Are NZ Businesses being taken advantage of?

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nitrotech

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#100964 21-Apr-2012 17:03

The season of good will from ISP's has begun with significant increases in data caps for home users, some may say 'great' and 'about time' but as home broadband caps increase ISP's still want their pound of flesh from business customers.

A quick comparison of two ISP shows the following:

TELECOM:

Home User Telecom:

$115 incl GST 60gb and home phone

Business User Telecom:

$112.39 incl GST for 60Gb broadband + phone line @ $59.74 = $172.13 incl GST + calls of course

60 gb is also the biggest plan another 40gb (100gb total) will cost the business another $69 incl GST in overage charges

Comparing the 100Gb Packages:

Home: $155

Business: $241.13

SNAP:

Naked Broadband:

Home User: $130 for 560Gb per month

Business User: $1219 incl gst - comprises of $184 for 110Gb overage 450Gb $1035

I have sat in meetings listening to Steven Joyce proclaim that broadband is a business enabler - as far as I can see with the current pricing it is anything but.

I can't help thinking that these every increasing data caps for home users are also going to be at the detriment of business customers as the home user leaving the PC maxing out the connection downloading endless torrents - how much international bandwidth will the ISP have left for the poor over paying business customer.

Great that home users get more use out of their connection but the brakes are still applied to business, can any good come from a business customer paying 10 times the amount of the 16 year old down torrenter the road?

Kixtro

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#612915 21-Apr-2012 19:07

With business plans, I am 99% sure that it will come with business level support 24/7. More qualified support technicians answering support calls and wont be transferred through 10 different departments before they start to get anywhere.

DonGould

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#612916 21-Apr-2012 19:17

Everyone knows that Telecom isn't the best value choice for business, it's the easy choice.

Do some shopping around and you'll find all sorts of options.

VoIP should be the first obvious option. How many business only have 1 line?

Many business don't use a great amount of data which is perhaps why the pressure isn't there for the bigger data plans.

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nickb800

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#612920 21-Apr-2012 19:21

Its not really fair comparing different generations of plans. A couple of days ago, before Snap annouced the upgrade to residential plans, a home user would have paid over $500 to get 560Gb ($120 for 100Gb data packs). Still less than business price, but still almost 5 times more than the new price. Who knows, snap may be upgrading business plans in the next couple of days.

Its pretty unlikely that a business is going to be paying $1k in overage charges - if they were happy to spend $1k per month on internet, Im sure snap or another ISP would offer them a special deal, rather than a listed plan.

And as Extro says, its a different grade of product. In addition to support, you could expect a higher level of reliability, and faster fault resolution with a business grade product.

Not sure what Steven Joyce has to do with it - are you proposing that the govt steps in?

nitrotech

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#612971 21-Apr-2012 21:22

nickb800: Its not really fair comparing different generations of plans. A couple of days ago, before Snap annouced the upgrade to residential plans, a home user would have paid over $500 to get 560Gb ($120 for 100Gb data packs). Still less than business price, but still almost 5 times more than the new price. Who knows, snap may be upgrading business plans in the next couple of days.

So it was good as gold then that businesses should pay over $1k for that data and at home you can have it for half of that.

nickb800
Its pretty unlikely that a business is going to be paying $1k in overage charges - if they were happy to spend $1k per month on internet, Im sure snap or another ISP would offer them a special deal, rather than a listed plan.

I know pleanty of businesses that pay a significant amount of money for internet access and in return get very little data.

nickb800
And as Extro says, its a different grade of product. In addition to support, you could expect a higher level of reliability, and faster fault resolution with a business grade product.

As I understand it you go into the same priority cue with Chorus so why should it be more? goes through exactly the same equipment - it's exactly the same product.

nickb800
Not sure what Steven Joyce has to do with it - are you proposing that the govt steps in?

Have you been following the news? - the 1.5 billion dollars being spent on UFB is to improve New Zealand Businesses ability to compete in the global marketplace - the govenment has already stepped in and Steven Joyce is the Minister in charge.

http://www.crownfibre.govt.nz/business/

No point in spending 1.5 billion if no one in business can afford it.

nickb800

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#613010 21-Apr-2012 23:09

nitrotech:
nickb800: Its not really fair comparing different generations of plans. A couple of days ago, before Snap annouced the upgrade to residential plans, a home user would have paid over $500 to get 560Gb ($120 for 100Gb data packs). Still less than business price, but still almost 5 times more than the new price. Who knows, snap may be upgrading business plans in the next couple of days.

So it was good as gold then that businesses should pay over $1k for that data and at home you can have it for half of that.

nickb800
Its pretty unlikely that a business is going to be paying $1k in overage charges - if they were happy to spend $1k per month on internet, Im sure snap or another ISP would offer them a special deal, rather than a listed plan.

I know pleanty of businesses that pay a significant amount of money for internet access and in return get very little data.

nickb800
And as Extro says, its a different grade of product. In addition to support, you could expect a higher level of reliability, and faster fault resolution with a business grade product.

As I understand it you go into the same priority cue with Chorus so why should it be more? goes through exactly the same equipment - it's exactly the same product.

nickb800
Not sure what Steven Joyce has to do with it - are you proposing that the govt steps in?

Have you been following the news? - the 1.5 billion dollars being spent on UFB is to improve New Zealand Businesses ability to compete in the global marketplace - the govenment has already stepped in and Steven Joyce is the Minister in charge.

http://www.crownfibre.govt.nz/business/

No point in spending 1.5 billion if no one in business can afford it.

Not saying its okay, just that its double the price, not ten times the price. It makes a difference. Im trying to make the point that the difference isnt quite as big as you state it to be. There is a higher standard applied to business services, so it makes sense that there is a price differential. Plenty of what you pay your ISP goes to services beyond the Chorus handover. These services can just as easily cripple your connection as a physical line fault can.

Just because its expensive, doesnt mean that businesses cant afford it. It also doesnt mean that businesses arent getting value for money.

I find it hard to believe that there are significant profits being made for business internet services when there are dozens of equally capable service providers all competing on a level playing field (regulated DSL access).

chevrolux

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#613024 22-Apr-2012 00:13

DonGould:

VoIP should be the first obvious option. How many business only have 1 line?

So many LARGE organisations are still using Centrex for wide area office applications. At $80-odd per line just for the rental it is a HUGE cost to the business. With a little bit of effort they could invest in a decent IP-PBX and chop thier comms cost in quarters.
Just recently I helped the Chorus boys put 40-odd Centrex lines in to an office of a nation wide chain. It's crazy the coin they are spending on these lines. Yes it is simple and is all taken care of by telecom but my god, it just isnt worth the extra cost.

edit: also tons of business's have expensive managed IDA circuits. They could just get a standard broadband connection and have a just as good connection. HSNS is obviously more expensive but allows 1) symmetrical speeds and 2) business's can bring their own router and not pay telecom to make sure the connection is up.

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NonprayingMantis

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#613025 22-Apr-2012 00:18

I am 100% percent certain that Telecom residential plans are available to businesses(and business plans are available to residential users)

In other words, the complaint is pointless since if the business wants to the bigger cap plans, they can get them.

I doubt datacaps are anywhere near as important for most business users though, the vast majority of businesses do little more than email and a bit of surfing.

chevrolux

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#613028 22-Apr-2012 00:28

As I understand it you go into the same priority cue with Chorus so why should it be more? goes through exactly the same equipment - it's exactly the same product.

Unfortunately this is not true. As much as I would like it to be it just isnt. I know this as I have worked on cop orate faults and pressure was put on us to get the corporate customers going over residential customers.

Kyanar

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#616900 29-Apr-2012 12:02

Extro: With business plans, I am 99% sure that it will come with business level support 24/7. More qualified support technicians answering support calls and wont be transferred through 10 different departments before they start to get anywhere.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. I'm sorry, but that's just not true. With Orcon, I can only get support from them 9-5 Monday to Friday. Outside that, they just tell me "you are calling outside business hours" and hang up. The only advantage is that I can call them from a cellphone without the silly callback system, and I'm guaranteed to be passed through to the NZ based call centre. Also, there's only one support tier. But no, I certainly don't get 24/7 support. This is despite the fact that I get 25% of the data allocation of residential customers, Chorus takes no less than an entire week to fix any issues.