'Australia Connected' sounds pretty good - now what?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 18 June 2007 18:23

Opinion and Analysis

The only thing wrong with Telstra’s Next-G network at the moment isn’t the speed. It’s the price! At $114.95 for 1Gb of download, or $184.95 for 3Gb of download using the PC Card or ExpressCard plug-in modem at the current fastest speeds of 550kbps to 1.5Mbps, it’s just too expensive compared with what consumers pay for a wired connection, where consumers would like get at least 50Gb of download for $184.95 per month.

If you are a ‘full service’ Telstra landline customer, you can get the first six months at half price, being $57.47 for 1Gb or $92.47 for 3Gb, but after that, the price doubles. Prices are a bit cheaper using the external Next-G modem at the fastest speeds, giving rural and regional users wanting wireless broadband slightly cheaper pricing, but still far more expensive than wired offerings.

Telstra’s Next-G network is the biggest and best wireless broadband network in Australia at the moment, available now and not in 2009.

But now that some real competition is on the way, if that competition delivers a speedy and reliable service at prices between $35 to $60, presumably with relatively generous download limits, Telstra will have no choice but to lower prices to much more reasonable levels with much more reasonable download limits.

So, what’s missing? Well, as Internode MD Simon Hacket has already said, “The problem is that the devil is in the details and we don't have the details yet”. How existing rural ISPs will compete, how Telstra will ultimately compete and what unknown details, delays or other cost blowouts are yet unknown and are yet to be discovered.

But for the reasons of additional choice and the resulting competition, and the redundancy of multiple networks serving all consumers, especially those in rural and regional areas, ‘Australia Connected’ is an excellent development. Let’s just hope the Federal Government and OPEL deliver what they’ve promised!