Here is the information directly from Telecom. There was a conference call this afternoon:

The monthly data allowance will increase on four Telecom residential plans with customers receiving significantly more data for the same price. For example the Pro plan will now provide customers almost three times more data each month with a change from 15 GigaBytes to 40 GigaBytes (GB).

The monthly data increase on all business plans will be between two and five times, for example the business Starter plan moves from 3GB to 15GB each month for the same monthly price.

The upload speed cap will also be removed on the Explorer and Adventure plans, meaning all Telecom plans priced $49 and above are now uncapped* in both upload and download speed and optimised for ADSL2+ technology.

Affected customers will automatically receive the data increase during October and speed changes will be applied over the next two months.

“We’ve made changes to our plans to reflect our customers’ needs so they can do more of what they love online for the same price. Some of the changes also reflect the advancement in Broadband technology and the roll out of ADSL2+,” says Ralph Brayham, Telecom’s General Manager Broadband.

Telecom has been upgrading its technology since April 2007 to ADSL2+ and the technology is already available in places where hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders live and work. 

The ADSL2+ roll out is well progressed in metro centres of Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton, Christchurch and Dunedin. Over the coming months, ADSL2+ technology will be installed in more towns across New Zealand such as Timaru, Palmerston North Central, Invercargill Central and East.

Customers will benefit from increased internet performance if they live within two kilometres of an ADSL2+ enabled exchange or street cabinet.  Feedback indicates many of these customers are seeing a notable difference in their internet performance when surfing and downloading in areas that have already been upgraded with ADSL2+.

Internet speeds are always variable, and the same factors affect ADSL2+ as other technologies, including the customers’ location, plan and modem type as well as house wiring and computer set up.

Not all customers will be able to access ADSL2+ and customers can visit www.telecom.co.nz/adsltwoplus and use an address-checking tool to see if their area is ADSL2+ enabled, and to see the plans and modems that are optimised.

Telecom residential Broadband customers also receive $150 of free value added services, including a free McAfee internet security package.

Screeb:

edit 2: I suppose you could go onto a business plan (are there any criteria for doing that?), but you wouldn't want to bust your cap!

No, consumers can sign up to business plans provided they are not in contract or they must pay the consumer disconnection fee. Business plans also include a specialist help desk and an included 2Wire gateway on a 24month term ($149 disconnection).

nzbnw

freitasm:
Changes to business plans...

Bung: So they've done nothing for those on GO, their most popular plan.

munchkin:

Bung: So they've done nothing for those on GO, their most popular plan.

That's because a data cap increase for Go occurred in July of 2007.

Overclocker01: When will everyone be switched over to the new plans?

edit 2: I suppose you could go onto a business plan (are there any criteria for doing that?), but you wouldn't want to bust your cap!

Also according to the Computerworld article

 "Brayham says Telecom is also allowing more local software update downloads to move traffic from international connections to the local network and save money.

It is also investing in http caching to boost performance and save customers megabytes on their plans using network caching company Akamai."

When did Telecom introduce differentiated charging for local traffic?

Article:Brayham says he is comfortable with recent improvements in Telecom's broadband performance, as measured by Epitiro. He says Telecom has moved from the middle of the pack to number three and will work to improve that further.