UK Area Code information for Northern Ireland

Broadband Connectivity Type Definitions

Different telephone exchanges have different broadband connectivity depending on their geographic location, the consumers they serve (demand and composition of those consumers) and the competative landscape in that locale. As a result there is a mix of services and related performance which BT classify as follows;

Fixed Rate

There for three fixed rate lines; 512Kbps, 1Mbps and 2Mbps. As with IPStream 500, 1000 and 2000, these have an upstream capped at 288Kbps. Note that all of the other WBC products apart from these are strictly rate adaptive (like ADSL Max).

WBC Fixed Rate

Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) offers high-speed, high-performance broadband services.

ADSL Max

BT's original ADSL2+ wholesale product with an option of an upstream cap at 448Kbps or no cap at all. ADSL2+ can achieve up to 1Mbps upstream.

WBC ADSL 2+

ADSL2+ (also known as 21CN (21st Century Network) and WBC (Wholesale Broadband Connect) is a high speed broadband service which offers download speeds of up to 24Mbs and upload speeds of up to 1Mbs.

WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M

ADSL2+ Annex M offers up to 2.5Mbps upstream in the UK. This product is used by many businesses who could previously only find this level of upstream bandwidth with SDSL. Note that there is no option for a capped upstream with this product.

FTTC Range A (Clean)

FTTC Range A is a range where the circuits are deemed to be free of any copper line faults, and any local wiring issues (in a customer's premises). This range is often very wide for both upload and download, and does beg the question of why a copper line fault may exist without being fixed.

FTTC Range B (Impacted)

FTTC Range B is a range where circuits may have copper faults and/or internal wiring issues at a customer's site. The term impacted could be useful, as sometimes crosstalk is mentioned as something that impacts on line speeds, but there is no official word from BT on whether either Range A or Range B take into account the effects of crosstalk.

FTTP On Demand

Fiber to the home (FTTH), also called "fiber to the premises" (FTTP), is the installation and use of optical fiber from a central point directly to individual buildings such as residences, apartment buildings and businesses to provide unprecedented high-speed Internet access. FTTH dramatically increases the connection speeds available to computer users compared with technologies now used in most places.