Optus boosts cable speed but 'lowers' Fusion download limit

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 18 December 2007 06:39

Opinion and Analysis

The Optus press release says that their speed initiative is: “Another example of Optus bringing choice and competition to Australian consumers”.

Sadly, Optus has also brought excess usage charges to Australian consumers. The move was foreshadowed in the press, but now Fusion customers – many of whom would have signed up to a plan that promised ‘no excess usage charges’ – could now find themselves paying 15c per megabyte when they go over the mid-range Fusion plan with its 7GB limit, or $150 per GB. Fusion is also available in 2GB and 20GB packages.

Optus are ‘generously’ capping the excess usage charges to 2GB, meaning customers unlucky enough to have gone over their limit will only pay a maximum of $300 excess usage charges for the month if they go past 9GB, and will find their service shaped to 64kbps connection speed thereafter. The 64kbps shaping also applies to the 2GB plan, while the 20GB Fusion plan will have speeds shaped to 128kbps.

At least Optus is not forcing existing customers on no-longer-available cable plans to upgrade to MyHome or Fusion plans. But putting new customers onto a plan that counts uploads as part of the download limit is just a way to give with one hand while taking with the other. Thankfully the MyHome plans are not subjected to uploading being counted towards download limits.

Correction: Commenter Robert Walker has noticed an error - the MyHome plans do indeed count downloads and uploads towards the download limit. What I meant to say was that thankfully the MyHome plans do not charge excess usage fees. Thanks also to Dan Warne for pointing out that only the newest Fusion plans are the beneficiaries of the faster speeds - older Fusion plans miss out.

Anyone who uploads a lot – for whatever reason – is really getting a smaller download limit. That really isn’t customer friendly behaviour, and it’s very sad to see Australia’s second biggest telco deciding that copying Australia’s biggest telco on this is a good idea, especially for plans that are aimed at consumers wanting a good bundled deal on phone and Internet.

It’s not a good idea at all, delivering customers less value for money, and opening them up to additional charges of up to AUD $300 per month, with Optus only able to advise customers to 'limit their usage'. Gee, thanks Optus!