Telstra mobile shaping still delayed

Telstra's plan to cut bill shock by throttling download speeds for post-paid mobile customers who exceed their monthly data limit is still delayed, almost two years after first announcing it.

Telstra currently warns customers when they're approaching their monthly download limit via SMS, but, once they exceed their limit, unless they pay for additional data upfront, customers must pay an extra 10 cents per megabyte used.

In May 2011, Telstra announced that it would bring in shaping for excess data usage. 3G customers who exceeded their monthly data allowance would have their speed shaped to 48 kilobits per second (Kbps), while 2G customers would be shaped to 15Kbps.

In 2011, Telstra said that the feature would be available sometime in 2012, but it ultimately never eventuated, as the company focused on rolling out its new 4G long-term evolution (LTE) network.

Telstra told ZDNet yesterday that there are still no plans to implement shaping anytime soon.

"This product is under development. As mentioned, we've been working to ensure that is rigorously designed and tested before we make it available to our customers," the company said in a statement.

Optus or Vodafone do not have shaping on post-paid mobile plans either, but shaping has been the norm for fixed broadband plans in Australia for many years.