Entanet to launch BT based ADSL2+ services next week
Entanet launches their “2Plus” range of broadband services on Tuesday 15th July. These are variable rate ADSL2+ products that will connect to the telephone exchange at speeds as high as 24 Mbits/s or as low as 288 kbits/s depending on line length, interference, extension wiring and the usual constraints of physics. In other words an “up to 24M” service.
The products are based on BT Wholesale’s Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) product which is currently available in 96 exchanges but rolling out to many of the larger exchanges over the coming months. The Samknows availability checker will indicate if WBC is available or when it is due to arrive - click on the “BT 21CN” link on the results screen.
To provide national coverage Entanet have connected their network to 20 primary nodes on BT’s new 21CN IP based network. So far they are the only ISP to do so, other ISPs may be waiting for BT’s Wholesale Managed Broadband Connect (WBMC) to give them the option of having BT do the heavy lifting and present them with a single connection point for national coverage.
The retail products, as discussed previously, are based on peak time traffic allowances starting at 3 GB/month with the option to top-up at 50p/GB. Off-peak hours are 0100-0700 and traffic is only limited in the off-peak if the user has consumed their peak time allowance. The connection will be maintained once the allowance is used up at a restricted rate of 128 kbits/s up to a further 1GB of use after which it disconnects until the end of the billing period.
By adding the 20 new interconnects Entanet now have 20 GBit/s of 21CN connection available plus 3.7 GBit/s of 20CN IPStream BT Central capacity. This should provide a good user experience for the foreseeable future. Entanet provide a public display of load on both their 21CN and 20CN connections to BT.
Entanet’s press release also contains some of the new indicative service parameters - the “best efforts” data rate will be at least 2 Mbits/s for 90% of the time over the busiest 4 hour period. If the end user pays the extra £7/month for “Office Premium” the traffic has a higher priority and the minimum best efforts rate increases to 3 Mbits/s.
ADSL2+ products come with a rate adaptive upstream rate of up to 1.4 Mbits/s which is 3 times faster than current Home products. It will be interesting to see what issues arise from this as most users currently have a rock solid upstream link, due to its conservative speed.
Entanet services are retailed by a number of companies, including ADSL24, Falconnet, Freeola, UKFSN and Vivaciti.
At the time of writing not all of the retailers have their ADSL2+ product pages available. In general the Entanet products are on a monthly contract with free inward migration (except LLU) or a setup fee for a new connection.
