Hmmm, yeah, just think of the customer service you'll get!

For the first 6months in the Milton Keynes Trial It was great! 2/3MB down 1MB upload, the only thing that I had a problem with was the phone support.

Now 1MB up 1MB down, and much better phone support, better than I ever had from PIPEX when I had a DSL line with them.

The thing I dont really understand though is that, Here in Milton Keynes the idea of a Wimax trial (partly funded by the local council) was that because the coms network here (bad wiring+alu wires) is so bad that people living close to the exchange couldnt even get over 2MB speeds and some people cant even get it at all so Wimax would offer speeds close to that of ADSL8MB to everyone, I remember even being quoted 10mb at first. The only good thing is the higher upload speed but 1MB is hardly ground breaking.

I had so much hopes for this, as we will never have digital cable, FTTH or ADSL2+ in my lifetime and nowdays 1MB just insnt enough, HoHum.

Targetting this at business rather than domestic users could be a sensible move, although Pipex's reputation has deservedly taken a terrible beating in the last couple of years. The domestic DSL market is going down a death spiral with major ISPs trying to compete on who can take the lowest margin and/or who can offer worst QoS whilst still retaining a worthwhile userbase locked in by 12-18 month contracts. Businesses of a certain size won't want to be (ab)used that way, but may not want to pay the price that BT want for SDSL (or in many cases may not even be in reach of BT-based SDSL?).

So in principle this could be an interesting move, especially given the Intel funding connection.

In practice, if you go back a couple of years there were a small handful of (typically regional) ISPs who could have made the same kind of pitch - we're there for businesses who want decent quality SDSL-like services at sensible prices. Unfortunately for Pipex the precedents are not good - the ones I knew of are gone, so far gone that I can't even remember the names (AirDSL from Pipemedia in Leicestershire was one, one whose name I forget was in Worcestershire, there was LTT Broadband in Kent/Surrey, the list goes on...).

Stripping out residential is a sound decision.

Manchester will be the turning point but because it is unique

I think business will like it, however its got to be quick.