Clear to launch flat-rate DSL

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Clear Communications has confirmed that its long-awaited wholesale version of Telecom's JetStream will include an "all you can eat" plan for a fixed monthly rate.

Clear spokeswoman Rochelle Lockley said ClearNet's first digital subscriber line (DSL) service would be launched in "days rather than weeks."

"The network has been in place since the end of January. We are just working out how we are going to sell it and how much it will cost."

Ms Lockley said the service would be offered in a range of plans that would position it between Telecom's two DSL plans: JetStream, which offers target download speeds of 2Mb/sec with fixed traffic allowances, and JetStart, which offers unlimited traffic at a capped speed of 128Kb/sec.

Ms Lockley was unable to say when or how the service would be made available through third-party internet providers.

According to Ms Lockley, Clear's DSL service will be available at all Telecom's DSL-enabled exchanges, but Telecom lines would be be used only to connect the "local tail" from customer to exchange.

"Once you're on the national network, you'll be on the Clear Network."

Clear would this year launch its own DSL service that is completely independent of Telecom, but Ms Lockley said that this service, which would be available only to business customers already connected to Clear's network, was "still some months away."

Meanwhile competition is also heating up among ISPs who are reselling Telecom's JetStart flat-rate DSL service.

According to Telecom spokesman Glen Sowry, "a few hundred" customers are using JetStart, but a number of these have switched from the more costly JetStream.

While 17 ISPs, including Telecom-owned Xtra, have signed up to provide JetStart, only about half of the companies listed on Telecom's JetStart website have so far published their rates.

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