EzyDownload will share revenues with ISPs, in return of unmetered downloads, in order to take on the might of Telstra's BigPond Movies.

EzyDVD, one of Australia's largest online DVD stores, has confirmed it will launch the EzyDownload movie download service in September. Along with the website, EzyDVD has 68 shop fronts across Australia - giving it a nice mix of clicks and mortar. EzyDownload was born from the ashes of movie download service ReelTime, acquired by EzyDVD for a song, and will be run by former ReelTime chief executive Andrew Wilshire.

Along with content deals, the biggest challenge facing competitors to BigPond Movies is bandwidth. BigPond's 200MB and 400MB monthly plans have created a situation where many homes lack the download speeds or monthly download allowance to do any of the things that make high speed internet access worth having. Many other ISPs introduced similar deals in a race to the bottom with BigPond. This of course means the vast majority of Australians don't have the bandwidth to download movies. The situation is slowly improving, there are now around 2.5 million Australian households with 1.5+ megabit connections, but there's still a long way to go.

So how do BigPond customers on 200MB per month plans download a 1.5GB movie from BigPond Movies? Easy, BigPond doesn't count downloads from BigPond Movies towards the download limits of BigPond customers. With its minuscule download limits BigPond has created an artificial walled garden - you don't need fences when you cut people off at the knees so they can't go anywhere else. What chance do other music and movie download services have?

Talking to EzyDownload's Wilshire, it's clear he sees unmetered content deals with other ISPs as a key weapon in the fight against BigPond Movies. EzyDownload is already in negotiations with other Australian ISPs to ensure bandwidth used downloading movies from EzyDownload is not counted towards the end user's monthly limit.

Unmetered content gives BigPond a "very significant" advantage as both an ISP and a movie download service, Wilshire says.

"That's why the ISPs we've spoken to about partnering are pretty enthusiastic," he says. "These "no cap" kinds of partnership with EzyDownloads make a huge amount of sense to the ISPs. I think it would be fair to say that EzyDownload would provide a generous revenue-share with the ISPs that it partners with."

Only time will tell if EzyDownload will be a phoenix to rise from the ashes of ReelTime, or whether it will be yet another dot.com-esque exercise in burning cash.