The new offerings replace its existing ADSL and ADSL2+ product sets and will be available from 30 March 2009. Customers will be offered the same terms and conditions regardless of whether they choose an underlying rate adaptive ADSL or ADSL2+ connection. Alternatively, for a small additional amount more per month, they can select a fixed rate ADSL connection in a choice of 512Kbps, 1Mbps or 2Mbps speeds.
Entanet’s Head of Marketing, Darren Farnden, says that the changes will make it much easier for customers to understand their options and for resellers to promote and sell Entanet’s broadband services. “Entanet has always aimed to provide a consistent set of options and now that our extended network is fully operational, our partners can offer greater stability at potentially faster speeds of up to 24Mbps, depending on the line quality. More importantly, this means that they can offer ADSL2+ at no extra cost. Our simplified pricing structure will enable them to do this without presenting the customer with a complex array of choices – they can simply select the service that meets their bandwidth requirements and matches their budget.”
In July 2008, Entanet became the only non-BT company to launch ADSL2+ packages on BT21CN, having extended its UK network to utilise the Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) platform. Through this latest development, the company has made its broadband offering easier to understand and order. Where an exchange has been ‘WBC-enabled’, customers are able to buy ADSL2+ broadband, which delivers greater stability at potentially faster speeds of up to 24Mbps (depending on the quality of their line). Similarly, Entanet currently remains the only provider to be using the IPStream Connect product to deliver IPStream traffic over BT21CN backhaul, another factor that contributed to the rollout of the new products.
Farnden points out that, over the past few months a number of new ADSL2+ offerings have been made available in the UK. This has created a bewildering array of options for the customer. Entanet’s unified pricing model is designed to make choices simpler for both businesses and consumers.
The company’s new portfolio also clearly distinguishes between the needs of business and residential users with specific package options. The new ‘Business’ packages meet key requirements such as traffic prioritisation during the working week, monthly allowance options ranging from 15GB to 180GB and the hours these allowances are used appropriate to business users. The new ‘Family’ packages meanwhile are available in six-monthly allowance options ranging from 1GB to 120GB.
Significantly, Entanet has retained its policy of making the weekend period uncharged. “Feedback from end users and our partners strongly suggested we maintain this key product feature” says Farnden.
Customers will also benefit from a simplified payment process for excess bandwidth usage, helping them to control their monthly spend. They will be able to choose to pay for additional bandwidth on a pre-pay basis through the purchase of top-ups or on a post-pay per 1GB basis with a set upper limit. Unlike the former packages, no administration fee for over-usage will apply and bandwidth is only charged for during specified allowance times. Outside these times bandwidth usage is uncharged.
New customers will be able to purchase the new packages from 30th March 2009 when the existing packages will be officially withdrawn from sale. Existing Entanet customers will be moved to their choice of new package from their next billing period start date after 30th March 2009.