Optus has had great success with the fusion phone and internet bundles that it has decided to revamp the rest of its product line up.
As early as the start of next month, the current Optus plan line up will be modified to suit the likes of the fusion plans, with some interesting changes.
The changes include shaping increase from 28k to 64k, or even 128k on the higher speed plans. This change is one of many new changes that will not affect older customers, who will probably be wishing they were affected :).
The downside to it is Optus will be counting uploads, as they are on the fusion plans.
The idea behind counting uploads is users are uploading more, and at the aggregate point, uploads must be higher than downloads.. hard to believe..
Counting uploads is generally only ever done for two main reasons, in my opinion.
1. To assist in reducing loading on their international links. The savings to them are that they don’t need to pay for more bandwidth.
2. Uploads are higher than downloads at the aggregate level, and this is causing them to upgrade links.
3. Greed.
First, reason 3. That doesn’t really apply to Optus, as the plans don’t charge excess usage, they are shaped. In the case of Bigpond however, counting uploads means if you go over your 200Mb, even if you capture a virus that is not a direct fault of your own, or have an unprotected Bigpond supplied Wireless Access point, you could have to sell up your house to pay the bill.
Optus shape, and have “unlimited” plans (plans that just keep going, at dial up speed, if you exceed your limit).
Reason 1. If user usage is at a high level, but only marginally high, that upgrading a link to the next price point is too expensive to justify, this could be another way of “reducing the load”. Basically they would reduce load by having the uploads count into the downloads and therefore affect usage.
Or, Reason 2. Uploads are really higher than downloads at the aggregate point, and with this in mind, a link upgrade with users having unlimited uploads could just see more money down the drain.
So, Reason 1 or 2 are the most likely, though I doubt uploads are really rivalling downloads. I think there are more leechers on the optus network than seeders, and YouTube isn’t that much of a problem when you consider the upload speeds we have here in Australia..
Optus will also be offering 8Mbit plans with the service, which will come at a additional $30 cost.
I bet the tigers, baboons, zebras and giraffes will be well fed as a result!
Enjoy!