update Internode increased the price of its broadband Internet services on Monday, including several high-usage plans being hit with a AU$40 per month hike, and blamed increasing use of YouTube and BitTorrent for the changes.
The company's 100,000 customers were informed by e-mail over the weekend about the price increases, which affect most of the company's connection options.
In a statement, Internode's managing director Simon Hackett said: "Since our last major plan changes, we have seen a boom in data-intensive online services such as BitTorrent and YouTube".
"As a result, average download volumes are increasing across all plans due to customers using these data-rich services. At the same time, the cost of delivering IP traffic has ceased to decline," he said.
Internode also added another 13 broadband plans into its existing portfolio of 30 or so options.
Jim Kellett, product manager at Internode, admitted that the company now had "far too many" broadband plan options, but he said the 13 new plans were necessary to provide existing customers with a route to minimise the price rises.
"As we put these new price points out there, we wanted to give existing customers somewhere to go to.
"If you were on an 80GB plan and you were staring at a AU$35 a month price rise, that is a lot and we recognise that for sure, but we have never had a plan between 40 and 80GB, so we introduced a 60GB plan.
"This means they can avoid the price rise entirely or turn it into a AU$5 rise instead," said Kellett.
Existing customers have an opportunity to avoid the price increase by either moving to a different plan or cancelling their service. The price changes will take affect for all customers on 2 July, 2007.
Full details of the price changes can be found here: Internode price hike.
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demonrob
04/06/2007 03:59 PM
how can they claim that people using what they have paid for as a reason?
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Fozz67
04/06/2007 04:46 PM
It's all about the margins. As more people use more of their allocation the profit margins per plan get smaller. Add in the users who, despite being shaped, continue to download with a P2P client and you begin suffering a loss. That's the beauty of competition. Their plans are still reasonably competitive, especially with you consider their free content and that they don't block or shape any ports (except those exploited by malware). Let's face it, your not exactly stuck when when comes to choosing an ISP these days. If you don't think it is value for money any more change providers.
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Toast76
04/06/2007 05:44 PM
Actually, that's the problem with competition. iiNet raised their prices, Internode raise theirs, everyone else will follow suit. Broadband pricing in Australia is already a joke. This just makes it more so. The worst part of this is that Internode (and iiNet) have long been regarded as forerunners in the consumer friendly pricing of broadband. Now they've just put themselves back in line with Telstra's excessive pricing. $100+ a month for broadband?? What a joke!
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koan
05/06/2007 08:02 AM
Geez, this country has got to "grow up" with its 90's approach to pricing. Charging for both pipe bandwidth and for downloads is a double hit, and stopped a decade ago in other countries.
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benGman
05/06/2007 09:14 AM
Comparing iinet to Internode is ridiculous. One is a greedy company that wants to get customers on their plans with any ploys they can use, and because they haven't put the infrastructure in place they can't supply the demand. The other is more responsible and doesn't offer something it can't provide, and raises prices fairly in plans that deserve to be slugged due to their high usage (and most probably illegal usage at that). And that isn't even considering reliability...
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Danielhughes
05/06/2007 11:21 AM
What a bunch of knobs. As if they will have any customers left after next week.
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Warren
05/06/2007 11:33 AM
I've been a long standing customer of Internode and have never had a problem with them until yesterday when I got the email telling me I'd pay $10 more for my service or I could drop $5 and loose 10GB per month. Yeah right!!! They're prices are now just as bad as the major companies out there. I'm changing providers so they won't get my 60 odd bucks a month from now on.
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Broadbandsmeeagain
05/06/2007 01:38 PM
Account Cancelled
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