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| Science & Technology |
| Australia announces vast national broadband plan |
| 2007-06-19 |
| Note how the "low quality" second tier system for rural areas is better than %99 of us in the USA can get for any kind of money. Also, look at the city speed: 50 to 70 mb/sec. Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Monday announced a 2.0 billion dollar (1.68 billion US) plan to provide fast and affordable Internet access across the vast country. Howard said Optus, the Australian offshoot of Singapore telco Singtel, had been awarded a 958-million-dollar contract to build a broadband network in the bush with rural finance company Elders. The joint venture, known as OPEL, would contribute a further 900 million US dollars to provide broadband of at least 12 megabits per second by June 2009. "What we have announced today is a plan that will deliver to 99 percent of the Australian population very fast and affordable broadband in just two years' time," Howard said. An expert group will also develop a bidding process for the building of a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) broadband network, funded solely by private companies, in major cities. Communications Minister Helen Coonan said wireless was the best option for rural Australia because it was impossible to install cables which would reach every farm and property across the country. "It's been specially developed for rural and regional areas, where (with) fixed broadband you've got to actually run a fibre optic," she said. Senator Coonan said the broadband speed of 12 megabits per second could "scale up" to very fast speeds as the technology evolved. "It will be able to go much faster, up to 70 megabits a second and of course our new high-speed fibre network will be able to go up to 50," she said. But the opposition labour Party attacked the plan, saying it was too little, too late ahead of this year's election and provided country people with a second-rate service. "The government proposes a two-tier system -- a good system for the cities, they say, and a second-rate system for rural and regional Australia," labour leader Kevin Rudd said. labour has proposed spending 4.7 billion US dollars to build a national fibre optic network which would cover 98 percent of the population. The National Party, which is part of Howard's ruling Liberal/National coalition, welcomed the proposal but said it would continue to push for FTTN technology in regional areas. Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce said the fact that Australia was a vast country with a small population meant it would always be playing catch-up with other countries when it came to broadband. "We'll always be catching up, always, because we are 20 million people in a country (the size) of the United States without Alaska," he said. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #4 The $14.95 service is nationwide (CONUS?) The $10.00 deal is for the former Bell South and SW Bell areas that AT&T bought. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-06-19 23:15 |
| #3 That is a 14.95 service from ATT in the Northern states. Where is the extra five bucks going? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-06-19 23:03 |
| #2 Australia is way to vast to bury fiber to every home in 2 years. It's not even possible in the cities unless the fiber is already laid. For Americans, it's possible to get low end DSL for $10/month (including DSL modem). AT&T is providing it in 22 southern states. AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Basic Package Up to 768 Kbps download Up to 128 Kbps upload $10.00/month Go here and answer the question to see if the service is available in your area and you qualify. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-06-19 22:50 |
| #1 Rhetoric parted company from the facts sometime ago as Broadband became a political football here in Oz. The reality is that we are currently on a par with comparable developed countries, especially given Australia never had a competing cable network to push the telcos to innovate on broadband. This is good politics from John Howard. He's saying, we can give you fast broadband at half the cost of Labour. And, building fibre to the node out in the bush is nuts. It would be cheaper to launch a couple of satellites and give everyone out in the bush, free satellite broadband. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2007-06-19 21:48 |