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Chorus attempt to sidestep regulated DSL prices

It seems that after getting a very cushy deal from government and extra taxpayer money to help them finish the UFB -- despite this supposedly being a fixed-price deal, Chorus is doing the dirty on us.

According to this story in Stuff, Chorus is planning to cap regular copper broadband speeds at an average of 250Kbps.

WTF?

It's pretty obvious that this is a ploy to move folk from their existing copper service onto fibre or some newly invented "Boost HD" copper service.

In response to criticism, Chorus has said that it has been "overdelivering".

Again I exclaim: WTF?

Given the extraordinary lengths taxpayers have gone to in an attempt to support Chorus, after its obviously incompetent tendering for the job, this artificially imposed bandwidth cap on existing xDSL users is a kick in the goolies and smacks of new levels of contempt and arrogance.

The Chorus beancounters probably see this as a brilliant move that will effectively force many people to give up the services that are presently perfectly adequate -- and pay more for exactly the same, albeit without the soon to be imposed artificial constraints.

With the Commerce Commission regulating the price of copper-based services, it's obvious that Chorus has decided that -- if they can't charge more for xDSL services, they'll just deliver less for the same price.

Surely it's time for Kiwis have to put this bunch of yobbos in their place.

Right now, every single xDSL user should be keeping a track of their effective throughputs and if/when that figure drops (as it undoubtedly will if Chorus go ahead), they should complain long and hard. If Chorus won't listen then take it to the Commerce Commission and complain to them.

Chorus... if you want people to buy into your new broadband services -- make them swift, efficient and cost-effective. Do NOT try to bully folk into them by simply winding down the performance of the existing systems -- that is not ethical and, as I'm sure you'd find out, it's also not good business practice.

Internet NZ has issued a press release on the matter, in which it says "One of these is Chorus' proposal to withdraw the current VDSL product from service and replace it with a new commercial Boost VDSL alternative. Our legal advice suggests this just isn't a viable option for Chorus to pursue". Clearly this could turn into a legal bunfight if Chorus decides to continue with the proposed strategy.

Interestingly enough, the first company to take action against Chorus over this matter is Telecom. The telco (soon to be renamed "Spark") has already filed a complaint with the Commerce Commission. The motivation for this complaint is pretty obvious insomuch as a fair bit of the UFB is being provisioned by companies other than Chorus (Transfield for example) and in such regions, Telecom can only offer copper services, whereas their competitors can offer both xDSL and UFB. Here in Tokoroa, that is currently the case so, if my copper services are artificially degraded by Chorus or priced too high then I'd have to switch to an alternative provider.

Let's hope that this time, the CC don't spend too much time at the coffee machine and munching donuts, as they did with the issue of unbundling the local loop. Time to move quickly and assertively!

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