New Zealand

Users frustrated by miserly data plans

09:43 am on 3 October 2013

An internet consumer group says the country needs more than the present single undersea cable before telecommunications companies can offer better, cheaper options to customers.

The Telecommunications Users' Association says it is constantly receiving complaints about people exceeding their plans and having to pay extra for more data.

Chief executive Paul Brislen says the types of data plans available are failing to accommodate the needs of an increasingly digital country.

He says telecommunications companies providing internet have no competitive alternative to paying for access to the single international line, the Southern Cross Cable, or to paying Chorus to use its copper network domestically.

Mr Brislen says data caps are unheard of in the United States and Britain.