UK ISP Aquiss Cut FTTP Superfast Home Broadband Prices
Shropshire-based UK ISP Aquiss has just announced a price cut across their range of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based unlimited “superfast broadband” packages (12 month contract with static IPv4/v6 addresses). On top of that they’ve also removed the requirement of needing to take out copper phone line rental.
The changes mean that monthly rentals now start at just £30 inc. VAT per month for their entry-level 35Mbps (average speed) tier and all of the plans come with half price discounts for the first three months of service (e.g. cuts the entry-level package from £30 to £15), although you still have to pay a £100 upfront setup fee. No router is bundled so you’ll need one of those too (most people can just use an existing one).
Sadly Aquiss don’t yet offer “ultrafast broadband” (100Mbps+) speeds on their FTTP plans, although it’s very important not to confuse the stable speeds and strong reliability of FTTP packages with the slower hybrid fibre FTTC services. For example, their fastest £34 per month plan advertises an average speed of 67Mbps (16Mbps upload) but with FTTP you’re far more likely to hit the maximum rate of 80Mbps (20Mbps upload) than on FTTC.
Separately we note that around £2 has also been reduced off the monthly rental for some of their other ADSL2+ and FTTC based packages.
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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Good to hear. Been with Aquiss for years. They are more expensive than your typical mass market ISP’s but offer a far superior service.
Also love that when you ring you actually get through to people that know what they’re talking about and are actually interested in helping you.
Definitely recommend these guys 🙂
I notice they don’t provide a router with their FTTC service, which would add a bit of expense as the one I have doesn’t support FTTC unfortunately.
Less than £35 for a VDSL router, also Aquiss isn’t a bucketshop ISP like TalkTalk etc.
@TWKND It’s a tough one for us supplying inclusive hardware due to mix of customers we have. We literally have 80 year old customers alongside embassy buildings and everything in between, so finding kit that caters for all mixes and maintain the same retail price for all, is practically impossible. What we found when we asked our customers, was most wanted to supply their own hardware.
However, we would recommend to TP-Link VR400 for a general mass market router.
Does the TP link have an MCT pass?
Id be more concerned about the millions of BT hub 6’s and BT Smart Hub 1 for FTTC/ADSL users and the new BT Smart hub 2 (its prototype BT Smart hub X) and before that the Huawei MT992 FOR G.Fast and higher not being on some ridiculous MCT list before you attempt to knock a small ISPs advice on modem/router choice.
Of course if you know better you can always link to the latest list with those on it rather than just say they are to give the user an more informed choice.
Own brand ISP routers all have to pass the MCT test, even BT’s, but the list that exists in public is not actually the full list. Only Openreach have access to all of the models tested, approved or failed and they won’t release it.
None of the devices i mention have ever been on a publicly available list.
The Huawei MT992 is not a Openreach or BT branded device (much as they like to make you think it is by shoving a openreach label on it). That device for G.Fast was actually used by an ISP in the UK (part of the cablcom group) before BT even finished trials of G.Fast.
If the list in open domain is not the full list of approved devices then how is does a smaller ISP choose what brand when not their own of devices to supply?
For reference i can name at least one ISP (which is actually on you sites list of ISPs) that supplies a choice of 3 different models of TP-Link (including the AC1200 VR400 and the AC1900 VR900 devices).
Likewise i can also name ISPs that supply gear such as Billion devices which have never appeared on any public MCT list either.
As for all own brand including BT’s have all passed MCT/BT SIN 498 thats interesting…
How did the ECI Modems pass when they are unable to do G.INP AKA G.998.4 properly then? Which is a requirement.
https://www.btplc.com/SINet/SINs/pdf/498v7p5.pdf
They will not do that even when connect to a capable Huawei cabinet.
Hilariously they want modems to be able to do that yet ECI cabinets also never managed to even get it to work properly (i wonder if they will start another attempted trial again as they did in 2017 and 2018).
Funny how their own kit can play fast and loose with the rules but as soon as a small ISP recommends a brand not on some public MCT list as if by magic a pester questions about pointless MCT tests appears which even BT/Openreach own kit can not meet and is not on the public list.
Or short version i killed his spiel before it started.
Makes you also wonder how Sky devices passed SIN498 when they previously used MAC Encapsulated Routing (M.E.R) or to use its proper name RFC.1483. Alongside the RFC.2132 DHCP option.
Where as the BT SIN document calls for PPPOE (also known as RFC.2516) and RFC.2131 for DHCP options.
SO there is devices (more than one) on the public and no doubt not public list that does not even meat the basic requirements but is some how approved LOL
No G.fast offering?
Ultrafast products will arrive start of Q3