Important question to Seeby about new Orcon plans - are they really as good as they seem?

Seeby:
This is a important and serious question!

On the new Bitstream plans being offered can I really do the following with
no problem to Orcon:

1. Connect at 2Mbit and download 50GB per month for less than $100 per
month.

2. Connect at 2MBit and download 150GB per month for less than $200 per
month.

Or would Orcon implode if too many people took up their offer and joined
the 2Mbit plan to download over 100GB per month?

In other words, is this new plan sustainable?

We all know the flatrate/unlimited plan hurt Orcon with Telecom restricting
the national bandwidth between the users and Orcon. Have things changed
now so that Orcon can just pay more per heavy user to have more bandwidth
allocated?

Will this new plan work well for Orcon and its customers, will we get the
promised speed? Will we at least get over 90% of the promised speed over
90% of the time? I would be happy to have half that speed during peak
hours and the full 2Mbit offpeak, it would be well worth the $10 extra
compared to my 256k plan.

If this is all as good as it seems then all I need to have my ideal
internet is 2Mbit down and 512Kbit up at the same price, maybe the day is
not too far off when I could have that! (or maybe by the time they offer
that I will find it inadequate)

 

Well - thanks for the compliment - we certianly hope that they are as good
as they seem, we have thought carefully about the new plans to make sure
that they offer something new and better than our competitors, and also that
we can deliver the service.

...

Base fee with Tolls = $39.95 + 5 x 10GB blocks @$10 = $89.95 so yes

If too many people take up the offer and all download over 100GB a month,
then yes it will probably be a problem.
However, we have looked at the current data being done by users on different
speeds, and we fell that because users are having to pay more when they do
more data, they won't be reckless with bandwidth if they don't need to be,
and therefore there should be a good balance between people who use more
data (and pay us more), and users who use 1-11 GB per month.

At the present time we believe that yes it is - once we have a good number
of cusomers on the plan who have done at least a month's worth of data we
should have a much better idea of whether this is going to work long term -
but we certinaly believe that with the new plans we are less likely to run
into issues than with the old 256k flat-rate plan

To a certain extent. One thing that is better is that if we were ever to
have to pay Telecom overage costs, then we are now getting more revenue to
pay for this from users who do a lot of data.

That is hard to say at this point, but the goal is to provide full speed all
the time because it's not a flat-rate plan and therefore if people are using
data, we should be getting the revenue to pay for the data (although we have
priced the data very cheaply)

We can't do 512k upload at present, but that's just a Govt/Telecom thing. I
believe that upload speeds will be increased in the future, but I have no
idea on timelines

Cheers
Seeby Woodhouse

CEO Orcon Internet

 

It certainly looks good, and would suit me very well. So how do I get
onto it?

I am already on Orcon's 256 kbit service. I looked at the website but
couldn't find anywhere to ask to switch.

I called 0508 JOIN US, but it was all recordings and no chance to talk
to anyone.

I called 0508 4ORCON and it was all the same recordings.

I emailed sales, and they replied referring me to
http://orcon.net.nz/products/bitstream/getbitstream/?productcode=SPEED_RES

But this page doesn't offer the new products, it doesn't offer a
discount for taking your toll services, and the prices are different.

What to do? You've announced a product I'd like to have. I'm already
your customer. How do I tell you to switch me over?

Philip

 

So, no solid answer then? ;P

 

At least he fronted up and answered honestly. You wouldn't Annette (callplus
aka slingshot) or Theresa doing the same thing.

 

I like to think so...

I am now thinking of ditching my TC Cable 2Mpbs 5 Gig plan.
I am interested in more info, and will watch this thread with interest.
My Pet Peeve about TC 5 Gigs is their overages. Oh, and perhaps that the
International pipe has been not able to supply 2Mbps when I wanted it, but
that is a separate issue to raise with the route that supplies the ISP...

I always welcome and appreciate Seeby's responses to the NG as I think he
is one of the only people in control, who actually responds, not just
listens.

 

Well to be fair, they've only just set up this arrangement so there is no
real reliable way to tell right off the bat whether it is going to work or
not. P

As always, it going to be a case of "wait and see".
....and which is the state that I have been in ever since a year ago when
Orcon launched their Flatrate 256k Bitstream service. My initial thoughts
/ intuition indicated that there will be problems with this and not
suprising there were (refer to my post 26th Sep 2004 under "ADSL v's
Dialup"). So I waited...

Waiting patiently on the sidelines on my Telecom Jetstream connection
(through Orcon / fastadsl.net.nz )for UBS to pan out... waiting and waiting
and waiting... and content to wait some more whilse continuing along
happily on my Jetstream connection, waiting... but uh oh, Now what is this?
JPP is getting killed and Telecom is going to kick me off the Internet...

GAME OVER (for me)