HomeThat’s right. My current ISP, iiNet, has just launched some new broadband plans (the “broadband1” plans). The new offerings now include a 8 Mbit/s plan, but strangely, only offers 3 GB of downloads during peak usage hours (12pm to 2am), with a further 3 GB during off-peak hours. The 8 Mbit/s is a theoretical maximum, so most likely I’ll get between 4 Mbit/s and 6 Mbit/s – even at 4 Mbit/s, this means that if I download at the maximum speed continously, I’ll use up the 3 GB limit in less than 2 hours! After the limit is reached, the speed is capped to 64 kbit/s, or a nice and speedy 8 KB/s. Not only that, this is actually the most expensive plan available for home users – there is no option to get more bandwidth! Even for a somewhat broadband-backwards country as Australia, these plans are ridiculous (the phased out set iiNet plans used to include a 30 GB plan, albeit at a higher cost).
iiNet’s ADSL2 (“broadband2”) plans are a little more generous, 10 GB peak/10 GB offpeak, but the problem is that ADSL2 is only available in very select areas (as determined by where iiNet install their own hardware DSLAMs), and certainly not available in my area. I know it is in iiNet’s interests to promote their ADSL2 plans, and if I had ADSL2 in my area, I would sign up immediately. But the case is that I’m stuck on “broadband1”, and I get punished by these crappy plans because iiNet haven’t bothered to install the proper hardware in my area.
There are business plans available which gives more bandwidth, but I would have to spend $20 more to get roughly the same plan I am on now (but with an upgrade to 8 Mbit/s), bringing my yearly ADSL bill to $AUD 1908 ($US 1575). I would have to bundle their VOIP service, which I don’t need, and pay extra (included in the $1908) for a static IP address, which I do need.
Of course, the situations is more complicated than it seems, with Telstra’s (our major telecommunication provider) wholesale ADSL policies being the source of the pricing problems. But the rival broadband provider, Internode, is able to provide the same 8 Mbit/s connection, with 40 GB of bandwidth that can be used anytime (no peak usage times), a faster 128 Kbit/s cap, and all of this at $20 $10 cheaper (edited 5/5/07: me bad at maths) than my current iiNet (phased out) plan (or a massive $40 per month savings on iiNet’s closest comparable plan) – so if your competitors can do it, why can’t you iiNet?
Churn baby, churn.
