Broadband Internet Access

Australia

In Australia the telephone monopoly Telstra artificially limits ADSL speeds to 1.5 Mbit/s downstream and 256 kbit/s upstream. It is legally required to sell its ADSL service wholesale to other ISPs, but not its Cable network, which has a speed of 10 Mbit/s. Telstra refuses to provide wholesale Internet access to its Cable network. It is widely believed Telstra limits their ADSL speed to 1.5 Mbit/s to avoid 'income substitution' as they continue to earn access fees 10-50 times higher than typical Australian ADSL service fees for older generation 'E1', 'ATM' and 'Frame Relay' services. Telstra delayed the initial introduction of ADSL into Australia for the same reason. It is also believed that this limit is designed to hinder the adoption of new technologies such as streaming video, IP-TV and VoIP, again to avoid 'income substitution', because in addition to telephony, Telstra has a 50% stake in the pay TV service Foxtel. However Australia has regulated local loop unbundling and as such, other ISPs such as iiNet, Internode and Primus have installed their own DSLAMs in Telstra exchanges, offering customers speeds up to the ADSL limit of 8 Mbit/s. Internode has released and is now providing ADSL services of up to 24 Mbit/s, with iiNet offering ADSL2 speeds of up to 12 Mbit/s. In May 2005. the ADSL2+ standard was approved for use in Australia and these ISPs can now offer speeds up to 24 Mbit/s. Telstra have announced their plans to offer ADSL2+ in 2006, but with their current ADSL speeds limited, it is likely their ADSL2+ service will not reach 24 Mbit/s either.