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The state of Australian Broadband

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  • The state of Australian Broadband

    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
    <i>Shampoo is better! I go on first and clean the hair!</i>

    Athlon 700, K7V, 192Mb RAM, 32Mb G400 DH (v5.52), SBLive!, 26.4GB HDD, Win2k Pro, Actima 8xDVD, LG 32x4x4x CD-RW, CTX VL950T 19"

  • #2
    Seem's to be a great ISP.

    I'm on cable modem too with a different isp.... I have some little problems with it but it's not that bad.

    My only problem is that sometimes the server seem's to crash or something like that and while it's down i can't do anything but wait until they take it back up which takes between 5mins and 12hours (happened 7 times since i've got this ISP...).

    Transfer rates are really good 3mbit/s download and 300kbit/s upload... but the upload is hardware locked at 20k/s by the ISP.

    They have a limit of 6g download and 1g upload... which i got rid of 'cus i download and upload a lot more than this.

    Anyway, i wouldn't had gone on a cable modem if i had the choise because of the dl/up limits, but since i don't have a limit on my cable i won't whine on it... it still goes a lot faster than my brother with his DSL and he can't have a limit since it's ISP don't put one.

    I forgot... it cost me 29.99$/month + 15% of taxes.

    Spazm

    [This message has been edited by spazm_1999 (edited 08 June 2001).]
    P3-667@810 retail, Asus CUSL2-C, 2*128 mb PC-133(generic), G400DH 16mb, SBLive value, HollyWood+, 1*Realtek 8029(AS) and 1*Realtek 8039C, Quantum 30g, Pioneer DVD-115f

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    • #3
      In my area we have 3 options.

      South West Bruce Internet (SWBI) Dialup $25 Unlimited and it supports the new V. Standard.

      Bruce Municipal Telephone Systems, Bruce Municipal Internet (BMI) Dialup $29 Unlimited but can be tacked onto your phone bill. (Supports new V. Standard)

      Bruce Municipal Telephone Systems, Bruce Municipal Cheetah Access (BMI/BMCA) DSL (15 KBytes Upstream / 95 KBytes Downstream) 40 Dollars a month with unlimited Up/Download.

      The DSL service I have has only had problems once for a day when they had to install new equipment... I am online 24/7 (Internet Routing Machine) and Service is topnotch. When I first recieved my hardware my DSL modem was faulty.. it would not post.. a quick trip and they exchanged it after a quick test with little difficulty and only having to change the modem serial # on my file...

      I rate all three A+ with SWBI having more in depth tech support and BMI having very good customer relations...



      AMD Phenom 9650, 8GB, 4x1TB, 2x22 DVD-RW, 2x9600GT, 23.6' ASUS, Vista Ultimate
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      Acer 6930G, T6400, 4GB, 500GB, 16", Vista Premium
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      • #4
        i'm with the telstra one and this is a joke
        it's the 8th of the month and i have alread done 1GB so by the end i will be over the limit.

        The word competition comes in to play here
        telstra has NO competition at all and something needs to be done about it

        [This message has been edited by WarT (edited 08 June 2001).]

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        • #5
          Is there an opportunity to pay more for your useage?
          "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." -- Dr. Seuss

          "Always do good. It will gratify some and astonish the rest." ~Mark Twain

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          • #6
            yes there is but it's stupidly expensive
            something like 15cents per megabyte or something

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            • #7
              Same here, but it's 0,10$ +taxes(15%) per mb. Note that they charge it in slopes of 10$ so even if you should pay 10.50$ your bill will be of 20$.

              Whoops... i just reread the contract and discovered that i told a lie.... actually it's 0,02$ +taxes per mb...

              Spazm

              [This message has been edited by spazm_1999 (edited 08 June 2001).]
              P3-667@810 retail, Asus CUSL2-C, 2*128 mb PC-133(generic), G400DH 16mb, SBLive value, HollyWood+, 1*Realtek 8029(AS) and 1*Realtek 8039C, Quantum 30g, Pioneer DVD-115f

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              • #8
                Ok, Just spoke to my friend in Australia. He uses telstra adsl. The story goes, a lot of people were bugging Telstra for a more direct statement on what is 'acceptable usage', and some mutterings about 5% of the subscribers using 35% of the bandwidth. I really don't know more.

                But here in japan I've just changed Isp's because the previous one blocked ports 'for my own good'

                apart from that I pay about $80us a month for 1500kb d/l and 512k/b upload with no restrictions as long as I obey 'acceptable use'


                Dan

                Ps I used to work for the big 'T' but pricing and other arguments about the company are best left to another thread
                Juu nin to iro


                English doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

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                • #9
                  I use Telecoms Jetstream ADSL at work, and its ok, although it was down all day yesterday. Thats nice and fast, with about 2Mb down, and about 512Kb up (Im not sure of the up).

                  I dont think there is a limit, but if there is I dont kow about it.

                  Costs about NZ$85 a month (US$35-40ish), so isnt too bad.

                  At home I have iHUG Ultra, which is a satellite system. When I applied for it there was no limit, but they have since put on a 2Gig per month limit. I phoned, and said if they charge me extra I will sue them, because I had no option to cancel without a penilty fee. They seem fine with that.

                  Satelitte is a bit of a pain. You dont want to play games, but I can suck down large files nice and fast (800K/sec the fastest Ive had). ADSL at work only ever gets to about 200-250K/sec.

                  I think the satelite costs about NZ$60 a month, which is too high I think, but I cant get ADSL at home yet.

                  Oh year, Im in New Zealand (below Australia).

                  Ali

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                  • #10
                    Here's a good example of Telstra's service on the Bigpond cable network.

                    Went to a lan at a friend's place on the weekend. He had awesome plans for the network - fully 100mbit switched with 2 Bigpond cable modems. Only one flaw in that plan... Telstra had router problems all day so in the 7 or 8 hours I was there for, we were only online for about 30 minutes of that.

                    /me gives Telstra a big thumbs up
                    <i>Shampoo is better! I go on first and clean the hair!</i>

                    Athlon 700, K7V, 192Mb RAM, 32Mb G400 DH (v5.52), SBLive!, 26.4GB HDD, Win2k Pro, Actima 8xDVD, LG 32x4x4x CD-RW, CTX VL950T 19"

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