Until the National Broadband Plan is in place and additional capacity is brought online, Australians make do with usage limited broadband service from Brisbane to Perth.  With prices all over the map, choosing the right plan to minimize your exposure to Internet Overcharging schemes is more important than ever.

VoIP-Sol.com, an independent blog covering the global broadband market, took a look at several popular options and discovered some revealing findings (All prices in Australian dollars – $1AUD = $0.91US — Stated speeds are relative and reflect the maximum possible, not necessarily the actual):

The Fastest Broadband Plan in Australia
BigPond’s 30,000Kbps +400MB cable plan is the fastest available (that speed available in select areas of Melbourne and Sydney only — up to 17Mbps service elsewhere), but at a hefty price: $49.95 a month with a cap of 400 megabytes. Data past the cap is charged $0.15 per megabyte. BigPond will discount the monthly charge by $10 if it is bundled with a Telstra home phone line. This plan requires a monthly contract, and there is no peak time.

The Australian Broadband Plan With the Biggest Cap
iPrimus’s Big Kahuna and Dodo’s Rhodium plan both come with 200gb of service each month over ADSL. Dodo’s setup fee of $69.99, but the monthly charge is $10 a month cheaper than iPriumus at $69.95 a month, and an additional $10 is discounted for Dodo’s home phone customers. The Big Kahuna could go on the fastest list at 24,000Kbps, while Rhodium is a still impressive 20,000Kbps. (Keep in mind ADSL speeds vary considerably depending on how far away you are from the telephone company’s exchange office.)

Australia’s Cheapest Broadband Internet Plan
The Starter Plan from Netspace may seem like a bargain with speeds of 20,000kbps for only $9.95 a month, but the setup fee is a staggering $149.

Dodo Bronze is $19.90 a month, or $9.90 a month when bundled with one of their home phones, beating Netspace by five cents. However, this gives you a tiny download cap of 150mb, with an equally low download speed of 256kbps. Excess data is charged at $0.18 per megabyte, which even the most frugal user will probably reach. The Bronze plan also requires a twenty-four month contract.

Surprisingly, the next cheapest option is Optus’ Mobile Wireless Broadband. When included with mobile or home phone service, Optus charges $19.99 a month for cellular-based Internet. Like Dodo Bronze, the download speed is limited to 256Kbps, while downloads are capped at 1 GB. Most people who buy this plan will be more interested in the service’s convenience than its performance.

There are many other regional services available in different parts of the country with their own pricing and policies.  But nearly all share a usage cap combined with “peak” and “off-peak” usage pricing, designed to prod you into confining use of your highest bandwidth applications during off-peak hours (typically between midnight and noon).  Many providers give you a bonus usage allowance to use during off peak hours, often much higher than the peak usage allowance.  In Australia, providers don’t necessarily punish you with overlimit fees and penalties for exceeding your limit, they just turn the speed of your connection down… often way down (64kbps, slightly faster than dial-up, is common) once your limit is reached for the month.  Speeds return when a new billing period begins.

Australians complain about paltry usage caps with such regularity, the government has set about constructing better broadband infrastructure to improve service.  Private providers have dragged their feet, preferring slower upgrade paths and tamping down demand with usage limitations, reducing the need to invest in their networks.  Domestic online video services and other high bandwidth innovation is greatly stifled in the country because of punishing usage limits which make consumers fear using them.

With the expansion of international connectivity and a more robust domestic network, Australians look forward to the day they can see usage caps as a thing of their past.

A federal judge Wednesday ruled that Verizon Wireless can continue to run its 3G network ads, suggesting they might be “sneaky,” but are not misleading.  U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten Sr. told AT&T’s attorneys that their request for a temporary restraining order was denied, but the judge indicated he will hear new arguments in a second hearing on December 16.

AT&T claimed that Verizon’s “There’s a Map for That” ad campaign mislead consumers into believing AT&T provided no service in vast areas of the country because Verizon’s ads depicted non 3G service areas in white, a color that traditionally represents “no service” on many cell phone coverage maps.

Judge Batten said people casually viewing the ads might misunderstand the commercials, but a viewer’s misinterpretation “doesn’t mean they’re misleading.”

“Most people who are watching TV are semi-catatonic,” he said, prompting laughter from the courtroom. “They’re not fully alive.”

AT&T’s apparent backup plan is a new ad of its own, attacking Verizon Wireless with… Luke Wilson.

[flv width=”640″ height=”450″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ATT Ad Luke Wilson.flv[/flv]

Actor Luke Wilson helps AT&T Mobility fire back at Verizon Wireless as the holiday season approaches. (30 seconds)

The effectiveness of Wilson’s spirited defense of AT&T is debatable, judging from early ad reviews.  We spotted one continuity error straight away.  At the 0:15 second mark, notice the “Access to over 100,000 apps” box is already filled with an “x” before Wilson turns to the board to fill it.  The “x” is there before it’s gone and back again.  Perhaps it’s an unintentional homage to the frustration experienced by AT&T-exclusive iPhone application developers not getting approval for applications previously approved.

Last spring, consumers across North Carolina banded together to oppose legislation custom-written by the telecommunications industry to keep municipal broadband networks from competing with cable and telephone companies.  Your efforts made a dramatic impact on state legislators and the bill was set aside.  One representative that helped push it has since resigned after being caught up in a campaign contribution scandal.  But we always knew the industry would be back.  The threat of competition, and a reduction in their fat profits, is too great to ignore.

HB1252 – The “Level Playing Field” bill, which is among the most ironically named pieces of state legislation around, will be in the North Carolina House Select Committee on High Speed Internet in Rural and Urban Areas on Monday morning at 10am.  For those of you who might want to attend, the meeting will be held in Room 415 of the Legislative Office Building at the General Assembly in Raleigh.

For those smart enough to recognize a telecom industry power play when they see one, a reality check for our state legislators is imperative.

I have been attempting to be added to the agenda to speak against HB1252 as a consumer.  So far, no call back.

I believe that I have a unique perspective on this issue, as I hail from Greensboro, one of the communities that experienced the attempt by Time Warner Cable to force classic Internet Overcharging schemes like metered billing and data caps on consumers in the Triad region.  These experiments came as a direct result of the large void many of us have in the area of competition.

HB1252 would make it next to impossible for municipalities to have their own city run broadband service to compete.  The city of Wilson made the dream a reality.  What costs a Time Warner Cable customer $180 to bundle cable, telephone, and Internet service together is on offer in Wilson from their municipal system for a mere $99.  That’s nearly half the price.

Wilson’s Greenlight system offers a direct fiber to the home connection to subscribers.  Wilson customers get speeds up to 100Mbps, ten times faster than cable or DSL.  What has Time Warner Cable done in Wilson to compete?  They reportedly cut their prices, particularly for consumers calling to cancel.

HB1252 will help protect Time Warner Cable and other providers in North Carolina from ever having to cut prices and take a profit hit.  By taking away your community’s right to provide service the cable and phone companies refuse to provide, at an affordable price, this piece of legislation assures you of paying more and having less choice.

If you cannot attend Monday’s session, you can still deliver a wakeup call to state legislators by reminding them you are paying close attention to this issue, and know exactly who is behind the push for HB1252.  Tell your representative Time Warner Cable and other telecommunications interests should not be ghost-writing legislation that favors them and protects their monopoly.  Ask your legislators to firmly oppose HB1252 and demand as much competition as the marketplace can stand, be it from phone, cable, wireless, or municipally run fiber to the home.

Here is the list of North Carolina representatives.  We won the first few rounds on behalf of North Carolina consumers.  Time to win one more!

One of the promised benefits of permitting the Verizon-Frontier spinoff is that Frontier will bring more and better broadband service to areas Verizon has ignored for years.  The company has been running television ads in West Virginia promoting Frontier’s promised “next generation” of broadband.  But what does that mean?

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Frontier Verizon Deal Advertisement West Virginia.flv[/flv]

Frontier Communications is running this advertisement in West Virginia.

The West Virginia Consumer Advocate Division of the Public Service Commission brought in Trevor R. Roycroft, PhD., former Associate Professor at the J. Warren McClure School of Communication Systems Management, Ohio University, to examine the details behind the marketing and public relations push to promote the deal.

He was not impressed.

After an extensive review of confidential and public documents from Frontier, his conclusion was that Frontier’s DSL service is just plain bad, and for plenty of West Virginians who may only have one choice for broadband in the foreseeable future, being stuck with Frontier’s idea of broadband is particularly bad.

Indeed, Frontier’s idea of what defines “next generation broadband” would be true, if this was the year 1992.

“Frontier has made no commitment regarding improved broadband deployment in West Virginia. Frontier, while achieving higher levels of DSL availability in West Virginia, generally offers its broadband services at higher prices and provides lower quality than those associated with Verizon’s DSL. Frontier’s ability to increase broadband deployment in West Virginia will depend on the condition of the outside plant that it has acquired, which may negatively impact Frontier’s costs of deployment. Furthermore, Frontier must upgrade substantial numbers of customer locations outside of West Virginia, and West Virginia will be competing with this larger priority,” Roycroft writes in his testimony to the West Virginia Public Service Commission.

The infrastructure Frontier utilizes to deliver its broadband service is revealing even to those Frontier customers not directly impacted by this transaction.  Some of the documents Roycroft reviewed laid bare the nonsense the company has used to defend its Acceptable Use Policy language defining an “acceptable amount” of monthly broadband usage at just five gigabytes.  Company officials have said for more than a year that they were concerned about the growth of usage on their network, and its potential to slow service for other customers.  But company documents, included within the scope of Roycroft’s testimony, tell a very different story:

Frontier plans to increase its core backbone from its current level of 10 Gbps to a capacity of 20 Gbps (should the spinoff be approved). With regard to the capacity of its existing backbone, Frontier states:

Frontier expanded the backbone from OC 48 to 10 Gigabit Ethernet during the first half of 2009. Because of this network expansion we do not have peak usage for the past 12 months. No backbone link has peaked above 2.8 Gigabit/second or 28% of the capacity of a link since the augment was completed in 2009.

Thus, Frontier’s current backbone configuration appears to have excess capacity. With the expansion of its backbone network to 20 Gbps, the company’s current data traffic load results in about 14% of capacity being utilized at peak.

Potentially limiting customers to just five gigabytes of usage is so unjustified, in Roycroft’s analysis, its potential imposition on West Virginian customers should be a deal-breaker.

Roycroft ponders whether Frontier will invest enough resources to make sure capacity is not an issue. The only way Frontier’s network will show signs of strain is if the company makes a conscious decision not to sufficiently upgrade their network as they take on millions of new Verizon customers, or they dramatically underestimate the average Verizon customer’s usage.

Roycroft was also asked to evaluate whether Frontier’s claims of 90% broadband availability in its overall service area and 92% in its West Virginia territory rang true.

Roycroft writes that Frontier’s numbers don’t tell the whole story.  In five states, Frontier admits the percentages are notably lower, so no guarantee can be inferred for West Virginia based on Frontier’s talking points.

Frontier’s “Advanced” Broadband Network Is Hardly Advanced and Barely Qualifies As Broadband

Heavy criticism was leveled at Frontier for its “advanced” broadband service.  Roycroft compared Frontier DSL with several other providers and was unimpressed with the company’s broadband speeds.

Roycroft's table illustrates what's on offer from the competition

“Frontier’s advertised DSL speeds are generally much lower than those available from Verizon and other carriers. Based on a location-based search of Frontier DSL service offerings, it appears that Frontier’s most prevalent DSL speeds are 3 Mbps and 768 kbps (for download),” Roycroft said.

Frontier's DSL Speeds in Selected Cities

Although the expressed upload speed for Rochester should be listed at a higher rate (I managed around 512kbps myself), Roycroft is correct when he says, “it can be seen that outside of Rochester, NY, the DSL speeds associated with Frontier offerings cannot be considered ‘cutting edge.'”

Even while noting Rochester’s potential DSL speeds, real-world speeds are another matter entirely.

[flv width=”640″ height=”405″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Real World Frontier vs Road Runner Speeds.flv[/flv]

One New York customer provided real world evidence of the significant differences in speed offered by Road Runner from Time Warner Cable and Frontier’s DSL (courtesy: 1ComputerSavvyGuy) (1 minute)

Frontier’s DSL offerings in West Virginia are of even lower quality. Frontier indicates that it offers three grades of DSL service in West Virginia:

Up to 256 kbps download/128 kbps upload;
Up to 1 Mbps download/200 kbps upload;
Up to 3 Mbps download/200 kbps upload.

These data transmission speeds, especially upload speeds, are at the very low end of commercial offerings that I have observed.

Comparing Verizon DSL vs. Frontier DSL Pricing & Gotchas, Contracts, and Internet Overcharging Schemes

Roycroft’s study found Frontier’s pricing significantly higher than Verizon for DSL service.

Frontier’s DSL prices, either with telephone service, or on a stand-alone basis, are significantly higher than are Verizon’s. For example, the entry-level Frontier plan has a nominal price that is 100% higher than Verizon’s.

However, when considering the per Mbps price, Frontier’s price is 160% higher. It is also notable that Frontier’s upload speeds are also low when compared to Verizon’s.  Consumers are increasingly relying on upload capabilities to share large files, such as videos. Overall, Frontier’s DSL products are low quality.

Comparing Prices

Roycroft also gave special attention to Frontier’s infamous 5GB Acceptable Use Policy, which he suggested was a major negative for West Virginia’s online experience.

Frontier indicates that it monitors network usage if “it receives a complaint of slow service or if it discovers that network bandwidth utilization is unusually high in a particular area.

Frontier was asked to identify any action taken against a customer associated with its acceptable use policy and, in response, the company stated that it has not “terminated a customer’s service based on exceeding the 5 GB threshold identified in the AUP.” However, the restriction on usage further raises the relative cost of Frontier’s service. Frontier indicates that consumers may face action by the company if they exceed the usage cap, thus indicating that the prices reflect both speed and volume. Verizon’s DSL service does not include a similar limit.

Frontier’s DSL pricing policies and usage restrictions will represent a significant negative impact on West Virginia consumers, should these policies be implemented in Verizon’s service area in West Virginia.

Even more importantly, Roycroft considered the argument for imposing such Internet Overcharging schemes as unwarranted.

“While DSL provides dedicated bandwidth to the customer in the last mile, DSL subscribers will share network capacity in the ‘middle mile.’ For example, shared data networks will carry consumer traffic from the telephone company central office to an Internet gateway. I believe that Frontier’s policy is more likely to reflect an unwillingness on Frontier’s part to invest in ‘middle mile’ Internet access facilities that would require capacity additions as customer demand increases, and choose to restrict customer usage instead of investing in the capacity needed to meet customer demand,” Roycroft writes.

“Furthermore, Comcast’s download-cap policy includes limits that are dramatically higher than Frontier’s. Comcast’s acceptable use policy identifies 250 gigabytes as the threshold at which Comcast may take action against a customer, which is fifty times the usage associated with Frontier’s policy,” he added.

Roycroft was also concerned about the many ‘gotchas’ that are part of Frontier’s marketing efforts which bring even higher prices to consumers choosing to have DSL service installed.

“To receive the services of Frontier’s technician, the consumer will incur a $134 fee unless the consumer signs up for a term service contract. Even with the term service contract, the customer must pay a $34 fee for the on-site set-up. Furthermore, the technicians that Frontier dispatches to new broadband customers’ homes are also sales agents. Thus, while it may be that these individuals can help with system set-up and the like, they also are part of Frontier’s overall up-selling strategy,” said Roycroft.

Frontier markets a variety of services to customers as part of their promotions and service offerings.  For instance, recent Dell Netbook promotions required customers to sign multi-year contracts for service, with an early termination fee up to $400 if the consumer chooses to cancel service.  Such promotions do not come out of the goodness of Frontier’s heart.  Indeed, such promotions provide even more revenue potential by pitching customers on its “Peace of Mind” services, which include computer technical support, backups, and inside wire maintenance for an additional monthly fee.

Customers don’t even qualify for many Frontier promotions unless they accept a bundled service package combining broadband with traditional phone service and a multi-year service contract.

Roycroft says West Virginia should demand modifications to Frontier’s proposal before it should even consider accepting it.  Among the changes:

• Frontier should be required to make broadband services available in 100% of its wire centers, and to 90% of its West Virginia customers by the end of 2013. Frontier should expand broadband availability to 100% of its customers by 2015.
• Frontier should be required to deploy and promote broadband services in West Virginia so that, by the end of 2013, at least 90% of its customers can achieve download speeds of 3 Mbps; 75% of its customers can achieve download speeds of 6 Mbps; and 50% of customers can achieve download speeds of 10 Mbps.
• To achieve these broadband objectives, Frontier should be required to exceed Verizon’s baseline level of capital investment by at least $117 million during the period ending December 31, 2013, or by an amount sufficient to meet the broadband objectives.
• Frontier should be required to offer broadband services at prices that do not exceed those currently offered by Verizon for 1 Mbps and 3 Mbps services, i.e., Frontier should offer services at Verizon’s advertised prices for 1 Mbps and 3 Mbps service (respectively, $19.99 per month and $29.99 per month) for a period of 24 months following the merger.
• Frontier should be prohibited from imposing its broadband “download cap” in West Virginia.
• Frontier should be required to provide individual written notice to its customers regarding the merger, and should notify customers of any change in services that result from the merger. Changes in billing format should also be clearly explained to customers, both in writing, and through a web-based tutorial.
• Frontier should be prohibited from migrating any Verizon customer to a Frontier plan that either increases the customer’s rates, diminishes the level of service, or has a materially adverse impact on any of the terms and conditions of the customer’s service. West Virginia customers should experience a rate freeze for a period of 24 months.
• Frontier should be required to allow former Verizon customers to take a “fresh look” at their purchases, including those customers who have term contracts with Verizon. All early termination charges should be waived for a period of 90 days following the merger, and the long distance PIC charge should also be waived for Verizon long-distance customers who select a long-distance provider other than Frontier.

Some Frontier Communications customers in western New York have been receiving notification that effective October 15th, the rental price of the ADSL modem Frontier provides customers increased $3.00 per month, from $3.99 to $6.99 per month.

Customers on a “price protection agreement” should not have seen this rental fee increase.  If you have, please let us know in the comments.

Frontier’s modem rental fee can often be avoided if you purchase your own DSL modem, assuming its compatible with Frontier’s system, and have them provision it for service.  Several of these modems appear regularly on eBay, sold by customers who ended up owning them after their term contracts ended with other providers.

One of the problems with Frontier’s DSL service is that the “out the door” price is significantly higher after taxes, fees, surcharges, and modem rental costs are factored.

Always insist on obtaining a total price, including all taxes and fees, before committing yourself to any ISP, particularly if a long term contract is involved.