Internode blames YouTube for broadband price hikes

update Internode increased the price of its broadband Internet services on Monday, including several high-usage plans being hit with a AU$40 per month hike, and blamed increasing use of YouTube and BitTorrent for the changes.

The company's 100,000 customers were informed by e-mail over the weekend about the price increases, which affect most of the company's connection options.

In a statement, Internode's managing director Simon Hackett said: "Since our last major plan changes, we have seen a boom in data-intensive online services such as BitTorrent and YouTube".

"As a result, average download volumes are increasing across all plans due to customers using these data-rich services. At the same time, the cost of delivering IP traffic has ceased to decline," he said.

Internode also added another 13 broadband plans into its existing portfolio of 30 or so options.

Jim Kellett, product manager at Internode, admitted that the company now had "far too many" broadband plan options, but he said the 13 new plans were necessary to provide existing customers with a route to minimise the price rises.

"As we put these new price points out there, we wanted to give existing customers somewhere to go to.

"If you were on an 80GB plan and you were staring at a AU$35 a month price rise, that is a lot and we recognise that for sure, but we have never had a plan between 40 and 80GB, so we introduced a 60GB plan.

"This means they can avoid the price rise entirely or turn it into a AU$5 rise instead," said Kellett.

Existing customers have an opportunity to avoid the price increase by either moving to a different plan or cancelling their service. The price changes will take affect for all customers on 2 July, 2007.

Full details of the price changes can be found here: Internode price hike.