$2 Per GB Thread

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › $2 Per GB Thread

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38 posts

Geek

#346541 30-Jun-2010 00:07

this is a classic case of, "if it appears to good to be true , it prob is" with the way telecom works, the destruction of big time shouldn't be a shock to anyone

NonprayingMantis

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#346544 30-Jun-2010 00:14

Lias: I've spent about NZD$80 on steam games this month.If I brought those same games in a bricks & mortar store it would probably have been more like NZD$300-400 and there is no way in hell they would have been purchased.

The problem is at $2 a gb, it would have cost me about the same as retail. Again, never going to happen.

$400-$80=$320 spent on data = 160GB @ $2/GB

what sort of games are you downloading that would cost $400 in retail but eat up 160GB of space?
those are some pretty massive games.

Lias

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#346561 30-Jun-2010 08:01

$400-$80=$320 spent on data = 160GB @ $2/GB

what sort of games are you downloading that would cost $400 in retail but eat up 160GB of space?
those are some pretty massive games.

Quite a few of of the games i've downloaded have been in the region of 10-20 gb of steam cache files.

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NonprayingMantis

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#346659 30-Jun-2010 14:12

Lias:

$400-$80=$320 spent on data = 160GB @ $2/GB

what sort of games are you downloading that would cost $400 in retail but eat up 160GB of space?
those are some pretty massive games.

Quite a few of of the games i've downloaded have been in the region of 10-20 gb of steam cache files.

right, but you have to download 8 games at 20GB to get up to 160GB.

even if all 8 were 20GB (which I doubt) that is still an average price of only $40RRP per game, which seems very low.
If the average is 10GB per game (probably closer to the truth), that means the average RRP was only $20.
thats pretty impressive. Most PC games RRP is between $50 and $100 - espeically for the larger games.

and if the average was 10GB, that means you downloaded around 20 games. pretty impressive that you have that much spare time that you can enjoy 20 x 10GB games in a month (or 10 x 20G games). the games in the 20GB region tend to be large expansive games like Empire Total war - which on its own has eaten up well over 60 hours of play time for me - and I work full time and have a baby.

of course if you are downloading $400 worht of games for only $80 from steam that can only mean that you are buying lots of older titles that are around $5-10 on steam, but with store RRPs of around $20-40.
If that is the case then that means you are downloading maybe 40 games a month. Thatls even more impressive.

Lias

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#346713 30-Jun-2010 17:23

NonprayingMantis:
Lias:

$400-$80=$320 spent on data = 160GB @ $2/GB

what sort of games are you downloading that would cost $400 in retail but eat up 160GB of space?
those are some pretty massive games.

Quite a few of of the games i've downloaded have been in the region of 10-20 gb of steam cache files.

right, but you have to download 8 games at 20GB to get up to 160GB.

even if all 8 were 20GB (which I doubt) that is still an average price of only $40RRP per game, which seems very low.
If the average is 10GB per game (probably closer to the truth), that means the average RRP was only $20.
thats pretty impressive. Most PC games RRP is between $50 and $100 - espeically for the larger games.

and if the average was 10GB, that means you downloaded around 20 games. pretty impressive that you have that much spare time that you can enjoy 20 x 10GB games in a month (or 10 x 20G games). the games in the 20GB region tend to be large expansive games like Empire Total war - which on its own has eaten up well over 60 hours of play time for me - and I work full time and have a baby.

of course if you are downloading $400 worht of games for only $80 from steam that can only mean that you are buying lots of older titles that are around $5-10 on steam, but with store RRPs of around $20-40.
If that is the case then that means you are downloading maybe 40 games a month. Thatls even more impressive.

Or current games at bargain basement prices from http://www.g2play.net/ plus lots of older content from steam specials. That being said my numbers were guestimates.. Either way $2gb still makes digital downloads alot less economical and will increase piracy. Telecom need to sell us bandwidth at around 5-10% markup from cost, rather than price gouging us to try and cling onto their historically huge margins.

graemeh

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#346717 30-Jun-2010 17:29

Lias:
NonprayingMantis:
Lias:

$400-$80=$320 spent on data = 160GB @ $2/GB

what sort of games are you downloading that would cost $400 in retail but eat up 160GB of space?
those are some pretty massive games.

Quite a few of of the games i've downloaded have been in the region of 10-20 gb of steam cache files.

right, but you have to download 8 games at 20GB to get up to 160GB.

even if all 8 were 20GB (which I doubt) that is still an average price of only $40RRP per game, which seems very low.
If the average is 10GB per game (probably closer to the truth), that means the average RRP was only $20.
thats pretty impressive. Most PC games RRP is between $50 and $100 - espeically for the larger games.

and if the average was 10GB, that means you downloaded around 20 games. pretty impressive that you have that much spare time that you can enjoy 20 x 10GB games in a month (or 10 x 20G games). the games in the 20GB region tend to be large expansive games like Empire Total war - which on its own has eaten up well over 60 hours of play time for me - and I work full time and have a baby.

of course if you are downloading $400 worht of games for only $80 from steam that can only mean that you are buying lots of older titles that are around $5-10 on steam, but with store RRPs of around $20-40.
If that is the case then that means you are downloading maybe 40 games a month. Thatls even more impressive.

Or current games at bargain basement prices from http://www.g2play.net/ plus lots of older content from steam specials. That being said my numbers were guestimates.. Either way $2gb still makes digital downloads alot less economical and will increase piracy. Telecom need to sell us bandwidth at around 5-10% markup from cost, rather than price gouging us to try and cling onto their historically huge margins.

Can you share your views on the cost of bandwidth?

If Telecom really is price gouging then there will be plenty of competitors who will undercut them (admittedly only in areas where the competitor owns their own network).

This is exactly what happened in the toll call market when companies like Clear launched.

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jtbthatsme

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#346719 30-Jun-2010 17:33

Well i agree with Lias i think with the demise of big time it means a lot more people are gonna have huge bills and possibly be more selective with what they download.

At the end of the day anyone who is using 100+ gig a month and i think that's a large chunk of people is going to be struggling to keep there usage under the restrictive plans offered by all ISP's.

NZ pays ridiculous prices for sub par bandwidth amounts. That's why i have always said FTTH is a waste of time the money is better spent actually making true competition as in a new link overseas other than the southern cross cable and affordable broadband packages so more people can actually have affordable internet not just the rich.

Oh wait who did we vote in last election sigh..........

RRman

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#346830 1-Jul-2010 01:43

Just a quick note, i just checked the telecom site, the pro plan has now been changed to $2 per gb!

crazed

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#346885 1-Jul-2010 09:44

Have a quick question in respect to the change, maybe Doozy etc could answer this?

For those who are on Telecom Pro, will we start being charged $2 per GB from today onwards for any overage? or will we still be charged 0.02cents a MB till our role over date this month?

I jumped from Bigtime to Pro last week, my role over date is the 26th of each month, and the $2/GB has just been changed today.

CraZeD,
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RRman

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Geek

#346933 1-Jul-2010 11:15

crazed: Have a quick question in respect to the change, maybe Doozy etc could answer this?

For those who are on Telecom Pro, will we start being charged $2 per GB from today onwards for any overage? or will we still be charged 0.02cents a MB till our role over date this month?

I jumped from Bigtime to Pro last week, my role over date is the 26th of each month, and the $2/GB has just been changed today.

lol i was wondering that, lucky mine changes on the 8th, so i think unless doozy answers, ill keep it safe till my next month rolls over

vinnieg

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#346947 1-Jul-2010 12:06

RRman:
crazed: Have a quick question in respect to the change, maybe Doozy etc could answer this?

For those who are on Telecom Pro, will we start being charged $2 per GB from today onwards for any overage? or will we still be charged 0.02cents a MB till our role over date this month?

I jumped from Bigtime to Pro last week, my role over date is the 26th of each month, and the $2/GB has just been changed today.

lol i was wondering that, lucky mine changes on the 8th, so i think unless doozy answers, ill keep it safe till my next month rolls over

Yeah same, my 1st post in asked that then i get some random poems about Big Time instead!!! hahaha

I'll powercycle my modem when i get home, it better be $2 a gb because i'm damn close to my limit

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Ashka

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#346949 1-Jul-2010 12:08

$2 per gig ~ I wish but it's not Xmas here and it's ten times as much.
$20 per gig on XT 3G..ie $80 for 4Gig

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Cymro

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#346978 1-Jul-2010 13:26

RRman:
crazed: Have a quick question in respect to the change, maybe Doozy etc could answer this?

For those who are on Telecom Pro, will we start being charged $2 per GB from today onwards for any overage? or will we still be charged 0.02cents a MB till our role over date this month?

I jumped from Bigtime to Pro last week, my role over date is the 26th of each month, and the $2/GB has just been changed today.

lol i was wondering that, lucky mine changes on the 8th, so i think unless doozy answers, ill keep it safe till my next month rolls over

Doozy is taking a well earned holiday at the moment, but I know some people who should be able to answer this, will try and get and get the info from them asap.

In the meantime I'd suggest not tempting fate and the old overage charges just yet.

crazed

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#346983 1-Jul-2010 13:35

Thanks for that Cymro, yea I suspect alot of people will want to know this, I wont be going over it anyway :)

CraZeD,
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Cymro

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#347022 1-Jul-2010 16:16

Pro customers will not have to do anything to get this new price. Once the customer goes over their data plan of 40GB during their billing period that begins in July, they will receive the new price plan in their August bill.

So you don't get the $2/GB rate until your bill cycle in July starts (and it shows up on your August Bill).

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