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The Reason Australia Lacks Unlimited Internet Plans

forums.mactalk.com.au — We're spread out, and we love it that way. There's more customers per square mile across the entire USA that here, by a factor of twenty or more. Extrapolate that, and that means (roughly) that every kilometer of copper or fibre laid down costs we Aussie customers twenty times as much.

Bury
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  • iMac700, on 10/11/2007, -4/+41Very well written, very informative. Dugg.
    • Tunguska, on 10/11/2007, -3/+132Well, at least we have Vegemite and pretty hot chicks.
    • BigFloppy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+50I agree. You don't need to be Australian for this to be relevant and digg-worthy.
    • ghm101, on 10/11/2007, -2/+26The “Tyranny of Distance” has always affected the development of Australia, whether it was the time and dangers of the early sea voyage. This article just explains all that from the perspective of distance, but it must be overcome or Australia will be left behind, the cost of overcoming these challenges is just an overhead of living in a lovely part of the world, pay it and shut up.

      Previous generations have paid it in spades and gained great benefit, in the 19th Century commercial & trading backbone of the economy was shipping and rail, tracks had to be laid over vast distances & the benefits in communication, trade and to the social unity of the country have more than paid back that initial investment.

      In the 20th Century untold millions/billions in investment have been spent on the road network, love or hate trucks & cars they make the country prosperous.

      In the 21st century the internet will(is) become a huge and essential part of life, trade commerce, communications, entertainment and social connectivity, sure there are high costs, but I really don’t see the current generation of politicians busting a gut to give this the priority it demands, there is a lot of dithering, failure to grasp opportunity, buck passing and deferment. The end result is a pretty feeble internet by global standards for most Australians.

      And by the way a vast percentage of the population are in the south east corner, and a few other cities, sure people in remote rural areas should get the best connection that is reasonably possible, but that should not be held as an excuse for poor delivery of services to cities.
    • Scruffydan, on 10/11/2007, -5/+27Canada is the same way (very spread out), yet we get unlimited internet... well almost I am limited to 100gig per month but that is not enforced
    • jm1234567890, on 10/11/2007, -2/+22Well we do get unlimited plans... just expensive ones
    • zybch, on 10/11/2007, -2/+68Remember too, that aussies download around 45 times as much content over bittorrent than americans.
      http://forums.mactalk.com.au/showthread.php?t=32403

      The U.S, with a population of 300 million people, account for 7% of BitTorrent traffic.
      Australia, with only 20 million people, accounts for 20% of all traffic.
      A ratio of 45:1
    • daza, on 10/11/2007, -5/+6Speeds are fairly decent in Australia, at least there have been major improvements in the past few years thanks to ADSL2+. The town I live in is officially classed as "Regional 1" but I still get about 16Mbit downstream, yielding 1MB/s+ from good sources.

      That said, download limits are annoying, but not all that bad. I don't pay a fortune for my Internet, $60/m including line rental -- which is usually $33 on its own. I get 12GB on peak (not a whole heap) and 40GB off-peak (not too bad). For the price I'm paying it's good value though. Things aren't as bad as they seem in Australia, just shop around for a decent plan and you'll get something reasonably fast with reasonable downloads.
    • Battlecry, on 10/11/2007, -5/+48"Canada is the same way (very spread out), yet we get unlimited internet... well almost I am limited to 100gig per month but that is not enforced"

      80-90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US-Canada border, so you're not all that spread out. Plus, until Canada becomes an island in the middle of nowhere in the ocean, you can't really compare to Australia.
    • digghasnoethics, on 10/11/2007, -4/+27Only problem with the idea in the article is it doesn't stand up to examination. Australia is a massively urban and suburban society. Wire up 6 cities and you've wired up over 80% of the population. Given that those connections are so local; high bandwidth 'fat pipes' are easy to arrange. The sheep shaggers in the middle of nowhere can be left with dialup, or alternative broadband solutions.

      In that, Australia is closer to somewhere like Korea - its easy and cheap to get a lot of bandwidth for the cabling-up buck. Its certainly no worse off than Korea for interconnecting to the worldwide backbones. Somewhere like the UK or Germany are actually much more expensive to cable up, purely because there is no concentration of populous; you have to cable everywhere across the entire landmass. Economies of scale are a red herring when you have to cable up every home. Costs scale with population.

      The problems with poor broadband service to Australia have much more to do with poor providers (Telstra) and lack of attention to the importance of good connectivity at a political level. All the while there is no realisation in Canberra that high tech rather than raw resources are the way to go, there is unlikely to be much improvement in their woeful performance.
    • jwolcott, on 10/11/2007, -0/+17I don't care what the excuse is, but it's pathetic that in 2007, one of the worlds richest countries has "quotas" on all their internet plans. Unlimited Broadband should be a government priority, period.
    • stolenisotope1, on 10/11/2007, -8/+251. Go Aussie!!
      2. Telstra Sucks badly
      3. Vote Labour. Rudd wants fibre optic line to-the-door (which is faster, more future proof but more expensive) than Howard's plan to have fibre optic to the node (which means your performance still depends on how far away from the exchange you are). Either way, putting in fibre optic in the majority of Australia will stimulate business, create jobs and attract foreign investors, which means at the end of the day, we will be better off. I would still prefer fibre optic to-the-door, so that none of my precious information has to pass through any dirty, filthy copper lines that is owned by Telstra. LOW PING FTW!
      4. Labour for this election!
      5. UK, USA, Japan, and even some parts of China have higher speed broadband than anything we have right now.
      6.Chanel BT FTW

      @daza, The fact that you are happy at our current state of affairs with Broadband is horrifying. We are lagging behind on the "Goat Track" of a information highway.
    • Spanktacular, on 10/11/2007, -13/+5"USAians" "There's more customers..."

      If this is what you consider to be well-written, I'd hate to see what you think is in the category of piss-poor...
    • eaasness, on 10/11/2007, -8/+3@ zybch

      Are the Aussies not sharing? If you are all using BT to get the same stuff, it should actually reduce off continent bandwidth usage, shouldn't it?
    • brickbat, on 10/11/2007, -5/+59Actually the article is full of *****. It is pure Telstra (monopolist) propaganda.

      1. Australians are highly concentrated in the big 3 cities - Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. While there is a law that phone services must be available to all Australians (Universal Access), they get a fat subsidy from the government for providing that. There is no such requirement for broadband internet so that excuse is *****.

      2. The international cable contracts are a rip off on purpose. They are done that way so Telstra can rip off its customers and charge competitors per tb rather than a fixed rental rate. They then get kickbacks on other deals to recover the money in other ways. Has everyone forgotten why companies like global crossing went into bankruptcy protection? International cables became ubiquitous and they couldn't justify charging what they were until then. Everywhere else in the world, the backbones are not charged based on volume but are a markup on the capital value depreciated over its lifetime.

      eg. if its costs $20, they add a markup - say 50% = $30 and they they say it should last 3 years = $10 per year. They then charge everyone that uses it to get that money.

      In the Australian case, there is no relationship between the capital investment and the charge. if it costs them $20, they say - ***** it - we will charge $1 per tb - if you don't like it, don't use it. Because its a monopoly, where are they gonna go? They have made their money back 1000s of times over ripping off everyone in Australia for over a decade.

      Its very simple. Have the government lay cables to Asia and the US and recharge all ISPs (including Telstra) on a costplus basis like EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ***** WORLD. Its called an infrastructure investment - like roads and *****.

    • salmonmoose, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12"Only problem with the idea in the article is it doesn't stand up to examination. Australia is a massively urban and suburban society. Wire up 6 cities and you've wired up over 80% of the population. Given that those connections are so local; high bandwidth 'fat pipes' are easy to arrange. The sheep shaggers in the middle of nowhere can be left with dialup, or alternative broadband solutions."

      True - but we're historically also quite socialist in nature, and have some fundamental laws ensuring that our rural residents don't miss out on what their urban counterparts receive. The solution, which is now no longer possible would have been to divide Telstra into 2 divisions (Infrastructure and Service) and only sell the service half, leaving the infrastructure to the government (we don't have privately owned roads, communications should be no different).

      Also - Whilst we ARE quite an urban population, Australia's cities still have one of the lowest population densities per square kilometer.
    • plokij909, on 10/11/2007, -13/+2Yes, mostly well written, except for the use of the word "cobber". No-one uses that word here anymore... and hasn't for a while.
    • Matt88, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11The best part of the article was the fact that he used the word "Cobber"
    • firepowered, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Well we do have unlimited plans, just that they are limited to a certain amount and after that we get shaped to 56K. or 28K.
    • mindsnare, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3@brickbat

      home run my friend. You've got it in one.
    • fatas, on 10/11/2007, -4/+3Load of ***** Sydney is not spreadout and it is heavily populated. So there is no excuse as to why we can't have the best here in Sydney. It is ridiculous to expect anyone to provide these high speeds to the outback.
    • aracine, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5@ plokij909

      Uhhh what part of Australia are you pretending to be from?
    • howzitgoin88, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2And, as always in situations like this, Tasmania gets screwed over... I'd say around 50% of the state is still on good ol' dial up! Its ***** ridiculous!
    • danconia, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1It has also been my experience that it would be difficult for Australia to lay down thousands of miles of cable to get linked up to the United States. If it were just about cost of fiber optic cable on Australian land then at least large cities like Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide would have decent internet access... but they don't.
    • L4WL3RS34L, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1@zybch

      The whole population is completely irrelevant. Just because more people live in the U.S. doesn't mean they're all downloading bastards. We have a lot more TV than you, and much more convenient movies (most are made in U.S.), giving us a lot less of a reason to download everything we see.
    • IncognitoCraven, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0@scruffydan

      C eh N eh D eh is not that spread out, you cannot simply divide the populaiton by the area to get a meaningful density... If you divide the population by the *inhabited* area you see that CA is actually rather dense; everyone living within 100 miles of the 49th parallel and all.
    • carleethian, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1i come from a land down under
      where beer does flow and men chunder
      can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
      you better run, you better take cover
  • philvell, on 10/11/2007, -1/+50yes, of course its not the fact that we have a monopoly on telecommunications, and as such they can charge us however they want. Thanks Telstra !
    • Scruffydan, on 11/09/2007, -21/+3bury
    • newl, on 10/11/2007, -16/+2If it weren't for that monopoly, the lot out in the bush wouldn't have ISDN or two way satellite.
    • zybch, on 10/11/2007, -0/+74***** telstra!!
    • ogore, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Just remember every other provider is buying bandwidth from Telstra but the government makes them sell it or they would crush all competition
    • philvell, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9http://www.nowwearetalking.com.au/Home/Default.aspx

      There hasn't been better propoganda since world war II.

      Sol Trujillo , Keep quiet, and don't tell the enemy, they'll sink our internets
    • Murdats, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3@philvell

      yeah, you have to love the "click here to vote on our online poll" which has been removed because we dont like the results, happens too frequently there
  • Iolite, on 10/11/2007, -2/+26Interesting story.

    Also, never heard myself called a USAian before. Sounds exotic!
    • dojonz, on 10/11/2007, -3/+11I first read it as US Asian - thought something had to be up.
    • DirtySnachez, on 10/11/2007, -2/+18Slightly more pleasant than seppo. ;)
    • jwolcott, on 10/11/2007, -9/+29seppo = Aussie slang for "Americans" = septic tank = because Americans are full of *****.

      Aussie friend of mine taught me that one. ;)
    • spinh, on 10/11/2007, -0/+14Septic tank = yank
      its rhyming slang
    • TLAKABM, on 10/11/2007, -9/+3Nobody in Australia says that. Your friends just a *****.
    • Fush, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5@TLAKABM

      No you just live under one giant ass rock
  • Dundasbro, on 11/09/2007, -2/+41Plus a phone company basically has a ***** monopoly over the infastructure which has meant that they have no need to upgrade internet access, it's better for them to just pump it out to the public at a ***** rate. Also, don't forgot our great leader's great statement "High-speed internet is only useful for online gaming and illegal activities, so we arn't having it" (May not match exact quote but that's the jist of it).

    Good article though. We still need a change here though.
    • kindrobot, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Seriously? I've spoken to people from over there and they all hate it. But what leader said that? That's idiotic. He thinks the Internet is like TV or something? His economy would feel differently if he gave it a chance.
    • zybch, on 11/09/2007, -2/+33That would probably be John Howard. Our 'wonderful' prime minister. You know the one, he has his head buried in GW Bush's *****!
    • estvir, on 10/11/2007, -2/+15Well, good old Howard has announced broadband for 99.9% of Australians but this is probably just a quick pre-election thing to get people to vote for him instead of Rudd who has been promising a similar thing for a longer time.
    • nipuL, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Is the same Howard government that pulled the broadband select scheme. IIRC the project got $4b of funding but was pulled after only $2b was allocated. And that was for (slow|broad)band.
    • ChuqAU, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12It wasn't John Howard - it was Richard Alston, the worlds biggest luddite - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/03/28/this_man_must/
    • ybisme, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3at least rudd, has plans to move toward faster internet, FTTN.
  • Azcobain, on 10/11/2007, -0/+17I can't wait for some decent connection plans, I can't even get ADSL+2 and I live in a well populated area.
    Sucks to be me.
  • acid0426, on 10/11/2007, -54/+2"every kilometer of copper or fibre laid down costs we Aussie customers twenty times as much."

    Not to be a grammar Nazi, but in America we learn that it should be "us", not "we", in the third grade. Guess they really are two different countries.
    • Dregga, on 10/11/2007, -3/+27Actually you're wrong, bahahaha
    • frase, on 10/11/2007, -2/+18by your reasoning...: "In America us learn that it should be "us", not "we", in the third grade"
    • PJBonoVox, on 10/11/2007, -3/+29acid0426 :

      1) This is an Australian writer, not an American.
      2) American English is basically *****.
      3) You got dugg the ***** down for a reason.
    • mwsherman, on 10/11/2007, -2/+14@frase

      Wrong, unfortunately. 'We' is used for a subject, and 'us' is used for an object.

      The sentence, "every kilometer of copper or fibre laid down costs we Aussie customers twenty times as much." should have 'us' instead of 'we' because 'we Aussie customers' is the object of 'costs.

      The sentence "In America us learn that it should be "us", not "we", in the third grade" is incorrect. It should have 'we' instead of 'us' because 'us' ('we') is the subject.

      Doesn't matter what country you are in, this is proper English grammar, although dialects certainly have variations.

      Not like grammar matters though. We all know what he means. Languages take care of themselves--us/we will certainly go the way of who/whom.
    • palais, on 10/11/2007, -5/+6Kilometer is American English.
  • M3wThr33, on 10/11/2007, -10/+1There are a LOT of countries that don't have unlimited Internet access. What's this "once one company has PAYG, they all will" crap?
  • Flappy3, on 10/11/2007, -3/+26Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!
  • GrimReeper, on 10/11/2007, -14/+3I say, ***** the rural and remote areas. They are rural and remote, so they shouldnt expect or get the good stuff like the cities.

    oh and ***** telstra
    • DD32, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4By that reasoning, ***** the cities, You dont deserve produce and products produced in rural and regional areas, "Regional" is actually a lot more "metro" than many city-dwellers realise.

      If it wasnt for Farmers in Rural and Regional, You can probably be safe to assume you wouldnt be living the same in the city.
    • Fush, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I have to agree...screw the bush...I know this is going to offend some people because i know of a lot of country people having nothing to do at night except use the web...it kinda proves how crap the bush is :P

      But for too long has the city subsidised the country. While it used to be that Australia lived off the back of the sheep it is no longer the case and now we see the city subsidising the country to maintain farms and grow crops that have no viable economical inpact. Example, the stupid irrigation on the Murry-Darling, they waste so much precious water and money on growing crap produce, which we could have easily imported from another country or region.

      Telstra as much as i hate them are forced by government regulation to provide equal service to country and city and extremely subsidised rates, if people want to live in the country thats fine but make them pay their fair share..because we owe them nothing, when was the last time the country subsidised the city
    • stonedgeek, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Having a lot of ppl in the country doesn't excuse our ***** service in the cities. The folks in the country who really need net access can get (or already have) satellite internet provided.
  • alwo, on 11/09/2007, -5/+21I'll be voting for the ALP in the next federal election.

    http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21428696-5001021,00.html
    "Mr Rudd on Wednesday pledged a Labor government would invest $4.7 billion in a joint venture providing 98 per cent of Australians with the option of high-speed broadband 40 times faster than most current services. The project would cost about $9 billion with private enterprise making up the difference."
    • halohunter, on 10/11/2007, -5/+4Its just an election ploy. Their 'aggressive timetable' will be largely stretched out after the elections IMO.

      I say that rural Australians who want broadband should get satellite with the help of the recently announced setup subsidy. That should keep them happy. For the rest of us, they should install a wireless service for every city with 100% coverage or FTTH.
    • philvell, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4Thats retarded, that means that telstra will be government owned for another 20 years, and that we as tax payers, will be ripping ourselves off once again.

      Our tax money goes to telstra, and our broadband fee's go to telstra.

      We're getting DVDA'd by them, and you want to give them more....
    • DuxDucis, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5@ halohunter;

      The majority of people living in the country already are using satellite connections. It's cheap as chips as well - around $15 AUD per month for an unlimited 512kb connection. Not bad when all of the wiring, equipment and setting up is also free.
    • mick6885, on 10/11/2007, -12/+5well then you're a commie fagot!
      what is it about over a decade under howard that displeases you so much?

      -the lowest unemployment rate ever?
      -the most prosperous time ever?
      -the lowest interest rates ever? [labor FTW on that one....i believe they almost broke the 20% mark and the country as well]
      -the elimination of the MASSIVE deficit that labor left us with

      ne1...i say again...ne1 who votes for rudd is an absolute knob-jockey.
    • eaasness, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1@halohunter

      I read the article and there was no mention of any kind of wireless providers, just talk of copper and fiber. What's up with that? I agree why not go wireless, but to span the long distances? Running high speed fiber and copper in the city is cheap.
    • aussieNickuss, on 11/09/2007, -1/+13@mick6885

      Your statements are all wrong.... the current unemployment rate, the economy and low interest rates are a direct result of the reforms that the Keating Labor government introduced in the early 90's. John Howard is riding the wave created by Keating and is taking all the credit for it.
    • SuperCujo, on 11/09/2007, -0/+11-the lowest unemployment rate ever?

      It always helps when you change the rules by which the unemployment rate is calculated. It used to include those on disability pensions and the like. Now it doesn't. It used to include those doing casual work of less than 12 hours a week. Now it doesn't. It also helps the mining sector has gone nuts creating heaps of new jobs (see below).

      -the most prosperous time ever?

      Not Howard's doing. Most of that comes from the economic beast that China has become and the boost in the mining sector.

      -the lowest interest rates ever? [labor FTW on that one....i believe they almost broke the 20% mark and the country as well]

      The interest issue will never happen again as the Reserve Bank and the Government are no longer linked and there was good reasons why the interest rates went that high (recession we had to have)

      -the elimination of the MASSIVE deficit that labor left us with

      By cutting spending on universities, health, etc. The deficit left by Labor was there from massive spending projects to do with the military (FA-18s, Black Hawks, Ships, Submarines) and the need to borrow to get through the recession, the deficit was large but was very manageable.

      I want to get rid of Howard just because he is a slimy piece of *****.

    • twelvedogs, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2@ mick6885:
      The main thing that ***** me about howard is AWAs, which he forced through despite everyone hating them. That's the sign the power has gone to his head, and we need to kick him about before he gets too power mad (not that he hasn't already, but i can see it getting worse, he likes the way bush does things too much)
    • reastes, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Yeh, Rudd will be getting my vote. It's not Howard that gave us good economy, it's cause we kicked f*&in' arse.

      I can feel the torrents now.
  • Thex1138, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6Don't forget that Optus is owned by Singtel which is owned by the Singapore government....
    So we're either monopoly owned by one...or foreign owned by another...lesser of two evils??
    • salmonmoose, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Optus doesn't own the wire.

      Selling the wire was the death of the internet in australia.
    • daftman, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1No the fact that you have Optus competing with Telstra is already signified there isn't a monopoly. Now, let's all make sure that there is actual healthy competition instead of only Telstra riding on what the government put out to build.
    • Murdats, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3ok, singapore has good internet.

      telstra has proved what they can do.
      I think its impossible for telstra to ever be the lesser of 2 evils.
      telstra, screwing australia over for decades
      optus(singtel(singapore))) given 1 country good service, unknown if they can do it here (but as stated, anything is better then telstra)
  • Sedjet, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Easier to blame Telstra.
    • mustacheo, on 11/09/2007, -5/+2Hey Telstra is my cat. Dont blame him please.
  • chrisc801, on 11/09/2007, -1/+41Welcome to Australia
    ***** house TV, Delayed Product Releases and Bad Internet
    • TastyLamp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2The quality of the TV is generally better....but the delayed product releases are enough to drive any digger insane.
    • crammaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1In our defence (and this comes from living in the UK for a year) we have sun.

      So umm... your move, world
  • ogore, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2Howard just served back a 99% coverage plan with speeds up to 50 times faster
    • BeefBaron, on 10/11/2007, -1/+650 times faster? 11mbit isnt that fast. Half the theoretical maximum of DSL2.
      Plus he didnt announce pricing, which could very well be in the hundereds for decent quota.
      Plus its just a ploy to flip flop back from their Australia doesnt need broadband stance, now that Labor proposed a similar project.
    • aussieNickuss, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11Labors FTTN (which could lead to FTTH) is far more future proofing method than the Libs nationwide ADSL2+ rollout. DSL tops out at 24Mbps, whereas fiber has the potential to go up into the 100's of MB.
  • 9a3eedi, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2Hmm.. then maybe I shouldn't be going there for my University. Expensive internet = not good..
    • eq2s, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Expensive U.S universities = not good..
  • mustacheo, on 10/11/2007, -12/+3What? Australia doesnt have unlimited internet plans?
    *****! they are turd world country.
    • mustacheo, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Yeah bury me down you turd world morons. But the fact remains the same - Aussies are a turd world country.
  • evilkarl, on 11/09/2007, -0/+10There are numerous issues though in addition to distance, Yes it costs to run copper or fibre over distance, but telstra also charge through the nose to utlise it after its laid well after it has paid for itself (which often doesn't take long). Additionally telstra likes to rape its fellow Australians by charging obscene and unnecessary costs to ISP's for using its hardware or domestic bandwidth or just arbitrarily because they can get away with it. Why do you think faster ADSL2+ services cost less than ADSL services? Its because of less telstra interference.

    I also blame our TV networks, much of what is downloaded via BT is shows that people enjoy watching from the US but it takes weeks, months and at times years for those shows to reach Australia. If the shows didn't suck and aired here close to or simultaneous with the US people probably wouldn't download them. As an example Season 2 of Stargate Atlantis is just finished airing here..Season 3 of stargate atlantis finished airing in Canada months ago and season 4 is due to start airing in Fall in the US and this is by no means the worst example I can give.

    There are many issues that face ISP's and thus the consumers in Australia..distance is but one.

    btw its yanks not USAians
    • mikeoh, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Iron Chef... aired 10 years after it aired in Japan.
  • jwolcott, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0"This new model and growth of the internet will affect every country on the planet, and I prophesy that within three years, pretty much every civilised spot on Earth with a broadband access point in it will be charging by the traffic used. No more quotas, no more 'unlimited' anything, it's all going user-pays. Once one country adopts PAYG utility-style internet (and because of our infrastructure we'll likely be the first), the rest will follow suit pretty quickly."

    I call *****. The costs of technology will eventually go down far enough that within 10 years major cities will have government-funded, unlimited, high-speed, wireless internet. You heard it here first.
  • maninalift, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"Extrapolate that, and that means (roughly) that every kilometer of copper or fibre laid down costs we Aussie customers twenty times as much."

    No it doesn't... unless you want to cooper plate the entire county. Cables are linear. If one assumed all that you had to do was lay copper wire of the same type with signal boosters. The simplest possible estimate would be sqrt(20) which is approximately 4.5 times the amount of cable.
  • DuxDucis, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12There was an article about this in the IT section of 'The Australian' today (June 19 edition). They also mentioned the fact that we only have two major data trunks running through Australia and through that they can keep the data costs at an artificially higher level than the rest of the world.

    Median price of Mbps per month ($US) for a one year lease:
    Sydney - 220
    Rio de Janeiro - 215
    Sao Paulo - 215
    Singapore - 155
    Seoul - 100
    Hong Kong - 80
    Tokyo - 80
    Milan - 40
    London, New York, Paris, Washington - 25

    And out of all of these, we also have the slowest connections as well.
    • nationalist, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1yeah GO USA!!!

      now go digg me down...
  • PunkRockGeoff, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0One thing I don't the understand: The part about the people in urban areas helping to subsidize phone for rural people. This is the case in America, however you are stuck on dialup if you're way out in sticks.. Why isn't this the case? and how does this drive up the cost of internet connections?
  • Julz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8New Zealand doesn't have any unlimited internet plans ether!
    • ldavid, on 11/09/2007, -2/+13Yeh, but who cares about New Zealand!!
    • lcarsdeveloper, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11New Zealand doesn't have Unlumuted Unternit either? You have my sympathies!
    • amoeba, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4I'm on an unlimited broadband plan in New Zealand. Woosh Orbit. Unlimited download via an 8Mbit p/sec connection for $45 p/month. It's OK
    • Murdats, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3thats what we said, australia has no unlimited internet, its right there in the title.
    • Domstersch, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Woosh Orbit was a retail-branded version of Telecom's Go Large - an experiment in unlimited bandwidth plans that utterly failed despite obnoxious "traffic management" and "fair use" policies. You'll notice that Woosh are no longer offering the unlimited Orbit plan; instead, they have a range of plans from 200MB (NZ$25) to 100GB (for NZ$175 ~= US$130!). Telecom also no longer offer Go Large meaning, once again, there are no full-speed unlimited plans available.

      For fun, take a look at how much bandwidth you can buy for your $45 on limited data plans: that's the maximum they think the average person would have used on an unlimited plan. How much? 10GB!

  • bowa, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1I live in belgium and that must have about the most customers per square kilometer, we have really high broadband penetration rates ... but there are NO isps offering unlimited traffic ...
    • eaasness, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1I live in the US and they pretty much have to sell unlimited plans here. Funny thing is business in the US are getting screwed. My company pays over $200 per month for a 1.1Mb up and down SDSL line. In contrast I pay $45 for 6Mb down and 0.6Mb up cable at home.
    • bowa, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Well here in belgium we have a cable company (telenet) that offers 20mbit down / 512 kbit up ... with 35Gb included per month ... every Gb over that you have to pay for.
  • mick6885, on 10/11/2007, -6/+4***** those country bumkins. im sick of hearing them complain about the rain and the internet.
    quit piss and moaning and move to the city.
    • daftman, on 11/09/2007, -0/+6they are the ones that deliver the food that you eat on the table.
      Otherwise you probably pay $400 per kilo of meat imported from some foreign countries. And then the ignorant PoS like you would complain about why we don't have our own food industry.
  • wepideke, on 10/11/2007, -4/+0buried as inaccurate, ANY ISP in Belgium limits you to max 10 GB, anything you want more = 1 euro/ GB. This system has been in place for as long as I can remember.
  • BillDoor, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6Australia isn't really that big given that 80-90% of people live in the south-east corner. Our government is so stupid. They sold off Telstra along with our telecommunications infrastructure.
  • joshcxa, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3This actually made me quite angry!
  • celotil, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10I'm drunk, and normally I wouldn't post while drunk but this story has riled me.

    The reason we pay so much in Australia for Internet access (both metered and unlimited) has nothing to do with distance (it was $1 per metre for fibre optic cable back in 1991) or distance (nearly %95 of our population lives in major cities (see first bracketed counterpoint)).

    It's ignorance. Our market is based on what people will pay, and most Australians will pay a lot for Internet they don't know the value of.

    I worked in the IT sector for a while and while I was there I saw a lot of ignorance. People not knowing what their modem did, not knowing what a router did, not understanding how their browser worked, not understanding the concepts of "download" and "upload", etc...

    Telstra is the major backbone in this country, and they've had it good for a long time - don't expect things to get better with privatisation either because the majority of Telstra shareholders couldn't tell the difference between a phone and an internet connection - so they've gotten good at knowing just how much they can charge before aggravating the public.

    The other backbone providers aren't going to rock the boat either because if Telstra is charging a high rate, and getting away with it, then why can't we?

    Remember that romantic, idyllic imagery of Australia as a 1950's to 1970's country still being charmingly country? The guys in charge (I'm not going to dignify them by calling them leaders) would love it to stay that way, and it isn't because they're romantics - far from it - but because they're dinosaurs who fear change for the sake of change.

    This fear is reflected every time someone is asked about upgrading (not just tech but anything) their lifestyle - "Oh well, this has worked for me for the last 50 years, and I don't see why I should change.")

    Just about everyone I know, who has or will be getting the Internet turned on, has no idea that they can download movies and television shows, call people overseas, play games against hundreds of other players, download updates for their computer, download updates for their phone, read books from just about anywhere in the world... And they all say the same damn thing when I point it out,

    "Oooher, that must be expensive."
  • kitkatsavvy, on 10/11/2007, -3/+6you are damn silly drewpickles.. telstra charges for uploads!!

    joys when the ..fttn 9 other companies win that deal or other..

    anyway... just to get my facts right, you can read the Australian Broadband website here at http://www.whirlpool.net.au

    once labor wins, we might have some decent internet.. perhaps
  • kitkatsavvy, on 10/11/2007, -7/+4you are damn silly drewpickles.. telstra charges for uploads!!

    joys when the ..fttn 9 other companies win that deal or other..

    anyway... just to get my facts right, you can read the Australian Broadband website here at www.whirlpool.net.au

    once labor wins, we might have some decent internet.. perhaps
  • omniunit, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Tel$tra can suck my balls!
  • joesmeat, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4The problem is largely Telstra.

    For example, Internode's pricing structure: http://www.internode.on.net/adsl/pricing/home.php

    1.5Mbps ADSL 1 20GB plan $69.95 - Telstra DSLAM.
    8.0Mbps ADSL 1 20GB plan $89.95 - Telstra DSLAM.
    24Mbps ADSL 2+ 20GB plan $59.95 - Internode owned DSLAM.

    Shame I can't get the ADSL 2+ plan - I live in the metropolitan area.
  • kaplano1, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I am on Telstra Bigpond Cable. The "best" ISP in the world (NOT)!
  • nattybohman, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3What the heck is a "USAian"?
    Call me an American or at least a yank.
    USAian has no flow to it.
    • SuperCujo, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5American is like saying European, someone from the continent of America. That includes Canada, Mexico, Brasil, Chile, etc. Yank works, but it offends the Confederates amongst you. USian works better.

      I like Seppo too. But USian requires less explanation to USians.
    • Altanar, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"I like Seppo too. But USian requires less explanation to USians."

      It's always easy to find the bigots by the words they use. Bigotry of nationality is just as bad as racism/sexism.
  • bikeham, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10Friends don't let friends sign up for Bigpond Broadband. Danger Will Robinson!
  • onggie, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7If anyone wants to see more complaining about Telstra head over to www.whirlpool.net.au. The only ISP in Australia to count uploads towards the download quota, we are severely being ass raped by Telstra! Telstra has way to much of a monopoly on the telecommunications, etc in Australia. It will be a long time before we see anything good.
  • rtphokie, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2The bigger issue here is one that any sizable country must deal with, should urban customers subsidize rural ones? This can come in the form of taxes and/or higher metered costs.

    Either way, it's far more expensive to serve rural customers and someone's got to pay for it.
  • mianos, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2Repeating many of the existing comments: This article is just plain wrong. The majority of the Australian population is actually more dense than the US. Most of Australia is unoccupied. The only point you could make that makes any sense based on this is to say: the last few percent coverage is a lot more expensive in Australia than the US because that 1% lives a lot further from anyone. The last 1% of the US is cheaper due to the much larger population in the US.
  • grumpy1377, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Privatise Telstra imo, crap for the country (aussie jobs and stuff) but better for all the people who wants DECENT internet and communications, i mean.. (correct me if im wrong :P)wireless internet, 40-50dollars for 300MB?

    Telstra has a MASSIVE monopoly which they have an unfair advantage against other telecommunication providers.

    Its not fair =(
  • danielok, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2iiNet FTW
    • themann, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1LOL i wonder how iiNet feels about all this talk off upgrading broadband services since they spent soo much money on ADSL2+ DSLAMs
      too think that FTTN or even FTTH is not that far away.
      but I'm happy with my 16mps ADSL2+ the only problem is the lack of quota 20gig peak / 40gig off-peak
      (peak is midday to 2am the next day)
  • DestroyFascism, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Our farmers are subsidized the hilt, I'm not sure if they pay for anything...
    All it takes is for these polidickheads to build a decent set of pipelines for water and wind powered desal and all that ***** can stop.
    Australia has been hobbled by dumbass politics and one stupid greedy company that should never have been sold like it was. Australia needed those pipelines that Telstra was sold with as a matter of National Security, stability and serviceability. So we sold Telstra and now our government can pay for all the Public Servants Super THAT IT SHOULD HAVE SAVED REGARDLESS because in not doing so the feds BROKE THEIR OWN LAWS!

    fark!



  • econojon, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2there's always broadband over satellite!!!
  • Topher06, on 11/09/2007, -4/+0Trying to find out why the rest of the world should care?
    • Murdats, on 11/09/2007, -1/+4right, because all us aussies (and as you can see from the number of diggs and comments there are a lot of us) just LOVE hearing about all that american specific news.

      not to mention those of us from every where else.

      the world and the internet does not exist purely to serve americans
    • caseyfw, on 11/09/2007, -0/+2It's amazing how many dickbrain people claim to not care about something, but go out of their way to post about it.

      Tard.

      @murdats: he never said he was a yank...
    • Murdats, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1fair point. I was assuming so because most of the time these comments come from americans (I have just stopped checking now)
  • Godlike, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I want to live in Australlia someday for awhile, even if it has ***** internet.
  • UberC, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Hey Australia, privatize your telecom!
  • GaleForce, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1This is what subsidies are for. Something like copper wire in a developed country is more of a necessity than it is a luxury. Its beneficial for the entire economy for it to exist because productivity depends on it.
  • simplejoe79, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1INTERESTING INFO!!........
  • frenzy3, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1WIMAX rules... down with copper
  • AdrianKRAZY, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Telstra ad's on TV:

    Get the fastest Internet available, with Telstra broadband. Now you can download all the movies and music you want at lightning fast speeds. All starting from an incredible $29 per month. If you read the fine print down the bottom it says something like... 512KB Connection, 200MB p/m. Uploads are included in download quota. 24 month min contract. After 200MB limit is reached you will be capped to 64KB.

  • DarkStalker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I love Canada. Unlimited bandwidth (550GB used last month), excellent speeds... I've never been so proud.
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