Sponsor's Message

Last night, as the evening wore on, I noticed that my web-surfing was getting slower and slower -- until some relatively simple pages (from normally quite fast sites) were taking an age to load and a couple of file downloads had to be retried several times due to time-outs.

Naturally, when this started happening (about 8pm) I rebooted my modem and PC to make sure it wasn't something wrong there -- but things just started getting slower and slower. Naturally I also checked to make sure that I'd not exceeded my cap and been cut back to dial-up speeds -- and found that I was still 2GB under the limit.

This morning at 6am, everything was back to normal.

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Now call me a cynic but I'm deeply concerned that the launch of Telecom's new 3.5Mbps plans has not been accompanied by a matching hike in bandwidth provisioning further down the cable.

If things continue as they are, I would consider it reasonable to take a case under the Fair Trading Act -- because *my* broadband is neither faster nor cheaper. Indeed, it's slower and more expensive!

Slower because obviously the impact of high contention ratios and faster DSLAM/PC speeds will mean slower throughputs for many at peak times.

More expensive because having to repeatedly restart a large file download can really eat into your data-cap and push you into the realm of over-cap charges.

I also read this morning that Telecom is effectively charging those ISPs who are seeking a Commerce Commission determination more than those who have capitulated to the monopoly telco's pressure and just signed up for whatever crumbs they were offered.

Will the government take action on all this?

Well if the One News investigation into the way Telecom's been doing business in the Cook Islands is anything to go by, I strongly doubt it.

It seems that, in an attempt to protect its monopoly in the Cooks, Telecom had planned to offer their government what amounts to a $4m lump-sum payment (some would call it a bribe) in return for sole-rights to provide telco services there.

This kind of makes you wonder what goes on behind the scenes here in NZ doesn't it?

With Teflon Theresa's empire seemingly immune to any real sanction by the Commerce Commission or other government agency, we can only wonder at the *real* reasons.

And in the meantime, we're being delivered slower, more expensive broadband with a "cheaper, faster" label on it.

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Those who have already made enquiries about sponsoring Aardvark should hear back from me this week - and anyone else who might like to do so should drop me a line ASAP.

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