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Today we have re-launched our Office::1 package!

The Office::1 package is designed to be a complete Internet solution for a small/medium sized business. The package includes installation of three new lines, two for VDSL and one for ADSL, a configured and managed FireBrick FB2900 router, blocks of static IPv6 and IPv4 addresses as required and optional 3G/4G fail over.

The connectivity comprising of bonded VDSL circuits (usually via different back-haul carriers), fail-over to ADSL and 3G/4G are designed to keep the internet working in the event of faults occurring.

The FireBrick FB2900 routers will take care of the bonding and fail over and also has other functions that customers may find useful such as its VoIP PAPX and IPsec features.

More information here: https://aa.net.uk/broadband-office1.html

(Existing customers can move to the new package if/when their initial 12 month term has completed)

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In similar fashion to our Home::1 2TB tariff increase, we're happy to announce that from August 1st the existing 2TB SoHo::1 tariff will become 5TB/month. No change in cost, this applies to existing and new customers. The 'quota bonus' will still be applied.

Our order pages and web pages will be updated w/b 30th July. Customers ordering the SoHo::1 2TB tariff during July will be changed to 5TB on August 1st.

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When we first launched our 1TB tariff, the idea was that it was meant to be 'pretty much unlimited for most people'. Most of our customers don't go over 1TB (1 terabyte) and the quota isn't something they worry about.

However, usage patterns change, people watch more streaming video and download more. In an effort to keep to the original goal of the 1TB tariff, we're happy to announce that from August 1st the 1TB Home::1 tariff will become 2TB/month. No change in cost, and the 'quota bonus' will still be applied.

Our order pages and web pages will be updated w/b 30th July. Customers ordering the 1TB tariff during July will be changed to 2TB on August 1st.

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We are pleased to announce that 160M FTTP services are now available to existing and new customers.

Customers with an existing 80M FTTP service can email in to our sales team to request an upgrade. The 160M option costs an extra £10/month. New customers can order via our order/quote form: https://order.aa.net.uk/chaos2broadband.html

A couple of important notes...

1. If you use the availability checker, either use a phone number of a line at the address, or use a postcode and follow the link to do a full address check. Just checking on postcode is not good enough.

2. We are not doing FTTP-on-demand. All the quotes we have done have been crazy (more than a normal fibre Ethernet install in some cases) and as we understand it from other ISPs the lead times and hassle are still untenable.

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Andrews & Arnold Ltd (A&A) announce first customer trial of G.Fast; the new broadband technology from Openreach, initially enabling speeds of up to 160 Mbit/sec down and 50 Mbits/sec up.

The underlying technology, a variation on existing DSL, uses several techniques to allow for theoretical bandwidths of up to 1Gbit/sec on very very short phone lines, but at present, Openreach is launching with 160 and 330Mbit options. A&A intends to offer 330Mbit services in due course, but is launching 160Mbit services on a trial basis initially.

A&A predict that the major use-case for this new broadband option will be customers who wish to achieve higher uplink speeds.

Alex Bloor, General Manager of A&A said,
"We have reached a point where, practically speaking, many users will not notice the difference between an 80Mbit service and a 160Mbit service most of the time. Even a 4K video stream, for example from Netflix, will only use a fraction of the available capacity on an 80Meg link. But what many of our customers really will benefit from is the higher uplink speed. As services like Dropbox are still gaining popularity, so the customer wish to synchronise seamlessly into the cloud becomes more and more common. And theoretical 50Mbit/sec upload should help greatly with this. Of course, the higher downstream speeds are nice too, when downloading OS updates or games, but we think it will be the upload speed that is most noticeably useful within our demographic."

The costs (at least until the trial ends) will be simply £10 added to the existing A&A pricing for FTTC. A&A will cover the cost of the install/migration on an existing phone line (ie FREE install), and a discounted ZyXEL VMG3925 is available for £25. The installation will be carried out by an Openreach engineer who will provide the modem (A Huawei MT992).

At present the coverage for G.Fast is fairly minimal, but Openreach say they are going to be rolling out service to many more locations soon; especially those which do not have an FTTP footprint.

It should be noted that these headline speeds are really only going to be available where the street cabinet is fairly close to your premises. If your cabinet is within few hundred metres then you are likely to see improvement in speeds over FTTC.

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Our Home::1 tariff has always had a fixed single IPv4 address and a block of IPv6 addresses, however, we are pleased to announce that we will allocate a /30 or a /29 block of IPv4 addresses to anyone who needs them for free.

A /30 will give you two usable addresses and a /29 will give you 6 usable addresses. (The block of IPv6 addresses gives you around 18 million trillion usable addresses!)

Contact sales@aa.net.uk if you require a block.

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We are pleased to announce new installation prices, selectable contract lengths and a new router option which has dual band WiFi.

When ordering, you can choose 1, 6 or 12 month minimum terms for ADSL and FTTC services. If you choose 6 months then the install cost is free, if you choose 12 months then the install cost and a router with 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz WiFi are both free.

These new options and prices are separate to the "copper pair" which has no minimum term.

These options are live on our website and the Quote/Order form will guide you through the available options.

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As mentioned in https://aastatus.net/2482 we are installing new fibres into BT to increase our capacity. We are now ready for customers on BT backhaul ADSL and VDSL circuits to test this.

Customers prefix their username in their router withe "test-" which will then connect through the new fibres. (eg if your username is example@a.1, change it to test-example@a.1) There should be no other differences in the service. We'd appreciate any feedback and observations being sent to trial@aa.net.uk

All being well, we hope to move the rest of the customer circuits in stages next week at which point you can remove the "test-" from your username.

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