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Telstra Says Freedom (Plan) Has Its Limits
"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."
According to the terms of the Telstra, you are not allowed to have more than one computer connected to the broadband line at one time...
Actually the freedom plan price is the highest. I can't give telstra any more money. If they had an option that was truely unlimited (as this one implied it was) and priced higher then I would of signed up for that instead.
Acutally..that was the CAP a while ago,..it has been increased twice now... it went from 3 to 6 to 8gigs in download, 2 in upload. But the real killer is the 15k limit in uploading. Someone said a old cable modem cannot be counted, wrong...it's the NEW samsung DOCSIS, and starting in July...they can track how much you download...expect to recieve an EMAIL from Videotron soon to confirm this...how do I know.... inside source (plus..I work for Videotron)
Telstra (formerly Telecom) has a long and colourful history as a Telecommunications Monopoly in Australia. They always had a well deserved reputation for acting however they liked, giving substandard service and shafting customers. With the derugulation and introduced competition in the very late eighties, they switched their advertising to being "Australian" and being for the people. They are however the same pack of money hungry bastards they always were. If they had a (truthful) motto it would be : "Its always the customers fault" and "F*ck you , we're Telstra"
(Don't hate me just because I'm Anonymous!)
*groan* Stop going on. You're not charged for ARP packets, or anything which originates in their core network as soem sort of management traffic. Usage collection is done on the border routers.
ISP promises unlimited bandwidth, assumes that 99.9% of the customers are never going to use it, then panics when it finds itself losing money.
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.
Bzzt. Pay more attention in maths tomorrow - you've converted everything the wrong way.
AUS$89 = US$45.7194
Unlimited broadband in Australia was way too good to be true. Get over it already.
...j
Theres an existing interesting Thread on Wireplay (Telstra's gaming network) about it all. And also a petition you can sign to protest against the move. Furthermore the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) is already investigating the matter.
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.
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...
-----
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
I love the Mach 3. I also love my Panasonic bazzilon RPM wet/dry electric. But the blades/foils for my Panasonic go dull faster than my Mach 3.
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.
It's just too expensive. Have *you* ever tried to teach a monkey or bunny to shave?
:)
hawk
Of course it can. Once a company finds out that they are losing money on something, or more likely, that they can charge a customer more money for something, they will. Its how business runs. I'd love to tell @home where they can shove it, but unforunately, for my location, other than getting an ISDN or above (with a hefty payment increase), there really is no choice for me. Until there is competition in the marketplace, there are no options, and companies that see competition on the horizon have two choices, change their policy and product to include services that the consumer would choose over the competition, or squeeze every last penny out of them while they still can. I sure hope that the local telco's / high-speed providers don't get the idea to follow suit.
Secret windows code
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
Well, thats a bit screwed, becouse thats a 28.8 modem talking full speed, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.. It's low, but thats comparing apples to oranges..
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.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
They were most likely assuming that no one would ever use the internet for more than 8 hrs a day.
9.7*3 comes to 29.1k.
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
Bleh!
If I understand correctly, the most expensive bandwidth is the overseas bandwidth... the inter-AU bandwidth shouldn't be that expensive. If that's the case, why doesn't Telstra put up a couple TB web cache and require that people use it?
I am a user of the BigPond Freedom plan. I would
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?
Umm, can I submit a response later?
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
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
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.
I miss Meept.
One reason bandwidth charges are common outside the US is that the US ISP's charge the rest for peering. I.e., a European ISP has to pay both for the use of the undersea cable between US and Europe, and then by the byte for the traffic going to and from the US part of the Internet.
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.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
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)
No MicK, you're absolutely right - we just have a bunch of people (I use the term loosely) in charge who have desperate need of the size 10 clue hammer.
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
You know they call 'em fingers but I've never seen 'em fing. Oh, there they go.
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!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Hey, I thought Australia Day was in January...
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.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
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).
They who are the bane of the 21st Century. The stupid people.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
This is all true. What is also true is that a number of people (who seem to be under the dillusion that companies care about their customers) asked for a fixed limit. Despite being counselled (flamed everytime they posted) by others who actually live in the 21st Century, they continued to ask for a fixed limit. Telstra is now able to say with an absolutely straight face they are listening to their customers. It's just most of them are extremely stupid rather than everybody like the cap does.
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
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Unless you pay for it and there's been no word if you get extra allowance for the second connection (somehow I doubt it).
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
You have 14 days to exit from the contract (from Tuesday) with no penalty. Of course the system doesn't start until the end of June and there's no way to find out how much bandwidth you've used in the past.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Now you get it... there are no other providers.
'sapientia potestas est'
The biggest problem with broadband is, as was mentioned in the Freedom letter, a small percentage of the users is responsible for a huge percentage of the pipe.
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?
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
And how many network operations do you know of that use the same amount of bandwidth equally for a month?
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
If telstra are trying to kick people who watch broadband streaming media all day.
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.
The bandwidth is yet another example of why it's not always a terrible thing to live in the land of the huge SUV and several industries related to raising, slaughtering, butchering, refrigerating, transporting, selling, and cooking cows.
We do a lot of things to excess in the states. Not all of that's bad.
Would be a nice way to suppliment their cash-flow, no?
The real issue is that people signed a contract which left the terms and conditions open to change at any time without notice, and now they have a whinge when the other party does just that.
Even the ACCC recognise that and try to explain that it's not Telstra screwing people over above and beyond their usual, its the people who signed dud contracts that have screwed themselves over.
The cost of bandwidth is high because the infrastructure and support is expensive, and MCI or whatever they're called this week have Telstra bent over a bigger barrel than Telstra have us, charging both ways for traffic crossing the pacific. Telstra are forced to pass this cost on, obviously with an added extra to make a bit of profit off it. You can't blame them for that, that's why people go into business - to make money. I'd honestly thought that the typical lamerican slashdotter would understand this coming from a capitalist country.
It irritates me that people have a problem with paying for a service. It's not a God-given right that everyone gets super high bandwidth, completely free Internet access. You want the service, you should pay. You sign a contract that legally binds you to that, with various loopholes that can bite you on the bum later, that's your fault for signing it. Don't blame the other side for simply exercising their rights.
--
Matt
Matt
Personally, I wish @HOME would start billing on a bandwidth basis, and stop telling me what I can and cannot use on their network.
The more bandwidth you use, the more it costs them, therefore, the more they should charge you. Makes sense to me.
If limited access, or pay-per-byte, becomes common, expect to see a MASSIVE increase in ad/spam filtering. Products like Junkbuster will become common, because they'll save people money, and doubleclick will go the way of the dinosaur.
Right now, people put up with ads, spam, etc. as a part of using the Internet, and while filtering tools are available, they aren't in widespread use. But when people realize they have to PAY to have those ads delivered, sales and usage of filtering programs will explode. And I doubt that the big commercial sites that depend on ad revenues will allow that to happen.
This is a miss representation of the facts.
A while ago they implimented a test usage monitor and asked for feedback on it. It worked on the principle of a green, orange or red "Light" for daily usage, which was defined as 10 times the average usage. orange lights were 80% of daily limit, red was over. 4 red lights in a *Thinks* I think it was two month period and you got kicked. This wasen't realy useful as the "Lights" wern't always up to the current date (I have a personal theory that it gathers the usage to create the lights when you disconnected, if you dont disconnet, no lights for the day until you do)
Many people emailed them (Myself included) to tell them this "Light" crap was exactly that, crap, and to tell us what 10 times the average daily usage was.
10 times the average use was ~1 gig.
I emailed and asked for numbers instead of lights.
One point that isnt mentioned is that they arent supplying users with the ability to monitor their own usage. They obviously monitor how much a user uses, but they wont tell you. They say in their FAQ http://www/cable/support/aupfaq.htm and I quote
"How can I find out my exact usage?
Telstra is investigating providing access to the usage meter for all Telstra BigPond broadband cable and ADSL customers.
For other ways to monitor your usage up to the 3GB level, please inquire at the relevant newsgroups for available software. Telstra does not support nor recommend these software applications. Telstra also does not recognise the accuracy of these usage monitoring software programs."
Which is IMHO a large steaming pile of horse shit.
Couple of corrections here... replace "main" by "only" cable provider and replace 3 gigs by 6 gigs, and you got a pretty accurate picture.
ADSL in Quebec blows big time unless you get commercial DSL at 4mb. Get the 1mb from Sympatico, and expect your link to die for no reason, for your IP address to change every 15 minutes and sometimes change while you're connected somewhere and make your connection fail. Also expect to install some lame-ass piece of software (Access Manager) that will screw your machine if you try to uninstall it.
As far as "flat rate" goes, re-read your TOS from Bell. They reserve the right to bill you if you over use your link, but they do not state how much data is "overuse".
That's what the phone monopoly will provide you.
Still happy about your choice ?
Marriage is considered capital punishment for the theft of a goat in some third world countries...
My old twin blade Schick used to last at least 2 weeks of shaving every morning in the shower.
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.
"In person, WAP'ed up and making your life a misery!" BOFH, 2003
Well thats kinda like a lease contact, they can change your rate if they want to, they just have to give you a warning and allow you leave with no penalty if you decide to bail.
I'm not sure if a change in the plan entitles me to leave Telstra Bigpond; I should look.
It's all a bit frustrating since Telstra isn't exactly hurting; instead, it has been making record profits. The excuse that it needs to cut back in service simply does not hold any water.
--
You're a suburbanite.
The average user uses DIALUP connections, not cable. Many ISPs still charge by the hour. The 'unlimited' type dialup plans are mostly the same: 300MB limit per month, 4hr disconnect time. Additional MB are usually charged at 20-30c. These plans usually cost us AU$20-30/mth. All traffic, incl. email/spam etc, counts towards our 300MB limit.
If you look around, you can usually find an unlimited dialup... I'm using iPrimus (still has the 4 hour disconnect though), and that's $75/3 months. I was hoping to get cable or ADSL soon, but now I think I'll wait a few more months before looking at the options again...
deus does not exist but if he does
One by one the unlimited dialups are going under. Eisa has stopped it. Optus have stopped it. Telstra have stopped it. Most of the smaller ISPs have stopped it, because it is simply unsustainable!
:)
I actually decided to pre-select all services to Primus based on my experience with their net dialup -- and as I work from home, that's a lot of phone calls during the day. Hopefully they make some money from me that way (and oddly enough, I probably wouldn't have chosen them as my net provider if pre-selection had been enforced
I just want to get value for my money, and even if I don't intend to go over a bandwidth limit I look for the maximum value from the money I pay. There will always be companies willing to burn money for market share, when conditions are benign enough to permit such behaviour, and I feel no shame in this capital-obsessed society with taking advantage of that fact...
deus does not exist but if he does
In the UK, the cost of this is about 4p / MB. I imagine that works out at about 1/3 the cost they're charging in Australia - and they have a much bigger ocean to cross.
I ran a large ethernet in my halls of residence (dorms) for several years. We were charged 2p/MB by our upstream provider, and found that we just couldn't cover that cost within a reasonable monthly subscription.
We fought tooth and nail to pass on that cost to the consumer - that was the right option! But in the end we had to give up, and put a very harsh throttle on the whole line.
Telstra are doing the right thing here. The alternative is to limit everyone's use, even that vast majority who don't use > 3 GB. I'm sure Telstra had to work quite hard to make this solution happen, and I'm impressed they did.
we pay about au$130/month for our telstra business adsl connection, and receive an allowance of 500Mb of data (both up and download). extra Mb's are charged to us at almost 20 cents. in the last 3 months, our usage has been 578Mb, 666Mb, 1078Mb.
3Gb would be heaven. that recent 1078Mb figure is based on 6 or 7 people sharing the connection (although only two of us do much downloading - the occasional movie trailer, etc).
telstra suck, but i wouldn't complain if they put a 3gig allowance on our connection. ;)
their email suggests that they provide effective logging tools so that you can track your usage. don't believe that for a second. their usage tracking is fucking pathetic. you'll check your stats on a monday, only to find that usage for each day of the previous *week* changes the very next day.
also, they'll go for 7-10 days, without updating your "daily" usage stats *at all*. (oh, and another thing - their bills for an online service come out by mail, and you can't pay them online. wonderful...)
on about june 3, our stats for may appeared finalised. they were all there and our total was in the 900's. the very next day, that total was 1078Mb.
this month we're logging all outgoing and incoming data, parsing the log file, and writing it to a database. i wonder if we'll see a difference between their stats and ours?
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
...which is absolutely orthogonal to what I said.
-- Colin
In my (ok, humble and statistically unsignificant, yet actual) experience, DSL offers a better bandwidth, even with the 512Kbps cap. It just happens that the local Cable is a lousy ISP, while my DSL ISP has a nice backbone.
-- Colin
I guess it's time for some competition in Australia...
-- Colin
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.
-- Colin
You know that the blades last at least an order of magnitude longer than other ones, right?
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.
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.
I can get any major telco in the US to terminate calls to Austrlia of just about the same price as int the US. Its the .000001 mile link to the Telstra system that costs so much.
In Australia you can expect a small business to pay about $1200/mo for 128 K isdn access. For that kind of money, you can call from the US to Australia for 24x7 on a good isdn plan.
I'm on Bell Sympatico, I would die if they had anysort of limit.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
"The worst of all is that the contract I signed didn't have anythinig about that" -- Ha! I would be pissed if I had to sign a contract in the first place. Why are companies still focring you to be locked in for a certain period of time, thats just dumb.
I am on Telstra because there are no other options for broadband access where I live. Telstra can do whatever they like because I cannot get bandwidth from anyone else.
What annoys me is that Telstra would probably not let me change my cel-phone contract just because I decided it was costing me too much. Out and out double standards. Fair enough if my contract expired and they didn't offer the same terms again, but it seems my "contract" counts for squat unless Telstra wants to screw me.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
To clarify this further:
512Kbps = 64KBps.
64KBps * 2600 = 230MB/h.
230MB/h for 5 hours = 1GB+/day
So this is reasonably fair for those of you who use 30GB of data transfer a month (assuming there are 500 of you in Australia out of the 10,000 DSL users I assumed). So my numbers must be pretty accurate above, so you know know the total bandwidth set aside for DSL for the whole of Australia - 150Mbps per 10,000 users.
Business Bandwidth Allocated By BT for UK DSL per 10,000 users: 4000Mbps.
Home Bandwidth Allocated by BT for UK DSL per 10,000 users: 250Mbps.
These numbers may or many not be accurate today.
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.
I bet you are just kidding, but if you do some simple math ((7 * 1024) / 30), you'll see that this allows you only 238 MB a day. I can download that very, very easily, without even resorting to illegal stuff (and pr0n isn't).
--
I have no sig at all.
That comes out to ~ 100 MB a day, which is exceedingly low in my opinion. If it were me, I would fight it, assuming you have some sort of legal recourse ( a service contract or something)
When I lived in the dorms, we had a limit of 2 GB a week, and I knew people who regularly exceeded that.
What about people who split their DSL line and share the connection between two or more computers?
Sounds to me like it is time for a new ISP.
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? ;-)
This has been going on for about 3 years (if I remember correctly) now, but may have stopped this month as Videon has joined with Shaw. One user reports going over the limit and not being charged. As I understand, Shaw will simply kick you off if you use excessive (i.e. way above 10G/1G) data transfer.
-- no
I have never gone above (or even come close if I remember correctly) the limit, but it is annoying to have to check sometimes (as bandwidth use is often sporatically different for different months, etc. [at least for me]).
I don't think they (at least Videon) get the transfer data from the cable modem. They have a page where you can check your traffic allowance usage. It did not change when you rebooted the modem.
What kind of modem do you have? There system worked both with the Motorola and Surfboard modems.
-- no
Come on, you've never heard of the saying, "Give away the razor, sell them the blades?" Frankly, the handle is just a piece of plastic. The rotating mechanism is even contained on the blade now, so it's not even unfair IMHO. The mach 3 is the only blade I've used that doesn't give me razor burn.
People just need to learn to say NO to open-ended agreements, and when faced with them ask to speak directly to a customer service manager to arranga a proper contract. If that's not possible (and I'm sure in most cases it's not), make sure you tell them why you're noy buying. Then walk, even if it means getting no broadband. There's more important things in life.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Were they bought out by AOL, or do they just like bad business?
What kind of drunk-ass CEO came up with that crap anyway?
--
microsoft, it's what's for dinner
bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
it's a sig, wtf?
All your bandw...
Never mind.
3GB/mth is over 100MB a day. What the hell do you need more bandwidth for? Even ppl that collect mp3s don't usually DL that much. The only reason you could use more than 3GB is prolly if you were watching full motion video all day on your comp instead of on your TV. And I think that's exactly the type of people Telstra are trying to kick off. Tell me how this affects the average user?
---
OK, for all of you ppl in the US, here's how things work down here.
The average user uses DIALUP connections, not cable. Many ISPs still charge by the hour. The 'unlimited' type dialup plans are mostly the same: 300MB limit per month, 4hr disconnect time. Additional MB are usually charged at 20-30c. These plans usually cost us AU$20-30/mth. All traffic, incl. email/spam etc, counts towards our 300MB limit.
Now, how can you tell me that a 3GB limit is unreasonable? Maybe you're all just used to free/cheap ISPs over there.
---
Of course things cost money. I don't think anyone here disagrees with you.
The problem is that this company offered a service, people signed up for it, and then the company changed the rules.
I think that we can all agree that the company should have set terms it could live with at the outset. Since they didn't do that, they are now in the position of having to alienate its customers or run at a loss, and they have no one but themselves to blame.
Of course, they probably would have thought this out better if they weren't a monopoly (and, therefore, alienating customers would harm their business.)
-Peter
other then the fact that we tend to be paying for data coming in, and going out, at least that is what was argued on slashdot (and slashnet) a fair while back with respect to the new southern cross cable which was put in. Don't quote me on it though, I ain't up with that stuff.
--- acb!irc.slashnet.org
To be honest, I can see why Telstra has imposed such a limit, data costs them money (not much mind you), and they have share holders that want to see a higher profit year after year.
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 and they have a project known as the Launceston Broadband Project 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.
--- acb!irc.slashnet.org
1. its a kids movie :)
2. you think that all 20 million people in this country have a big meeting to decide what movie based in australia will be next??
3. get a life, please
I use at least 3GB a day.. sheesh..
Gilette no longer does animal testing.
--
Lord Nimon
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
gentlemen start your wget -r
--
'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
At least here in the US in most cases when a change is made to an implied agreement, like a ToS, AUP, or (best example) your credit card companies' contract, you have until a certain date to refuse to accept the changes to your agreement and can terminate the contract for cause.
But keep in mind, they will consider *any* usage after said date to signal your acceptance of their new terms.
You're too young to remember right?
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.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Quote: **MB allowance means combined upload and download data transfer (except for some traffic provided from time to time by Telstra at no cost).
end quote.
Just thought I'd spur on the righteous anger. Not sure I'd exceed 3gb/month anyway though... I'd like to serve my own MP3's from home, but I assume they'd shit on you for running a server...
Suppose I'd better finish up my downloads on my FREE UNLIMITED dialup.....
Buckets,
pompomtom
Buckets,
pompomtom
"There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
According to the email, this is the result "many requests from customers for a defined usage allowance under the Acceptable Use Policy." Of course, we've all asked our providers (many times) to limit our otherwise uncontrolled downloading.
We just need to be saved from ourselves.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
---
"This message is composed of 100% recycled electrons."
They DO give Mach 3's away. Even though i had already bought one, Gilette sent me one free as a "present for my 18th birthday^H^H^H^H^Hbuy the blades^H^H^H^Hfreebie" Made a nice travel razor :)
"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
I assume so because the email says that the change doesn't affect customers on "volume based plans." I read that as saying if you contracted for 6 gigs a month, you get 6 gigs a month. Of course, you will also pay for 6 gigs when you only use 5. But them's the breaks
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
"Bait-and-switch" is when, for example, a store advertises something but when you go to purchase it, they are "sold out" (because they never had it) but have plenty of a different model that is "just a little bit more money."
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.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
What has always annoyed me about 'extra minutes' is that it seems counterintuitive to pay MORE for additional volume of anything than you paid for the original amount. Not that it doesn't happen elsewhere -- all calls up to 20 minutes just $.99, then $.07 each minute after. What? Why not $.05?
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.
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.
-no broken link
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.
Got Rhinos?
Probably not since most people within 5-10 years will have the choice of cable or DSL. The people will be able to tell their service provider to stop screwing them lest they go to another type of provider. Also it could get very nasty for the service providers here because at a minimum they would find the state regulatory agencies sinking their teeth into their hides, then the FCC would eventually jump in too. What telecoms sometimes forget is that they are actually under the jurisdiction of the state for all telecom transactions within the state. That means that here in VA, if GTE tries that kind of shit, the general assembly can pass regulations mandating that all Virginians have unlimited downloads. And it is perfectly constitutional as GTE is operating within state borders and the sole purpose of the law would be to regulate what goes on in GTE inside our state.
It's wrong because it's not what their customers signed up for. They, I would assume, signed contracts for not only unlimited usage, but unlimited bandwidth. Telstra is changing the rules in the middle of the game.
Th
I calculate even less b/w than a 28.8kbps modem
3 GB / 30 days
3072 MB / 720 hours
3145728 KByte / 43200 mins
25165824 kbit / 2592000 secs
9.7 kbps
That's just wrong.
Th
I agree, what with the thousands of snakes and spiders we have in the US that can kill you just by looking at YOU from a distance. Chiefly:
The NSA ECHELON web spider
The Napster copyright scanning scorpion
The RIAA and MPAA Lawyersnake
Ever been bitten by one of those creatures?
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Bandwidth isn't infinite, and therefore isn't free. It's a variable cost. But consumers prefer it as a fixed cost, so companies tend to charge a flat rate, with light users effectively subsidizing heavier users. There are a couple of problems with this:
There are two obvious short-term solutions to this (laying more cable being the long-term solution):
I personally believe that a reasonable flat-rate cap is preferable, because it's more important that a large number of people have access to low-bandwidth services (e.g., email) than a few have access to ultra-high-bandwidth services (e.g., streaming video).
Yes, Telstra
You know, no one[1] in Australia has actually heard of Steve Irwin. He's not on our TVs, nor mentioned in the media. Probably for the best.
From the little second hand information I've seen, let me apologise on behalf of the country for this individual. There's probably a very good reason why he's over there and not over here though. One wonders if he really is Australian?
[1] Broad sweeping generalizations are us.
This happens a lot on the abusive country that I live (Brazil). There is a major cable ISP called Virtua that used to allow the ridiculous amount of 1 GB per month. Nowadays, they allow you 7! Gee!!
:-(
Even though Ajato 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
... and Telstra knows this and counts on you not fighting it.
:)
There is always the small claims court. You may not win - but imagine the personal satisfaction of dragging some Telstra rep down to the local magistrates court and sit through you explaining all the technical stuff to court
But it seems reasonable to me to have a 3GB cap per month. My cable provider (Videotron) allows 6GB/month (up from 2) and I've never gone beyond that limit, despite having a gaming family, two machines, and lots of free time. The figure of "about equal to a 28.8 modem" is extremely misleading. Since when would you have a 28.8 modem downloading at top speed continuously for a month?
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.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
this hasn't happened in the states. I realize that this may be a bit offtopic but it does interest me. Do we just have the infrastructure to handle all of these spiffy new 1.5mb DSL lines or is there enough competition (until all of the smaller DSL companies go bankrupt) to keep things pretty much free and open? I know that the satellite folks (hughes) implemented a cap on downloads awhile ago - actually, they would just reduce your bandwidth and not tell you - but I haven't seen this with cable or DSL....
We should be glad we're getting any service at all, I mean, look at the server room :)
At least we get MrT's pity!
Do you have a name for a company offering a product purporting it to be unlimited (even confirmed over the phone), users paying a substantial signup fee ($400), getting 1 month's unlimited service, then the service becoming restricted within absurd limitations? The words misleading and deceptive come to mind for me. This whole thing wouldn't sting nearly as much if Telstra would refund the signup fee.
Yeah, bandwidth costs, but it only costs half as much if the other end talks as much with you as you talk with them, so what you should do to lower your costs is to set up servers with popular services. Then the other end will want to pay you to get access to your servers. (Oh, and by the way, xDSL customers often like to set up servers on their homes.)
I have been running some IP accounting software for some time now. The Telstra routers (or something behind them) keep sending out ARP requests for random IP Addresses, about 130Mb a month. Do we get credit for this NO! Swap files with mates on the Telstra network and they still charge you (or record it against your usage) and it doesn't cost them a cent! All traffic charges should be accounted for on the border of the Telstra network not internal traffic, surely?
The are absolutely no options avaiable, no alternatives, I signed up for a rate capped unlimited service! I can't believe the ACCC have said this is all OK
Videotron Montreal 6GB total quota, max 1GB upload... while I do agree with the 1GB upload limit for normal use, I think 5GB download for 50$/month is fairly expensive considering the DSL service (main competitor) is charging 40$/unlimited (and god they do get abused). I think there's 2 schemes that should be addressed, low bandwidth requiring joe should have a flat fee with low quota, like 3-5GB, and joe power should be able to fit in a price scheme, there's money to be made here and it's not by charging 35cents a meg or 2$/100 megs (videotron) that you'll do a profit, because that's more a restricting scheme then a profitable one... these people don't require extra tech support nor extra technician setup time, only some extra bandwidth, so I don't see why they don't do a pricing scheme to accomodate them as well, it's almost pure profit.
Most of the people I know switched. I didn't because they do offer a rock stable service, which DSL wasn't able to beat, but now it's fairly the same.
The analogy I see is, get a porsche, but don't drive over the speed limit... oh and you're limited to 50 liters of gas / months else you have to pay 10$ a liter. So yes you do get advantages, quick starts, arriving at the red light faster than anybody else, but in the end, is it really worth it?
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
If a lot more ppl would use 3GB on a day, you'd be an average user. And I hope it will get that far soon, because then the ISPs would be forced to improve their networks. Until then 3GB a day can't be called average in my eyes.
Don't get me wrong here (as did the person who modded my original post to troll): I don't say you shouldn't use 3GB a day, but that it's only natural that an ISP doesn't like that too much. Same idea goes for a ferry: if you embark with your bike, you pay a whole lot less than when you park your roadtrain on C-deck. Doesn't mean that the truck driver gets an unfair treat, just that he uses more capacity and thus has to pay more.
If, however, Telstra doesn't offer more than this and calls this free then there's something not right, I agree.
Woefdram, l'apprenti sorcier
Count me in. And I hope there will be more and more users who do that, that's the best reason for an ISP to improve their networks dramatically. Let them invest in fiberoptics and stuff, I'd be happy to pay more if that would mean I had a truly fast and unlimited connection.
Woefdram, l'apprenti sorcier
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?
Woefdram, l'apprenti sorcier
I'm from England but I've spent a bit of time in Australia, and as far as I can tell this is just fairly normal behaviour. Almost every ISP I've seen out there charges per download.
Australia is in a pretty unique geographical position - it's a very big island, a very long way away from most other land masses. So telcos have to invest lots of money in laying under-sea cable, etc. So why shouldn't they charge per download? Won't market forces just determine what customers find acceptable?
The only problem is that Telstra, being a former government monopoly (much like the beloved BT we have over here) is in a pretty dominant position in the market, but I don't see why that won't change.
If you don't like Telstra's AUP, can't you just use a different ISP? This isn't flamebait, I'm genuinely interested to hear from Aussies who can tell me what other options there are.
--
Karma: Chameleon (you come and go)
As far as I can see, only Telstra Bigpond and Optus@Home are offering broadband access for home users. I just rang Telstra today 'cause we have Foxtel in the building & Telstra & Foxtel share the same network. Does anyone know if there are any others out there?
So, if I ping someones host all month without them knowing it, and somehow my ping traffic adds up to more than 3gig, they have to pay for that? Thats pretty cool...NOT. How can they stop this sort of behavior?
--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
My ISP in Minneapolis discussed something like this a year or so ago when Qwest went and upped all DSL from 256k to 640K - they weren't sure they would be able to handle the increased bandwidth demands.
What they proposed at the time was to cap people's bandwidth to the internet after a period of sustained burst. They said they wouldn't cap internal network access.
The trick was, connecting to their cache server was considered internal network access. The upshot was, you got sustained high bandwidth but your data also got cached for others to use.
Of course telestra may already be doing transparent proxying, so who knows.
As for charges within Australia, this is how it works. That's why Optus like to give ABC News online lots of network access for free/very little... They get to charge Telstra and UUNet and the likes whenever Joe Public grabs a news story to read.
In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.
The term "skipped country" comes to mind. But lets not go ahead and let Telstra know whom might have done that, or where they are now, or exactly how large that bill was. I must say though, when that person had cable internet, the prices were higher, the limit was lower, and the per megabyte price was higher. There was talk of charging for data in-network too. The service was terrible, with downtime all the time, and support was worse. The customers were *all* unsatisfied, except for the persons brothers, who only played Quake 2 (which was the fashion at the time). The ONLY way to get ANYTHING done was simply to contact the top, and you had to go through hell to get *that* number. Perhaps that's why they didnt chase this person... they had they number to the top.
Cheers, Telstra.
[CK]
---
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
well actually he does do a show here, but we recognise it for what it is, a kids nature show, i can't remeber what its called now, but not many people realise about it, more people know of him from South Park, and things like that.
I just signed up on the Freedom plan, before they have even INSTALLED it they add this insulting restriction on monthly bandwidth. In my opinion Telstra have a long track record of over charging Australians for the internet and especially for their business internet. In fact I heard they were only using 0.5% of their network capacity a few years ago and they were still making companies and business BLEED big dollars for anything better than dialup. I reckon this is the very first time they have offered a half decent product at a reasonable price and they HAVE STUFFED THAT UP. DON'T let them get away with it. Don't mess around. Voice your opinion directly to www.telstra.com.au at their web site Telstra online complaint form choose a service area (pick one you like the sound of) and shoot them an email. If you have multiple objections then it may pay to send them a few separate emails directed to different service areas to ensure that you convey all the aspects of your objection whether it be - you feel they have used deceptive and misleading advertising - you feel that they are abusing their position as market leader - they are letting their existing ADSL customer down - their excess per meg charges are far to high - others I have sent a couple of emails to them and hope they get back to me soon. I have requested they increase or remove the limit for all users. Just doing my bit for the cause. I'll let you know how we go. thanks falsemover Viva la revolution - drive around in your BMWs and ROCK the system.
consider coffee a lubricant that helps one penetrate the coding zone
Man, you think you've got it bad??????
I've got the acute embarrasment of only living 15mins drive from the IDIOT!
On the other hand, you have fingers
Never advertised as an unlimited plan eh?
On the other hand, you have fingers
Well, regarding the upload speed limit of 15K/sec (and download speed limit of ~400K/sec), it depends where you stay. I use to have those limits in Québec city, but since i've moved to Montréal, i get sustained 710K/sec download and 75+ K/sec upload. Hooray!
"There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
Will they provide some tool to monitor bandwidth usage? Seems to me that if they will be metering usage then they should provide some feedback to users when they about to approach the cap and how much above the cap they have consumed. Without a bandwidth monitor users (who choose to allow above cap usage) could potentially accrue a large bill. Seems to me that there must be some law that states that metered usage of a product should have some means of telling the consumer how much has been used.
For ADSL, their (current) rates are at:
p
http://www.bigpond.com/broadband/adsl/pricing.asp
and for cable they are at:
http://www.bigpond.com/broadband/cable/pricing.as
or click ADSL or Cable for the rates
-- kai
Verbing Weirds Language.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
As far as the gateway is concerned you can run a gateway server but the Telstra's contract specifically forbids you from setting up a gateway and connecting several machines. This DOESNT mean that it wont work it just means the policy says you cannot.
As to the download limits. On optus you can get about 5-600mb per day without getting kicked...telstra now 100mb. Per month 15gig optus, telstra 3gig. Teltra capped speed, optus uncapped. I can do 100mb a day without even downloading my pr0n. Look at the facts stupid. Not my fault you are on a server that is capped and bandwidth limited...sucked in...long live optus.
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 :)
ok I was a little concerned about this as it could spread, so I took a little look as my system logs under linux.
I ran the following command:-
# grep pppd messages* |grep Sent | grep May | awk '{send += $7;rec += $10} END{ print "SENT=",send,"- REC",rec,"TOT=",send +rec}'
and got the results:-
SENT= 79282250 - REC 485076419 TOT= 564358669
for May this year.
as you can see my "normal" usage is 1/6th of they cap. but I only have surftime evenings and weekends and dont leave it on, and don't download ISO's
For a heavier user such as someone reloading slashdot all the time to get the latest news it could be a problem especialy when you consider that every day the bandwith you require to look and fancy websites gets larger as the assume more and more people are switching to high bandwidth connections so they can afford the half meg spash screen :-)
Anyone else who wants to run the script and post their results, it could be interesting to see the average network usage of a slashdot user :-)
-- Vagnerr - (www.vagnerr.com) Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
sure it costs the ISP's money, but Telstra are charging $89/Month (thats in $A remeber so double it if in America) they are making a mighty fine profit.
Programs to keep track of downloads, extra billing, qouta stops, etc.
Servers to hold and process this grand amount of information
Media to keep back-ups and archives for (I'd guess) around 5 years in case of any law suits regarding billing.
And some poor sod to admin it.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Im a Telstra BPA customer, and the reason they say for the limit is that it is trying to stop the 10% of people who use 35% of the network. Now that basically means they are saying 90% of us use less than 3GB a month.
A further problem was we had this trial where you got traffic lights based on your consumption (red - excessive, yellow - large but ok , green - normal). I have had people posting in the local linux newsgroup saying that they wree doing 7GB a month and they were getting green lights. The thing was these lights were determined by what everyone else used, so they means basically everyone was around 7GB. Now we get cut by more than what the normal use was.
It is clear this exercise is just to cut corners by allowing more users to sign up and they can shirk on upgrading the network.
I have also heard that they have the ADSL routing setup stupidly so all traffic routes internally through Melbourne, then back to where it came from! Seems like they cause their own problems.
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
But, normally a network provider pays to for outbound traffic and gets paid for inbound traffic. This means they want more, a lot more, in bound (download) traffic than out bound traffic. This means they want you to pay to UPLOAD, not download data. They make money off of your downloads, and pay for your up loads.
The DSL service I have limits my UPLOADs to 5GB/month. Which normally means I can download about 50GB/month. And then they charge extra for each GB above 5GB I up load.
Sound like your ISP is truely ripping you off. Or else I don't know what I'm talking about.
StoneWolf
In the US when to telcos exchange traffic the recieving telco gets paid by the sending telco. I was working under the mistaken assumption that it worked that way elsewhere. Thanks for the info. StoneWolf
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 ...
-RicardoQuem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
They must do... check out this page of imaginative art...
http://www.a1h.com/pics.htm
Very Funny...
Richard
I think the problem here is that people don't understand how isps price their offerings.
When you pay residential/consumer rates for service, (i.e. $20-50 a month) don't expect to get any large amount of customer service, or fast speeds, or unlimited bandwidth. The reason for this is simple. Contention. These plans are priced for Mom and Pop to be able to connect and get their email and view a few web sites. The speed is there to make those pages come up quickly, not for large file downloads or servers. To be able to price that low isps have to make assumptions:
How much bandwidth the customers are going to use.(little to none)
How often they will need technical support.(almost never)
How much providing that support will cost.(get a bunch of college students/high schoolers)
How quickly they will get a response on problems.(within a couple days)
How much profit they need to make to keep investors/market happy.(given the market, alot)
Often people sell this service as more than what it really is, mainly because marketing types think it's necessary or because it's what's needed to compete with competitors offerings. Also people still view many things *only* on price, then complain when it's the service is poor or the features are lacking etc.
I work for a Middle/Western US CLEC/ISP/Telco which primarily has business customers. We charge much more than the Verizon's Qwest's and @Homes of the world because we (attempt to) provide business class service to our customers. i.e. we expect the customers to be using many times more bandwidth than a residential customer, we expect them to need more ips, to have much more complex configurations, to need much more responsive customer service etc. To provide all this we need to charge more.
My recommendation for people is this:
If you want business class service, i.e. one without bandwidth caps, one with more available ips, one with better customer service go to an isp that specializes in that type of service and pay the additional cost. You'll get what you pay for, and if you don't then demand a refund and find a different isp.
>Telstra declined to divulge how many Freedom >Plan subscribers it has but said it anticipated >some would opt to change carriers on the back of >the announcement.
> >Users who chose to cancel their existing service >with Telstra will not incur termination fees, >according to the telco.
IMHO optus is currently WAY better. you can download about 600mb a day before you get kicked (so 4-500mb safe) over a 14day average. yes I am an optus user because telstra were being assholes to us when we wanted their cable...aswell they have a better police:
a)you CAN use a gateway
b)you can download more than your email without getting kicked
c)optus modem is an ISO standard where telstra uses its own standard so optuses modem can be used inother countries with other companies but telstra's modem cannot.
telstra is big on the really good management decisions...no wonder everyone is getting pissed at telstra.
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.
Good point
I must burn in hell, suffer and pay for my sins
But Gods the one who's losing, Satan always wins!
No, because they idea is for people to either never have a chance of hitting 3 gigs (like my parents) or to be terrified of doing so because of the high charges for going over...
I must burn in hell, suffer and pay for my sins
But Gods the one who's losing, Satan always wins!
If outbound traffic is subject to this limitation, it will certainly be the bane of many script kiddies the world over. Anyone without the charging option would get cut off shortly if their computer was part of a ddos, and anyone who was on the plan would quickly rectify the situation after receiving their multi-million dollar bill...
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
This is yet another classic instance of what Telstra is good at. They were the first to come out with Cable, Got everyone in, then realised that their infrastructure can't really cope with the sudden load. I'm just wondering the guys who sit down and do the forcasting for this stuff at Telstra are currently booked on a plane to the Bahama's. Its a cop out to whack this limit on, as Optus did something similar, but decided to go for a sliding limit - which is currently at about 8 or 10 gig a month.
What gets me is they have a basic plan, they they have the freedom plan, for those that are *really* going to use the full capapbilities of the connection. what do they think people DO with the links?? Did they do their research on how much bandwidth online gaming takes up, or streaming Videos (as in the Big Brother TV show, with live video feeds, which everyone is hitting right now)?? Their email tells you "its ok, you can still download lots of MP3s"..Yeah, right.
Go Telstra. What an Absolute farse.
Anyone started a Testra page on Angry.net yet??
The three GB allowance per month represents something like 600 MP3 songs (average 5Mb per song) or 300 two to three minute MPEG videos a month.
Napster and pr0n :)
Which ever way you look at it Telstra will always have the monopoly in Australia.... They are moving in on Asian comms companies by the dozen and seem to barely even notice thier competitors leaving the game as quickly as they joined. And just when you thought Ziggy couldnt get any luckier.... the Australian Government has rushed to assist him by subsidising satelitte broadband for customers in remote locations (aka: the outback).... Oh, but its not about personal gain or pleasing shareholders, apparently its about delivery to Australia the technology that it deserves. Ahh.... making it easier!
Australianus Geekus
Its a stir!
Australianus Geekus
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 :)
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
"we now implement a generous 6 gig a month! twice the competition"!
*hooray*
i'm one of those poor users who has just signed up for a 12 month contract with said telstra and what really pisses me off is that as far as i can see, I've got no choice but to live with this for the next 12 months or pay a hefty fine (about $300AUD i think)....unless...any of you budding lawyers out there know if this is in breach of my contract in anyway? i mean i signed up for no download limits..(or don't lawyers read this site) nim
Assuming that it costs $FOO per month for this 3gb limit, wonder would they allow someone to pay $FOO x 2 for 6gb month, and so on?
Alan
--
Tequila - drink of the gods.
Tequila - drink of the gods.
26882bps? (multiplies it out) That's 9,000,000,000 bytes per month. Looks like you multipled your 3gb by 3. I'll assume you haven't had your morning coffee yet. :)
Whoops, my bad. And, no, I hadn't had my morning coffee.Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
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.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Is it me, or do the Australiens always get screwed with things related to rights and internet? Thank god I live in a country with actual freedom... no not America (I used to live there). Germany :)
now about the forcing people to join the army after high school (13th grade), they sorta gotta work on that.
: PLEASE DON'T FLAME ME BECAUSE I'M GERMAN :
THANKS,
- MicK
How about the great US stuff? TV - Arliss, Friends, Malcolm in the Middle, Drew Carey, Simpsons and South Park. Literature - Hunter S, Neil Stephenson, Ken Kesey. Music - Uncle Bob, Kurt Cobain, Beck. Films - Con Air, Face/Off, American Beauty. Do you want to give those up? And specifically, why moan about the girl bands? they look nice and sound OK (thank you, NASA).
Hell, who cares. I'm sick and tired of every internet service in the entire world. This doesn't surprise me at all, it's not isolated either, companies just don't see a need to make people happy no matter who they are. Like a lot of people, I thought broadband was going to be like heaven, I pictured these endless fields of bandwidth (think Julie Andrews in Sound Of Music) and got hell, we signed up for the other evil, DSL. It took forever to get signed up, they wanted my firstborn male child in exchange for a second IP address, the cap is nuts, and the service isn't fast. So anyway, Australia, I feel your pain and dissapointment, we all hope for the best with these things, I am a bitter angry disconnected person and this article just contributed to that. Time to try another service. Sigh.
spacefem.com
Don't I have that limit already with my dial-up connection?
-glastonbur
In Québec, the main cable provider (Videotron) charges a fee after 3 Gigs of download and 1 Gig of upload.
;)
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
Unlike what your mommy told you, nicest things in life e.g broadband connection , are not free. Anyone rememebr the Dot Gone Hippies ? Its better that the ISPs have a business model that ensures their longevity than go under. Remember Covad, NorthPoint ?? Get a bandwidth reality check at www.bandwidth.com.
You yanks only have yourself to blame! you are the ones that liked crocodile Dundee! why else did they make a sequel in yank land and **SHUDDER** a 3rd one.
=)
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
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
http://www.a1h.com
A process which measures internetwork data consumption and alerts an individual when consumption approaches a preset arbitrary limit. The consumption metric is set to zero at the beginning of each month of the Gregorian calendar.
Hey aussies, pay up! Send $10USD/month to Zen Mastuh, c/o slashdot.org . G'day! I'm rich!
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Similiar to the States, recently in Oz we've had a deregulated and somewhat privatised telephony, internet, and broadband market. Optus, which is a major competitor of Telstra, installed an Acceptable Useage Plan, which measured the amount of bandwith used by all users. Its a rolling 14 day check on the average of all users, removing the top and bottom 5 percent. Any use over the value 8 generated an alarm, 10 means disconnection. As an Optus broadband user, I figured their plan restrictive at first. Having now seen the Telstra " unlimited " use plan now held down to /3/ gig a month..it looks a lot more pleasant * grin *.
However, what Telstra get away with, you'd think the other Telco's will look closely at. Three gig is simply not enough for an unlimited contract plan. Whatever will happen next...no Counterstrike?!? * grin *
Cheers,
Dardaspam
" We're all doomed " - Xan - Balders Gate.
If you're now being charged by the byte that you download, this means that you're actually paying for those banner adds and other popups on websites. It's bad enough we're subjected to advertising we don't want to see and now we'll be expected to pay for the priveledge?! I sincerely hope this doesn't become a worldwide trend.
If bigpond users can hold on until the end of the year,there promises to be some major changes to telstra policies as a result of a likely change in government. See yesterday's Australian Financial Review, http://www.newsclip.newscentre.com.au/tuq/010606/p 060/0106061349.html
for details of the current Opposition's intention to use Telstra to" dramatically expand digital communications services " and also " Mr Beazley's (the Leader of the Opposition) push to use the Commonwealth's majority ownership of Telstra to ensure digital services are available across the nation at affordable prices.
You really wouldn't want to be amongst the current senior management,would you?