Viatel unveils uncontended broadband for SMEs

Viatel has announced an uncontended ADSL service for SMEs called Maxstream Broadband, which costs significantly less than a leased line.

MaxStream is designed to provide small businesses with a cost effective solution to run both voice and data over a single line. With quality of service measures in place, VoIP and other business critical application traffic is prioritised.

The service provides upstream bandwidth of 832kbit/s, three times that of traditional ADSL.

It can be purchased at either 512kbit/s up and download, or 1Mbit/s and 2Mbit/s download (both with up to 832kbit/s upload).

MaxStream is offered as a bonded service, with between two and four ADSL lines bonded together.

A dedicated 1:1 ADSL service is ideal for companies located near busy telephone exchanges, as uncontended services guarantee users do not share their broadband connection with anyone else.

MaxStream is provided over BT Datastream, a BT Wholesale service which allows ISPs to set their own contention ratios.

It allows Viatel to put one user at a “virtual exchange”, so that uncontended virtual path is 1:1 - the same as a leased line.

Viatel guarantees customers a virtual, dedicated path, and therefore guaranteed bandwidth.

The service increases the effective reach of voice services over IP, eliminating the risk of dropped packets which disrupt VoIP services such as Skype.

Viatel believes its offering will allow business who cannot avoid a leased line, to benefit from VoIP, providing ten simultaneous VoIP calls on one line.