New orcon plans - less for more

[Ian Batterbee]

Well I got an email from Orcon today laying out the new plans. It seems
that pretty much everyone who has received these emails is getting less
service for the same price they were paying before.

For example, a friend on their uncapped 256kbps plan has been moved to a
40GB capped 256kbps plan (they're living in a flat and normally transfer
more than 40GB per month)

For me, I was on the 2mbps autosense, so the frst 1GB for $39.95 then
$10 for every block of 10GB after that, and I normally do between
1GB-11GB, so normally pay $49.95 per month.

The new Orcon autosense plans charge $10 for 5GB of traffic (and somehow
that's an 'improvement' ?), but they've increased the 'free' portion a
little to compensate.
So my new plan is 2mbps autosense, first 4GB for $39.95, then $10 for
every 5GB.

In other words, If I download between 9 and 11GB in a month, I'll be
paying $10 more than I did previously.


Or.. I could change to Surfer Medium, which gives me 3.5mbps/128kbps,
but has 10GB included for $49.95, so 10GB of traffic on this plan is in
fact cheaper (and faster) than the same 10GB of traffic on the surfer
light plan above.

But at 3.5mbps, I expect the contention ratio will be so bad that
they'll perform no better than 2mbps plans.

What I'ld actually like would be 2mbps down, 512mbps up, so that my ssh
sessions to work aren't so damn jerky.





Thanks Telecom... you've certainly improved the state of broadband in NZ
by forcing ISPs to charge more for less.



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[s***@pettit.net.nz]

For me I end up spending an extra $40 a month, pushing my bill well into the
range of ~$130 a month which is unacceptable given it's only ~40GB of data.

The only winners here are business users - small businesses I know being
extorted at present on UBS make significant savings, but residential users
who use more than 10GB a month now get extorted instead. Seems like Telecom
have just shifted the cost around a bit instead of actually reducing the
price.

Looking at Telecom's wholesale costs - they're charging more than what
national transit costs, just for data between the end user and the ISP, let
alone to the internet.

All I wanted was 512kbit upload because 128kbit with a family of four using
the internet just doesn't work. The moment one of us tries something like
sending an email with an attachment or uploading a photo to an online album
we all end up crawling to a halt. Instead I got a $40 increase in my bill
and no extra speed.

-Scott

Post by Ian Batterbee
For me, I was on the 2mbps autosense, so the frst 1GB for
$39.95 then $10 for every block of 10GB after that, and I
normally do between 1GB-11GB, so normally pay $49.95 per month.
In other words, If I download between 9 and 11GB in a month,
I'll be paying $10 more than I did previously.

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[Brian Gibbons]

Post by Ian Batterbee
In other words, If I download between 9 and 11GB in a month, I'll be
paying $10 more than I did previously.

It's called "the law of averages", your problem is you are Joe Average or
better.

The ADSL "line" that Telecom supply has a sustained information rate of
25kbs which works out to a maximum download + upload capacity of 16gig per
month.

By lowering the usage limit to 4GB and then charging excess they are
actually lowering the available/dedicated bandwidth that is being supplied
to each user (within the price).

So the actual "Sustained Information Rate" (i.e. the dedicated bandwidth you
are paying for in the base price) is 25k * 4 / 16 or about 8k bits per
second.

So we have 8 kilobit per second "Broadband" for $1 per day, that should kick
us up the OECD charts a bit :)

What Telecom has actually done is raised the "average" price of Broadband
but lowered the "minimum" cost. Claiming that they have lowered the price of
Broadband is a bit rich because price comparisons are normally done with an
average of prices.

Under the old UBS pricing scheme if the average usage of each user started
to increase (as it should/will do) then Telecom would not make any more
money; the new scheme solves this issue, as you have found out.


Cheers

BG



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[Steven Ellis]

Post by Ian Batterbee
Well I got an email from Orcon today laying out the new plans. It
seems that pretty much everyone who has received these emails is
getting less service for the same price they were paying before.
For example, a friend on their uncapped 256kbps plan has been moved to
a 40GB capped 256kbps plan (they're living in a flat and normally
transfer more than 40GB per month)
For me, I was on the 2mbps autosense, so the frst 1GB for $39.95 then
$10 for every block of 10GB after that, and I normally do between
1GB-11GB, so normally pay $49.95 per month.
The new Orcon autosense plans charge $10 for 5GB of traffic (and
somehow that's an 'improvement' ?), but they've increased the 'free'
portion a little to compensate.
So my new plan is 2mbps autosense, first 4GB for $39.95, then $10 for
every 5GB.
In other words, If I download between 9 and 11GB in a month, I'll be
paying $10 more than I did previously.
Or.. I could change to Surfer Medium, which gives me 3.5mbps/128kbps,
but has 10GB included for $49.95, so 10GB of traffic on this plan is
in fact cheaper (and faster) than the same 10GB of traffic on the
surfer light plan above.
But at 3.5mbps, I expect the contention ratio will be so bad that
they'll perform no better than 2mbps plans.
What I'ld actually like would be 2mbps down, 512mbps up, so that my
ssh sessions to work aren't so damn jerky.

Yeah I either pay double to get the same plan, or change plans to get
less data and still pay more.

Shocking.

Steve
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[Brian Gibbons]

Post by Steven Ellis
Yeah I either pay double to get the same plan, or change plans to get
less data and still pay more.

And this is the crux of the unbundling issue...

You can't pay more to get what you wan't.
You can't pay more to get higher speed.
You can't pay more to get lower round trip times.
You can't pay more to get higher Sustained Information Rates.
You can't pay more for a Symetrical Service.

In a free/competitive market all of those options would be available if
there is a market demand for them.

UBS is in no way "equivalent" to Unbundling. UBS is for Joe UnderAverage who
doesn't know any different.

Cheers

BG


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[Wayne Kampjes]

I thought this was about Orcon raising the prices yet Brian comments on
Telecom doing so?

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-***@unixathome.org [mailto:owner-***@unixathome.org] On
Behalf Of Brian Gibbons
Sent: Wednesday, 15 March 2006 03:37
To: Ian Batterbee; ***@lists.unixathome.org
Subject: Re: New orcon plans - less for more

Post by Ian Batterbee
In other words, If I download between 9 and 11GB in a month, I'll be
paying $10 more than I did previously.

It's called "the law of averages", your problem is you are Joe Average
or
better.

The ADSL "line" that Telecom supply has a sustained information rate of
25kbs which works out to a maximum download + upload capacity of 16gig
per
month.

By lowering the usage limit to 4GB and then charging excess they are
actually lowering the available/dedicated bandwidth that is being
supplied
to each user (within the price).

So the actual "Sustained Information Rate" (i.e. the dedicated bandwidth
you
are paying for in the base price) is 25k * 4 / 16 or about 8k bits per
second.

So we have 8 kilobit per second "Broadband" for $1 per day, that should
kick
us up the OECD charts a bit :)

What Telecom has actually done is raised the "average" price of
Broadband
but lowered the "minimum" cost. Claiming that they have lowered the
price of
Broadband is a bit rich because price comparisons are normally done with
an
average of prices.

Under the old UBS pricing scheme if the average usage of each user
started
to increase (as it should/will do) then Telecom would not make any more
money; the new scheme solves this issue, as you have found out.


Cheers

BG



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[Brian Gibbons]

Post by Wayne Kampjes
I thought this was about Orcon raising the prices yet Brian comments on
Telecom doing so?

Hello Wayne :)

Are you suggesting that Orcon's change in pricing for higher usage plans was
not driven by Telecom's new pricing ?

How is the ADSL2 testing going ?

Any chance this is going to work via existing exchanges or is it just an
NGEN/streetbox service?

Cheers

BG


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[LEE Tet Yoon]

Well I got an email from Orcon today laying out the new plans. It seems that pretty much everyone who has received these emails is getting less service for the same price they were paying before.
For example, a friend on their uncapped 256kbps plan has been moved to a 40GB capped 256kbps plan (they're living in a flat and normally transfer more than 40GB per month)
For me, I was on the 2mbps autosense, so the frst 1GB for $39.95 then $10 for every block of 10GB after that, and I normally do between
1GB-11GB, so normally pay $49.95 per month.
The new Orcon autosense plans charge $10 for 5GB of traffic (and somehow that's an 'improvement' ?), but they've increased the 'free' portion a little to compensate.
So my new plan is 2mbps autosense, first 4GB for $39.95, then $10 for every 5GB.
In other words, If I download between 9 and 11GB in a month, I'll be paying $10 more than I did previously.
Or.. I could change to Surfer Medium, which gives me 3.5mbps/128kbps, but has 10GB included for $49.95, so 10GB of traffic on this plan is in fact cheaper (and faster) than the same 10GB of traffic on the surfer light plan above.
But at 3.5mbps, I expect the contention ratio will be so bad that they'll perform no better than 2mbps plans.
What I'ld actually like would be 2mbps down, 512mbps up, so that my ssh sessions to work aren't so damn jerky.

AFAIK, the contention ratio for Telecom/Xtra customers for the 3.5mbps is 148:1. Not sure if this applies to UBS as well.

Anyway although I moved away from Orcon a while ago due to the cheaper price for high data usage plans on Ihug and looking at the new plans, I have to agree they are rather disappointing. Interestingly Orcon has bettered most of Telecom/Xtra's new plans again except for Telecom's Pro and Pro Advanced where Orcon is only able to offer 9 gb and 19 gb (both via autosense) instead of 10 gb and 20 gb that Telecom offer for the same price and speed.

The CC have told Telecom they can't prevent ISPs who accept their offer seeking or supporting regulation as they have tried to do, so I guess this means Ihug are probably going to accept Telecom's new offer. Although I think the CC did the right thing here, it's probably going to turn out worse for me. I too desperately want higher upstream even though I'm running m0n0wall with traffic prioritisation. I also don't really care much about 3.5mbps cf to my 2mbps. But it sounds as if it will come at the expense of my current 40gb/40gb plan (or an increase in price) which I believe was already making little money for Ihug in any case. Which is a worse outcome for me. I guess Ihug may be forced to end their free upstream too...

I find the CC a bit bizarre though. IIRC, Telecom made the same restriction last time when they launched UBS which is why all ISPs eventually abandoned seeking a regulated service except for TelstraClear but the CC didn't make any noise then? What gives?

I can't wait for the middle of the year. At least we'll know whether we can expect something decent or we're going to get screwed over again...

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[Alastair Johnson]

Post by LEE Tet Yoon
I find the CC a bit bizarre though. IIRC, Telecom made the same restriction last time when they launched UBS which is why all ISPs eventually abandoned seeking a regulated service except for TelstraClear but the CC didn't make any noise then? What gives?

Join the club on this one. Most ISPs find the ComCom &
Telecommunications Commissioner a bit bizarre in their actions and rulings.

aj
(speaking from experience.)
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