Orcon will be zero rating all YouTube traffic for the next two months.
The company already does not count browsing to or content streaming from local sites such as TVNZ and George FM towards a customer’s monthly data cap, and until the end of January 2010, YouTube will get the same treatment.
The move comes as Telecom started selling the much-anticipated Tivo personal video recorder for the first time in New Zealand earlier this month. As part of the deal, Telecom broadband customers can download on-demand Tivo content without impacting their data caps.
Meanwhile, Vodafone chief executive Russell Stanners told NBR last week that he does not believe in IPTV, or zero rated content, saying all data costs something.
But, Orcon sees offering zero rated YouTube content as a great boon for its customers.
Chief executive Scott Bartlett says YouTube makes up a “big chunk” of Orcon customers’ usage every month.
“YouTube is one of the hottest properties on the web. With the school holidays looming and the festive season in full swing we’re expecting a big uptake from our customers. These holidays mums and dads can rest assured their data cap won’t take a beating.”
As Bartlett quite rightly points out, streaming and downloading video can rapidly chew through gigabytes of data, so any deal that gives users a respite from this should be welcomed, especially since New Zealand data caps do not compare favourably to those in other developed countries.
YouTube will be zero rated for both Orcon’s home and business customers.