New ISP scrapes the bottom of the broadband barrel

No limits, no contracts, just broadband. That’s the slogan of New Zealand’s latest contender into the ISP market, Unlimited Internet.

According to CEO Ben Simpson, the Unlimited Internet brand has been developed to provide users the best possible value for broadband services, by stripping back unnecessary costs and utilising an independent wholesale network not controlled by the ‘big three’ NZ telcos.

“We’re just trying to give New Zealand Broadband users what they want, which we believe is essentially all the data they can use, at good speeds, and none of the hidden costs or gotchas that most other ISPs try and tack onto their services," he says.

The stripped back, BYO modem service features unlimited ADSL2+ plans from just $39 a month for users with a home phone line, or $69 a month for naked - Simpson believes these prices are the lowest the country has ever seen.

“We compared our plans to almost every other ISP provider in New Zealand, and from what I can see we are definitely the cheapest, not just for ADSL but also for VDSL and UFB," he adds. "Especially when you consider we have no term contracts.

“We also started by looking at existing plans from the perspective of internet users ourselves and identified what we liked about them, and what we didn’t like.

"We paid a lot of attention to what customers were asking their current providers for via social media. For example one of the common requests seemed to be a public static IP address, so we added this service as an optional one off cost to all of our customers.”

Simpson is well aware that many telco commentators in the country may be skeptical of an independent company’s ability to deliver at such low prices, but he says the prices are made possible by his own independent wholesale channel, Next Generation Wholesale (NGW).

“Because of the access we have to our own 20 POP nationwide wholesale network, we’re not having to pay such high overheads," he adds.

"This means that not only are we able to offer very low prices, but there’s enough margin in these prices for us to ensure we can deliver a reliable, quality service to New Zealand broadband customers.”

This move is the latest by Simpson in what appears to be an ongoing effort to lower the prices of internet services in NZ across the board, an intention he made clear with the launch of NGW itself.

“NGW was the first company in New Zealand to openly state wholesale prices for ISPs, and as a result of this we’ve seen many big players have to lower their prices, particularly at a wholesale level, to keep their current customers," he adds.

"Essentially we’re trying to achieve a similar goal with Unlimited Internet, by saying this is how much we can deliver good quality, uncapped broadband for.”

Simpson expects the company to gain traction primarily through word of mouth, rather than flamboyant marketing campaigns.

“At the end of the day we’re not Spark or Vodafone, and we obviously can’t afford to compete with them on a marketing level," he adds.

"But I’m hopeful that users will appreciate our honesty and our commitment to providing them the best value, and we look forward to signing up lots of happy customers in the future.”

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