David Bird
16-08-06, 10:30 AM
There's the rich - and then there's the poor in broadband access.
You can get the latest broadband technology in Fitzroy in inner-city Melbourne - but not in equally central Carlton. Data is gushing into Daylesford, in western Victorian spa country, but dribbling into nearby neighbour Malmsbury.
Broadband internet is erupting in Victoria, as it is in Australia in general, like pimples on a teenager, as the country struggles through its online adolescence.
While parts of Victoria languish on prehistoric dial-up or expensive satellite internet, some Melbourne suburbs are lavished with 20Mbps data pipes that spew out more data than the average user would know what to do with.
According to Senator Helen Coonan, no one is complaining about their speed of broadband in metropolitan areas. She obviously hasn't visited the Whirlpool.net.au online forums - also known as Whingepool - where internet users plead with providers to roll out high-speed services to their suburbs or towns.
More than 135,000 Victorian homes and 9 per cent of the state's businesses can't get broadband, according to a report about to be published by the Victorian Government.
Research firm ACIL Tasman, for Multimedia Victoria, estimates unmet demand for broadband at 63,000 customers - and this number is growing by thousands a month as demand outpaces supply.
"The rate of (new) broadband deployment in Victoria has begun to slow of late," the report says.
"The slowing . . . reflects the difficulty in achieving close to 100 per cent coverage with existing technologies at existing costs."
This is bad news for the 27 per cent of non-metropolitan businesses - and the 1.2 per cent close to the city - unable to access broadband services.
The report classifies broadband as anything above 256 kpbs, which, frankly, is a crawling pace for the modern video-rich internet.
True broadband speeds, comparable to the big cities of Asia, Europe and the US, are harder to come by.
In the absence of fibre to the node - or even better, fibre to the home (the new trend overseas) - the best technology is ADSL2+, promising a three-fold acceleration of standard ADSL (or a 15-fold improvement on Telstra's hobbled version of ADSL).
Telstra is reportedly rolling out an ADSL2+ network but has not released it to customers. So users depend on a mish-mash of smaller providers that can only afford to enable a few new telephone exchanges every month.
And there are other limitations. The ADSL2+ speed boost tails off quickly as you move away from a telephone exchange: the 20 per cent of customers more than three kilometres from their local exchange may have trouble getting any ADSL service.
By NICK MILLER
August 15, 2006
Source (http://www.smh.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/its-a-narrow-field-for-broadband-hopefuls/2006/08/14/1155407745995.html)
You can get the latest broadband technology in Fitzroy in inner-city Melbourne - but not in equally central Carlton. Data is gushing into Daylesford, in western Victorian spa country, but dribbling into nearby neighbour Malmsbury.
Broadband internet is erupting in Victoria, as it is in Australia in general, like pimples on a teenager, as the country struggles through its online adolescence.
While parts of Victoria languish on prehistoric dial-up or expensive satellite internet, some Melbourne suburbs are lavished with 20Mbps data pipes that spew out more data than the average user would know what to do with.
According to Senator Helen Coonan, no one is complaining about their speed of broadband in metropolitan areas. She obviously hasn't visited the Whirlpool.net.au online forums - also known as Whingepool - where internet users plead with providers to roll out high-speed services to their suburbs or towns.
More than 135,000 Victorian homes and 9 per cent of the state's businesses can't get broadband, according to a report about to be published by the Victorian Government.
Research firm ACIL Tasman, for Multimedia Victoria, estimates unmet demand for broadband at 63,000 customers - and this number is growing by thousands a month as demand outpaces supply.
"The rate of (new) broadband deployment in Victoria has begun to slow of late," the report says.
"The slowing . . . reflects the difficulty in achieving close to 100 per cent coverage with existing technologies at existing costs."
This is bad news for the 27 per cent of non-metropolitan businesses - and the 1.2 per cent close to the city - unable to access broadband services.
The report classifies broadband as anything above 256 kpbs, which, frankly, is a crawling pace for the modern video-rich internet.
True broadband speeds, comparable to the big cities of Asia, Europe and the US, are harder to come by.
In the absence of fibre to the node - or even better, fibre to the home (the new trend overseas) - the best technology is ADSL2+, promising a three-fold acceleration of standard ADSL (or a 15-fold improvement on Telstra's hobbled version of ADSL).
Telstra is reportedly rolling out an ADSL2+ network but has not released it to customers. So users depend on a mish-mash of smaller providers that can only afford to enable a few new telephone exchanges every month.
And there are other limitations. The ADSL2+ speed boost tails off quickly as you move away from a telephone exchange: the 20 per cent of customers more than three kilometres from their local exchange may have trouble getting any ADSL service.
By NICK MILLER
August 15, 2006
Source (http://www.smh.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/its-a-narrow-field-for-broadband-hopefuls/2006/08/14/1155407745995.html)