Surf's up as a Telecom slip works to internet users' advantage

By PAUL BRISLEN

Tens of thousands of high-speed internet users stand to benefit from a flaw in one of Telecom's flagship products.

The telecoms giant's ageing and complex billing system allows customers to overrun their internet data download limits for free.

Normally, subscribers who reach their monthly traffic limit - which allows downloads equivalent in size to three full-length movies - are restricted to dial-up internet speed.

While the JetStream Surf flat-rate plan has a stated monthly traffic limit of 10GB (gigabytes) of data, one user has been told Telecom has no ability to reduce a user's speed at the moment and that some clients are exploiting the flaw to send and receive as much data as they can.

At least one user reportedly sent and received about 120GB of traffic without paying for the additional data - which could cost at least $5500 a month.

Telecom's internet and online marketing manager, Chris Thompson, said the automated speed limitation process would not begin until September at the earliest when a new billing system would be introduced.

"But we can do it manually today if we need to," he said.

Thompson said at present Telecom was not limiting customers' speeds and would monitor high-end users to see just what they were capable of.

"We've been using it as a bit of a test-bed to see what people will do and what their usage habits are. There is a small number of very high-end users out there."

The Surf flat-rate plan is, in part, Telecom's answer to demand for less restrictive traffic limits. Telecom broadband products have a range of traffic limits starting at 500MB (megabytes) a month.

While seeming to have one of the cheapest broadband products of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, monthly limits on Telecom's JetStream products are set so low that users pay excess usage charges, driving up the true cost of the connection. The flat-rate plan does not increase the cost but the speed is supposed to be restricted once the monthly limit is reached.

The chief executive of the Telecommunications Users Association, Ernie Newman, said New Zealand's broadband uptake was one of the lowest in the OECD in part because of Telecom's charging regime.


Telecom's loophole

The flaw is in managing JetStream Surf flat-rate plans.

Telecom says about 2000 new broadband users sign up each week, most on the JetStream Surf plans.

Surf flat-rate gives users a connection speed of 256Kbps (kilobits per second) and has a monthly traffic limit of 10 gigabytes after which connection speed is reduced to 64Kbps.

New Zealand ranks 22nd in the OECD for broadband uptake, ahead of Hungary, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Poland, Turkey, Greece and the Slovak Republic.