Internet in Australia
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Internet access was first available in Australia to universities via AARNet in 1989. The first commercial dial-up ISPs (Internet Service Providers) appeared in capital cities soon after and by the mid-1990s almost the entire country had a wide choice of dial-up Internet access providers. In present times Internet access is available through a range of technologies, chiefly Hybrid Fibre Coaxial Cable, Digital Subscriber Line, ISDN and Satellite Internet. The Australian government, in partnership with industry is planning to roll out a nation-wide Fibre-to-the-Node network.
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[edit] History of Internet in Australia
Prior to connection to the greater internet, there existed an IP-based network linking academic institutions within Australia known as ACSNet, using the top level domain .oz. When Australia was connected to the internet, this domain was moved under .au to become .oz.au and still exists today.
The first permanent circuit connecting AARNet to ARPANet using Internet Protocol was established in May 1989. It linked the University of Melbourne with the University of Hawaii via a 56K satellite connection. Later upgraded to 256K, at which time the US end-point was moved to San Jose at a NASA facility.
In 1992 there were two commercial ISPs: DIALix providing services to Perth and Pegasus Networks out of Byron Bay, New South Wales. [1] By June 1995 this number had increased to excess of 300, attributing some fifth of all AARNet traffic. At this time, it was decided by the Vice Chancellors Committee that Telstra would be better positioned to lead the commercial push of the Internet into Australia, so all commercial customers were sold.[2]
In the late 1990's, Telstra and Optus both started their own separate roll-out of cable Internet services — this was limited to some areas of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
In 2000, the first ADSL services were made available via Telstra Bigpond, at speeds of 256 Kb/s/64 Kb/s, 512 Kb/s/128 Kb/s, and 1500/256 Kb/s. As ADSL required access to the telephone exchange and the copper line — something only Telstra had — this allowed Telstra to be dominant in this area for quite some time.
Resellers appeared soon after; first offering a re-sold Telstra service, then gradually taking over more of the delivery infrastructure themselves by taking advantage of regulated access to the unconditioned local loop. As well as significantly reducing costs, it gave the service providers complete control of their own service networks, other than the copper pair (phone line from the exchange to the customer).
The first competition to Telstra's DSLAMs was provided by then Optus subsidiary XYZed, launching business-grade xDSL services from 50 exchanges in September 2000.[3]
Competition in the residential market began in 2003, when Adelaide-based ISP Internode [4] installed a DSLAM in the town of Meningie, South Australia. Several other service providers have since begun deploying their own DSLAMs. The presence of non-Telstra DSLAMs allowed the service providers to control the speed of connection, and most offered "uncapped" speeds, allowing the customers to connect at whatever speed their copper pair would allow, up to 8 Mbit/s. Ratification of ADSL2 and ADSL2+ increased the maximum to 12 Mbit/s, then 24 Mbit/s.
Competition is having an appreciable effect on Telstra, (who still has over 47% of the ADSL market share) as competitors have made some inroad into the territory of the previously monopolistic corporation.
ISPs, such as Internode and iiNet, also have ADSL2+ services at up to 24 Mbit/s; Only from January 2007 will Telstra remove its own restrictions to allow speeds of 8 Mbit/s. Meanwhile some other ISPs are installing ADSL2+.
Wireless Broadband in rural areas is also eating into Telstra's business, where some areas in country South Australia can have high speed broadband with 20Gb limits, compared to Telstra's national 1Gb limit using the frequencies previously allocated to the discontinued CDMA Mobile Telephone Network.
The larger problems facing most providers is bandwidth, which has led to many ISPs restricting services such as Peer to Peer, and with the recent announcement of the uncapping of Telstra's self-imposed limit of 1500 kbit/s, international and Australia-wide cable networks may be increasingly capacity limited.
Rural services are another major issue, with Telstra often providing the onlybackhaul infrastructure of the data from the exchange to the ISPs Point of Presence, resulting in monopoly-levereged pricing. This has often frustrated ISPs forcing sometimes a work-around solution such as Internode's sister company setting up their own microwave network in rural South Australia to bypass the problem.
As of June 2006, there are approximately 3.5 million broadband subscribers in Australia according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
[edit] Current state of Internet in Australia
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Home broadband Internet access is available in Australia using ADSL, ISDN, Cable, Satellite and Wireless technologies. Broadband take-up continues to increase rapidly, with the 12 month period from the end of September 2005 to September 2006 showing a growth of 51 per cent, and "Other DSL" which includes wireless broadband growing 179.5% in the same period.
ACCC Totals as of September 30, 2006 [5]
| Broadband Type | # Connections |
|---|---|
| Total Broadband Services | 3 639 700 |
| ADSL | 2 763 000 |
| Other DSL | 70 500 |
| Cable | 624 300 |
| Satellite | 42 400 |
| Other | 139 500 |
- Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 571 (2002)[citation needed]
- Country code: .au
There has been some ambiguity regarding the accuracy of broadband uptake figures, as transferred/churned connections have at times been included in the total as though they were new connections[citation needed].
Even assuming these figures are accurate, they suggest that less than half of Australian households[6] have broadband.
In Australia the major telephone company Telstra owns the majority of landline infrastructure, with Optus (a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications) owning the rest. Competitors often resell this, and some provide other options — such as their own ADSL networks over Telstra copper wiring with speeds up to 24 Mbit/s, a cable network at 30 Mbit/s, business fibre in city centres, and various wireless choices (these are all predominantly in large cities).
As of November 2006, Telstra's Internet service BigPond is offering ADSL speeds of up to 24 Mbit/s downstream. Most Australian ISPs traffic shape residential customers after a monthly download quota has been exceeded. However, on a global scale, Australian ISPs offer extremely expensive prices per GB and traffic is typically shaped to 64 kbit/s. Many other ISPs apply "per gigabyte" excess charges to downloads beyond the monthly download quota.[7]
[edit] Telstra Wholesale DSL
ADSL became available in 2000 and Telstra had limited ADSL speeds to a maximum of 1.5 Mbit/s downstream / 256 kbit/s upstream, and also sold slower speeds of 256 kbit/s/64 kbit/s and 512 kbit/s/128 kbit/s (the 512/128 offering is no longer available to new customers through Telstra's own ISP Bigpond, but continues to be offered to the wholesale ISPs who resell the Telstra product). However, since November 2006, Telstra has released the limitation on ADSL downstream, thus returning the initial ADSL speed back to 8 Mbit/s downstream. SDSL services at 256/256 and 512/512 are available but cost a lot more. It is cheaper to get 24 MBit down and 1 MBit up from other providers than it is to purchase a Telstra SDSL connection that is overall slower. This is due to the cheap price Telstra is forced to charge by the ACCC to give competitors access to Telstra power, building space, air conditioning and ULL access.
In the past, Telstra had been criticised for limiting their ADSL download speed to a maximum of 1.5 Mbit/s (256 kbit/s upload), whereas the maximum ADSL speed possible is 8 Mbit/s download (1 Mbit/s upload), and ADSL2+ allows 24 Mbit/s downloads. However this was done to ensure the same standard speed for all users. In November 2006, Telstra increased this limit when they began wholesaling 8 Mbit/s connections, however the upload speed is still capped at 384 kbit/s for technical reasons.
The main ISPs Telstra resells its ADSL services to include[8][9]:
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[edit] Faster broadband
Faster broadband speeds are available in Australia. Telstra & Optus both own separate cable networks capable of higher speeds (Telstra 30 Mbit/s, Optus 20 Mbit/s), though the network is limited and covers only parts of a few major cities (these are not sold wholesale). The government has regulated cheap access for competitors to Telstra's exchanges and their copper phone lines (local loop unbundling), and several ISPs have installed their own hardware DSLAMs — and now offer broadband speeds up to 24 Mbit/s.
ISPs who are installing their own DSLAMs include Amcm, iiNet, TPG, Internode, TPG Internet, BigPond, OptusNet, Primus, Netspace, Powertel & Adam Internet. Most offer ADSL2+ (with speeds up to 24 Mbit/s), though in 2006 some still provide ADSL1 (with speeds up to 8 Mbit/s). Only Telstra (BigPond), Optus, Primus, & Powertel offer their own standard telephony services over these lines, other ISPs resell Telstra's phone services alongside their own ADSL or do not bundle phone services.
In 2005, Telstra announced it would invest AUD $210 million in upgrading all their ADSL exchanges to support ADSL2+ by mid 2006, though they did not say whether they would continue to restrict access speeds[10]. However, in 2006, they announced new intentions to substantially alter their copper phone network and setup a "Fibre to the Node (FTTN)" network. This was later scrapped, with Telstra citing regulations forcing it to provide cheap wholesale access to its competitors as a reason to discontinue the investment[11].
[edit] Other developments
There are ongoing developments in Australia. This includes fibre networks offered by Telstra and competitors in major cities (eg: east-coast capitals by Powertel, and mid to west-coast capitals by Amcom). Three phone networks provide 3G data connectivity: Telstra EVDO via CDMA & HSDPA via 3GSM, and Optus and Vodafone via 3GSM. Wireless networks are provided by Unwired, and iBurst in several cities, and Austar has announced wireless plans for regional areas. Internode received state government funding for wireless in rural South Australia. The federal government is financially aiding better rural broadband access, including encouraging competition where feasible as these are less profitable areas — with less customers, greater line lengths and a higher ULL wholesale line rental from Telstra, and higher rates from Telstra charges for data connections (backhaul) to the cities.
[edit] Internet in rural areas
Internet in Australia has great differences between urban and rural areas. With the March 2007 announcement of the Broadband Guarantee program, which will replace the Broadband Connect program, many long term projects to bring Internet to Rural Areas are under review. A week after the announcement, Internode suspended its programs to bring Broadband to the Country [12] and many others providers are having to follow suit as the cancellation of the Connect program has removed the financial incentive for ISPs to "supply higher bandwidth services in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia at prices comparable".[13]
Later in the month of March, the ALP announced a new policy, accepting the privatisation of Telstra in order to fund a world class national broadband network.[14][15]
- See also: Broadband Internet access in Oceania
It should be noted however that due to Telstra's extensive use of Pair Gain technology for connecting home landlines from 1994 to 2000, some homes have been excluded from ADSL and are limited to a dialup speed of 28.8 kbit/s. [16]
[edit] The future of Internet in Australia
There are several factors driving the growth of the Internet in Australia, not just in number of services but the bandwidth each service is requiring.
The main driving factor is like elsewhere in the world the requirement for self-education and being able to access the content of any subject, essentially following free will.
The next driving factor is the use of the Internet to download content for entertainment — this includes Peer to Peer downloading of music and video. This factor is also driving the bandwidth requirements of customers very strongly which has forced many of the inferior ISPs to introduce shaping of this Traffic due to lack of their own bandwidth and backhaul capacity, or pursuing high data charges.
The growing trend is also on content production, allowing anyone to produce their own video clips and publish online with services such as YouTube.
Another factor is the increased requirement of Video On Demand. VOD is a very heavy bandwidth user; typically, at good compression ratios, a 90-minute transmission requires around a gigabyte of data, with more and more set top boxes based on systems similar to Myth TV it is not unreasonable to expect the bandwidth to grow to an average of 120 gigabytes of data per set top box per month, particularly when the services are available in high definition.
The Main areas preventing Video on Demand have been the high cost of bandwidth and backhaul and of the high cost of licensing, however once any studio opens its library up for a flat monthly fee, this is one area which will quickly come to fruition.
[edit] References
- ^ [1] Origins and Nature of the Internet in Australia - Roger Clarke. Published 29 January 2004
- ^ [2] AARNet History
- ^ [3] Press Release — First competitive DSL network opens for business
- ^ [4] Details on Internode Coorong Network
- ^ [5] ACCC Report on Broadband connections September 2006
- ^ 1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2006
- ^ broadband choice. Whirlpool. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.
- ^ Andrew Colley (14 March 2006). Eftel returns to acquisition trail. The Australian.
- ^ Top 10 ISPs (Forum Thread). Whirlpool (14 March 2006).
- ^ Telstra confirms ADSL2+ network upgrade. Whirlpool News (10 March 2005).
- ^ Telstra scraps broadband network plan. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (7 August 2006).
- ^ [6] Internode Announcement of (Temporary) Suspension of Regional Connect program
- ^ Broadband Connect - incentive program
- ^ Kevin Rudd (March 21, 2007). Building a National Broadband Network. Press Releases, Australian Labor Party. Retrieved on 2007-04-24.
- ^ Gerard McManus and Ben Packham. "Rudd's broadband plan", Herald Sun, March 22, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-04-24.
- ^ SETEL
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Whirlpool — "Whirlpool.net.au is a fully independent, non-commercial, community website, run by a team of unpaid volunteers, which is devoted to keeping the public informed about the state of broadband in Australia." Australian ADSL news, information, and forums.
- The Reason Australia Lacks Unlimited Internet Plans — An article discussing the whys and wherefores of Australia's lack of unlimited Internet plans.
- BroadbandPlans.com.au Compare Australian Broadband Plans online.
- broadband choice - Comprehensive broadband plan comparison
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