Zen Internet rolls out fibre optic broadband

 

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Posted on 4 Jun 2010 at 10:35

Zen Internet has officially announced the roll-out of its new fibre optic broadband service, capable of speeds of up to 40Mbit/s and a minimum download speed of 15Mbit/s, rivalling Virgin's cable broadband speeds.

Like Zen's standard ADSL service, the new fibre optic broadband packages use BT's fibre network and exchange hardware. Fibre optic services are set to cost around £5 more than their equivalent ADSL services, with the same one-month minimum contract.

The new service is currently available in 24 BT exchange areas, with another 132 areas set to be upgraded later this year. Over 300 more exchanges, covering much of the rest of England and Wales, are scheduled for 2011.

This list covers Zen's Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) service, which uses high-speed fibre optic cable links to street cabinets containing the broadband equipment – the link from the cabinet to clients' premises still use BT's old copper wire network.

However, Zen is also about to start a trial of its forthcoming Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) service, which uses fibre optic cable for the entire length of the connection, including a direct fibre connect placed in customers' premises. The trial is set to begin in July in Bradwell Abbey, Milton Keynes and Higham Park, North London.

Along with its new high-speed broadband service, Zen has increased the internet usage allowances for all customers on the Zen Lite, Zen Active, Zen Pro and Zen Office packages, doubling each of them to 10GB, 50GB, 100GB and 200GB respectively.

Zen is one of just a handful of ISPs to list specific high-capacity usage limits, rather than selling "unlimited" accounts with unspecified fair usage restrictions. Head of Product Management and Marketing Andrew Saunders also told us that Zen has no intention of introducing throttling or other forms of traffic shaping to limit the usage habits of its users.

Author: Kat Orphanides