BT is to cut the wholesale cost of its symmetric business broadband products in a bid to kick-start demand for SDSL. From 21 October, the wholesale connection charge for BT IPStream Symmetric and BT DataStream Symmetric products will be cut from £450 to £225 for orders completed by 24 February, 2005.

SDSL (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line) uses the same speed for both receiving and transmitting data and is much better suited to the transmission of large files. As a low-cost alternative to leased lines, it is ideal for a wide variety of small and medium-sized businesses such as engineering, media and finance, which have to send and receive large amounts of data.

Said BT Wholesale's GM for broadband products Wally Freeman: "This special offer is designed to stimulate the take up of SDSL services which are still relatively new products and to encourage more of our service provider customers to add SDSL products to their broadband portfolio."

AT the beginning of July BT, the UK's dominant fixed-line telco, confirmed plans to double the availability of its wholesale symmetric broadband to bring the totals number of exchanges to 300. The increase availability of SDSL means that areas including parts of the M3/M4 corridor, Cheshire, Cardiff, North East England, Aberdeen and Exeter will be wired up for business-class broadband. ®

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