The company says this development in Internet access technology is delivering even faster download speeds of ‘up to 100Mbps’ by connecting fibre optic broadband directly into home or office premises. Zen’s fibre optic broadband is already bringing superfast ‘up to 40Mbps’ broadband to many of its customers across over 400 exchanges throughout the UK, with this coverage increasing to more than 600 exchanges by the end of this year.
“Zen is the first ISP to be running the ‘up to 100Mbps’ commercial trial in the four exchange areas of Bradwell Abbey (Milton Keynes), Highams Park, York and Chester South. We are already seeing download speeds that frequently exceed 90Mbps, more than 10 times the UK’s average broadband speed,” said Andrew Saunders, Head of Product Management and Marketing.
In addition to the four exchanges a further seven are in the early stages of having ‘up to 100Mbps’ fibre optic broadband services deployed. These are Ilford, Ashford (Middlesex), Wembley, St Austell, Leytonstone, Exeter and Forest Hill.
The ‘up to 100Mbps’ fibre optic broadband services have a fibre optic connection all the way from the exchange to the customer premise, line speeds are not line length dependent and should be very close to the headline speed of the service chosen.
‘We acknowledge that these new services are at a premium when compared to other broadband products, however they provide a step change increase in access speed and like all of Zen’s services are supported by a highly robust and resilient network and award winning excellence in technical support and customer service’.
‘Reliability and support are critical in business, where every second of downtime could mean lost work, lost custom and lost income. If something does go wrong, you need to know that you can get someone on the phone within minutes, and that this person will be equipped to deal with the problem at hand. Working with a good, reliable provider ensures that a business’s network is ready for the demands of today’s businesses’, said Saunders.
The download speeds of ‘up to 100Mbps’ and upload speeds of ‘up to 30Mbps’ will offer many benefits to residential and business customers with many users being able to utilise a range of high bandwidth applications from a single Internet connection. Additional bandwidth will improve the performance of Virtual Private Networks making the transfer of files more efficient and making working from home a more viable option.
“Our belief is that fibre optic broadband is a tremendous opportunity for businesses, but it is disappointing that the initial deployment of this technology has too heavily targeted residential users. This is a shame, but future deployment is planned to address the balance. In the business market, fibre optic broadband should be plugging the hole between DSL services and leased-line or Ethernet-based services. For SMEs, it could be the gateway to a new world of cost-effective Cloud-based services – services which might revolutionise the way they work,” added Saunders.
VoIP and video-conferencing performance will improve with higher download and upload speeds and the technology will be able to cope with rapid growth in high definition video streaming.