As of today, April 5, the current pricing starting at $2.50 will no longer be available to new account holders and the starting price will be $3.50 for a premium 50/20 connection. The highest speed tiers have dropped in price with the 500/200 tier going down by $1/day and the 1000/400 going down by $5/day. Existing account holders will be known as Legacy customers and will stay on their existing pricing. As of Monday, April 9, all connections will have a daily 25GB data allocation that will carry over in to a ‘DataBank’ that can build up a chest of data up to 750GB. This allows customers to have big and small days without hitting caps. If you do need more data they can buy more at $1 per 5GB block (great value considering mobile data is $10/GB). We will also be removing any promotion of Fixed Wireless and will no longer offer this service for new users. It simply doesn’t allow us to deliver a ‘premium’ service. Any existing Fixed Wireless users will not be affected at all. We had the choice to either change the pricing structure or close off Resi services to new customers. We’ve chosen to create a network that is better than what else is in the market and price it as fairly as possible to allow it to grow ahead of customer need. Why has Unlimited gone? We used to have a fair use policy of 50GB per day or 1.5TB a month but it was never policed. Quite simply, we need to put on a daily allocation that you can accrue. With about 8% of our users using 30% of our network, we would have had to put the price up higher for everyone if we didn’t separate out the highest users. The highest users, should they not want to be shaped, will contribute by paying $1 for each extra 5GB they want in their DataBank. A majority of our users never hit near the 25GB per day on average, and because you can carry unused portions in to your DataBank, even if you used 40GB in one day, it would transfer from what’s accrued in your DataBank. PLUS there’s free data between midnight and 6am. Why has the pricing gone up? We had a hard decision to make. Either stop selling residential services, or adjust the pricing structure so that we could afford to offer it and scale it up ahead of consumer needs. It’s important to note that Aussie Broadband have closed off new orders. Will my accrued DataBank expire? No. It will keep accruing up to 750GB and stay on your account as long as you keep your account open or use it. We call it a DataBank because you don’t need to use all your data at once. You can use it up or you can save some ’til later. It’s just like a bank account but for data. What happened to netload? It’s simply too hard, it’s too different and complicated, brought up some weird consequences with surprises and spiking and we decided it was either good network or not. We didn’t want to have people on lower speed tiers that didn’t understand if our network was premium or not. Will netload ever come back? Maybe but not for the moment. We figured it was easier to go to metered data (uploaded and downloaded) but we haven’t lost interest in the innovation. But then how do we address peak load? We’ve done this by introducing free data between midnight and 6am and we’ve added more of a buffer between the average load and our maximum bandwidth. So why data transferred as the measure? Whilst Netload sought to temper heaviest users at peak times, it was delayed in how long it took to respond to the high usage. Data transferred is much more definite as an instant measure and ‘shaping’ can happen immediately once the DataBank runs out. How can other companies offer it cheaper in Tasmania? There are two things: most major carriers set their pricing on a national scale so keep pricing uniform even though Tasmania is much more expensive to transfer data. To offset that extra cost they just put more people on to the same shared network which inevitably means a more congested, slower service. Each day they add more people, you’re getting less than what you’re paying for. How can other companies offer unlimited data in Tasmania? The mainstream carriers, whilst offering things like ‘Liimitless’ connections are actually a limited connection. Sure there’s no hard data limit, but the network is so congested you’d be hard pressed to really use lots of data when you really want to. It’s a bit like saying we’re removing speed limits on the highway, only to find yourself in a traffic jam where you can’t speed anyway! We’re offering a large allocation of data that isn’t exceeded by 90% of our users and customers can accrue data in their ‘DataBank’ for rainy days of Netlfix! Why we say “allocated” 25GB not “limited to” 25GB… A limit would infer that you lose what you don’t use. Instead 25GB is allocated each day and accrued in your DataBank (visible in the portal) up to a limit of 750GB. So you have that 25GB plus whatever you’ve already accrued from days before, PLUS FREE data Midnight – 6am. What happens if a Legacy user needs more than 25GB a day? 5GB Data packs are not available on legacy pricing. They will need to move to new pricing model once they exhaust their 750GB DataBank allocation (keep in mind they’ll still be allocated another 25GB every day). But if they decide they need to move, they will need to contact us directly so their account can be moved to new pricing. Eventually there will be a button for our 900 users to shift to new/current pricing. I’m a heavy user, what happens if I need more data on legacy pricing? Whilst your DataBank will start off full with a 750GB allowance, and you get a new allowance of 25GB each day, we understand a very small number of customers may not wish to schedule their downloads for off peak free data period or be interested in using other data reduction methods. In that case you will need to advise us that you’d like to switch to the new pricing method so your portal has the data packs. We do understand that some people may choose to go to a telco with congestion but with unlimited data. If that’s the case, we understand that we can’t be everything to everyone. We can’t be uncongested and unlimited for a price anywhere near what we’re offering. Why are we not offering Fixed Wireless? Frankly Fixed Wireless causes a lot of disappointment and a lot of support issues. There really is no point in offering a premium network if it is only going to be connected to a poor quality NBN network. Our premium service is also about fixing issues. However the biggest issue with Fixed Wireless, congestion, we cannot fix. However we still spend a lot of time lodging tickets to no avail. So being blunt we really only want to accept clients that understand that it is a poor service and are willing to accept this. Still have questions? Feel free to go to Launtel Users Group and we’ll add it on here for others to read too.What’s the change?
Why the change?
What criteria did we consider for ‘Resi 2.0’?
The advantages of our ‘premium network’
How this affects existing customers
New Customers
FAQ’s
Posted on April 5, 2018
Why is this change needed?
We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The rock is the costs of delivering a great network such as the CVC charge from NBN, the backhaul including those cables across Bass Strait are all costs we need to pay that don’t vary. The hard place is that consumers are using more and more streaming services which requires us to expand the network to cope, but often no one wants to pay more for that privilege.
Additionally, the internet is the most complained about industry in Australia. People hate that they don’t get a great product (with other carriers), but often don’t recognise that the crappy networks are a product of carriers congesting their networks to keep prices low. So in short, we need to find a fairer way to pay.
We’re committed to delivering a ‘NO CONGESTION’ network, and to do this we need to ensure we expand ahead of needs – that means buying more bandwidth than we need on average (so we can handle the peaks). This has to happen across the network and to upgrading our hardware too. If you thought of our network like a series of highways, we need to ensure we have enough lanes, even at peak time, so that those with cars with great top speeds can actually use that speed without getting caught in a jam.
Whilst the usage of internet has been traditionally measured by amount of download, it’s actually streaming services that ‘hog’ the most network and they usually come at peak times. This ‘Netflix effect’ is causing congestion problems for all carriers but no one is creating a sustainable solution.
Now this isn’t an exclusive problem to us, but instead of fixing it, other carriers are letting their networks get congested which makes for a crappy experience – that’s why NBN is the most complained about service in Australia through the ombudsman (even though it’s often not their fault).
Here’s a video that explains congestion (it’s a great watch):
What is Netload?
Since the beginning of the internet, ISPs have always needed to provision more bandwidth in their networks to ensure that there is enough capacity to satisfy the demand from their users. Here’s a typical usage graph for our bandwidth each day based on each hour. But now, most carriers go from good most of the time down to crappy at peak times. We want to have a perfect network that at worse drops you back to good.
We have to provision enough bandwidth for those peaks. If we don’t, then we see congestion and the resultant “network crash”, where all the connections slow right down during those peak periods.
Connections have previously been priced using Download or Speed (or a bit of both), but there are problems with those models…
1. Download
When people are downloading files or doing general web surfing this is a start stop action where the network can be easily shared without really noticing. It’s the driving equivalent of being able to weave between lanes of traffic. So even though people may be using lots of download, it could be in off peak times (when there’s plenty of bandwidth available), or even in peak times the user experience isn’t impacted as much by a slower file download than if you’re watching Netflix and it buffers. So it isn’t really fair to charge people top dollar for big downloads when many of them do it when there’s plenty of network available. Plus when people go over their amount of downloads, they then end up shaped to speeds too useless to use.
2. Speed
Another method which has been used in the past is to price on connection speed. You make the assumption that people who ask for a higher connection speed will use more bandwidth and you charge more for those higher speeds. NBN do charge a little more for speed differences anyway so why not just add to that? The key advantage to this is that there are no download limits to bother with – its a simple product to sell. The biggest issue with this method is clients feel they’re paying for a particular speed and if they don’t get it (during peak times for example), they rightly feel they’ve been cheated. Also, speed and download don’t actually correlate. There are plenty of users who don’t use very fast speeds, but actually consume a lot of bandwidth.
An alternate model – netload
Given the failure of the above models to fairly distribute the costs of running a network, we looked at other models and found burstable billing. This captures the load that streaming was putting on our network, by giving an average peak load measure. This would allow us to more accurately measure the load clients where putting on the network. We have adapted it to work in the daily environment and created a measure called netload.
How is it measured?
This is about getting a fairer system for charging that’s flexible for you to design the type of connection you most value.
1. We take bandwidth samples every minute throughout the day, which might look like this:
2. We then take all those samples and reorder them according to value, so that we have this:
3. We then take a point 120 samples from the left – 2 hours worth and see what that sample reads – that is the netload value. As you can see the biggest 2 hours worth of samples – the peaking activity – are ignored, but anything that creates a constant load over significant time, like streaming, shows up in a higher netload value.
The benefits of this model
- Moving from what is now a low congestion network to a No congestion network.
- You get to choose the power of your own connection.
- Everyone starts the day on a no congestion network and will only move to some congestion if they exceed their chosen netload.
- 50GB Daily Data limit removed.
- The faster speeds become cheaper for lower netload users.
- It’s a fairer system that means that light users are not subsidising the heavier users (currently 6% of our customers use 40% of our network and pay the same price)
- The system is scalable so the network can continue to grow ahead of your needs so we can stay an honestly uncongested network.
- No bill shock as you can set your daily connection price, with an optional buffer limit if you go over your daily netload allowance.
You can still:
- Connect in as little as 20 minutes
- Disconnect if you like.
- Change speeds as you like.
- Do a 7 day free trial which is a great way to see your netload usage.
How will it be charged?
Step 1. Choose your connection speed (the prices have either stayed the same or lowered considerably on old pricing).
Step 2. Choose your pre-determined Netload. Each connection includes 1 netload per day, but you can add more if you like at 80c per netload. You can also see your average netload in the user portal so you can manage your costs and usage. This pre-determined amount will ensure you are on a ‘no congestion’ network until your netload (average peak speed across the day) hits the limit.
At this point you will either fall back to a ‘some congestion’ network, or you can set a buffer as below…
Step 3. Set a buffer for extra netload should you exceed your daily precommitted allowance. The extra buffer netloads are charged at $1.10 per netload.
FAQ’s
What will happen if I run out of netload?
During peak times, if you have hit your netload limit, then you’ll shift from being on the ‘No congestion’ network to a some congestion network.
Can I add more netload?
Absolutely. If you pre-commit each Netload allowance is 80c per netload (can set in 40c increements). If you’ve set a higher ‘buffer’ for when you go over, these netloads are charged at $1.10.
Do I have to use the buffer?
No. You can set your daily fee at $3.80 (this would be a 100/40 with 2 netload) and set your maximum daily also at $3.80 which means you’ll be shaped to 2Mbps at 2 netload. Or you could go a 50/20 connection at $2.50 plus 2 extra netload (total 3 netload) as a total maximum cost of $4.10 per day.
Do I have to use the pre-commit?
No. Every connection includes a netload of 1, however you can decide not to purchase any more ahead of time and set your buffer limit instead. Then the system purely charges you on usage, with a pre-set limit. It is more expensive to do it this way, but could work out cheaper if you have a highly varied daily netload.
How do I know how much netload I usually use?
Your last 28 days of netload usage will be shown on the user portal, so you’ll always be aware. We will also be showing you minute by minute daily usage so that you can see what activities use the most netload.
What do the price changes look like?
Here are some examples of pricing with different netloads. You can pre-commit and set your buffer in 0.5 increments.
| NBN Speed | Old Price | Base With 1 netload | With 2.5 netload | With 4 netload |
| 50/20 | $2.50 | $2.50 | $3.70 | $4.90 |
| 100/40 | $3.50 | $3.00 | $4.20 | $5.40 |
| 250/100 | $5.50 | $4.00 | $5.20 | $6.40 |
| 500/200 | $8.50 | $5.00 | $6.20 | $7.40 |
| 1000/400 | $14.50 | $7.00 | $8.20 | $9.40 |
When will this be rolled out?
All new customers will go on to new netload pricing at the end of this week. Existing customers can stay on the old pricing until April 1. We’ll be offering some sweeteners to move earlier.
Want to know more?
You can ask questions in our Launtel Users Group. If you’re not yet part of the Facebook group, request access here.
Thanks again for being part of this journey. Our dedication always remains to delivering Australia’s best nbn connections.
Posted on February 20, 2018
*New Residential Customers on Hold*
As we’ve advised previously, our residential service has been popular beyond our expectations. People love to have the flexibility of our unique user portal, but also they appreciate actually getting the speeds they pay for with a no or low congestion network.
We’ve also found that when people have great internet, they use it MUCH more than industry benchmarks would indicate.
We’ve previously advised that we would need to launch a world first pricing model to ensure:
> we avoid the pitfalls of other congested telcos
> we deliver a fairer way of charging so that heavier users weren’t being subsidised by the light users,
> that our network would stay uncongested for everyone even as future needs expand.
Our new pricing model is in the final stages of coding now so it will give you the ultimate power to build the connection that best suits your preferences and your budget.
The new netload pricing is fairer, the faster speeds become cheaper, and we will return to being a No congestion network.
However…
A few nights ago, our network hit some light congestion. It’s still not to the congested levels of our competitors, but we were watching the charts and saw a slowdown in peak times.
That’s not what we’re about.
It’s not the type of network that makes us proud.
Whilst the new netload pricing model will be launched tomorrow, we’ve decided to PAUSE all new Resi customer activations until the new pricing model is launched.
We’ve also ordered more bandwidth and are upgrading hardware so that when we reopen network access to new users, everyone can be assured that it will still perform like a dream in peak times.
THOSE WITH EXISTING ACCOUNTS: You can still create new connections.
NEW CUSTOMERS: You can still create an account and register for your free 7 day trial, however it won’t activate until next week (the 26th Feb).
BUSINESS CUSTOMERS: Are not affected by this at all.
We always put the quality of our network before driving revenue which is why we’ve taken this unusual step.
For anyone wishing to shift to launtel, we apologise if this is an inconvenience, but please note that once you’re a customer too, we will always ensure the quality of your service stays high.
Thank you,
Damian and the Launtel team.
Posted on February 19, 2018
Too many people (not our customers) complain that the NBN is too slow.
Well it’s not the NBN. The FTTN (fibre to the node) network, whilst crappy can still be good. The FTTP (pure fibre to the premise) network that most of Tasmania has is a beautiful network that’s reasonably reliable and flexible to fulfil data needs for decades to come.
So then why are some connections slow? The crew at CNet explain (sorry about the 15 second ad at the start).
Launtel Business network is a Zero Congestion network. Our Residential network is currently low congestion (much lower than our competitors), but will become a no congestion network in coming months.
If your speeds aren’t what you’re paying for, tell your current provider you want out of the agreement or just give our free 7 day trial a go! We can show you how the NBN was meant to be.
Posted on February 11, 2018
December 2017 – A message about balance and fairness.
After opening up our network to residential users for the last two months I can now report back on how it’s going. In a nutshell most people have been amazed at the quality of our network and our ability to fix problems (particularly on FTTN). This has also been demonstrated by the rate at which we’ve grown – we’re at almost 400 customers in just two months.
However we have seen a rather different usage pattern than we expected. Some of you may remember back in August that we gave away a quarter gig trial. This was intended to measure the network load that we should expect on the network. It turns out the data from that trial was not as useful as we expected!
When we went live we originally intended to only offer speeds from 100/40 upwards. However at the last minute we decided to offer a 25/5 mainly to have a cheap tier that people could scale back to when they weren’t using it.
What took us by complete surprise was that more than half of our customers went on to the 25/5 speed tier. Now that’s not a problem, except…the amount of network load created by the people on the 25/5 speed tier is out of proportion to those on the higher tiers. In the business world of internet there’s a rough correlation between the speed a business wants and the amount of network load they create. In short, the higher the speed the higher the load. So you can use one as a proxy for the other. This is important because on the NBN the network load (CVC) is a good 70% of the cost of a connection.
BUT …that correlation doesn’t happen in residential it seems…
The reason is streaming services, such as Netflix. The outcome is that we’ve ended up using more of the available CVC bandwidth than we expected for the amount of revenue we receive (because the 25/5 speed is $2.00 a day whereas the 100/40 is $3.50 a day). We’ve got away with this so far because we had spare capacity on our network since we turned on the Gigabit for business. The problem will come when we continue to expand the network and bring more residential users taking up a lot of network load.
The other thing we have been surprised about is the amount of staff needed to manage support, particularly for FTTN customers (who at first we weren’t going to accept but realised that was unfair). Given that we’re looking to grow in this area – since there appears to be massive demand for a company that can actually fix people’s issues – it’s clear we’re going to need more staff. We want to employ Tasmanians for these roles both in our office and as roving technicians. Of course people don’t work for free!
So we have three choices:
1. We don’t expand our network and just take on more clients until we get enough revenue. This will lead to increasing congestion on our network.
2. We stop new people joining our network.
3. We raise our prices.
Option 1 is out of the question, we only got here by having a good network, people have chosen us because we have a good network and we are not going to change that, ever!
Option 2 is possible but it seems a shame to turn people away that clearly are looking for a better product than they are getting from the other carriers.
So we’re left with option 3…
Raising prices in the telco industry is always fraught with danger, because people are used to prices falling and we know, sadly we may lose customers. However the NBN has created a “step change” in the cost structure such that the basic $65/month internet connection is no longer viable if you want to have a decent experience. Given all the issues that the big telcos have got into recently with false advertising, even they realise that you can’t deliver a great network and keep prices low. In fact we may well see some price rises from them. Right now they’re just being forced to admit how congested their networks are. Even NBN are pushing retailers to start delivering better networks.
So what’s going to change?
As of midnight on the 29th/30th Dec 2017 for new people who come onto our network the minimum NBN speed tier will be 50/20 and that will be $2.50/day. We’re also standardising the pricing for each technology (FTTN, FW and FTTP will all be the same). This will mean the price of the 100/40 NBN speed tier on FTTN will move to $3.50 a day to match the speed tier on FTTP.
For our customers on Fixed Wireless, we understand you don’t have many speed options and we’ll maintain the 25/5 availability for you at the current $2/day price point.
If you’re already on our network (including signed up for a trial) by that date, then you’ll stay on the current pricing until the beginning of February. We hope that you appreciate the quality of our network and will stick with us.
Secondly, we don’t yet have a date set for this, but we’ll be moving the heaviest users of the network (around the top 5%) to a new system called “Network Load Pricing”. Essentially those who use the network more heavily the system will need to pay a bit more for their ‘exclusive’ load on the network. It just isn’t fair that 95% of the users subsidise the heaviest needs of the top 5% as much as they do.
What’s Network Load Pricing you ask?
Currently we price our connections on speed (higher speed, higher price) and then essentially allow you to use as much network capacity as you like. However as we noted above, this is clearly untenable in the long term. We need to put a price on the service that more accurately reflects usage patterns so we can afford to keep the network functioning at the level you’ve come to expect.
Traditionally Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have used downloaded data (Gigabytes per month) as a method for measuring usage. However streaming services like Netflix have arguably ruined this method because as an ISP we’re concerned with “peak load” – between 6pm and 10pm. Netflix creates a constant load on the network for several hours at a time – it uses CVC bandwidth that cannot be shared with anyone else.
Now, if we don’t want congestion on the network, we have to consider the maximum needed not just the average. Indeed I believe that this “Netflix effect” is one of the reasons that the big telcos have got into so much trouble with the performance of their networks.
So we’ve decided to innovate in this area and use the same measure that’s used for billing that many carriers use when selling to each other. It’s called burstable billing. There’s quite a decent article on wikipedia about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burstable_billing
We’ve been calculating this for you for the last few weeks – if you look in the portal under usage, you’ll see your daily “network load” along with a 7 day moving average (i.e the average of that day and the previous 6 days). We’ve put a 7 day moving average in there because this is likely what we will use for charging – it smooths out many of the daily variations and avoids “bill shock” because you know what tomorrow’s charge will be.
Our intention is to reduce the price of the fixed connection speed (to around $1 per day) and add in a “netload charge” that is between $0.50 and $1.50 per day per “netload” in Mbps. We don’t know the exact price yet (hence the range), because we aren’t exactly sure where the limits of our current network are. This will mean that the lighter users will get a lower price and the heavier users get a higher price to take into account the extra network we have to buy for them. Our intention is not to penalise the heavy users, just to reduce or eliminate the cross-subsidy that typically occurs between the light and heavy users.
So what contributes to network load? The biggest thing has to be high bandwidth streaming – Netflix in HD! Additionally some people don’t even connect a TV antenna anymore, they just stream SBS on Demand, iView, Stan, Foxtel, 7Plus, YouTube Red…the list goes on. The constant bandwidth of HD streaming usage of about 5-8Mbps will put your netload up to that value so watching Netflix in SD will be better. Downloading files doesn’t really increase it that much. If you look at your usage graphs you can see the amount downloaded and compare it against your netload.
There is one really cool thing about using netload pricing: when you go on holiday your costs naturally comes down as your usage tails off, you may not need to bother to disconnect.
I would very much appreciate any feedback you have about this, there is no question we have to raise more revenue to pay for further expansion of the network. Our focus is on doing this in the fairest and most sustainable way possible.
Unfortunately it is as simple and stark as that. We shouldn’t be so surprised though. It always costs more for higher quality, we realise that by taking this route we are asking people to make a choice between price and quality. We won’t criticise anyone for their particular choice, however we can only cater for one of them.
Damian
In Short
- Free Upgrade for all 25/5 connections to 50/20 connections until January 31, 2018.
- After this, and for all new signs ups, the price will be $2.50/day for a 50/20 connections.
- Heaviest users on the network (those over a 4Mbps network load) will be introduced to ‘Network Load Pricing’ in the next month with all users given the option soon after.
- Our commitment remains to stay agile enough with evolving internet usage trends to maintain Australia’s fastest nbn connections.
Posted on December 26, 2017
Currently there is a big debate raging in the US about net neutrality. This is the principle that carriers (ISPs) should treat all traffic equally. They shouldn’t be allowed to prioritise certain traffic or charge more or less for it’s carriage.
This is a big deal in the USA because they have a significantly poorer competitive landscape than we do due to allowing (even encouraging) “infrastructure competition”. This is where a company can build a network (fibre, HFC, wireless) and then sell services direct to retail on that infrastructure. There is no requirement for that company to sell access to that infrastructure to other competitors.
The net result is that most customers in the USA have access to typically one ISP on each of the technologies (ADSL, HFC, wireless or sometimes Fibre). If there is only one technology available, customers have no choice about which ISP to use. To make matters worse, just as in Australia, there has been a massive consolidation in the telco industry leaving just a small number of large players who have the ability (and have shown their willingness to) throw their weight around.
If you want an example of what happened when Australia tried infrastructure competition, you only have to look at the disaster that was the original HFC roll-out. Optus and Telstra chased each other down the street with their construction crews with the sole purpose of destroying each other’s business model. The net result is that neither made enough money to cover the cost and the roll-out halted.
In Australia we do not formally have net neutrality. Due to the competitive pressure between the number of ISPs at retail, there is probably little incentive for any of them to “behave badly” in this respect and therefore no great pressure to introduce regulation.
Having said that, Telstra has been known to manipulate traffic to their own ends, the obvious example being their unwillingness to perform peering with anyone. Telstra, uniquely, charge both their retail customers and the content providers (Facebook, Amazon, Google etc) for data to traverse their network. They can only do this because of their market power in Australia.
Posted on December 19, 2017
