Paying the Price

In recent weeks Australia made the news for Optus finally punishing high bandwidth users. So I had a look at New Zealand to see how it's done better. Basically, 128K is going to be the standard access speed. Raising the bar at the lowend seems to be a much more intelligent solution.

NZ Unlimited/NZ$29.95 per month/128Kbit donwload

NZ 500Mb/NZ$49 per month/2-8Mbit download
AU 300Mb/AU$59 per month/256Kbit download

NZ 1Gb/NZ$69 per month/2-8Mbit download
AU 1Gb/AU$76.95 per month/512Kbit download

NZ 3Gb/NZ$310 per month/2-8Mbit download
AU 3Gb/AU$94.95 per month/512Kbit download

Installation is free at the moment for NZ. However, it's usually $99 with no contract requirement. They don't include a modem you pick one (hmm market forces). $189 is for Telstra on a 18 month contract. If speed falls below 2Mbit on the limited usage plans it's considered a service fault in NZ. The big jump from 1 to 3 GB is that there is no personal plan above 1Gb as it's considered business usage.

http://www.telecom.co.nz/content/0,2502,200345-200555,00.html
http://www.bigpond.com/broadband/adsl/pricing.asp

Duopoly - a game for 2-2 players:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/15/1023864366695.html