news National broadband provider TPG has revealed the prices it will charge for access to fibre broadband infrastructure rolled out by Telstra in the South Brisbane exchange area.

Telstra has chosen to replace the copper connections to about 20,000 premises in the region as its South Brisbane telephone exchange — where the copper cables terminate — is being closed in order to make way for the new Queensland Children’s Hospital in the area. The region is one of the first in Australia to receive fibre services to the home — but is not part of the Federal Government’s flagship National Broadband Network project, although the long-term plan is for the infrastructure to become part of the NBN. The first customers recently went live on the network — including customers of ISPs who had gained wholesale access to the network.

On its web site, TPG revealed this week it would offer just two plans in the area. Although the fibre is technically capable of offerings speeds up to 100Mbps, TPG will only offer two speeds — one with 8Mbps downlink and 384kbps uplink speeds, and a second plan offering 30Mbps/1Mbps speeds.

The plans will come with 200GB and 300GB of quota respectively, consisting of 100GB/100GB and 150GB/150GB on-peak/off-peak quota, and will cost $59.98 and $69.98 respectively. Both plans include $29.99 worth of line rental costs for a normal home telephone. A free Netcomm router is included in the plans. TPG will shape customers to speeds of just 256kbps/256kps after they have exhausted their quota.

The plans offer dramatically less value for similar prices compared with TPG’s existing ADSL2+ plans. For example, the company offers a $59.99 bundled plan that comes with line rental and unlimited downloads, or a 500GB plan for the same price. The 500GB plan is shaped to speeds of 1Mbps/1Mbps once the quota is exhausted. The company offers similarly priced naked DSL plans.

Fellow ISPs iiNet and Internode have bitterly complained about Telstra’s South Brisbane plans over the past few months.

In early September iiNet claimed Telstra was being heavy-handed with its treatment of wholesale customers in South Brisbane, virtually forcing them into signing up to agreements with its terms or facing the prospect of having their customers in the region cut off from broadband.

iiNet and Internode have also filed a joint submission with the national competition regulator, demanding Telstra’s South Brisbane wholesale services be subject to regulation, as the previous copper broadband services were.

At the time, Telstra reacted by stating that the prices it was offering to wholesale customers allowed them to be competitive, and that it had offered transitional assistance to ease the migration of wholesale services onto the network. Telstra had at that stage signed up 18 wholesale customers onto the South Brisbane network, it said.

opinion/analysis
Looks like iiNet and Internode’s complaints were valid. I can’t imagine TPG charging prices this poor unless it was forced to by Telstra. It appears as if the ACCC has some decisions to make. And Telstra … seriously? I thought you were supposed to be all warm and cuddly these days ;)

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1. Marcus
   Posted 11/10/2011 at 5:14 pm | Permalink | Reply

   thats still a lot better than the Bullshit price I have to pay for RIM shackled DSL through Internode.

   I know this isn’t Node’s fault, but fibre (NBN) is going to cost me less, give me more data quota and much MUCH faster.
   hurry up and bring it on!

2. Terry Green
   Posted 11/10/2011 at 5:20 pm | Permalink | Reply

   The connection must be crap, your photo shows a buildup of traffic trying to escape by crossing the bridge to the north side of the river :)

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 11/10/2011 at 5:24 pm | Permalink | Reply

     hehe yeah they’re going for it :)

   • Dbremner
     Posted 11/10/2011 at 6:39 pm | Permalink | Reply

     Nah, that can’t be TPG, no packet loss (cars falling off the side)

3. Guest
   Posted 11/10/2011 at 8:26 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Just proves the fact that TPG relies on telling its customers “ow its your house wiring” to cover up its lack of available bandwidth.
   With the South Brisbane Fibre, each customer is guaranteed “X” speed no matter what. Where the problem lies with the over congested carrier not the house wiring.

   Would love to see what spin TPG tells its customers on the South Brisbane Fibre as to why they have slow speed. Bahahaah

   • Duideka
     Posted 11/10/2011 at 10:12 pm | Permalink | Reply

     These South Brisbane plans are a exact copy of their off-net ADSL plans, they are only more expensive than their self-DSLAM plans which is obvious.

     Personally, I have no problems with TPG.

     http://www.speedtest.net/result/1528558898.png

     • Thrawn
       Posted 12/10/2011 at 5:22 am | Permalink | Reply

       No its not. Its far cheaper than off-net DSL considering line rental is included.

       Its surprisingly a very cheap retail price considering the supposed very high Telstra FTTH wholesale costs. In fact the price is basically the same as iiNet’s NBN plans.

       Which means either of these two things:

       1. TPG got a special deal from Telstra to bring the wholesale costs down to NBNCo levels.

       2. The oversubscription factor is much higher than I expected and thus TPG will be able to sell NBN for even cheaper again

     • Dbremner
       Posted 12/10/2011 at 2:30 pm | Permalink | Reply

       Yep, you just keep using that multithread speedtest test and you’ll always get good speed. The other tests are rubbish right? Everyone on TPG knows that, totally inaccurate, they show a single thread is slow, that can’t be right ;)

       • Duideka
         Posted 12/10/2011 at 9:15 pm | Permalink | Reply

         Pretty sure speedtest.net uses a single thread, but regardless;

         http://i.imgur.com/D0feT.png

4. Goddy
   Posted 11/10/2011 at 9:01 pm | Permalink | Reply

   See this shit? Unacceptable. The Coalition would have us repeat a massive mistake.

   • Brett H
     Posted 11/10/2011 at 9:30 pm | Permalink | Reply

     +1

     Sure the accc would step in but who wants to go through that crap all over again.

5. Guest
   Posted 11/10/2011 at 10:06 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Most providers haven’t even announced pricing. Internode, Exetel (i think) and now TPG are the only ones with pricing in there other than Telstra but that’s a different story.

6. Jean W
   Posted 12/10/2011 at 3:23 am | Permalink | Reply

   This is what happens when you leave the private sector to their own devices.

   • Jean W
     Posted 12/10/2011 at 3:28 am | Permalink | Reply

     As a sad side note, that pricing is technically better than what I am paying now (for phone + internet) over a Hellstra Wholesale port.

7. Syd
   Posted 12/10/2011 at 9:14 am | Permalink | Reply

   looks like the pro internode and iinet author opinions comments has backfired

   shows that internode and iinet are more interested in profits then customers

   why internode particular is complaining about the nbn, less profits for internode

   • Michael Wyres
     Posted 12/10/2011 at 10:30 am | Permalink | Reply

     Gee, a private business interested in profits.

     Whould’a thought?

     • Syd
       Posted 12/10/2011 at 5:33 pm | Permalink | Reply

       You dont get the point , if they were after customers like tpg is, they would offer competitive plans, not profit plans which iinet and internode are doing

   • AustCC
     Posted 12/10/2011 at 11:52 am | Permalink | Reply

     unlike Telstra, NBNco actually listened to Internode’s complaint and fixed up the issue.

     Besides, would Internode and iiNet have filed joint complaints to the ACCC if they are groundless?

     • Syd
       Posted 12/10/2011 at 5:32 pm | Permalink | Reply

       Yes they would like with adsl 2+ it is unregulated

       and internode and iinet still lodged a complaint

8. Paul Krueger
   Posted 12/10/2011 at 3:06 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Telstra wishes to receive a commercial return on it’s investment. Why is that wrong?

   A 7% ROI isn’t for everyone!

9. Barry
   Posted 13/10/2011 at 1:38 pm | Permalink | Reply

   have a look at greenfield nbn prices then we will see iinet and internode are not innicident as they claim

   its not just telstra they are blaming Opticomm

10. booksacool1
    Posted 13/10/2011 at 3:00 pm | Permalink | Reply

    Probably worth pointing out that these plans are only available to existing customers on that type plan. So that $70 bundled plan is ONLY available to those who currently bundled/naked. Customers like me have to take up an unbundled plan ($60) AND maintain a phone line with Telstra ($23/month), bringing the total cost up to $83/month. Given that this has much less quota (150gb instead of unlimited) and they demand a 12 month contract, its a bit tough to swallow.

    I’m undecided as whether to grudgingly sign up or simply dump my fixed line connection and move over to pre-paid mobile broadband.

11. Harquebus
    Posted 14/10/2011 at 3:48 pm | Permalink | Reply

    Time for Internode and others to put up a few towers. The NBN was supposed to eliminate quotas and shaping. I prefer quantity to speed.

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