John Linton
We need some painting done on the outside of our house and have got a couple of quotes from recommendations from friends. Early this morning (before he drives to Newcastle to work on a "big job") 'Terry' dropped in to give us a quote. He, and his team, have done work for us before on three occasions and we have recommended him to several of our friends. He always turns up when he says he will, always completes the work faultlessly and always does the job quickly working long hours each day. He did his usual careful inspection, ensured he knew exactly what sort of paint was required and then gave us a price that was less than the other lowest quote by 80% (lower by 80% - not 80% of). He will do the job for us next weekend.
That domestic situation put in to perspective this report commissioned by the Australian Internet Industry Association I read over breakfast:
http://www.iia.net.au/images/stories/here%201.pdf
It's a long report couched in a lot of words in the way expensive consultants always coat the sparse information they provide but if you skip to Figure 3 in Section 3 you will see a table of plans from Telstra, Optus, Primus and iiNet (also Unwired but that information isn't relevant to the thrust of this rant).
Now I know that large companies can charge far more than small companies (due to their shareholder's money they spend on advertising and freebies) but that table shows prices and download allowances that are very, very uncompetitive with the rates charged by, effectively, every other ISP of any longevity in Australia. Why does any potential buyer of an internet service select plans from those four companies when they are so plainly over priced?
Somewhere towards the end of the report, if you bother to read that far, you will find this 'gem' of an explanation of how they calcualte likely spends based on these plans:
"For example, the monthly cost to a ‘Low’ user of a 0.2GB 12 month plan with a monthly subscription charge of
$29.95, an initial charge of $189 for a modem and an excess data usage fee of $150 per GB would be:
$29.95 + ($189/12) + ((0.5-0.2)*$150) = $90.70"
This seems to imply that the research done indicates that users of these low download included plans actually incur the draconian excess charges levied by companies such as BigPond - if that's true then it appears that the majority of Australian ADSL users are wasting a huge amount of money each month on a slow ADSL service for which they are being massively overcharged.
Must be time for Exetel to re-look at our pricing. (only joking).
If you want the name and contact details of a really low cost, but very high quality, painter - let me know.
If you want some advice on what ADSL service to select and don't think you know enough - ask a more knowledgeable friend.