Broadband Shaping
One of the challenges in marketing an online backup service in Australia is bandwidth.
The two biggest Internet Service Providers, Telstra and Optus, both charge their customers extra when they exceed their monthly caps. Australia is one of the only countries in the developed world where this happens. Why does it happen? As with mobile phones, it’s a great money spinner.
Let’s take a look at the current Telstra and Optus plans where this applies:
| Provider | Plan | Bandwidth | Penalties |
| Optus | Yes Fusion $79/$89/$99 Cable | 2GB/7GB/20GB | Broadband usage that counts towards your stated Optus ‘yes’ Fusion plan monthly data allowance includes both upload and download data transfers. If you exceed your standard monthly data allowance, excess usage will be charged at 15¢/MB up to 2GB after which your speed will be limited to 64kbps on the 2GB and 7GB plans and 128kbps on the 20GB plan until the end of your billing period. Excess usage charges may be billed up to 3 months in arrears. 1GB = 1000MB |
| Optus | Broadband Starter/Classic/Freedom/Professional | 400MB/2GB/15GB/30GB | Data usage will be counted in Megabytes (MB) and includes both uploads and downloads. If you exceed your monthly data allowance, access will be speed limited to 64kbps until the end of the billing month. |
| Optus | Yes Business Light/Starter/Executive/Premier/Signature | 400MB/2GB/10GB/20GB/40GB | If you exceed your monthly data allowance, access will be speed limited to 64 or 128 kbps depending on your plan until the start of the next billing month. Data will be counted in Megabytes (MB), 1000 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte (GB), and applies to both downloads and uploads. |
| Telstra | Broadband Cable | 200MB/400MB | Usage means monthly combined upload and download data transfer 1 Gigabyte = 1000 Megabytes. Additional usage charged at $0.15/MB. Unused usage allowance forfeited each month. |
| Telstra | Broadband Cable BigPond Liberty | 12GB/25GB | Once you’ve reached your usage allowance, the speed of your service will slow to 64kbps. No additional usage charges apply to BigPond Liberty plans. |
| Telstra | Broadband ADSL | 200MB/400MB/600MB | Usage means monthly combined upload and download data transfer 1 Gigabyte = 1000 Megabytes. Additional usage charged at $0.15/MB. Unused usage allowance forfeited each month. |
| Telstra | Broadband ADSL BigPond Liberty | 12GB/25GB/60GB | Once you’ve reached your usage allowance, the speed of your service will slow to 64kbps. No additional usage charges apply to BigPond Liberty plans. |
| Telstra | Broadband Wireless Mobile Card | G Fast/Super G Fast | Additional usage charged at $0.30/MB for MB usage based plans and 80 cents per 5 min for hourly plans. Usage means monthly combined upload and download data transfer. 1 Gigabyte = 1000 Megabytes. Unused included allowance expires each month. |
| Telstra | Broadband Wireless Modem | Fast/Fastest | Additional usage charged at $0.15/MB. Usage means monthly combined upload and download data transfer. 1 Gigabyte = 1000 Megabytes. Unused included allowance expires each month. |
| Telstra | Business Broadband Access | 1GB – Unlimited | If your total uploads exceed your total downloads by a ratio of 4:1 in any given month, we may charge you a back channel charge of 4c for each additional megabyte of data you upload in that month in excess of the 4:1 ratio. Excess data usage charged at 12c per MB (not applicable to unlimited plans). Unused data allowance expires each month. |
| Telstra | Business Broadband Starter |
The rest of the key ISPs, including Virgin, iiNet, Internode, TPG and Westnet, don’t charge you for any excess bandwidth for the month, they only reduce the speed of your access to essentially dial up speed (which can also be annoying).
The impact on Carbonite is when doing the initial backup. This is where all of your data is being uploaded onto the web.
Carbonite customers who are currently in one of these plans and think that the amount of data on their PC is likely to push them over their bandwidth limit, should ensure that they ‘manage’ the initial upload of their Carbonite backup.
When first installing Carbonite simply elect to manually perform your backup rather than doing the ‘automatic’ backup everything. Once Carbonite is installed it will ask you to select the files you want to backup. Simply select your most important files keeping in mind how large they are and how much bandwidth you have for the remainder of the month.
You can keep repeating this process monthly until all of your files have been initially backed up. After the initial backup of all files, Carbonite will then only look for the changes you make to the files and only back them up.
A further step you can take is to reduce the speed at which Carbonite performs its backup. From within your Carbonite InfoCentre (double click on your Green Carbonite lock) select ‘Set Option’ and then ‘Set Carbonite’s Internet Usage to Low Priority’. This will essentially reduce the speed at which your files will be backed up.
It’s unfortunate that these rules exist, but they do and until they are eliminated we think you should be aware of how they impact your Carbonite experience.
To get the latest on what fees/shaping is provided by Australia’s ISPs, you can use one of the following services, Whirlpool, Compare Broadband or if you are on a wireless or prepaid wireless connection, try PrepaidPlans.
