TelstraClear broadband improvements

TelstraClear will increase the price, speed and data caps of its most popular cable broadband plans in Wellington and Christchurch from next month when the rise in GST to 15 per cent takes effect.

Consumer markets head Steve Jackson was confident TelstraClear's 80,000 cable customers would view the new plans as an improvement.

However, he said they could not be compared with offerings in Australia, where parent Telstra offers far more generous data caps at a lower cost using the same cable network technology.

TelstraClear will increase the price of its four cheapest plans by between 4.3 per cent and 5.5 per cent. But because customers on two of those plans could get a still-improved service at a lower cost by "downgrading" their plan, it is only customers on its two cheapest plans that could lose out. The price of plans costing more than $100 a month will be reduced by several dollars.

The big silver lining is that the company will double the data caps on its most popular plans and increase the speed of its 4 megabit per second (4Mbps) and 10Mbps plans to 15Mbps.

The new base speed exactly matches that which will be available over some Telecom phone lines later this year, when Telecom Wholesale expects to launch a broadband service using the latest copper-based technology, VDSL2.

Mr Jackson said Telecom's forthcoming service had a bearing on its plans "if I'm being honest". TelstraClear could offer even faster speeds now, but wanted to "keep some of our powder dry".

A phone and 15Mbps broadband plan with a 10 gigabyte traffic cap will now be priced at $85.88 a month, and a plan with a 20Gb cap $95.89 a month. The faster speeds have been made possible by a $10 million upgrade of its cable networks to a new technology standard, Docsis3, which was completed in June.

Parent Telstra also operates Docsis3 cable networks in several Australian state capitals. There, Telstra offers cable broadband plans with 30Mbps download speeds and a 50Gb traffic cap for A$49.95 a month, and another with a 200Gb traffic cap for A$69.95. Those prices do not include the cost of a phone line.

In Wellington and Christchurch, the monthly bill for using 200Gb of data on TelstraClear's cable networks would be more than $400.

Mr Jackson said they were "different markets" and indicated Telstra was under less competitive pressure in New Zealand than in Australia.

"Our competitors aren't offering that sort of data cap."

- © Fairfax NZ News