Internode reveals NBN retail prices - but slams wholesale pricing

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 21 July 2011 18:00

Business IT - Networking

Internode has announced the prices it will charge for broadband services delivered over the NBN - when commercial services launch later this year on completion of trials - but claims that the NBN wholesale pricing model is flawed and will push prices up.

All Internode NBN services will be offered as a bundle with a telephone service. This will initially be VoIP, but customers will be able to opt for an 'analogue' voice service when NBN Co makes it available later this year. (The ONT, the in-home unit that terminates NBN fibre, will be equipped with an analogue phone port.)

Internode's initial residential NBN service prices will start at $59.95 a month, with a port speed of 12Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream and 30GB of data. This is the same price as it charges for its Easy Naked ADSL2+ voice and broadband bundle with 30GB of data. Prices then rise according to port speed - 25/5, 50/20 and 110/40Mbps - and data quota - 200GB, 300GB and 1TB, peaking at $189.95 per month for 1TB at 100/40Mbps.

All Internode's NBN plans include $10 worth of monthly call credits for the bundled NodePhone VoIP telephony service. As with Internode's current ADSL2+ broadband plans, customers can obtain additional services such as fixed IP addresses or priority support, by purchasing either a Power Pack for an extra $10 a month or a Business Pack for $30 a month.

Data quotas on all plans are for upstream and downstream data. Once plans exceed their quota, speed shaping is applied to all data traffic but can buy additional data blocks online.

Costs remain unchanged for existing customers using Internode's NBN-based services. Customers of current services in Tasmania (which uses an earlier interim pricing model), and of services on the mainland (currently provided on a no-added-cost basis alongside their existing Internode ADSL2+ services), will receive direct advice about when their services will transition to this new pricing.

Internode managing director Simon Hackett claimed that this pricing was vulnerable to upward pressure in the future due to existing flaws in the NBNCo wholesale charging model, compounded by the ACCC's decision requiring the NBN to have 121 points of interconnect.

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