Never mind the download quota, feel the speed

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 24 July 2007 04:34

Opinion and Analysis

TelstraClear is boasting about a free doubling of access speeds on some of its broadband plans saying the move is in response to increasing popularity of streaming video, but it will likely result in customers reaching the limit of the data quota sooner and incurring excess charges.

The increase raises downstream speeds on the inHome plans: the 5GB plan from a maximum of 2Mbps to 4Mbps, and the 20GB plan from 4Mbps to up to 10Mbps. The plans are available to homes on TelstraClear's InHome HFC network in Wellington, Kapiti and Christchurch.

TelstraClear head of consumer Steve Jackson said the company was noticing a change in customer behaviour, with customers wanting to optimise their broadband experience for things such as streaming video. "We're staying ahead of the game, offering customers plans to suit their needs. An increase in speed makes surfing the Internet, downloading music and videos and playing online games easier than ever before."

However evidence from other providers suggests that the main cost variable in broadband services is download volumes, not speed. In its new telephony/broadband bundle, Fusion, Optus is offering customers whatever its ADSL2+ service is able to deliver on the customer's copper pair, but has created something of a furore by including upload as well as download data in the monthly quota.

Recently, another ISP, Internode, upped the prices of its high download quota plans saying that they were becoming uneconomic as an increasing number of customers maxed out their quotas each months.

The most likely consequence of TelstraClear's offer will be that it generates additional revenue as customers use up their data quota in half the time and incur excess usage charges.

TelstraClear does not throttle the plans but automatically charges $NZ2.95 extra per block of data or part thereof. The size of the block depends on the plan: it's 250MB on a 1GB plan, 500MB on a 5GB plan, 1GB on 10GB and 20GB plans and 2GB on the 40GB and 80GB plans.

On and did I forget to mention that TelstraClear includes all data up and downstream in the quota?