Download caps likely to stay: NBN Co

James Riley
Sunday, 18 October 2009 09:56

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Broadband users looking forward to the removal of download caps from internet pricing are likely to be disappointed: Even the NBN Company doubts the fatter pipes will mean the end of the download cap regime.

In fact, though Aussie consumers have railed against caps, pointing to the Australian market as one of only a few in the world to impose download restrictions, the thinking inside NBN Co is that the world is more likely to follow Australia.

The NBN Co will be an open-access, wholesale only broadband network, offering at least 100Mbps second to 90 per cent of premises in Australia, and a minimum of 12 Mbps to the remaining 10 per cent.

The company is in only the early stages of developing pricing models for access, and it will be the regulator that ultimately sets those access prices anyway. But in building its pricing models, NBN Co says there is no assumption being made that those download caps will go away.

And in fact, NBN Co management says the world is watching the Australian model, and the more likely outcome would see download caps introduced elsewhere.

The company has revealed a number of offshore regulators and telecommunications companies are investigating Australian download caps and watching the possible NBN access pricing to see whether that will impact that model.

But NBN Co management's thinking is that uncapped plans are unsustainable. Infrastructure investments have to get paid for, and usage payments are the most efficient way to ensure future investment, the thinking goes.

Meanwhile, the most senior ranks of NBN Co management revealed the company's basic build-phase philosophy as "technology conservatives": the company has no interest in trying to invent things as it goes, and "doesn’t want anything to do with the bleeding edge."

The NBN will be as simple and reliable as possible. And though it requires a judgement call from management about how close the technology edge the network technology gets, iTWire is told NBN Co will not be guided the old vendor acronym that if something works in the laboratory that it should work a million times outside the laboratory.