APC is reporting that Telstra has made an announcement in conjunction with the new Labor Government that they will be switching on ADSL2+ at 900 exchanges across Australia. The agreement comes on the back of the new government deciding not to regulate third-party ISP’s right to access the network.
The service will be available to 91 per cent of the population in both regional and city areas. That means that if you’re with Telstra, you can now access broadband speeds of up to 20Mbps, if you’re in one of the 360 exchanges where a competitor has ADSL2+ packages on offer. Everywhere else, you’ll be running at 8Mbps…
…And paying for it. The cheapest new ADSL2+ plan on offer starts at $60 per month for a – get this – 600MB download allowance. It does get slightly more reasonable as you climb the scale ($150 for 60GB), but the excess usage fee is astounding – $150 per GB.
The Government’s move to not force Telstra to wholesale its network to other ISPs is probably a good one – Having a national ADSL2+ network is ultimately a good thing. But goddamn Telstra! 150 bucks for a single GB after you’ve exceeded your download limit? That’s just greedy. No other way to describe it.
Also worth noting that this move doesn’t put any dampeners on the government’s plans to roll out that FTTN network either. I just hope that the god of common sense will realise that pricing like that is just plain absurd.