Telstra has announced it has finished switching on ADSL2+ at over 900 exchanges to give 2.4 million Australians a theoretical maximum downlink speed of up to 20 Mbps.
A map showing the availability of ADSL2+ after the exchanges were switched on Credit: Telstra
Earlier this year, Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy gave the telco the regulatory assurances it needed to switch on the ADSL2+ network, according to the company.
However, according to the CEO of the Competitive Carriers Coalition, Dave Forman, the company's decision to switch on the exchanges did not spring from the Minister's assurances but from the desire to rebuild its relationship with the government ahead of the planned rollout of the national fibre-to-the node (FTTN) broadband network.
Since February, 907 exchanges have been switched on, Telstra's group MD of public policy and communications Phil Burgess said, taking some 64 days.
A map showing the availability of ADSL2+ before the exchanges were switched on Credit: Telstra
The popular opinion that "all you had to do was flick a switch" is wrong, said Burgess, adding that although Telstra had the DSLAMs already in place, it had to dig holes, get personnel to them, decommission old lines and connect new lines, requiring a massive transfer of resources.
Burgess hopes the rollout will act as a precursor to a future role in the country's fibre-to-the-node network. "Does it relate to FTTN? Absolutely it does," Burgess said.
Despite speeds of 20Mbps, Australia is still behind, Burgess said: "This is great in Australia, but… the rest of the world is going to 100Mbps."
If Australia doesn't wake up, "we're going to be in bad trouble," he added.
When asked how Telstra wanted to achieve 100Mbps, Burgess said the company was looking at VDSL, saying that under the right conditions it can go up to 100Mbps, and said that FTTN laid the basis for fibre-to-the-home.
"It's all a matter of money," he said.
Dean
11/04/2008 03:49 PM
If you can do 907 exchanges in 64 days (that's 14 per day!), there couldn't have been all that much digging of holes, getting personnel to them, decommissioning old lines or connecting new ones, could there?
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Jonsey
11/04/2008 04:31 PM
I was going to switch to ADSL2+ from my ADSL 1 service but telstra thought it was worth an extra $30/month just for that increased speed. for the same 12gb download limit, does it cost them any more to send the data, NO. aside from the initial cost of the DSLAM their expenses haven't changed, So what makes the service so much more expensive?... "It's all a matter of money," he said.
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Ash
11/04/2008 05:04 PM
What a misleading headline. 2.4 million Aussies do not in fact have 20Mbps. Should be something along the lines of "2.4 million Aussies now have access to speeds up to 20Mbps".
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robo
11/04/2008 06:54 PM
telstra's pricing is once again ridiculous. where other companies offer ADSL2+ at prices equal to or even cheaper than high-end ADSL services telstra feels they can screw the consumer once again with ridiculous markups
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Ellmondo
11/04/2008 07:21 PM
Its because there network is new. and guess what people it costs money to build stuff :O omg i didnt no that. Prices will go down when they start pulling in money from the adsl2+ so get over it and move to another provider cause guess what? telstra has always sucked.
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Ellmondo
11/04/2008 07:55 PM
Its because there network is new. and guess what people it costs money to build stuff :O omg i didnt no that. Prices will go down when they start pulling in money from the adsl2+ so get over it and move to another provider cause guess what? telstra has always sucked.
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Jamoise
12/04/2008 12:26 PM
yeah just like all there other prices have gone down.. oh wait.. no they haven't, in fact they have gone up, and decreased the amount data you can transfer and count uploads as well as part of "usage" I wonder if people are aware that ISP's don't get charged for uploads, only downloads.. so why charge the customer for something they don't get charged for? oh cause they are greedy.
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alistaircase
12/04/2008 01:41 PM
Plenty of people will not get anywhere near 20Mbps. Nowhere near. I have 23Mbps because I use cable, where speed doesnt drop with distance. It is simple maths to work out that ADSL is an inefficient technology. (pi)*r*r is the formula for area of a circle. Lets say high speed is delivered within 100m radius (just random measurement). If the radius is 100m, the area is 31416 square metres. In the next 100m [(pi)*200*200]-p[(pi)*100*100], where slower speeds are delivered, 94247 square metres is serviced. So with these example measurements, 3 times more people get slower speeds than the people who get fast. With cable this isnt a problem. Whoah - I am on holidays. I shouldn't be doing maths.
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Brad
13/04/2008 11:31 AM
Still No ADSL2 on Bald Hills exchange in Brisbane. So getting decent speeds at reasonable prices without lengthy onerous contracts is all a bit of a joke for me.
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JaseO
14/04/2008 07:49 AM
This is great and I am loving the extra speed - and lookingh forward to more in due course. Yes cheaper would be better, but I have better things to do than carp on and onm and on every time the T-word appears anywhere.
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Peter
14/04/2008 10:33 AM
I am still waiting for Telstra lift mine from pair-gain system. It's been over a year. Ironically when people celebrate the fast ADSL 2+, I am not even able to get a ADSL. So come on, please let Telstra do some fundamental works!!!
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jgbarnes
14/04/2008 10:48 AM
Telstra is not serious. I live less than 5 km's from a Telstra exchange and have applied for ADSL on 6 occasions over the last 18 months. You guessed it, 6 times I have been rejected and told there are no more ports available for ADSL connection. So much for service level obligations. It all comes down to critical mass of population - live with the masses or don't get the service.
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Ture Sjolander newstime2007
14/04/2008 11:03 AM
Speed is not all... it is a matter of Size. But first of all how do people get visible on the top of the Search Engines without being cencured by the electronic neo-feodalistic Australian Exclusion System ? The ranking technology is in a democratic dilemma.
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jgbarnes
14/04/2008 01:24 PM
Telstra is not serious. I live less than 5 km's from a Telstra exchange and have applied for ADSL on 6 occasions over the last 18 months. You guessed it, 6 times I have been rejected and told there are no more ports available for ADSL connection. So much for service level obligations. It all comes down to critical mass of population - live with the masses or don't get the service.
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Showboat Joe
14/04/2008 01:31 PM
I have ADSL2+ and am less than 5 km's from the exchange and it is still never faster than 3MB. I get it but come on. Smoke and mirrors anyone??
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GBM67
14/04/2008 02:10 PM
I live within the magic 5 km's from 2 exchanges in Brisbane. But I still cannot get ADSL, I don't have a pair gain line. I do happen to live in a street that has an 'old line' running up it... but If I wish to pay for a new line to be run up my street, then I will be able to get ADSL. I happen to live 5 houses from the start of the street, but will have to pay for line going to all 40 houses in my street, if I want ADSL in my place.... Thats the word from Telstra.
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Shaggy in Perth
08/05/2008 01:40 PM
I pay $99.00 pm for adsl 2/ 20mb/s yet when I test it I get between 800kb/s and 1.5mb/s!!! Someone is being less than honest methinks.
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Dinger
10/05/2008 03:08 PM
Hey ADSL users who are not happy - perhaps you might be better off looking at wireless broadband (and doesn't have to be through Telstra's Big Pond). There are several telco's offering it now, such as iBurst, Hutchinsons's 3, Optus and Vodafone to name a few, with any number of ISP's to choose from with competitive plans to deliver it. Is a good way to give Telstra's stone age cable/ADSL technology a good swift kick up the bum and to send to this internet highway thief a resounding message, i.e. that it's technology and its speeds are outdated and years behind Europe and USA. What a hide this Telco has charging premium prices for it. We, the market, need to let this monopolistic cable dinnosaur that we don't need it's frickin' outdated cables and technology -so why use it?
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