Business users benefit from broadband cuts
Published: 26 Feb 2002 17:13 GMT
Business broadband customers are to make significant savings on their high-speed Internet access following BT's decision to make substantial cuts in its wholesale prices.
Following the consumer cuts, announced early on Tuesday morning, BT has cut the wholesale price of its recently launched business self-installation ADSL product, and also the earlier "engineer-installed" package, by £20. This amounts to a saving of up to 33 percent. The price cuts are scheduled to come into effect on 1 April.
Early indications are that ISPs who resell BT Wholesale's products are planning to pass most or all the savings on to end users.
Business broadband packages offer a better contention ratio -- the number of customers sharing a connection at the local exchange -- than a home user package. This means that businesses can benefit from better performance at times of peak demand. Most business offerings also generally provide higher data transfer rates, and additional services such as a fixed IP address.
The price that ISPs pay BT for the self-installation entry-level IPStream Office 500 product, which offers speeds of up to 500kbps, will fall from £60 per month to £40 per month.
The monthly cost of the IPStream Office 1000 and IPStream Office 2000 products will also fall by £20, to £60 and £80 respectively.
Self-installation products were only launched last month, so many businesses will still be using the older engineer-installed product, which is slightly more expensive.
BT has also introduced a £20 price cut for these products. The BT IPStream S500 wholesale product will now cost £45 per month from 1 April, the BT IPStream S1000 will cost £65 per month and the BT IPStream S2000 will cost £85 per month.
These engineer-installed services will incur a £260 installation fee, which also includes the cost of a modem and router. The self-install range only involves a £50 activation fee, but users must provide their own equipment.
BT has also made very significant price cuts in its consumer ADSL product, where the wholesale monthly price has fallen to £14.75 per month -- a price that could make mass-market broadband a realistic possibility in the near future.
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