Big Time plan removal

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Big Time plan removal

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697 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#333211 22-May-2010 07:51

SmartDumbAss:
Hmm, no usage... Do you have TiVo???

Another failure. TiVo's usage is still charging so they turn off specific customers usage... I'm not sure how well known this fact is considering they have missed their sales target in a BIG way.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/tivo-sales-miss-target-118459

Yes I have TiVo, but my usage was not showing before that though..
The CSR I spoke to last night put me on hold for 5 mins then came back and said:
We don't record your usage as you are on Bigtime which is unlimited so there is no need to record it..

I would still have liked to know how much we were using monthly though so I could work out what sort of plan we need to aim for once bigtime stops..

There wouldn't be a record of it anywhere would there doozy if I give you my account number ?

crazed

484 posts

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#333225 22-May-2010 10:05

Ragnor:
Personally I have a lot of faith that Pacific Fibre will go ahead and succed it's backed by some serious legends in the NZ tech industry. They are very serious about bringing international transit costs for NZ'ers down.

Pacific Fibre cables up and running, 1-3 years away
FFTH is more like 10 years away.

Tend to agree there. I honestly can't see FTTH within 10 years in NZ, widepread introduction anyway, I few area's have had it installed by its limited to a handful of locations.

If I could get a stable 10Mb down 750Kb up DSL connection I'd be happy, but at present DSL connections are so unstable its not funny.

CraZeD,
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tdgeek

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#333227 22-May-2010 10:18

----Why couldn't Telecom issue a statement like that to the users of Big time??? They obviously didn't listen or take the time to listen to there clients like Comcast were... You don't see Comcast just shutting down the plan.

Comcast did not listen to their clients in order to decide to set the 250Gb cap. They saw their unlimited service being abused. To the point that the throughput in the local area or exchange was affecting the majority of users doing what they do online, surfing, email, youtube, gaming, etc, etc

hungugu

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Geek
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#333229 22-May-2010 10:27

users cannot possibly abuse a "unlimited" service, otherwise it's not "unlimited".

tdgeek

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#333230 22-May-2010 10:36

The proposede Tasman cable.

I agree that on the surface, competition should have a beneficial effect on costs for international. But, myself having a financial background, I cannot see how those numbers will crunch well.

If u take NZ now, by the time a new cable is laid , our population and the broadband population will be largely unchanged. Currently, SXC has a cost based on the value of the investment buiding the cable, the cost of running it each year (admin, R&M), and the need to keep aside revenue for upgrades. Simplistically, these costs, plus their margin is the costs we pay on our plans. If you add in a new cable, their costs of that new cable have to be added in somewhere, less any reduction in prices. Thats a lot of extra costs to be spread amongst a largely fixed, and LOW number of users.

Analogy. If u owned a corner dairy, you will find that your annual revenue, costs and margin remain similar year to year. If someone made a new dairy over the road, there are twice the costs, but the same number of annual customers will patronise, so effectively the number of customers per dairy will halve (generalisation). Ok, lets reduce prices to compete. So, we still have the same number of customers, and now reduced revenue due to competition on price. Reduced margin, reduced ability to expand.

Going back to broadband, you may argue that the reduced prices due to competition will cause more data usage and we will all be better off? NOOOOOOOOO. Yes, the reduced prices may allow you to use more data but wher are those extra costs going to go? Forget data usage, forget plans, at the end of the day we as broadband users pay for all of these costs, the xtra costs of a new cable wont disappear into thin air they need to be paid and that will be by the same number of users that existed before.

Food for thought.

PhoenixNZ

52 posts

Master Geek

#333238 22-May-2010 11:44

Countries overseas have unlimited data caps, why can't we have them here in New Zealand:

Yes, other countries have unlimited data plans however most of those countries see most of their traffic being "local" (as in within their own countries). They dont have to pay for access to overseas bandwidth (such as the Southern Cross cable).

That isn't the case here in NZ and a high proportion of data traffic goes overseas to either Australia or the US.

Telecom should have seen this coming and never offered the plan:

If potential problems with technology stopped things every single time, we would still be in the stone age because no one would want to take the risk that something went wrong.

Telecom probably didn't predict that people would find programs/fixes that bypass their traffic management. Its those people who have made this plan unviable for Telecom to continue.

I have my own mind which is not that of my company. As such do not mistake my opinions as being those of any company you may or may not think I work for.

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freitasm

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#333239 22-May-2010 11:55

crazed:
Ragnor:
Personally I have a lot of faith that Pacific Fibre will go ahead and succed it's backed by some serious legends in the NZ tech industry. They are very serious about bringing international transit costs for NZ'ers down.

Pacific Fibre cables up and running, 1-3 years away
FFTH is more like 10 years away.

Tend to agree there. I honestly can't see FTTH within 10 years in NZ, widepread introduction anyway, I few area's have had it installed by its limited to a handful of locations.

And even so it will be a problem. We have a few new areas being built with fiber to the home around. But what happens when the only cable you have is fiber, and the new owner just wants a POTS dialtone?

You have to start with new building specifications. Plan for telephone adapter devices to be installed. VoIP is not what everyone wants when they just want a dialtone - although some people on Orcon might be getting VoIP without knowing, already.

It gets complicated and FTTH is not going be cheap for builders, or people moving into houses where the copper is missing...

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#333240 22-May-2010 11:58

----------Telecom probably didn't predict that people would find programs/fixes that bypass their traffic management. Its those people who have made this plan unviable for Telecom to continue.

Thats correct. There have always been the low users, the majority in the middle range, and the high users. All of these average out. But when we have many doing terabytes and more importantly, in peak times, that has a cost and affects that majority who are doing the normal internet activities in peak time.

We have seen Big Time users doing plenty off peak, thats fine, but even then we see users complaining over slower speeds off peak, that is probably throughput caused by other Big Time users, probably in their local area. So if there can be an effect off peak, imagine the effect on peak?

The traffic management was to reduce high continual usage in peak so the majprity can enjoy being online. Bypassing shaping causes the problem.

I do not know what changes may or may not be made to plans when BT terminates, but I do hope we can satisfy the majority of the majority.

freitasm

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#333241 22-May-2010 11:58

By the way:

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SmartDumbAss

37 posts

Geek

#333264 22-May-2010 13:55

cafeg:
SmartDumbAss:
Hmm, no usage... Do you have TiVo???

Another failure. TiVo's usage is still charging so they turn off specific customers usage... I'm not sure how well known this fact is considering they have missed their sales target in a BIG way.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/tivo-sales-miss-target-118459

Yes I have TiVo, but my usage was not showing before that though..
The CSR I spoke to last night put me on hold for 5 mins then came back and said:
We don't record your usage as you are on Bigtime which is unlimited so there is no need to record it..

I would still have liked to know how much we were using monthly though so I could work out what sort of plan we need to aim for once bigtime stops..

There wouldn't be a record of it anywhere would there doozy if I give you my account number ?

The CSR you spoke to you didn't know what he was talking about and it's because you have TiVo that your usage is no measured meaning get off Big Time and go on to the Go plan.

Before you got the TiVo there was the promotion for free upload but the problem with that was all Big Time customers couldn't see either their upload (to be expected) or there downloads (unexpected). A bit of a glitch with the promotion.

My advice: Go on the cheapest plan possible and wait for them to finally fix it (you'll know when your speeds are throttled ;-) ) and then change your plan the next day.

No usage in usage meter = no usage measured!!!

I'm sure (maybe) doozy knows all about this but nothing has been mentioned to the public/customers...

gazzabnaki

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#333268 22-May-2010 14:02

I have been with Xtra since 1990 - if there isnt a decent BB plan with at least 80GB pmth on offer from you d..ks within 2 months then I am off to Xnet

Telecom your excuse is weak and typical - you could just throttle the overusers at a certain limit if you wanted too - try something a little bit more imaginative instead of just canning the plan - smacks of failure and lack of imaginative marketing - Bigtime and XT WTG Telecom!!!!

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PhoenixNZ

52 posts

Master Geek

#333271 22-May-2010 14:16

gazzabnaki: I have been with Xtra since 1990 - if there isnt a decent BB plan with at least 80GB pmth on offer from you d..ks within 2 months then I am off to Xnet

Telecom your excuse is weak and typical - you could just throttle the overusers at a certain limit if you wanted too - try something a little bit more imaginative instead of just canning the plan - smacks of failure and lack of imaginative marketing - Bigtime and XT WTG Telecom!!!!

Its idiotic to assume that Telecom hasn't already tried multiple options to fixing the problem. Do you really think that their first thought when confronted was "lets annoy our customers by removing the plan"?

Telecom is a business and they have to balance cost vs benefit and if the cost of fixing the issue outweighs the benefit then there is no sense in them continuing the plan.

Dont blame Telecom, the plan worked exactly as it was supposed to until a small minority went out of their way to try and avoid the traffic management which ruined it for everyone else.

I have my own mind which is not that of my company. As such do not mistake my opinions as being those of any company you may or may not think I work for.

gazzabnaki

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#333273 22-May-2010 14:27

They must be idiotic if they cant think of a solution - cap and throttle back to 56kbps at 100GB would seem the easiest answer - you obviously have a vested interest in Telecom as youre so quick to jump to their defense - if they were serious about customer retention then they should have had an alternative already sorted before they pulled the rug on loyal customers

PhoenixNZ

52 posts

Master Geek

#333279 22-May-2010 15:01

gazzabnaki: They must be idiotic if they cant think of a solution - cap and throttle back to 56kbps at 100GB would seem the easiest answer - you obviously have a vested interest in Telecom as youre so quick to jump to their defense - if they were serious about customer retention then they should have had an alternative already sorted before they pulled the rug on loyal customers

100gb at full speed would put considerable strain on the network. The whole point of Big Time was to provide a plan which provided as much usage as people needed without impacting the network. Unfortunately people found a way around the measures put in place to provide this and obviously the cost of trying to find and implement a solution to this outweighs the benefits to Telecom for doing so. Not to mention that any solution they find will likely be undermined in some other way which means they will be continuously having to develop new solutions for those dishonest people. That costs money which they simply dont want to spend.

I have my own mind which is not that of my company. As such do not mistake my opinions as being those of any company you may or may not think I work for.

Cymro

283 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#333287 22-May-2010 15:40

gazzabnaki: They must be idiotic if they cant think of a solution - cap and throttle back to 56kbps at 100GB would seem the easiest answer - you obviously have a vested interest in Telecom as youre so quick to jump to their defense - if they were serious about customer retention then they should have had an alternative already sorted before they pulled the rug on loyal customers

Except that they would get hung drawn and quartered by the ComCom for changing the plan after marketing it as something else (even if they offered people the chance to walk away with no fee's).

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