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VoIP Over Power Line For Canberra |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Tuesday, 27 March 2007 |
Queanbeyan in the Australian
Capital Territory is the site of the latest broadband over powerline
initiative, this time bringing in VoIP service provider, Freshtel, to
partner with electricity company Country Energy.
While
many in the nation focus on point scoring over who will build a new
national broadband network, some organisations are getting on with
initiatives which could revolutionise the Australian Internet and
telephony industries.
While the incumbent and its new
competitors are busily trying to get their hands on as much government
funding as possible and our esteemed politicians have now realised that
technology, in the form of a proposed high speed broadband network is a
cudgel they can use to beat on each other, the broadband overpowerline
industry continues with its trials in the hope of getting commercial
services running that could make much of the current debate somewhat
redundant.
As a last mile network, the electricity grid is the
most pervasive in the country and if viable broadband services can be
combined with reliable telephony services, Telstra's Golden Egg - its
aging, poorly maintained copper network - could be quickly retired.
Country
Energy, which manages Australia's largest power supply network across
95 per cent of New South Wales is the latest to launch a broadband over
powerline trial with an announcement that over the six months from May,
300 Queanbeyan area households will trial a services carried over their
existing electricity infrastructure.
The electricity supply companies have a significant business rationale for deploying data over powerline.
Not only does it hold promise as an additional source of revenue from
residential broadband, but operational efficiencies from remote meter
reading, diagnostics and monitoring are expected to make the additional
infrastructure expense a viable proposition.
This is in stark
contrast to the telecommunications industry which has some considerable
difficulty in justifying a return on the deployment of high speed
broadband to residential customers.
In this latest trial,
Freshtel will provide an Internet telephony service to customers
participating in the trial. As a part of the trial, the 300
participating households will receive a modem and access to the
broadband service and will get a freeBinatone cordless phone plus A$30 per month Freshtel call credit.
John Butkiewicz,
CEO of Freshtel Holdings, said this represented not only a great
opportunity for Freshtel, but also provided an insight into the
potential for widespread Internet telephony uptake in Australia.
"The
use of existing infrastructure to provide broadband telecommunications
services to country and coastal communities will provide an exciting
boost to broadband penetration.
"Broadband usage is a key
criterion in the growth of Internet telephony. As high performance
broadband becomes more accessible, Internet telephony uptake will
increase as consumers and businesses use their Freshtel Internet phone
service to drastically cut their telecommunication costs," he said.
The
Country Energy trial is testing technology that will provide households
with broadband access up to 40 times faster than a 256Kb ADSL
connection.
"Freshtel is very excited to be involved in this
trial of leading-edge technology and to work with a partner who is as
committed to innovation as we are. Our R&D team will be working
closely with Country Energy to monitor and enhance the customer
response and technical performance of the voice calls throughout the
trial period," MrButkiewicz said.
Country Energy, which is owned by the NSW State Government, has around 195,000 kilometres of powerlines
and 1.4 million power poles, and offers retail electricity in five
states and territories. It employs more than 3,900 employees serving
more than 870,000 customers.
www.freshtel.net
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