NBN ‘FAIR USE’ policy & actions

NBN Co’s ‘FAIR USE’ POLICY & ACTIONS (compiled by BIRRR)

Screenshot of section of NBN Co’s ‘Fair Use Policy’ from their website*:

Until earlier this year, Interim Satellite Service (ISS) customers were offered up to 60GB/month data plans by Retail Service Providers (RSP).

NBN Co deemed these plans to be excessive, and in February this year (2015) NBN Co moved to enforce its fair use policy for customers on the Interim Satellite Service.

As reported by computerworld.com.au^:

A briefing document for retail service providers (dated 30 January) indicates that starting in December 2015, NBN Co moved to have RSPs that sold ISS access to restrict individual customers’ usage to “no more than 50GB download per 4 week rolling aggregate of usage, measured weekly (the Threshold download limit) so as to facilitate RSP compliance with the ISS Fair Use Policy.”

“If RSPs continue to not comply with the Fair Use Policy, then NBN Co will exercise its rights under the WBA [Wholesale Broadband Agreement] by limiting identified services (users exceeding Threshold download limit) from February 2015 if this becomes necessary,” the document states.

Since this time, the ‘shaping’ of end users has increased dramatically, with NBN stepping in (on occasion) where there ISS providers have failed to ‘respond’.

A new ‘rolling four week’ measure of the end customer’s data usage has also been enforced (on top of the ‘billing month’ generally enforced by the ISS provider). Now ANY four week period can be used as a measure by NBN to locate ‘excessive data use’.

This new rule for ISS customers seems to have come into play around April.

As a matter of interest (and comparison), the NBN Co itself published figures from October 2014 showing the average data use of Australians to be 58GB/ month with those on NBN using an average of 67GB/month.<

BIRRR are aware of the inequalities of this policy, and will continue working with NBN to address them.

*NBN Fair Use Document: Has since been removed from nbn website (1/12/16)

^ Source: http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/565806/nbn-co-clamps-down-satellite-usage/

<http://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-releases/aussie-ifamilies-hungry-for-fast-broadband.html

NBN ‘FAIR USE’ POLICY ACTIONS prepared by Amanda Salisbury for BIRRR updated 1/12/2016