Internode NBN-fast broadband service to hit later this year.
All NBN-delivered services will come as “bundled” phone and Internet services.
Adelaide based Internode, now calling itself a “national broadband company” revealed its commercial pricing for services, delivered via the controversial $36bn National Broadband Network (NBN), yesterday.
Plans start at $59.95 a month, for 12 Mbps (downstream and 1 Mb/s upstream) and 30GB of data. Packages vary up to $189 for the top end ”platinum’ package – 100/40 Mbps and a massive 1 Terabyte of data.
This appears to mark a price hike for broadband customers, Internode’s current Easy Broadband cheapest ADSL+2 30GB plan bundled, costs $29 or $49 unbundled, although admittedly speeds are slower.
The telco insists, however, it has aligned its entry-level NBN bundle with its current 30GB data quota Easy Naked ADSL2+ voice/data bundle, which costs $59.95.
All plans include $10 of VoIP calls on the telco’s NodePhone service and fixed line voice service instead of VoIP will also be available, Internode says.
Port speeds are nominal NBN access port speed only, and “not necessarily indicative of the data transfer speeds the services will achieve in practice.”
And pricing is not definite yet and “vulnerable to upward pressure” in the future due to “flaws in the NBNCo wholesale charging model compounded by the ACCC’s ‘121 points of interconnect’ decision,” Internode MD Simon Hackett has warned.
The NBN is subject of government guarantees that consumers will pay similar prices to current day ADSL2+ services in order to access “entry level” NBN based services, and says NBN pricing will be uniform.
“Unfortunately, a number of pressure points in the wholesale pricing model exist which will make these promises (from the government) untenable in practice, unless serious issues with the underlying pricing model are addressed by NBNCo and the ACCC,” Hackett wrote in a blog post yesterday.
Due to the high-speed upstream performance of NBN services, plans count both downloads and uploads as part of data quota. However, users can buy data blocks online to avoid additional fees.
Once plans exceed their quota, speed shaping is applied to all data traffic.
Customers can obtain additional capabilities such as fixed IP addresses or priority Business support, by purchasing either a Power Pack or Business Pack.
“We have determined our starting set of commercial services to offer Internode customers, and these will apply from the initial commercial launch of Internode’s NBNCo-based services,” said Internode managing director Simon Hackett.
Costs remain unchanged for existing customers using NBN-based services in Tasmania and elsewhere and will be advised about when their services will transition to the new regime, Internode says.
