Virgin internet service

[firstblood]

I saw this huge advertising in the Sunday mail about Virgin's new 3g plan internet service and wondering what most here think about it.
Here is a bit of info i copied and pasted.

The Virgin offer is the latest in a spate of affordable mobile-based internet services designed to tempt customers away from fixed-line broadband.

The new "At home" product will include a home phone with unlimited free local and long distance calls, free calls to Virgin mobiles, wireless networking and 4GB of internet access for $60 per month.

While it uses the mobile network to connect calls, the new service would have all the appearances of a conventional home phone, with a "fixed line" number and the ability to use an existing phone, Mr Davey said.

The $80 per month mobile broadband product comes with a Nokia 6120 handset, $520 worth of mobile calls included and 1GB of internet downloads via a free USB modem.

Data speeds on both home and mobile services, which use the high-speed HSDPA network protocol, averaged approximately 512kbps, Mr Davey said.

But peer to peer traffic would be limited to speeds of 64kbps, Mr Davey said, saying the service was not designed for heavy users. However, there were no charges for over-cap use, he said. "We are not rating upload and we are not charging for excess usage. We will just throttle (speeds)."

[Psyber]

Inmy view all phone Internet access is a rip-off - it is all much more expensive than it needs to be, as are mobile phone services generally. For that matter so is Home Internet access because Telstra push up the base costs, but it works out a lot cheaper than using it on your mobile phone, assuming you already have a landline connection. My phone is Internet capable and I could fully tax deduct it but I resist the rip-off.

[My phone is on an iSIM prepaid, at zero flag fall and 39c/min charged by the second.]