Uber Group has announced a raft of changes to its fibre and rural wireless broadband packages. The changes apply from 17 September 2014 and will be rolled out to existing customers.
“We are constantly looking at new ways to make things faster, more reliable and more affordable for our customers. With these latest changes almost all our customers will get more data for the same monthly fees and some will actually be paying less,” says Managing Director Hayden Simon.
The most dramatic changes come in the fibre packages, with Uber announcing monthly data caps of 1 Terabyte (residential and business) and 2.5 Terabytes (business only) at the top end.
“Uber has carefully avoided unlimited plans because we want to make sure all our customers have an excellent internet experience, especially at peak times. But there is clearly a demand for larger data caps so we have met this need by providing high end plans which should satisfy the needs of most users,” says Mr Simon.
The new fibre packages start at an entry level $65 including GST for 50 Gb (50/20 mbps) and move up through 150 Gb at 50/20 for $79 (both these are residential packages only) through to 500 Gb at 100/50 for $99 and 1 Tb (100/50) for $119 (both these are residential and business packages); and the 2.5 Tb business-only package for $189.
Uber says there will be further improvements and changes to its rural wireless plans before Christmas, but this latest announcement sets the entry level wireless plan at 10 Gb for the monthly fee of $65 including GST, with 15 Gb available for just four dollars more at $69. There’s a 35 Gb plan for $79, 50 Gb for $89, and a new 70 Gb plan for $99. Additional data is available at a special rate on the 70 Gb plan.
“Current limitations with wireless technology mean that it is more challenging to increase data caps for our rural customers, but these latest changes mean that all our customers receive a benefit to some degree, particularly those who are higher data users,” Mr Simon says.
Uber has also confirmed its rural speeds of 10 mbps download and 6 mbps upload which existing customers have enjoyed for some months now but which have not been widely advertised. “We prefer to under-promise and over-deliver,” says Mr Simon.
The latest announcement includes a reduction in Uber’s NZ mobile calling rates to 24c per minute and the launch of some useful new features in its customer portal, including the ability to see what devices are connected to your wifi network at any time. “We receive a lot of calls from people wondering how all their data is being used, and whether someone unauthorised is using it, so we have built this new feature in response to customer demand. What’s even better, you don’t have to be at home to see – you can check it out remotely.”
