Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Broadband - Telstra's new plans
In a surprise move by Australia's largest telecommunications provider Telstra is seeking a $600 million government subsidy to roll out what it describes as the biggest "geographically fixed broadband development in Australia". The comnpany laims its proposal would deliver broadband for the first time to 250,000 homes and businesses in rural and remote communities, extending fixed broadband coverage from 91 to 95 percent of the population including remote communities such as Birdsville, Groote Eylandt, Marble Bar and the Tiwi Islands north of Darwin.
This would see the company install ADSL broadband equipment in 1560 exchanges and upgrade 1029 large pair-gain systems that currently block access to ADSL broadband services in some rural and regional areas. However, leaving speeds limited to 8 megabit and not opting to install 24Mbps ADSL2+ technology in exchanges where it would have a monopoly on such speeds.
