TPG dishes out unlimited NBN plan
Australian internet service provider (ISP) TPG has unveiled a new unlimited plan for the National Broadband Network (NBN), becoming the first company to offer unlimited data on the fibre network.
The announcement came as part of the company's annual results reporting to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) this morning. For AU$69.99 per month, TPG customers on the NBN will get unlimited data on a connection of 12 megabits per second (Mbps) down and 1Mbps up, with a voice service included.
While many other ISPs have offered high data plans on the NBN, including up to 2TB per month, none have gone down the path of offering unlimited data. Under NBN Co's pricing model, it is believed that unlimited plans would be very expensive for any ISP to offer.
On top of the basic NBN access charge per user starting at AU$24 per month, ISPs also have to pay a connectivity virtual circuit charge, which secures bandwidth to a consumer from the point of interconnect (PoI). This fee is set at AU$20 per 1Mbps; however, NBN Co is currently rebating this charge while the network is rolling out for the first 150Mbps per month at each point of interconnect (PoI) until that particular PoI had passed 30,000 premises. Each of the 121 PoIs will service between 50,000 and 162,000 premises.
TPG's plan is currently the only one that the ISP has in the market. Dodo, one of the few remaining ADSL2+ providers to offer unlimited downloads aside from TPG, has yet to unveil its NBN plans.
TPG reported a 16 percent jump in net profit after tax for the 2012 financial year, up from AU$78.2 million in 2011 to AU$91 million in 2012. Between July 31, 2011, and July 31, 2012, TPG rolled out 725km of fibre, to bring its total network to 2,572km, covering 1,400 buildings.
The company added 47,000 broadband subscribers and 54,000 mobile customers for the 12 months, bringing its broadband customer base to 595,000 and its mobile customer base to 255,000.