TPG releases unlimited NBN business plans

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news National broadband provider TPG has released a new range of National Broadband Network plans aimed at businesses, with the headline plan offering 100Mbps speeds and unlimited data and telephone usage for $120 per month.

In a statement issued this morning, TPG chief operating officer Craig Levy said the NBN business bundles (which you can see online here) were designed for small businesses to get more from their Internet connection.

“The increased capacity and reliability you can get over the NBN will really help small businesses around productivity and allow more multi-tasking as staff won’t have to fight over limited bandwidth anymore,” Levy said. “Combined with the included Static IP, the extra bandwidth will also allow businesses to make more use of applications such as VPN, remote access, FTP and server hosting.”

TPG noted it was not new to the small business market but the rollout of NBN had allowed the telco to expand its corporate customer base.

“TPG is well seasoned in delivering services to small businesses using Fibre Optic and Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) technology on our own infrastructure. With the NBN rollout rapidly increasing, TPG’s coverage has widened and therefore more small businesses are able to take advantage of our competitive offering.” added Levy.

In the last month TPG has also released NBN plans on the Fixed Wireless network which is the first time for the telco.

TPG’s new set of business plans are offered at three speed tiers — up to 12Mbps, up to 25Mbps and up to 100Mbps. The 12Mbps plan comes with unlimited data usage and ‘pay as you go’ telephone calls for $69.99 per month, while the 25Mbps and 100Mbps plans offer three options. The first and second options come with 500GB and unlimited amounts of data respectively and unlimited local and national telephone calls.

The third option comes with unlimited data usage, and bundles in unlimited calls to mobile phones. All options include a static IP, which some businesses find useful.

Overall pricing ranges from $69.99 per month at the bottom end, up to $119.99 for the highest-end plan.

The plans appear to undercut some of TPG’s other brands. For example, its subsidiary iiNet currently offers a 100Mbps NBN plan with 1TB of download quota for $10 more per month than TPG’s highest value plan.

opinion/analysis
There’s a lot to like here. Many small businesses who have the NBN will find a plan which offers 100Mbps speeds coupled with unlimited data at the price of $120 per month to be quite attractive.

36 COMMENTS

  1. Is there any difference with the TPG NBN business plans compared to the standard residential plans apart from Static IP?

    They need to offer a Static IP option on their FTTB product.

    They also need to offer the 50/20 Mbps speed tier on both FTTP and Fixed Wireless.

    • I would ~hope~ they would be offering better contention ratios on their business plans than their residential plans… though we’ll never know because ISPs don’t publish their contention ratios.

      • They have to be relying on the fact you cannot get 100Mbps due to congestion because the sheer volume of data you could pull down monthly isn’t going to make those things profitable that’s for sure. TPG is basically a leechers wet dream it seems (they’re the 5% that use 90% etc).

        The fact you don’t even get a prioritised support queue is pretty sad too (even if it was only during business hours lol).

        • I would assume that business plans can only be accessed by those with a registered ABN and actually running a business though? (Not that its that difficult to get an ABN, but to keep it you actually have to be doing something with it).

      • R0 my thoughts precisely!

        TPG contention ratios are infamous for their stingy’ness!

      • If we assume that the highest congestion point is at the PoI, then for TPG to reliably offer different contention ratios, they would need to have two separate connections.

        When you consider that 100Mbps enables you to download 32TB/month and upload 12TB, it is clear that this is well above average and that it will be abused by leechers, reducing performance for everyone else.

        Unfortunately the NBN architecture selected by Labor limits the ability of RSPs to offer differentiated services. Sadly I would expect iiNet & Internode performance to fall when they share the same PoI with TPG because of policies exactly like this.

        • Huh? I would have thought that tails can allocated a QoS. Its not like NBN hands off a layer 2 frame relay connection to the ISPs.

          I’m pretty sure they can look at connections at a service level, hence why the NBN is offering new CVC pricing for heavy user connections.

        • “If we assume that the highest congestion point is at the PoI, then for TPG to reliably offer different contention ratios, they would need to have two separate connections.”

          ISPs contend both on the NBN hardware at the PoI level, and on their backhaul to the PoI….. I don’t really understand how you are confused about this.

          PoI level is likely going to be the same regardless of the plan, be it residential or business. The backhaul contention is what I care about, if they contend their backhaul less for a business connection than their residential connections, thats important.

          • Two separate connections is simply not required, any competent Telco network engineer can configure different contention ratios for different customers on the ISP’s routers.

          • Derek, that is what I was talking about, maybe it didnt translate well as I put “keyboard to post” as it were.

            What I meant was, the contention ratio for their backhaul to the PoI would want to be configured differently for their residential customers and their business customers. And be more favourable for their business customers.

    • I consider that very unlikely with TPG. Let’s check.

      Same support numbers and support times (no 24×7)
      Same Standard Terms and Conditions.
      No Quality of Service marking.
      Question is what is different between business and residential?

      Feel free to correct if I am wrong.

      • That’s what I looked at too. Seems to be “business lite”, a consumer grade account with a static IP. Many ISPs offer the same. Even though the support number is the same I have noticed TPG asked on the line (automated) if it is a home or business connection.

  2. Moot point, I run a small business in Phillip (a business district full of small businesses in Canberra), not even on the rollout map yet.. stuck with $1200pm for 100 Mbit “business grade” fibre. Grrrrrr.

    • The plans TPG are offering aren’t “business grade” in the sense you’re talking about it at all.

      We know from the NBN connectivity charges (which are public) that there’s very little chance TPG is applying QoS, guaranteed minimum bandwidth, lower contention ratios or anything else “business grade” at the local NBN level. All of those things cost money just as they do on your business grade fibre now.

      • I realise that, but really, for a small business and consumer grade (but high speed) internet connection is probably fine, if it was available (which it wasn’t 3yrs ago when we moved in).

        I just cannot fathom why, if the NBN is about nation building, they wouldn’t roll it out to business districts and businesses in general first.. it’s the sort of thing that can create jobs. I know from talking to other business owners around here that the take up of NBN would be very high.

    • If Vocus have fiber in your building they offer a 400Mbs product with unlimited data for $440 / month

      It’s a business grade product with SLAs etc.

  3. Up To, Up To and Up To! Given nbn announcing five disconnections per day is acceptable, a peak speed of 25Mb/s achieved once in a 24 hour period is the standard TPG s fine print will be interesting.

    • Up to is such an interesting phrase, as it seems to have a double meaning.

      The first is the one where we are supposed to imagine that it will be close to the maximum numbers it precedes. Like in the above, “Up to 100Mbps”, is supposed to be interpreted as “you’ll probably get pretty close to 100Mbps but if you don’t we did say up to lolololol”.

      The second meaning, is the one where we are supposed to suspend belief that it could possibly get even close to the numbers it precedes. Like in the projected peak funding required for the NBN being “Up to $56Bn”, this time it is supposed to be interpreted as (according to the LibTrolls) “we might maybe possibly need this much but don’t worry we totally wont need that much money its just in case… you know? Thats why we put UP TO, because it really wont get that close but… it might… but don’t worry because we totally think it wont….. maybe”.

  4. FTTN and telephone lines is disruptive for business that is why they are being extorted with 10k for fibre installs. Where is it rolled out seriously ? nowhere. HFC is disruptive for business too and goes down for days at a time just because of rain.

    Businesses have had no internet for months because Telstra have not bothered to fix their telephone lines. That is with a business SLA. They will still have to wait for the same amount of time on telephone line repairs. That is the contempt and state we are in now and why fibre is so important.

    UP TO 100mbps even is a SCAM. BUSINESS NEED 200mbps and more UPLOADS.

  5. So many uninformed comments here! (Most quite deserving though…)
    I’m on a TPG NBN residential plan. Contention has never been a problem, and is only measurable occasionally late in the evenings (Oh no, I’m only getting 80 Mbit!). Support costs a heap of money, if you need it look elsewhere and pay 10x for the privilege.
    Finally being able to get a static IP is nice. I notice the phone is delivered by Voip, hopefully we are allowed to connect our own equipment to it. The residential plans use the phone port on the NTD.

    • Which infrastructure are you using (FTTP? FTTN? FTTB?)? Out of interest more than anything.

      (Given you referenced an NTD, I am going to assume FTTP)

      Which might explain your great performance more than the fact its TPG.

      • FTTP. I was with Exetel for the first 15 months (only on 50mbit), they were great at first, but when the rest of the suburb got connected it all went south. International speeds were also terrible. Change to TPG and it was all good. They have really upped their game in the last 5 years. Anyone remember how terrible TPG dialup was?? :)

        • TPG dialup is the reason we never even tried TPG ADSL ;-)

          Its good to hear they have upped their game.

          • TPG dialup is the reason we never even tried TPG ADSL

            funny you say that. I just remember the girl saying we don’t do full refunds. But apparently they started with me. 3 days of useless dialup from start to end. Wouldn’t touch their adsl after that.

            On the plus side, she called me back to say her manager still hadn’t come out of the meeting and she was about to leave work and would make sure the manager called me the following day. And she did. So their customer service was better than the actual service at least.

  6. The question is why have the TPG group of companies not bothered offering 50/20 on NBN fixed wireless?!

    I was on the NBN FW 50/20 trial with Internode for the last few months of 2015, it worked great, the upload speed was excellent for working from home as I do. Once the trial ended, they have never bothered to offer a commercial 50/20 plan on FW.

    No comment from Internode and iiNet reps whenever they are asked about if/when they will offer this as a paid product.

    • “I was on the NBN FW 50/20 trial with Internode for the last few months of 2015, it worked great, the upload speed was excellent for working from home as I do. Once the trial ended, they have never bothered to offer a commercial 50/20 plan on FW.”

      Has 50/20 been officially launched by NBN Co as a commercial product yet?

      You mention they did trials at the end of 2015, they might still be prepping the product to sell it to RSPs? (I’ll admit, I dont pay as much attention to the FW/Satellite portion of the NBN as I do to the fixed line mess that we have)

      • “they might still be prepping the product to sell it to RSPs?”
        IF this is the case, I know there a lot of changes due to be implemented in April when the satellite goes live including non-satellite related changes, so they might be queueing these sorts of changes for then as well.

      • NBNCo released the 50/20 FW plans on Dec 7 2015!

        Smaller ISPs such as Skymesh have been offering the 50/20 FW plan for some time now, unfortunately they don’t have national coverage, so they are not an option for me.

        Even Telstra offer a 50/20 option on their NBN FW plans, but TPG, iiNet, Westnet, Internode still haven’t bothered. Sad day indeed when the former iinet group are left behind by Telstra.

        • “Smaller ISPs such as Skymesh have been offering the 50/20 FW plan for some time now, unfortunately they don’t have national coverage, so they are not an option for me.”

          I was under the impression that the whole reason the 121 PoI decision was bad was because RSPs had to supply backhaul to ALL the PoIs?

          How can they not be serving your PoI?

          Not saying you’re wrong, but it just seems odd they don’t serve the whole NBN when I thought that was the whole uproar about the ACCC PoI decision.

          • No, they are only required to do that if they want to service the entirety of Aus. Otherwise, they can service only the CSAs of their choosing.

            Of course this leads RSPs to only set up shop in the CSAs that guarantee the most return, leaving us in exactly the same position we were left in pre-NBN. Hence the uproar.

          • The issue is backhaul to the areas that have the least level of competition are the most expensive to get backhaul into.

            The impact of the 121 POI decision has pretty much played out. We’re down to just 4 RSPs with a few bit players likely to be gobbled up either through attrition by the gang of 4 or taken over.

  7. So they are not Business plans at all, just residential plans with a $10/month static ip?
    What a laugh!

  8. This “news article” reads like an ad. How much is TPG paying you Renai?

    Poor journalism…really, really poor!

Comments are closed.