Optus puts unlimited users on capped plans

ZDNet Australia was contacted by a disgruntled reader who claimed Optus had mistakenly put him in the wrong plan.

-I, and apparently many people like me, signed up for a one-year contract under the "My Netstats" arrangements, before the ridiculous new download caps were introduced on the Optus@Home cable Internet service," he said. -Today, we have found that Optus has mistakenly put us on the 3Gb capped plan."

Organisers of the online broadband community site Whirlpool claim they have received numerous posts from people reporting they are victims of the same mistake. On contacting Optus, Whirlpool claims to have been told it was a technical error and would take several days to resolve.

-I will certainly hit 3Gb before then, and have my bandwidth unfairly cut back to 56K until they fix it," the ZDNet reader said.

Whirlpool has advised its members to check their bills to confirm they are on the correct plan.

Optus has been contacted by ZDNet Australia, and said it is investigating the problem.

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I am an OptusNet Cable custome ...Anonymous -- 03/08/02

I am an OptusNet Cable customer who is under an existing "Choices" contract & I have had my bandwidth unfairly cut back to about 20Kbps today. I noticed that "My NetStats" page had been replaced by "My DataMonitor" on the 3 GB plan. I exceeded the 3 GB monthly cap within 36 hours of the start of the month. This morning, before my download speeds were capped, it only took a couple of seconds to view "news.com.au". Now, I consistently wait about 40 seconds to see anything & a further 30 seconds for the page to complete downloading. I spoke to an OptusNet Cable customer service representative today who advised that my plan would be corrected & I would be back on "Netstats". I hope the problem is corrected soon as I pity those OptusNet Cable users who exceed their 3 GB limit before the end of the calendar month.

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3GB in 36hours. People like yo ...Darrkon -- 03/08/02

3GB in 36hours.

People like you are the reason i am GLAD AS ALL HELL that optus have done this.

How the hell can you use so much data in so little time, thats bullshit and we both know it. You cant possibly be downloading freeware or shareware all the time and cause this sort of excessive useage.

I support optus useage plans 100%. No wonder MY internet access prices kept jumping. Its coz of people like you burning up all the friggen bandwitdth.

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Downloading CD images of linux ...Luke Yelavich -- 03/08/02

Downloading CD images of linux distributions can use up that cap quite easily. I know one wouldn't want to do that, but it is quite possible to do it with software obtainable legally.

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Darrkon: many of us have perfe ...Anonymous -- 04/08/02

Darrkon: many of us have perfectly legimiate needs to use high bandwidth. (For example, I work in a creative agency and I am downloading creative resource and tools from the 'net.)

If you're happy to use broadband for email and other unintensive purposes... that's your call. Don't inflict your (lack of) needs on the rest of us.

When I hit my 3Gb cap, in a few days' time, it's not going to make a jot of difference to you and your selfish desire to restrain others. The cable running down my street will just have a bunch of unused capacity.

This story is about Optus not providing the service which we high bandwidth users have paid for. Not about whether your uninspiring use of the internet should be inflicted on the rest of us.

So pull your head in, or Optus will just keep lowering the caps until even you are impacted by them.

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I have no problem if you use 3 ...Anonymous -- 05/08/02

I have no problem if you use 3GB in a few days. I do have a problem that I should subsidise you though. Why should I pay the same amount of money for downloading 1GB a month as you downloading 30GB? Traffic costs money. And heavy users should pay their way. End of story.

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Rob: You are playing into the ...Anonymous -- 05/08/02

Rob: You are playing into the telco's hands.

How do you define "heavy usage"? 3Gb per month? 5Gb per month? 200Gb per month?

It's BROADBAND FFS! It's intended to provide heavy duty data traffic.

You are clearly sitting there saying: these new caps don't affect me because (at the moment) my usage sits comfortably within the (current) download cap.

So, how will you feel when only 1Gb per month is declared by a telco to be "heavy usage"?

Having blithely accepted these ridiculous caps now - in fact, you are defacto supporting them in your post - you are setting the precedent for further gouging later.

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There is only one way to do th ...Alan Richardson -- 05/08/02

There is only one way to do this!

User pays, simple as that.

If I think I only need 10 apples to feed me this month, I buy 10 apples. If I think I need 1000 apples, I buy 1000 (and MAYBE get a discount for bulk purchase).

This has been coming since the Internet began, and makes absolute commercial sense. Personally, I'm happy to be placed in a bandwidth range (if I need more I will buy more). Be happy that you don't pay per MB fullstop. If people dislike paying for what they use, they shouldn't use. And that, folks, IS the bottom line.

Be well,

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Gobbledygeek: I DO support the ...Anonymous -- 05/08/02

Gobbledygeek:
I DO support the idea of caps, and user pays. It is no difference than using your phone - should somebody who makes one STD phonecall a month pay as much as somebody who makes 50? By people watching how much they download, I get lightning fast downloads.
I do want to say that I believe that the charges aren't proportional though. The amount the telco's charge for excess megabytes (if they do) is ridiculous. 15c per megabyte? It should be 2 or 3 cents. If the content you are downloading isn't worth this much to you - then you shouldn't be downloading it.
Throttling clearly isn't broadband.

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The biggest bugbear in all thi ...Anonymous -- 05/08/02

The biggest bugbear in all this is not all traffic costs the same to deliver to your PC.
Non Optus traffic is the most expensive ~9c/Mb
International is next, at ~1c/Mb (Southern Cross)
Optus local the least of the order of 9c/Gb

So someone downloading 3Gb from AARNET mirror costs the same as someone downloading 3Mb from bigpond.

So provided Optus is honest (yeh I know pink pigs and all) be careful about user pays.

joat

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Had to say I found the positio ...Anonymous -- 05/08/02

Had to say I found the positioning of an ad for Optus Broadband next to (immediate left of) this article quite funny.
ZDNet obviously has a sense of humour.

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There are days I use 3Gb in 24 ...Anonymous -- 05/08/02

There are days I use 3Gb in 24 hours, there are days I use 3Mb in 24 hours. It all balances out. Having a cap on is the worst thing Optus can do, and has done. I pay for high speed connection, why should I get 50Kbps? I might as well get modem. I think Optus was trying to get some market share, now they have a bit, so they start inrtoducing caps. Instead of things getting better, cheaper, it is going the opposite way. There are other vendors dying to get our business. Noting stoping me to switch...If I have to.

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The Telcos are basically disho ...K.Styles (A very,very disgruntled user) -- 05/08/02

The Telcos are basically dishonest.
T(H)elstra did the same as Optus. They offered Uncapped Broadband contracts & then changed to capped services as soon as they had cornered the market. I also suspect, they made such a hash of the deployment, the network couldn't stand the strain, so they took the easy option of limiting user downloads.
If you let Optus get away with this, you will be in the same "NO WIN" situation as us T(H)elstra users. I can't change. There is NO choice in my street. Other Telcos offering broadband are no REAL option (price wise). They ALL jumped on the CAPPED price offering as soon as T(H)elstra did it without suffering a legal challenge.
All telcos except Optus are constrained by the
T(H)elstra infastructure monopoly and wholesale buying price which until recently was the same as MY buying price.
Thanks to the ACCC, T(H)elstra was forced to reduce their wholesale price under sufferance!! and threat of a massive penalty.

Optus doesn't compete with T(H)elstra, it just follows suit!!

These phone company contracts aren't worth the paper (Web pages) they are written on!!

People who wave fingers and moan at the heavy users, will eventually find they are also caught by the price cap & pay a fortune for bandwidth at the 15-19 cents/MB depending on who provides their service.
I don't have a problem paying extra for bandwidth. My complaint is that it is WAY over priced. My contract was an uncapped service when I started using ADSL. It is now capped at 1GB because I can't afford to pay for the higher priced service. I have curtailed any use of my ADSL that would push me over the limit, because I cannot afford to pay for the excess at
T(H)elstras inflated price.
The speed of Broadband, is now its only attraction. I would revert to POTS and my 56K modem in a flash otherwise.

The telcos have NO restriction on their contracts. They change them whenever they feel like it!!! HELLO
No company except our grand & glorious Telcos can change contracts mid-stream. A contract is a contract & binding. Attempting to change it is subject to legal dispute.
Regretably the average Telco user is in no position to challenge them legally. The Telcos have an unlimited bucket of money to defend themselves in court. We the average user do not!!!

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We were on that crap 10 times ...Anonymous -- 06/08/02

We were on that crap 10 times the average user but they can't tell us what "The average user" is thaen as many others were put on the 3gig limmit prematurely. but we weren't just capped they cut us of and when we spoke to them they said we had gone over our limmit and after many of thier people giving us the runaround they finnally admited that we couldn't have seen it coming with the wrong status monitor.(after first telling us we had signed up for the 3gig plan then relizing they stuffed up).then we were told the stat mon would be reset to 0 to compensate for it.So we waited patiently but still no connection.So we rang agian and then were told another bull story and ended up back online with the stats monitor at 12 and told if we didn't get it under 10 in three days we would be cut off.Thankfully we made it.But now we were supposed to go on the 3gig plan as of the first of this month.We still have the old stats monitor and aren't really sure what to do.What do you think?Should we download as much as possible and battle it out when they cut us off??? or simply keep goin and hope they don't notice?

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Yes, and it's good to see the ...Anonymous -- 06/08/02

Yes, and it's good to see the Telcos pushing Broadband movies and Real-Time Time Video to the Home Users as well - check the Tel$tra Broadband ad on TV.

Sorta makes you wonder what they're actually trying to achieve here - they're complaining about the heavy users pulling the Systems down but they're actively trying to encourage heavy usage? Give us a break here...

Go have a gander at the Whirlpool site here in Australia - www.whirlpool.net.au - and read the (intelligent) criticisms, comments and observations directed at the Broadband Telcos.

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To Darrkon, Hear, hear! Anonymous -- 20/08/02

To Darrkon,

Hear, hear!

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i recently found out i was put ...Anonymous -- 26/08/02

i recently found out i was put on the 3gig when my contract hasn't even finished yet. I called them a few days ago and they said they would correct it. When i called back again to find out how long it will take they told me that they didn't know what to do and that someone will contact me in a few days to tell me what's going on. Should i start complaining to someone or wait until they call me back.

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Comments from Whirlpool need t ...Anonymous -- 15/09/02

Comments from Whirlpool need to be taken with a certain amount of skepticism.It appears that this site is a sponsored anti-Telstra entity run by a young man with a permanent chip on his shoulder. There have been a number of "meltdowns" in the discussion forums of late as the sites "owner" attempts to impose his own opinions on all discussion.

User comments on this site are generally immature attempts at boosting self importance.

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After this 3gig plan has set i ...Anonymous -- 12/11/02

After this 3gig plan has set in, I have been very unhappy! im almost considering cancelling after this, ive been an @home user for a few years now, my sister is in the US, she gets unlimited cable internet @ 1.5mbps for around $70 AUD?
whats wrong with this country.
SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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