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ISP Andrews and Arnold Launch 160Mbps FTTP UK Broadband Plan

Friday, Jul 6th, 2018 (1:10 pm) - Score 6,407

Internet provider Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) have complemented their recent trial of a G.fast based ultrafast broadband product today by launching a new 160Mbps (30Mbps upload) capable tier for Openreach (BT) based Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology, which was previously only available at speeds of up to 80Mbps.

Technically speaking the new tier has actually been available via their ordering system for a couple of weeks (we were listing it prior to the G.fast trial) but the official announcement came today. Monthly prices for their home 160Mbps FTTP tier will start at £50 inc. VAT (plus £100 one-off to install) with a 200GB data allowance.

Obviously 200GB is a bit small for ultrafast broadband and thus you can order more data, albeit with prices rising to £60 a month for 300GB or £65 for 1000GB (1 TeraByte). Sadly there are no unlimited plans with AAISP but the 12 month contract package does include a free ZyXEL VMG3925-B10B router and static IP address (IPv4 and a routed block of IPv6s). Take note that the 80Mbps (20Mbps upload) FTTP tier is £10 cheaper.

Andrews & Arnold Statement

We are pleased to announce that 160M FTTP services are now available to existing and new customers.

Customers with an existing 80M FTTP service can email in to our sales team to request an upgrade. The 160M option costs an extra £10/month. New customers can order via our order/quote form: https://order.aa.net.uk/chaos2broadband.html

A couple of important notes…

1. If you use the availability checker, either use a phone number of a line at the address, or use a postcode and follow the link to do a full address check. Just checking on postcode is not good enough.

2. We are not doing FTTP-on-demand. All the quotes we have done have been crazy (more than a normal fibre Ethernet install in some cases) and as we understand it from other ISPs the lead times and hassle are still untenable.

The usual coverage caveat applies with FTTP, which is that at present Openreach’s network can only cover 560,000 UK premises (i.e. very few can take it) but they do expect to reach 3 million by the end of 2020 and possibly 10 million by around 2025.

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
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 .
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Comments
46 Responses
  1. Avatar photo Paul says:

    Completely pointless no unlimited plans!

    1. Avatar photo Don says:

      That’s a lot of porn, Paul. I’d be concerned if you regularly use over a Terabyte.

    2. Avatar photo Bob Wellman says:

      I wonder if AAISP will ever move with the times and introduce truly unlimited plans like other high end ISPs such as IDNet, Zen, Uno etc have done?

    3. Avatar photo Shane says:

      Yeah! Honestly pointless to have such a fast Internet connection with such a small usage amounts. The type of people who would pay the premiums and buy 160Mbps are people, like me, who use 2-5TB every month. AAISP are soon to be left far behind if they don’t increase their usage amounts. They may have the best this and the best that but, who honestly is gonna buy 1000Mbps and be limited to a 200GB-1TB limit. People will just go to another ISP who offers unlimited.

    4. Avatar photo Alex says:

      “The type of people who would pay the premiums and buy 160Mbps are people, like me, who use 2-5TB every month”

      Ofcom have calculated that the average family uses 190GB per month ( https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/108843/summary-report-connected-nations-2017.pdf )

      You are an outlier, most businesses don’t focus on outliers – especially ones which cost them more money to service.

      Alex

    5. Avatar photo Ian a says:

      But Alex, this service isn’t for “outliers” as the study you referenced from 2017, had an average connection of less than 36 Mbps.

      If they had ⁴ times that then their usage may change.

      You’re comparing the average speed last year, with a brand new high tier speed service, this year.

      It makes sense that users user habits have changed since then.

      It’s a backwards looking thesis

  2. Avatar photo RaptorX says:

    200GB is wholly inadequate for such a fast line and could be used up in just a few minutes of heavy downloading, eg video. Sure, it goes up to 1TB if you’ve got the money, but that’s still not enough. Dunno why they can’t have an unlimited service like every other ISP nowadays, but if not, then something like a 3 to 4TB limit as a start would be needed to use this service comfortably.

    Combined with the high prices, I don’t think this is competitive at all. The fact that they provide a great service with their products along with that advanced line control panel isn’t enough to overcome this in my opinion. Such a shame, because they’re great otherwise and I want them to succeed.

  3. Avatar photo Mr.Giraffe says:

    I get the feeling not one person who’s replied as yet grasps WBMC bandwidth costs…

    1. Avatar photo Billy The Kid says:

      So why do other decent isps offer truly unlimited bandwidth packages (BTW based)? Why are AAISP still stuck in the year 1998?

    2. Avatar photo Alex says:

      Because they don’t price their products to actively discourage customers who harm their other customers user experience.

    3. Avatar photo Billy The Kid says:

      So can you please provide evidence where for example, Uno/Xilo customers are suffering from evening slowdowns due to some users hogging up the bandwidth? Last time I checked Uno don’t charge a fortune for their services and users are (generally) very happy with their services. I’m just trying to ascertain what makes AAISP so special.

    4. Avatar photo Wujek Pawel says:

      @Billy The Kid, I think Alex meant that AAISP has very poor peering connection and they need to limit their users to keep it running.

    5. Avatar photo Alex says:

      Lists of peering by AS and size are public record.

  4. Avatar photo RaptorX says:

    Regardless, it makes their products uncompetitive. The customer doesn’t care about WBMC’s costs, just what they can get for their money, so a small cap like AAISP offer is totally uncompetitive with today’s unlimited services from decent ISPs such as Zen. Coupled with a high price, they won’t sell many of them.

    Myself, I’m stuck with ADSL at 20Mb/s and yet I can easily top 300GB per month due to Sky on demand video downloads and Netflix. A much faster service can chew through that amount in minutes.

  5. Avatar photo Skyrocket says:

    AAISP are conned with poor usage allowance with far expensive than other ISPs. Do your own maths! I agree with some of you, that AAISP should bring in UNLIMITED usage ages ago!

    1. Avatar photo simon says:

      Yes Max, we agree, (not)

  6. Avatar photo ml263 says:

    I’m currently on a limited package, with ZEN, and although I’d probably use a bit more if I went to faster speed or an unlimited package. Let’s face it nearly all the ‘unlimited’ packages most isps promote have a fair usage policy. The moment many decide you have abused the deal you get asked to reduce usage or asked to upgrade to a more expensive option.

    1. Avatar photo Dude Lebowski says:

      Dude, FUP was scrapped by ISPs many years ago! Wake up we’re in 2018, not 1995.

    2. Avatar photo RaptorX says:

      As Dude said, there’s no FUP any more.

      Also, I find it hard to believe you’re actually on a capped service from Zen when they don’t even offer it anymore.

      Are you shilling for someone, maybe? 😉

    3. Avatar photo simon says:

      BT infinity never did – I did 31TB in a month on it – Plusnet 29TB and VM over 40TB! (on 350)

      So no, you are wrong.

    4. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      Hi Pete C 🙂

  7. Avatar photo Dave says:

    Those prices are an absolute joke –

    160Mbps @ £50 for 200GB, £60 for 300GB & £65 for 1TB

    I get 350Mb from Virgin for £32… unlimited, because it’s not the 90’s.

    1. Avatar photo Simon says:

      Lucky you i pay £42

    2. Avatar photo simon says:

      I’d still have it Dave,My moan is that it’s not available to me -NOT that it’s expensive!

      So can’t have won’t get it more my line on this – ucking BT :/

    3. Avatar photo simon says:

      Note. I could use the upload – and I believe it is not counted by AAISP anyway – although that’s not a reason to abuse it.

  8. Avatar photo Bill says:

    I have considered AAISP a numer of times. Each time it was apparent that I would be better off getting two separate connections for the price of one fttc service from AAISP. Even if the AAISP service is brilliant I suspect two services with different, cheaper ISPs would be more reliable.

  9. Avatar photo CarlT says:

    I am bemused by the complaints about Andrews and Arnold. If you don’t like their packages don’t buy them. They’re doing fine for right now without your business. Indeed they don’t want your business as they don’t have adequate scale to support it while preserving the quality of their service.

    By the same token I’m not a huge admirer of the prices of super cars, yachts and Rolex watches. I’m not obligated to buy them so can’t really complain.

    1. Avatar photo Padre John says:

      AA support is terrible. Calls are slow to be answered with only around 60% of my calls answered eventually. Usually by a typically obnoxious ‘IT Expert’. And don’t get me started on their firebrick firewall! Worst firewall I have ever came across in my career. And if you are tempted, please call them and ask how to do something on it first. They have remote access set up by default which I don’t like and they have almost zero knowledge of their own product. Just don’t bother

    2. Avatar photo Ferrocene Cloud says:

      Carl, part of the problem I have with A&A is that I think the company is run with something of a “we’re a small business” loser mentality. They are a small business, because they run the company in such a way that it’s never competitive for 99.999% of people, meaning they don’t get the business so they can not remain a small business. Which also means you end up with worse deals from providers, worse peering agreements, etc.

      This is a real shame, because it would be great to have a large player in the market who actually cares about customers. Plenty of people would be prepared to pay more for a better service, but only up to a point. You put out products that aren’t competitive, you won’t get much business.

      My own employers were formed at around the same time as A&A. I am not aware of any contention issues on our network or with the WBMC platform. We have completely eclipsed A&A in terms of size. We don’t have to put usage limits on our products. We’re staffed 24/7, etc.

      Who are businesses likely to go with, a company like us where if it breaks at 2AM on Sunday we’ll pick it up instantly (even if we’re bound by the Openreach 9-5 SLA, we can often fix a fair amount remotely), with no usage limits, and it’s £10 a month cheaper? Or are they going to go with A&A’s “we’re not the bottleneck” attitude and all the limitations that come with it. While we’re also not the bottleneck?

      A&A are doomed to remain small because they make themselves uncompetitive in the market place.

    3. Avatar photo Steve Blake says:

      @Cloud

      Well said! Just for comparison purposes, I remember Zen back in 2005 who were mainly a business only ISP & hosting company back then and hardly anybody had heard of them. They were – like AAISP – very expensive and offered piddly download limits on all of their DSL services. They certainly weren’t the ISP of choice for many. However over the next 10+ years they slowly expanded and because they had more customers (= increased revenue = increased profits), they eventually got rid of download limits as they were able to buy bandwidth cheaper from their suppliers – something which AAISP fail to grasp the concept of. Of course Zen are far from perfect, just like AAISP are not without faults but the fact that Zen are still regarded as a quality ISP by most and don’t charge eye watering prices or have download limits proves you don’t have to stay small to be a successfull ISP/business.

    4. Avatar photo simon says:

      Very well said Carl.

    5. Avatar photo simon says:

      Ferrocene Cloud – who is this wonderful provider then?/ do tell!

    6. Avatar photo Ferrocene Cloud says:

      Simon, you’ll have to forgive me for declining to name my employer, but suffice to say what we offer is something you can get at many places elsewhere. I work for a business ISP and we’re far more interested in leased lines. I think we only have a couple of 1 gig links to WBMC so it’s not even like we’re getting a massive discount from BT due to high volume of circuits.

      For what it’s worth, I’d personally scrap xDSL entirely since leased lines are way more profitable, and way less fuss. But the point still stands, we’re not oversubscribing, and we’ve not had to tell customers you can’t do what you want, you’re using it too much.

    7. Avatar photo un4h731x0rp3r0m says:

      “Simon, you’ll have to forgive me for declining to name my employer…”

      Another nameless, faceless complaint then.

    8. Avatar photo simon says:

      Cloud.

      If your employer were great they wouldn’t mind you saying – after all don’t they want the business?

      And yet you say AAISP are small minded?

      I will forgive you – I will also go elsewhere.

    9. Avatar photo Ferrocene Cloud says:

      Simon,

      I’m not here to out myself and my employers, I’m posting behind a pseudonym for a reason, and I’m not here to gain more business for my paymasters. I’m sure they would love me to go and do unpaid marketing/shilling for them in my spare time, but I don’t work for free.

      But they’re not doing anything that other companies aren’t also doing. You’re making it out as if a reasonably priced unlimited and non-oversubscribed service is a mythical thing, when it isn’t. Do some providers do that? Sure. There are s

      I will say A&A is run with a small-minded attitude because it is. This is self evident by the mentality and lack of growth compared to the competition. And as a private individual who cares about the Internet in this country, I think that’s a bad thing and would like A&A to be a bigger and better provider.

      It’s a bit strange how hostile you are towards that.

    10. Avatar photo simon says:

      Cloud,

      Your whole attitude towards AA is hostile.

      So let’s end the conversation there.

  10. Avatar photo RevK says:

    Feedback is always welcome, especially if constructive, but at the end of the day it is simple, if you don’t like the service or the price, you don’t have to buy it. We have always tried to offer a premium service – what that means has changed over the years – indeed we were offering unlimited usage in 2000 when broadband started. I can go to lengths to explain why we sell things the way we do, but there is not a lot of point in doing so as we clearly do not offer what some people expect, and clearly do offer what some other people do expect (hence having plenty of customers). If we were trying to be a mass-market ISP we would be very different – we are not. I hope that makes some sense – but as I say, feedback is always welcome.

    1. Avatar photo simon says:

      Kick BT’s arse please get some more rollout going!

    2. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      Simon: in common with virtually every ISP Andrews and Arnold don’t deploy their own access network.

    3. Avatar photo Ferrocene Cloud says:

      Adrian,

      Hopefully what I mentioned above was taken as constructive feedback, because I do think the market needs a “good guy” ISP like A&A. I do admire a lot of what A&A does, as well as your stance (as a company and individually) on a lot of nonsense this country tries to do regarding the Internet. So A&A having more clout there is something I see as very beneficial for the UK telecomms industry.

      Forgive me for sounding like I’m telling you how to run your business, but I don’t see why you’re not more focused on seriously expanding the business, which gives you freedom to do stuff you can’t do at present.

      Other companies out-compete A&A primarily because they’re not content with a mediocre slice of the pie, and going “aw shucks we’re just a small business” as justification for never trying. Almost every company starts with very little, so why has my employer (for instance) grown dramatically larger, whereas A&A is so small that when I checked on Companies House a large amount of details were missing because they weren’t required?

      Who will get a better deal when doing to BT, Talk Talk, etc and wanting more bandwidth? Or when you do peering/transit? Or you’re putting in leased lines and want quotes? And who will companies choose when we can have that 24/7 service there, you can’t?

      A&A says nice things, but it really seems to lack any real ambition. And I think that’s a real shame.

    4. Avatar photo simon says:

      I know Carl and it’s a shame, I wish there was no major monopoly.

      I can’t even get BT to come and install the FTTPoD they say is available. I know it’s a good investment. It’ll knock my asking price up by 10K too – but can I get it even with the money ready to burn?

      Can I eck!

  11. Avatar photo hmm says:

    I get 500mbps down 500mbps up unlimted FTTP
    point to point £47 Andrews and Arnold just Milk it

    1. Avatar photo gpmgroup says:

      A&A are the best ISP we’ve ever used and that’s having re-sold quite a few other ISP’s services.

    2. Avatar photo simon says:

      Well you live in the right area then.. Not all of us are lucky.

  12. Avatar photo Simon Hayter says:

    The website design of this business is absolutely awful. It’s like visiting a way back archive and clicking 1998. Looks to me that they are most likely earning their income from previous ISDN because no-one in their right mind would order from a website looking like it does since if their website is outdated by 10 years (960.gs) what else is outdated…

Comments are closed

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