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Keep in mind that the originally poster is from New Zealand. Broadband internet in New Zealand is not like we are used to in the United States; it's all based on metered billing and has been since the start. In fact - as a student in New Zealand I used to get charged per MB (and quite a bit, actually) when using the school's computer labs.

The result is that monthly quotas end up being just as important (if not moreso) than bandwidth to a typical user. For example, take a look at these broadband prices and the extremely low (by US standards) "data allowances".

I'm pretty sure that the case where a employee has a better connection at home than at work would be quite rare in NZ.

In New Zealand, Xtra offer an unlimited plan, however they do traffic management on it. Meaning if you use any P2P software your connection is slowed down to dialup speed (much the same if you go over your cap on a limited plan) for about 24 hours after the program (Transmission etc.) is stopped before it returns back to full speed.

Time Warners proposed plans look incredibly similar to Telecom New Zealand which owns the phone lines in NZ. They charge 2c per MB if you go over your bandwidth cap, which can get pretty costly. https://www.telecom.co.nz/broadband/select/1,10627,205728-204466,00.html

I should have figured that you'd be in New Zealand or somewhere equally lacking in decent internet access (South Africa, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia...)

You neglect to mention which ISP you are with, but perhaps you might be best to upgrade your plan a step or two:

Telecom (Xtra) has "Go" at NZ$39.95/mo with a 3GB cap, or "Explorer" at NZ$49.95/mo with a 10GB cap.
https://www.telecom.co.nz/broadband/select/1,10627,205728-204466,00.html

TelstraClear has their PDQ Launch 256kbps/Turbo 2+mbit options at NZ$24/mo or NZ$36/mo plus the NZ$2.95/1GB or $11.95/10GB/mo for usage (based on the 1GB cap, can I assume you have PDQ launch+1GB?) http://www.telstraclear.co.nz/residential/homeplan/internet/pdq-broadband/speed-and-usage-plans.cfm

I'm sure ihug, orcon and slingshot all have their plans too - perhaps it is time for a change. ...myself, I could never move back to NZ from my 100mbit/unlimited (or 110mbit with some isps)broadbandy goodness. My bills would sting too much.

But 200MB? Sure you're not getting confused with mobile broadband?

nope, standard, regular old broadband to the home:

https://www.telecom.co.nz/broadband/select/1,10627,205836-204473,00.html

TelstraClear used to have one too, but I've just checked and their minimum plan is now 1GB.

Interestingly enough, in New Zealand (which was among the leading broadband nations in the early days of broadband deployment) most consumers till have a 3 gig limit (@ $39.95).

You can pay more (59$ for a 10 gig limit). Over that and you will pay a lot and will get overage charges ($149.95 for 50 gig with Excess Usage 2c/ MB)

So quit whining. You guys have it good.

https://www.telecom.co.nz/broadband/select/1,10627,205728-204466,00.html

Sorry you must be thinking about some other New Zealand, the offerings here are *worse* than in the US. Lower speeds, costlier, low caps. Most of the broadband offerings are ADSL, with 128kbps upstream, the downstream rate is limited by equipment and distance to the exchange, oh and the number of users on the same segment. Some areas have cable offerings, but of course you are paying for it. Have a look at http://www.telecom.co.nz/chm/0,8763,203071-202449, 00.html?link=hpm for a list of pricing for the biggest broadband retailer in New Zealand.

Telecom New Zealand has a new Go Large plan. The advertising says no limits but the conditions say more than 750Mb in one day is deemed excessive. Then there is the Traffic Managment that is not advertised. mmmm

Some links:
Traffic Management on the Go Large plan
Telecom to refund $8m to broadband customers
Telecom New Zealand backpedals and remove un-capped broadband plan Go Large

Seriously, if the worst you've got to complain about is that you're 12th, with only four major companies supplying last-mile access, come here. We've got precisely two companies supplying the last mile, and in our largest city we have only one choice for residential connections.

Consider that NZ is at the top of the OECD for the percentage of the population that actually uses the 'net, so it's not like we're a bunch of technophobes. We're just catching it up the arse from a rapacious monopolist incumbent, which thankfully is about to be unbundled. So, sorry, but y'all should get a grip. You're in the top half, we're in the bottom quarter!

Utter FUD. QoS can be maintained by a router in YOUR house quite effectively. The ISP could technically also implement such, but absolutely no discussion with the content provider is necessary. Here in this country, we have already a rudimentary form of QoS on our infrastructure. Our incumbent telco (who up until about a year ago held a government sanctioned monopoly, so really isn't in tune with customer wants) utilizes QoS to deprioritize P2P traffic (here's an example of what I mean). My own ISP utilizes their own bandwidth chain, and also implements a Layer 7 QoS appliance (the only one to describe their technology, I should note) to ensure "quality of service is maintained for the types of traffic that need it the most" (which means gaming, VoIP, email, web) - and then only during peak times. You'll be pleased to note that they do all this without requiring any sort of contract or agreement with Skype, Blizzard, or any of those "sensitive traffic" providers, so I don't know where you're getting your imaginary big-business-fellating idea from.

Just a pity the broadband offerings are so S@#tty! (For example: http://www.telecom.co.nz/chm/0,8763,203071-202449, 00.html)

Bastards!

Our only real national phone company do the same thing regarding charging the earth for something that costs them next to nothing:

How much does it cost?

$3.95 a month (including GST) or $2.50 a month (including GST) if taken as part of our Anytime plan.

http://www.telecom.co.nz/callerdisplay

I manage a bunch of Linux servers. When out and about I've had to just rely on whomever else was on call to respond whenever there is a problem. Or I've had to lug around my 12kg Athlon 64 notebook then head for the nearest phone plug and desk whenever there was a page.

Recently, (ok it was an xmas present to myself) I picked up a PPC HTC Apache. It runs WM5.

I've loaded it up with a few choice pieces of software to help get me the tools I need to manage or assist with pretty much any issue that would arise. Those apps include:

• Pocketty for ssh2 (twisted their arm to give me a beta, I wish they'd take my money...)
• agile messenger for IM (we co-ordinate between staff and communicate with customers via IM). IM beats sms for brief conversations any day.
• an imap client - using the one provided with WM5 for now. It handles the inbox and sending. I haven't managed to get it to display the contents of other folders yet.
• sms alerts (using the standard messaging software on the phone)
• IE for browsing - but no tabs (in fact only one open page at a time), and poor enough javascript support that ajax-based websites aren't a happening thing.

With these tools I'm often sorely tempted to leave behind my shoulder breaking laptop in favor of slipping the 200g HTC into my pocket when day tripping somewhere.

Now if only I could get tabbed web browsing, a 1024x768 screen, and a touch typable keyboard that then laptop could be relegated to being a dedicated Age of Mythology client for the kids.

--
Got yourself your own Linux server yet?

Come get humped in the land of milk and honey:
$1 NZ Dollar = $0.67 US Dollars

http://www.telecom.co.nz/chm/0,5123,205112-202570, 00.html#new

Plan name Monthly charge Monthly allowance Max d/l* Max u/l Overage
Basic $29.95 200MB 256kbs 128kbs Yes
Go $39.95 1GB 2Mbs 128kbs No
Explorer $49.95 5GB 3.5Mbs 128kbs No
Adventure $59.95 10GB 3.5Mbs 128kbs No
Pro $79.95 10GB 3.5Mbs 512kbs Yes
Pro Advanced $99.95 20GB 3.5Mbs 512kbs Yes
Pro Ultra $149.95 40GB 3.5Mbs 512kbs Yes

Telecom.. slowing the pace of technical progress in New Zealand since.. forever! And these are the 'New to be released' pricings. At least what you see also applies to commerical customers.

Telecom, Ya Bastards.

... a 15 Mbit SYMMETRIC connection available, which is enough to make any torrenting geek happy (one ISP doing this is here). That's $44/mo ...

Heh. Here in New Zealand, even a 256 Kb/128 Kb connection capped at 1 GB/month costs more than that: about US$28, plus another US$28 for using the same company for a land-line telephone connection. Ain't monopolies great.

Isn't April Fools Day just the best? =] For a 'full' list of sites pulling pranks today check out this list here

Here is a sample:

dotget.net - Microsoft to put P2P software .GET into next version of Windows
kylewenda.com - the government records your phone calls... scary
rfc-editor.org - RFC for "Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts"
waferbaby.com - amusing php error
planet.gentoo.org - Various things, CFLAGS, etc
fark.com - Many Jokes (keep reloading): BOOBIES!, Logged in as admin, North-Central Kentucky Bunghole-Discharge, page from 1999, BEER
2600.com - Formal Attire required for 2600 meetings today
forumsector.com - Changed the name to Nascar Sector
wikipedia.org - Britannica taking over Wikimedia
google.com - Google releases Google Gulp
kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
telecom.co.nz - Click 2 Brick
ytmnd.com - (NSFW) hacked by teens for christ
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
thinkgeek.com - Fake product listings.
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft

Isn't April Fools Day just the best? =] For a 'full' list of sites pulling pranks today check out this list here

Here is a sample:

kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
telecom.co.nz - Click 2 Brick
ytmnd.com - (NSFW) hacked by teens for christ
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
thinkgeek.com - Fake product listings.
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov - Water On Mars
smh.com.au - (Free Reg Req) SMEGmail offers 1 terabyte storage
smh.com.au - (Free Reg Req) Linux looks to Hilton for exposure
thetoque.com - Canada Builds Own Missile Defense Shield
onion.com - U.S. Dog Owners Fear Arrival of Africanized Fleas
chron.com - Bush Twins in Maxim
ask.com - Jeeves has been replaced by a robot
animenewsnetwork.com - Viz Unlicenses Naruto
uninventthewheel.co.uk - New BMW technology to get around the EU ban on right hand drive cars in Europe.
newgrounds.com - changing to numagrounds.com
neopets.com - neopets adds 50 new pets
www.firstloox.org - The Loox is being recalled
packages.gentoo.org - Adobe doesn't sell products for Linux
pc.ign.com - Microsoft World of Wordcraft (Extremely Obvious)
spamusement.com - Page full of spoof banner ads
gentooexperimental.org - Gentoo using the NT kernel
moddb.com

For a full list of sites that pulled April Fools Day Pranks this year check out this list here Here is a sampling: dotget.net - Microsoft to put P2P software .GET into next version of Windows
kylewenda.com - the government records your phone calls... scary
rfc-editor.org - RFC for "Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts"
waferbaby.com - amusing php error
planet.gentoo.org - Various things, CFLAGS, etc
fark.com - Many Jokes (keep reloading): BOOBIES!, Logged in as admin, North-Central Kentucky Bunghole-Discharge, page from 1999, BEER
2600.com - Formal Attire required for 2600 meetings today
forumsector.com - Changed the name to Nascar Sector
wikipedia.org - Britannica taking over Wikimedia
google.com - Google releases Google Gulp
kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
telecom.co.nz - Click 2 Brick
ytmnd.com - (NSFW) hacked by teens for christ
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
thinkgeek.com - Fake product listings.
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov - Water On Mars

I have 10Mbps at home for some months now, with TelstraClear ... Is New Zealand that ahead of the UK?

I would like to add that this is only avaiable to a small percentage of New Zealand homes and business who have access to TelstraClear's network. Most New Zealaners have only one option, Telecom New Zealand, who is one of the worst option for broadband access. FYI Telecom used to be the telco monoploy.

So, my point is, New Zealand is not ahead of the UK by a long shot. We are still very far behind since the majority of NZ households and businesses have no option other than Telecom NZ's ripoff pricing.

Personally I am somewhat fortunate to live in a area serviced by Woosh Wireless (a UMTS-based wireless broadband ISP) which is the only serious company competing with Telecom's ADSL offering in Auckland - and even then their prices aren't that much better than Telecom's. Auckland is the largest city in NZ and the fact there are only 2 major competitors with simalar pricing says a lot about how "advanced" we, as a country, are in the area of broadband pricing...

And yet it's still cheaper and better than the best available in New Zealand! See?

Your broadband deals aren't looking quite so bad now are they? (Telecom NZ expects to bump up to 512kbps for the 10gig plans etc. next May! Wow- we Kiwis are lucky...)

As a Kiwi, I'd say you're getting a pretty nice view of New Zealand from across the ditch :) Unfortunately, if you look closer it's not anywhere near as nice...

In NZ, it is illegal to restrict DVD players to regions (against consumer choice/paralell import laws ?..)

Not sure if it is illegal to have one region, but it is legal to have multi-region (a small difference). And they passed a law preventing parallel importing of DVDs of movies released within 12 months. That's right - it's illegal to import for sale, legal DVDs unless you do so after the movie has been released for cinemas in NZ for one year. The movie distributors complained that it might stop people going to the cinema if they could watch them on DVD instead. So no DVDs of current movies unless the production companies want to let us have them (after 5 months at Hoyts of course).

ADSL is old hat there. OZ is just pulling back the curtins.

Hah :) The best deal here at present is NZ$70/month for 10GB at 256kbps, then down to dial-up speed past that. Check out Xtra's deals and see if you still think NZ is better than Oz for broadband :)

As for the others - nothing much to say :) But when it comes to tech, Australia is still a much nicer place to be :) (As for the Rugby - don't watch it, but I gather we lost :)

That's not the plan they're talking about.

Here is the plan that is now in effect but was previously unlimited texting (& only texting) for only NZ$10. This was mainly used by prepaid users, who could use their phones all the time for a small monthly fee.

The previous plan had unlimted texting to any phone, overseas or Vodafone. The new plan is just for 025/027 with are Telecom numbers. Other phones are charged NZ$0.20.

IANAL, especially not a New Zealand lawyer, but at least by US standards, this is false advertising.

Look at the details of the plan that they advertise.

Text Messaging $0.20 - But you'll pay no more than $10 a month

There is no fine print. There is nothing to lead me to believe that I cannot send 100,000 text messages for $10.

--

Here are the tables for Xtra, and part of New Zealand Telecom, part owned by Microsoft, and ADSL monopoly for most of the country.

Home: http://jetstream.xtra.co.nz/chm/0,5123,203086-2023 43,00.html
Business: http://www.xtra.co.nz/products/0,,5804,00.html

I did say 'full rate'.

Here's some 'no shit' numbers direct from telecom's site (blatently whoring for another +5 Informative.. :-)

Simple answers for me:

1) 24/7 connectivity

2) Not as much the speed (over here in NZ I'm using ADSL 128kb up/down speed) but the fact it's the same cost overall as a second line rental

3) Convenience

Browsing faster has never really worried me (on most sites I visit) but the 24/7 connection means I can download the new ISOs I need without worry of a phonecall knocking me offline or the like. And since I need to keep up to date on the ISO images of a few distros for teaching and my buisness, it really does save me some time and effort. Granted, I'd love nothing more then to have all the speed this DSL could muster up, but, it's just not cost effective at the moment (for anyone interested in seeing how much we pay over here in NZ, goto this site and check the JetStream rates and the JetStream Starter rates).

CliffH

You want to know about broadband in different countries?

In New Zealand, there is one cable provider which charges NZ$76.95 / month for 256kbps and NZ$109.95 for 2Mbps. This includes the cable modem hire. They are cheaper if you take a package with phone line and/or cable TV.

ADSL, provided by the other telco costs more IIRC.

As to your other question, I use AT&T Wireless. I'm in Seattle and it seems to be the most reliable in this area. Good reception, very few dropped calls, and reasonable pricing (as long as you stay in your own calling area).

Where I live, I have only two choices of mobile phone providers.

Telecom New Zealand

Hey, I'm not from the USA. Thanks to a very effective market-monopoly by our largest Telco who has exclusive rights to the copper, there are less than 25,000 DSL subscribers in the whole of New Zealand.

And then, even if you are lucky enough to live in an area where DSL is available, you face the prospect of paying by the megabyte for data sent/received (including traffic generated by DOS attacks, spam etc).

But wait -- it gets worse!

This large telco also appears to have placed severe throttling on P2P traffic such that some people are reporting speeds as low as 1KB/S when using the cheapest DSL accounts.

You guys in the USA should think yourselves lucky!

Unfortunately true.

Here in New Zealand the main form of fast 'net access is ADSL. There are other systems, like the recently-featured CityLink, a 10M-1G (depending how much you pay for your link) city-wide ethernet, but unless you live in Wellington (or want to hack your routing and lose your connection every time it rains with a satellite connection), ADSL is pretty much the only way to get your fast 'net access.

The only problem is that the ISPs on the network seem to be chronically short of bandwidth. Xtra, the ISP associated with the local telecommunications monopoly, regularly has people complaining about it when they only get 4kB/sec out of their 128K DSL links.

(This is for 'JetStart', the 128K rate-limited DSL which comes for US$30/month. Even that is saturated! You can get 8 Mbit downstream with JetStream, at a horrible cost, e.g. US$250/month for 3 gigabytes of traffic).

What would be very cool would be if a provider took this up and used it for local point-to-point connections, say if I wanted to connect my LAN with my friend's one, over on the other side of town. Or a business link - a 10X speed boost would be much appreciated!

Umm, no.
CityLink is the highspeed network, TelstraClear is the cable tv network & Telecom is the monopoly network.

I'm saying that, all other things being equal, how do you have more money if you don't get spammed. How does the presence of 'spam' in your inbox cost you money.

You are a bonehead. LOOK dammit.

Link number 1: https://jetstream-usage.telecom.co.nz/

This is a link to my service providers website that states how much data has been transferred to/from my computer.

Link number 2:

This is a link that explains the pricing structure. Look at it! additional MB charges over monthly plan limit

Spam costs money. Spam costs me money! Then my server has to bounce mail back, and that costs more money!

Get a clue! Bandwidth costs money. Money. You hear that? MONEY! And it's MY money. Not the spammer's money.

I have to pay to read their crap. Can you not understand this?

European, many Asian (not all), and nearly all of Australasia are using this great standard known as GSM (and GSM2 and GPRS are coming soon to a quality vendor near you).

The great thing about GSM is that I can use my GSM phone in nearly every part of the world I go to. Most countries have standardised on the bands used and so its a breeze to travel with. The only time a tri-band phone is needed is when you head for the US.

I have no problems with GSM and although there are some limitations, they're really not anything worth complaining about. I can send SMS messages to my friends in Australia, England, Germany and they can reply. Why would I want anything else?

In New Zealand we really only have two providers. Telecom NZ and Vodafone. Telecom NZ has lost huge market share to Vodafone because the corporates want to be able to use their phone from anywhere, without a hassle. Telecom only allows you to go to Sydney from NZ if you want to use international roaming. The are about to roll out CDMA (end of July) but even that only increases the roaming capabilities marginally. With so many using GSM already, GPRS is going to have a much larger market share than CDMA.

Its great when friends come over from the UK because before they even get through customs (but after they're off the plane) we can be talking away, making sure someone is there to collect them. If it wasn't for GSM, this would be nearly impossible.

GSM is the most widely used network in the world. I have always lamented the fact that if I want to go to the US or Canada, I have to make special arrangements, rent a phone and probably lose a lot of functionality. I have never been able to understand why it is that Americans can't just bite the ego bullet and accept something that was not developed by the US and use something the majority of the rest of the world is very much enjoying. Surely the frequencies used is not the issue... However it would be a lot better if there was a global standard, instead of the US and the Rest.

New Zealand's 'lovely' telco has brought out a flat-rate 128k ADSL service called JetStart. However, you must purchase your own DSL modem. I don't know whether or not the ones you have would be compatible ... I don't really know how DSL works.
However, I've heard that DSL modems sold on trademe, a .nz based auction site, are quite sought after. It might be worth a try. =)

New Zealand's 'lovely' telco has brought out a flat-rate 128k ADSL service called JetStart. However, you must purchase your own DSL modem. I don't know whether or not the ones you have would be compatible ... I don't really know how DSL works.
However, I've heard that DSL modems sold on trademe, a .nz based auction site, are quite sought after. It might be worth a try. =)

Smells very vapourware - at this stage, anyway. I'd love to see the day though that this stuff appears as a drop-in replacement for my Palm (maybe not, it's one of those internal ones, I smell a hack :) here) or laptop.

(Which as it happens, battery technology for cellphones on any of the carriers in .nz (Telecom or Vodafone are pretty bad at the moment. Could be useful.)

"Obviously, when you talk about 128kbps for DSL, you're talking about ADSL."

dunno if thats a typo but I think you mean Idsl, works over the same link as isdn line aslong as theres a DSLAM installed at the exchange and you have a dsl box installed to replace the isdn splitter. idsl can operate over longer distances to adsl at the cost of reduced bandwidth, unfortunately being in the UK I'm stuck with dialup until we overthrow the government and boot out our monopolistically crap phone company.

It's not just those poor sods in the UK who get raped by monopolistic, arrogant telcos.

See jetstream for details. It's offered by our monopoly telco, Telecom. They only say 2Mbps+ most of the way through the site, but if you poke around you can get a graph showing installed speeds They offer 2 plans, the Jetstart plan (which I personally use) has unlimited traffic, but is speed limited to 128kbps. However, I can connect to the "jetstreamgames" realm and get full noise ADSL, which for me is 8Mbps down, 800kbps up. Within the realm is mainly game servers but it does have a couple of ftp servers as well. I did have a ftp log (can't find at the mo')showing an average of 430KBps on a download of a 28M file. That is, it came down the line in about a minute.
So, who immigrating ;-)

In New Zealand, we have 'Jetstream' which is our main telco's adsl service. Afaik, the speed ranges between a flatrate 128kbps service and 8Mbps downstream.

The traffic prices in $NZ are here.

Much of this was done for the benift of New Zealand (Australasia is not just Australia), who as a country with a huge percentage of net users and a huge uptake of dsl and cable, suck most of what we look at (pron, /.) from the US.

Over half of this new pipe was paid for by the NZ telco Telecom. and from their press releases they plan there will be no spare bandwith by 2002

But the coolest thing about the cable has to be the cable healing robot robot
; ; ;Fitted to the cable maintenance vessel, CS Pacific Guardian, the Southern Cross ROV has bulldozer-like tracks that enable it to move along the sea floor at depths of up to 2,500 metres. It is also equipped with six horizontal and four vertical thrusters to enable it to "free swim" where the seabed is too soft to support the weight of the ROV.

bats = bugs

Hey mate, move over to New Zealand.

DSL has very good connection speeds, and we can do what the heaven we want with our connection (with the exception of enabling bridging on your modem).

Yes data transfers (upstream and downstream) are metered and we get charged extra if we go over 'n' megabytes, where 'n' is one of 400, 600, 1200, or whatever you signed up for.

Here in New Zealand, it isn't a government agency, but our main telecommunications provider, Telecom, that has decided all people using dialup ISPs though a local telephone number have to pay a per-minute charge, unless they use a specific range of telephone numbers. The charge is 2 cents per minute, after the first 10 hours in each month. Up until now, all local calls from residential telephones in this country have been free.

The reason, according to Telecom, is that it will allow them to "manage internet traffic on the [telephone] network more efficiently", though a number of people believe that this will allow Telecom to degrade the quality of the connections people get to their ISPs.

Telecom's points out that calls to the new phone numbers will be able to be routed automatically so that they are able to balance the load between telephone exchanges, and to "pioritise voice calls in times of network overload or emergency". I'm fairly sure that a number of existing residential telephone exchanges don't support this feature.

Telecom's reason for deciding to apply a charge is that it will "encourage" customers to change to the new phone numbers.

Telecom also provides an ISP service of their own. It is interesting to see that the telephone number used by the Telecom ISP (starting with 0863...), is different to that of other ISPs (0867...). Another ISP points out that that this may potentially allow Telecom to re-route competing ISP's phone calls through different pipes, so it can be degraded as Telecom wishes while its own customers' traffic is managed differently.

However, Telecom has guaranteed that there won't be any disparity in the connection quality for the two sets of telephone numbers. There is a clause to this effect in the agreement (DOC file) that is signed between Telecom and the ISPs.

The other main telecommunications provider in this country, Clear, also provide an ISP service and are going to provide rebate to their customers who get charged this 2 cent/minute charge. Other smaller ISPs are essentially being forced to comply against their will.

This move by Telecom also raises a number of questions:

- What is their stance on modem to modem calls made between friends? Will Telecom apply the charge for these calls? If so, does that mean that they monitor all calls for modem traffic?

- How do that know that a local number you're dialling is or isn't an ISP? I assume that an ISP will be given away by the fact that they have potentially 1000 lines for a given telephone number.

In summary, Telecom has provided a new range of numbers for ISPs to use, and will charge people if they don't use them. Some think that this is the thin end of the wedge for charging for local calls, and will allow Telecom to provide a substandard service for other calls to other ISPs. Other people claim that the change will enable Telecom to provide a better service, due to them being able to manage the calls more efficiently.

Here in New Zealand, it isn't a government agency, but our main telecommunications provider, Telecom, that has decided all people using dialup ISPs though a local telephone number have to pay a per-minute charge, unless they use a specific range of telephone numbers. The charge is 2 cents per minute, after the first 10 hours in each month. Up until now, all local calls from residential telephones in this country have been free.

The reason, according to Telecom, is that it will allow them to "manage internet traffic on the [telephone] network more efficiently", though a number of people believe that this will allow Telecom to degrade the quality of the connections people get to their ISPs.

Telecom's points out that calls to the new phone numbers will be able to be routed automatically so that they are able to balance the load between telephone exchanges, and to "pioritise voice calls in times of network overload or emergency". I'm fairly sure that a number of existing residential telephone exchanges don't support this feature.

Telecom's reason for deciding to apply a charge is that it will "encourage" customers to change to the new phone numbers.

Telecom also provides an ISP service of their own. It is interesting to see that the telephone number used by the Telecom ISP (starting with 0863...), is different to that of other ISPs (0867...). Another ISP points out that that this may potentially allow Telecom to re-route competing ISP's phone calls through different pipes, so it can be degraded as Telecom wishes while its own customers' traffic is managed differently.

However, Telecom has guaranteed that there won't be any disparity in the connection quality for the two sets of telephone numbers. There is a clause to this effect in the agreement (DOC file) that is signed between Telecom and the ISPs.

The other main telecommunications provider in this country, Clear, also provide an ISP service and are going to provide rebate to their customers who get charged this 2 cent/minute charge. Other smaller ISPs are essentially being forced to comply against their will.

This move by Telecom also raises a number of questions:

- What is their stance on modem to modem calls made between friends? Will Telecom apply the charge for these calls? If so, does that mean that they monitor all calls for modem traffic?

- How do that know that a local number you're dialling is or isn't an ISP? I assume that an ISP will be given away by the fact that they have potentially 1000 lines for a given telephone number.

In summary, Telecom has provided a new range of numbers for ISPs to use, and will charge people if they don't use them. Some think that this is the thin end of the wedge for charging for local calls, and will allow Telecom to provide a substandard service for other calls to other ISPs. Other people claim that the change will enable Telecom to provide a better service, due to them being able to manage the calls more efficiently.

This is how it looks to me..

1. Telecom introduced a flat rate to its ISP, Xtra . As a means of killing off the rest of the ISP's that have had flat rates for years. eg, iHUG, Sinesurf etc..

2. They then complain that their exchanges are overloaded with all the extra traffic all the other ISP's are causing. Given that they are the largest ISP in the country. They shoot themselves in the foot by going flat rate. And now they want a way to make money out of it.

Pretty straight forward to me.. Although there's more to it than that. And this article in the New Zealand Herald is worth a read if you're intrested: Telecom spurs Internet rage .