TelstraClear serves New Zealand

Some broadband customers in New Zealand are treating their monthly usage allowances as usage targets, dedicated to ringing every last penny of value out of the Internet Overcharging schemes.  That means bandwidth usage increases just because customers don’t want to leave their remaining allowance on the table at the start of a new month.

PC World New Zealand notes “caps are essentially stupid” because your allowance resets at the end of every billing cycle:

If I’m away for a month and use zero bytes, it costs just the same as if I’d used my full 20GB. This wouldn’t be so galling if some allowance were made for under-utilising my capacity. It doesn’t have to be a 1:1 thing or roll over from month to month, but some concession would be nice. Perhaps a 1:2 ratio that must be used within the next billing period; in this case an allowance to go up to 30GB in the next month seems reasonable.

That would also get around the other irritating thing about data caps, the punitive charges if you go a single byte over your limit. In the case of TelstraClear it’s $2.95 per GB or part thereof.

TelstraClear - The Internet. Overcharged.

Readers shared their two cents:

I have a 40GB cap which I regularly go over. Telscum charge $20/Gb so it hurts like hell. I tried [switching] to TelstraClear but after three months all I had from them was a bill for services I didn’t receive.

We have 20Gb shared between the three of us and it is rare to go over but we do try like you to use it all up simply because we have paid for it. There is a company in NZ that allows you to roll it over it is Trust power Kinect. A friend uses them and roughly every three months he reckons he can save a month. You do need to have your power and phone with them though and for us it would actually work out more expensive but for others it might not. I do think caps suck though and wish they could be scrapped as I think we would actually use less bandwidth.

I think this part of the world and UK is an exception when it comes to data caps. In Europe data caps are very rare (except in UK which is not typical for Europe in any aspects). Being from Sweden I was a bit surprised moving to NZ and discovered data caps as well as very slow and expensive Internet. Sweden is similar to NZ (e.g. size, population) so it’s a fair comparison. You are being ripped off!

While several American broadband providers contemplate limiting customer’s broadband usage or launching usage-based billing, Australia is headed in the other direction with today’s introduction of the country’s first truly unlimited and unthrottled broadband plan for a flat monthly price.

AAPT, part of the Telecom New Zealand Group, claims its new Entertainment Bundle will revolutionize broadband in Australia as its competitors are forced to adopt unlimited plans of their own to compete.

For $88US per month, AAPT offers ADSL2+ 20Mbps service that has no usage limits, no throttled speeds, and no metered billing.  The plan also includes free home phone line rental and a monthly $50 voucher good for downloading from the AAPT In Song music store, offering one million songs.  A Wi-Fi modem is also included in the plan.

AAPT's unlimited plan is the first to dispense with usage allowances, speed throttles, and metered billing for Australian broadband users

AAPT CEO Paul Broad said the company’s new unlimited plans would deliver Australians better broadband.

“You go to the United States and there’s no such things as caps – you get online and get an unlimited download,” he said. “Consumers don’t know what these caps mean.”

Broad

The plan requires a two year service contract.  Australian broadband pricing always includes a total cost of the plan over the length of the contract.  For this particular plan, it’s $2,129.34US for two years of service.

Previously, AAPT offered unlimited downloading only between the hours of 2am-8am local time.  Daytime usage was limited to a maximum of 60GB per month, with speeds throttled to 64kbps for the remainder of the month if you exceeded your plan allowance.

“We were first to market with 2am-8am unlimited [service], then 8pm–8am unlimited, and now 24/7 Unlimited Broadband downloads plus music streaming,” Broad said.

The company still reserves the right to terminate service for grossly excessive usage, not specifically defined, but that is a common right reserved by virtually every service provider.

Would-be customers are finding AAPT’s website and broadband plans confusing because AAPT’s broadband plans page does not yet contain details of the truly unlimited plan, which can be found here.

AAPT invites those with questions to call them on 132 082.

Suddenlink broadband customers in Lubbock and Midland, Texas will soon have a new option to boost their broadband speed to 36Mbps.  Dubbed MAX36, the new tier leaps over the cable company’s former top broadband speed of 20Mbps.  Upload speeds get a boost as well — to 2Mbps.

Multichannel News reports pricing for the new tier depends on how many other Suddenlink services you have.  Standalone pricing is $75 per month.  Bundle it with television or telephone service and the price drops to $65.  Take all three services and MAX36 costs $60 a month.

Suddenlink serves portions of these Texas communities

If that is too rich for your blood, Suddenlink next week will be providing existing broadband customers in Lubbock and Midland free speed upgrades:

• 1Mbps service increases to 1.5Mbps
• 8Mbps upgrades to 10Mbps service
• 10Mbps service becomes 15Mbps

The new speeds are possible because of DOCSIS 3 upgrades underway at the nation’s ninth largest cable operator.  Suddenlink has focused on DOCSIS 3 upgrades for many of its Texas systems, including Abilene, Bryan/College Station, Georgetown, Lubbock, Midland, San Angelo and Terrell.  The operator also deployed the technology in Beckley, Charleston and Parkersburg, West Virginia, as well as Jonesboro, Arkansas, Humboldt County, California, and Nixa, Missouri.  The company hopes to upgrade 90 percent of its cable systems within the next two years.  Nationwide, Suddenlink reaches 1.3 million subscribers.

Last summer Suddenlink introduced a usage meter for subscribers in Clovis, New Mexico and included a chart of what constituted average usage for its customers.

Suddenlink's national service area

The company openly admits it limits customer use of its broadband service is several communities where bandwidth upgrades have yet to occur, but at least drops communities from the usage limit list after expansion is complete.  As of February 4th, communities impacted by usage limits include:

• Arkansas: Charleston, Hazen, Mt. Ida, Nashville
• Kansas: Anthony, Fort Scott
• Louisiana: Ville Platte
• Missouri: Jefferson City, Maryville
• Oklahoma: Fort Sill, Healdton, Heavener, Hughes, Idabel
• Texas: Albany, Anson, Brenham, Burkburnett, Caldwell, Canadian, Center, Claredon, Crane, Dimmitt, Eastland, Electra, Hamlin, Henrietta, Junction, Kermit, Monahans, Nocona, Olney, Paducah, Rotan, San Saba, Seymour, Sonora, Trinity, Vernon, Wellington

Suddenlink also admits it engages in “network management” techniques which may spark controversy with the ongoing Net Neutrality debate, despite its declaration it “allows customers to access and use any legal Web content they prefer, thus honoring the principles of network neutrality.”

In addition to “mitigating network congestion, which can interfere with customers’ preferred online activities,” Suddenlink also discloses it “prioritizes certain latency-sensitive traffic such as voice traffic.”

Still, performing system upgrades to put a stop to usage limits and allowances is a move in the right direction, one that other providers seeking to monetize broadband traffic with Internet Overcharging schemes are loathe to take.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Suddenlink Ads.flv[/flv]

Watch some of Suddenlink’s more creative and amusing advertising. (2 minutes)

Google plans to offer up to 1Gbps service on its direct to the home fiber network

Google has announced it is doing something about anemic, overpriced, and poorly supported broadband service in the United States.  It’s going to start providing service itself.

In a move that is sure to drive providers crazy, Google is looking for your nominations for communities that are stuck in broadband backwaters, desperate for an upgrade.  With so many suffering from “good enough for you” broadband speeds, threats of “inevitable” Internet Overcharging schemes like usage limits and consumption billing, or customer support that involves reaching more busy signals than helpful assistance, they won’t have to beg for nominations.

Google is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make Internet access better and faster for everyone. We plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We’ll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

From now until March 26th, we’re asking interested municipalities to provide us with information about their communities through a Request for information (RFI), which we’ll use to determine where to build our network.

I can think of a few cities that were victimized by providers in 2009 who have little chance of seeing true fiber optic service any other way.  Rochester, New York, the Triad region of North Carolina, parts of San Antonio and Austin bypassed by Grande Communications’ fiber network, are all among them.  Rochester has the dubious distinction of being stuck with two providers itching to slap usage limits and consumption billing on their customers – Frontier and Time Warner Cable.  Since Verizon FiOS is popping up all over the rest of New York State, residents in the Flower City concerned about being left behind might want to make their voices heard.

Google plans to deliver 1Gbps… that’s a Gigabit — 1,000Mbps service to its fiber customers at a “competitive price.”

While some in the industry consider such speeds irrelevant to the majority of consumers, Google thinks otherwise:

In the same way that the transition from dial-up to broadband made possible the emergence of online video and countless other applications, ultra high-speed bandwidth will drive more innovation – in high-definition video, remote data storage, real-time multimedia collaboration, and others that we cannot yet imagine. It will enable new consumer applications, as well as medical, educational, and other services that can benefit communities. If the Internet has taught us anything, it’s that the most important innovations are often those we least expect.

What’s in it for Google?  Targeted advertising, guaranteed open networks, an improved broadband platform on which Google can develop new broadband applications, and calling out providers’ high profit, slow speed broadband schemes are all part of the fringe benefits.

For providers and their friends who have regularly attacked Google for “using their networks for free,” Google’s fiber experiment deflates providers’ hollow rhetoric, and could finally provide a warning shot on behalf of overcharged, frustrated consumers that the days of rationed broadband service at top dollar pricing may soon be over.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Google Think Big With a Gig Announcement.flv[/flv]

Google released this video announcing their Think Big With a Gig campaign (1 minute)

This isn’t Google’s first experience with being an Internet Service Provider.  The company has experimented with free Google Wi-Fi service in its hometown of Mountain View, California since 2006.

[Update 2:30pm EST: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski applauded Google’s experiment: “Big broadband creates big opportunities,” he said in a statement. “This significant trial will provide an American testbed for the next generation of innovative, high-speed Internet apps, devices and services.”

The Washington Post has a source that claims Google “doesn’t currently have plans to expand beyond the initial tests but will evaluate as the tests progress.”  That could mean the experiment also serves a public policy purpose to re-emphasize Google’s support for Net Neutrality, and to deflate lobbyist rhetoric about Google’s support for those policies being more a case of their own self-interest and less about the public good.  If Google can run its networks with open access, they essentially put their money where their public policy mouth is.]

Denver residents are discovering that when Comcast says they’re getting a “free speed upgrade,” what they really mean is that upgrade is going to cost you an additional $2 more per month.

Comcast recently increased broadband speeds in Denver “for free,” but now Mile-High City residents are discovering free comes at a price with Comcast.

The price of renting your cable modem is increasing by $2 a month, which means the majority of Comcast customers locally will now spend $5 per month just for the modem.

Denver, Colorado (Courtesy: Yassie)

Comcast blamed the increase on costs associated with upgrading their network facilities to support DOCSIS 3, the latest cable modem standard which supports vastly faster Internet speeds.

Comcast spokeswoman Cindy Parsons said in a statement that the company continually invests in providing customers with next-generation equipment and technology that delivers advanced Internet services with enhanced capabilities.

“Our costs for this new equipment will increase by 167 percent over the next two years,” Parsons said.

Comcast has been increasing the modem rental price on a city-by-city basis across the country, often after speed upgrades like that completed in Denver which doubled speeds from 6 to 12Mbps late last year.

If just two-thirds of Comcast customers nationwide continue to simply pay the monthly rental fee, the company will earn more than $250 million in annual revenue just on the two dollar rate hike.  Is that enough to pay for service upgrades so we can dispense with talk about Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and consumption billing?

Stop the Cap! reminds readers Comcast subscribers can purchase their own cable modem from electronics retailers, often for $100 or less, and never pay a rental fee again.

At $60 a year, customers will more than pay for their modem purchase after less than two years.