At A&A, we design and manufacture our own range of routers, called FireBrick®. These are designed from the ground up by our team - the PCB layout, the casework, the operating system and software are all in our control and are designed and made here in the UK. This page is about us bringing our latest model into service in our broadband service business.
We have started to deploy our latest model, the FireBrick FB9000. These are faster devices and will enable us to support faster services.
We always value input from customers and often invite customers to help trial new services. This is a case were customers can get involved. This page explains the trial we are running which will take us from testing to offering faster options to our customers.
The stages involve any broadband customer the option to connect to our new LNSs just to test them out, and a bit later we'll be offering FTTP customers faster services.
Progress updates can be found below.
MID FEBRUARY 2022 (Started on Feb 19th)
Any customer with ADSL/FTTC/G.FAST/FTTP can try out the new LNSs by prefixing their PPP login with: beta-
MARCH 2022 (Completed)
We will start to move existing lines that are 160Mb/s and above on to the new LNS pool.
FROM 18 MARCH 2022
We now are offering existing FTTP customers the option to upgrade their service to faster speeds. You can use the order form, to upgrade your speed. If you have any questions then please email regrades@aa.net.uk. There is a £12.00† charge to upgrade.
APRIL 2022 Actually available from March 24th.
Our normal order form now offers new orders the option to choose faster FTTP services.
These are the proposed monthly pricing for our FTTP Home::1 services, including VAT.
| Download/Upload | Home::1, 500G Quota | Home::1, 5T Quota |
|---|---|---|
| 115/20 | £37.00 | £47.00 |
| 160/30 | £45.00 | £55.00 |
| 330/50 | £55.00 | £65.00 |
| 550/75 | £65.00 * | £75.00 * |
| 1000/115 | £75.00 * | £85.00 * |
*The price of the 550M and 1000M services was reduced by £5 and £10 respectively on March 22nd.
These are the proposed monthly pricing for our FTTP SoHo::1 Services.
| Download/Upload | SoHo::1, 800G Quota | SoHo::1, 8T Quota |
|---|---|---|
| 115/20 | £44.40† | £68.40† |
| 160/30 | £54.00† | £78.00† |
| 330/50 | £66.00† | £90.00† |
| 550/75 | £78.00† * | £102.00† * |
| 1000/115 | £90.00† * | £114.00† * |
*The price of the 550M and 1000M services was reduced by £5 and £10 respectively on March 22nd.
How accurate are the time scales?
We're hoping to be able to stick to the timescales we've set out, though they are subject to change. We'll update this page if we need to adjust them.
What testing would you like to be done?
Customers who try the new LNSs can let us know how they get on by emailing us or talking to us in IRC. We are not asking for any specific tests to be run, but customers are free to do what they normally do on the internet and to report back any problems. We're happy for customers to do extra downloads, speed tests and so on. If you are on the trial and are running out of your monthly quota then get in touch and well be happy to give you extra quota for no charge.
What new speeds will be on offer?
The faster speeds will relate to our FTTP services, and we'll be offering speeds between 80Mb/s and 1Gb/s
What are the differences between the old and new LNSs?
The main difference is the speed that we can support. Features that customers have on the old are all available on the new - things like our Constant Quality Monitoring graphs, bonding, IPv6 etc are all the same on the new LNS. Technically, the main application software on our FireBricks is the same, it's the hardware underneath that has changed.
It is likely that the new LNSs will have software updates applied more frequently than the older LNSs. These upgrades will happen overnight and we'll make announcements on our status page.
Will the old LNSs be 'second-rate'?
No. We plan to run both old and new LNSs for the foreseeable future. Faster speed services will be served by the new LNSs but both platforms are fully supported and share the same feature set.
What is 'Witless' that I see on my graphs and traceroutes?
"Witless" is the hostname we have given to the new LNSs. The older LNSs are all called "Gormless". Individual LNSs are prefixed with a letter, eg you'll see names such as a.gormless, b.gormless, x.witless, y.witless etc.
How can I tell if I'm on the new LNSs?
I have some more questions
Customers can contact staff with any queries either via our IRC channel or by emailing our support team.
How long does a FTTP speed regrade take?
A speed regrade usually completes next working day, in the early hours of the morning.
eg, if ordering on a Friday, then it should complete in the early hours of Monday.
