Sponsor's Message

Power-users are all those folks who have been bitching about the low data caps and rather pedestrian data speeds associated with any of the affordable DSL options provided by Telecom.

No, they'd much rather milk a small fortune from "mainstream" internet users.

Mainstream users, according to our Telecom overlords, use just a few hundred megabytes per month and will find 256Kbps to be head-spinningly fast.

If you're a power-user then you might as well give up lobbying Telecom with your petitions and complaints. They just don't want to know.

But if you're a mainstream user, boy are you a favourite child or what?

However, it's time to issue a warning to all those mainstream users before they find themselves hit with some rather shocking bills.

You see the kind folks over at Telecom/Xtra have created a whole new section of their website just for you.

Here you'll find a selection of video and audio content designed to draw you in and keep you glued to your computer monitor.

There are news items that you could have watched for free on TV, there are movie trailers you've probably already seen, there's news you can already hear on the radio -- and even some short films.

And, because you're a "mainstream" user, Telecom/Xtra are only offering this content in streaming format using the proprietary WMP9 format -- so you "power users" with your Win95 and Win98 machines need not apply because WMP9 isn't available for your OS.

Linux? What's that? Good grief -- no "mainstream" user would be caught dead with Open Source software!

But here's the cunning part of this plan...

Telecom/Xtra know that, thanks to the way they've structured their JetStream product, the *real* profit is made when users exceed their monthly data cap.

Every megabyte consumed over that cap can be charged at an outrageous 10-20 cents, and when you're dishing up content from your own servers right here in NZ then distributing it through your own network -- that's incredibly lucrative.

So -- here's the plan: Build a site loaded with broadband content (it doesn't matter that it's just crappy stuff people can find in any number of other places on the Net), tell your "mainstream" (mugstream?) users to come and get it, then sit back and watch those with 500MB caps rack up large bills as they run over-cap and rack up additional bandwidth charges.

Of course they'll bitch and scream -- but then you just tell them they should move onto a more expensive plan better suited to their needs.

When the same thing happens next month because they've broken the cap on that plan, just move them up again.

Then, when it happens a third time -- well hell, they're now "power-users" so tell them to get stuffed.

And as a footnote -- have you noticed that the latest Telecom/Xtra TV ads for Jetstream have a small note at the bottom which says "JetStream Starter is not broadband"? I hope they remember this when trotting out their spin in respect to the price of broadband connections in NZ and how they compare to the rest of the world.

Perhaps it's also rather telling that Jetstream Starter appears to be the only DSL plan in which national traffic is not subject to those evil over-cap data charges. Telecom/Xtra don't want any freeloaders using their new "broadband" site now do they?

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