BT has joined broadband provider rivals Virgin Media by launching its first super-fast broadband service which is set to arrive early next week.
The fibre optic offering called BT Infinity, offers 40Mb per second speed broadband from a choice of two different price plans. The cheapest Infinity package prices in at £19.99 a month plus a £11.54 line rental and a hefty £50 connection charge. This gives you 2Mbps upload speed, and an unattractive 20GB usage cap.
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Perhaps the more attractive of the two offers, for £24.99, you can get super-fast broadband installed for free, upload speeds of 10Mb a second, and no sign of BT’s monthly usage cap.
BT has made a point of the fact that its cheapest plan is £7.47 less a month than Virgin’s 50Mb super-fast service. In comparison Virgin Media’s super-fast broadband service has a basic plan of £28 a month with a £11 line rental.
Virgin Media has hit back at the cheapest super-fast broadband on the block jibe by reminding consumers that its service is actually faster at 50Mb per second. A Virgin Media spokesman said, "We’re not sure why people in the UK would want to wait for BT’s 40Mb service which hasn’t launched yet, when they can already get Virgin Media’s great value 50Mb service."
The company also highlights the 20GB usage cap featured on the £19.99 package, with many residential broadband providers typically giving downloaders no more than 40Gb a month. Virgin Media’s 50Mb service does not have a monthly usage cap at all.
New and existing BT Total Broadband and BT Business customers in enabled exchange areas will automatically be eligible to upgrade to BT’s Infinity service.
Before you start thinking about downloading albums in minutes, BT says the 40Mb broadband service ‘will be made available to 4 million homes and businesses by the end of December 2010, which by no means guarantees everyone will enjoy the speedier surfing right away.
Link: BT (Via: Tech Radar)
