BT slashes business connection costs
Telco to halve set-up charge for SDSL products
BT is planning to halve the connection charge to service providers for its wholesale Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL) broadband products.
From 21 October the wholesale connection charge for both BT IPStream and BT DataStream SDSL business products will be slashed from £450 to £225 for orders that are set to be completed by 24 February 2005.
By cutting the costs the telco is building on BT Wholesale's decision earlier this month to double the number of exchanges that offer SDSL broadband connections from 150 to 300 this year.
"This is fantastic news. Our opinion of SDSL is that while the product is good, customers are put off by the high set-up cost, which prevents a quick return on investment," said Mike Edwards, general manager at Tiscali.
He added that his company is dealing with business customers that want to upgrade from DSL or leased lines.
"We will be forwarding this cost saving on to our customers once the offer starts in October, and we would like this price cut to be a permanent fixture after February," Edwards said.
SDSL is seen as particularly suitable for SMEs, remote office workers and teleworkers. They are the broadband users that often need multimedia applications such as fast file transfer in both directions.
Wally Freeman, BT Wholesale general manager for broadband products, said: "This special offer is designed to stimulate the take- up of SDSL services, which are still relatively new products, and to encourage our service provider customers to add SDSL products to their broadband portfolios."