Australia Gets 8Mbit/s Broadband now, 20Mbit Soon

danwarne writes "Whirlpool is reporting the 'bad old days' of slow, expensive broadband in Australia might be over, with the large ISP iiNet unveiling broadband internet up to 8Mbit/s, from $29/mth. It has been installing its own DSLAMs into the exchanges of Australia's incumbent telco, Telstra, which limits internet access speeds to a maximum of 1.5MBit/s. iiNet boss Michael Malone says as soon as the ADSL2+ standard is approved for use in Australia (which should be in a month or two), he intends to switch the DSLAMs over to offering 20Mbit/s speeds. It looks like Telstra and Optus, the two incumbent telcos in Australia might have their duopoly on high speed broadband (10Mbit/s cable internet) challenged, with potentially great ramifications for price competition in Australia. The only downside noted by Whirlpool readers is that iiNet is forcing customers to take their long distance phone service as well to get access to the 8Mbit/s speeds, a move which is ironically reminiscent of the tactics used by Telstra and Optus."

Comments

capped to 5GB/month

[ZeekWatson]

Too bad the caps are suitable for a 56k line though. :(

That might sound fine

[Exter-C]

That might sound fine but in reality there is not enough bandwidth in the IINET network to handle even 100 of these connections at full speed let alone having thousands of users. The price per port for the IP ports (Oc12 or whatever) is still way to expensive to be able to cover the costs in any sort of reasonable time frame.

Re:That might sound fine

[ender81b]

Hate to break it to you but that's how most ISP's work. Very, very, very rarely do you have more than 5% of your theoretical max bandwith available. IE if you have 1000 DSL customers all at 1.5/384 you can easily get away with having a single DS-3. Very few people (even geeks) use their connections at max bandwith for more than a few minutes a day.

Part of this of course (it's not like ISP's don't want more bandwidth) is the enormous costs of DS-3/OC-3 etc lines. While a 1.5/384 or 8/1megabit, etc line might run the customer $40 a month a single DS-3 in my neck of the woods (even if you are on the fiber loop and they don't have to charge you per mile runs) will easily run > $8,000 dollars a month depending on your service agreements, etc.

Nice, now when are the RIMs going?

[Aurix]

I just wish there'd be more of a focus on extending ADSL coverage across Australia. I mean seriously, how much longer must we be on prehistoric RIMs and the like?

Re:Michael is gone!

[Gob Blesh It]

Wow, is this for real? Michael is gone from the list of Slashdot editors (here's a Google cache from this morning). And he doesn't seem to have posted anything today either.

Michael's departure, if true, would be the best thing to happen to Slashdot in a long time... and I've got two karma points to burn for saying so.

Anyone got the sordid details?

Even if I had 20M...

[meridian]

Most times I connect to overseas, and the latency/window size is the biggest speed issue. Even sitting on a 100Mb/s pipe to MCI at work you rarely see speeds above 2Mb/s to any site overseas especially if using TCP not UDP due to the latency issues and the nature of TCP windowing. OK so it might be fast to connect to other people on IInet, but thats the only bonus. Currently I have 6Mb/s ADSL to home in Australia (only one on my ISP with it from what I understand) and while I reach breakneck speeds to mirror.aarnet.edu.au on the Optus network to whom my ISP's primary provider is, I rarely see anything above 512kb/s to overseas sites. Going to just get unlimited 512k to the ISP I work for. No point getting any higher in Australia if your connecting to international stuff most of the time. And no its not because my ISPs are shit its just how it is being on the other side of the world. Fast to Singapore tho!

Sliding Windows Re:Even if I had 20M...

[lazybeam]

You just need to tweak your TCP/IP stack. For a 10MB/s transfer over 300ms latency you need a 3MB TCP buffer (window). Most operating systems don't allow the buffer to grow that large.

Re:only 256k up?

[Hadlock]

That's still strange though. While 1MBit upstream is nothing to sneeze at, I'm really curious as to the technical aspect of why we can't have 8MBit full duplex, or even half-duplex, but in each direction. Back in the day you could order 512MBit, and it came with 256Mbit upstream... which was reasonable, since they were offering the 512down/512up to buisness owners for roughly triple what the "home" upstream bandwidth cost, my guess being for website hosting reasons.

Nowadays it's cheaper to buy hosting at XYZ company for $100/yr and do it that way rather than host your own web site, and very rarely do buisness customers (I assume) go through their telco for webhosting, so it would make sense to no longer artifically restrict the bandwidth to home users.

RTFM

[pbjones]

8Mb is max based on distance, it drops to almost current ADSL speeds after a km or so. It has the same 4km reach as current ADSL, so for many people there is only a marginal speed gain, yawn, which still makes cable faster in most cases. Also at the mubpond was announced that Telstra was looking at equipment that will extend the reach of ADSL, potentialy to 12kms or more, and make ADSL viable in small towns etc.

yeah,

[MoOsEb0y]

and use up your bandwidth limit for the month within 10 minutes of using the thing at full speed.

Re:capped to 40GB/month

[Anonymous Coward]

no, no it is not.

it is 8Mbit/s.

No one in Australia is ever under the misaprehension that they have unlimited downloads, so they always look at both the speed and the download allowance, and therefore choose a plan that has the right combination of download size and speed.

Leechers are probably always better off with slower plans with larger allowances (and unlimited ones do exist at a lot of ISPs, but obviously cost a little more than capped ones), but the rest of us are quite happy to be able to download the occasional .iso in a few minutes.
We have better things to do with our time than spend all day, every day downloading DVDs we'll never watch.
40GB is more than enough for most mortal uses.

Complaining about caps simply DOES NOT APPLY to Australian broadband, because apart from the very early days when barely anyone used it and Telstra and Optus cable were the only way you were going to get it anyway, ISPs have always capped the plans, and always been very clear about the capping.

Re:You bastards!

[longbot]

I've noticed that in the US, the speeds are generally lower, but we're fortunate not to have monthly transfer caps. In other countries, they usually have faster speeds, but anywhere from 2-40GB per month (typically "hard" - as in "shut you down") caps.

Unfortunately, bandwidth costs in Australia...

[Meetch]

Being such a geographically sparse country, investment in infrastructure generally involves a lot more up-front cost than say, Sweden (most European countries come to think of it), per person. Think about it - driving approximately around the mainland coast would take about 10 days at a guess if you were pushing it, and there's only around 20 million people on it. That's a lot of man hours, cables and equipment to install. So don't expect cheap all-you-can-eat access in Australia yet.

There are various plans at various rates - one provider offers 512/128 for $70/month with no restrictions, not sure about the cost for higher peaks. I wouldn't look for any vast improvement over this sort of capped plan for at least another 5 years, and that's only assuming the standards don't improve the peak speed even further.

iiNet have spent $10M on installations, and only have customers numbering in the tens of thousands of dollars. They obviously can't give the service away, but the rates are still reasonable especially compared with the telco offerings. As I understand it, there are still per Mb costs from at least some of our international trunk providers too. Anyone who can refute that, or that has details?

Re:Unfortunately, bandwidth costs in Australia...

[Solilok]

Not quite true; Australia is one of the most urbanized 1st world countries.
>95% of the population live in the major cities.

Which is also why they are offering wireless internet (http://www.unwired.com.au/ , http://www.iburst.com.au/ )

Re:Unfortunately, bandwidth costs in Australia...

[Meetch]

Sweet spot? In Sydney and Melbourne, almost certainly. Perth however is 1.2 million or so people spread out over a couple of hundred square kilometres - and that's where iiNet was born. Adelaide's density wouldn't be much higher. Canberra, while designed well from conception is as a result mostly suburban for housing. And that's leaving out a few... submarine trunk to Tasmania anyone?

I believe many Australians are still dreaming of 180+ square metre homes on quarter acre blocks, and even if they don't get the desired space, that's keeping a large area of the lower density capital cities from building up instead of out.

Telcos are overcharging us (Telstra has to look after its shareholders after all), but they are also still installing infrastructure. It's fine installing the infrastructure for a city, but running a trunk over 3000km to the next nearest core hub is never going to be a cheap exercise, especially when we still get the cost of backhoe related outages adding to it.

Plus they have to keep upgrading capacity because people keep demanding more! And getting service to population centres off the beaten track does matter to the customers, and that adds to the cost, which is shared by all, whether we believe it's fair or not.

I find it refreshing to see ISPs installing their own infrastructure, but the costs are still there. At least call costs have generally come down since privatisation of the telco industry.

I'm still curious as to whether/how much Australian ISPs are still being charged by upstream (U.S.?) providers for volume. That certainly wouldn't help, though obviously those costs have at least gone down. Anyone?

I am with iiNet and on the new plans

[a.koepke]

I have just changed to the new plans and am getting about 7mbit connection. Loving the high speeds and the ability to download heaps and still surf the net without noticing.

There is also an error in the above summary
The only downside noted by Whirlpool readers is that iiNet is forcing customers to take their long distance phone service as well to get access to the 8Mbit/s speeds

iiNet are not forcing you to take their long distance phone service, you need to sign up with their complete phone service, not just long distance. My local calls and line rental charges are all through iiNet now, not just long distance.

Banned from IINET

[digitalchinky]

I was banned from iinet (WA) in 2000 - back when they were 'small time' - the reason: I asked them (politely) not to send me their monthly 'spam' advertising filled with added services and features they were offering. They responded that I was the 'only' one across the entire country that had a problem with this, and that I should just put up with it. Use the delete button.

I asked them once more not to send junk mail else I would go to the ombudsman. They did, so I fired off email to the ombudsman, got a few telephone calls from Perth, then Canberra, then Sydney - their spam STOPPED.

So did my account. I was suspended. After a telephone call I was told that I would never be able to connect with them again - I was a problem client apparantly. I was sent overseas so I never had the opportunity to make lots of money from it all.

Their service is actually quite good though! Or at least it was for me. Connected with iinet in Geraldton Western Australia. Never had any trouble other than that.

Require LD?

[SuperKendall]

The only downside noted by Whirlpool readers is that iiNet is forcing customers to take their long distance phone service as well to get access to the 8Mbit/s speeds

I live in the USA. For an 8Mbit/s line, I would not only gladly accept having to use their LD, I would also turn over my liver and owe them some unspecified favor involving dead bodies.

Re:only 256k up?

[gtoomey]

No. You get sdsl with the same modem as adsl.

The reason is that most ISP data centres run servers (lots of outbound, little inbound) and retail customers (lots of inbound, little outbound). This "evens out" bandwidth usage.

Re:only 256k up?

[SlightOverdose]

Much to learn, you have.

Let me tell you about telstra.

When I had my internet connection moved from another ISP to iiNet, they had to plug me into the iinet DSlam. Normally this would be a simple thing to do- just move the cable to the next rack and plug me back in.

Telstra, however, turns this into:
1: request disconnection
2. after a few days, tech goes out and unplugs me
3. Telstra sends a bill
4. Pay bill
5. request connection
6. after a few days, tech goes out and plugs me in
7. Pay bill
8. Line doesn't work. Turns out telstra fucked up
9. request telstra to fix it
10. wait a few days, tech goes out and fixes it
11. Telstra sends a bill
12. pay bill

well, you get the point.

Re:Michael is gone!

[skurk]

Heck, I might as well burn some points as well:

Michael's departure, if true, would be the best thing to happen to Slashdot in a long time... and I've got two karma points to burn for saying so.

I've been reading slashdot for a few years, but have no preferences amongst the editors. I've never noticed anything negative about Michael.. However I have noticed the frequent "MICHAEL SUXX!" posts from a bunch of AC's.

Why do people dislike him so much?
Can someone please enlighten me?

Re:Wait a second...

[aussie_a]

Didn't they tell you? We have to use the postal service to get those speeds. Sure we might get a lot of bandwidth, but the latency is shit.