Posted: 11th Jun, 2010 By: MarkJ

UK ISP Aquiss has quietly become the latest internet provider to launch a new range of 'up to' 40Mbps fibre optic ( FTTC ) based
business broadband packages. Much as you'd expect the service does not come cheap, with prices starting at £37 inc. VAT per month for a 45GB monthly usage allowance (Unlimited Offpeak) and rising to £65.80 inc. VAT for 180GB.
It is important to stress that these are not residential packages and have been tailored for businesses. However there's currently no mention of the 12Mbps "
Prioritised traffic" / "
Guaranteed throughput" that every other business class FTTC product has promoted.
Business 45 - £32 +vat per month
Usage Allowance: 45GB (Unlimited Offpeak)
Download Speed: up to 40Mbps
Upload Speed: up to 2/10Mbps
Choice of 1 or 8 Static IPs
Personal Webspace 500MB
Email POP3 Mailboxes 20 (Anti-SPAM/Virus Security)
Webmail
Contract - 12 Months
At the time of writing Aquiss's "
Order" button
for its FTTC products does not appear to function is disabled and they are only taking telephone sales.
Similarly the cost of installation and or any required hardware (modem) are conspicuous by their absence. The cost of installation, though not stated on the page, is just £25.
It's probably safe to assume that these will be fixed before Aquiss makes an official announcement.Aquiss Fibre Broadband
http://www.aquiss.net/broadband-fibre.php
It's hard to compare these packages with rivals until we know the full details, though at first glance they appear to sit somewhere in the middle. BT UK's '
Fibre Broadband' option for businesses offers unlimited usage (fair usage policy) for £30 +vat per month (£75 connection fee + modem), which includes 12Mbps Prioritised traffic and 2Mbps uploads. However that is on a 24 month contract, rising to £35 +vat when taken with a 12 month option.
By contrast Eclipse Internet charge £39.95 +vat per month for an almost identical deal to BT , except they offer 50GB usage during peak hours and unlimited offpeak. IDNet do something similar for £39.50 +vat per month (12 month contract), albeit with uploads of 10Mbps, an 80GB usage allowance, unlimited uploads and Low Latency / Maximum Throughput Guarantee.
IDNet also has a one-off activation fee of £47 inc. VAT, which includes the installation of a VDSL modem. They also recommend an Ethernet Router to handle the PPPoE login for £49 inc. VAT. Suffice to say that there is a lot of diversity between business class FTTC packages, which makes direct comparisons somewhat difficult.