Okay, time to compare ISP's...
First of all, at home I have an Optus @Home cable internet connection and have no real complaints about that. It is an uncapped, "unlimited" download plan that has an Acceptable Use Policy that states that if in any 14-day period you download more than 10 times the average usage, then you will be disconnected. Estimates put this limit at about 15-18gig per month. At 8 times the average, a warning email is sent. They have a neat little usage meter on the web, and my housemates and I keep our usage sitting happily at about 4 times the average.
Now compare that service to Telstra Bigpond Cable (or Bigpond Advance, or Bigpond Broadband, or whatever name they feel like using...). April last year saw them introduce an "unlimited" plan called the Freedome plan. The freedom plan was capped at 400kbit/sec download, 128kbit/sec upload, but with no download limit per month. This was later raised to 512/128 kbit/sec (with a cheaper 256/128 plan), and shortly after an acceptable use policy was placed on the amount of downloads, which was estimated to be about 500meg per day. This could be checked by a page that displayed traffc lights to show how you went each day - too many red lights and you were disconnected. This system proved to be very buggy, with lights being known to occasionally change colours after a few days. The 500meg estimate seemed a little off, so many people on Telstra cable asked for a definite figure to be placed on the download limit per month.
This then caused the shock announcement from Telstra a few days ago announcing that they will be limiting the Freedom plan to 3gig per month. This has cause a major uproar as a large proportion of Telstra cable users are gamers. For them, this 3gig limit would mean no more than about 1 hour of gaming per day.
Both of these cable accounts - Optus @Home and Telstra Freedom Plan - are priced at around $60-75 per month.
The unfortunate thing is that Optus cable is only available in areas with above ground power lines (most new estates are underground power now), and is not available in multi-home dwellings (units, apartments, etc). Telstra is available much more widely, meaning that some people had no option but to get Telstra cable (with dsl only recently being introduced in some areas the only other options are dialup or satellite).
There are many more faults I can go on with regarding Telstra's cable network (and their dsl network, which is already having difficulties, along with this new 3gig limit, which also applies) but I have already wasted enough of everyone's time here. :P
Anyway, I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on this and how it compares to ISP's worldwide. (The matter of Telstra's new cap has made it to parliament already, with politicians saying that Australia's broadband infrastructure was already lagging behind the rest of the world and this cap is only a step backwards)
/me steps down off the soap box
First of all, at home I have an Optus @Home cable internet connection and have no real complaints about that. It is an uncapped, "unlimited" download plan that has an Acceptable Use Policy that states that if in any 14-day period you download more than 10 times the average usage, then you will be disconnected. Estimates put this limit at about 15-18gig per month. At 8 times the average, a warning email is sent. They have a neat little usage meter on the web, and my housemates and I keep our usage sitting happily at about 4 times the average.
Now compare that service to Telstra Bigpond Cable (or Bigpond Advance, or Bigpond Broadband, or whatever name they feel like using...). April last year saw them introduce an "unlimited" plan called the Freedome plan. The freedom plan was capped at 400kbit/sec download, 128kbit/sec upload, but with no download limit per month. This was later raised to 512/128 kbit/sec (with a cheaper 256/128 plan), and shortly after an acceptable use policy was placed on the amount of downloads, which was estimated to be about 500meg per day. This could be checked by a page that displayed traffc lights to show how you went each day - too many red lights and you were disconnected. This system proved to be very buggy, with lights being known to occasionally change colours after a few days. The 500meg estimate seemed a little off, so many people on Telstra cable asked for a definite figure to be placed on the download limit per month.
This then caused the shock announcement from Telstra a few days ago announcing that they will be limiting the Freedom plan to 3gig per month. This has cause a major uproar as a large proportion of Telstra cable users are gamers. For them, this 3gig limit would mean no more than about 1 hour of gaming per day.
Both of these cable accounts - Optus @Home and Telstra Freedom Plan - are priced at around $60-75 per month.
The unfortunate thing is that Optus cable is only available in areas with above ground power lines (most new estates are underground power now), and is not available in multi-home dwellings (units, apartments, etc). Telstra is available much more widely, meaning that some people had no option but to get Telstra cable (with dsl only recently being introduced in some areas the only other options are dialup or satellite).
There are many more faults I can go on with regarding Telstra's cable network (and their dsl network, which is already having difficulties, along with this new 3gig limit, which also applies) but I have already wasted enough of everyone's time here. :P
Anyway, I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on this and how it compares to ISP's worldwide. (The matter of Telstra's new cap has made it to parliament already, with politicians saying that Australia's broadband infrastructure was already lagging behind the rest of the world and this cap is only a step backwards)
/me steps down off the soap box
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