Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Internode has begun connecting customers to its WiMAX network on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula, achieving speeds of up to 6Mbps as far as 30km from the tower.
While such speeds and distances do require line of sight, Internode's ten towers provide "virtually 100 percent coverage of the Yorke Peninsula," according to managing director Simon Hackett.
Many peninsula residents are too far from the exchange for ADSL service, so WiMAX is one of the few ways of obtaining broadband connections.
The first commercial customer was connected on January 21. Ted Buttfield, a farmer, said "Compared to the dial-up service we’ve had until now, [WiMAX] is wonderful."
"We use the Internet for many things including Internet banking, which was painful over a dial-up connection. My wife used to get very frustrated with the length of time it took to get through the security mode," he added. "Even something simple, like downloading Norton upgrades, could take an hour and a half, with dropouts. Last night, it took us only minutes."
Having set up the base stations, all Internode needs to do is install the equipment at customer premises. The company has already taken delivery of more than 150 WiMAX radios, and four installation teams are in the area to put customers online.
"For people on the Yorke Peninsula, the beauty is that they pay no more than Internode customers living in metropolitan areas because of the Australian Broadband Guarantee subsidy," observed Hackett.
The company is considering rolling out WiMAX in the Coorong region (to the south-east of state capital Adelaide) where it already operates a wireless broadband network using older technology. Internode holds the necessary licences for WiMAX operation in that area.
Other companies planning to use WiMAX in Australia include Seven Network subsidiary Unwired, and the OPEL joint venture between Optus and Elders (which will use spectrum acquired from regional satellite TV operator Austar).
David Bass
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