South Africa’s broadband has got to be feeling pretty ill-equipped today considering a real, wing-flapping pigeon beat its transfer speeds. No really, a company found out that sending a bird with a 4GB USB drive was faster than uploading.
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.
One caveat we missed when sharing news of iiNet’s naked ADSL2+ release is the inclusion of uploads in the usage limits. This is a nasty trend that is now spreading beyond just Telstra, something we were hoping would decline rather than spread. According to Whirlpool, iiNet feels their caps are higher than otherwise to compensate (we thought the caps could have been better even before hearing this) and no other plans are affected.
iiNet is correct that more serious users are now uploading a lot more than they used to, whether through P2P traffic or offsite storage. But in our books, counting uploads is a double dip – an ISP somewhere else is counting downloads when you are sending uploads, so is it fair to be ‘charged’ on both streams?
The ads are popping up all over (even here) with the news that iiNet has really, truly, rooly launched naked ADSL services. Starting from $49.95, you can now get ADSL2+ from iiNet and you don’t have to pay the line rental tax to do so. The intro plan gives 2GB+2GB, and then plans range up to $119.95 for a 65GB+65GB option. I think the prices do get a little hot a little too quickly for the usage limits on offer, but this is still a good deal considering you aren’t adding dollars for a phone you never use (or don’t want to use, but use now and then because it is there – and that just costs you more dollars).
The deal also includes unlimited local and national VoIP calls through iiNet’s VoIP service. Gravy on top, and perhaps that is the key to why the plans are higher than my brain was expecting. Will be very interesting to see how the competition positions when TPG and Internode, and no doubt others, start to offer their plans in coming months.
I’m shocked we haven’t seen the iiNet guy wearing nothing but an ADSL router! C’mon, iiNet, the joke needs to be done. Actually, lets hope they hold a press event at a strip joint. Hey, it’s a better excuse than some I’ve heard!
