Internode forces some customers onto new plans

Internode have this afternoon confirmed a number of existing out-of-contract customers would have to be moved onto the company’s newer plans because of a wholesaler “price squeeze”.

In a post on the company’s blog, Internode managing director Simon Hackett confirmed a number of Internode customers who are out of their contract period would have no option but to switch to one of Internode’s new plans, unveiled earlier in the month.

Hackett said the “consideration process” about moving customers onto the new plans in some areas is now complete, with the Internet provider deciding it had no option but to move some customers across. “While the majority of our customers are not impacted, unfortunately some of our customers will be,” Hackett wrote.

Affected customers will from today receive notices in the mail giving them 30 days notice of the plan Internode intends to switch them to, with customers given the option to change their Internode-elected plan, terminate their Internode service or agree to the changes.

To be sent such a notice, customers will have to be out of their contract period, be on one of Internode’s older plans or live in a geographic location that isn’t serviced by one of Internode’s own DSLAM services or those of other, more competitive wholesale DSL providers.

“We sincerely regret the (rare) occasion of having to impose a price change for some of our existing customers,” Hackett added. “This is not being done lightly, and despite the Internet industry being a bit of an anomaly in the services industries in general (in the sense of it not tending to impose price rises very often, compared to things like power, water and gas bills, for instance), on this occasion these changes are necessary ones.”

The controversial new plans caused a stir amongst some Internode customers, because it turned out that some were better off on their existing deal. Internode however claimed the high wholesale prices placed on the company meant pricing had to be adjusted in order to allow the company to remain “financially sustainable.”

“Absent of any ACCC activity to encourage appropriate change, our most recent wholesale pricing negotiations have failed to yield any effective improvement in our access costs,” Hackett wrote last month upon the announcement of the new plans. “In fact our effective wholesale access costs have actually risen in some geographic areas despite movement in the opposite direction in applicable retail pricing conditions.”

At the time, Internode was considering its options on whether or not it would have to force existing, out of contract customers across to a similar new plan because of the so-called price squeeze.

Image credit: Mike Gieson, royalty free

12 COMMENTS

  1. They said customers may be affected, and now, they actually are affecting customers. *shrug* It’s annoying but it’s not like this is them throwing a curve ball.

    • “It’s annoying but it’s not like this is them throwing a curve ball.”

      No? They sell customers a product then penalise them because they use it?

      I would’ve thought overselling quota would’ve been beneath the almighty Internode.

      Anyway, people will now see they aren’t really any different from most of the other ISPs. The mesmerising (and mostly false) spell is broken.

      The night cleaning staff will have their work cut out for them cleaning up senior management’s crocodile tears.

  2. It’s all Telstra’s fault, and the NBNco, and the ACCC and so on …

    Interesting that once again Hackett doesn’t front his customers on Whirlpool.

      • Of course, he doesn’t but he always has until the last plan change and yesterday’s announcement.

        It’s been on those things that have supposedly made Internode the ‘superior’ service ISP.

        • Who cares? He’s explained numerous times why he disagrees with the NBN’s CVC pricing and POI scheme, and has been the only person to go up to bat for the consumers’ sake. Harping on one little misdeed is just pointless infighting.

          You should instead be demanding that NBNCo lower its CVC pricing to about 1/10th of what it’s at now (from $20/mbit to $1-2/mbit), with plans to reduce it 50% every year or two, thus accurately reflecting market rates in major urban areas around the world (it’s actually .50 cents/mbit in major American hubs).

          Furthermore the public should be demanding the ACCC explain its 121 POI decision. If there’s corruption or bribery going on there, it needs to be exposed. Otherwise the regulator should be able to coherently outline the purpose of its change to the government’s plan.

  3. Maybe if hackett bought less planes and sports cars he could offer more reasonable plans…

    • Oh, Billy, you’re so, so wrong. Plenty of comments in the plan change thread on Whirlpool insist HRH Simon gives absolutely no thought to money, just lives for bringing the latest technological advancements to the (well-heeled and/or Internode Cult-believing) masses.

  4. oh yeah he’s a real fricken altruist

    he doesn’t mind fighting his financial battles using the media when it suits his commercial interests (nbn whinging, accc whining, filter squealing) but he’s deathly quiet the moment his business is subject to criticism.

    I was with Internode for 4 years. Meh…. there are definitely a heap of providers out there with better service and better prices, who, in addition, manage to get on with their business without behaving like a spoilt little girl.

    Internode is so passé

  5. Looks like Simon Hackett really has upset the gods at Telstra Wholesale:

    “….if you move from that 200GB plan to a BigPond plan, you’ll actually be earning Telstra less money in the meantime, believe it or not (at least until we get an improvement in wholesale pricing that lets us return to better value plans in zones 2 and 3).

    That’s because the price squeeze is so severe that we pay more to Telstra for wholesale access in zones 2 and 3 than BigPond are likely to make in profit for selling their retail plans in the same zones.”

    http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1746495&p=50#r983

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