We've been contacted by a number of people today all trying to find out one thing. "Why have Bulldog stopped advertising their PrimeTime product on their website?"

Offering PrimeTime, Bulldog first brought the likes of 1Mbit and 2Mbit ADSL products into the price range suitable for home users (a 2Mbit PrimeTime service was priced at £24.99 including VAT - remarkably cheap given other ISPs offerings). With a 1 or 2Mbit subscription the service would enable subscribers to download at the 'de-facto' 512Kbps during peak hours (8am until 6pm) with the servicing increasing up to either 1Mbit or 2Mbit during other times - a service perfect for those connection remains mostly redundant during the daytime. Why pay for that larger bandwidth when your not using it ?

How could Bulldog do this? By using an alternative product from BTWholesale called DataStream. Available much cheaper than the more prevalent IPStream upon which most of ISPs solutions revolve around, DataStream also permits much more flexibility in what services ISPs offer, from bandwidth through to contention. Using this flexibility Bulldog were able to provide remarkable bandwidth to endusers for quite often at least half the price of any other mainstream ISPs.

Is this a sign that Bulldog have decided to withdraw from the DataStream market and concentrate more on IPStream products ? Maybe the ISP is set to announce detailed on unbundling exchanges throughout the UK? Or maybe Bulldog are just simplifying their product range. Who knows - but what is known, is that since Bulldog were bought by Cable & Wireless, we've seen some major changes from the ISP, first with 4Mbit ADSL available for just £30 within unbundled exchanges in London, and now this possible movement away from DataStream.

We're waiting on Bulldog to get back to us, but we'll bring you more on this as we get it.

Oh, and we should finally note that current users of PrimeTime need not think that their product will disapear into the ether - we're assured by the technical folk at Bulldog that support will continue for these subscribers.