Good News: You've Got Faster Speeds; Bad News: You Need A Second Mortgage

from the you-have-to-be-kidding? dept

Okay, so we all know that pricing can be a tricky thing. If you're in a premium market, and you're just looking for a few customers, then perhaps a high price makes sense. However, it seems unfathomable that an Australian ISP would be offering 10Mbps service for an astounding $500 (Australian) per month (a bit under $400 in today's US dollars). Now, obviously, lots of broadband providers like to offer tiered services, with the higher speeds going at a premium rate, but 10Mbps isn't anything all that special -- and anyone who's paying that much for it probably could better spend that cash moving somewhere else that actually offers broadband at a reasonable price.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Zeke, 11 Jan 2005 @ 9:12pm

    Is there something I'm missing?

    I would almost pay $400 for 10 Mbps. That's just over 6 T1's! Most t1's run you at least $500-1000, and that's only a guaranteed 1.5 up/down. Am I missing something here?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike (profile), 11 Jan 2005 @ 10:16pm

      Re: Is there something I'm missing?

      Considering you can get cable/DSL speeds about half that for $30 - $40/month, I have trouble understanding why you'd pay 10x for twice the speed.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Dave G, 11 Jan 2005 @ 10:55pm

        Re: Is there something I'm missing?

        Welcome to the Australian 'broadband' market.
        Basically it goes like this :
        Small population (20 million), large landmass (size of US) = high price for just basic services, let alone "non-essential" things such as high-speed internet.
        For example - it took 6 months for Telstra to install a phone at my sister's property. In order to do it, Telstra had to build a microwave link to the closest town 75km's away. In the meantime, to meet minimum service obligations, they provided a satellite phone, for free. Whilst this kind of example is not common, by no means is this an isolated case.
        This 10Mbps service, like cable, will serve only a lucky small fraction of Australia's population. Me, I pay $59 a month for 512/128 adsl with a 16GB quota. This is 'competitive' in Australia's broadband market. Perhaps you should check out The WhirlPool for an idea of Australian internet.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        b0b, 12 Jan 2005 @ 5:23am

        Re: Is there something I'm missing?

        Where? Not around here you can't. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area and the best Comcast can do is 3mbit down, 256kbps up. Oh, but it's not available in many areas. My apartment complex cannot get DSL. I have a T1 in my apartment for a small web hosting business, it costs me $530/mo.

        Comcast charges $65/mo for their cable modems, and if I was to get DSL in the area, it'd be about the same price (not counting any of the typical SBC/Yahoo promo deals)

        $400 for a full 10mbit feed? that would be *great* as long as they don't cripple the hell out of it by restricting services and/or blocking ports, like a lot of companies do. :(

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Lorenzo, 12 Jan 2005 @ 4:39am

    No Subject Given

    I pay €350 per month for a flat HDSL and it s the best deal I could get in Italy

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    b0b, 12 Jan 2005 @ 5:24am

    BIG omission

    "However, the 10Mbps service costs over 16 times as much as most basic ADSL services, priced at $500 per month with downloads capped at 100GB. "

    It's CAPPED at 100gb?

    Weak. Caps suck.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.