Rochdale-based ISP Zen Internet has become the first third party UK internet provider to release pricing details for its forthcoming range of commercial Fibre-to-the-Premises ( FTTP ) based ultrafast (100Mbps+) fibre optic broadband packages. BT Retail launched the first consumer FTTP services (BT-Infinity Option 3) earlier this week, which were priced from £35 per month.

By contrast Zen's initial crop of packages (Zen Fibre Enterprise) will, according to PC Pro, initially only be available to business customers and are thus roughly twice the price of BT's service. Zen did something similar with its 'up to' 40Mbps FTTC products last year, at first launching them for business users and only later extending to Home customers.

Zen Fibre Enterprise
Download Speed: 100Mbps
Upload Speed: 15Mbps
Usage Allowance (Monthly): 500GB

PRICE: £70 +vat a month

Zen Fibre Enterprise+
Download Speed: 100Mbps
Upload Speed: 30Mbps
Usage Allowance (Monthly): 500GB

PRICE: £95 +vat a month

Zen typically prefers to offer a capped usage allowance at a higher cost and without any form of Traffic Management, which is one of the reasons why it's able to offer a higher service quality. No further details were given, although a contract period of at least 12 months or possibly longer should be expected.


The service itself will initially only be available from around seven telephone exchanges (detailed in BT's announcement). Sadly FTTP is expected to play only a relatively small part in BT's national rollout of superfast broadband services, covering at least 2.5 Million premises. The rest will be delivered via its slower FTTC (speeds will increase up to 80Mbps in 2012) service. FTTP is also due a speed boost of its own next spring, when it will jump to 300Mbps.