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Broadband

Overviews

Is Budget Broadband Really a Bargain?
These days, everyone's clamoring for faster Internet connections, but services like DSL don't come cheap. Fortunately, free installation kits and free DSL services promise cheaper broadband for the masses. But do they deliver? We'll tell you.   more

The cable guy
By FROM THE TRENCHES e)mag, Friday 07 September, 2001

High-speed Net access isn't just a luxury. It's a necessity. Work can be done over it. Games can be played. So why is it so damn hard to get connected?   more

Latest

Whirlpool : Australian Broadband News http://www.whirlpool.net.au/

and now the VTF Broadband Archive...

Please write if you find a page has disappeared from its host server.

November 2001

ADSL has been let down by its 'growing pains', says a bandwidth management company. Lorenzo Modesto of Bulletproof Networks said while ADSL was good technology, it was already stretched by large demand on the service.   more

Call to speed up broadband use
By GARRY BARKER TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Tuesday 20 November 2001

High telecommunications charges and lack of competition are holding Australia back in the information revolution, industry experts told a Melbourne e-commerce conference yesterday.   more

Fury over BigPond pricing
Caitlin Fitzsimmons and Kate Mackenzie November 02, 2001

TELSTRA'S broadband internet users are outraged over new pricing plans, which charge almost $200 per additional gigabyte on the 3GB service. Telstra introduced a 3GB download limit for its BigPond cable and ADSL plans in June, but this has not been enforced for several months.   more

Telstra rethinks, reprices residential broadband mix
Friday 02 November, 2001 By BARRY PARK, FAIRFAX IT

Telstra yesterday announced a shakeup of its residential broadband service, launching a range of pricing plans costing up to $446 per month. An email sent to BigPond cable and ADSL highspeed Internet customers yesterday announcing the company was "employing a user pays principle".   more

October 2001

Telstra has today remained coy about its plans to revise its controversial 3Gb per month download cap imposed upon its broadband Internet customers. Broadband news website Whirlpool reported today that BigPond residential broadband users, which includes cable, satellite and ADSL customers, will "receive an email from Telstra sometime today or tonight, in order for policy changes to be executed by December 1".   more

Telstra's $1bn broadband boost
AAP OCTOBER 26, 2001

TELSTRA plans to spend more than $1 billion extending its broadband rollout over the next two years. Telstra broadband and online services executive director Greg Willis said more than $1 billion would be invested over a number of technologies including satellite, ADSL and its hybrid fibre coaxial cable. Telstra would use the funding to continue to upgrade its networks and satellite facilities. Mr Willis said the HFC cable - which had been around for four years - was in five capital cities and so far had passed 2.5 million homes. Satellite was available to any customer.   more

Ziggy's high hopes for broadband
Kate Mackenzie OCTOBER 23, 2001

BROADBAND services will spur growth in the telecoms industry amidst a downturn in the sector, Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski said today. Mr Switkowski said it was likely that a quarter of Australian families would have broadband connections within five years.   more

Telstra says renewed growth to come from broadband
AAP, Tuesday 23 October, 2001

Telstra said the company's growth in the next year will likely come from broadband connectivity and associated services. Chief executive Ziggy Switkowski said preSeptember 11 the company was seeing a recovery in the small to medium enterprise market but that has subsequently stalled since September 11, and the more optimistic views voiced by IT&T managers about IT spending has also been delayed.   more

Australia's choice: 'backwater or broadband'
Simon Hayes OCTOBER 19, 2001

THE technology bust has left Australians cynical and disillusioned about the potential of broadband, with many believing its potential has been exaggerated. Alcatel [http://www.alcatel.com.au/] chief executive Ross Fowler warned the dotcom crash meant consumers were taking the claims of technology vendors and telecommunications carriers with a pinch of salt.   more

Coalition dismisses broadband
Simon Hayes October16, 2001

THE Coalition has poured scorn on a Labor proposal for universal broadband access, calling it "a recipe for disaster". The proposal - contained in Labor's Knowledge Nation policy statement, and similar to the Internet's Industry Association's plans to have all homes cabled by 2006 - was dismissed as a costly waste of time by Communications and IT Minister Richard Alston.   more

September 2001

TELSTRA will today announce industry trials of two new products to help drive broadband take-up to a forecast one million customers for the carrier by 2005.   more

August 2001

A Computer CHOICE poll has found that ADSL subscribers are more dissatisfied with their Net connection than cable users. Almost half of the surveyed ADSL subscribers said they had encountered technical problems, 22 per cent were unhappy with connection speeds and 30 per cent experienced billing problems.   more

July 2001

IN a dramatic about-face, Telstra will pay millions of dollars in compensation to its broadband internet customers for recurring problems on the ADSL network. Telstra, which previously assessed compensation claims on a case-by-case basis, today announced it would provide rebates to all residential and business ADSL customers whose accounts were active on July 24.   more

ADSL chief rejects Telstra claims
Caitlin Fitzsimmons 13 July 2001

A RIVAL broadband internet provider has rejected Telstra's claim that ADSL is a "new and complex technology" that is experiencing "teething problems" around the world. RequestDSL chief executive Phil Sykes said he was concerned publicity about ADSL outages on the Telstra network could hamper the uptake of broadband internet.   more

Stalled on the superhighway
Angus Kidman, 12 July 2001

ANYONE who has ever used the internet from home knows it's too slow. Connecting via a standard telephone line is all right for, say, viewing a newspaper article or reading email, but soon collapses if you're trying to watch a live video broadcast or download an MP3 music file. The concept of convergence, where television, the internet and other entertainment media are accessed from a single device, requires higher access speeds. The solution is high-speed broadband technology, which provides connections at least 10 times faster than a standard phone line.   more

June 2001

While Australia's broadband market lags behind the rest of the world, cautious excitement has been building over Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology as a cost-effective alternative to fast Internet connection options such as ISDN and cable. "Cautious" because subscriber reach and affordability is still at the mercy of a market that, althoughslowly beginning to open up to real competition, is duopolistic in nature.   more

April 2001

Australia is lagging behind the rest of the world in the provision of the high-speed access technology ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line). Users of this technology are an elite group among Australia's Net population, with only a handful of customers connected so far.   more

March 2001

Digital Subscriber Line has been hailed as the new technology, using existing copper telephone lines, that will finally deliver affordable broadband services to a mass market.   more

Waves crash on Telstra's pond
Chris Janz of australianIT.com.au, 13 March 2001

TELSTRA broadband users face another week of sluggish performance after network faults, hardware failures and an international cable outage limited response times at the weekend   more

Telstra defends ADSL service
Kate Mackenzie of australianIT.com.au, 08 March 2001

Hugh Bradlow told the Internet Industry Association's "Blown to Bits" conference in Sydney that those who bemoaned the price and availability of ADSL and cable internet did not understand the issues involved.   more

February 2001

Now that Tom and Nicole have called it quits, maybe there will be a mysterious, universal moment of calm in which people can ponder the big questions, such as: "When will Telstra/Optus/Luke Skywalker bring me a digital subscriber line (DSL) service?"   more

December 2000

RESEARCH consultancy IDC predicts there were will be 2.1 million digital signal line (DSL) subscribers and 520,000 cable modem users in Australia by 2004. Telstra and other carriers have recently launched DSL services.   more

Battle of the roll-outs begins
Canberra Times 041200

About 2.1 million Australians mostly home-based end users will be connected to the Internet via high-speed digital subscriber line (DSL) technology by 2004, according to IDC Australia.   more

November 2000

INTEREST in Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line services, the high-speed Internet technology carried across Telstra's copper telephone lines, is booming. While the national carrier battles to keep pace with demand for a new nationwide broadband service, a leading analyst also warned that Australia's past failures to sell broadband services to a mass market were in danger of being repeated, impeding a large-scale take-up of ADSL.   more

October 2000

WHILE the battle over Telstra's access pricing for ULL and ADSL still rages, the carrier is expecting to have up to million broadband customers by 2005. Sixty to 65 per cent of these were expected to be ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line).   more

Big Pond in $100m cable modem revamp
Natalie Apostolou 17 October 2000

IN an attempt to revitalise its cable modem business, Telstra has signed a $100 million agreement with Cisco Systems. The telco plans to migrate its high-speed cable modem services to the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) industry networking standard.   more

Broadband fun push
By NATHAN COCHRANE Tuesday, October 17, 2000

ANALYSTS from Boston's Yankee Group pointed to game playing and often illegal MP3 music swapping as the key drivers behind broadband over the next few years. Speaking in Melbourne last week, international senior vice-president Carlos Perry said the rise of online gaming universes such as Ultima and Everquest meant students were growing accustomed to high-speed networks at universities and wanted that when they entered the workforce.   more

Optus@Home joins bandwidth backpedal
By DAVID BRAUE Tuesday, October 10, 2000

THE launch of the Cable & Wireless Optus unlimited-volume cable modem Internet service at the beginning of the year was heralded by many as the kickstart that Australia's broadband Internet so desperately needed.   more

September 2000

NEW YORK (AP) - The ads are all over: Get high-speedInternet through your phone line! Baby Bells and Internet service providers are pushing digital subscriber lines, or DSL, as the way to get the home connected. What the ads don't say is that DSL installation fails in many cases, leaving customers fuming.   more

XYZed learns the ABCs of DSL
By ADAM TURNER, Monday, September 4, 2000, 12:54

FAIRFAX IT CABLE & Wireless Optus subsidiary XYZed today launched its wholesale Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service. The company will compete directly with Telstra in the $1.5 billon market for high-speed access, and is the first competitor to build a dedicated national DSL network.   more

August 2000

TELSTRA officials are reeling from a second reprimand from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) over access to its infrastructure for rival carriers.   more

Telstra told to toe line on DSL
By JENNY SINCLAIR Tuesday, August 29, 2000

TELSTRA has been ordered to give weekly progress reports to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on the uptake of digital subscriber line technology (DSL).   more

Speed comes with a high cost
By LEONIE WOOD Tuesday 8 August 2000

Telstra expects its new, high-speed Internet dial-up system will be cashflow positive in three years, and possibly break even by 2004, even though it acknowledges its residential offer is among the most expensive in the world.   more

A boss on the line
By PAUL BEST Tuesday 8 August 2000

IAN Hack is on all fours. [image] Normally, this would not be such an odd pose for a telephone technician on the job, except that Hack is supervising the rollout of Telstra's new Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) high-speed Internet technology for Victoria and Tasmania.   more

Telstra charges 'too high': ACCC
CHRIS JANZ and AAP Tuesday 8 August 2000

TELSTRA is planning to charge competitors close to double the price estimated by the national competition watchdog for access to its local copper wire network.   more

ADSL pricing attacked
SIMON HAYES Australia IT 08 08 00

WOULD-BE ADSL service providers face tight profit margins following Telstra's announcement of retail broadband prices not far removed from local loop access costs.   more

Telstra unveils ADSL pricing
CAITLIN FITZSIMMONS and CHRIS JANZ of australianIT.com.au 08 08 00

TELSTRA will offer high-speed unlimited internet access over ordinary telephone lines for less than $80 a month, under ADSL pricing plans released today.   more

Telstra makes waves in the ADSL pond
By NATHAN COCHRANE Tuesday 7 August 2000

TELSTRA has revealed its Big Pond ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) prices, which are comparable to those of its competitors. Starting at $78 a month (including GST) for Telstra residential customers, the service is an always-on high-speed connection to the Internet.   more

Strong interest in DSL
ADRIAN LYNCH Tuesday 7 August 2000

TELSTRA officials have been amazed by the number of inquiries about its planned roll-out of high-speed digital signal line (DSL) technology this month. The roll-out, making the service initially available in all capital cities and the regional cities of Toowoomba, Launceston and Bunbury, will eventually cover 90 per cent of Telstra's customers.   more

July 2000

Australians this month dipped their toes into a deeper broadband pool, but only just. The launch of asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) has seen the market grow slightly from the stagnant levels of the past two years at fewer than 10,000 customers.   more

Telstra plans $65 flat fee
By NATHAN COCHRANE Tuesday 25 July 2000

TELSTRA plans to undercut rivals in the lucrative emerging asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) market with the launch in the last week of August of a flat, unlimited service for $65, according to sources close to the carrier.   more

..my first task is to define broadband....For an industry that prides itself on high-precision technical manufacturing, those involved in computers and communications have a rather casual way with words. In fact, I'd go as far as to say the telecommunications industry generally favours lexical imprecision over precision.   more

ADSL Tutorial
adsl.com

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), a modem technology, converts existing twisted-pair telephone lines into access paths for multimedia and high-speed data communications.   more

ADSL Services
telstra.com.au

Welcome to Telstra's high speed broadband Internet services on Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) Telstra is Australia's leading provider of high speed Internet and has a variety of solutions to suit you whatever your need.   more

Commercial specialist sites

Visioneering the Future is a work in progress and is © Copyright Dr Russell Naughton
The site was first published on July 7, 1999. This is Version 1.7

This website is © Copyright 1999-2003 CTIE All Rights Reserved - Caution Created and maintained by russell.naughton@eng.monash.edu.au Last updated November 22, 2001