Broadband price war warms up

Telecom yesterday jumped into the brewing broadband price war by lowering the cost of its highest-speed offering by $10.

The company's Xtra Broadband Adventure offering, at 2 megabits per second with a 10 gigabyte download cap, is now $59.95 a month, down from $69.95.

Nick Brown, spokesman for Xtra, said the price move was in response to an "increasingly competitive market". The company was keen to encourage uptake of the higher-speed plans, he added.

The Commerce Commission sparked the price war three weeks ago when it signalled an intention to lower the per-user wholesale rate Telecom charges internet service providers.

ihug fired the first salvo by lowering the price of its highest-speed plan. At $29.95 a month, ihug's offering beats Telecom's but has a much smaller download cap.

How much

Telecom: 2Mbps download, 10GB data cap - $59.95 a month.
ihug: 2Mbps download, 500MB data cap - $29.95 a month; 20GB data cap - $49.95.
Orcon: 2Mbps download, 1GB data cap - $39.95 a month; 11GB data cap - $49.95.
Slingshot: 2Mbps download, 3GB data cap - $49.95 a month.