the available capacity on an 80Meg link. But what many of our customers really will benefit from is the higher uplink speed.
As services like Dropbox are still gaining popularity, so the customer wish to synchronise seamlessly into the cloud becomes more and more common. And theoretical 50Mbit/sec upload should help greatly with this. Of course, the higher downstream speeds are nice too, when downloading OS updates or games, but we think it will be the upload speed that is most noticeably useful within our demographic.”
The price point and usage caps currently make A&A the most expensive G.fast provider on the market, although they are more aimed at business users and have stronger service quality than most other ISPs. As this is a trial then at present you can only purchase the service by running through the ‘Availability Checker‘ on their website to see if it’s available (if so then you have to email trial@aa.net.uk in order to progress an order).
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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Adrian is going to have fun ranting at BT when one of his customers gets nowhere near the speeds promised or falls short of this (more than likely short lived) 100Mb promise for G.fast users from BT.
I would guess and look forward to an entertaining read on his blog inside of oh about 3 months from now 🙂
I don’t think Adrian will have sleepless nights over this. The market demand for G.Fast will be very low, as G.Fast is mainly deployed in areas which already have good VDSL services anyway.
not here its not and its very good coverage
All pointless scam.
We need to evolve towards a system which only allows advertisers to advertise a product available anywhere,and at a speed available anytime.
Otherwise the exercise is pointless,is it not?
R
Like where your nearest Waitrose is 50 miles away.
No.
@TheFacts: You don’t need a Waitrose, do you? It’s different with broadband. At least you’ve gone off the idea of having the taxpayer pay for it all.
@GN – for the record I never had that ‘idea’, it was, as you know, proposed as one of many options.
@TheFacts: You brought it up in a previous forum discussion, this notion of a government funded fibre rollout, though you now claim it’s not your idea. If you don’t want the taxpayer to fund widespread fibre, then come up with a better proposal.
BTW.: You are welcome to shop at Waitrose, or wherever, but stop posting silly statements on this forum, no one takes you serious here.
What you propose means no broadband of any form can be advertised. In fact, neither can dial up, as you can’t get a phone line at the top of mount snowdon or a random scottish island without massive excess construction charges.
Even satellite is unavailable in the shadow of a cliff, so neither can that be advertised.
Mains gas and mains sewerage have less coverage than broadband, so obviously those can’t be considered advertiseable products either.
Or you could just use virgin
if they match the upload then hell yeah
Virgin. You must be kidding. I live in Leeds and my service is rubbish. Dropping all the time. 3 new hubs. Can’t even use playback. Rubbish customer service etc. Can’t wait to dump it.
Have you seen the state of their network?
https://twitter.com/VirginMediaCabs
It’s fine around here I have 2 lines res 350 and business 350 and both work fine 24/7 max speed. My area was rubbish for a few years but they sorted it.
and of course there are areas where Virgin constantly drops promotions via Royal Mail, (because this postcode district ‘L20’ has over 70% coverage) but has no plans to serve certain locations (the estate on which my cul-de-sac is located has some 300 households – previously 400 but one block of flats was demolished rather than being refurbished)…
So good luck, if you have the option of Virgin, but my short-term plan is to move to another district and then use Hyperoptic to jump to 1000/1000 Mbps… at about 60/month… plus some good quality ethernet switches to allow multiple systems to pull 200 Mbps each…
“Have you seen the state of their network?”
Im shocked that twitter page still exists the main background image is still laughably a BT cabinet and many cabinets with a SAxXX designation were decommissioned ages ago so im not shocked Virgin do not bother to close them as nobody is connected to them. Some how i think if a fully wired up cabinet supplying hundreds was butchered VM would know about it from the hundreds of customers that would not have service well before some twitter clown posts pictures.
Can’t say I blame you Web Dude – I am moving to Bournemouth and will take whatever I can get there.
Clifford, since when do BT have PBX equipment in street cabinets? I’ve seen VM cabs around here with equipment in like the one on the twitter page.
The banner image is not a VM cabinet. In fact just looking at the condition its clear that is a cabinet not in use, it does not even have any power cabling running into it. Like 99% of the images on that feed its a decommissioned cabinet.
I love aaisp, but 1tb, 160mbit, 15 hours a month and then you’re done.
Who wants 160mbit with such a usage limit?
agreed – they need to sort that if they are going to sell this
aaisp with their usage limits is a joke.
Agree
Would never even consider an isp that has limits. I don’t abuse my connection I just don’t expect to have to keep an eye on my usage anymore. Those days are long gone.
I am very happy with AAISP – I get a great speed which I didn’t have with other ISPs and the service is great (over Openreach or Virgin). It is more expensive but it is worth it for me. I am on the 1TB package and generally use 300-600GB per month – it is equivalent to uncapped for me. Clearly not the case for everyone but I would recommend AAISP to anyone who wanted a quality broadband connection
If you only use 300-600GB a month, you are unlikely to be in the market for a 160mbit connection. After all, your total monthly usage is 5-10 hours worth at that speed, spread out over a month.
AAISP are awesome, their products are awesome, their support is technically excellent, but I’ve had days I have used 1TB in a day after reinstalling my computer and re-downloading from Steam… If I had this I would need a backup connection.
I do use them for VoIP though.
AAISP are great, apart from their moneygrabbing. Oh you actually wanna use your line? that will be 3buzillion credits please. Oh you downloaded more than 1GB? you must be a dirty torrented… gibs more money.
They know their stuff. But man are they thirsty for money.
I’ve gone for AAISP G.Fast (was previously on their FTTC 80/20) to get the faster upload speed, since I run a server that hosts stuff at home. Upload is not counted for usage at AAISP.
As for moaning about usage caps, why? Every other ISP has some sort of restrictions, they just hide them by blocking certain ports or traffic shaping to stop torrents and other protocols they don’t like working properly, or simply being so contended and over used in the evening it slows to a crawl. AAISP don’t do any of that, I get the speed I pay for all the time and I can run any protocol I like over it.