Internode unveils initial retail pricing for NBN services
Internode is offering all its NBN-delivered services as "bundled" plans that include telephone and Internet access services.
Internode's initial residential NBN plan pricing will start at $59.95 a month, with a port speed of 12 megabits per second (Mb/s) downstream and 1 Mb/s upstream and a 30 gigabyte (GB) data quota. A 100/40 Mb/s service with a 1000 GB data quota will cost $189.95. All Internode's NBN plans include $10 worth of monthly call credits for the bundled NodePhone Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony service.
It will also become possible to obtain the bundled phone service as a conventional analogue fixed line voice service instead of using VoIP, once NBNCo releases this capability later in 2011.
Internode's NBN pricing aligns its entry-level NBN service with its 30GB data quota Easy Naked ADSL2+ voice and data bundle, which costs from $59.95 a month. The following table summarises proposed prices for Internode's residential NBN services.
| Name | Port Speed * | 30 GB Inc Phone ** | 200 GB Inc Phone ** | 300 GB Inc Phone ** | 1 TB Inc Phone ** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
* Port speeds noted here are the nominal NBN access port speed only, and are not necessarily indicative of the Internet data transfer speeds the services will achieve in practice. ** All plan prices are for a bundle of phone service and broadband. |
|||||
| Bronze | 12/1 Mbps | $59.95 | $79.95 | $99.95 | $149.95 |
| Silver | 25/5 Mbps | $69.95 | $89.95 | $109.95 | $159.95 |
| Gold | 50/20 Mbps | $79.95 | $99.95 | $119.95 | $169.95 |
| Platinum | 100/40 Mbps | $99.95 | $119.95 | $139.95 | $189.95 |
As with Internode's current ADSL2+ broadband plans, customers can obtain additional capabilities for their broadband service, such as fixed IP addresses or priority Business customer support, by purchasing either a Power Pack for an extra $10 a month or a Business Pack for $30 a month.
Due to the high-speed upstream performance of NBN services, all plans, including the Power and Business option packs, now count the sum of both downloads and uploads in the monthly data quota. Once plans exceed their quota, speed shaping is applied to all data traffic. NBN service customers (including those with NBN Business Packs) can buy additional Data Blocks online, on demand, removing any risk of unexpected excess traffic fees.
"We have determined our starting set of commercial services to offer Internode customers, and these will apply from the initial commercial launch of Internode's NBNCo-based services," said Internode managing director Simon Hackett. However, he warned that this pricing was vulnerable to upward pressure in the future due to existing flaws in the NBNCo wholesale charging model compounded by the ACCC's "121 points of interconnect" decision. Read more about this in Simon's 'NBN Retail Pricing Pressure Points' blog post.
Costs remain unchanged for existing customers using Internode's current NBN-based services. Customers of current services in Tasmania (which uses an earlier interim pricing model), and of services on the mainland (currently provided on a no-added-cost basis alongside their existing Internode ADSL2+ services), will receive direct advice about when their services will transition to this new pricing. At that point, they will have the opportunity to choose the commercial plan that best suits their requirements.
