Wholesale communications provider Entanet has unveild a new service that allows end users to increase their upload speed by trading some of their download speed. The Annex M service is available on ADSL2+ connections running from exchanges that have been enabled for WBC on the BT 21CN platform.
Accrding to Darren Farnden, head of marketing for Entagroup, the new services are of particular interest to business users. But in a market with BT (BT.A) as it main competitor, Farnden believes, “Where we gain strength comes from our size as we are not regulated in the same way as BT wholesale which means we can be very flexible in the way we work.”
Competition
Farnden points out that Entanet can create new and even bespoke service offerings for individual channel partners much more quickly than BT who has to offer services uniformly to its partner community. He also believes that the depth of the group’s portfolio which includes hosting, co-loc, VoIP and Ethernet for the last mile allows partners to better retain end user relationships while making margin on the often overlooked wide area communication aspect of any project.
Entanet has several hundred active partners and is 100 percent channel focused. The firm typically works with progressive resellers or systems integrators and counts OEM partners such Vivaciti, Aquiss and ukfsn amongst it active community.
However, Farnden is reticent to compare its new Annex M offering on price against similar higher upload speed broadband services provided by communication providers who have engaged in Local Loop Unbundling: “It’s not so much about cost,” he says. “The majority of resellers are still selling ipstream, what we are offering is a service that can provide more flexibility.”
With CN21 only providing 55 percent national coverage, adoption is still limited although Farnden believes that resellers should look closely at the growing range of communications solutions, many of which are available as white label, that can provide a steady revenue stream with minimal technical commitment.
