It's only been three months since we released Bliink, our flat rate broadband service. Bliink has proven to be far more popular than we had expected, particularly on the east coast, with over 6000 customers now getting ADSL through iiNet.

Many customers are scheduling downloads for midnight and then heading off to bed. This is a smart way to use the service, but the sheer amount being downloaded by some customers has caught us by surprise and we are now experiencing congestion during "Bliink time".

In order to ensure that everyone gets a fair go and performance is not affected, Bliink time (midnight to 7AM) will now have a shaping policy, similar to that operating during the day. Of course, even once the quota has been exceeded, you can still continue to download all month, albeit at a slower speed.

On the plus side, the increased scale now means that we can afford to give higher speed customers more downloads during the day before they are "shaped".

The updated plans are available on our web site at:

In brief, the home plans now have:

• no change to pricing;
• increased quota for 256k and higher plans before shaping is applied;
• you have a quota for peak time and in addition to that, the same quota again for Bliink time;
• quotas are now on a "rolling 30 day" total, not on a calendar month, spreading load more evenly over the month;
• when you do get shaped, your speed will now be reduced to 72kb/s, instead of the previous 56kb/s.

For existing bliink customers in NSW and VIC, counting of the "last 30 days" for shaping quotas commenced on 12.01am Tuesday 24 September 2002. Counting of the last 30 days for bliink customers in WA commenced on 12.01 am Wednesday 8 October 2002.

The Bliink updates fundamentally improve the range for everyone and will allow us to provide good performance 24 hours a day. However, if you feel that these changes affect you adversely, you may cancel your plan before the end of October, 2002 and receive a pro-rata refund of any pre-paid fees.

We're all very upbeat about the success of Bliink and hope that you will continue to support us as broadband gets even better.