BigPond has just announced a refresh of their broadband packages. It’s fairly major step in the right direction for Telstra, with their 200GB plan now costing just $90 a month (plus landline), down from $180.
As well as reducing the cost of plans, BigPond has also simplified the range, taking the number of packages down from 12 to four. All of the plans are throttled once you’ve exceeded the data limit, rather than incurring excess charges.
There’s still plenty of room for improvement – all the plans require a Telstra home phone line, which pretty much adds $30 a month to the cost whether you use it or not. Also, $30 a month for 2GB of data at 1500Kbps is way too expensive for an entry-level price. Granted, it can be dropped down to $10 if you bundle another Telstra service, but that’s still not enough data for anyone updating antivirus software and iTunes a few times a month.
The new pricing table is below:
[BigPond]
Drew
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 9:58 AMPitty they still throttle at 64kbps, but the plans are a lot better than their previous.
Clam
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 10:26 AMI saw an ad for dodo yesterday offering unlimited fro $40. I still can’t see how telstra can compete. Are they still enough baby boomers out there too resistant to change?
JOedy
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 10:31 AMCant compete with their speed. i will sign up but also keep my ADSL2 connection
Sam
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 10:52 AMIn the case of Dodo, you get what you pay for. I work on a live streaming web product, and the majority of users with issues are on Dodo.
Seamus Byrne
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:12 AMI don’t think Telstra has any interest in competing with the likes of Dodo.
Ro Smith
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:44 AMThat Dodo plan is 256k speed so would barely stream youtube videos. That and the fact they have very poor service and are the last ISP you would want to touch. You can’t really go wrong with Telstra except pay a premium.
biofrog
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 2:29 PM256 kilobit per second
= 32 kilobytes (KB) per second
= 1920 KB per minute
= 115200 megabytes (MB) per hour
= 2.7 gigabytes (GB) per day
= 83.7 GB per month
Your average plan on any other ISP will give you more quota with better speeds.
biofrog
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 2:30 PMoops missed a comma in the megabytes.. Make that ~115 MB :)
Scott Purcell
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 10:30 AMSo if I’m currently on a 25gb plan does it now change to 50gbs??
Adam
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 10:39 AMI just signed in to Bigpond.com and it let me change from 25GB @ $79.95 to 50GB @ $79.95 for no cost, and pro rata for the month starting midnight tonight.
Mivilicious
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:04 AMi love how the picture file comes up as BogPond-pricing =D
sYm
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 12:01 PMGoddomot Fronk? XD
Regarding to the post, its a fair deal but it was going on with Internode for ages ago… If only they do ADSL2+ here where im at
Nathan
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:19 AMWould be nice if Telstra lowered their wholesale prices.. They have too much control over the internet market in Australia..
RB
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:26 AMInterestingly there doesn’t seem to be any reference to how these changes affect their Ultimate Cable (100mb/s HFC) packages in the Melbourne area.
Glenn Taylor
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 11:33 AMI just logged into my bigpond account, and my 100GB plan used to be $139.95. It was now charging me $89.95. I upgraded to the 200GB plan for no extra charge, and I’m now saving $50 on my bill… SWEET!
DevenK
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 3:19 PMI’ve also just logged onto my bigpond account. I was at 25GB for $89.95, upgraded to 200GB for no extra cost! Nice one!! :-)
Dir
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 4:11 PMWhat’s the point of giving users 200GB/month, or even 500GB/month, if Telstra always forward nastygrams from MPAA etc. and ultimately endorse a 3-strikes type of policy?
In other words, an ISP can “compete” by offering unlimited downloads as a way of attracting customers, then simply force the user to do only non-copyright activities and hence never use even a fraction of the available limit.
Choice of ISPs in the future won’t be based on how many GB/month you think you’re allowed, it will be based on which ISP sends, forwards, or disposes these MPAA/RIAA nastygrams.
And don’t bother drinking the kool-aid when it comes to the national broadband network. What’s the use of ultra-fast speed when you’re limited to “legal” activites?
Flame me all you want, but my comments simply reflect the huge majority of users using more than 100GB/month.
matt
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 5:39 PMsame with hard drives or any other storage too.
BUT.
youtube, countless IPTV solutions, HD digital distro movie rentals. hell. HD fullstop. as for me, most of our downloads go to Steam. nice, legal games.
oh yes, make no mistake, if anything, its even easier for the completely law abiding novice to chomp through hundreds of gigs than even your most dedicated torrenter.
with the NBN? full HD, reliable skype. hell, skype at a decent framerate and not with 5 second lag.
there are many legal benefits to fast, plentiful internet.
cloud services, streamed gaming (never upgrade hardware again), full online storage (your only storage!)
thats in the future. but for a while now legal net usage has been quickly catching up with illegal usage, I think it is near caught up, and will soon blast past it.
John
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 5:50 PMYeh but theres people like me who use usenet and don’t touch torrents. (And if i do, I have a seedbox in the US that i would then just download the file from)
I don’t have any issues doing 200 gigs per month (on iiNet Business 5 200GB) and i’m constantly having to watch my limit.
Your issue is not the data caps but that fact that its just too easy to get caught with torrents.
So yes, if you use torrents on public trackers then expect the notices to start coming in.
Spagman
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 4:55 PMWhat about the cable plans?
Alex
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 5:46 PMAs my circumstances don’t allow me to sign a further 24 month contract with Telstra (extended overseas trip), I will continue to get the shaft for the remaining 9 months of my current contract. This new pricing is for me a slap in the face from Telstra. Will avoid them at all costs once I return to Aus.
JT Marlin
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 8:27 PMGet BigPonds cable broadband and you not only wont have to pay for the phone line rental (if not needed) but you also get better download speeds all for the same price (+ $10 if not bundled with a phone line).
Rahul Khanna
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 8:06 PMLegendary =] Thanks! My $79/month 25gb of 8mbs cable just became $69 for 50gb of 30mbs cable. I love the Giz.
We’ve been with Telstra cable since the dawn of time so I get to freely change plans whenever I feel like. I’ve been extremely impressed by their introduction of the word ‘competitive’ into their lexicon.
Angry
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 10:13 PMTelstra’s new broadband pricing isn’t a move forward for the many rural users who are too far from an exchange to access ADSL and must use the exorbitantly expensive wireless Next G network for broadband (up to 28 times more expensive!). As rural Bigpond customers without a landline we can’t even access Telstra’s bunding discount despite the fact that we pay heftily for two mobile phones with them. With 5 internet connected devices in the home, we are wary of every webpage we visit, audio stream we access and video we watch. We know that before the end of the month we’ll be back on dialup speeds because we’ve overstepped Bigpond’s miserly limit despite paying their obscene monthly fees. The moment another wireless internet option comes our way we’ll be gone (please hurry Vodaphone).
Mark
Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 12:02 PMI’m actually quite impressed with the steps Bigpond have taken. I always said I would never go over to the darkside, but 2 years ago I did and have had no problems since. Always had great connection with ADSL 2 and that’s living in Kalgoorlie, so no complaints from me. Now that I can get 200Gb for the same price as my old 25Gb, I’m even happier:) By the way, do Bigpond automatically change your plan or no as I had to ring up or change it myself to get the new package. Sounds like they’re not advertising it too heavily to existing customers?
By the way, Alex who’s living overseas, you can change your plan anytime you wish throughout your contract, up or down. Don’t know your exact circumstances, but sounds like you may need to just move to the lowest plan for the meantime and not pay as much as you do?
Jason
Friday, August 27, 2010 at 2:26 PMI have a more expensive 12GB package, yet Telstra din’t offer to upgrade me. Why do I have to keep checking on these changes. They should upgrade me or at least offer me theupgrade. This happened a few years ago as well, and they took 2 months to upgrade me from 10Gb to 12Gb. I pay for the service, and they don’t offer it. It makes it very hard to stay loyal!