Farmside slashes the cost of satellite broadband to just $50 !!!

While wandering through the RD1 tent at Fieldays today, I picked up a flyer from the Farmside stand.

In a special Fieldays offer, they have slashed the installation cost of Satellite Broadband to just $49.95 + GST for RD1 customers who are also Fonterra suppliers.

For any other Joe Public, the installation cost is $100 extra i.e. $149.95 + GST which is still pretty darned good.

Once you have the equipment installed, the ongoing monthly costs are as follows:

- $49.95* per month for 500MB of data at 256k/128k
- $89.95* per month for 1GB of data at 512k/128k
- $109.95* per month for 2GB of data at 1M/256k

* All + GST.

For an additional fee (I'm guessing around $20 per month), you can also get a phone service, thus replacing your landline totally.

This much reduced pricing from Farmside brings satellite broadband within reach of a far greater number of people than previously when their cheapest monthly plan cost $89 + GST.

Good on Ya Farmside

Installation seems pretty good, but there's no way I'd pay those monthly fees!! Gasp!

Still far too expensive for us yet, when it gets to half that then I might consider it, in the meantime we're stuck with dial-up!

Yeah the monthly fees are a bit steep for us too MM.

We will have to stick with dial up for a bit longer

maggies mum;174980 wrote: Installation seems pretty good, but there's no way I'd pay those monthly fees!! Gasp!

Still far too expensive for us yet, when it gets to half that then I might consider it, in the meantime we're stuck with dial-up!

To get a true idea of the value of this service, you have to compare Apples with Apples MM

At present, you are paying:

- Telecom landline $45 per month (approx.)
- Xnet Dialup $9.95 per month
- TOTAL $55 per month (approx).

Assuming that the phone service from Farmside is $25 incl. GST (they haven't announced the pricing yet, but other VoIP providers are similar to or lower than this):

- 500MB of Data at 256k/128k $49.95 + GST = $56.19
- Phone Service $25 incl. GST
- TOTAL $81.19

i.e. it would cost just $26 per month extra to have broadband vs. your current dialup arrangement.

The whole idea becomes pretty compelling for only $26 per month don't you think?

My daughter has just shifted farms and is looking for options at the moment Grant, but 500MB isn't a hell of a lot is it? and going for 2GB suddenly seems to make it not quite so good!

However with my limited knowledge I might be missing something.

Rod Brown;175007 wrote: ...500MB isn't a hell of a lot is it? and going for 2GB suddenly seems to make it not quite so good!

However with my limited knowledge I might be missing something.

No, you're not missing anything Rod, you're onto it

My pick is that the 500MB plan is a loss-leader aimed at enticing dial-up users onto Farmside's broadband service. Then once they discover the joys of broadband, whoa, the costs start mounting up.

However, 500MB is still quite a decent amount of data for someone coming off broadband and may be enough, depending on what you're doing.

In our Farm Cottage at Russell, Inger and I have 2 laptops and a desktop PC. Looking back at our usage for the past 3 months:

- Feb 740MB
- March 370MB (we weren't there for some of the time)
- April 1GB
- May 900MB

We both use the internet fairly heavily and that amount of data is enough for us. If you go watching a lot of YouTube videos, even a 2GB data budget could quickly be exceeded however [:0]

Anyway, the housework is all done, so I'm off across the road to the Fieldays [8D]

Seems a lot - I use Orcon at $59/month for 5Gb data (1.5 Mb speed).

I don't download video etc but I get close to my cap monthly because I upload data for the weather station and use an internet radio about 4 hours a day.

So horses for courses - Farmside might be OK for e-mailing/net surfing but expensive/slow unless you have no other alternative

Will stick with what we have, I think we are paying too much now! So another $20 bucks is NOT tempting at all! LOL

Rod Brown;175007 wrote: My daughter has just shifted farms and is looking for options at the moment Grant, but 500MB isn't a hell of a lot is it? and going for 2GB suddenly seems to make it not quite so good!

However with my limited knowledge I might be missing something.

GrantK;175012 wrote: No, you're not missing anything Rod, you're onto it

Actually Rod, we both missed something []

I went back to the Farmside stand again to take issue with the large price gap between the bottom two plans. The very polite lady pointed out that there are Boosters available to give increased data caps:

- 1GB extra data @ $24.95 + GST
- 2GB extra data @ $39.95 + GST

Say for example that you are on the entry-level plan with a mere 500MB of data. By adding the 1GB booster, you can triple your data cap to 1.5GB, which should be enough for many people

Total cost is then $84.26 per month which is getting up there, but 1.5GB is more than enough data unless you are downloading video, music or as in GBPeter's case -- Internet Radio.