hate to rain on your parade but here as in australia telecom like telstra are the only suppliers of wholesale broadband, the new zealand govt has even gone to the extrordinary lenghts of legistrating that like telstra, telecom have to unbundle the copper loop infrastructure and forceing telecom to open the exchanges to allow other isps etc to install there own equipment.....
but as the govt and the consumer are finding out what telecom / telstra loose at the retail level and even at the line rental, toll etc level......they more then make up for the looses by simply increasing the wholesale broadband rates they charge to other isps or service providers........
true competion ie as in a drop in the broadband rates will only be achieved when these monoplys are ended and there is true competion at the wholesale supply level.......
to give forum readers a idea of how these monoplys are simply a license to print money here in new zealand there is no such thing as a unlimited broadband acount, telecom do offer one but its capped @ 700 mb a day during peak hours and this is futher hindered in that 3mb per sec is the max speed you can get most isps are supplying @ around the 1.5 to 2 mb per sec limit. telecom never invested in the equipment to allow faster network speeds.......basically there is more demand then the system can supply........
im on the best broadband acount you can get it costs me just short of 90.00 nz dollars for 30 gig a month going over that it costs 10.00 nz dollars for every 5 gig........most nz isps charge even more out rageous amounts 10 gig cap is around 55 to 70 nz dollars a month go over that and your speed is reduced to dial up.........you then have to add line rentals of about 45.00 nz dollars a month tolls are extra again, and cell phones are a whole different kettle of fish altogether.........