Külföldi torrent oldalak Telstra 'free Data Guy' To Test Drive 1gbps Modem Despite Admitting Illegal Downloads

Telstra has offered a customer who admitted to downloading about 400GB of pirated content during the telco's 'free data day', to test its upcoming super fast 1Gbps modem before the general public sees it.

Telstra was offering free mobile data to all its mobile customers on Sunday as an apology for a network outage.

Fairfax first revealed on Tuesday the identity of the so-called 'free data guy' who had boasted on Reddit about tearing through a massive 1 terabyte of Telstra mobile data on the day.

Twenty-seven-year-old John Szaszvari, from Sydney, subsequently told News Corp that 40 per cent of the content he'd downloaded was pirated from "private sites that aren't known to the public".

The files included 14 seasons of Mythbusters and 24 seasons of The Simpsons, he said.

He also told Fairfax: "Fingers crossed the cops don't come knocking for copyright infringement".

On Tuesday, Telstra chief operating officer Kate McKenzie gave Mr Szaszvari a shout-out at the CommsDay conference in Sydney, saying: "Some of our customers really do have a big appetite for data".

On Friday, a company spokesperson told Fairfax that Telstra had "offered John the opportunity to test a new modem for a day in our testing lab, when it becomes available".

Other news outlets incorrectly reported Telstra had offered Mr Szaszvari a job.
The Telstra spokesperson said online copyright infringement was "a serious issue which we don't condone".

"There are lots of legal and legitimate ways for customers to use large amounts of data," the spokesperson said.
"We're looking forward to an opportunity to talk to Mr Szaszvari about these, and testing the speeds of our new 1Gbps (1000 megabits per second) mobile broadband hotspot."

Village Roadshow co-chief executive Graham Burke, who is also chairman of intellectual property advocacy group Creative Content Australia, said it was "appalling" Telstra had chosen to associate itself with Mr Szaszvari.

"Especially Telstra should reflect a higher standard than this," Mr Burke said.

"People that pirate are thieves, theres no doubt about it, it is theft and they're putting other people's livelihoods at risk.

I think they should be seen as social outcasts."Mr Szaszvari's mammoth download effort on Sunday drew criticism from fellow Telstra customers who accused him of slowing down data speeds for everyone else.

However he told News Corp he was now being hailed as a "hero" for "sticking it to Telstra".

Despite Mr Szaszvari's previous comments implicating himself as a copyright infringer, on Friday he denied he had pirated the content.

"I think everyone assumes these days when they hear 'TV show downloads' they IMMEDIATLY [sic] jump to piracy," he told Fairfax in an email.Mr Szaszvaridi said he had downloaded Mythbusters and The Simpsons from Amazon's digital store in the US, where he said he owns a house, but did not provide receipts.

"Those comments were made as the entire internet is implying I illegally downloaded stuff," he said of his previous comments.
Telstra unveiled the Netgear hostspot device in question in February at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Telstra director of device management Andrew Volard said the device was expected to be the world's first category 16 mobile device, meaning faster speeds.A premium new 4G smartphone such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 is only a category 9.

Telstra plans to begin rolling out a 1Gbps network later this year in some city centres.

It has not yet announced when the modem will be available or how much it will cost.