I always knew that broadband in NZ was not the cheapest of things in the world. I’m with Telstra and pay about $80/month for 2mibt up/10mbit downstream with a 20GB cap. That’s $4 per GB. In NZ terms that even is a good deal and I must say I’m happy with the technical service that Telstra offers but all in all I think I could be paying less for communication.
My overall Internet/phone bill (not mobile!) is about $1500/year. That’s a LOT of money and with the average kiwi income being $38,000 that’s prohibitive. Never mind if you’re rural. And I think 10-20GB is the norm for a household or will be very soon. We’ve now got all this talk about fibre-to-the-home but without descent cheaper plans this will go nowhere at all. I think the government should focus on the current broadband, push the technology and force the GB price way down or even force cheap flat-rates. They should take a cue from Sweden (one of the countries NZ government loves to compare itself to). Have a look at this.
I’ll just quote the most interesting part…
| Where? | Monthly cost |
Uplink (Mbps) |
Downlink (Mbps) |
| Stockholm | $11 | 100 | 100 |
| Seoul | $24 | 100 | 100 |
| Hong Kong | $35 | 100 | 100 |
| Tokyo | $61 | 100 | 100 |
| Amsterdam | $127 | 100 | 100 |
| Lafayette, LA, Municipal | $58 | 50 | 50 |
| Lafayette, LA, Cox Cable | $140 | 5 | 50 |
| US, where available, Verizon | $145 | 20 | 50 |
Hmmmm…. So pretty much everyone is getting a better deal than us ($=USD!). Even if it is more expensive they are getting more bandwidth and no download limits. I’d be happy if I could get 5/50 without a limit. Pretty much anything without a cap would be great so that I can finally stop worrying in the last week of a month.
Tags: rant