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Shropshire-based independent ISP Aquiss has today joined the small to modest sized group of internet providers able to offer speeds of 1.2Gbps and 1.8Gbps via Openreach’s national Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network, both of which will initially be sold at half price for the first six months of service.
The press announcement for this actually came in at the unusual time of around 8pm on a Friday night, so we’re playing catch-up a bit this morning. But as usual all of their new packages include unlimited usage, a 12-month minimum contract term, free installation, a pledge of no annual mid-contract price rises (excluding the discount offer for new customers), a static IPv4 address and static IPv6 addresses (/56). But new customers will be expected to supply their own broadband router, and you’ll need something beefy to do such tiers justice.
The 1.2Gbps package (average speeds of 1,000Mbps down and 100Mbps up) is currently being priced at £28.50 per month for the first six months of service (£57 thereafter), while 1.8Gbps (average speeds of 1,650Mbps down and 110Mbps up) will set you back £30 for the first 6 months (£60 thereafter). We’re unsure quite why the average advertised upload speed differs slightly between the two as they have the same base 120Mbps profile.
Martin Pitt, Managing Director of Aquiss, said:
“These speeds represent the very finest broadband experience available today. We’ve always believed that families who appreciate quality, reliability and thoughtful service deserve connectivity that matches their refined lifestyle. By being among the first to bring 1.2Gbps and 1.8Gbps packages to the Openreach network, we’re offering our customers an exquisite, future-proof digital foundation they can truly indulge in.”
Aquiss claims to be “among the first” to launch these tiers via Openreach, but in fairness there are quite a few ISPs now able to offer it (e.g. Zen Internet, iDNET, EE, Freeola, Vodafone etc.) and many of those began doing so between 1-2 years ago. Most of those will also bundle an included router.