Optus launches NBN broadband plans

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 09 November 2011 10:09

Your IT - Home IT

Optus has unveiled a range of NBN broadband offerings that will be available in all the mainland first release sites either stand alone or at discounted rates when bundled with Optus fixed line telephony or mobile services.

Prices start at $39.99 per month for 20GB of peak period and 20GB off peak data at the lowest bandwidth offered by NBN Co, 12Mbps/2Mbps, but this is available only when bundled with an Optus post paid mobile plan. Other offerings are $59.99 with 50/70GB, $69.99 with 75/75GB and $79.99 with 250/250GB, stand alone, and all are discounted by $10 when bundled with an Optus mobile service. Data is throttled to 256kbps when the peak or total quota is exceeded.

These plans are offered on NBN Co's second bandwidth service, 25/5Mbps, and can be upgraded to 50/20Mbps for $10 per month or to 100/40Mbps fro $20 per month. However in light of recent ACCC edicts on service providers touting speed claims for broadband services Optus is eschewing all mention of speeds and referring to these upgrade options as 'Speed Packs' named Social. Multimedia and Multimedia eXtream, in ascending order of bandwidth.

At an NBN Co Forum in Sydney yesterday CEO Mike Quigley presented a slide comparing the price of various retail NBN offerings with ADSL, to debunk claims that NBN prices were high. iTWire has plotted the new Optus offerings on these slides, but note that the NBN Co chart takes no account of peak/off peak data quota splits.

Optus home phone customers can take the Optus 'yes' Fusion $109 offering with 500GB, the 'yes' Fusion $129 with 1000GB, both with unlimited calls to standard Australian fixed and mobile numbers, or the $64.94 home phone bundle with 50/70GB and $30 worth of calls, all at the second NBN speed tier of 25/5 with options to upgrade at extra cost.

All plans will be available on a month-to-month basis from 21 November under the existing NBN Co trial agreement. Optus also plans to offer a range of plans for small business from early next year and says pricing will be announced soon. However these will use the same underlying NBN Co wholesale services. NBN only yesterday announced new wholesale services for businesses, but these will not be available until Q3 of 2012. http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/networking/50984