[LINK] Telstra lifts net speeds

[Adam Todd]

At 08:26 AM 11/11/2006, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>Telstra lifts net speeds
>Andrew Colley and Michael Sainsbury
>NOVEMBER 10, 2006
>The Australian
>http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20731293%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
>
>TELSTRA will finally bring Australia's internet speeds in line with those 
>offered in the rest of the developed world when it lifts the brakes on its 
>copper wire-based ADSL broadband service today.
>
>The telco will flick the switch on the technology known as ADSL2+ and 
>branded HS (high-speed) ADSL, which will offer speeds up to 40 times 
>faster than entry-level broadband.

Oh they must be loving that idea!  Faster downloads, means 40 times the 
cost of data downloaded!  Mmmmm, yummo!  Profits!  Big Bills!    Yeah!

Why download one pirated DVD movie at 4 Gigs (30 cents per megabyte) when 
you can stream four or five at the same time!

>But Telstra will only offer the faster service to about 50 per cent of 
>Australian homes.

Hmm, wonder how much of the CBD is missing out :)

>Other consumers will be offered faster speeds on existing ADSL technology 
>after Telstra removes artificial caps on the service.

Yeah other ISPs could remove the artificial caps too.

It's not just Telstra.  If the other ISPs all dropped the stupid speed 
settings and provided a monthly flat fee for "a connection" then Telstra 
would really have to start pulling it's socks up!

>The carrier has also revised pricing and service availability across 
>BigPond ADSL offerings. It has withdrawn its 128Kbps and reduced monthly 
>charges across 1.5Mbps ADSL plans.

Is that like when 3 litres of fruit juice for $3 becomes 2.4 litres of 
fruit juice for $2.80, then a month later they "upgrade" the 2.4 litre to 
"extra free" for the same price, then a month later introduce a 3 litre for 
$3.50 :)

>Telstra's has also offered to upgrade customers currently subscribed to 
>its 512Kbps ADSL service to a faster 1.5Mbps connection for the same 
>monthly fee.

Ahhh but what is the data limit and will it also increase by a 200% factor, 
or do the users need to be very careful!

>Pricing for the new HS ADSL2+ plans has been pegged to monthly download 
>allowances rather than speed.

ROFL!

>Customers that currently rent their copper line from Telstra can subscribe 
>to the carrier's basic ADSL2+ service, which has a download allowance 
>capped at 600MB, for $59.95 per month.

600MB?  Most people get that in spam a month!

That's not even a CD ios image!

I'd be SURPRISED if anyone with probes, trojans and ping attacks from 
thousands of hacked systems, had a traffic level of anything less than 1 
Gig a month these days.

I reckon people should really enforce the precedent I set with Telstra in 
the 1990s.

I refused to pay for the difference between what Telstra charged me for 
data on my links and the amount of traffic my firewall DELIVERED to the 
inside of my network.

After 6 months of argument Telstra gave in.

My argument was, that any Judge in any Court would find that I didn't 
request the data that was being rejected by my firewall and it's Telstra's 
responsibility to prevent unsolicited unwanted data that I didn't request, 
or that my servers don't accept being delivered.

Now this hasn't been tested in court - yet.  But I think if enough people 
got upset at Telstra not preventing unwanted data being sent, for which 
they pay for, things might change.

>Telstra is offering a shaped 12GB plan for $89.95 per month, and 25GB and 
>60GB plans priced at $119.95 and $149.95 per month respectively.

And yet Telstra pays NOTHING for the data itself.

>Recent statistics indicate that it takes Australians almost two hours to 
>download a movie using an average 1.5Mbps ADSL internet link provided on 
>Telstra's network.

A movie is around 4 gigs.  That means on a 600MB plan you are 
stuffed!  You'll have to download it over 5 months in 5 parts :)

>French, British and Korean users can down the same movie in less than 10 
>minutes.

Yes well no one ever said Australia was bleeding edge.  Remember, we're a 
penal colony.