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Actually, you should have 15Mb/s (but still only 2Mb/s up), and it only costs you NZ$76 - see http://www.telstraclear.co.nz/residential/inhome/internet/cable-broadband/index.cfm

Naked broadband is available on Telstra Clear cable in New Zealand, see this page.

http://www.telstraclear.co.nz/residential/inhome/internet/cable-broadband/naked-broadband.cfm

There is no cable TV in NZ.

This is generally true but TelstraClear do offer cable TV.

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.

Here in the Antipodes we pay $80/month for 20G.

Uphill. Both ways. In the snow. And we like it.

http://www.telstraclear.co.nz/residential/inhome/internet/cable-broadband/plans.cfm

You can't download terabytes of pirated movies every day for free over someone else's lines? Oppression, I tell you. Oppression.

I guess you guys still don't have those in America. Here in Australasia, they're ubiquitous: you pay a monthly fee for a data rate, and that comes with X 'free' gigabytes of data transfer. If you go over that, you pay for another block.

It's a nice, neat, simple system and works well, but it means that if I open my home WiFi to strangers, I'm not just providing a free service, I'm making myself directly financially liable to the tune of $1/GB in over-usage charges if someone fires up BitTorrent.

Maybe that's not so bad, but I've seen torrents chew up over 5 gigabytes in a couple days (upload and download traffic gets billed together) when left running. I'm a good neighbour, but do I *need* to finance someone else's illegal DVD rip collection if it costs me a couple hundred or thousand dollars a year?

Thanks for that. TelstraClear told me last time that I asked, that you couldn't get Cable TV or Broadband Internet without also paying for a landline with them. Maybe they should update their prices. I see that they now have a "PDQ" service that is not listed here.

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

Yep. Our New Zealand friends have to face the hell.

At least from a local (New Zealand) perspective, this is totally wrong. Let me elaborate.

Here the ISP and the phone company are completely different people. Telecom scamper around plumbing in DSLAM's etc. etc. and wire them all together to make a grande country wide ATM network called (ironically) IPnet. The point with IPnet is that it gets packets from your subscribers ADSL routers to some boxen in your datacentre, then you deal with it from there, including international backhaul. Telecom charge you, basically, $60/month/subscriber for this service.

Therefore, fixed costs of setting up an ISP in New Zealand = fuck all. Marginal costs = lots.

Under these circumstances, the speakeasy plan would work a treat. Imagine I own an ISP and charge $100/month for an ADSL connection, but you can connect your neighbours via WiFi and get $50/month back. So, each ADSL connection I get $40 (because $60 goes to Telecom), and each WiFi piggybacked connection I get $50. Woohoo! Quids in, with Telecom footing the worst of the bill!

Unfortunately it doesn't quite work like this. The $60/month buys you a very limited quantity of throughput - 512MB/month in it's most basic form. Yes, you did read that right, less than one iso. Per month. After this it's $0.20/MB, enough to kill the connection sharing thing outright.

But... shit. 512MB/month, and IPnet craps itself, like, all the time. The funny thing is that Telecom have no idea why their broadband takeup is so low. Really. NO idea. They also have no idea why competitiors are starting to appear bloody everywhere.

Dave

Check this out. The 256k is what I have.
(A New Zealand Dollar buys about 50 US cents. Joe Average earns less New Zealand dollars than Joe Average (US) earns.)

Such prices do exist. In countries that speak English what's more.

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.

I moved from NZ last year, though I wasn't living in Christchurch (go Hurricanes...) I did have a good experience with high speed internet where I was. I did have a cap, afterwhich I would have to pay for data, however I only hit it once in the time I had the service. The service was from Saturn - now owned by Telstra, the same company being trashed by angry Australians, so it may be worse. I see that Clear (also now owned by Telstra) is offering a service called Tempest that you may be able to take advantage of which is unlimited.

On the other hand, here in Atlantic Canada I can get unlimited DSL (2mbps/512kbps) for $39.95/mo. Woohoo.