[LINK] Labor to deliver lightning internet speeds

Paul Brooks pbrooks-link at layer10.com.au
Wed Mar 5 20:10:30 AEDT 2008


Danny Yee wrote:
> My understanding is that with Telstra turning ADSL2 on in all its
> exchanges, ADSL2 is now available to something like 90% or so of
> Australians, so a good fraction of them already have Internet access
> not far off the 12 to 25 Mbps the government is raving about.
>   
Yes - according to the iinet heat maps from 2006, the majority (ie more 
than 50%) are getting above 14.5Mbps, and 90% of subscribers are getting 
above 6 Mbps.

> The concerns with this are 1)
> 	* users at a distance from the exchange may get bandwidths
> 	  down to as little as 1 Mbps
>   
Telstra sets a conservative distance limit that sets an effective 
minimum bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps - although in practice the interference 
isn't anything like 'worst case', so people at the distance limit 
generally get 3 Mbps or more. Other carriers generally allow subs from 
further distances again, so they might get down to 1 Mbps or so. This 
gets muddied a little, as at long distances the DSLAM and the modem will 
often automatically choose 'reach extended ADSL2' mode if that would 
give a higher bandwidth than standard ADSL2 at the distance.

> 	* Telstra is the only provider in many exchanges, largely due to
> 	  backhaul costs, so there's limited competition
>   
Which might affect price, but not performance
> 	* there may be capacity constraints in some exchanges
> and 2)
> 	* the "other" 10%, in urban black holes or rural areas
>   
yes to both.




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