It may be barely off the ground, with a handful of test sites around Australia, but the National Broadband Network is already attracting something of a price-cutting war – or at least an early skirmish or two.After retail service provider (RSP) Internode last week announced its retail pricing for NBN connections starting at $59.95 a month for a 12Mbps service – which also includes a phone connection – cut-price operator Dodo announced plans for services starting below $40, and yesterday John Linton’s Exetel revealed more detailed plans for services that undercut both.
Exetel has published some 25 different available plans. They start at a minimum of $34.50 a month for 20GB of data at 12Mbps downlink/1Mbps up – presumably that deal, unlike Internode’s, does not include a landline phone. A service at the same speed but with 100GB of data will cost $59.50 a month.
Connections at 25Mbps start at $37.50/month, and run up to $84.50/month for 200G of data and a 10Mbps uplink.
For 50Mbps down/20Mbps up connections, Exetel prices start at $44.50. And for 100Mbps down/40Mbps up, prices range from $49.50 (20GB data) to $99.50 (200GB).
Uploads don’t count towards the monthly data quota. Once the quota is reached, speeds are throttled to 512Kbps/128Kbps. There is a $100 installation charge in each case.
John Linton is offering free trial services to customers in NBN trial areas of Armidale and Kiama in NSW and Willunga in South Australia. The free trial lasts until September 30 and enables the user to have both an existing ADSL connection and the new NBN fibre link in order to compare the services.
While Internode’s pricing brought criticism in some sections of the media – and from the Federal Opposition – as being too expensive for most Australians, more rational observers believe they’re actually quite attractive.
Internode’s starting price of $59.50 a month, for instance, includes the phone service which could probably be valued at $30 or so.
By contrast, Telstra BigPond currently charges $89 a month for an ADSL2+ Internet and phone bundle including 5GB of data and no guarantee on speed – typically metropolitan customers get 5-10Mbps. (Telstra does toss in a T-Box on this plan).
And in fact the much criticised top Internode price of $189.95 a month for a 100Mbps down/40Mbps up service with one terabyte of data – as Richard Chirgwin has pointed out on The Register Web site – should prove appealing to thousands of Australian small businesses which cannot afford the $2000-plus business-level Ethernet services on offer today.
“At $189.95 for a 100/40 Mbps service with 1TB downloads, Internode’s NBN prices look like an absolutely fabulous deal for the small business lucky enough to be in the footprint,” concludes Chirgwin.
Also quick to chime in was Comms and Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy: “As each day passes we are seeing competition in the retail NBN access market drive prices lower. This is great news for Internet consumers,” quoth the Minister, adding: “It is now time for Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull to stand up and admit they have been deliberately misleading the Australian public about the NBN.” That’ll be the day.
