Telstra says: Don't take terabyte broadband bait

Telstra has taken a swipe at competitors' terabyte broadband offers, urging customers to "look past" the super-sized offers and go for lower-quota products.

A competitor intelligence specialist from Telstra's enterprise and government division, Heath Gibson, wrote in a company blog today that terabyte plans were about "attention grabbing headlines" and did not reflect the data demands of average internet users.

He claimed a "quick calculation" using Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed that fixed-line broadband customers used "under 10 gigabytes a month [on] average" - suggesting smaller quota plans should suffice for most people.

"The analyst in me is questioning just how many people currently need, or could even use, a terabyte of data each and every month," Gibson said.

"Terabyte plans will have appeal to a special niche and demand for these plans will no doubt grow over time.

"But for now my advice to most people would be to look past the attention grabbing headline, check how big a plan you really need and keep in mind all the other things that go in to making a great ISP."

Gibson urged broadband users to "take a moment to hear me out" while denying that his blog post was just Telstra making excuses for the "lack of a terabyte plan in the BigPond broadband offering".

iPrimus, iiNet and TPG are among the ISPs to have launched plans with a terabyte of download quota per month.