Online

The Future of Broadband: We’re Totally Screwed

8:40AM April 10, 2008 | Matt Buchanan

As turtle-tastic as broadband is in the US compared to Asia, other than Time Warner’s experiment to charge by the byte, at least consumption-based billing has mostly been a problem for Canadians. Until now. Justin from Bend, Oregon just sent us his ISP’s new pricing plan, which makes Time Warner’s look supremely generous: US$55 a month buys you a measly 50GB running at a respectable 16Mbps downstream. If you run over, it’s an extra US$1.50 per GB. We hope Bend residents aren’t huge fans of iTunes rentals—they’ll chew through your allowance mighty quick. Welcome to what’s shaping up to be the scary future of broadband in this country: It’ll be faster, but it’s either going to be filtered, slowed down or capped.

AU: They think they’ve got it bad… 50GB for 16mbps at $55 sounds fantastic compared to what I’m on. What about you guys?

[BendBroadband]



Comments

  • solistics

    April 10, 2008 at 11:23 AM

    Umm, yeah, so my $199 100Gb/8Mb plan sounds like a steal now….NOT!

  • Mick

    April 10, 2008 at 11:27 AM

    They do have it good… But I am close to that… $69.95 per month for 150Gb @ 19Mb

  • Dexxie

    April 10, 2008 at 12:11 PM

    Damn… if only we had it that good…

    I pay $179 a month or so for 100GB, at 18Mb’s, and a static IP…

    I’m happy with that, but it could definitely be cheaper.

  • mark

    April 10, 2008 at 12:14 PM

    geez we got it bad here in oz.

    telstra give us 12GB for $80 / month @ 5Mbps

    but that includes upload, so don’t start torrents and go away for the weekend or you’ll come back to a slowed connection.

    grrrr!

  • Nihal Thomas

    April 10, 2008 at 12:54 PM

    Mick, what provider are you with???

  • Rob_Jedi

    April 10, 2008 at 1:41 PM

    Bloody spoiled yanks :(

  • Adz

    April 10, 2008 at 2:12 PM

    Nihal,

    Mick would be on the same plan as me with TPG and ADSL2+.

    I have the same $69.95 plan for 40GB peek and 110GB offpeak. Using 110GB in the 6 hours of offpeak is not easy but I average a total of 80-90GB a month.

  • JB

    April 10, 2008 at 2:55 PM

    I’m fairly happy with my 80GB (40/40) @ 3mbps (if only I was closer to the exchange…) for $99/m

  • Flame

    April 10, 2008 at 3:55 PM

    For AU$50/mth I get 5GB/5GB @ 1.5Mbps…… and I don’t think Netspace even offer 1.5Mb in Tas any more.

  • tallinex

    April 10, 2008 at 4:03 PM

    I’m on $69 for 40GB (20/20) and on ADSL2+ (I get about 10-15mb/s) I don’t usualy go over that. I’m happy with it.

  • Jamie

    April 10, 2008 at 6:29 PM

    My aaNet is $120 for 60 gigs at ~7 mbit down (Depends on the day), and $4/gig over.

    So, yeah, they have it .soooo. bad.

    Sadly, with the cost of long-haul bandwidth, I think more ISPs are likely to go by-the-gig than to all you can eat plans.

  • Dean

    April 10, 2008 at 6:36 PM

    Tpg is the one with the 150G for $69. Is good :D

Post Your Comments