Telstra Says Freedom (Plan) Has Its Limits 233
"Slashdot readers in Australia will remember that Telstra's last pricing plan change was to charge per megabyte of traffic, including email and local network traffic, including paying the costs of receiving spam or unwanted data. During the rollout of optus @home's cable network, telstra implemented a flat-rate 'freedom' plan, offering a capped speed of 512kbit/128kbit with unlimited downloads suject to a flexible AUP, in order to compete with Optus's Network. Now the AUP has been changed to limit usage down to 3GB per month, reducing ADSL and cable users to the speed of a 28.8k modem.
Since the contract includes a reference to the AUP, the new limit is enforceable without express consent, and takes effect next month for all telstra 'Freedom' users. ZDNET australia, broadband.org.au, whirlpool.net.au, ausforums all have links to various stories, even a petition for Telstra to change their minds on this. As of this article, there are 4,300 users on the petition already quite angry, and more who are fed up with Telstra exploiting their monopoly of the internet bandwidth in Australia.
While some are calling this a purge of network 'abusers,' more rational users are asking for reasonable limits to be set up, if the old 'Freedom' plan cannot be reinstated."
At that price (Score:1)
Re:Thats not what I can broadband (Score:1)
Re:Stop and think for a while... (Score:1)
Re:gee... (Score:1)
Old habits die hard (Score:1)
Australian Broadband (Score:2)
(Don't hate me just because I'm Anonymous!)
Re:ARP etc (Score:2)
This is quite common. (Score:3)
Bandwidth isn't free, cheap DSL connections only exist because most web users are content to spend vastly more time reading than downloading.
Anyone who uses their cheap connection to shift loads of data is costing the ISP money rather than being ripped off, therefore the ISP doesn't like it.
Sure changing terms of service to exclude anyone who actually tries to collect what they were promised is a pretty underhand thing to do, but IMHO you can expect to see a lot more of it in the future.
Re:Grow up ! Things cost money! (Score:2)
AUS$89 = US$45.7194
Unlimited broadband in Australia was way too good to be true. Get over it already.
...j
Existing Feedback (Score:2)
Bandwidth costs, you whinging bastards (Score:1)
Your Rights Online? What is this bullshit!?
Bandwidth is not a right, it costs money! Being at the arse-end of nowhere (to quote a former PM), Australian carriers have to pay through the nose for traffic from the USA (and afaik all connectivity to countries elsewhere in the world from Australia goes through the USA?). If you want to use that connectivity to leech more than 3 gig of pr0n and mp3z a month, then you have to pay for it. Quit your whining.
Jesus, this is as much of a "Your Rights Online" issue as crying about your "rights" to copy mp3z being infringed by the big bad RIAA. Fuckin' selfish generation.
Mod down at will, I've got the karma to take whatever abuse the slashbot moderators want to dish out.
Some perspective on Telstra cable plans (Score:1)
However, one needs to look at this with some information about the history - mainly that Telstra had placed a limit on the network speed (50kB/sec) precisely to limit the abuse of the system. And now, on top of that they also limit the volume usage.
What the links fail to mention is that, up until recently, Telstra advertised the service as "broadband, unlimited Internet access". Now, not only is it not "boradband", it is no longer "unlimited" either.
Furthermore, their previous Acceptable Use Policy defined the limit to usage as "reasonable usage". With the limit to 3GB per month, this means that less than 2.5% of the cable connection is useable. How one can go from "reasonable" to 2.5% is beyond me.
And to add salt to the wound, Telstra offers a "Big150" modem dial-up Internet account for $37.5/month for 150 hours. This gives 150hr x 3600sec/hr x 56kbit/sec = 30240000 kbit/month = 3.6GB / month. Cable service is $72.55. So, you pay twice as much and get 15% less service for your money.
Just a quick rant... TPTB couldn't care less...
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Mach3 (Totally Off Topic) (Score:2)
Sure the blades for the Mach 3 are pricey, they were pricey on the Sensor too, but they last forever. I shave about 4 times a week (working in a basement lets me get by with scruffy) and my blades last about 3-4 monthes. Not only do they last forever, they do a good job shaving.
Re:Welcome to Business in the 00's. (Score:3)
It's just too expensive. Have *you* ever tried to teach a monkey or bunny to shave?
:)
hawk
Can it happen here (Score:1)
Secret windows code
Re:Infrastructure restriction? (Score:2)
No ISP infrastrucure comes even close to covering 100% constant usage on all modem ports.. Modems deal in bursts of data, and rarely are blaring full speed all the time. Hence, bandwidth is usually less then required for that kind of usage..
The number you came up with sounds more like a coincidence.
Re:28.8kbps Is Generous (Score:1)
9.7*3 comes to 29.1k.
Re:I'm suprised that (Score:2)
Their $50/mo consumer plan used to be 7 .5 or 10 GB, is now 15 GB I believe. Rate capped at 1.5 down, 128 up, used to be 512 down, 128 up (and back in the day was 512 down, 64 up).
Rarely enforced, as their page to check this is usually down. Typically you don't exceed this unless you're a warez/mp3 hound or running a server.
I don't complain though, even under the old rate caps. Cox treated it as just IP connection, with no attempts to regulate what you did with it. None of this @Home garbage of what is and what is not a server.
Chris Cothrun
Curator of Chaos
Why not huge caches? (Score:2)
Re:Why not huge caches? (Score:2)
My excessive usage - please punish me... (Score:1)
consider myself a little above average in my usage, but definatley NOT excessive.
I play Q3 and Tribes2 online, I read newsgroups, I send/receive email, and a spend a little time browsing the web. The only bandwidth intensive thing I really do is when I apt-get update, and thats not very often, I have a cron job do it at 3am from an australian mirror.
madness:~# ifconfig eth1 | grep bytes
RX bytes:2556879164 (2438.4 Mb) TX bytes:138309404 (131.9 Mb)
madness:~# uptime
12:07:01 up 9 days, 22:09, 5 users, load average: 0.13, 0.03, 0.01
Oh yeah, and my little sister does some web browsing for school work too. These figures are
a little higher than avg, because she did a windows update on her win2k box, SP2 IE 5.5 etc
Am I really all that EXCESSIVE?
Or not (Score:2)
But this won't happen - the people that will get cut off are the being BEING DDoS'd, not the people performing the DDoS. Any single node in the DDoS attack sends a trivial amount of data - Well, maybe not trivial, but not exactly bandwidth-breaking amounts of data. The beauty of the DDoS is that it's power comes from the number of computers doing small parts to contribute to the larger scope. One computer sending 1K packets every second is no big deal. 1000 computers doing the same just dropped 1M of data onto your link every second.
No, the caps won't stop DDoS's - except that the DDoS's won't be able to hit their targets after the first 1G of data comes in after 10 minutes.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
Re: Australia (OT) (Score:1)
Not quite true - the Disney channel on cable (at least in the past, I haven't had access to it in a year or two) used to use his show as filler.
Re:Some perspective on Telstra cable plans (Score:1)
I've noticed that the network is very slow today, the day after the notice went out ... I can't help but wonder if all the leechers are trying to get it while it's good.
Oh, and I bet that 50kbyte/sec cap you're talking about doesn't go away.
Re:Why not huge caches? (Score:2)
Telstra is already using transparent web proxies.
And you're right - traffic within Australia is considerably cheaper than international traffic. A few years ago Sydney University introduced per-megabyte charging for its students, I believe basically at cost. International traffic was about five times more expensive, at 17c/Mbyte.
But Telstra's quite happy to charge you for Australian traffic at twice that rate - which looks like about ten times as much as it costs wholesale.
The Internet Cartel (Score:2)
The US ISP's typically do not pay for the traffic that flows to Europe, or for the lines connecting to Europe. I would imagine that the problem would be worse in Australia. Every few years a new cable is added between Europe and the US; whereas laying cable between the US and Australia might be a bit more expensive.
Re:I can quit any time I want. No, really. (Score:1)
They changed the contract so technically you do have a right to opt out ... I think a judge would look kindly on your part if you asked Telstra to either continue with the current terms for the remainder of your contract or release you from your contract ... and maybe even refund your installation fee ...
Well, I can hope, can't I? (I'm also in the same boat as the other ... oh ... 5600 signatures on that petition page now)
Re:They always get the short end of the stick... (Score:1)
It is a nice place, and most of us are OK people, but our politicians, opinionators and decision makers get confused and challenged when confronted with issues that don't have "...for Dummies" books written for them (by an overseas publisher, of course!).
-Sam
Re:He's a comedian (Score:1)
As far as Priscilla goes, blame Miramax. The urban legend around here goes that the only reason that was released in the US was that Patrick Swayze had that drag queen movie coming out (if you'll pardon the pun) soon afterwards, so when Miramax saw Priscilla they used it as a low-cost opportunity to discover whether American audiences could cope with drag.
As for being a troll, I dunno. I thought you were funny. Maybe the laugh track went missing and the presumably American moderator didn't recognize it was supposed to be funny.
Oh, and we've got fighter planes ready to destroy any vessel carrying Paul Hogan or Olivia Neutron-Bomb back from LA :)
Go you big red fire engine!
Problem is the excess-data fee (Score:2)
Let's do some sums here. Let's assume that 35 cents per megabyte is the actual cost of providing that bandwidth. Furthermore, out of the 60 AUD monthly charge, let's assume $10 of that is spent on the essentially fixed costs of billing, line maintenance, and another $5 is taken out in profit. These are guesses, of course, I don't work in the industry, but they are pretty generous IMHO. Anyway, given that, the $45 of bandwidth charges, at 35 cents per megabyte, means the average user is only using about 129 megabytes per month! Something doesn't add up here, and I'm betting it costs far less than that to provide the international bandwidth.
So, in essence, Telstra is ripping me off. Looks like it's time to investigate the alternatives . . .
Go you big red fire engine!
He's a comedian (Score:5)
I must tell you, whenever the parlous state of the Australian dollar and the fact we have a moron as our leader gets us down, we just pull out a tape of Mr Irwin and realise that there's Americans out there that take him seriously. We also wonder where you lot hide your irony-removal clinics that you pass through soon after birth . .
And, if you lot are complaining about getting our junk culture, let's do a comparative list here:
Junk Culture successfully exported from Australia to America
Junk Culture successfully inflicted on Australia by the US (well, just the highlights, there's too much to list)
Now, if you want to swap, we might just have a deal :)
Go you big red fire engine!
Re:He's a comedian (Score:1)
Besides, you're selling yourselves short. Don't forget:
Olivia Newton-John
Men at Work
Olivia Newton-John
Paul Hogan (and you can have his wife, too)
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Did I mention Olivia Newton-John?
;)
As an aside, I'm a troll now? Methinks someone's office switched to decaf when they weren't looking
Re:He's a comedian (Score:1)
Oh, I'm sure it was American. We seem to have experienced the rise of a new breed over here, Americanus Apologeticus, who is so terrified of reinforcing stereotypes of the "ugly American," and so desperate for overseas acceptance that they feel the need to apologize for every single thing that their 270 million fellow citizens have ever done, either historically or recently. Oh well...humor survives
RE: Australia (OT) (Score:2)
I used to generally have positive feelings about Australians and Australia in general. Now, I think "Fuck 'em - they'll get what they deserve." I say this after having witnessed the unleashing of an unprecedented horror on the rest of the English-speaking world by Australia, a horror that must be condemned by civilized peoples everywhere, a horror that must not be allowed to stand.
I am, of course, referring to Steve Irwin. "The Crocodile Hunter," as if you needed to be told.
Please, Australia, what did we ever do to you to deserve this? We like you - we like koalas and kangaroos. We don't like being bombarded with the fact that there are 300 species of snakes and spiders in Australia that are SO POISONOUS that people die just by looking at them from a distance.
But it's not all bad. I taped that Fedex commercial; you know, the one where Steve gets bitten by a snake and dies. Whenever I need to relax, I just pull out that tape and watch it. Again and again.
In a heavy Aussie accent:
"Lookit that! Isn't she a beaoooty? But she's REALLY mad! And I don't blame her a bit, 'cause I've got my thumb RIGHT UP HER ARSE!"
Please, no more. Please.
Re:I'm suprised that (Score:1)
The enforcement of specific policies seems to lie upon the actual @Home partner: i.e. While I get scanned for NNTP servers I have never been scanned for any other type of servers (well...from @Home at least. From script kiddies I've been scanned for every server imaginable).
Re:Customers asked for it (Score:1)
Re:No, we didn't (Score:1)
I disagree with you on the lights. While numbers would have been nice, they could have just done what the other major broadband provider does and have more lights rather than the three they had. That way you get a decent idea of how much you can use. And it only affects the people who are putting an undue burden on the network
Re:Thats not what I can broadband (Score:1)
Re:what really gets me is...... (Score:1)
Re:?!?! (Score:1)
Now you get it... there are no other providers.
What's the fuss about? (Score:2)
It is within their rights to come up with an acceptable usage policy, and they seem to be doing it in a responsible way. If they had wanted to do this better, they should provided their customers with the information that they were considering a cap, and asked for feedback from them.
I kind of like the name of the team: BigPond. Does that imply that they are just some little fish?
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Re:28.8kbps Is Generous (Score:1)
I agree that the limit is low, but, for the average home internet user this is probably not a huge issue. I know we could operate our home internet connection quite well under that limit.
Ben
Re:Reasonable? (Score:1)
Well the other day I was having a quick look at the big brother website and using real player and you wouldn't guess which ad was below the video.
Yep you guessed it Telstra Big Swamp Broadband.
So Im confused.
Anyway lucky I didn't end up going with telstra. I am quite happy with my satellite setup with a perm modem, so basially it's the same for less cost.
Re:He's a comedian (Score:1)
That's because American studios/producers/whatever are either much smarter than our ones, or much bigger and thus their standover tactics work...
You want the rights to show , yes we can sell you that, it comes in this package which includes 500 of the worst shows we have ever made.
So the lucky Australian TV station gets the good show it wants and 500 crappy shows as well. Now its not going to spend more money when it has got all these hours of TV it can run against the other crap the other stations got bundled with their good imports...
Oh, and we've got fighter planes ready to destroy any vessel carrying Paul Hogan or Olivia Neutron-Bomb back from LA :)
A better idea might be to force them to land in NZ. That'll teach them to disband thier airforce...
How will they provide for self metering? (Score:2)
Would be a nice way to suppliment their cash-flow, no?
Well, cool. (Score:2)
The more bandwidth you use, the more it costs them, therefore, the more they should charge you. Makes sense to me.
What a load of crap. (Score:2)
The Mach 3's I change every monday. Also, if I store the blades in the bathroom cupboard, they rust (invisible to the naked eye) and after 3 weeks (beginning of the fourth blade) they are already blunt. This didn't happen with the Schicks.
I am getting a closer shave with fewer strokes though. Now Schick has released a 3 blade in Australia, I'm trying that next.
Re:This is quite common. (Score:2)
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Re:This is quite common. (Score:2)
It's time for competition ! (Score:2)
I guess it's time for some competition in Australia...
Re:I'm suprised that (Score:2)
Back-end bandwidth is cheaper in the States. Reason: you are right at the core of the network, while Australia is at the far-end, and has to buy heaps of undersea bandwidth (or fiber+hardware) for those pesky broadband customers.
[off-topic rant:] yet another case where market rules are biased towards the bigger players.
Mach3 Pricing (Score:2)
The reason the blades are so expensive is because they are of a much higher quality. Gillette spent a ton of money researching the technology they used in those blades.
For me, they last virtually forever. I highly recommend them.
Re:Why not huge caches? (Score:2)
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I can quit any time I want. No, really. (Score:2)
There's only one way to effectively protest this kind of stuff... vote with your dollars. That would mean informing them of your intention to stop using thier service unless they change their plans.
I don't know if I could do that, though, if I didn't have an alternative to DSL. I have no interest in going back to the bad old modem days. That's a tough choice. It's like a drug dealer... first we'll get you hooked, then we'll take everything you've got.
Re:gee... (Score:2)
I'm on Bell Sympatico, I would die if they had anysort of limit.
Re:how can 5%of users use 35% of the bandwith. (Score:2)
Assume 10,000 DSL customers. 5% is 500 users. Download at 512Kbps each is 256Mbps, if they were saturating their link 100% of the time.
Assume that the high-end users utilise their link at 20% full saturation each day - 5 hours at 512Kbps or 10 hours at 256Kbps. This is still highly unlikely, but hey...
20% of 256Mbps is 51Mbps. Thus 35% of the network is 51Mbps, and their DSL network is a total of 150Mbps shared between all their users, by their own words.
Stick 10 cities on that network - Telstra are allocating 15Mbps of bandwidth for DSL to each city, or per 1,000 users. And that is being very generous towards Telstra. More accurate numbers would probably suggest under 10Mbps per city, maybe even 5...
So that initial statement is clearly very misleading and incorrect (read: lie), or the service is dreadful.
10Mbps divided between 1,000 people is 10Kbps of bandwidth per person. That is a contention ration of 50:1 - very poor.
Re:The Internet Cartel (Score:2)
Great point!
Consider the MP3 leech from an ISP's point of view. Would you rather have 10000 users downloading (transiting) 3GB per month of MP3s from Supernews or Newsguy, or would you rather have them doing it from your own news server?
One way, you pay 300GB per day (a full NNTP feed) for 9TB per month transit to your NNTP server. After that, it's all internal traffic to you.
The other way, you pay 3GB per month times 1000 users, for 30TB per month to someone else's NNTP server (or to P2P servers located outside your network, etc...)
As "bad" as the situation is wrt USENET and binaries, for a sufficiently-large ISP, there may be a business case for upgrading/maintaining your own news server farm, rather than expecting your users to outsource it.
The same applies to P2P servers within the network:
Suppose you had a news server with only one day retention, but 100 of your 10000 USENET users each downloaded 1% (2.5G per day) of the feed and redistributed it by setting up their own NNTP servers for "Stuff They Liked". If each of these 100 individuals, who would only need to eat 2.5G per day off your news server (and it's all LAN traffic, so you don't pay for their transit), dropped $150 on a 30G hard drive, you could effectively have 10 days' retention, and take some of the load away from your news server.
I'm sure similar economies apply to Gnutella and more pure P2P solutions. I'm just using NNTP as an example.
Re:28.8kbps Is Generous (Score:2)
3072 MB / 720 hours
3145728 KByte / 43200 mins
25165824 kbit / 2592000 secs
9.7 kbps
Which reminds me.
Suppose we take a typical US dialup user and have them use the hours between midnight and 0600 for my USENET MP3 l33ching, That's six hours a day, or 180 hours a month, to download stuff.
I'm sure my ISP would be pissed at you (and righteously so!) if you were to use six hours a day during peak time, but by doing bulk downloads in the off-hours, you're not costing them anything - the modem pools are mostly empty, and even your local phone company's network is unloaded.
Six hours at 48000 bps = about 12M per hour of MP3s from USENET once you subtract out the uuencoding bloat and allow for some latency. 72M per day, or about 2G per month. If we assume 160kbps MP3s, that's about an hour's worth of new music every day. Egad.
(Given a 2-3G per month cap, why bother with broadband? ;-)
Broadband, Freedom, Options (Score:2)
But the concept that they market the product as "broadband" and then go ahead and chop the ability to use this "broadband" product seems somewhat, Telstra like.
In the city I live, there is a project known as eLaunceston [elaunceston.com] and they have a project known as the Launceston Broadband Project [b-elab.com] where they are currently using ADSL customers (including Telstra ones) in this city, to trial bandwidth intensive products, such as delivering lectures over the medium, and medical data, tourist guides, video conferencing, and hell, they even have a gnutella server and some game servers!
It seems weird, that one arm of Telstra can embrace and the other arm can restrict, then again, that's the corporate world for you.
If Telstra really want users to be more considerate when it comes to data usage, then have the cap by all means, maybe even lift it up to 6 to 8gb even - but if they really want people to pay for what they use, why can they not make it affordable.
The reason people would go with the Freedom Deluxe over the pay per meg plan is simply because for $10 or so more ($89 month for 512/128), you didn't have to pay through the neck for data.
Why can they not market the volume based plans at a much cheaper monthly rate, with data available at 10c/mb, or even different rates if you get it from a cache or not, as the Bigpond Direct plans now offer.
If we are to ever see true broadband in this nation, they just need to make it slightly more affordable, so they make more money out of the extra loads of people they sign up, and rather then giving their shareholders extra dividends (as nice as they must be to get) put extra money back into further developing the network.
Personally, I don't want to be stuck on 56k dialup for ever, but the way it's going, especially with the state I am living in, I don't really have any other affordable choice, $27.50AUD a month for 400 hours/1.5GB is a bargain, although, not so when two months ago it was totally unlimited.
Make your voice heard, but don't be lame about it, they will ignore you, and people will forget about it, eventually.
Dwindling competition in the US (Score:2)
Some number of years ago, I discussed running a T1 line into an apartment complex and wiring the whole thing with ethernet. At the time there were no other choices and in a neighborhood full of techies I'm sure you could find enough people who'd be willing to pay a bit extra a month for the service. It wouldn't take much to defray the cost of the thing (Local ISPs were offering T1 access for as low as $400 a month back then, though to connect to the MCI backbone, they wanted $1600 a month.) These days you could probably do something along those lines with a wireless microwave setup, kind of like the guys at http://www.plusten.com are doing. Doing an end-run around the telco like that may be the only way to get a fair shake in the long run.
Customers asked for it (Score:2)
We just need to be saved from ourselves.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
No, it's not bait-and-switch. (Score:5)
The software model of cheap software / expensive support has evolved because a few people need much more support than others. If you wish to subsidize other people's need for support, be my guest. I'd rather have cheaper software and fix my own problems or research the answers online. (Thanks, Google!)
Video game consoles and razors are a different, classic pricing model. It is called the "razor pricing model." A razor is two things: a sharp thing and a handle thing. The sharp thing is a precision manufactured blade designed to scrape away unwanted facial hair (which has a tensile strength comparable to copper wire of the same diameter) with out scraping away the wanted flesh underneath. The handle thing is a modified stick. Which do you think is the value-add in this product? Moreover, the blade wears out. You may view this as part of the Illuminati's conspiracy to keep hirsute men in chains. If so, you are welcome to use a straight razor and a strap. Pay up your health insurance first though.
The Gillettes and Shicks of the world give away, practically, the stick part because it is cheap in itself and it will give you an incentive to purchase their blades in the future. Eventually you will see third-party blades that fit the Mach3. And you may or may not like them.
In addition, Gillette apparently spent $750 Million doing the R&D on the blade and blade assembly. There was an interesting article on it in the New Yorker a long while back. (Sorry, I couldn't find a link on Google.) I imagine they didn't do that for fun. I use the razor and am annoyed at the high cost of the blades. But, they do seem to give me a better shave than my Atra did and the blades seem to last a bit longer as well.
In short, none of the things you mentioned are bait-and-switch. The change in DSL pricing described in the email doesn't fit classic bait and switch either. Rather, it looks like a pricing change designed to avoid having to offer the service at a loss. It is more akin to bait-and-switch then the examples in your post because it is a change in the product. But they aren't pretending the product exists at all. There is *no* all-you-can-eat DSL anymore. This may be rude or unfair or gouging, but it isn't a bait-and-switch.
Extra == more expensive? ($1050 for a 2nd line?) (Score:2)
Similarly, I can't see why you can pay like $100 or whatever for your DSL line, get 3 GB/mo, then have to pay $1050 for the NEXT 3GB. Can you just buy two lines, and switch over halfway through the month? How about you just buy 10 DSL lines and get 30GB for your money?
I guess the assumption is that they are expecting miniscule total downloads...maybe a few hundred MB a month or less, per average user, and the high cap is in place to force the bandwidth devourers to get a different ISP -- except, of course, there ARE no other ISPs in Australia, since Telstra has a government-granted monopoly, and this is definitely what comes of that.
A small calculation (Score:2)
These are the kind of facts and questions customers should present to the custer service representatives. When they say they don't know the answer or cannot answer the questions, ask for them to transfer you to someone who can answer them. Let them know that they are not just charging you, they are massively penalizing you for going over the limit.
Welcome to Business in the 00's. (Score:3)
It's a time-tested technique. Software companies for the past two or three decades have offered reasonably-priced software, only to follow it with astronomically-priced support. Video game consoles are sold cheap because the games cost so much. Even toiletries: I just bought a Mach 3 razor, and realized that they could make a mint on it even if they gave it away, because the blades for it cost $armleg.99.
Possible here in the states? (Score:2)
Re:Dwindling competition in the US (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I do own shares in Storm Internet's parent company.
28.8kbps Is Generous (Score:3)
3 GB / 30 days
3072 MB / 720 hours
3145728 KByte / 43200 mins
25165824 kbit / 2592000 secs
9.7 kbps
That's just wrong.
Not news to me (Score:3)
Even though Ajato [ajato.com.br] really sucks sometimes, it doesn't have this sort of bullshit yet. I hear there are a few other ISPs doing the same thing Virtua is doing... I just hope mine doesn't get "infected" by this evil idea
Maybe I'm just nuts here (Score:2)
No, what gets me is this extra fee of $0.35 per megabyte. THIS is the highway robbery. If you use 3GB it's whatever the plan is (usually no more than $50), but if you use 4GB instead, you're billed for $400! if you double it and use 6GB, it's $1100 a month. You could buy another computer for that kind of money.
I'm suprised that (Score:2)
Well it certainly isn't an ethical practice (Score:2)
ARP etc (Score:4)
The are absolutely no options avaiable, no alternatives, I signed up for a rate capped unlimited service! I can't believe the ACCC have said this is all OK
Stop and think for a while... (Score:3)
Sure, for the few souls that will have to decrease their traffic it sucks. But think of it again: a bigger, faster network costs money. Would it be fair to let the lightweight users pay for that, while only a few consume the bandwidth? Nah. The heavy users should think about what they want: decrease traffic or pay more. I'm sure there are options subscribe for unlimited traffic, but at higher cost. Will it be worth the extra cost, is the question these people should ask themselves. If 10 people in a city want a car that can do 200MPH, would it be fair for a car manufacturer to give all its cars this feature and increase the price? Or would it be more appropriate to sell normal cars to normal drivers and offer a sports car to those that want it?
It's easy to start yelling that Telstra sucks, but try to think what you would do if you were mr. Telstra and had to cut cost. If you really need the bandwith for downloading ISOs, movies, MP3s or whatever, you'll have to think about am I going to be fine with this, or would it be worthwhile paying more to continue this habit?
Re:Welcome to Business in the 00's. (Score:3)
Re:Advertising (Score:2)
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Re:The Internet Cartel (Score:2)
Except that Telstra's terms of service prohibit you from running any servers on their network.
Re:I can quit any time I want. No, really. (Score:2)
I would, except that a lot of Telstra ADSL users are on a fixed contract, with penalties for an early opt-out (just like a mobile phone contract). For instance, I'm on a 12 month contract...If I don't like it, I'm more than welcome to leave. I'm also more than welcome to pay Telstra a whole bunch of $$$ in penalties. They've got their DSL users bent over a barrel....
All australians know what to do =) (Score:2)
Cheers, Telstra.
[CK]
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don't let them get away with it complain here (Score:2)
Re:Infrastructure restriction? (Score:2)
Re:Stop and think for a while... (Score:2)
Re:He's a comedian (Score:2)
As for Fosters, well it's a standing joke that no one in Australia drinks it.
Re:Infrastructure restriction? (Score:4)
Funny how Telstra said it was never advertised (Score:2)
Never advertised as an unlimited plan eh?
Re:Thats not what I can broadband (Score:2)
in fact, i probably do this pretty much every day, so i probably pull down at least 2 gigs a month, every month, over DIALUP. sick, isn't it?
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
Re: Unfortunately, the ACCC has OK'ed this (Score:2)
Thank you for your e-mail to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ('the Commission') concerning your broadband service.
The Commission enforces the Trade Practices Act 1974 ('the Act').
The Commission received complaints late last year concerning the enforcement by Telstra of its Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) on its cable product. The AUP allowed Telstra to restrict or suspend users from the service where Telstra considered that the use created an undue burden to the network or degraded use of the network by others. A large number of complainants were also concerned that they could not determine what level of use would breach the AUP.
You should note that the mere use of an AUP is not illegal, although the Commission does not encourage the use of this type of term.
The Commissions concern was that the service was advertised as "unlimited subject to an Acceptable Use Policy". It was the Commission's view at that time that the use of the term "unlimited" combined with what the Commission considered was a vague AUP could be misleading within the meaning of the Act.
Telstra subsequently agreed to remove the word unlimited from the cable webpages. The word unlimited did not appear on the ADSL webpages. Telstra also advised that it would change its AUP to allow for greater clarity in its enforcement.
Telstra has now changed its AUP. In relation to data limits Telstra has set the limit at 3 Gigabytes per month. In line with its contract Telstra has allowed users that do not feel that this limit is acceptable to cancel their contract. If you wish to exercise this option you must advise Telstra by the 18 June 2001.
The Commission is aware that some users of the service are unhappy with the outcome. However it should be pointed out that the service provided by Telstra was always subject to an Acceptable Use Policy. Previously this limit and how it was calculated was not clear to users. The Commission considers that the increased clarity of the AUP can only assist consumers in deciding to purchase products.
Similarly the Commission is aware that some consumers are of the view that the internet products should not be capped or limited. The Commission is not a price setting body for retail internet products and cannot determine product characteristics.
Should you have any queries please contact me.
I'm actually glad Tel$tra hasn't cabled my suburb, nor ADSL-enabled my exchange :)
Don't they really care about customers ? (Score:2)
For the large majority of Freedom Plan customers, this allowance will not impact on their current usage patterns and will provide them with improved network performance. This is because around five percent of users take up 35 percent of total bandwidth at any one time.
I'd say that if their network does not have optimal performance today, it is because they designed it that way (knowing the current usage patterns, including the 5%/35% ratio and all). And just because they are going to force some high volume users to pay more for their traffic, or to change their usage pattern, or leave, does not mean that the utilization of their net will be lower. It could mean that they will be able to push their network investment schedule back a couple of months, and let the performance level crawl back to what it is currently. Considering the boom in the number of broadband users, and in the band used/user, this would not take long.
Another aspect, too, that should be considered, is: who cares about 3 Gb being downloaded/uploaded in off-peak time ? Why restrict it ? What impact does it have on costs, or on the network performance for the average user ? The answer is none -- no impact. Maybe we could one day evolve towards more economically sophisticated ways of charging for traffic [umich.edu]...
-RicardoRe:Good US exports (Score:2)
Examples:
a) Desperado...El Mariachi
b) Truman Show...I cannot remember the name of the origional
c) The Magnificent Seven....The seven samuri
there are heaps more but I cannot be bothered looking them up.
and I would also like to look at 2 of the "good" movies you quoted faceoff and con air....corect me if im wrong but these are both John Woo films...very very US in a hong kong kinda way :-)
and finally..."Pracila Queen of the Desert" released a year later with Patric Swayze in "So long from wong fu" or something.
Re:Just wondering (Score:2)
Clarification re: bandwidth limits (Score:2)
I've had shaw for 3 years now. Their TOS says nothing about bandwidth limits, beyond 'excessive use will have consequences' or something to that effect. For the record, I generally average about 30GB down, maybe 4-5GB up per month.
I've never been cut off, however when the upload becomes excessive they will give me a 5-minute timeout, then the connection resumes :)
Someone suggested 're-booting' the cable modem, as apparently this is where Shaw gets their figures from, and guess what? IT WORKS! I haven't been kiced off in months, including the 5GB upload I did one day :)
Re:Clarification re: bandwidth limits (Score:2)
Shaw gave me a Terayon Terapro in the beginning, the reboot trick was suggested to me by one of their former techs. I've never seen anywhere online where I can check my usage stats.
As for checking bandwidth, I've personally found DUmeter (sorry, no URL handy) to be one of the more accurate tcp/ip loggers. Nothing fancy, but damn precise speed measurements, and it keeps track of total transferred nicely.
Re:Clarification re: bandwidth limits (Score:2)
This is precisely what I see happening with them. Long, steady upstreams for more than a few hours tend to fire off alarm bells (especially on weekends :).
As for usenet, I think we all know just how crappy @home tends to be re: retention. And don't get me started with DSL speeds.... :P
what really gets me is...... (Score:2)
Just wondering (Score:2)
Alan
--
Tequila - drink of the gods.
Infrastructure restriction? (Score:5)
Take 3 GB/mo, divide by (31days/mo)*(24hrs/day)*(60min/hr)*(60sec/min) and multiply by 8 bits/byte, and you get 26882 bits/sec - on average, a little less than a v.34 modem. Could it be that ISP infrastructure is designed for 28.8 kbps, even though the technology exists through DSL to increase the peak data rate?
On a related note, most companies find that "unlimited access" to a resource that normally costs per use is a bad business strategy. In Canada, "unlimited" long distance services were recently introduced, then caps were rapidly put in place when it was realized that people would phone across the country and leave the line open all night, just because they could.
gee... (Score:2)
On the other hand, the adsl providers have a flat rate.
The day I switched from 56K to ADSL I downloaded 3 gigs worth of stuff, so let's just say I don't regret my choice
-PYves
Grow up ! Things cost money! (Score:2)
Links and results (Score:2)
Below are a few links, not going to well, Telstra have written the terms and cons very well. One thing is for sure, They have another public relations nightmare like they did back in 1999.
http://australianit.news.com.au/common/storyPage/0 ,3811,2085164%5E442,00.html [news.com.au]
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/2001/06/06
http://it.mycareer.com.au/breaking/2001/06/06/FFX
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/telco/story/0,200002
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/nat/newsnat-6
http://www.whirlpool.net.au [whirlpool.net.au]
http://www.a1h.com [a1h.com]
Advertising (Score:2)