Dodo is one of the handful of companies which offers an unlimited ADSL2+ broadband service, but one of its main issues is that you could only get it bundled with a Dodo home phone service, for which the rates were (and are) fairly uncompetitive. Dodo is now offering the unlimited broadband package on its own with no bundling requirement in selected locations. That makes a cheaper deal, but it’s still not necessarily a good choice.
You can only find out if you’re eligible for the no-bundle deal by entering your phone number into Dodo’s site (though metro locations seem the main target). Assuming you are, then $39.90 for effectively unlimited internet might sound like an appealing deal, but there’s some important caveats.
As a quick search around Lifehacker, Whirlpool, the TIO site or the web in general will reveal, Dodo has a pretty poor reputation when it comes to customer service. Having an unlimited option isn’t much help if there are problems it takes an age to fix. You’re also on a 24-month contract, which limits your flexibility.
More importantly, Dodo throttles your connection if you’re using any kind of BitTorrent client or other peer-to-peer activity. Realistically, most people who are using hundreds of gigabytes a month are doing so because of torrenting. If you fall into that category, Dodo is a poor choice.
We noted yesterday that the average Australian only uses 6GB a month, but in the comments to that post some readers said they consumed hundreds of gigabytes by watching hi-def streaming video. If you fall into that category and don’t care about torrenting, the Dodo offer might be worth considering, I suppose. But think very carefully before you commit.
Ernie Sugrue
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 10:43 AMSo these ISPs that limit or throttle P2P – do they also throttle newsgroup downloading?
Stove
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:31 AMDodo has long been one of the worst ISPs, but their customer service has apparently been improving dramatically over the last year – see http://whirlpool.net.au/survey/2010/ for the data.
If they keep going at that pace, they might be a half-decent ISP in a few years.
Bert
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 1:17 PMThe bad thing with these cheap ISP is crapshoot for the service. You either get good speeds and a stable connection or you are on a connection slower than a snail.
But again I am with TPG and loving it.
Mark S
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 1:18 PMHi All,
Just a point of clarification, Dodo does not throttle P2P traffic.
Cheers,
Mark
Dodo Australia
Angus Kidman
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 1:26 PMInteresting. In that case, why do so many Dodo customers appear to believe it does?
Bleh
Friday, July 8, 2011 at 1:25 PMHa, I wouldn’t expect a response to that. I wonder if ‘Mark’ will ever come back to this thread.
Stephen
Sunday, December 25, 2011 at 2:51 PM@Angus and Bleh. I’m happily sitting her typing while my P2P is ticking away in the background at 800kBytes/s to 1.2Mbytes/sec (approx 6.4Mbits to 9.6Mbits/sec). This is pretty close to my maximum linespeed (Hughesdale, Vic area). Before you critisize P2P speeds, see how many torrents you have running simultaneously. Learn to QUEUE them and you’ll find you get much higher speeds. More time spent learning about what your actually doing and less spent bitching based on your own ignorance would be a good idea ;)
Simon
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 1:57 PMWell Mark,
You’re throttling mine right now. Capped at 9kb/s on unlimited.
Sam
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 1:48 PMI write a real time streaming product for my job, and the number of support calls we get from Dodo users alone means that I would never consider them as a provider for any of their offering (that includes their newer ventures such as electricity).