Comments on: Gigabang for your buck

By: Louise

Louise — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:36:02 +0000

Sean – great blog!
I’ve been having a good laugh at many articles, including these crazy graphs. The newspaper version of the broadband price map is looks like an attempt to conceal the reality that Telstra doesn’t compete on price.

Well unravelled.

By: Ramanan

Ramanan — Tue, 04 May 2010 02:18:32 +0000

Yes cant find anything wrong about it – its just different.

By: Stubborn Mule

Stubborn Mule — Tue, 04 May 2010 02:05:49 +0000

I actually quite like it…while it is rather odd-looking it rewards closer study. I might even write a post about this one.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:50:14 +0000

Indeed crazy graph. It seems that 1974 happens before 1973 (only after one realizes the x-axis is not time. Looks like one of those connect the dots to reveal the picture game… Strange coming from the NYT. Didn’t Tufte help them out years ago? I seem to recall there was something about the nyt in one of his books.

By: Ramanan

Ramanan — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:50:37 +0000

Crazy graph here http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/05/02/business/02metrics.html?ref=business

By: None

None — Sun, 02 May 2010 06:57:42 +0000

…or, is the real answer that Telstra vetted the chart and decided it would be better that it was seen first (at the left, as convention dictates)?

By: Stubborn Mule

Stubborn Mule — Sat, 01 May 2010 22:49:42 +0000

Thomas: you are right that choosing plans is a hornet’s nest. If anything, it’s worse when it comes to mobile plans. Here in Australia, Telstra is consistently more expensive than the other provides, but when you sit in a cafe next to someone using Telstra with full data access and you have none with another provider, you start to wonder whether the extra is worth paying…

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:26:42 +0000

-I just realized the article mentioned dowload limit which I confused with speed in my comment below-
Great Post! This reminds me of the challenging task of comparing cell phone plans. It makes you pause to ponder if there is any usefulness in trying to compare broadband plans. Here are a few observations this post made me think about (from a Canadian prospective):
1. Speed. All consumer broadband companies I know of make no guarantee whatsoever about claimed speed. One company’s definition of claimed speed may be different from another.
2. Speed (again). This is affected among by the type of connection. Cable is different from dsl which is different from fiber which is different from satellite. Cable for example is affected by the number of people connected in your area; dsl by the distance to the central office.
3. Speed (again…). Broadband companies have devised clever ways to increase the perception of speed. Take my cable broadband provider, shaw. They have something called powerboost, a 20sec or so increase in speed whenever you start downloading something. How is that going go keep into account? Or shoul it even Be taken into account?
4.Bundles. Just like you mention in the article. How do you even begin disentangling the difference in price due to bundles?
One should get some real data, model the expected price/speed (real speed) and graph that with an informative confidence band. Or to make it more fun, graph the real/claimed speed!

By: Ramanan

Ramanan — Sat, 01 May 2010 14:06:19 +0000

:-)