Press release
BT today announced the introduction of a new broadband service enhancement that will enable communications providers to deliver a mix of next-generation and legacy broadband services in different geographies across the UK over a single backhaul link, offering end-users more broadband choice and flexibility.
Running over BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) the service, called Wholesale Broadband Managed Connect (WBMC) over IPstream Connect, will enable communications providers to accelerate the migration of their end users to 21CN broadband while reducing their costs.
Currently communications providers wishing to offer a UK-wide broadband service need to offer IPstream wholesale broadband internet services, such as fixed speed DSL and DSL Max in parallel with next generation broadband services which means running separate links to the internet. WBMC over IPstream Connect offers communications providers a single backhaul solution providing them the opportunity to deliver a richer service portfolio.
BT's next generation broadband services are available from exchanges serving 40 per cent of UK homes and businesses and will reach 55 per cent by spring 2010. With customer pilots under way, BT is on track to bring fibre services within reach of a million UK homes and businesses by March 2010, rising to 1.5 million by early summer and 10 million by 2012.
Sian Baldwin, Director, Broadband and Content Services at BT Wholesale said "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. It also provides new entrants with the opportunity to play in the broadband market. "
Dave Richards, Chief Technology Officer, 186k said "We are keen to continue to offer our customers the very best possible service. 186k is pleased to be participating in BT's fibre access pilot and welcomes the introduction of WBMC over IPstream Connect. Together these developments enable us to simply and cost effectively offer our customers the choice and flexibility of next generation copper and fibre broadband services as they rollout. This includes providing specialist bandwidth tools allowing customers to pay for additional capacity online and dedicated QoS options prioritising VoIP or Web services with the click of a button."
Andrew Dickinson, Sales and Marketing Director, Griffin Internet, added: "Griffin is keen to stay ahead in the broadband market so we can offer our partners and their customers the very best possible service. We have been working closely with BT Wholesale on 21CN and we are really excited about the benefits that WBMC and IPstream Connect offer."
"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."
BT Wholesale's family of next generation broadband services offers a flexible, versatile, efficient, scalable, rich broadband portfolio. The Wholesale Broadband Connect family comprises a component based service for communications providers with their own infrastructure (called Wholesale Broadband Connect) and WBMC an end-to-end managed service.
