Primus claims the new service is four times faster than the download speeds offered in other premium ADSL deals, as they say Australia's leading Internet service providers currently present a maximum speed of 1.5 Mbps.
Chris Firth, general manager of Primus Telecom's business division, says the new product will deliver one of the best ADSL services in the Australian market, outdoing the competition in speed, cost and reliability.
"To date, the major ISP's have not targeted this segment of the market with a product that delivers ultra-high speed broadband over traditional twisted copper pair," said Firth, attributing Primus' ability to compete in this area to its network ownership in all Australian mainland capital cities.
However, Bjarne Munch, senior research analyst for Meta Group, says the high end business market requires more than what Primus is offering.
"I would be surprised if this [Primus' new deal] makes a significant dint in corporate broadband in Australia," said Munch, adding that the offering is not as reliable as the present lease-line services.
"They [Primus] make a big deal out of being able to provide high bandwidth but its not actually business grade DSL," said Munch.
Primus says the new service is an extension of its existing broadband range. However, customers can now download broadband data as fast as their line quality will allow at the time with a minimum speed of 2Mbps/384k ranging up to 6Mbps/640k for no additional charge.
The service will be offered for a monthly price of AU$185 including a 1GB download allowance, with higher capacity options available.
Firth says the deal gives Primus customers ultra high broadband speeds for prices normally levied for a 2Mbps service.
"At a time when other ISP's are attempting to apply strict limits to their services, Primus Telecom is delivering greater value at a very competitive price point," said Firth.
Yet Munch predicts that the deal will not gain significant acceptance in the high end corporate marketplace.
"The business broadband market wants reliability as well as ubiquity. Primus are aiming at the wrong market, it's [the deal is] more applicable to the lower end business sector," said Munch.
Abby,
I was interested in your story on Primus' "new" business broadband service offering Internet access at speeds up to 6 mbit/s. Interestingly Request Broadband has been delivering 6 Mbit/s over its own Cisco -Powered DSL in Australia's major capital cities for the last 3 years. We have also focused exclusively on the business market and now have over 14,000 business sites connected and receiving broadband services from Request.
Importantly, the business market has moved on from simple broadband Internet access services such as the offer you reported. Australian business are now aggressively adopting broadband IP (Internet Protocol) private networking services. Over half of Request's broadband service orders each month a now IP VPNs. Businesses are adopting IP VPNs to get away from using the Internet to link their offices. Simply using the Internet to link business offices creates a major security exposure along with poor performance due to Internet congestion. IP VPNs utilise the same communication protocols as are used in the technology that support the global Internet, however IP VPNs keep all the traffic for that business, inside a private network, completely segregated from the Internet thus guaranteeing security and performance.
Bjarne Munch's comments need some clarification. I agree with his view that business Internet access, even 6 Mbit/s speed is no big deal any more - the real opportunity is broadband IP networking for business which Request Broadband has now been at the forefront for well over 2 years.
His comments on DSL quality are a generalisation. Quality of residential DSL Internet access offered by Telstra and resold by most ISPs has arguably only achieved "consumer grade" quality levels.
Broadband services delivered from Request's own "Cisco Powered" DSL network have demonstrably achieved "business grade" quality levels backed up by one of the highest service level agreements in the industry. The demonstration of this quality and business networking is that Request broadband is winning significant business from customers turning off or limiting the growth of their frame relay and ISDN networks in favour of the far superior price - performance capability of DSL broadband IP networking.
In summary, it is flattering to see competitors following in the footsteps of Request. We will continue to innovate in broadband IP networking to maintain our now 3 year lead on most of our competitors.
Phil