UPDATE | Optus has responded to criticism of the move, saying that if a customer wants to avoid paying excess fees they can "choose to limit their usage". "Optus provides a set of tools to help customers manage their data usage including data usage alerts via SMS to their mobile phone free of charge, email notifications and access via the web any time", said an Optus spokesperson.

Optus Fusion plans were previously a "no more to pay" broadband deal, as they were shaped to slower speeds once the allowance of 2GB, 7GB or 20GB was reached.

The Optus website now states that if "you exceed your standard monthly data allowance, excess usage will be charged at 15c/MB up to 2GB after which your speed will be limited to 64kbps on the 2GB and 7GB plans or 128kbps on the 20GB plan until the end of your billing period."

A cable user could reach $300 in excess fees in just 30 minutes once they had exceeded their 2GB quota. An Optus spokesperson claimed less than a week ago to ZDNet News that printed flyers explaining the new excess fees were erroneous.

Further changes see the $69 Fusion bundle increase in price to $79/month, with the same 2GB quota.

Optus subsidiary Virgin Broadband has also quietly increased the pricing on its popular Broadband at Home product.

The changes, introduced last week, see the 4GB plan rise by $10 to $70/month, with a lesser 2GB plan now offered at the $60 price point. Other changes include the lowering of the shaping speed from 128Kbps to 64Kbps, and a further reduction in P2P speeds from 64Kbps to 32Kbps.

With both Optus and Virgin, the detrimental changes will only apply to new customers.

Links:

• ISPs offer line rental escape  (Whirlpool, 27 Jul 2007)
• Optus to count uploads on new plans  (Whirlpool, 8 Jul 2007)