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Telstra Marks BigPond Anniversary With ADSL2+ Launch |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Friday, 10 November 2006 |
On the tenth anniversary of the launch of its BigPond ISP division, Telstra has announced it is ready
to meet the market with an upgrade to its fixed line Internet access services offering up to 20Mbps access speeds.
The company has been criticised for lagging behind tier two
ISPs which have been able to increase their market share by offering faster
download speeds than BigPond by deploying newer ADSL technology.
While Telstra has been progressively installing ADSL2+
equipment, it hasn't been doing so with any apparent urgency, but the time has
come for it to switch on its service.
BigPond's Group Managing Director, Justine Milne said in a
statement that "Telstra's commitment to delivering national high-speed
broadband services in demonstrated by how we are investing our money. Because
we've invested shareholder funds heavily in building our high-speed network, we
are now able to offer BigPond customers, across Australia, higher speed ADSL
broadband services."
No higher than it absolutely has to though. According to the
statement to the ASX, due to "regulatory constraints" Telstra said
its customers will be able to access the internet at speeds up to 20Mbps only
from exchanges where Telstra's competition has ADSL2+ equipment installed.
Rather than roll-out ADSL services to all exchanges, Telstra
has focused only on exchanges where it has competitors offering a better class
of service.
People connected to other exchanges not serviced by Telstra
competitors will not get ADSL2+ services but the company will lift artificial
restrictions placed on the ADSL speeds from those exchanges. This will allow
customers to connect up to the theoretical limit of 8Mbps.
It is the first time Telstra has allowed customers to
connect at speeds above 1.5Mbps, with most BigPond users operating at far lower
speeds.
As part of the new network launch the company has repriced
its 1.5Mbps service to a level where a 512Kbps subscriber can "elect to
switch to an equivalent 1.5Mbps BigPond plan at no extra charge and benefit
from a speed increase of around 300 per cent," said Milne.
The big advantage will come for users in less densely
populated areas. Due to the economics of installing networking equipment in
remote and low-use areas, Telstra's competitors have traditionally invested
only in high population density areas, leaving Telstra to service less
profitable areas with its ADSL services at a maximum of 1.5Mbps.
These subscribers will now be able to connect at up to
8Mbps. You can check which group you fall into here .
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