Broadband

Keen followers of BT’s 21CN project will know that today is the day that Wholesale Broadband Connect launches. The new service from BT Wholesale aims to bring their range of ADSL products up to speed with the LLU services of their competitors. It also introduces a range of QoS (Quality of Service) options that could be utilised for new broadband products (such as streaming video). We’ve covered the technical features of the new service extensively already.

But where are the glitzy product announcements from the ISPs? Where are the users screaming out for the 24Mbps speeds that will no doubt feature in the product headlines? They’re nowhere to be found.

When ADSL Max launched two years ago, the ISPs couldn’t even wait for the official launch day before announcing their products. The launch of Wholesale Broadband Connect couldn’t be more different. Not a single provider has formally announced their WBC-based products yet.

Furthermore, reports on ISPReview last week indicated that there is a 60 working day lead time on ISP orders for WBC links (Note that this is referring to the link between BT and your ISP). Only the two trialist ISPs (BT Retail and Entanet) are known to have WBC links in place at present.

The message from BT is clearly that this is a slow and steady roll out. Whilst we might see some of the Entanet resellers (e.g. ADSL24, Vivacti, UKFSN) announce their offerings soon, it’ll likely be a few months before there is sufficient coverage and maturity for the larger providers to step in. One also wonders to what extend the larger providers, who have already invested in their own LLU networks, will get involved in WBC anyway.