At 10:08 a.m. 13/04/2005, you wrote:
>Rant Mode On
>
>I used to think that $69.95 for my 2Mbps/192kbps/10GB was good value
>until I compared my plan to that of a friends in Oz. His plan costs
>98NZD but he gets 1.5MBps/512kbps/14GB(peak)/14GB(off-peak). His cost
>per GB is half that on mine. ANd he gets a static IP address whereas I
>don't.

Do note that you can save $10 off this price provided you're willing to use Ihug as your ISP and Ihug for tolls. As I've mentioned before, Ihug were allowed to offer their own plans based on a layer 3 service (now moving to layer 2 - UBS I assume) and they undercut Telecom/Xtra by $10. Now that 2 mbit UBS is available to ISPs, I had expected them to at least join into this market and start offering a 10 gb 2 mbps UBS service to replace the Jetstram Plus/whatever it's called they're now offering from Telecom but so far haven't seen anything. Regardless Ihug's offer is the best deal for 2mbps IMHO although to be fair, I don't use my Telecom toll calls anyway. The only disadvantage is that they've always been 128k upload I believe but it's irrelevant now anyway.

I suspect Ihug offer a static IP and in any case, it has been mentioned before that other ISPs (Orcon being one of them) still offer static IPs for Jetstream plans despite it being reported before that Telecom doesn't allow this. You might want to look into this if you want a static IP and Ihug doesn't offer or you're not willing to use them for some reason. Be aware that in this case, it'll still be Jetstream (for now) and so your connection will be the same as it is now (with same limitations, toll calls with Telecom etc) but of course you'll still need to rely on your ISP as the point for service. But make sure the ISP only charges $10 since some do charge more.

In any case, although my dislike of Telecom and the current situation should be fairly well known on this group, I am surprised that no ISP has come up with their own Jetstream Plus (or whatever it's called) replacement now that it's possible via UBS. After all, it will remove the pesky Telecom toll call requirement which is surely an advantage for them and surely they'll make more money then they make now from the $10 they can charge? I suppose they want to concentrate on their 256k plans...? Or maybe they don't want to move their current Jetstream Plus/whatever customers due to the big hit their pocket will take from the churn fee so they don't dare offer competing 2mbit plans.

Having said all that, the situation for ISPs is still not very competitive IMHO and never will be with the way the CC and gov have handled things.

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