Australia breaks through 1.5Mbps barrier: Telstra launches ADSL 2+

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Friday, 10 November 2006

Page 1 of 3 ! EXCLUSIVE: Bringing Australia into the 21st cyber century at last, Australia’s dominant telco Telstra has unveiled 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 standard at 8Mbps, 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+ 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 on at last, what this means is that many exchanges are only able to offer ADSL 1 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 maximum ADSL speeds that Telstra offered in Australia just yesterday, 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 1 speeds at 8Mbps due to the current spat with the Australian Government and regulatory agencies. It's also interesting to note that Telstra has claimed a maximum 'up to' speed of 20Mbps for their ADSL 2+ services, as opposed to the 'up to 24Mbps' that competitors are claiming for their competing ADSL 2+ services. ACCC chief Graeme Samuels (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) publicly stated in a very recent speech that his staff were investigating the claims of ISPs who were claiming maximum speeds that were very unlikely to be reached, with Telstra claiming that supposed 24Mbps services won't go any faster than 20Mbps, and that therefore Telstra was being the most honest and upfront about what to expect from ADSL 2+. There has also been some confusion that Telstra's slower 8Mbps services were an ADSL 2 offering, which is capable of deliver speeds of up to 12Mbps, or half the 24Mbps speeds claimed by most ISPs offering ADSL 2+. Indeed, what Telstra has done is to uncap their ADSL 1 (regular ADSL) offering to now deliver the 'full up to 8Mbps' it is capable of, although this will naturally depend on how far you are away from your telephone exchange, the condition of your lines and many other factors, as they rightly should. So, what are Telstra, the ACCC and the Australian Federal Government arguing about, and what will the new ADSL 8Mbps and superfast ADSL 2+ services cost? Read on to the next page to find out... << First page <   1 2 3 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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