According to Lynda Greenland, a spokesperson for the company, the deal has been made possible by teaming up with Advanced Computer Communications (ACC) to fund the installation, which is worth around ú1,300 for a typical customer who wants British Telecom's ISDN PRI 6 (six channel) service.

"The deal is available to anyone who buys an ACC Amazon ISDN system with a Primary Rate interface from ourselves," she told Newsbytes. "As well as saving the end-user around 20 per cent on the ú7,000 cost of the Amazon, it saves a lot of hassle for the customer."

The move is quite an ambitious one for Jaguar, which is a reseller, rather than a vendor of one set of products. According to Richard Colebrook, the company's sales director, the implementation costs of ISDN are always a problem when budgets are already under severe pressure from new network plans.

"We believe that, by offering customers the chance to save on the cost of installation, we can assist in the industry-wise lobby on ISDN pricing policy," he explained.

Colebrook's comments are a symptom of the British telecommunication industry's annoyance with British Telecom over its sky-high pricing policy on ISDN, Newsbytes notes. While the rest of Europe is seemingly awash with ISDN subscribers, even in the residential arena, the UK's ISDN subscriber base numbers barely into six figures.

Martin Cassidy, ACC's vice president of Europe, said that he thinks that collective action by vendors and partners is the only way to exert downward pressure on BT's ISDN (pricing) policy. "Vendors such as ACC continue to drive down the capital cost of equipment through innovative product design and volume pricing efficiencies, but it never seems matched by BT," he said.

(Steve Gold/19960624/Press & Reader Contact: Jaguar Communications, tel +44-1727-898000, fax +44-1727-898200)