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a long probing nose used for sniffing out the facts and stimulating thought
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NZ's leading source of Net-Industry news and commentary since 1995 |
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Telecom Announces New Xtra Jetstream Plans
9 February 2004 Telecom has announced a new range of JetStream DSL pricing plans which will come into effect next month. Most welcomed by heavy Net users will be the new manner in which the company will handle over-cap use of its 10GB/month "flat-rate" plan. Instead of simply billing for over-cap use as was previously the case, the new plan will now follow the increasingly common overseas practice of throttling the user's account back to dial-up speeds. The new plans also offer asymmetric data rates of 256Kbps download and 128Kbps upload, another long awaited improvement over the basic JetStream Starter plan which was 128Kbps in both directions. It is not clear however, whether local traffic counts towards the caps associated with these new plans and if it isn't (as would appear to be the case), those who transfer any significant amount of traffic within New Zealand may find the older JetStream Starter plan to be more cost effective and faster in the long-run. Full details of these new plans can be found on the Telecom Media website This revised pricing will certainly put the squeeze on some of the new Wireless startup companies, particularly Woosh Wireless whose 250Kbps plan is now $5 per month more expensive than Telecom's 256Kbps option. While Woosh claims to be uncapped, use of the service also carries the rider that the service is provided "subject to reasonable use" which indicates that the company reserves the right to impose a soft or hard cap should it become necessary. Your comments on these new plans are invited at Aardvark forums. |