Internode: Greenfield FTTH sites now in three states

Peter Dinham
Friday, 04 September 2009 11:15

Your IT - Home IT

Internode says it has rolled out its FTTH broadband services to greenfield real estate developments in three states in just six months, with two more developments in New South Wales and South Australia due in the near future, and subscriber sign-ups now growing steadily.

According to the South Australian-based ISP, it is now selling retail FTTH services, starting at less than $50 a month and offering speeds of 25, 50 or 100 megabits per second (Mb/s), to the greenfield developments in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia, after the first home fibre services were connected in Brisbane in February this year.

Internode’s carrier relations manager, John Lindsay, claims the take-up rate of the company’s home fibre services is in line with those of ADSL2+ services, and that “young families with working parents aren't the driver for high-bandwidth broadband, but presumably their children will grow into it.”

Lindsay also claims that the subscriber count is growing at more than 10 percent a month, with residents of Internode FTTH developments generally receiving an initial service as part of their house and land package.

“The service is very popular. The most popular aspect of the service is that it is priced from less than $50 per month which is much cheaper than Telstra FTTH in new estates.”

Lindsay says Internode's first home fibre services were connected in February at the Fernbrooke community, a development at Redbank Plains, 32km south-west of the Brisbane CBD, comprising more than 1,000 homes built around 20 hectares of recreational space and parkland.

According to Lindsay, during the past six months Internode has launched FTTH fibre services at Lochiel Park, an ecologically sustainable development in Adelaide, at Alamanda at Point Cook in Victoria and at University Hill, a $1 billion integrated residential and business development in Melbourne. In the near future, Lindsay says Internode expects to deliver FTTH at another Adelaide housing development, Lightsview in the city’s Northgate area, and at Parkbridge in Middleton Grange in New South Wales.

Internode is partnering with housing estate telecoms specialist, Opticomm, in providing FTTH broadband services to its customers, and John Lindsay says that subscribers receive access to a telephone service that provides a conventional ‘dial tone’ voice service to each subscribing household “directly from the Opticomm termination unit in the home. 

“Internode also provides a large amount of unmetered content for its customers, including ABC iView and TiVo downloads.”

According to Lindsay, Internode home fibre plans cost from $49.95 a month for a service with a 25 Mbps downstream speed and a five gigabyte (GB) download quota, and they’re also available at 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps downstream speeds.

“With Internode home fibre services, the quoted downstream speed is actually delivered to the home’s Ethernet port, unlike the “best effort” speeds provided by traditional ADSL2+ services.”