UK ISP Aquiss Moves to Retire ADSL Broadband Packages

Shropshire-based UK ISP Aquiss has today announced that they intend to withdraw their old copper line ADSL and ADSL2+ based broadband packages from 31st December 2019. Existing customers will continue to be supported but their main focus will now be on fibre-based FTTC, FTTP / FTTH and GPON products.

The announcement comes after a similar development was confirmed by Vodafone, which intends to completely retire their legacy Bulldog unbundled (LLU) ADSL broadband network from 15th of November 2019 (here). No doubt we’ll see more ISPs going down this route in the future as consumers increasingly upgrade to hybrid fibre and full fibre lines.

The move toward all-IP networks and cost changes at the wholesale level also represent some of the other driving forces behind such changes (e.g. Ofcom has made Openreach’s 40Mbps FTTC tier a lot cheaper).

Martin Pitt, Managing Director of Aquiss, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We originally announced back in August 2018 that we planned to place a stop sale of new ADSL orders from December 31st 2018, which at the time accounted for less than 3% of new sales for Aquiss. Following that decision and feedback we received at that time, we reviewed the original stop date and extended it to December 31st 2019.”

As ADSL orders now only account for just 0.5% of new orders for Aquiss, we can now confirm that December 31st 2019 will be the confirmed final stop sale date for both ADSL and ADSL on both 20CN and 21CN platforms.”

Obviously such news is likely to be seen as a negative by those who have yet to receive any fibre based broadband availability in their areas, although that gap is continuing to shrink.