Posted: 16th Mar, 2004 By: MarkJ
UK ISP and video-on-demand (VoD) supplier, HomeChoice, has launched new LLU (local loop unbundling) based broadband ADSL services with speeds of between 3.5 and 6Mbps. Sadly the service is only available in the North West London area:
Details of the new service can be found on the HUG forum HERE, which is a forum run by a number of HomeChoice users. The service will make use of the extra bandwidth by allowing the Internet access to run at up-to 1Mbps with an upstream of 288kbps. The TV services will use around 1.8Mbps for the Video On Demand services and 2.3Mbps for the broadcast based channels. This comes at a price point of £35/month, which is in the middle of the current price range for a simple 1Mbps ADSL service and currently they are running a £1 installation introductory offer.
The TV package consists of over 40 channels, including BBC1-BBC4, E4, Eurosport, Discovery Channel, CNN, BBC News 24, itv1, itv2 and more. This package should make it attractive to people who are perhaps looking at the Freeview digital service, because they cannot get a cable TV service from NTL/Telewest and perhaps do not want the full Sky packages. The Internet package has been beefed up also, with 12 email addresses and 100MB of webspace.ADSLGuide reports that while the service is only available in 12 exchanges, expansion is expected and a coverage map can be found here:
http://www.homechoice.co.uk/pcode/postcode.checker?sitetemplate=level1