Telstra completes 900 exchange ADSL2+ upgrade

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 10 April 2008 13:19

Business IT - Networking

Telstra has announced completion of the rollout of ADSL2+ services to an additional 907 exchanges, announced in February, four months ahead of schedule.

According to Telstra the rollout will take ADSL2+ to an additional 2.4 million homes and businesses across all states and territories and the total number of ADSL2+ exchanges in the Telstra network to more than 1400 serving 16.6 million people. Those living within 1.5km of the exchange should get downstream speeds of up to 20Mbps, those up to 2.5km away, speeds up to 8Mbps and those up to 5kms, 1.5Mbps.

Existing Telstra BigPond customers on an upgraded exchange can call 13-POND to upgrade their plans, but will need a new modem if their existing one does not support ADSL2+.

Telstra is believed to have had the equipment in the exchanges able to provide ADSL2+ for months but refused to provide services unless competitors were already offering ADSL2+ from that exchange, saying it feared being forced by the ACCC to wholesale the service at regulated prices.

When it announced its plans for the rollout in February - at a very high profile event with prime minister Kevin Rudd and communications minister, Stephen Conroy - Telstra claimed it had been able to proceed because it had received a guarantee from the government that access would not be regulated.

Conroy denied that any such guarantee had been given. He stated very publicly that he had given no indication to Telstra that the Government would intervene to prevent the ACCC imposing regulated access on Telstra's ADSL2+ network. He re-iterated that it was a matter entirely for the ACCC.

However that did not stop Telstra's group managing director public policy, Phil Burgess - opening his press conference to announce completion of the rollout - from saying that it had been initiated "when we were provided with the protection we needed."

He insisted that the letter from Conroy to Telstra CEO, Sol Trujillo, which Conroy made public, provided all the 'guarantee' Telstra needed. However, in closing his letter Conroy said that he could only remind Trujillo of what ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel had said, and that the decision to regulate or not remains solely with the ACCC.

When asked if Telstra had received any other assurance from the minister, Burgess said: "We don't need. Our lawyers have looked at the letter and it's good enough."