Wow – iiNet seems to be on the warpath at the moment, and not just because they’re being sued. They’ve backed up their announcement that they’re planning on launching an IPTV service next year by making Xbox Live gaming downloads unmetered. That means you can download as many game demos and full games as you want, and play online as well without having to worry about exceeding your download limit.
Add this to the fact that iTunes downloads are unmetered, as is anything viewed through ABC’s iView, Premiere League football matches and NASA TV.
I’m telling you – if iiNet get off their backside (granted, they have been fairly busy recently) and launch ADSL2+ at my local exchange, I reckon I’d switch to them in a heartbeat. This kind of approach to internet content is exactly the kind of ISP I want to give my money to – it works out better for everyone. If nothing else, let’s hope that other ISPs start following iiNet’s example.
UPDATE: So actual Xbox Live gaming isn’t included – turns out iiNet can’t actually monitor it effectively. Still, for downloading demos and classic Xbox games this still rocks for iiNet customers.
Craig Mc
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 9:50 AMFantastic. XBL & PSN were between them blowing my old 10GB limit with Telstra so I switched to iinet. Now it’s even better! Your move Sony.
cletus
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 10:36 AMThis was confirmed today in the latest subscriber newsletter. Go iiNet…
quasi
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 12:28 PMYawn – more stuff for you city people. When are ISPs gonna wake up to the fact that we don’t all live in the city and offer ADSL2 in regional areas. While iinet and tpg boast about thier rollouts of adsl2 enabled dslams we country people have only one choice – adsl 1 (c’mon – dialup isn’t a real choice).
rangott
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 12:31 PMive been on iinet since I moved to sydney this year and they are the best ISP ive ever had. Even if I couldnt get adsl2 I would still use them. The naked dsl pack with voip is unbeatable.
marcus
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 2:09 PMI’ve been to the iinet open day for the last 3 years, and i’ll tell you what, Mike Malone (the ceo/founder) is pretty incredible. they’re a great ISP, so if you can make the switch. naked is good aswell.
Steve
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 2:13 PMYou might want to make an edit:
iiNet says that playing games online will still be metered as “it’s not possible to unmeter this traffic”. Still, it’s the downloads that make up large chunks of data, so this is really great news.
attila
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 2:15 PMAccording to iinet, gaming will still be metered – presumably because they can’t track P2P gaming properly?
Still, great news for us iinet customers, and a smart move on MS’s part. I have both consoles, but am now more likely to download a demo on the 360 than the PS3 and therefore more likely to buy the game on that system.
Will Sony come to the party? Given they make less money that MS on their network, I would be surprised.
Cheers
el_genie
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 2:21 PMActually, iinet isn’t setting the example for the industry, although they have traditionally been among the first to follow it. They just get more attention than the real trendsetters due to their sheer size.
Michael
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 4:57 PM“Actually, iinet isn’t setting the example for the industry”
How do you figure that… surely you can’t just make a comment without quantifying it?
iiNet were the first national provider of ADSL2+ years ago, they were first to launch Naked DSL nationwide they’ve recently freezoned iTunes, ABC and now XBox Live, they’ve just let out about their IPTv aspirations and they offer Annex M nationwide?
What about all of that isn’t pioneering?
mr-crash
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 6:21 PMel_genie – if they’re not the trend setters in this situation, who is?… I’m genuinely curious, because i’m in the market for a new ISP (optus blows) and iinet is looking increasingly awesome!
But i’m cool supporting a smaller ISP if they’re genuinely doing innovative things.
scoobjay
Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 2:20 AM+ 1 to very satisfied iinet adsl2+ service. Also, the bundled iitalk is a great service, I use it all the time for crystal clear 5c calls back to NZ. The speed is amazing, for torrents, streaming. Its like the interweb in HD
John
Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 3:25 PMlaunch your ADSL2+ in Hobart iinet and i’ll sign up!
-Redsands-
Friday, September 16, 2011 at 10:37 AMAnd looking recently, they are billing me for my XBOX live gaming. Snuck that back in didn’t they!