in brief National broadband provider TPG is reportedly considering launching a National Broadband Network pricing plan offering unlimited download quota, similar to its popular existing ADSL2+ unlimited plans. iTNews reports (click here for the full article):

“TPG general manager of marketing and sales Craig Levy … said the company was “looking at all our options” for NBN pricing, including an unlimited quota plan, and was planning to compete heavily on the network.”

Along with Dodo and Vodafone, TPG is one of the few major Australian broadband providers not to have released any pricing details for National Broadband Network plans. In fact, it is unclear to what extent the company has actually engaged with NBN Co’s ‘on-boarding’ process, whereby ISPs work out how their systems will interconnect with the National Broadband Network.

In addition, it is unclear whether the ISP could maintain similar pricing levels on an NBN unlimited plan to its existing ADSL2+ unlimited plans, which typically cost around $70. The maximum a user could theoretically download over a month through an unlimited ADSL2+ plan is around 6.3TB. However, with the dramatically faster speeds available under the NBN — up to 100Mbps, as opposed to up to 24Mbps under ADSL2+, that total monthly download limit could be quadrupled. That extra quota cost could potentially drive up monthly plan costs on unlimited plans. The maximum quota other ISPs are currently offering on their NBN plans is between one terabyte and two terabytes.

In a presentation to investors this week, TPG also listed a number of advantages it has over other ISPs in an NBN environment — ranging from the fact that its PIPE Networks subsidiary already has fibre to 2/3 of the available NBN interconnect points, its international fibre links and its existing levels of familiarity with fibre broadband services. In Australia’s retail ISP environment, TPG is considered second only to Telstra and Optus when it comes the scale of its fibre infrastructure, due primarily to its PIPE Networks acquisition in 2009 — although Primus also has substantial fibre infrastructure (but a vastly reduced retail customer base compared with TPG).