Clear Net slashes flat rate

By ADAM GIFFORD

Clear Net has dropped its price to match Telecom Xtra's $24.95 a month rate for unlimited internet access.

It is the last of the major internet service providers to bring its pricing in line with Xtra, which fired the latest round in the war for customers on August 10 with its 40 per cent price cut.

Clear spokeswoman Rochelle Lockley said its mass-market offering was the ZFree service, with Clear Net targeted at businesses.

"We always said we didn't think we could drop the mass-market price lower, and we would continue to monitor the business market."

The Clear Net offer includes enhanced e-mail services, three free months of domain-name hosting, the PaySafe Starter Pack for online credit card authorisations, global roaming and a 24-hour helpdesk.

"Beyond that you can pay for extra services, more advanced website hosting and e-commerce transaction capability."

Ms Lockley said Clear Net had 110,000 users - counting multiple-users on each business account - and that 90,000 were active. ZFree had 180,000 registrations and about 90,000 active users.

Xtra spokesman Chris Thompson said it was "closing fast on 310,000" users, more than 20 per cent of them on the flat rate.