I’ve written in the past about what I think of the so-called broadband deals offered by the major players in the market, but a reminder now and again doesn’t go astray – if only so I can avoid the frustrating exercise of trying to help people who are not happy with their internet access arrangements.
Here’s the unbiased facts about the deals offered by Bigpond and my opinions about them. Other Telcos and ISP’s have similar deals/plans of course, but Bigpond is the one I come into contact with nearly every week and I know more about them, so I’ll concentrate on their deals in this article. I believe I have got their current plan details right, but check yourself on their website to be sure – see the links at the bottom of this article. Of course, at The ‘Heads we can’t get ADSL2+ – Telstra haven’t provided the upgraded equipment for our area and it’s unlikely they will for the foreseeable future, so we are stuck with plain old ADSL1. This article applies to plans providing that service only.
Edit 26th June: Have you received the ‘Now Everyone Can Be Online At The Same Time’ Bigpond mailout? This is very, very deceptive advertising. Nowhere in the ad or online – unless you look carefully into the plan details for the $59.95 Liberty 12Gb Plan – does it tell you that the speed of this connection is 256k download / 64k upload speed. The ad shows 6 people online at the same time on this plan – do you realise that each of them will have an experience worse than dialup on this setup? Work it out yourself – 256 divided by 6 is 42k – a dialup connection usually manages 45-48k download speed! Technically they are correct – 6 users can be online at the same time – but in reality, they can’t do a lot besides yelling at each other ‘why is this so damn slow!!’. It’s would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious – Bigpond/Telstra know that anyone who signs up with this deal will have to upgrade to the $69.95 1500/256 or the $89.95 ADSL2+ (not at the ‘Heads) plans to be able to use the internet AND you have to have your home phone with them to get those prices too.
1. Broadband speed:
Firstly, in my opinion their ‘Fast’ 256/64k plan is not broadband – sure it’s faster than dialup, in the same way a tractor is faster than walking, but would you buy one for your family car? The absolute minimum I’d consider to be broadband is 512/128k, but tell someone in the UK that and they’d roll on the floor laughing at you …
2. ‘Free’ download data limits:
Sure, the $29.95 a month 200Mb plan might suit someone who checks their email a few times a week and very occasionally uses Google to find an online business or something. But that’s all you can do with 200Mb. Just updating your anti-virus program and keeping Windows up to date (which you must do) can very often use up 100Mb a month and let’s face it – a dozen photos attached to an email from Auntie Ruth – who has no idea how to resize the pictures from her digital camera – can easily soak up what you have leftover. Then you really start to pay through the nose. See point 3.
3. Excess data charges:
Signup for a Bigpond broadband deal at $29.95 a month and you will be paying excess data charges if you exceed the 200Mb monthly data included. These charges are 15c per Mb. Doesn’t sound much does it? But this is a fact - go over your 200Mb by double your allowance again – say an extra 400Mb, which a teenager watching YouTube videos could easily do in one evening’s ‘entertainment’ – and you will be paying at least sixty dollars on top of your usual monthly internet bill.
4. ‘Half price’ or ‘free’ deals:
Find me one of these that don’t have strings attached and I’ll kiss the cat (yuck). The usual string is an extended contract – in Bigpond’s case, 24 months – so if you are unhappy you either have to pay the fees to quit the contract early or change to another Bigpond plan – all more expensive of course. Sure, you can upgrade and their next plan is a faster speed plan but with only 400Mb for $20 a month more or an ‘unlimited’ (actually ’shaped’ after 12Gb) plain old 256/64 plan for $59.95 a month.
But what if I want real broadband and a decent amount of data? (say, 1500/256 speed and 1-2Gb a month) - “sure’”, they say,“our Liberty 12Gb Plan is the one you want, only $79.95 a month if you don’t have your phone with us”. Well yippee. I could also go and throw my wallet in the river once a month too…
But wait, there’s more. Bigpond (and probably some too others by now, I haven’t checked for a while) charge you not only for the data you download (emails, webpages, updates etc are all downloaded data) – but also for what you send. While this may only be around 10% of downloads, it still adds up – and the vast majority of other providers don’t charge a cent for uploads.
So, in summary, and as you may have gathered, I don’t like companies who, in my opinion, are not upfront about what you are getting for your money. I would have absolutely no problem with any of them if they carefully explained to every customer what their deals are. I am the first to admit that some of their offerings are fine for very, very limited internet use – say, an elderly lady that just wants to keep in touch with relatives. Some of them are also fine for families that go through a lot of data a month and aren’t fussed about the speed of the connection – they are certainly not cheap by comparison with hundreds of other companies – but fine otherwise. After all, the convenience of getting ‘barely broadband’ that’s charged on the same bill as your phone is a big plus I’d be happy to pay $30 a month more for… hmm.
But the reality is that they don’t do this. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve assisted who tell me (and I’ve no reason to doubt them) that they were told by the sales person they spoke to lines similar to these (and these are not any particular company):
‘Honestly, 200Mb (or 70Mb in the case of one outfit) is plenty a month even for a family’. — nope it’s not
‘Oh yes, with our 256k plans you can use a webcam to send live video of yourself’ – no, you can’t
‘Our plans are among the cheapest and give excellent value for money’ — no, they aren’t!
If Bigpond just offered a $40 per month plan (even a 256/64 one) that gave you 2Gb (2000Mb) a month and still charged you for the excess data, I’d happily advise people to go with them. That’s quite reasonable – it’s by no means cheap – but it’s reasonable. They’d retain their existing customers and probably get many more – but they don’t. Why? Well, I don’t know but if I was to hazard a guess, I’d say the excess data charges are the key.
They know that most users just cough up the odd $10-$20 a month now and then and don’t give it a thought. The end result is that they reap a fee of around $100-$120 per gigabyte for providing basic internet access. Sorry, but that just isn’t fair. $5-$10 per gigabyte is the going rate from many internet providers. And that’s a fact.
Like anything, you must investigate these deals for yourself to find out if they are suitable for you. If you can’t, call a friend or relative for advice or ask a professional for help. The last person to ask is the one who calls you out of the blue at dinner time and attempts to sign you up on the spot. Would you ask a used car salesman for his opinion as to whether his cars or his services are good value? Well maybe you would, but I can’t help you if so!
I’m happy to offer unbiased assistance to you. I don’t have any ‘arrangements’ with my internet provider to promote them or anyone else but I have done the spade work myself and continue to monitor the various companies and their plans (I’m always looking for the best value myself of course!).
There are many internet companies out there. Some haven’t been around long enough for me to give an opinion about while some have been in the market for years. Some have (or had – things change rapidly in this field) excellent customer service and most can provide a good product at reasonable cost.
The bottom line is this : the most you should have to pay for fast (ie: over 1500k download speed) broadband with fair free monthly download data amounts (more than 1-2Gb per month with no excess data charges, just ’shaped’ or speed-capped if you go over the limit) little, if any fixed term contracts, no bundling with a phone contract deals and helpful customer assistance is $50-$55 a month.
In fact, I pay just $49.95 for all the above and a lot more free data than that, and many other people do the same – so, please shop around!
Links that may help:
Broadband Choice
Broadband choice Bigpond plan summary
Bigpond Plans/Offers page
APC Mag’s story ‘It’s Official: Bigpond is too expensive’ (written in 2007 and nothing much has changed since then!)
Gamer hit with $6000 Bigpond bill
The cost of RAM used to be so high that any way we could avoid having to pay hundreds to upgrade our systems was worth trying. I dug out an old pricelist from 1999 and a 64Mb SDRAM module retailed then at $190! New computers were (and are still) sold brand new with insufficient memory installed – early XP computers were commonly sold with 128Mb and we used to bag Microsoft for their appallingly slow operating system and most of us stayed with Windows 98.
