news A number of Australian ISPs, including Internode, Primus, Engin and ClubTelco, have set shaping speeds on their National Broadband Network fibre plans slower than the shaping speeds on their existing ADSL broadband services, despite the fact that the NBN’s fibre infrastructure offers base speeds substantially higher than the copper-based ADSL network.
‘Shaping’ refers to an approach commonly taken by Australian ISPs to rate limit their users’ broadband connection speed drastically when the customer runs out of monthly download quota. The system, used by virtually every ISP in Australia, aims to ensure customers are incentivised to upgrade their broadband plan quota, while not disconnecting them from the Internet entirely when they exceed their limits.
Over the past several weeks, two new ISPs have launched new NBN plans in competition with existing providers such as iiNet, Internode, Telstra, Optus and Primus.
The first ISP, ClubTelco, has launched a range of packages starting at $35 per month, which gets you just 10GB of data at speeds of 12Mbps. The ISP is also offering 50GB, 100GB, 600GB and 1TB packages ranging from $50 to $95 per month in cost, at the same speed. And it also offers 25Mbps, 50Mbps and 100Mbps speeds at those same quota levels, with costs ranging from $55 per month to $140 per month.
The company’s prices appear to be significantly more expensive than its current ADSL pricing. The company has positioned its current ADSL offerings at the extreme bottom of the market, with its website boasting that it offers “Australia’s cheapest unlimited broadband ADSL2+” — from just $25 per month. That cost becomes substantially more — $40 or $60 a month — if you are outside certain geographical “zones” which the ISP has limited customers to.
However, one of the other significant differences between the company’s existing ADSL broadband packages and its new NBN plans is what happens when customers run out of quota on their plans.
Under ClubTelco’s Unlimited ADSL plans, customers have unlimited data quota, so their connections are never shaped. Under its 10GB quota plans, customers are shaped to 1Mbps download speeds. However, when ClubTelco’s new NBN customers use up their quota, they will be shaped to a quarter of that speed — 256kbps. “The shaped speed for all ClubTelco NBN Broadband plans [is] 256Kbps,” the company’s website states.
The second new ISP which has released NBN plans over the past week is Engin, which is primarily an Internet telephony player. However, the company has diversified into broadband services over the past few years.
Engin will offer its customers three NBN plans — at $49.95, $79.95 and $99.95 monthly price points, with speeds of 12Mbps, 50Mbps and 100Mbps respectively, and with 25GB, 125GB and 400GB of quota respectively. However, as with ClubTelco, its NBN shaping speeds (128kbps) are slower than the shaping speeds on its normal broadband plans (256kbps).
Of those ISPs which have already launched NBN broadband plans, most are offering the same shaping speeds under the NBN that they do on their ADSL services. Typically, with Telstra, iiNet and Optus, this is 256kbps (although on some Telstra non-NBN plans the shaping speeds are even lower — 64kbps). However, two major ISPs — Internode and Primus — offer shaping speeds under the NBN which are slower than those available on their existing ADSL broadband plans.
On its Easy Broadband, Easy Bundle and Easy Naked plans, Internode shapes customers’ speeds to 256kbps when they have exhausted their quota, although on its Easy Reach plans (using Telstra infrastructure), that speed drops to 128kbps. However, all of Internode’s NBN plans are limited to 128Kbps when customers exhaust their monthly quota.
It’s a similar situation at Primus. The ISP shapes customers on most of its plans to 256kbps, although those on its Big Kahuna 700GB plan are shaped to 1Mbps. Some of Primus’ NBN plans — notably, its bundles — are also shaped to 256kbps. However, the 1Mbps shaping speeds are not on offer at all to NBN customers, and NBN customers who sign up for stand-alone plans will be shaped to lesser speeds — 128kbps.
Asked about the issue this afternoon, Internode managing director Simon Hackett issued the following statement: “Internode expects to review our shaping speeds on our NBN plans as a part of our regular reviews of our NBN plans in general, and we expect to be consistent with industry practice as it evolves over time. It’s not a source of stress for us – or for our customers, who are not in general identifying our over-paid-quota shaping speeds as a source of angst or concern when using or selecting their services from Internode.”
“It is very early days for the NBN, and I don’t think any NBN providers plans will be the same as they are today, even a year from now. The market is only barely entering the commercial era, and everyone concerned is feeling their way in this new realm – while remaining somewhat constrained by the Telstra-Wholesale style underlying economic access model of the NBN.”
opinion/analysis
Hackett’s right — this is not a major issue for customers. It’s quite easy to upgrade your broadband plan if you run into your limit — and with many ISPs, all it takes is a few minutes configuring your customer control panel.
However, I also do not believe I am alone in being concerned that shaping speeds are being downgraded under the NBN. If anything, they should be upgraded. If Australia is going to gradually start to consider broadband a universal human right (as I believe we are starting to consider it), then speeds of 1Mbps should be considered an absolute minimum. I personally do not believe it is appropriate to shape a fibre-optic broadband connection down to 128kbps, under any circumstances. With those speeds, you can barely load any modern web page — let alone access a number of basic services. 128kbps speeds are barely above 56k modem levels — and we’re talking about fibre-optic connections here.
Also, this issue is a real one for many customers. When I was a university student in the early years of last decade, I could only afford very basic broadband services to my then residence, and so relied on shaping speeds of 64kbps daily to access services once I had used up my measly (I think it was something like 2GB at that stage) limit. Even at that stage, I knew that I needed broadband to get my university studies done, and I chafed at the bit constantly trying to download educational resources. With all the modern Web 2.0 systems that universities use today, I would anticipate 128kbps would really not be fast enough to get that done.
Image credit: Lars Sundstrom, royalty free
“under the NBN. If anything, they should be upgraded. ”
…and I wonder who this blogger thinks is going to pay for that extra data, it is very clear that some people have no Idea on costs of running a service provider.
I’ll give them a hint… the end user will pay, IOW, if you want higher “shaped” speeds you could have it, but don’t expect it at the same plan rates paid now…
Double hint, ISP’s pay for data and link size, if everyone used more data, ISP’s need to get , to put it in plain english, “bigger pipes”, pay extra for the bigger pipes, and the extra data used, so I wonder who this blogger thinks will pay for all the extra operating costs, or perhaps they think the ISP’s will just wear the cost out of the goodness of their heart because some wanka in Canberra runs around touting NBN NBN NBN doesnt mean transit costs are free, all the NBN is doing is going to kill off the smaller guys, therfore destroy competition, NBN is really just Telecom Australia, or maybe even Postmaster Generals Office – mkII, it’ll be back to hte “big four” and no one else will exist.
It is sad state of affairs when a country that spends more money so end users can get their warez and steal movies faster, then spend it on more important things, ya know, like health. Yes NBN would be nice, if the country wasn’t so far in debt, and the world economies were strong and stable, but if that case, maybe we wouldnt be amongst the worlds top most taxed nation.
I’m not sure you can even buy fiber GBics that do under 1.25Gbps for the past 2 years – so when you say it’s too expensive to supply anything faster than 128kbps it boggles the mind how much money ISP’s are making in terms of $ per Mbps.
You’re talking about the modern day SMS here – hundreds times more mark-up on the cost of data per transfer – data limits on ADSL used to be justified by speeds being affected at peak times, but with each fiber cable capable of punching through literally 10x more faster speeds (CURRENTLY) than the highest NBN Plan [100mbps] these shaping and data limits are serious cash cows – and I expect them to be defended heavily.
Just take the above post for example ;)
Nobby6 says: “…maybe [Australia] wouldnt be amongst the worlds top most taxed nation.”
What absolute rubbish. Looking at the standard measure of “tax revenue as a percentage of GDP”, Australia is well down the list behind most of Europe, the UK, NZ, Canada, Israel and Japan. We are the 6th-lowest taxed nation in the OECD.
That aside, comparing the NBN to health funding, as per your example, is just silly for a number of reasons:
1) For a start, the NBN isn’t funded from tax revenue, it’s funded from the issue of bonds which are repaid by users of the network.
2) Even if it were on-budget, it would represent a tiny fraction of health spending. Over the 10 years of NBN construction, where the Govt will contribute $27bn to it, Australian Governments will spend over $1.2Trillion on public healthcare.
3) The health sector will benefit from the NBN through ehealth programmes.
Data caps are a concept mainly limited to australia anyway.
In most of the rest of the world data is unmetered and you pay for speed instead, this will likely be the route that austraian isps will take one they are released from the monopolistic claws of telstra.
Instead isp’s should focus and getting more money out of the bandwidth users use, ie bundling in iptv services.
@Nobby6 a quick read of this site http://nbnmyths.wordpress.com/ should rest most of your fears about the NBN
If Simon thinks that the plans and detail that are being released by ISP’s are not going to reflect what shaping speeds will look like in a year or two’s time then why release those stupid numbers in the first place? It looks bad for an ISP and quite frankly makes them look amateurish.
IMO the opportunity is NOW for an ISP to take the lead on this and state “we will shape to 1.5-2Mbit. Sure, not many people will care but ANY market advantage is better than none and the best thing about it, it isn’t gonna hit their bottom line that much.
It’s fibre for gods sake, ISP’s need to get with the times and at least display some intelligence and reflect that.
@Daniel, seriously? *laughs* When ISP’s can buy THEIR fibre and THEIR data for one cent per petabyte, like you seem to think they do, then, and only then, will you see shaping at 1mbps as “the norm”
The Govt isnt giving away free or next to it, fibre to ISPs, what youve got is a subsidised you -> ISP, trust me the ISP -> “big wide internet” is not as piddly cheap as your dreams seem to think.
The NBN is doing NOTHING to reduce ISP costs, its actually forcing an increase.
You do the sums….
line speed in bits per second / 8 = line speed in bytes p/sec
bytes p/sec x 60 x 60 = bytes per hour
bytes per hour x 24 = bytes p/day
bytes p/day x days per month = bytes p/month
bytes p/month / 1,000,000 = Max possible megabytes per month
Now, multiply that by tens or hundreds of thousands of users, put it as a ratio of 30:1, then come back
and tell me who is going to pay for all that extra data, and the increase in ISP transit link sizes to match, and extra hardware to handle it all, I can tell you now it aint the Govt or NBNco.
OK, so if not now, when is it “reasonable” to expect ISP’s to raise the throttled speed? As Renai pointed out, you can’t even load your average website these days on 128k. As technology evolves 128k and 256k won’t let you do anything, period.
So whats the solution?
ISP’s keep throttling at 128k which is basically saying they are going to cut your net completely off, or are ISP’s going to modernise their business models, get with the times and realise that applying ADSL shaping to fibre is ludicrous.
Hi Daniel,
Daniel wrote:
“What’s the solution?”
Solution: If you have used the data that you bought, then you buy more data.
What do you do when the case of beer you bought runs out? Insist that the bottlo gives you 1 free can of VB each day until the next pay day because you drank your slab in the first 24 hours? :)
Seems many people here think that ISPs are making mega profits at the expense of their customers. Reality check – have a google and see how many ISPs in Australia have going broke offering unlimited plans.
Data is not free. Far, far from it.
Regards,
Douglas
This is just business ‘upsell’ techniques right?
If you buy something, and you use all of that something really fast, the idea is to get you to pay more money for larger quantities – wholesale pricing is cheaper and better for the company.
Question: where does the justification for making people pay more money for data come from? Where does the idea that you can limit people’s data on a fiber network come from?
This is just all nonsense. Caps and shaping are ISP cash cows that need to be sent to the slaughterhouse. Beware of corporate interests looking to defend their juicy profits from capping/shaping costs that are illegitimate.
Hi Nicoli,
Nicoli wrote:
Question: where does the justification for making people pay more money for data come from? Where does the idea that you can limit people’s data on a fiber network come from?
Answer:
NBN charge a usage fee called CVC. The more data your end users consume, the more CVC you need to buy from the NBN. That answers your question. If you have a problem with that (as lots of ISPS do!) – take it up with the NBN (as lots of ISPs have done!), not the ISPs.
And an aside –
You keep referring to 1.25Gb GBICs. This is the NNI component of the NBN only. You are showing that don’t really know what you are talking about in an NBN context when you refer to 1.25G GBICs. These are long haul GBICs. In the NBN world you use 1Gb or 10Gb SM short haul SFPs.
Regards,
Douglas.
Ahahaha oh wow – so the real justification for data caps is the NBN itself!
So instead of Hackett telling me “my hands are tied” and to take it up with Telstra, I’m now going to have the whole telecoms industry saying their hands and feet are tied to the railway tracks and to take it up with the Government.
“Question: where does the justification for making people pay more money for data come from? Where does the idea that you can limit people’s data on a fiber network come from?”
Answer: Where does the notion that you can get something for free, that someone else pays for, come from? How do you get that entitlement complex?
They (a business) sell you something. when you run out of that something, you BUY some more. Not demand they give you more for free because ‘its your right’.
Same logic these guys are using sorry, it still makes no sense to me.
There is no limit to the amount of data you can transfer of fiber networks, let alone ADSL networks. 10+ years ago they justified having ‘caps’ on data plans ADSL because when people would download alot it would slow down speeds across the whole node. I’m just saying this is pretty much impossible on fiber, so what’s the new excuse for data caps?
And the excuse you’re all throwing at me is – because you pay for it, you use it, and when you use it, you need to buy more of it.
Hello Nicoli,
Nicoli wrote:
“The excuse you’re all throwing at me is – because you pay for it, you use it, and when you use it, you need to buy more of it.”
Precisely! Are you comfortable in your airconditioning, after having 8 hours sleep on a comfy bed, a nice breakfast and coffee and now surfing the net on your new computer? Welcome to capitalism.
If you don’t like it, please be sure to send me a postcard from a rice paddy in china when you move back to a subsistence lifestyle with the communists.
Regards,
Douglas.
Ahh the old political ideology argument. Almost as bad as the religious fanatics if you ask me!
The whole idea of charging people for data usage over a fiber network relies on the illusion that sending petabytes of data over glass or copper is expensive. It’s not. You’re creating artificial scarcity and then trying to legitimise it with the cost of actually building the network – which my tax dollars are already funding.
Not sure if anyones slapped you for this yet because I’m only a small way through my emails, but the no limit to amountof data on fibre? WTF? what world do you live in? you might be partialy right in so far as ISP-Aend user to ISP-A end user, once you leave youre ISP’s network, that is where the real cost of data is for the ISP, the NBN does NOT cover any external data, all thse movies you likely steal via p2p, cost the ISP money in data, it aint free, you;ve been told this before, but I suspect you know this and are just trolling.
So nicoli, my final words to you are, if it is as no-cost as you think, why are you not running an ISP? and why have you not signed your ISP up on the NBN ? please, go for it, no, seriously, please do…
PS looking forward to seeing you in bankruptcy court in 6 months :)
Data limits are illegitimate as the pricing for data transfer is set at artificial levels, and everyone on this blog is justifies this with capitalist ideology. Furthermore, not only is “$/GB Transferred” artificial (that is, MADE UP), no-one really seems to know who sets the prices. Which is it, the cost of the hardware to run the network? The maintenance of the network? The employees wages of the ISP? The ISP itself? The NBN? The Government? The companies who run undersea cables? I bet you don’t even know mate.
Sorry, you are trolling. Go learn how to run a business then come back and try and make the same arguments.
Pricing flows through from the undersea cable providers. They calculate their costings for installing and maintaining the cable over an x year period. Not surprisingly it’s bloody expensive to run a big fat fibre optic cable from Sydney to LA. Once they’ve worked out their exact costings they break it down into chunks and then add margin(they aren’t a charity right?) and then sell to providers. Those providers then work out their costs on a per customer level, including any installation and maintenance of equipment needed to connect to the main transit cable and then add margin on top of that(again, not a charity).
Because the cable provider sells capacity purely in terms of pipe speed, the ISP’s need a way to be able to split that speed over all their customers. Clearly the only fair way of doing it is by charging the people who use that capcity more ie more data used = more expensive.
You’ll find that the so-called unlimited plans being touted in the US are not so unlimited anymore as they’ve all realised there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Douglas, excellent point you have made I have been watching the ISP game for many years and see ISP’s being over ambitious with their offerings, and then end up with bandwidth issues and or ending up either harshly restructuring their their plans they market out to customers, or going completely broke and closing its doors or being bought out by another ISP. Some people here need to realize that there is more than just selling a set of download limits on the webpage of an ISP when it comes to the accounting issues of survival and business costs.
Also the costs on running an ISP would be astronomical as well and we customers and consumers really pay a pittance (no thats not my way of saying ISP should raise their prices ;0) ) for the usage of the internet.
So if some ISP’s can offer unlimited download limits on NBN great but they would have to sustainable in providing enough bandwidth and surviving as a business profit wise and also be reliable as well.
A broke ISP is a useless ISP.
Some might wish to disagree with me well thats fine I don’t care really as I am not here to argue, just to add my 2 cents worth. ;0),
Cheers.
Who made bandwidth (that is, the amount of data you can transfer over a copper or fiber cable) such a scarce resource I wonder?
Oh right, the same people you work for….
Daniel you’re right, they are (rightfully so) effectively saying that, because the plan a person is on has a quota and that has become exceeded, if you want faster still you want a larger plan.
Please understand data is not free to ISPs, nor is it cheap in this country, ISP’s are fully within their rights to suspend your service after your quota has been exceeded, since thats all you have paid them for, the fact they allow you to stay connected is entoirtely at their discrection.
Internet access is not a legal right like access to phone serices are, and ISP’s are not charities. Someone, somewhere, has to pay for the data used, the only reason you get so much data as such cheap prices are becomes of contention ratios and the fact that all hte mums and dads who used 5 MB a month only, are the ones who offset the warez pups and bandwith hogs as mentioned by a previous commenter.
We have both Optus and BigPond cables in the house, (based on the plans we’re currently on; the former is shaped to 128k, while the latter is shaped to 256k); I have to say that shaping to 128k is a pretty bad experience. Its not livable, given the content being produced in today’s websites. 256k should be the bare bones minimum…Don’t bother going with a monthly plan or ISP that offers 128k or less. (Isn’t that supposed to be one of the benefits of NBN?…Allow Australians to choose which ISP or plan is best for them.)
When I was doing my engineering degree at university, we had to remotely use the engineering servers to get our work done. (As many students hogged the limited computing resources available and the course specifically forced us to use their proprietary software and its licensing). I was lucky enough to have Optus/BigPond Cable back then, as the results sent back weighed in a couple of hundred megabytes! There was no way in one would get any work done on time if I hit the shaped limits back then! (64k on both cables in those times…So I had to limit my internet use and prioritise for assignment work.)
I think a multi tier shape would be a decent idea say 200GB at 100Mbps after that 100GB at 10 Mbps then 100GB at 1Mbps.
Or possibly using this scheme if an ISP offered IP TV in HD when they first get capped it is slow enough that they can’t stream HD anymore.
Basically there needs to be a punishment for going over your limit but I think there needs to be a soft cap and a hard cap.
Good afternoon,
Here is a brief explanation of how ISPs price their plans:
When an ISP prices their plans, they do so with the knowledge that, on average, a typical user will only use a relatively small proportion of their purchased allowance.
Caps exist to encourage people who use their full allowance to upgrade their plans (ie – spend more money!). If the shaping isn’t punitive enough, people won’t upgrade their plan.
Every time someone uses more of their plan that the ISP banked on when pricing it, the ISP is losing money on that user for that month. As described above, plans are NOT constructed with the assumption 100% will be used. It is far, far less than that, especially on the larger plans.
This is referred to in the industry as, amongst other things, “breakage”.
So sure, you can get 1Mbps shaping when you hit 100% of your plan, but your monthly plan cost just went up by 30% to cover it.
As they say, be careful of what you wish for.
Regards,
Douglas.
Thanks for the lesson in ISP corporate economics.
Can you run us through the new excuses/justifications for shaping data and capping speeds? Now that you you and your bosses (judging by the PR-esq style of your post) can’t blame it on Telstra, and fiber has nowhere near the bottleneck ADSL/Copper does.
Again, shaping and capping are huge cash cows for ISP’s – they are completely unjustified with a fiber network as data is fast and cheap. If it was even possible to saturate a brand new fiber infastructure, one would expect the price to be cents per hundreds of gigabytes and perhaps even a few dollars more for faster speeds. I can order 1.25Gbps GBics from China for around $25 each for example.
Expect more of the propaganda from employees to turn up on blogs such as this. Australia is one of the few countries in the world who still nickle and dime customers to this extent. Fiber doesn’t slow down like ADSL, it’s not privy to the same physics and the same lame excuses you ***kers have been throwing at us for 2 decades now!!
Keep it civil. As above, take up your issue with the NBN who charge a usage based CVC, not the ISPs.
Renai – flagging the above post for breach of your new comments policy.
Regards,
Douglas.
“Can you run us through the new excuses/justifications for shaping data and capping speeds?”
@nicoli , Douglas might not, but I will, it’s simple, as I’ve told Daniel, because you paid for X amount, and you have used X amount, why should you think you have a right to X + Y when you only paid for X is beyond me.
it;s like saying you have a car, and will pay for thw first tank of fuel ever week, and if you use that up in 4 days, then the next 3 days of the week the servo must give you free petrol “aint gunna happen”
I had this explained to me many times before while on ADSL.
I still don’t get why you would ever need to charge people for usage of fiber, other than the monthly rental. The GBic reference is an example of the capacity this network would be capable of, of course they don’t use consumer switches at the hubs.
This has nothing to do with cars and tanks of fuel – just like SMS pricing has nothing to do with the cost of data. Bandwidth isn’t some scarce resource…
Hello Nicoli,
Ah, the old SMS argument!
People who argue that it costs virtually zero to send an SMS, so it should be priced accordingly totally confuse OPEX with CAPEX.
It costs BILLIONS of dollars to build and maintain the networks sending the SMSes, and increase that ten fold to build and maintain a network like the NBN.
Sure – the incremental cost of sending a single SMS on 3G or single email on the NBN is next to zero, but someone has to pay for the cost of building those networks in the first place, and then maintaining them.
Anyhow, I am beginning to think you are just trolling now.
Regards,
Douglas.
Ahh the old political ideology argument. Almost as bad as the religious fanatics if you ask me!
The whole idea of charging people for data usage over a fiber network relies on the illusion that sending petabytes of data over glass or copper is expensive. It’s not. You’re creating artificial scarcity and then trying to legitimise it with the cost of actually building the network – which my tax dollars are already funding.
Opps that post was for up the top.
I sincerely am not trolling – just pointing out the football size holes in your reasoning.
Actually technically sending data over cables *is* expensive – especially from the US to Australia via submarine cable, for example.
Hi Renai, if undersea cables cost money for data usage, why are we getting capped for data that is transferred within Australia?
Nicoli,
I’m sorry. You probably have a valid argument in here somewhere, but I can’t see it at this point. Look, mate, it is a fact of life that it costs ISPs to shift data around into, out of and within their own networks. These are real costs which real people have to pay. There are a variety of input costs (buying/leasing infrastructure, maintaining it and so on).
You can’t argue that network traffic is free. That’s factually inaccurate, as any entry level network admin knows. And if you continue to do so, I’ll kick you off Delimiter for a week for devaluing the discussion we’re having here.
Cheers,
Renai
Editor + Publisher, Delimiter
I’m not sure how my posts are devaluing the conversation, if anything I’m helping you make the payroll next week!
I just see too many parallels here. With the electricity grid, they meter how much you use because the fuel that goes in to creating the electricity is a tangible, real thing you have to dig up out of the ground. There are also costs involved in keeping the grid maintained.
I’m not deliberately being daft here, but where is the real, tangible thing that warrants a meter on your data transfer usage? I don’t think anyone has an answer.
The excuse given by ISP’s ~10 years ago till now was always that if everyone was downloading lots, it would slow the network down. Therefore, data caps and shaping were invented to deal with this. This isn’t an issue with fiber. So now the excuse has switched to “oh it’s just how the industry operates”. Sorry for asking hard questions, but in a giant social experiment such as the NBN shouldn’t we be ALLOWED to comment on how the industry operates?
Shouldn’t charging a high price for a monthly connection be enough to pay the bills? I’m having a hard time understanding why this isn’t the case, but the other commenters just confirmed it. It’s just business dude – relax ;)
Shaping is such a non-issue these days.
Shaping was introduced back in the old days to stop BILL SHOCK when Bigpuddle and others used to charge $150 per GB for excess data beyond the ridiculously silly 200MB data allowance. Little Johnny discovers YouTube and suddenly Mum & Dad get a $2000 internet bill. Those days are gone.
If you are getting regularly shaped you are on the wrong data plan.
If you are getting occasionally shaped Buy a Data Block.
Shaping is NOT an unlimited pack of Tim Tams that never runs out.
Armond, you have it pretty much correct.
Bill shock will be a lot more painful than having the connection speeds reduced I know which I would prefer. :0).
Plus its if you go over your limit its not like ISP’s are going to completely cut off your connection.
The thing is, TimTams are cheap enough to fill your fridge full of packets of them – I’d imagine you’d get completely sick and never want to eat TimTams again after the first $50 worth of em.
Another dodgy excuse for charging people money to send bytes over cables…..
There is a simple solution for that nicoli. simply don’t pay for it you won’t get any internet access but at least you won’t have to pay for it.
If data was free it would be all a moot point but the thing is and has been said before data is not free.
In reality if you want something you have to pay for it and as been said ISP’s are not a charity they are a business and a very expensive business to run and if you need more you may have to pay for it.
Thing is the as saying goes technology is awesome and nobody is happy, technology has made people greedy and rather selfish as well.
But thats life really if you want something you got to pay for it because not even air is free now its taxed with the carbon tax scheme.
Once again you’ve failed to clearly outline WHY there is a substantial price on data over fiber networks.
Because that cable cost money to build and that money has to be recovered some way. They charge on capacity usage so that those who shift more data over it pay more. It isn’t related to cost of electricity, etc. It’s just those who benefit most pay most.
The following line from the article is incorrect:
“However, all of Internode’s NBN plans are limited to 128Kbps when customers exhaust their monthly quota.”
All of Internode’s NBN plans have the option to increase the shaping speeds by purchasing option packs (256/256k for the Power Pack and 512/512k for the Business Pack).
Talk about ‘biting the hand the feeds you’.
Shaping is a good will gesture from the ISP anyway. Once you have used up all that you paid for, why should they give you any extra? From a business perspective, they should be cutting you off completely, or charging you for the extra data you use.
You are getting something for free with shaping, what do you feel justifies demanding more for free?
If you are exceeding your quota, buy a bigger plan, or just be grateful you can still download your emails and access the internet at all.
Thing is Greg, people won’t accept that they just want it all and want it now as they feel that the world owes them something to sit at a computer and have data flinged across their computer to another bunch of computers at the speed of sound for less than a brass wazoo.
;0),
Well actually the thing is Greg’s,
Employees of ISP’s are writing on these blogs trying to muddy the perception of their true business models by comparing the transfer of data to TimTams and petroleum products that run automobiles.
“Employees of ISP’s are writing on these blogs trying to muddy the perception of their true business models”
Got any evidence of that? Otherwise, it’s a false claim — and we don’t tolerate those on Delimiter ;) This is a zone of fact, as strange as that may sound for the Internet.
nicoli,
I am not an employee of any ISP I am a customer a tax payer and a hard worker with a wife and a few kids..
I am using my basic common sense on how ISP’s are run I am far from an expert but I see it as data is not free.
No such thing as a free lunch it seems that the last refuge you have is for attack when you are losing your argument which isn’t helping your case.
Please do some research on the costs involved running an ISP there is bound to be heaps on info on the net so at least you get some idea.
Ruthless ideas in a business comes with massive consequences and offering plans to customers that the company cannot afford and could end up in financial strife is too easily done.
In a nutshell its all to do with basic economics really.
But if you refuse to take in the info or to listen well thats just bad luck then, because its been explained to you why and how by the other comments here.
Best of luck…
How about a bus with 20 seats then.
Your base cost to run the bus is the fuel, the driver and maintenance. So we have a cost to run the bus each week. But wait a minute we still need to buy the bus and maybe replace it every 5 years or so. You add a bit to your weekly cost to run bus to allow for this. You might need to expand a little bit in the future so add a little and then add some profit in.
You’re the only bus company in town so you get all the customers, some only ride a couple of stops a week, so ride lots of stop per a week. You have one ticket that allows people to ride as much as want and you set the ticket price based on the average number of stop used, and how full the bus is on average. so you charge $8 bucks a tick and your average customer ride 8 stops,
Another bus company come to town and they want your customers.
They decide a multiple tier pricing system.
They have a 5 stop ticket $5, 10 Stop ticket at $9 a 20 Stop ticket at $15 and a super premium all you can ride ticket at $50
You decide to do nothing as your bus is making money.
The first thing to happen is all your customer who ride 5 or less stops leave and go to the other bus company. Your bus is slightly emptier and the average number of stops per a customer increases to 12. Your have to put your price up $11 a ticket. Now you lose all your 10 stop or less customers and have to increase your price again only to lose all your 20 stop customers. Now bus filled with only a few people who ride the bus all the time but because you bus is empty your covering you cost any more without a price which will lose those remaining customers. So you file for bankruptcy complaining that the other bus company must be using underhand tactics because the customers you have a very happy.
Internet service in Aust is currently set up like to the 2nd bus company. It is what you would expect with decent competition, where you have a concurrent max users for you captial expense. The way NBN co is setup with their charging structure is they charge the ISP low price for their customer to access the bus and charge the ISP for reserved seats on the bus. It is up to the ISP how they fill these seats. Because the ISP have competition those that act like the 1st company aren’t going to last.
Now NBN co will have no competition eventually so could go with the 1st bus company model. However this only applies to connections within NBNs or ISP network they do still have those mac concurrent user restriction on international traffic. Such a plan might see an increase in available free-zone data from ISP but there will still be usage caps on international traffic. However it will not happen in the short term for one simple reason. All customers are currently on bus 2 plans shift them back to bus 1 plans will would see a decrease in cost for the highest users, would increase the cost for all the low end user. The low users out number the high end user, High end user are also more likely to already vocal support the NBN. The headline in the Australian would ready “NBN failure: Church going granny subsidizes porn fiends internet”.
I don’t work for an ISP, I work from a SME with a need for upgraded comms in our office and customer base.
reblogged with commentary (summarized – “what a sad joke”) here. http://www.worldbroadbandfoundation.org/content/australias-nbn-still-shaping-speeds-and-lower-traditional-adsl
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