So I do disagree with some of the comments posted before this.

Ozzies have become so accustomed to data quotas and caps that they no longer question why it’s being imposed. Corporates in other countries provide unlimited downloads/uploads at reasonable, affordable prices…why isn’t it done here? The answer is simple…the industry continues to collude to take advantage of this weakness/ignorance amongst us Ozzie consumers. And then you have Ozzies spouting the “limited bandwidth should be metered etc” line as gospel truth.

It’s a sad, sad situation.

I have real concern for the quality of the service you would receive, it would appear to me that Exetel would find it difficult to forward plan the capacity required in their network if the subscriber does not provide the indication.

I believe the better indicators for users network utilisation for capacity planning today is quota and not link speeds. I am genuinely interested in how they would address it, maybe they are relying on competitors offering more cost effective plans than 1$/GB for 100GB. Therefore assuming high users will not use their service.

Another idea I have pondered is a monthly service fee that provides access to a network and determines the access speeds/conditions etc. coupled with a prepaid data allowance. When you have expended all your data perhaps you have severely shaped data access that you might be able to use like when shaped on ADSL now.

But you can buy prepaid data allowances to be used at full access speeds, this might allow a provider to capacity plan based on current allocated data allowances across the network. Although this also presents a problem is so much as it decouples the time period it is to be used within unless they only last 30days from time activated or something.

It will be interesting to see how the NBN changes the plans offered to consumers, especially if it truly does break the current rules that we have to play by thanks to the incumbent.

It is great to see a new approach though, hopefully it does work for them.

This could be enough

$1/Gb is high, but it leads us in the correct direction – USER PAYS NO FREE RIDES.

One day we may get to scaling user pays: $1/G first 20G $0.5/G next 20G, $0.2 after that (or whatever eventually merging with wholesale prices)

The current BS of discourage use via harsh $ penalties for over use or speed limiting. It all leads to customer dissatisfaction. Why not encourage users to … use. I don’t want to buy another XGb chunk – I just want to download this one file this month, with the knowledge that I’m not going to get shafted for it.

Keep it clean and transparent, keep the bean counters well away from it all so consumers don’t feel like they’re getting cleverly shafted for not paying attention.

I too have downloaded a large file at the end of the month, ‘just cause I’ve payed for it anyway’, it’s all pntless BS.

People spend more when they feel good about it, it’s proven fact.

I do take your point about Ferraris and so on. And users like me (being an early technology adopter) will definitely want to use the NBN fibre to its full potential. But a lot of people simply won’t — perhaps most people — and that’s the market Exetel are clearly going for here.

Kudos to John Linton for some outside the box thinking.

It’s stupid to think that poeples consumption will stay the same. I guarantee you that once we can download dvd size files in minutes we’ll increase our consumption. Especially with services like Xbox Live.

NBN is redundant if it means we pay the same price for the same amount of download!!! (even if it comes down to us quicker).. complete wrought if you ask me!!!

Once again we are giving people the keys to a Ferrari and telling them to reverse out of the driveway at full speed then walk to their destination.