Fluidata last week launched a service aimed at both enterprises wanting additional connectivity options and smaller firms requiring extra upload capacity.

Called Burst, the service offers up to 20Mbit/s download and up to 2Mbit/s upload data transfer rates. Firms must pay a setup fee of £75 + VAT, and install a SpeedTouch 608WL router costing £195 + VAT. Fluidata then charges a monthly fee of £150 + VAT.

Fluidata managing director Piers Daniell said Burst is designed to compete with BT’s SDSL 10:1 service. “We’re actually using Annex-M technology, which uses a different frequency in the SpeedTouch 608WL DSL routers and in the DSLAMs at the exchange. We had the SpeedTouch chief architect in to design the firmware for us, allowing us to trade a bit of the downstream speed to increase the upstream side,” he said.

Daniell said the NHS is already a customer in London, and that there are 15 sites with Burst circuits installed. He added that Fluidata has customers applying 200 static IP addresses to these lines.

Daniell also said that some customers are also using an extension to the service whereby Fluidata can “line bond” with a standard 2Mbit/s SDSL line to get 22Mbit/s downstream and 4Mbit/s upstream.

“At the moment, we’re running [Burst] as a beta, since Ofcom haven’t fully ratified Annex-M yet,” said Daniell. However, whereas BT’s SDSL service has a TotalCare SLA promising a response within five hours and a fix within 20, Burst’s current SLA is the same as BT’s ADSL SLA: 48-hour response and a 72-hour fix.

“We’re trying to arrange OpenReach’s TotalCare service for Burst, but there’s nothing to stop businesses applying a TotalCare package to their lines and that’s what we would recommend,” Daniell said.

‹ www.fluidata.co.uk