For those interested in the ULTRA product from iHug, this was send to my iHug
mailbox tonight:

Dear ULTRA Customer,

We are writing to update you on planned changes for the ULTRA service.

As you know, we have spent the past few months, undertaking an in-depth
review of the service currently provided to all our ULTRA customers. We
appreciate your feedback. It has highlighted more than ever the need for
fine-tuning. However, our goals remain the same: to deliver an all round
improved level of service, while continuing to deliver leading edge
technology.

As we recently mentioned, the current levels of usage on ULTRA far exceed
our forecasts, mainly due to the continued abuse of the system by a
section of users and the advent of things like Napster causing heavier
usage patterns.

Sadly, our first measure - the Network Management Policy implemented late
last year - had little impact. A number of heavy users have continued to
download astronomical amounts of data, even at a reduced speed.

Recently, one ULTRA Lite user clocked up 78 Gigabytes in a matter of weeks.

Ihug is now adopting new measures to ensure fair distribution of bandwidth
for all ULTRA customers.

>From April 1, all ULTRA accounts will operate within the following
framework:

* All Ultra residential accounts including ULTRA Lite will have a 2 Gigabyte
per month download limit.
Once the limit is exceeded, international traffic charges will apply.
* International data only will be charged at 6 cents(incl GST), per Megabyte
between the hours of 4pm-1am, and 2 cents(incl GST), per Megabyte between
1am-4pm.

For customers on our ground based terrestrial service, all Ihug, Ihug
Multicast and national traffic will remain free at all times. Customers on
the satellite service should consider all traffic as being international.
All other factors of your accounts will remain constant.

To view your bandwidth usage, please go to http://www.ihug.co.nz/services/

Login using your username and password, then click on View Bandwidth Usage.
You will be able to view bandwidth used to date in the month of your choice.
Separate international and national traffic usage figures will be available
shortly when this bandwidth checker is updated.

Most importantly the overall speed and service for all ULTRA account holders
will be dramatically improved. The NMP policy will be abandoned. The
majority of ULTRA users are within the 2 Gigabyte limit and will not be
affected in any way.

We are also investing a large amount of time in re-training the contract
installers to eliminate the initial install problems that some customers
have had.

We look forward to working on delivering these much improved service levels
over the next few weeks, and providing you with an overall better quality
product which is more equitably distributed.

From,
Your ULTRA team.

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Received on Fri Mar 2 22:20:44 2001