Ihug unveils fast internet plan to take on Telecom

By CHRIS BARTON

Ihug has launched new fast internet plans to show the type of competitive offerings it will be able to provide when Telecom is forced to unbundle bitstream access.

The three levels of plans all offer connections at the sub-broadband speed of 128 kilobits per second (Kbps) but ihug general manager of sales and marketing Duncan Shand said the service was a "hidden gem" because it was a lot faster than dial-up access and had the benefit of being "always on".

The plans do away with all excess charges and there are no costs to existing users for changing.

"One of the reasons for the slow uptake of broadband in New Zealand is that customers don't like paying excess fees," Shand said.

The "Lite" plan sets a new low benchmark of $45 a month for fast access with a monthly data cap of 5GB.

It distinguishes between national and international traffic and peak and off-peak periods.

The "Medium" plan provides a 15GB month data cap for $55 a month, and the "Heavy" plan gives users unlimited national traffic and a monthly international data cap of 5GB in peak time and 15GB in off peak (from 2am to 2pm) for $65 a month.

If users exceed the monthly cap their access is throttled back to dial-up speed.

Ideally, ihug would like to offer similar deals to customers at speeds of 256Kbps and more, but Shand said the company was hampered by Telecom not wholesaling a service above 128Kbps.

The 128Kbps service offered by ihug is similar to Xtra's Jetstart service, which costs $65 a month with a monthly cap of 5Gb on international traffic.

Shand said ihug was able to offer different caps because it could call on its Australian parent iinet's buying clout for bandwidth.

He said customers would have to wait for more competitive offerings at 256Kbps until wholesale bitstream access became available.

In the meantime it had little choice but to resell Xtra's new 256Kbps Jetstream plans.

The Xtra plans include a flat-rate service for $70 a month and a low-priced entry level service for $40 a month for existing phone customers.