OMG
An Australian ISP by the name of Optus has found itself at the center of a debate over their bandwidth caps. The cable operator's DOCSIS 3.0 100 Mbps service, dubbed "Supersonic," is subject to a usage cap that when crossed -- results in the tier getting slashed dramatically to just 64 kbps. The ISP is facing charges by Australian regulators that it didn't adequately inform customers of this restrictions in advertising, which proclaims the service is "four times faster than standard broadband." This isn't Optus's first run in with regulators:
The case is the second time marketing has landed Optus in court fronting allegations of breaches of the Trades Practices Act by the ACCC. The telco found itself in court in June for its use of "unlimited" for voice and data plans that had various usage caps and prices, and is seeking to have the court clarify the application of the word to telecommunications services. AAPT, perhaps irked by the rise of so-called "unlimited" plans, had sent Delimiter a dictionary and a personal note....
Capping is common in Australia, and such efforts go well beyond the caps we see here in the States. The Optus tier is question features a 50 GB cap during peak hours (12am to 12pm) and a 70 GB cap during off-peak hours (12pm to 12am). That's in contrast to Comcast's monthly cap of 250 GB -- which is unconditionally applied to all DOCSIS 3.0 tiers. Comcast users are throttled, but only the heaviest users on the most-congested nodes.
An Australian ISP by the name of Optus has found itself at the center of a debate over their bandwidth caps. The cable operator's DOCSIS 3.0 100 Mbps service, dubbed "Supersonic," is subject to a usage cap that when crossed -- results in the tier getting slashed dramatically to just 64 kbps. The ISP is facing charges by Australian regulators that it didn't adequately inform customers of this restrictions in advertising, which proclaims the service is "four times faster than standard broadband." This isn't Optus's first run in with regulators:
The case is the second time marketing has landed Optus in court fronting allegations of breaches of the Trades Practices Act by the ACCC. The telco found itself in court in June for its use of "unlimited" for voice and data plans that had various usage caps and prices, and is seeking to have the court clarify the application of the word to telecommunications services. AAPT, perhaps irked by the rise of so-called "unlimited" plans, had sent Delimiter a dictionary and a personal note....
Capping is common in Australia, and such efforts go well beyond the caps we see here in the States. The Optus tier is question features a 50 GB cap during peak hours (12am to 12pm) and a 70 GB cap during off-peak hours (12pm to 12am). That's in contrast to Comcast's monthly cap of 250 GB -- which is unconditionally applied to all DOCSIS 3.0 tiers. Comcast users are throttled, but only the heaviest users on the most-congested nodes.