We are pleased to announce the launch of our 100Mbps Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) portfolio. Unlike ADSL and FTTC products which make use of the copper phone network, FTTP delivers a direct fibre connection from the exchange to your premises. As such you no longer need a phone line to receive broadband, and the speeds you are now able to achieve will surpass anything you have experienced before as the fibre provides you with the potential for resistence free connectivity.

There are two speed options available at present:

Each speed has two data caps available; either a 200GB (100GB peak, 100GB off-peak) or a 1000GB (500GB peak, 500GB off-peak). Much like with ADSL and FTTC the off-peak download cap kicks in from 20:00 daily so is highly usable, and uploads are unmetered.

Sadly the foot print for FTTP is still very limited across the UK, and surprisingly a fair number of rural areas are the first to benefit from it as opposed to the obvious major towns and cities. Our broadband checker will provide you with confirmation of whether it is available or coming soon. If it is available it can be purchased through our website sign-up pages, or if you are an existing customer, an order can be placed through the control panel.

We are pleased to announce the release of our up to 80Mbps Fibre to the Cabinet packages. These deliver speeds up to 80Mbps downstream and up to 20Mbps upstream making them perfect for demanding home users or businesses. These speeds were only possible through expensive leased lines, and now they can be delivered via your phone line is you are in a FTTC enabled area. To check on availability, and confirmation of the predicted speeds for your area, please visit our availability checker and use an existing PSTN number or complete an address check if you don’t have a line already. This new portfolio of ultra fast fibre to the cabinet broadband packages are known as our Enterprise FTTC range. We will continue to offer the up to 40Mbps FTTC connections with both a 2Mbps (Home) and upto 10Mbps (Business) upload speed options.

Much like with ADSL products, the speeds you achieve are ultimately dictated by the length and quality of your line. The speed you actually achieve may not be the full 80Mbps, however our checker will give you a good idea of what could be possible.

Customers who already use our up to 40Mbps products are eligible for a free upgrade to this service. To proceed, please contact our support teams who can advise you on the speeds you should be able to achieve and proceed to action the upgrade for you.

We are pleased to announce that from the 1st May 2012 through to the 31st July 2012 Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) installation costs are being lowered from £80+VAT to £60+VAT. These lower installation costs apply to new FTTC connections as well as regrades from ADSL.

For those who have yet to experience or consider FTTC connections, they are capable of delivering speeds of upto 80Mbps downstream to your premises. The technology relies in replacing part of the copper phone circuit with fibre, which helps reduce the amount of copper cables involved, and thus the speeds delivered can be higher. For more information on this technology please click here, or to check to see if super fast fibre broadband is available in your area click here.

Nominet are changing how their registration an renewal systems operate for .uk domains. Previously the only option was to register or renew for 2 years. They are now extending the range upto 10 years. Our control panels will be able to cater for this change which takes place on the 1st May 2012. The price for the additional years will remain the same as the standard rate (eg our standard price is £5 per year, therefore a 4 year registration would cost 4 x £5 = £20).

Unlike some registries we will not be offering the 1 year registration option just yet. Nominet have priced one year registrations at a higher rate than subsequent years, and we won’t be alone in not supporting this pricing differentiation. Hopefully they will bring the pricing in-line and we will add it as an option.

Why should I resell telecoms?

The telecom reseller is one of the newest platforms ICUK has developed, and it remains the fastest growing part of our business. In this blog entry we hope to explain why it is proving to be so popular and why it might in your business’ interest to adopt these solutions too.

What does it allow me to sell?

As a Telecom Reseller you firstly gain access to the same facilities that a Broadband Reseller – wholesale broadband, outbound SMS and fax to email solutions. In addition to this you also have the ability to offer telecom products which compliment them:

• PSTN, ISDN 2 and ISDN 30 wholesale line rental
• Carrier pre-select wholesale calls
• SIP Trunks (beta)

At ICUK we’re not simply giving you the ability to order these products, you can manage and bill them through our platform too. In simple terms here are some of the facilities our resellers benefit from:

• Customer management facility
• Facilities to design and edit your own line rental and call tariffs
• Fully itemised billing platform
• Sign-up pages allowing you to transfer lines and request new installations
• Diagnostic tools to help fix and raise faults
• Access to Openreach tools to help identity and quote for lines
• Calculators to provide instant phone bill comparisons
• Control panels to rebrand and provide your customers with

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We are pleased to announce the release of version 8.2 of the ICUK Reseller Control Panel. There are a number of improvements and features including:

1. 150+ new domain name extensions
2. Domain management usability enhancements
3. BT Wholesale major service outages and planned engineering
4. Nominet Reseller Support in Whois
5. SQL server has been upgraded to SQL 2008 R2
6. Auto Responder Improvements for email

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To show our support for the proposed .wales and .cymru domain extensions we have added a dedicated page to our site:

www.icukhosting.co.uk/domain-names/wales-domain-names.asp

We know that we have a fair number of Welsh clients and reseller who have an interest in this extension becoming a reality. ICUK will ensure that all the latest updates and timescales associated with the application are shown on this page to keep you informed of its progress.

We are pleased to announce a revamp to our domain name platform for our hosting and reseller customers. The revamp focuses on usability enhancements and the announcement of 150 new domain extensions from around the world.

Usability Enhancements

Here is a summary of some of the changes made:

1. New domain name availability checker with tabs to separate the various types of domains
2. Availability checker within the control panel now features shopping basket style features allowing you to store multiple domains from multiple searches
3.  The page which lists a clients domains is now provided with multiple tabs separating the types of domains. This allows you to see the status of domains at a glance including those which have expired, are set to expire within the next month, expiring within the next 2 months, and those domains which aren’t held with ICUK.
4. All aspects of the domain name management have been revamped to make them easier to understand and correct issues where confusion has existed before (eg Glue Records).
5. Registering new domain names has been made simpler. For example, when selecting existing contacts, the fields are pre-filled for you to review and amend.
6. The domain registration process now asks for any additional information as part of the sign-up form. For example, you can immediately request to opt-out of the whois with a Nominet domain registration.
7. Domain names which support multi-year registrations now offer you the ability to select the length at the point of ordering.
8. All-new error checking has been put in place to provide detailed answers to any problems which may arise.

150+ New Domain Extensions

The most exciting release we have surrounds the significant increase in domain name extensions we now support. We have contracts in place to transfer in existing domains as well as provide new registrations. The vast majority of the domain extensions have similar rules to those of a .com in as much as they can be registered for multiple years, and have no restrictions on who can register them. However, for a definitive answer on the rules associated with each of these new domains, we have provided an ‘info’ option beside the domain name in our availability search. Here we will state if there are any known requirements you must meet in terms of location, DNS or profession.

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We have made some significant improvements to the performance of phpMyAdmin for all MySQL users on our shared Windows and Linux hosting platforms. We hope you enjoy the new found speed.

A question we are commonly asked by potential reseller: why should they sell web hosting and domain registrations to their clients? Here is a brief guide as to why we think you should:

Website Designers

Web designers and development companies have much to gain by adding hosting to their portfolio. As a designer you have a unique and trusted link with clients and their websites. How many times have you been asked for a recommendation of where to host, only to pass the business to the host you have used for other projects? If you can imagine such a scenario then you are wasting opportunities to add margin, and ensure you have a link to maintain a working relationship with the client beyond the initial project. For example, after a years hosting has passed, you have a great chance to make contact regarding its renewal, and at the same time gauge feedback from the client about the sites performance. This can easily lead to future development opportunities for you. Another way to view hosting, would be to ‘bundle’ it with your design / development work to present added value to the client.

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