Present BigPond cable services offer broadband at a maximum speed of around 8Mbps.
"We've been upgrading the cable network's infrastructure, and we have been trialling software changes to evaluate the network's ability to provide even higher speeds," said BigPond group managing director Justin Milne.
"During the trial, cable customers experiences download speeds of up to 17Mbps," he added, noting actual speeds could vary.
The executive said customers would be able to access the higher speeds for just AU$10 a month more than BigPond's standard cable prices.
"After the introduction of the Cable Extreme plans, customers on our 20Gb plan who participated in the trial will continue to receive the higher download speeds, at no increase in their monthly access fee," he said.
The move by BigPond comes as smaller cable operator Neighbourhood Cable, which has infrastructure in rural Victoria, said in early January that it would likewise boost speeds for customers.
"With Neighbourhood Cable's recent upgrades we have tested speeds with capabilities of up to 30Mbps download and 2Mbps upload," said the telco's chief executive Ian Fry at the time.
In addition a number of Telstra's competitors launched next-generation ADSL2+ services in 2005, which offer speeds of up to 24Mbps. Telstra itself has so far limited its ADSL1 services to 1.5Mbps.
Milne said the new speeds would complement the pending launch of BigPond's on-demand movie service.
BigPond claims to have more than 250,000 customers using its cable broadband service. Optus also owns a large cable network but is not known to have upped its speeds as Neighbourhood Cable and Telstra have.
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peterh_oz
15/02/2006 11:04 PM
Instead of boosting speeds, how about they boost data limits. What's the point of 17Mbps when you can still only get 10Gb before being slowed, for the new price of $80 ($70 without phoneline + $10 for extra speed). Compare this to some dsl plans - 1500/256Mbps 36Gb AND 9hrs daily unmetered, all uploads unmetered, for $70 (or $88.50 including line rental). I'd rather have exra data than extra speed. Unless you're watching streaming video on a tv, up to 1500Mbps is enough, but 10Gb is not regardless of what you're watching!
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dullbird
23/02/2006 03:59 PM
i heard that australia has the slowest internet speeds through out the world.....i don't know how true this is but coming from the uk it certainly feels like it. when i came to oz i was shocked at how slow the internet was as well as the cost, the uk is double the speed and cost's less....i can only feel that maybe there is not enough compeition for internet providers to force them to give decent speeds, at affordable prices along with unlimited download. I'm yet to hook up my xbox and xbox live but something tells me it's not going to be getting the ultimate gaming experience.....maybe thats why i never came accross alot of ozzy online gamers back in the uk..i expect the internet provider was just to slow to keep them in a game or they just couldn't afford to go online.
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M Johnson
03/04/2006 05:57 PM
Well I have had the Extreme cable installed, and to my surprise it is slower than the 8MG I had before. After spending hours on the phone to bigpond I was told that there was a problem at my house. The Tech that came out said he wasnt even informed of the new speed increases and to his knowledge bigpond cant supply the speeds they are telling people. After an hour of testing and checking, he informed me that there were no problems at my end, the problem was with bigpond. He even proved this with his Metors, How can a company like bigpond get away with this, its a discrase, after taking the day off of work, which costs me about $300, I was unhappy to be told that until a tech has been here at least twice, they will not look into it. I think we all know the problem, Bigpond biting off more than they can chew. My speeds are an average of 967kb, a far cry from the advertised 2000-2500kb. Well done Bigpond
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G Banga
09/05/2007 09:46 PM
I am also with BigPond and wish i wasn't. I am paying for an ADSL2+ plan and I am getting very slow downloads, and I live in the very heart of Sydney. I am certainly going to change to a different provider...
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Synasizm
04/06/2008 02:09 PM
I just went on speedtest.net and checked my speed. I thought I had a good download speed @ 1322kbps with telstra until I checked what the rest of the world was getting. Jamaica and Bermuda get 1432kbps while america has 30495kbps. thats of 25 times the speed I get here and I bet it costs just the same or less for those sorts of speeds!
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discodood
21/08/2008 06:47 PM
i live 150m from my exchange,port adelaide in south australia. apparently i was "supposed to be getting at least 20mbits from telstra with their adls2+ plan. but according to MY tests,not their stupid ones,my d/l speed is only 100kb per sec. to me this is just not on,considering my 512k plan with SPIN rates at 124kb per sec. so basically $40 per month worse off and i hav worser internet then when i started. and when i did sign up for their plan,the very next day i was put on a telemarket list and havent stopped recieving calls for a month. i beleive telstra suck and ive always beleived this,from the second they put their homephones in everyones homes,i knew something dodgy was happening.turned out to be a 15yr long plan,but finally they now own nearly everyone in australia
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