Broadband News

BT's announced it's finally rolling out its Wholesale Broadband Managed Connect (WBMC) over IPstream Connect and - while the name alone may a technophobe's worst nightmare - the move promises to be good news for mainstream broadband users. As part of BT's plans for its 21st Century Network, it could now be easier and cheaper for ISPs relying on BT Wholesale to speed up their services for end users.

Before the brain-meltingly titled "Wholesale Broadband Managed Connect over IPstream Connect" emerged, ISPs like Entanet had to resort to the "Wholesale Broadband Connect product with IPstream Connect" - meaning, on the face of it, the change is only one for spot-the-difference enthusiasts. In practice, it means those ISPs that want to market their own brand of "up to" 24Mbit/s product no longer have to employ the costly set-up of providing their own "backhaul links." They can now rely on BT to handle that for them.

Despite all the painstaking jargon involved, BT Wholesale has promised the implications of this will be of noticeable benefit to the ISPs that make up its clients. "This service opens the door for communications providers, particularly our smaller and mid-tier customers, to offer their end users next generation broadband services including the up to 24Mbit/s copper services and fibre access," says Sian Baldwin, Director, Broadband and Content Services at BT Wholesale. "It also provides new entrants with the opportunity to play in the broadband market."

Ultimately the move should make it easier for ISPs to migrate their customers from the ageing BT 20th Century Network (where we're likely to be talking about ADSL and speeds of around 8Mbit/s) to its 21st Centurt Network (where we're more likely to be talking ADSL2+ and "up to" 24Mbit/s). However, it's worth noting that 21st Century Network technology has only been installed in forty per cent of exchanges serving homes and businesses in the UK so far. BT's target is to have it in place in fifty-five per cent of exchanges by spring 2010 - along with fibre services within reach of a million UK homes and businesses by March.

Predictably, the ISPs featured in BT's press release on the matter were excited by the new developments. "We have been working closely with BT Wholesale on 21CN and we are really excited about the benefits that WBMC and IPstream Connect offer," chirped Andrew Dickinson of Griffin Internet. "IPstream Connect is a far more efficient way of interconnecting with BT Wholesale’s IP backbone and WBMC will bring faster and more business-grade ADSL to the small and medium-sized business market." For exactly how exciting said new developments really are, we'll have to wait until we get word from a less partisan horse's mouth.