London, 7 February, 2008: Pipex Business, experts in the internet since 1991, today announces the introduction of a portfolio of business-grade ADSL2+ based services, designed specifically to meet the needs of UK Small Businesses. The range of services offered provide different service levels spanning entry-level business broadband, suitable for very small or start-up businesses, through to high performance solutions that are ideal for more established businesses and those needing assured real-time traffic capability
The service portfolio, offers ‘Lite’, ‘Pro, ’Premium’ and ‘Premium Plus Broadband’ packages* built around the key principle that, for Small Businesses, service reliability and effective, quality support are key product features of paramount importance when adopting technology.
The portfolio has been designed to provide everything needed by all kinds of Small Businesses and the flexibility to meet not only their current needs but also as their needs as they continue to grow and develop.
“The need for service reliability and quality support could not be more important for this sector,” says Lance Spencer, Product and Marketing Director for Pipex. “Our research with Cranfield University, revealed significant lack of confidence when adopting technology; Almost half (46%) of the Small Businesses surveyed admit that the Internet has raised the complexity of running their business whilst 16% of those surveyed list their own lack of IT knowledge as an obstacle to improved business performance.
"It’s pretty apparent that these businesses need business-grade services that are reliable and that offer their users the level of support needed to really start getting the most out of the Internet” says Spencer.
Addressing these key concerns of reliability and support the new portfolio of services offers 24/7 customer support (from a dedicated, business services-focused call centre, based in Stoke Mandeville and industry-leading customer care packages that offer target response times that are at least four times as quick as those of standard consumer packages.
Pipex Broadband Lite
Aimed at very small and start-up businesses, Businesses taking the Lite products will enjoy the flexibility of a standard 3-month contract. Customers opting to extend to a 12 month contract will receive a free Wifi router or standard Ethernet router. The Lite products afford a superior, business-quality service, in a package ideally suited to the smaller businesses, with 1-4 users and a light usage profile.
- up to 8Mb downstream
- 448 Kb upstream
- 100 Mb of Webspace
- 20 Pop Mail addresses
- optional static IP address
- optional CPS service package
Pipex Broadband Pro
For 1-10 employee-sized businesses, uniquely in the market, these products deploy advanced traffic management technology to offer prioritisation of all business traffic across the network. The Pro product is the flag ship ADSL2+ based product offering.
- up to 16 Mb of business grade traffic downstream
- upstream 1Mb
- unlimited usage. Uniquely in the market, these products deploy advanced traffic management technology to offer prioritisation of all business traffic across the network
Premium/Premium Plus
For larger businesses with heavier users or 10+ users and/or those businesses that require substantial real-time traffic capability, the Premium and Premium Plus products are also based on ADSL2+ offering. Assured Real Time Bandwidth is essential for businesses that wish to support real time applications such as voice over broadband, high quality video conferencing or radio streaming. In fact the Premium Plus will support up to ten simultaneous telephone calls across one broadband connection.
- up to 16Mb of downstream
- up to 1 Mb of upstream traffic
- Assured Real Time Bandwidth.
- 200 Kbps of bandwidth
- 500 Kbps for the Premium Plus product
As an industry first, the Pipex Enhanced Care option, available with the Pro, Premium and Premium Plus products, offers a targeted 10 working hour fix time, with a money back guarantee, if Pipex fails to clear the fault within the target time. This is compared with the industry standard target fix time of 40 hours.
Free upgrade and downgrade service migration ensures that the new portfolio of services is flexible enough to evolve with business needs.
Spencer says: “Many Small Businesses make do with consumer grade broadband or last generation ADSL based services. The new Pipex Business services, which have their foundation in the technology, have been delivered to larger enterprises for a number of years and will become the standard for smaller businesses. The Pipex Business Product Portfolio will set a new benchmark for the functionality that needs to be delivered by the industry to Small Businesses.”
