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Australia! Welcomes to t3h interwebs!
Posted: 2006-11-10 01:11am
by weemadando
This probably belongs in N&P given the amount of political BS involved, but hey...
Telstra lifts net speeds wrote:
Andrew Colley and Michael Sainsbury
NOVEMBER 10, 2006
TELSTRA will finally bring Australia's internet speeds in line with those offered in the rest of the developed world when it lifts the brakes on its copper wire-based ADSL broadband service today.
The telco will flick the switch on the technology known as ADSL2+ and branded HS (high-speed) ADSL, which will offer speeds up to 40 times faster than entry-level broadband.
The launch will bring Telstra into line with industry rivals such as Optus, iiNet, Internode and Primus and ends more than a year of waiting since it shelved plans to launch on the service in September last year.
But Telstra will only offer the faster service to about 50 per cent of Australian homes. It is still worried the competition regulator might force it to let rivals piggyback on the new service despite recent comments from competition chief Graeme Samuel saying he won't let them.
Other consumers will be offered faster speeds on existing ADSL technology after Telstra removes artificial caps on the service.
Recent statistics indicate that it takes Australians almost two hours to download a movie using an average 1.5Mbps ADSL internet link provided on Telstra's network. French, British and Korean users can down the same movie in less than 10 minutes.
Early last year, Telstra announced that it would launch ADSL2+ across 400 exchange sites by September 2005. It withdrew that commitment and announced it would spend $4billion upgrading its copper network with a fibre-to-the-node links.
Telstra cancelled that plan after failing to reach an agreement with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over access to the network, although it may re-examine the plan at a later date.
Bids by small investors for shares in the T3 sale closed yesterday. The final share price will not be determined until November 20 when bids from financial institutions are finalised.
Business -- Page 21
The Australian
Holy shit - does this finally mean that they will unlock ADSL2 on exchanges and actually remove the caps for their competitors too?
We need the gov't of the day to just bend Telsta over and fuck them in the arse hard until both Sol Trujillo and decent infrastructure fall out. Somewhere along the line the majority of people seem to have forgotten that Telstra is a GOVERNMENT OWNED entity with a monopoly on Australias telecom network. Having that government owned infrastructure tied to a privately listed company is just a bad fucking idea and the ACCC should have stepped in long ago - I don't care how many cases get overturned against Telstra, they're shady fucks who willingly and knowingly stifle competition through willful misuse of their monopoly.
Maybe now, my fucking INNER-CITY exchange in a capital city will have the ADSL2 option enabled. And its not that the infrastructure isn't there. Its that Telstra has been unwilling to enable ADSL2 on exchanges as the majority of ADSL2 users aren't through Telstra's plans!
We can only HOPE that this is a step in the right direction.
Posted: 2006-11-10 01:15am
by InnocentBystander
You don't have cable internet services over there to compete?
Posted: 2006-11-10 01:17am
by Stark
Telstra can fuck off and die. Their bullshit is absurd, and I can't wait for the complete sale of Telstra to finish so that they aren't protected by the government anymore. Let's see the fucking wankers survive in a free market.
I'm with Internode, and they're building their own infrastructure. I'm quite near the centre of Brisbane, so in a few months I can get ADSL2. Will I go back to Telstra?
NEVER. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. They crippled the nation for a decade.
Posted: 2006-11-10 01:18am
by weemadando
Cable internet was trialled in select suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney, but was never successful as the PayTV groups moved to Satellite.
I think Vympel had cable for a while IIRC...
Posted: 2006-11-10 01:18am
by Stark
InnocentBystander wrote:You don't have cable internet services over there to compete?
Cable here is actually quite weak: it's very, very variable. It's great inside the cable network, but per-$ it's not significantly better outside it. ADSL2 (which costs the same as ADSL, but is significantly faster) will be *better* than AU-standard cable. If you can believe that.
Posted: 2006-11-10 01:28am
by atg
InnocentBystander wrote:You don't have cable internet services over there to compete?
The only cable I would have access to in my area, and what most would only have, is Telstra cable, via their Foxtel cable TV system. So the only "decent" and faster alternative to ADSL is owned by the same company that has been blocking faster ADSL speeds for years. Coincidence?
Stark wrote:I'm with Internode, and they're building their own infrastructure. I'm quite near the centre of Brisbane, so in a few months I can get ADSL2.
At work we've been re-selling or advising people to use Internode, damm solid reliability and great support if something goes wrong.
Internode are currently putting ADSL2+ equipment in my local telephone exchange, I can't wait for 24Mb/sec!
Posted: 2006-11-10 01:33am
by weemadando
I'm currently on a 1.5/256 plan through Netspace and RARELY if ever see real speeds of above 800k. Hopefully Telstra stopping their BS will make a difference - especially seeing as according to the ABS my area has nearly 100% internet adoption rates.
Posted: 2006-11-10 01:47am
by weemadando
Whingepool wrote:Telstra offers 8Mbit to competitors
Phil Sweeney | Today, 10:15 am | Telstra
Telstra will offer ADSL speeds of up to 8000/384 to competitors nationwide, but won't be offering them ADSL2+.
Telstra launched its long-awaited BigPond ADSL2+ service today, but competitors are also getting a boost in speed, albeit a smaller one.
Telstra Wholesale will offer ADSL1 speeds of up to 8000/384 as part of its wholesale product line up, which the majority of Australian ISPs use to offer broadband. Upload speeds have been artificially limited, with ADSL1 technically capable of 1024Kbit/s upstream. The old speeds of 256/64, 512/128 and 1536/256 will still be available.
A Telstra spokesperson told Whirlpool that wholesale pricing for 1536/256 and other lower speeds will drop once ISPs sign up to new contracts with Telstra. There has been no indication yet as to pricing for the new 8Mbit speeds.
The new speeds will be available in all ADSL enabled telephone exchanges. "We are excited to bring to market a national high-speed service which will give end-users of our customers access to higher broadband speeds across more than 2400 exchanges in our national network", said Group Managing Director of Telstra Wholesale Kate McKenzie.
With the new high speed pricing from BigPond receiving a mediocre response, users will no doubt be looking to competing ISPs for better value options.
Oh, so its only going to be TELSTRA who gets the extra ADSL2 exchanges and everyone else gets a slightly LESS crippled ADSL? FUCK TELSTRA.
How the fuck has the ACCC, Ombudsman, State and Federal Gov't not all gone apeshit over this?
Posted: 2006-11-10 01:50am
by atg
How the fuck has the ACCC, Ombudsman, State and Federal Gov't not all gone apeshit over this?
Probably because they don't want Telstra's share price to plummet more than it already has while they're trying to sell it off.
Posted: 2006-11-10 02:00am
by weemadando
Can't see how that would stop the ACCC, Ombudsman and state gov'ts from crying foul...
Posted: 2006-11-10 02:30am
by GuppyShark
Erm, unless I've misread it, this article is about Telstra's network (and resellers). Companies like Optus who have their own DSL2 network don't give a flying fuck what speed Telstra have capped their service at.
Posted: 2006-11-10 02:32am
by weemadando
Must be nice for people in areas with that kind of infrastructure. Bastard.
Posted: 2006-11-10 02:38am
by InnocentBystander
Stark wrote:InnocentBystander wrote:You don't have cable internet services over there to compete?
Cable here is actually quite weak: it's very, very variable. It's great inside the cable network, but per-$ it's not significantly better outside it. ADSL2 (which costs the same as ADSL, but is significantly faster) will be *better* than AU-standard cable. If you can believe that.
What does it mean to be 'outside the cable network'?
Posted: 2006-11-10 02:40am
by Stark
LOL. AU sucks so bad.
If you're on Telstra cable (which uses the FOXTEL TV cable cable, if you follow me), you get very high speeds to other hosts physically connected to that cable, ie other Telstra cable users, Telstra servers themselves, etc. Once you cross a router into the actual internet, your speed drops dramatically.
Best part is that Telstra even CHARGES both UP AND DOWN for cable, and doesn't have any 'doesn't count volume on Telstra servers' or 'free mirroring' or whatever.
BECAUSE THEY SUCK AND I HATE THEM.
Posted: 2006-11-10 02:48am
by Uraniun235
Australia is like the short bus of the internet.
Posted: 2006-11-10 02:56am
by Chris OFarrell
I'm lucky in that I'm right inside the phase 1 Optus cable range in Sydney and get decent speeds (though my upload rate still sucks ass). For 99% of Australia however, there isn't any cable system thats worthy of the name.
Posted: 2006-11-10 04:15am
by InnocentBystander
Wow, and here I've been thinking Cablevision has been oppressing me by making it difficult to seed torrents, praying for verizon FIOS to come.
So is this a problem because of local backbones, or is the country itself connected to the rest of the world via a small rope with two cups?
Posted: 2006-11-10 08:19am
by Archaic`
Stark wrote:and doesn't have any 'doesn't count volume on Telstra servers' or 'free mirroring' or whatever.
Um...yes they do. Speaking as someone whose only choice for broadband is the hated Telstra cable, I've gotten to know it quite well. You need to know where to look to find things (most of their free mirroring is hosted under their games section, for instance, even though it has nothing to do with that), but the stuff is there.