Annex M is the latest optional addition to BT Wholesale’s next generation broadband Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) copper service. It works by increasing an end user’s upstream line rate by sacrificing some of the downstream line rate.
BT Wholesale believes the service will be especially appealing to wholesale customers’ small and midsize company end users that want to advance to the cost-cutter efficiencies of VoIP, video conferencing and IP VPN tails.
Mirroring the WBC ADSL2+ footprint, Annex M is already available from exchanges serving 55 per cent of UK homes and businesses and BT Wholesale intends to extend its WBC rollout to 75 per cent by spring 2011.
It is a rate adaptive product that will synchronise up to the highest upstream line rate possible with Dynamic Line Management controlling the stability and performance of the line.
Pre-launch trials revealed that typically Annex M can deliver an upstream line rate uplift of between 200kbit/s to 1Mbit/s by sacrificing 10-15 per cent of the line’s downstream bandwidth.
Colin Annette, Client Director for the Communication Service Provider Group, said: “Network resilience and reliability are essential for our customers. With Annex M dependability is built in to protect business-critical applications with a Service Level Guarantee. This ensures that our customers, and their end-users can be sure of an upstream IP throughput of 85 per cent of the line’s synchronisation speed every working day.
“Annex M allows our customers to expand their portfolio and so find themselves in a better position to tailor – and differentiate – their broadband services by matching them more precisely to the needs of individual businesses. Annex M is just one of the one of the number of broadband developments to help our customers deliver an ever better customer experience and grow their sales in the mixed economy marketplace.”
Leading the BT channel charge is wholesale communications provider Entanet who say that while the service is useful to residential customers uploading photos to social networking sites, gaming or managing their own websites, it brings obvious benefits to business customers.
Entanet’s Head of Service Operations, Neil Watson explains: “The increased upload speed better supports the requirements of remote workers and regional offices that regularly need to send and receive large files, download and upload information to and from company VPNs and use systems dependent on appropriate two way speeds, such as SaaS and VoIP. The guaranteed hours of throughput (8am-5pm Monday to Friday) also make this significantly important to business customers.”
The launch of Annex M on Entanet’s resilient national next generation network represents a significant step forward for resellers and their customers alike, says Watson: “The ability to trade download speed to increase upload speed using Annex M has only been available from LLU communications providers until now and this development is significant to any customer using a BT 21CN based service and any reseller using the BT 21CN platform.”
The new service, launched 02 August, is available for all Entanet resale and wholesale partners to order via the Entanet Partner site for an additional monthly fee. Watson continues: “Annex M gives customers the chance to improve their performance cost effectively and gives resellers the opportunity to add value to their service offering to customers, in the process earning additional monthly revenue from this and associated services which are supported by the increased upload speed, such as VoIP, SaaS and so on.”