Australia gets superfast ADSL 2/2+ at last
By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
EXCLUSIVE: Australia’s dominant telco Telstra has brought the country down under into the 21st century at last, unveiling high speed broadband for more than 2,400 ADSL-enabled exchanges, reaching 91% of Australians. But in surprising news, “regulatory constraints” mean most will be stuck on the slower ADSL 2 standard, not the faster ADSL 2+.
On the 10th anniversary of the launch of Telstra’s own ISP, “BigPond” has finally launched high speed ADSL 2/2+ services that a majority of Australians can access in cities, regional centres and country towns as part of its “Plan for Australia”.
While some competitors have offered ADSL 2/2+ services for over 18 months, none have the geographical reach that Telstra have switch on today. Competitors will have been anticipating this move and will no doubt have responses of their own which we will learn about in the coming days.
But with high speed broadband finally within virtually everyone’s reach through Telstra’s national network, the “tyranny of distance” that Australia has suffered continues to abate dramatically.
The availability and quality of communications, entertainment, ecommerce, access to the Internet, distance learning, medical diagnosis and treatment, the increase in productivity and much more will finally accelerate at a much faster rate, to the benefit of all.
However, thanks to the strained relationship between Telstra, the Australian Government and regulatory agencies, especially since the appointment of a new management team, not all Australians are able to access the ‘up to 20Mbps’ speeds Telstra quotes for its ADSL 2+.
According to Telstra, “BigPond High Speed Broadband would deliver network speeds of either up to eight megabits per second (Mbps) or up to 20Mbps from exchanges offering ADSL2+ services. Because of regulatory constraints, the up to 20Mbps service would be limited to exchanges where competitors are also offering those higher speeds”.
Telstra BigPond’s Group Managing Director, Justin Milne, said that “Telstra’s commitment to delivering national high-speed broadband services is demonstrated by how we are investing our money. Because we’ve invested shareholder funds heavily in building out our high-speed network, we are now able to offer BigPond customers, across Australia, higher speed ADSL broadband services.”
While Telstra has switched faster ADSL at last, what this means is that many exchanges are only able to offer ADSL 2 speeds of up to 8Mbps instead of everyone being able to access the much faster ADSL 2+ speeds that most will prefer.
While this is still much faster than the 1.5Mbps ADSL speeds that Telstra offers in Australia, one can only imagine that most of the exchanges would have ADSL 2+ equipment installed in them already, but are manually set to only offer ADSL 2 speeds due to the current spat with the Australian Government and regulatory agencies.
They have all been arguing over who gets to control a next-generation Fibre to the Node (FTTN) project, to connect Australia with fibre optic connections that could deliver much faster network speeds that ADSL 2+ at 20+Mbps could offer.
Some have even claimed that a Fibre to the Home (FTTH) project would be an even better thing to do, though it would cost even more.
Telstra wants to keep control over the network, unlike the copper network it has to share with competitors today. The regulatory agencies don’t want this to happen the way Telstra wants it, and so we have an impasse, with the FTTN project shelved for the time being.
So the speculation has raged on when Telstra would announce their own ADSL 2/2+ project, with compatible equipment reported to have been installed in many exchanges for at least a year, if not longer, with no action from Telstra who were favouring an FTTN project in ADSL 2/2+’s place.
BigPond’s tenth anniversary looks to have been the preferred choice, not only for its significance, but as a perfect complement to the only weeks ago launch of their 3.5G ‘Next-G’ next-gen mobile phone and broadband network, able to offer connection speeds of 550Kbps to 1.5Mbps, with projected speeds of up to 14.4Mbps from March next year (2007).
The intial launch of the Next-G network included mobile broadband cards more aimed for business use, although fully accessible to consumers. It is expected Telstra will shortly launch a more consumer oriented wireless broadband product for Next-G users, at prices similar to those charged for the Ethernet and USB ‘Minimax’ modems offered by Telstra for the still running CDMA EVDO broadband wireless network.
The Next-G network, rolled out and complete within 10 months, was not only the world’s fastest rollout of a next-generation mobile phone network, it is 100 times larger than competing 3G networks, yet still offers widespread national 3.5G access wireless broadband.
And as a 3.5G network, it is hundreds and even thousands of times larger than competitors 3.5G rollouts in selected areas of selected capital cities, although this will obviously change slowly, as the competition continues rolling out 3.5G equipment.
Now Telstra have Australia’s fastest wireless broadband network with the widest Australian coverage across virtually all populated areas, and have backed it up with ADSL 2/2+ fixed broadband services at last. It’s just a shame that political fun and games are getting in the way of more Australians getting access to the full benefits an ADSL 2+ connection will bring.
Faster broadband is the future, and it’s what Australians have been asking for constantly in recent times. An Australian shadow minister in the Federal Labor opposition party complained to the Australian Government that 256Kbps broadband was really akin to ‘fraudband’, with anyone stuck on such a slow connection able to keenly attest to that reality.
Telstra BigPond’s Group Managing Director, Justin Milne, clearly knows the benefits of faster broadband speeds when he says that “It means faster downloads, better quality video streaming, lightning-quick web surfing and the ability to send and receive large files quickly and conveniently”.
“BigPond Movie Downloads, BigPond TV On Demand and BigPond Games Shop downloads will take only minutes”, said Milne. “For example, downloading Casablanca, a one gigabyte download which would take more than nine hours at 256kbps, can now be fully downloaded in as little as seven and a half minutes with our high-speed plans.
Telstra have lowered prices on the new plans, especially for those on a full service landline phone connected to Telstra, with customers still using ADSL modems to also benefit whether they go to ADSL 2+ or not.
BigPond MD Milne said that “Additionally, we have introduced new 1.5Mbps BigPond plans, which are up to AUD $30 per month cheaper. A customer on a 512kbps BigPond plan can elect to switch to an equivalent 1.5Mbps BigPond plan at no extra charge and benefit from a speed increase of around 300 per cent.
According to Telstra, new customers with two eligible Telstra services, who sign up online, can get one of their new BigPond Broadband high-speed ADSL plans from as little as AUD $29.97 per month for the first 12 months on a two year contract.
Note: All following prices are in Australian dollars.
For customers with a Telstra full service phone, pricing for the new ADSL 2/2+ services starts at $59.95 with a 600MB download limit, a 12GB shaped plan for $89.95 and 25GB and 60GB plans speeds for heavy users priced at $119.95 and $149.95 respectively.
Entry level 256kbps plan prices remain unchanged, starting at $29.95 per month.
Telstra advises that customers can check what speed may be available from their local exchange by entering visiting the relevant section on their website. As per normal, Telstra states that “Speeds may vary due to factors including network configuration, line quality & length, exchange type, customer premises interference, internet traffic and equipment”.
In addition, existing BigPond members on 512 kbps and 1.5Mbps plans can take advantage of the new speeds and pricing by visiting “My BigPond” at www.bigpond.com and, in some cases, they may also need to upgrade their existing modem.
While Australia’s ADSL 2/2+ rollout is now virtually complete, most Australians are still awaiting full access to ADSL 2+ services, with even the speeds of 20 to 24Mbps only 20 to 25% of the speeds broadband nations such as South Korea offer the citizens, where 100Mbps to the home is available to virtually all.
It’s certainly taken a long time, and there’s still more work to do, with the Fibre projects still in hibernation and political waters yet to be fully navigated. But Australia has broken through the broadband barrier at last. Let’s see how the competitors react, and long may the competition continue to keep everyone on their toes!
Prices for the services in AUD are as follows:
ADSL 2/2+ with 600Mb download allowance $59.95
ADSL 2/2+ with a 60Gb download allowance $149.95
ADSL 2/2+ with a 25Gb download allowance $119.95
ADSL 2/2+ with a 12Gb then shaped allowance $89.95
ADSL at 1500Kbps with a 25Gb download allowance $99.95
ADSL at 1500Kbps with a 12Gb then shaped allowance $69.95
ADSL at 1500Kbps with a 400Mb download allowance $39.95
ADSL at 256Kbps with a 12Gb then shaped allowance $59.95
ADSL at 256Kbps with a 200Mb download allowance $29.95
Prices are the ‘preselect price’ for those with existing Telstra service. Prices will be higher for non-Telstra customers, effective 10 November, 2006.
Telstra has not specified it in their press release, but are likely to continue counting uploads towards your download allowance, although Telstra do offer a range of services that, if used, do not count towards your download allowance as compensation.
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