Tessares boosts BT’s broadband, more than doubling download speeds for thousands of small businesses stuck on copper.

On May 24th, BT officially announced BT Hybrid Speed Boost, a free product for business customers based on Tessares’ Hybrid Access solution.

This comes in the same month that the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE) reported that:

       “Sub-standard infrastructure in rural areas – particularly lack of quality broadband – is affecting businesses’ ability to be resilient and bounce back from adversity…”

More specifically, NICRE’s survey found that:

“Around a third of rural enterprises in the North East, South West and West Midlands, compared to a fifth of urban firms, judged their broadband quality to be ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’, with the survey findings illustrating the vital importance of broadband quality to business resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic.

www.bt.com

Tessares Hybrid Access enables BT (and our other Internet Service Provider customers) to combine their fixed and mobile network assets, leveraging existing consumer premises equipment.

Presently, BT is only offering this to small businesses on ADSL broadband lines. ADSL is copper to the exchange with a maximum of 20 Mbps download. In the UK the average ADSL download speed depends on where you live, with customers in urban areas getting about 15 Mbps and customers in rural areas averaging 6 Mbps.

People working or studying from home will realise the value of having good upload speed. In the UK, customers on ADSL lines have an upload speed of less than 1 Mbps.

The amount of Speed Boost depends on mobile coverage but BT says it expects an average boost of 20 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up. BT therefore expects download speed to be more than doubled (e.g., from 10 to 30 Mbps)  and their upload speed boosted by a factor of 10.

According to BT, thousands of small businesses are stuck on ADSL and Tessares’ technology will make a huge difference to those businesses.

BT Hybrid Speed Boost requires the BT Hybrid Connect box which is already used for the BT Hybrid Backup service, but these are still two separate products.

www.bt.com

Note that when the Hybrid Connect device is used in Hybrid Speed Boost mode, the signal bars turn white to indicate 4G signal strength and hybrid access enabled. It’s important to place the Hybrid Connect box where it can get a good 4G signal while keeping it connected to the BT Smart Hub 2 using an Ethernet cable. 

BT Hybrid Speed Boost is free (even the BT Hybrid Connect box is included!).

To check if you can get BT Hybrid Speed Boost go to: https://business.bt.com/products/broadband-and-internet/deals/ and use the availability checker. If you live in an area where ADSL is available you will see the following:

www.bt.com

Hybrid Speed Boost (highlighted in pink) is available on all packages at no extra charge.  The Hybrid Connect box is included in the Essential package but it won’t work in 4G backup mode.  Halo for Business and Halo with Complete Wi-Fi include both the Hybrid Boost and the Hybrid Backup features. The “Up to 20 Mbps Download” refers to the ADSL line BEFORE the speed boost. 

BT Hybrid Speed Boost is available to new and existing business customers who re-contract.

Tessares’ announcement is here.