Internet in Australia
Encyclopedia
Internet access
was first available in Australia to universities via AARNet
in 1989. The first commercial dial-up ISPs (Internet Service Providers) appeared in capital cities soon after and by the mid-1990s almost the entire country had a wide choice of dial-up Internet access providers. In present times Internet access is available through a range of technologies, chiefly Hybrid Fibre Coaxial Cable, DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), ISDN and Satellite Internet. The Australian Government
, in partnership with industry, began rolling out a nation-wide Fibre to the Premises broadband network in July 2009.
Broadband internet in Australia is much slower and more expensive than in nearly all other industrialised nations. There has been discussion over recent years in the Australian government to roll out a national broadband or fiber optics plan to bring faster, more reliable internet to the nation, as well as to make internet more available in rural areas. However, Australian telecommunications companies and the government have yet to enact any type of plan to revise the relative lagging in technology behind other industralised nations.
established a connection to the University of California
in Berkeley, California
and connecting via a UUCP dial-up using an early version of Rick Adams
SLIP
(Serial Line Internet Protocol). This connection was maintained privately until the CSIRO took over the maintenance and costs of the weekly UUCP SLIP
calls.
Prior to the connection of the greater internet, there existed an IP-based network linking academic institutions within Australia
known as ACSNet
, using the top level domain .oz. When Australia was connected to the internet, this domain was moved under .au to become .oz.au and still exists today.
The first permanent circuit connecting AARNet
to ARPANet
using TCP/IUP over X.25 was established in May 1989. It linked the University of Melbourne
with the University of Hawaii
via a 2400 bps (bits per second) satellite connection. Later upgraded to 56 kbit/s (kilobits per second) and then 256 kbit/s, at a time which the US end-point was moved to San Jose at a NASA
facility.
In 1992 there were two commercial ISPs competing with one another. One being DIALix, providing services to Perth and Pegasus Networks
out of Byron Bay
. By June 1995 this number had increased to excess of 100 [Internet Australasia Magazine], attributing some fifth of all AARNet traffic. At this time, it was decided by the Vice Chancellors' Committee
that Telstra would be better positioned to lead the commercial push of the Internet into Australia, so all commercial customers were sold.
and Optus
rolled-out separate cable Internet
services, focusing on the east coast. In 2000, the first consumer ADSL services were made available via Telstra Bigpond, at speeds of 256/64 kbit/s (downstream/upstream), 512/128 kbit/s, and 1500/256 kbit/s. Telstra chose to artificially limit all ADSL speeds to a maximum of 1500/256 kbit/s. As ADSL required access to the telephone exchange and the copper line — which only Telstra had — this allowed Telstra to be dominant due to the expense of roll-out for other companies and Telstra's established customer base. Other ISPs followed suit soon after; offering a Telstra Wholesale based service.
. As well as significantly reducing costs, it gave the service providers complete control of their own service networks, other than the copper pair
(phone line from the exchange to the customer). The first competition to Telstra's DSLAMs was provided by then Optus
subsidiary XYZed, launching business-grade xDSL
services from 50 exchanges in September 2000. Competition in the residential infrastructure market began in 2003, when Adelaide
-based ISP Internode
installed a DSLAM in the town of Meningie, South Australia
. Several other service providers have since begun deploying their own DSLAMs. The presence of non-Telstra DSLAMs allowed the service providers to control the speed of connection, and most offered "uncapped" speeds, allowing the customers to connect at whatever speed their copper pair
would allow, up to 8 Mbit/s. Ratification of ADSL2 and ADSL2+ increased the maximum to 12 Mbit/s, then 24 Mbit/s.
In 2005, Telstra announced it would invest A$210 million in upgrading all their ADSL exchanges to support ADSL2+ by mid 2006, though they did not say whether they would continue to restrict access speeds. However, in 2006, they announced new intentions to substantially alter their copper phone network and setup a "Fibre to the Node (FTTN)" network. This was later scrapped, with Telstra citing regulations forcing it to provide cheap wholesale access to its competitors as the reason not to invest in upgrading their network.
In late 2006, Telstra uncapped their retail and wholesale ADSL offerings to the maximum attainable speed of ADSL to 8 Mbit/s, however with a limited 384 kbit/s upstream speed. This has allowed many Australians access to higher speed broadband, while the comparatively lower wholesale rates discouraged competitive infrastructure investment in most cases.
Wireless broadband in Australia is also thriving, with many point-to-point fixed wireless broadband providers serving broadband-poor regional and rural areas, predominantly with Motorola Canopy
and WiMAX
technologies. Telstra's 2006 introduction of the "Next G
" HSPA
network (which reportedly covers 99% of the Australian population as of September 2008) with speeds advertised of being up to 14 Mbit/s., and stimulated investment in wireless broadband by competitors Optus, Vodafone and Hutchison Telecommunications, who are presently expanding their HSPA networks to cover 96-98% of the Australian population.
often providing the only telecommunications backhaul
transmission infrastructure. The large distance and small population means that providers interested in serving these areas often must invest large amounts of capital with low returns. Agile Communications is a pioneer of deploying cost-effective, competitive backhaul networks including their own microwave network in rural South Australia. Internode has been active in increasing access in order to be accessible to more people, spending $3.5 Million. This expansion will include both "wireless and fixed line-broadband (ADSL 2+)".
In June 2006, the Australian Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts
(DCITA) under the then coalition
government called for expressions of interest for discussion of how to invest up to A$878 million in funding under Broadband Connect program to provide greater access to broadband
services in rural and regional areas at prices comparable to services available in metropolitan areas, $500 million of which was envisaged as being available to infrastructure projects. On 21 September 2006, the government announced they would invest up to $600 million in broadband infrastructure projects in rural, regional and remote Australia under this program. Applications for funding were open until 30 November. On 18 June 2007, in the lead up to a federal election, OPEL Networks was announced as the sole successful bidder, receiving the entire $600 million in funding under the program, as well as an additional allocation of $358 million. This was to be combined with $917 million to be invested by the OPEL Networks joint venture. The awarding of additional funding was met with some debate. The funding agreement was signed on 9 September 2007, which was dependent upon further planning by OPEL and confirmation that it would reach the agreed levels of coverage. The then federal opposition
Communications spokesman stated that they would honour the agreement, a stance maintained after winning government two months later, despite their own competing National Broadband Network proposal.
On 2 April 2008, it was announced that the funding agreement for Opel Networks had been cancelled. The minister cited OPEL's failure to meet the terms of the contract, a claim refuted by the OPEL joint venture partners, who nevertheless stated that the project would not proceed.
Customers on connection speeds on 1.5 Mbit/s have increased from 2.47 million (37% of total) in December 2007 to 3.10 million (43% of total) in June 2008. In December 2008 there were 7.996 million Internet subscribers representing a year on year increase of 13%. There was a decrease of 30% in the number of dial internet subscribers, and an increase of 28% in the number of non-dial subscribers.
(a): ISDN, Cable, Satellite and other non-dial up technology
(a)Data was not collected on Broadband prior to 2004-05
Internet Access and at use at home by age 06-07
at 0.018 USD per MB. In a sample comparison of 27 countries, all in Europe and North America along with Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, between 2005 and 2008 inclusive, the fastest DSL service was Japan and Korea at 102,400 kbit/s. Australia was ranked fourth from the bottom at 1,536 kbit/s, above Greece, Spain and Mexico who were each 1,024 kbit/s. Cable internet in Australia ranked third in greatest increase in speed, from 2,880 kbit/s in 2005 to 20,000 kbit/s in 2008, compared to the other 27 countries. While all but two countries lowered their prices by an estimated average of 10% per year, Australia raised its prices by an average of 14% per year.
. The contribution is the second after the leading mining sector and a half of mining sector. The Internet directly employed 190,000 Australians.
The most common form of residential broadband is ADSL, which utilises existing copper telephone lines. In Australia, the major telephone company Telstra
owns the majority of landline infrastructure, with Optus
(a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications) owning the rest, making them well-placed to provide the DSLAM
technology which facilitates ADSL. Smaller ISPs often resell these wholesaled services, but recently there has been substantial infrastructure investment in DSLAM technology by other providers using local loop unbundling
.
Hybrid fibre-coaxial Cable
networks running at up to 30 Mbit/s exist in all of the major metropolitan regions. Telstra
, in November 2009, finished upgrading the HFC Cable network in Melbourne
, which will provide speeds of up to 100 Mbit/s, providing the city with the nation's fastest internet. The system was rolled out in December 2009.
Various providers offer wireless networks dedicated to broadband, both in metropolitan and rural areas. Wireless internet is better suited to the more rural areas of Australia due to the larger distances and lower population density which make traditional lines costly. New business models have been used in order to encourage the take up of wireless internet, prepaid a concept that has been seen in mobile phones is being transferred to wireless internet.
The major mobile phone networks provide 3G data connectivity using HSDPA over 3GSM. These are also considered a solution for providing broadband in regional areas
Most Australian ISPs traffic shape
residential customers after a monthly download quota has been exceeded. Many other ISPs apply "per gigabyte" excess charges to downloads beyond the monthly download quota.
suspended its programs to bring Broadband to the Country and many others providers are having to follow suit as the cancellation of the Connect program has removed the financial incentive for ISPs to "supply higher bandwidth services in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia at prices
comparable".
In March 2007, the ALP
announced a new policy, accepting the privatization of Telstra in order to fund a world class national broadband network.
It should be noted however that due to Telstra's extensive use of Pair Gain technology for connecting home landlines from 1994 to 2000, some homes have been excluded from ADSL and are limited to a dialup speed of 28.8 kbit/s.
and iBurst
confirmed at the same time that they do shape peer to peer activity in order to "smooth the flow of data". In 2007 Optus changed their policy so that uploads as well as downloads would be counted towards the customers limit. This has been seen as a move to curb the amount of peer to peer activity as other services which upload such as multiplayer computer games are not counted towards the limit if played through certain servers.
in planning and trial operation in Australia by the Australian Government
. The national broadband network which aims to provide up to 100 Mb/s speeds and to connect to 93% of Australian households and businesses. The government will hold a majority share (51%) in the network company, with the remainder being held by private firms. The Australian Government had previously called for proposals to build an Fibre to the Node (FTTN) broadband network providing download speeds of 12 Megabits per second or more to at least 98% of Australian homes and businesses, for which it was offering to contribute up to A$
4.7 billion, in the form of a public private partnership. This proposal has been dismissed. The network will be the largest single infrastructure investment in Australia's history.
's Geoff Huston stating that IPv4 addresses will be exhausted prior to October 2010, IPv6 is becoming increasingly important in the future of Australian Internet connectivity. Despite several companies having applied for allocations of the new addresses, presently only a small number organisations have provided retail-IPv6 offerings to their end-customers; Apex Telecom and Internode both claim to being the first to offer IPv6 at a retail level. Wholesalers and Educational Networks have also been supplying IPv6 being PIPE Networks
, Vocus
and AARNet
.
Internet access
Many technologies and service plans for Internet access allow customers to connect to the Internet.Consumer use first became popular through dial-up connections in the 20th century....
was first available in Australia to universities via AARNet
AARNet
AARNet or Australian Academic and Research Network offers Internet services to the Australian education and research communities and their research partners.AARNet is a not-for-profit company limited by shares...
in 1989. The first commercial dial-up ISPs (Internet Service Providers) appeared in capital cities soon after and by the mid-1990s almost the entire country had a wide choice of dial-up Internet access providers. In present times Internet access is available through a range of technologies, chiefly Hybrid Fibre Coaxial Cable, DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), ISDN and Satellite Internet. The Australian Government
Government of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia is a federal constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, which became the six states...
, in partnership with industry, began rolling out a nation-wide Fibre to the Premises broadband network in July 2009.
Broadband internet in Australia is much slower and more expensive than in nearly all other industrialised nations. There has been discussion over recent years in the Australian government to roll out a national broadband or fiber optics plan to bring faster, more reliable internet to the nation, as well as to make internet more available in rural areas. However, Australian telecommunications companies and the government have yet to enact any type of plan to revise the relative lagging in technology behind other industralised nations.
Early days
Australia was connected to the internet on 3 September 1983 when DarwinDarwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
established a connection to the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
and connecting via a UUCP dial-up using an early version of Rick Adams
Rick Adams (Internet pioneer)
Richard L. Adams, Jr. was an Internet pioneer and the founder of UUNET, which, in the mid and late 1990s, was the world's largest Internet Service Provider ....
SLIP
Serial Line Internet Protocol
The Serial Line Internet Protocol is an encapsulation of the Internet Protocol designed to work over serial ports and modem connections. It is documented in RFC 1055...
(Serial Line Internet Protocol). This connection was maintained privately until the CSIRO took over the maintenance and costs of the weekly UUCP SLIP
Slip
- In science and technology :* Slip , an aqueous suspension of minerals, and frequently deflocculant.* Slip , a positional displacement in a sequence of transmitted symbols...
calls.
Prior to the connection of the greater internet, there existed an IP-based network linking academic institutions within Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
known as ACSNet
ACSnet
The Australian Computer Science Network was a store-and-forward network used to connect Australia's Universities to each other and to ARPANET...
, using the top level domain .oz. When Australia was connected to the internet, this domain was moved under .au to become .oz.au and still exists today.
The first permanent circuit connecting AARNet
AARNet
AARNet or Australian Academic and Research Network offers Internet services to the Australian education and research communities and their research partners.AARNet is a not-for-profit company limited by shares...
to ARPANet
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
using TCP/IUP over X.25 was established in May 1989. It linked the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
with the University of Hawaii
University of Hawaii
The University of Hawaii System, formally the University of Hawaii and popularly known as UH, is a public, co-educational college and university system that confers associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees through three university campuses, seven community college campuses, an employment...
via a 2400 bps (bits per second) satellite connection. Later upgraded to 56 kbit/s (kilobits per second) and then 256 kbit/s, at a time which the US end-point was moved to San Jose at a NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
facility.
In 1992 there were two commercial ISPs competing with one another. One being DIALix, providing services to Perth and Pegasus Networks
Pegasus Networks
Pegasus Networks was set up in 1989, and became Australia's first public Internet provider. It acted as a "gateway" to emerging online networks working the fields of environment, labour, peace, women's and the human rights movement....
out of Byron Bay
Byron Bay, New South Wales
Byron Bay is a beachside town located in the far-northeastern corner of the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located north of Sydney and south of Brisbane. Cape Byron, a headland adjacent to the town, is the easternmost point of mainland Australia. At the 2006 Census, the town had a...
. By June 1995 this number had increased to excess of 100 [Internet Australasia Magazine], attributing some fifth of all AARNet traffic. At this time, it was decided by the Vice Chancellors' Committee
Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee
Universities Australia is an organisation founded in Sydney in May 1920, which attempts to advance higher education through voluntary, cooperative and coordinated action. After being based for a time in both Sydney and Melbourne, its offices relocated to Canberra in 1966...
that Telstra would be better positioned to lead the commercial push of the Internet into Australia, so all commercial customers were sold.
First Broadband
In the late 1990s, TelstraTelstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
and Optus
Optus
SingTel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications...
rolled-out separate cable Internet
Cable internet
In telecommunications, cable Internet access, often shortened to cable Internet or simply cable, is a form of broadband Internet access that uses the cable television infrastructure. Like digital subscriber line and fiber to the premises services, cable Internet access provides network edge...
services, focusing on the east coast. In 2000, the first consumer ADSL services were made available via Telstra Bigpond, at speeds of 256/64 kbit/s (downstream/upstream), 512/128 kbit/s, and 1500/256 kbit/s. Telstra chose to artificially limit all ADSL speeds to a maximum of 1500/256 kbit/s. As ADSL required access to the telephone exchange and the copper line — which only Telstra had — this allowed Telstra to be dominant due to the expense of roll-out for other companies and Telstra's established customer base. Other ISPs followed suit soon after; offering a Telstra Wholesale based service.
Competition, Faster Broadband
Gradually, larger ISPs began taking over more of the delivery infrastructure themselves by taking advantage of regulated access to the unconditioned local loopLocal loop unbundling
Local loop unbundling is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecommunications operators to use connections from the telephone exchange to the customer's premises...
. As well as significantly reducing costs, it gave the service providers complete control of their own service networks, other than the copper pair
Local loop
In telephony, the local loop is the physical link or circuit that connects from the demarcation point of the customer premises to the edge of the carrier or telecommunications service provider's network...
(phone line from the exchange to the customer). The first competition to Telstra's DSLAMs was provided by then Optus
Optus
SingTel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications...
subsidiary XYZed, launching business-grade xDSL
Digital Subscriber Line
Digital subscriber line is a family of technologies that provides digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network. DSL originally stood for digital subscriber loop. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line ,...
services from 50 exchanges in September 2000. Competition in the residential infrastructure market began in 2003, when Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
-based ISP Internode
Internode Systems
Internode, founded on 8 May 1991 by Managing Director Simon Hackett, is an Australian Internet Service Provider . The company focuses primarily on ADSL-based Internet access, but also provides business-class access , web hosting, co-location, Voice over IP, and a variety of related...
installed a DSLAM in the town of Meningie, South Australia
Meningie, South Australia
Meningie is a town on the southeast side of Lake Albert in South Australia. It is on the Princes Highway near The Coorong and was surveyed in 1866. At the 2006 census, Meningie had a population of 940....
. Several other service providers have since begun deploying their own DSLAMs. The presence of non-Telstra DSLAMs allowed the service providers to control the speed of connection, and most offered "uncapped" speeds, allowing the customers to connect at whatever speed their copper pair
Local loop
In telephony, the local loop is the physical link or circuit that connects from the demarcation point of the customer premises to the edge of the carrier or telecommunications service provider's network...
would allow, up to 8 Mbit/s. Ratification of ADSL2 and ADSL2+ increased the maximum to 12 Mbit/s, then 24 Mbit/s.
In 2005, Telstra announced it would invest A$210 million in upgrading all their ADSL exchanges to support ADSL2+ by mid 2006, though they did not say whether they would continue to restrict access speeds. However, in 2006, they announced new intentions to substantially alter their copper phone network and setup a "Fibre to the Node (FTTN)" network. This was later scrapped, with Telstra citing regulations forcing it to provide cheap wholesale access to its competitors as the reason not to invest in upgrading their network.
In late 2006, Telstra uncapped their retail and wholesale ADSL offerings to the maximum attainable speed of ADSL to 8 Mbit/s, however with a limited 384 kbit/s upstream speed. This has allowed many Australians access to higher speed broadband, while the comparatively lower wholesale rates discouraged competitive infrastructure investment in most cases.
Wireless broadband in Australia is also thriving, with many point-to-point fixed wireless broadband providers serving broadband-poor regional and rural areas, predominantly with Motorola Canopy
Canopy (wireless)
Motorola Canopy is a wireless networking system designed for wireless Internet service providers to provide Internet access.Product are available in point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. It includes both the original Motorola-designed products using the Canopy protocol and the PtP...
and WiMAX
WiMAX
WiMAX is a communication technology for wirelessly delivering high-speed Internet service to large geographical areas. The 2005 WiMAX revision provided bit rates up to 40 Mbit/s with the 2011 update up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations...
technologies. Telstra's 2006 introduction of the "Next G
Next G
Next G is a third generation mobile telecommunication network operated by Telstra in Australia.-Background:After a review, Telstra announced a plan to upgrade its ageing networks and systems; which includes a new 3G network to replace the then current CDMA mobile network.-Construction:The network...
" HSPA
High Speed Packet Access
High Speed Packet Access is an amalgamation of two mobile telephony protocols, High Speed Downlink Packet Access and High Speed Uplink Packet Access , that extends and improves the performance of existing WCDMA protocols...
network (which reportedly covers 99% of the Australian population as of September 2008) with speeds advertised of being up to 14 Mbit/s., and stimulated investment in wireless broadband by competitors Optus, Vodafone and Hutchison Telecommunications, who are presently expanding their HSPA networks to cover 96-98% of the Australian population.
Delivering Broadband to Rural Areas
Delivering competitive telecommunications services to regional and rural areas is a major issue, with TelstraTelstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
often providing the only telecommunications backhaul
Backhaul (telecommunications)
In a hierarchical telecommunications network the backhaul portion of the network comprises the intermediate links between the core network, or backbone, of the network and the small subnetworks at the "edge" of the entire hierarchical network...
transmission infrastructure. The large distance and small population means that providers interested in serving these areas often must invest large amounts of capital with low returns. Agile Communications is a pioneer of deploying cost-effective, competitive backhaul networks including their own microwave network in rural South Australia. Internode has been active in increasing access in order to be accessible to more people, spending $3.5 Million. This expansion will include both "wireless and fixed line-broadband (ADSL 2+)".
In June 2006, the Australian Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (Australia)
The department's strategic policy areas include:* National Broadband Network* Postal and telecommunications policies and programs* Spectrum management* Broadcasting policy* Digital economy* Regional communications* Cybersafety and e-security...
(DCITA) under the then coalition
Coalition (Australia)
The Coalition in Australian politics refers to a group of centre-right parties that has existed in the form of a coalition agreement since 1922...
government called for expressions of interest for discussion of how to invest up to A$878 million in funding under Broadband Connect program to provide greater access to broadband
Broadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...
services in rural and regional areas at prices comparable to services available in metropolitan areas, $500 million of which was envisaged as being available to infrastructure projects. On 21 September 2006, the government announced they would invest up to $600 million in broadband infrastructure projects in rural, regional and remote Australia under this program. Applications for funding were open until 30 November. On 18 June 2007, in the lead up to a federal election, OPEL Networks was announced as the sole successful bidder, receiving the entire $600 million in funding under the program, as well as an additional allocation of $358 million. This was to be combined with $917 million to be invested by the OPEL Networks joint venture. The awarding of additional funding was met with some debate. The funding agreement was signed on 9 September 2007, which was dependent upon further planning by OPEL and confirmation that it would reach the agreed levels of coverage. The then federal opposition
Opposition (Australia)
Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in Australia fulfils the same function as the official opposition in other Commonwealth of Nations monarchies. It is seen as the alternative government and the existing administration's main opponent at a general election...
Communications spokesman stated that they would honour the agreement, a stance maintained after winning government two months later, despite their own competing National Broadband Network proposal.
On 2 April 2008, it was announced that the funding agreement for Opel Networks had been cancelled. The minister cited OPEL's failure to meet the terms of the contract, a claim refuted by the OPEL joint venture partners, who nevertheless stated that the project would not proceed.
Innovation in Broadband Delivery
In November 2007 the first Naked DSL product was announced by iiNet. Shortly after this other internet providers also started to provide DSL products without telephony service over copper, reducing line rental fees.Internet statistics
In March 2007, there were approximately 4.33 million broadband subscribers in Australia and 2.09 million narrowband subscribers. Between December 2007 and June 2008 there was an increase in the number of wireless internet subscribers from 433,000 to 809,000.Customers on connection speeds on 1.5 Mbit/s have increased from 2.47 million (37% of total) in December 2007 to 3.10 million (43% of total) in June 2008. In December 2008 there were 7.996 million Internet subscribers representing a year on year increase of 13%. There was a decrease of 30% in the number of dial internet subscribers, and an increase of 28% in the number of non-dial subscribers.
| Broadband Services 2008? | |
|---|---|
| Broadband Type | Number Connections |
| Total Internet Services | 7.996 million |
| Non dial up | 6.685 Million
|
| Dial up | 1.311 million
|
(a): ISDN, Cable, Satellite and other non-dial up technology
- Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 37
- Very Large: 3
- Large: 7 (June 2008)
- Country code: .au.au.au is the Internet country code top-level domain for Australia.-History:The domain name was originally allocated by Jon Postel, operator of IANA to Kevin Robert Elz of Melbourne University in 1986. After an approximately five year process in the 1990s, the Internet industry created a self...
| Year | Internet Access | Broadband Internet access (a) |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 16% | n.a. |
| 1999 | 22% | n.a. |
| 2000 | 32% | n.a. |
| 2001 | 42% | n.a. |
| 2002 | 46% | n.a. |
| 2003 | 53% | n.a. |
| 2004-05 | 56% | 16% |
| 2005-06 | 60% | 28% |
| 2006-07 | 64% | 43% |
| 2007–2008 | 67% | 52% |
(a)Data was not collected on Broadband prior to 2004-05
Social trends
| Purpose of Internet Use at Home 06-07 | respondents could answer multiple options |
|---|---|
| Personal/Private | 98% |
| Education/Study | 53% |
| Work/Business | 52% |
| Voluntary/Community | 12% |
| Other | 11% |
Internet Access and at use at home by age 06-07
| Age group (years) | Internet Access | Internet Use |
|---|---|---|
| 15-24 | 79.7% | 76.5% |
| 25-34 | 75.8% | 71.8% |
| 35-44 | 80.2% | 72.6% |
| 45-54 | 78.5% | 66.5% |
| 55-64 | 64.7% | 51.7% |
| 65-74 | 42.2% | 28.1% |
| 75+ | 21.8% | 10.5% |
| Total | 69.5% | 60.9% |
Pricing
In October 2008, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) compared countries where more than 50% of offers have bit/data caps. Australia was one of four countries of the 13 with caps where 100% of plan options had download caps and it ranked fourth in average download limit size (27MB). It ranked number one by a wide margin in the average price per additional MB after reaching the cap, at 0.103 USD. The second highest was IrelandIreland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
at 0.018 USD per MB. In a sample comparison of 27 countries, all in Europe and North America along with Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, between 2005 and 2008 inclusive, the fastest DSL service was Japan and Korea at 102,400 kbit/s. Australia was ranked fourth from the bottom at 1,536 kbit/s, above Greece, Spain and Mexico who were each 1,024 kbit/s. Cable internet in Australia ranked third in greatest increase in speed, from 2,880 kbit/s in 2005 to 20,000 kbit/s in 2008, compared to the other 27 countries. While all but two countries lowered their prices by an estimated average of 10% per year, Australia raised its prices by an average of 14% per year.
Economic
In 2010, the Internet contributed Aus$50 billion ($53 billion) or 3.6 percent of Australia's Gross Domestic ProductGross domestic product
Gross domestic product refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living....
. The contribution is the second after the leading mining sector and a half of mining sector. The Internet directly employed 190,000 Australians.
Residential Internet Access
Residential broadband Internet access is available in Australia using ADSL, Cable, Fibre, Satellite and Wireless technologies. As of July 2008, almost two thirds of Australian households now have internet access, with broadband connections outnumbering dial-up two to one. According to the recent ABS statistics the Non dial up services outnumber dial up services 3.6 to 1.The most common form of residential broadband is ADSL, which utilises existing copper telephone lines. In Australia, the major telephone company Telstra
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
owns the majority of landline infrastructure, with Optus
Optus
SingTel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications...
(a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications) owning the rest, making them well-placed to provide the DSLAM
Digital subscriber line access multiplexer
A digital subscriber line access multiplexer is a network device, located in the telephone exchanges of the telecommunications operators. It connects multiple customer digital subscriber line interfaces to a high-speed digital communications channel using multiplexing techniques...
technology which facilitates ADSL. Smaller ISPs often resell these wholesaled services, but recently there has been substantial infrastructure investment in DSLAM technology by other providers using local loop unbundling
Local loop unbundling
Local loop unbundling is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecommunications operators to use connections from the telephone exchange to the customer's premises...
.
Hybrid fibre-coaxial Cable
Hybrid fibre-coaxial
Hybrid fiber-coaxial is a telecommunications industry term for a broadband network which combines optical fibre and coaxial cable. It was commonly employed globally by cable television operators since the early 1990s.-Description:...
networks running at up to 30 Mbit/s exist in all of the major metropolitan regions. Telstra
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
, in November 2009, finished upgrading the HFC Cable network in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, which will provide speeds of up to 100 Mbit/s, providing the city with the nation's fastest internet. The system was rolled out in December 2009.
Various providers offer wireless networks dedicated to broadband, both in metropolitan and rural areas. Wireless internet is better suited to the more rural areas of Australia due to the larger distances and lower population density which make traditional lines costly. New business models have been used in order to encourage the take up of wireless internet, prepaid a concept that has been seen in mobile phones is being transferred to wireless internet.
The major mobile phone networks provide 3G data connectivity using HSDPA over 3GSM. These are also considered a solution for providing broadband in regional areas
Most Australian ISPs traffic shape
Traffic shaping
Traffic shaping is the control of computer network traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency, and/or increase usable bandwidth for some kinds of packets by delaying other kinds of packets that meet certain criteria...
residential customers after a monthly download quota has been exceeded. Many other ISPs apply "per gigabyte" excess charges to downloads beyond the monthly download quota.
Internet in rural areas
Internet in Australia has great differences between urban and rural areas. With the March 2007 announcement of the Broadband Guarantee program, which will replace the Broadband Connect program, many long term projects to bring Internet to Rural Areas are under review. A week after the announcement, InternodeInternode
Internode may refer to:* A portion of a plant stem between nodes* Internode , an Internet service provider in Australia* Internodal segment, a portion of a nerve fiber...
suspended its programs to bring Broadband to the Country and many others providers are having to follow suit as the cancellation of the Connect program has removed the financial incentive for ISPs to "supply higher bandwidth services in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia at prices
comparable".
In March 2007, the ALP
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
announced a new policy, accepting the privatization of Telstra in order to fund a world class national broadband network.
It should be noted however that due to Telstra's extensive use of Pair Gain technology for connecting home landlines from 1994 to 2000, some homes have been excluded from ADSL and are limited to a dialup speed of 28.8 kbit/s.
International connectivity
Due to Australia's large size, sparse population and relative remoteness to other countries, a significant amount of infrastructure is required for Internet communications. The vast majority of Australia's International Internet transit capacity is sourced from undersea fibre-optic communications cables to Asia or the USA.Network Neutrality
In 2006 the top three ISP's stated that they did not discriminate between peer to peer internet activity and normal internet activity. Though peer to peer activity is counted towards the customer's limit and if the customer exceeds that limit then they will have their account shaped. However UnwiredUnwired
Unwired Australia Pty Ltd is an Australian company dedicated to fixed wireless telecommunications network offering carrier grade Internet services. They currently provide coverage in Melbourne and Sydney. Unwired has 52,320 customers and 97 employees as of 8 March 2010...
and iBurst
IBurst
iBurst is a wireless broadband technology originally developed by ArrayComm. It optimizes the use of its bandwidth with the help of smart antennas...
confirmed at the same time that they do shape peer to peer activity in order to "smooth the flow of data". In 2007 Optus changed their policy so that uploads as well as downloads would be counted towards the customers limit. This has been seen as a move to curb the amount of peer to peer activity as other services which upload such as multiplayer computer games are not counted towards the limit if played through certain servers.
Other developments
There are ongoing developments in Australia. This includes fibre networks offered by Telstra and competitors in major cities (e.g.: east-coast capitals by Powertel, and mid to west-coast capitals by Amcom). The federal government is financially aiding better rural broadband access, including encouraging competition where feasible as these are less profitable areas — with less customers, greater line lengths and a higher ULL wholesale line rental from Telstra, and higher rates from Telstra charges for data connections (backhaul) to the cities.National Broadband Network
The National Broadband Network is a Fibre to the Home (FTTH) Open Access NetworkOpen Access Network
An open-access network refers to a horizontally layered network architecture in telecommunications, and the business model that separates the physical access to the network from the delivery of services. In an OAN, the owner or manager of the network does not supply services for the network; these...
in planning and trial operation in Australia by the Australian Government
Government of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia is a federal constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, which became the six states...
. The national broadband network which aims to provide up to 100 Mb/s speeds and to connect to 93% of Australian households and businesses. The government will hold a majority share (51%) in the network company, with the remainder being held by private firms. The Australian Government had previously called for proposals to build an Fibre to the Node (FTTN) broadband network providing download speeds of 12 Megabits per second or more to at least 98% of Australian homes and businesses, for which it was offering to contribute up to A$
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
4.7 billion, in the form of a public private partnership. This proposal has been dismissed. The network will be the largest single infrastructure investment in Australia's history.
IPv6
With the Asia-Pacific Network Information CentreAsia-Pacific Network Information Centre
The Asia Pacific Network Information Centre is the Regional Internet Registry for the Asia Pacific region.APNIC provides number resource allocation and registration services that support the global operation of the Internet...
's Geoff Huston stating that IPv4 addresses will be exhausted prior to October 2010, IPv6 is becoming increasingly important in the future of Australian Internet connectivity. Despite several companies having applied for allocations of the new addresses, presently only a small number organisations have provided retail-IPv6 offerings to their end-customers; Apex Telecom and Internode both claim to being the first to offer IPv6 at a retail level. Wholesalers and Educational Networks have also been supplying IPv6 being PIPE Networks
PIPE Networks
PIPE Networks is an Australian company, based in Brisbane, Queensland, primarily involved in setting up peering exchanges. PIPE itself stands for "Public Internet Peering Exchange"...
, Vocus
Vocus
Vocus is a publicly held company that provides on-demand software for public relations, marketing and communications professionals. Their software provides news monitoring and management, social media monitoring and management, press release distribution and reporting and analytics, and includes...
and AARNet
AARNet
AARNet or Australian Academic and Research Network offers Internet services to the Australian education and research communities and their research partners.AARNet is a not-for-profit company limited by shares...
.
Internet Filtering Plans
On 31 December 2007, Stephen Conroy announced the Federal Government's intention to censor "inappropriate material" from the Internet. Under the proposed system any Australian who subscribes to an ISP would receive a "clean" version of the Internet. The Federal Government's stated aim is to protect children from accessing violent and pornographic websites.See also
- Internet access worldwide
- Communications in AustraliaCommunications in AustraliaTelecommunications in Australia deals with telecommunications in Australia, involving the availability and use of electronic devices and services, such as the telephone, television, radio or computer, for the purpose of communication.-Early:...
- Internet censorship in AustraliaInternet censorship in AustraliaInternet censorship in Australia currently consists of a regulatory regime under which the Australian Communications and Media Authority has the power to enforce content restrictions on Internet content hosted within Australia, and maintain a "black-list" of overseas websites which is then...
External links
- Whirlpool — "Whirlpool.net.au is a fully independent, non-commercial, community website, run by a team of unpaid volunteers, which is devoted to keeping the public informed about the state of broadband in Australia." Australian ADSL news, information, and forums.
- Internet Choice — Broadband Comparison website comparing a range of the leading internet providers in Australia.