I have to admit, at first it sounded like a fine deal - I, myself, use such quota's by scheduling any large file downloads at night - but a 6 hour window makes me wonder if it is even possible to consume that 160gb allowance at ideal network speeds in the month.

Not totally bad for those of us with setups to allow our computers to hum away quietly and do all or most of our downloading in those self-same small hours. But I do agree with you that the marketing side of it is a tad nasty. I was initially interested in the plan too, before catching the same restrictions. Didn't the ACCC have a go at a certain large ISP for making similar sorts of conditions not clear enough? Perhaps someone ought to point them in a new direction..

I haven't checked this one out, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that it's an ADSL2 plan your talking about... That sort of plan, would be great for me. I'd love it if Telstra would do that sort of plan for a similar price. I'd be there in a flash. Mostly due to the reliability Telstra has. But, of course, the problem is for me, that Telstra doesn't have that. Nor is there any indication they ever will. But that's not exactly the topic is it. The point is, that for my needs (to be able to download all I can get my grubby little paws on) this is nearly perfect. Huge download limit meaning I'm not going to have a problem reaching my cap too early, restricted download times that ensure that my housemates aren't going to be downloading when I'm trying to browse or play games online and a MASSIVE LIMIT for my downloading pleasure. Oh, I said that twice. It's okay, it bares reapeating. I don't think this is a con. Most download accelerators or Torrent programs include 'Schedulers' for situations like these. Queue up your downloads during the day, download them during the night and have everyting ready to watch in the morning either before or after work in the evening. I leave you with a final point. I don't want my household to download while i'm trying to use the internet, but I want to download a hefty amount. Both of these conditions just plain don't work on Telstra plans.

So that comes to 40Gb then of normal use for under $80. Let's compare Telstra Bigpond's ADSL2 plans. What can I get for under $80 on Bigpond? That would be the 600Mb plan for $59.95. Yes, that's Mb, not Gb... OK.. so I might be prepared to head up above the $80 mark. What's the next one? 12Gb..... for $89.95. So if I wanted 40Gb... I would have to go with the $159 / 60Gb plan. It's also important to understand that these prices are for BUNDLED services (as is the iPrimus offer). If you're not bundled, you need to throw another $10/month on top of those prices. iPrimus also clearly points out that there is more to the offer than displayed, and when you click on "Things you should know about iPrimus ADSL2 Big Kahuna" - it clearly explains everything. Telstra's service and quality is fantastic.. but it IS ridiculously expensive for what it is, and cannot compare pricewise, bang for buck, when compared to what other ISPs are able to offer. Unfortunately, this article looks cheap and nasty, and isn't really even accurate with regard to "tiny footnote in the fine-print on the website". You also seem very quick to forget that Telstra themselves withdrew their appeal against the ACCC which alleged that Telstra had engaged in misleading and deceptive marketing practices. Business is business - we all use the same techniques (we shouldn't, but we do) when it comes to advertising. I'm sorry Rhonda, but this article is simply a "bag the competition" article. I would like to think Telstra is above that - and that Telstra could simply show it's market prowess by providing better service and pricing that its competition in order to show this to the public. That's the way to show that Telstra is the industry leader in telecommunications in Australia (and Telstra certainly *is*) . That's the way we should be conducting ourselves. So let's not jump on cheap tactics and bitching articles in order to try and climb over the competition. After all, actions speak louder than words.

"I prefer the plain old English translation in this case for the Big Kahuna … the Big Con." Bit of a cheap call, seeing as there are currently 0 other plans that come close to this for the price! I say good on iPrimus for activly trying to improve the broadband quota issues australia has...

I think you will find that this was openly admitted on their website. Primus arent the first company to market "off peak" usage either, Optus, Internode and TPG (off the top of my head) have been doing it for years. And even though 160gb must be used between 3 and 9am, 40gb daytime for under $80 is still a good deal when compared with Bigpond's 600mb plan at 69.95 (only Bigpond ADSL2 plan under $80 without bundling phone and mobile.) And thirdly I think you'll find the target market for such a plan isn't the "insomniac" you describe, but those who have embraced P2P, as with a little bit of know-how, one can easily set up their computer to only download between 3am and 9am. I have no doubt that I will be labelled as missing the point of your article (dishonesty?) but anyone signing themselves into a 24 month agreement would surely read the terms of service and use they sign prior to locking themselves in.

When you read this kind of article it's easy to overlook the fact that during peak hours you're still getting 40gig worth of data and then virtually unlimited off peak usage. Comparing that to Bigpond's offering of 12 gig for $89 bundled or $99 standalone and suddenly it does look like an attractive offer. to be able to download 40gig on a Telstra plan you're looking at a monthly bill of $159 standalone or $149 bundled per month. It's fair then to say that ADSL through Bigpond costs just under twice as much!

Well Rhonda, between 9am-3am on this Kahuna plan, users are still able to access 40GB of data, for under $80. The only plan that Bigpond offer for under $80 on ADSL2 is 600MB(0.6GB). So even if users find no use for the 160GB between 3am-9am, they are still able to access 6600% more usage during "normal times" on the Kahuna plan, and pay no excess usage if they hit their limit. Just which plan exactly is "The Big Con"?

I think the point has been made - and quite correctly - that the "Big Kahuna" provides value BUT value is different things to different people. P2P has changed the game forever and many of us are leaving the machine on to capture that data overnight. Our computers are not just data drains however they are powerful machines capable of processing and redistributing data also. Telstra and other ISP's BEWARE WIRELESS ANARCHY.

I have read the responses so far and have the following to add: OK, Its all well and fine to suggest that this huge download offering maybe ADSL 2 or 2 getting from the DSLAM to your house. But what's the actual throughput from the DSLAM back into iPrimus' backend network (the backhaul)? ADSL2 with a huge download limit (irrespective of Time of Day restriction) is not so useful if the actual backhaul is not a lot bigger than a piece of string - not that I'm saying this is the case with this particular iPrimus' offering - but it's a factor which is often overlooked by those critiquing on price alone!! About ten or so years ago, I remember a really cheap dial-up ISP (an ISP who made no bones about what they offered) who had many hundreds of incoming dial-up line terminations but who had only a relatively small bandwidth connection to the actual backbone. Sure you didn't pay much for the service but it was as slow as an absolute wet week during the peak hours of 6:00 - Midnight. It was so slow that perhaps a 300bps dial-up modem call connection to ISP would have done the job during that time. But hey it was so cheap... There's a truism which seems to always apply to pretty much everything in life in that you tend to get what you pay for and you tend to pay for what you get. Perhaps just maybe something is sacrificed in order to provide that huge download albeitly a download which has to be enjoyed mostly in the early AM hours of the night. I mean if we all bought on price alone, there would only be cheap Taiwanese or Korean cars on the road. However we don't all buy such cars, some of us buy Holdens, Fords, Mercedes, BMWs etc etc don't we. We also travel on Tollways even though we could travel on that other road which is not tolled but which is often badly congested when we need to travel. We exercise choice and weigh up whether we go cheap with trade offs or whether we go a bit more expensive but with higher quality and a better outcome Its something to consider.