No-one’s going to say no to faster broadband, but would you really pay $100 a month for the privilege?
Predictably, the announcement early yesterday morning that the National Broadband Network would now be set up as a government-owned entity has resulted in an absolute glut of analysis and coverage.
Amidst the glut of business and politics analysis, Fran Foo’s discussion of how much an NBN connection might actually cost at Australian IT stuck out. Based on quotes from Internode (which already offers a fibre-to-the-home service, Foo suggests that $100 a month might be the typical cost for consumers.
In truth, it’s probably a little bit early to be making any pricing assumptions, if only because of the effects of inflation and the long-term nature of the project. But if the NBN was available right now, would you pay $100 a month for access — and would that depend on other factors (like download caps)? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Service to cost $100 a month [Australian IT]
tom
April 8, 2009 at 12:14 PM
it costs me $70 a month for slow telstra broadband and i only get 25gb…
if it was like 100gb a month for FTTH at $100 a month of course i would get it!
Report Permalinkeffdee
April 8, 2009 at 12:38 PM
That would depend on how much the download limits were.
I now pay $75 per month with download limits of 102gig.
It would have to be a hell of a lot more to make me change my ISP, and pay more.
Report PermalinkKristi
April 8, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Yep – pay Telstra $100 a month at the moment for cable
Report PermalinkRegan
April 8, 2009 at 12:43 PM
I would consider it, provided that it wasn’t capped. Lets face it if you want some serious take up Australia needs to model it’s plans on the US (or any other un-capped country). If it’s capped it better not be the crappy telstra model of Downloads AND Uploads.
It’s interesting reading some US comments on another article where posters are leaving an ISP in droves because they want to introduce capping… funny how that doesn’t happen here.
Report PermalinkBilly Jack
April 8, 2009 at 12:44 PM
$100 might seems unreasonable now, but by the time this is up an running, inflation etc. It’ll be within the grasp of most. It will be sweetened as an alternative to Cable TV, with the speeds promised.
Good One Kev.
BJ
Report Permalinkmr-crash
April 8, 2009 at 1:08 PM
I pay about that for my internet and landline and mobile phone each month. I’m probably not a representative sample, but I use these very extensively for work and having the seperate landline is pretty essential.
Unless this was unlimited bandwidth I can’t see myself switching, because I think it would add significant cost (when i’m forced to seperate out phone lines, handsets etc), for very little advantage past the speed (which would be genuinely awesome). Particularly given the fact that ten years from now, I expect mobile network coverage to do its job sufficiently well in areas that I work and travel, that i’d be comfortable enough having it as my main source of internet. Undoubtedly the mobile access wouldn’t be unlimited bandwidth, but at least i’d be able to use it in different locations easily.
Report PermalinkRobert
April 8, 2009 at 1:10 PM
Include a phone service in that $100 and I already pay much more then that a month!
Report PermalinkGuest
April 8, 2009 at 1:16 PM
I already pay more than that a month.
Report PermalinkSo yes i would pay less than i am now for higher speed and cap.
Craig
April 8, 2009 at 1:27 PM
Depends on the bandwith. I have a 50gb adsl2+ plan that I can’t get over 1mbs because i live to far from the exchange (not to mention the drop outs and packet loss). Fiber would be a great option for fast speeds but If fibre gave me 50gb of bandwith for $100 it would be temting but i am only paying half that for adsl2 which is alright for everyday web browsing. What i really want to know is with everyone being capable of having such great speeds won’t the submarine communications cable need an upgrade to be able to get the full benefit from this?
Report PermalinkBrian
April 8, 2009 at 1:27 PM
I already pay close to $100 for ADSL2+ (which only connects at ~3Mbps) with a big download cap, combined with phone line rental. If the download cap was similar and includes phone service (surely it would?) it would be a no brainer … so the only variable lies in the download caps for me!
Report PermalinkAlan
April 8, 2009 at 1:30 PM
IF the fibre replaces my phone line, like a “naked” DSL, AND the useage caps are decent, AND ping times are low… maybe $75 to $80 per month.
Report Permalinktenabrae
April 8, 2009 at 1:36 PM
I already pay ~$100 for ADSL2+… so if the plan significantly exceeded what I pay for now sure. For $100 from a govt. scheme engineered to provide quality internet infrastructure, I’d expect quite a bit, after all, you can pay for a better connection (or multiple connections) now if you wanted to just throw money at a better home connection.
Report PermalinkStilgherrian
April 8, 2009 at 2:07 PM
I’m with Brian. I’m already paying this and more for comms. The devil’s in the detail, of course, but I don’t see $100 as a particularly scary number.
Report PermalinkDan
April 8, 2009 at 2:23 PM
$130 per month on Telstra for 60GB and $80 per month for TPG ADSL2+ (60GB/140GB). $100 is a non-issue if the cap isn’t too low.
Report PermalinkZahrah
April 8, 2009 at 2:24 PM
I’m paying $99 to optus, for Net and home phone for ADSL2. ( Opps + $2 processing fee) 100 bucks for something alot faster then adsl2 is great! except – at that speed we need more content that is financially realistic and available, and I can see that no matter who runs it if you want more then a basic account you will be paying through the teeth for the downloads not the actual speed.
Report PermalinkJohn Van Der Loo
April 8, 2009 at 2:27 PM
I feel kind of bad for people who pay so much for slow broadband already I page $50/mo for ADSL2+ and a 50gb cap (and slowed speed after that, NO charge for extra downloads).
If speeds of up to 100Mbps are actually going to happen then things like watching TV/movies online will be a much nicer experience, coupled with that of course will be the download limits. for $100/mo I would expect pretty much unlimited download limits, providers in other countries currently offer services without download limits, providers in Australia should follow suit.
Report PermalinkAdam Ashley
April 8, 2009 at 3:00 PM
Are you seriously asking would I pay less to get a 20 times faster connection. To bloody right I would.
Report PermalinkTobias Cohen
April 8, 2009 at 5:04 PM
If it were $100 for unlimited, I’d sign up in a heartbeat.
Report PermalinkAdrian
April 8, 2009 at 5:17 PM
I’m paying 60 for a 70gb cap plan adsl2+ with tpg.
If its something way faster, with a very good cap plan of lets say at least 150gb, i would be happy to fork out $100 a month.
Report PermalinkKevin Rudd
April 8, 2009 at 5:57 PM
I dont think the writer of this article put any thought into her point….100 bucks is CHEAP!
Report Permalinkliatach
April 8, 2009 at 7:24 PM
$100 a month is not unreasonable provided absurd data limits are either increased dramatically or removed all together.
Report PermalinkI’m actually really pleased about the way this has played out. My experience of Telstra tells me that had they got the bid, this project would have been twice as expensive taken twice as long to build and been less useful over all, likely a much slower target speed.
matt
April 8, 2009 at 8:26 PM
As with many commenters, it would depend on the cap. A really fast connection is useless if the cap is too low. I already hit the cap most months for my ADSL2+ connection.
In many ways the cap is more important to me than the connection speed.
Report Permalinkhugh
April 8, 2009 at 8:35 PM
ok but are they up grading the lines into Australia because that’s where most of the internet comes from. we need more from the US becuase there were most things are held and maybe a few from Europe wouldn’t hurt either
Report PermalinkMidda
April 8, 2009 at 8:40 PM
Only if it were totally unmetered. I pay $70 per month at the moment for 150GB of data on ADSL2+. I’d want unmetered upload, unmetered download, and the full 100Mbit (or damn close to it) of bandwidth before I’d consider that much money.
Report PermalinkMathew
April 8, 2009 at 8:52 PM
Journalists need to include the cost of Telstra line rental. Based on the ADSL2+ experience, a VOIP connection will be $5 a month, compared to $30 Telstra.
When we talk about the cost of FTTH, we need to compare the cost of Line Rental ($30), ADSL ($40-$80) and Pay TV ($40-$100). If FTTH cost is < $80 then there is a reasonable chance many people will save because Line Rental (if you really need it) and Pay TV (especially movies on demand) will be considerably cheaper.
Report PermalinkFacebook User
April 10, 2009 at 11:03 AM
i like the fact that you believe the inertial move from telstra/optus controlled mediums like HFC and copper-wire PayTV/POTS telephony, to NBN cable, will lead to cheaper line rental or internet, pay tv, etc.
it won’t.
Imaginably, the first ten years of NBN cable will be fantastically expensive for non-internet services on NBN infrastructure, like Pay TV, just because of the licensing/copyright issues.
$100/month for internet access, won’t be a big issue in 3-5 years, when you would have cheaper, more user-friendly technology, e.g. thin-client wifi-enabled VoIP handsets, which will make VoIP incredibly easy to sell on shelves when it’s built into the handset, i.e. for a fraction of the cost of mobile phones or 3G internet access, a wifi VoIP phone would be remarkably easy to attach to long-term plans, i.e. contract-locked models much like mobile phones.
pay tv is also on the way out, with the expenditure of commercial investment and the relicensing of archived television for internet streaming, will allow blu-ray quality streams for a real HD tv/movie watching experience, not just the rough postage-stamp youtube quality movies you pay the premium on now.
for millions of Copper/HF Cable/Satellite internet users in Australia, NBN will make things easier, not just for those in the designated cabling areas, but also for distributing the load on the current ADSL/Satellite/HFC/copper networks and making them more accessible. though, not cheaper for those users, just more accessible.
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