Holy shit - does this finally mean that they will unlock ADSL2 on exchanges and actually remove the caps for their competitors too?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
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.
