Posted: 11th Jul, 2008 By: MarkJ
Entanet, a popular voice and data communications provider that is responsible for supplying several UK vISP's with broadband services (e.g.
Aquiss,
ADSL24 etc. -
FULL LIST), has announced the official launch date for its new up to 24Mbps broadband ADSL2+ services - Tuesday 15th July 2008. This makes them the first to offer a portfolio of ADSL2+ products based on BTs Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) service:
Commenting on the announcement, Entanets Head of Marketing, Darren Farnden, said: This portfolio comes as a result of the wealth of experience weve gathered about end users existing broadband usage and also consultation with our channel partners. Our decision to take WBC means were able to deliver both resale and wholesale ADSL2+ services that put our partners in a very competitive position.
Entanets strategy has required significant investment in both its 21CN-based infrastructure and its operations. In order to create products based on WBC it is building out its existing UK network to cover all of the 20 primary nodes on BTs 21C network. Initially were using gigabit multi-service interconnect links (MSILs) at each of the nodes to take delivery of individual connections onto our own network said Farnden. As capacity requirements increase these will be upgraded to 10Gbps connections.
The new service will be distributed in wholesale to all of Entanet's various vISPs, following a similar line of bandwidth flexibility and pricing to their existing 8Mbps packages. However, as we revealed when ADSL24 first announced their package details in May, there is a notable drawback (
news), specifically the new less practical off-peak times:
Significantly, Entanet is providing unlimited access during its 1am to 7am off-peak hours (as long as the EUs monthly allowance or any top-up is in credit). Monthly allowances and any top-ups are only used during peak hours (7am to 1am) every day. Furthermore, the company is maintaining its minimum 30 day contract policy and is also continuing to allow migrations to its products free of charge (with the exception of migrations from
LLU).
By comparison, the more attractive off-peak period of Entanet's existing 8Mbps packages is defined as 22:00 to 08:00 weekdays and Friday 22:00 through to Monday 08:00. Still, £19.99 per month for a 35GB (peak) and unlimited (off-peak) package remains very competitive pricing, though many will be annoyed at the loss of off-peak weekends.
Entanet will also be offering its vISP's and thus end-users a new guaranteed bandwidth scheme, which is detailed below:
As well as the monthly allowance packages and bandwidth top-ups, Entanet is enabling resellers to provide additional options to end user customers and so increase revenue and margin opportunities. For customers who want to ensure a higher minimum connection speed, resellers can offer an Elevated Best Efforts option, guaranteeing a minimum download speed of 3Mbps for 90 percent of the time over the busiest three hour period (depending on the achievable speed of the line).
This compares with 2Mbps on Standard Best Efforts. They are also able to offer Enhanced Care, an option which provides customers the benefit of shorter fix times in the event that their broadband connection is lost. Whilst Standard Care provides a fix time of 40 hours, Enhanced Care ensures a fix time of just 20 hours, with Openreach engineers available 24/7.
At launch, the service is available from 21CN-enabled exchanges served by 9 of the 20 nodes. By the end of September 2008 Entanet will be live at all 20 locations, enabling its partners to serve ADSL2+ services from over 200 exchanges. BTs rollout programme will see almost 900 key exchanges 21CN-enabled by May 2009.
Naturally Entanet has been able to introduce these new broadband services several weeks ahead of the pack because of their noted participation in BT's original WBC trials some months earlier. Mainstream non-Entanet ISP's are expected to follow suit in August and we'll have some details on those soon.