Communications In Australia
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Telecommunications in Australia refers to
communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...
in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
through electronic means, using devices such as
telephone A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...
,
television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
,
radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3  hertz (Hz) and 300  gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...
or
computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...
, and services such as the telephony and broadband networks. Telecommunications have always been important in Australia given the "tyranny of distance" with a dispersed population. Governments have driven telecommunication development and have a key role in its regulation.


History


Colonial period

Prior to
Federation of Australia The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia (which also governed what is now the Northern Territory), and Wester ...
in 1901, each of the six Australian colonies had its own telephony communications network. The Australian networks were government assets operating under colonial legislation modelled on that of Britain. The UK Telegraph Act 1868 for example empowered the Postmaster-General to "acquire, maintain and work electric telegraphs" and foreshadowed the 1870 nationalisation of competing British telegraph companies. Australia's first telephone service (connecting the
Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
and South Melbourne offices of Robinson Brothers, a Melbourne engineering firm) was launched in 1879. The private Melbourne Telephone Exchange Company opened Australia's first telephone exchange in August 1880. Around 7,757 calls were handled in 1884. The nature of the networks meant that regulation in Australia was undemanding: network personnel were government employees or agents, legislation was enhanced on an incremental basis and restrictions could be achieved through infrastructure. All the colonies ran their telegraph networks at a deficit through investment in infrastructure and subsidisation of regional access, generally with bipartisan support. Government-operated post office and telegraph networks – the largest parts of the bureaucracy – were combined into a single department in each colony on the model of the UK Post Office:
South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...
in 1869, Victoria in 1870,
Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
in 1880 and
New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
in 1893.


At Federation (1901)

At Federation, the colonial networks (staff, switches, wires, handsets, buildings etc.) were transferred to the Commonwealth Postmaster-General's Department responsible for domestic postal, telephone and, telegraph services becoming the responsibility of the first Postmaster-General (PMG), a federal. With 16,000 staff (and assets of over £6 million) the PMG accounted for 80% of the new federal bureaucracy. Public phones were available in a handful of post offices. Subscriber telephones were initially restricted to major businesses, government agencies, institutions and wealthier residences. Eight million telegrams were sent that year over 43,000 miles of line. There were around 33,000 phones across Australia, with 7,502 telephone subscribers in inner
Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
and 4,800 in the Melbourne central business district. Overseas cable links to Australia remained in private hands, reflecting the realities of imperial politics, demands on the new government's resources, and perceptions of its responsibilities.


After Federation

A trunk line between Melbourne (headquarters of the PMG Department) and Sydney was established in 1907, with extension to
Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...
in 1914,
Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...
in 1923,
Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
in 1930 and
Hobart Hobart ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Located in Tasmania's south-east on the estuary of the River Derwent, it is the southernmost capital city in Australia. Despite containing nearly hal ...
in 1935. On 12 July 1906 the first Australian wireless overseas messages were sent between Point Lonsdale, Victoria and
Devonport, Tasmania Devonport ( ; Aboriginal Tasmanians#North, pirinilaplu/palawa kani: ''Limilinaturi'') is a port city situated at the mouth of the Mersey River (Australia), Mersey River on the North West Tasmania, north-west coast of Tasmania, Australia. Positi ...
. Australia and New Zealand ratified the 1906 Berlin Radio-telegraph Convention in 1907. The PMG department became responsible for some international shortwave services, particularly from the 1920s and for a new Coastal Radio Service in 1911, with the first of a network of stations operational in February 1912. The Sydney–Melbourne co-axial cable was officially opened on 9 April 1962. The coaxial cable infrastructure supported the introduction of subscriber trunk dialling between the cities and live television link-ups. After its commissioning in April 1962 the cable carried telegraph and telephone traffic. It also provided the first inter-city television transmission in Australia, allowing simultaneous television broadcasting in Melbourne and Sydney for the first time.
Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited is an Australian Telecommunications in Australia, telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiar ...
was formed as AUSSAT, a government owned corporation, in 1981. It was privatized later in the 1980s under the Hawke Labor government.
Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecomm ...
(previously known as Telecom), another government owned asset, was also privatized in 1997 under the
Howard Howard is a masculine given name derived from the English surname Howard. ''The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names'' notes that "the use of this surname as a christian name is quite recent and there seems to be no particular reason for ...
Liberal government.


Broadcasting in Australia

Australia developed its own radio broadcasting system, through its own engineers, manufacturers, retailers, newspapers, entertainment services, and news agencies. Initially hobbyists and amateurs were dominant, however with the Commonwealth Government setting up the first radio system, and business interests becoming increasingly involved, hobbyists and amateurs were marginalised. The
Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major Centre-left politics, centre-left List of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia and one of two Major party, major parties in Po ...
was especially interested in radio because it allowed them to bypass the newspapers, which were mostly controlled by their opposition. Both parties agreed on the need for a national system, and in 1932 set up the Australian Broadcasting Commission was set up as a government agency largely separate from political interference. The first commercial broadcasters, originally known as "B" class stations were on the air as early as 1925. Many were sponsored by
newspapers in Australia There are two national and 10 state/territory daily newspapers, 35 regional dailies and 470 other regional and suburban newspapers in Australia. Each state and territory has one or two dominant daily newspapers which focus upon the major nation ...
, by theatrical interests, by
amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency radio spectrum, spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emer ...
enthusiasts and radio retailers, and by retailers generally.R.R. Walker, ''The Magic Spark – 50 Years of Radio in Australia'' (1973). Almost all Australians were within reach of a station by the 1930s, and the number of stations remained relatively stable through the post-war era. However, in the 1970s, the Labor government under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam commenced a broadcasting renaissance so that by the 1990s there were 50 different radio services available for groups based on tastes, languages, religion, or geography. The broadcasting system was largely deregulated in 1992, except that there were limits on foreign ownership and on monopolistic control. By 2000, 99 percent of Australians owned at least one television set, and averaged 20 hours a week watching it.


Television

As early as 1929, two Melbourne commercial radio stations, 3UZ and 3DB were conducting experimental mechanical television broadcasts – these were conducted in the early hours of the morning, after the radio stations had officially closed down. In 1934 Dr Val McDowall at amateur station 4CM Brisbane conducted experiments in electronic television. Television broadcasting officially began in Sydney and Melbourne just prior to the Melbourne Olympic Games in November/December 1956 and then phased in at other capital cities, and then into rural markets. Many forms of entertainment, particularly drama and variety, proved more suited to television than radio, so the actors and producers migrated there. It now includes a broad range of public, commercial, community, subscription, narrowcast, and amateur stations across the country. Colour television in the PAL 625-line format went to a full-time basis in 1975. Subscription television, on the
Galaxy A galaxy is a Physical system, system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar medium, interstellar gas, cosmic dust, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek ' (), literally 'milky', ...
platform, began in 1995. Digital terrestrial television was introduced in 2001. Australia moved from PAL 625 to
DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Fe ...
on 10 December 2013. Subscription television, whether
Foxtel NXE Australia Pty Ltd, trading as the Foxtel Group, is an Australian pay television company that operates cable television, direct-broadcast satellite, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April ...
or
Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
type services, has become more important and is one factor driving demand for the National Broadband Network.


Core technologies, the network, backhaul and the local loop


Copper cable and optical fibre networks

Prior to the government opening telecommunications to multi player competition the PMG (and later Telecom Australia) operated a vertically integrated system, providing the
Core network A backbone or core network is a part of a computer network which interconnects networks, providing a path for the exchange of information between different LANs or subnetworks. A backbone can tie together diverse networks in the same buildi ...
, backhaul, ancillary networks and a range of services to end users. With opening telecommunications to multi provider competition the government required Telstra to sell wholesale access to its core facilities and networks. In the 2000s, larger ISPs began taking over more of the delivery infrastructure themselves by taking advantage of regulated access to the unconditioned local loop. 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). Telstra in 2006 proposed replacing its copper network with an optical fibre node network with the drop connection into end user premises being the existing copper cable. They abandoned this as under competition policy they would be required to open their network to competing carriers on a wholesale basis. Further options were explored with the first Rudd government deciding to set up a National Broadband Network using Fibre to the Premises as the main carrier network, supported by satellite and wireless to remote areas. After the election of the Abbott government in 2013 a Multi Technological Mix was implemented, replacing FTTP where development was yet to start with Fibre to the Node and also repurposing the Telstra and Optus hybrid fibre-coaxial networks.


Cable

In the late 1990s,
Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecomm ...
and
Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited is an Australian Telecommunications in Australia, telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiar ...
rolled-out separate cable Internet services, focusing on the east coast.


Satellite

The Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) was established by Australia in August 1946 with responsibility for all international telecommunications services into, through and out of Australia. In 1981 Aussat Pty Ltd was established as a GBE to operate domestic satellite telecommunication and broadcasting services. Aussat's charter restricted it from acting as a competitor to Telecom, including a prohibition on interconnecting public switched traffic with Telecom's network. Proposals for a merger of Aussat and OTC (thereby permitting national delivery of telecommunication services in competition with Telecom) were rejected in favor of disposal of the satellite operator to a non-government entity that would be allowed to compete with Telecom Satellites are used to provide telecommunications services in very remote areas. These are primarily the Optus satellites C1 D1 and D2. There are also a number of satellite earth stations, which provide access points into the Australian networks: *
Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly Intel-Sat, Intelsat) is a Luxembourgish-American multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons, Virginia, United States. Originally formed ...
has 10 earth stations, 4 for the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...
and 6 for the
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
. * Inmarsat has 2 earth stations, which serve the Indian and Pacific Ocean regions. * SingTel Optus Earth Stations has several earth stations located in the major cities. * Sky Muster satellites operated as part of the National Broadband Network. *
Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecomm ...
has a totals of 48 earth stations, Located between sites in Sydney, Perth and
Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is an Australian city in north-central Victoria. The city is located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2022, Bendigo has a popula ...
serving both the Australian Continent, Asia-Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean regions.


Submarine cables

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 telecommunications transit capacity is sourced from undersea several fibre-optic cables to Asia and the US: * Southern Cross Cables to
New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
,
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...
and the US mainland with a capacity of 620 Gbit/s, with planned upgrade in Q2 2012. * Southern Cross Cables to
Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...
, Hawaii and the US mainland with a capacity of 620 Gbit/s, with planned upgrade in the Q2 2012. * Australia-Japan Cable to
Guam Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...
and
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
. Primarily used as an alternative path to the United States with a capacity of 320 Gbit/s. * Sea-Me-We3 to
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
and onto Asia, Middle East, the United States and other destinations with a capacity of 40 Gbit/s. * APNG2 (previously part of Pac Rim West) to
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...
with a capacity of 2x565 Mbit/s.
INDIGO-West
(linking Perth to Jakarta and Singapore. * Gondwana-1 to
New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...
. * TGA to
New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
. * PPC-1 (a joint venture of
PIPE Networks PIPE Networks (also known as PIPE) is an Australian telecommunications company, based in Brisbane, Queensland. It is a subsidiary of TPG Telecom. Its primary business is setting up peering exchanges. PIPE itself stands for "Public Internet Pe ...
and Videsh Sanchar Nigam) to
Guam Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...
with lit capacity of 80 Gbit/s, and potential capacity of 2.56 Tbit/s. * Telstra Endeavour to Hawaii with a capacity of 320 Gbit/s.


Telephony and related arrangements

The Postmaster-General's Department regulated telecommunications and operated telephone and related communications within Australia over the copper telephony network from federation up to 22 December 1975, replaced by the Postal and Telecommunications Department. In mid-1975 the department was disaggregated by the Whitlam government into the two Government Business Enterprises: the Australian Telecommunications Commission (trading as Telecom Australia) and the Australian Postal Commission (trading as Australia Post) with a new Postal and Telecommunications Department. The change was intended to take account of the increase in the functions of the department to include all electronic media matters which had previously been the responsibility of the Department of the Media. The 1982 Davidson Inquiry regarding private sector involvement in delivery of existing/proposed telecommunications services recommended ending Telecom Australia's monopoly. In June 1991, legislation was passed allowing duopoly competition with Telstra, Optus Communications became Australia's second general telecommunications carrier. It was guaranteed access to Telecom's existing infrastructure on reasonable terms - meant to ensure its viability. Other players were prevented from entering the general telephone market until 1997. Telecom Australia changed its name to
Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecomm ...
in 1995 and has since been privatised. It faced growing competition in market niches such as long distance corporate voice and data services. Telstra was progressively privatised (33.3% 1997, 16.6% 1999, 33.3% 2006, with 17% transferred to the Future Fund. Numbers of licensed telecommunications carriers grew from: ~20 controlling facilities in Australia at 1998 (with several hundred entities providing services using those facilities to end users); to 99 at 2002.


Regulation

The Postmaster-General's Department regulated telecommunications and operated telephone and related communications within Australia over the copper telephony network from federation up to 22 December 1975, replaced by the Postal and Telecommunications Department. On 1 July 2005, the
Australian Communications & Media Authority The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is an Australian government statutory authority within the Communications portfolio. ACMA was formed on 1 July 2005 with the merger of the Australian Broadcasting Authority and the Aust ...
(ACMA) brought together the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) and the Australian Communications Authority (ACA).


General censorship


Internet censorship

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. This plan was later abandoned and the Australian government continues to only block websites that violate online laws.


Internet

Permanent
Internet access Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide ...
was first available in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
to universities via AARNet in 1989. The first commercial dial-up
Internet Service Provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...
(ISP) appeared in capital cities soon after, and by the mid-1990s almost the entire country had a range of choices of dial-up ISPs. Today, Internet access is available through a range of technologies, i.e. hybrid fibre coaxial cable,
digital subscriber line Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...
(DSL),
Integrated Services Digital Network Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. ...
(ISDN) and satellite Internet. The
Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...
, in partnership with the industrial sector, began rolling out a nationwide FTTP broadband network in July 2009. The .au domain ( ccTLD) was delegated to Robert Elz of the Australian Computing Science Network ( ACSNet) in March 1986. From then, universities connected one at a time to allow for the sending and receiving of email and for use newsgroup facilities. An earlier restricted IP-based network, linking academic institutions within Australia, known as ACSNet, used the .oz domain. This domain was subsumed under .au to become .oz.au. A permanent connection between AARNet and
ARPANet The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the tec ...
was established in May 1989 by a satellite connection. In 1992 there were two competing commercial ISPs expanding to excess of 100 by June 1995 nternet Australasia Magazine attributing some fifth of all AARNet traffic. The Vice Chancellors' Committee sold all commercial customers with Telstra leading the commercial push of the Internet into Australia.


Broadband access

Broadband internet access is available in Australia using predominantly ADSL, plus cable, fibre, satellite and wireless technologies. Since July 2008 almost two thirds of Australian households have had 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.


xDSL

In 2000, the first consumer
ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over Copper wire, copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem ...
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; reselling connections purchased wholesale from Telstra. In response to Telstra's monopolisation of ADSL provision other carriers installed their own
DSLAM A digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM, often pronounced ''DEE-slam'') is a network device, often located in telephone exchanges, that connects multiple customer digital subscriber line (DSL) interfaces to a high-speed digital co ...
s. Internode 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 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.


Telstra FTTN

Telstra proposed to upgrade to Fibre to the Node (FTTN) in 2006 but did not pursue the development because it would be required to share the network.


Wireless broadband

Wireless broadband in Australia is widespread, 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 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.


Rural coverage

Delivering competitive telecommunications services to regional and rural areas is a major issue, with Telstra having a Universal Service Obligation regarding telephony services. Government monies have been made available on a competitive basis to carriers to address broadband and mobile telephone blackspots and gaps in service provision.


National Broadband Network

The National Broadband Network was initially a fibre-to-the-home open-access network in planning and trial operation in Australia by the federal government. The national broadband network aimed to provide up to 1000 Mbit/s speeds and to connect to 93% of Australian households and businesses. This has since been revised under a Coalition government to a mixed-technology system relying largely on Australia's existing and largely depreciated copper networks. This revision aims for 50 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s, with consumer reports ranging from 1 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s. 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 a fibre-to-the-node broadband network providing download speeds up to 100 and upload speeds up to 40 megabits per second. The government also utilises fixed wireless technology and satellite technology to provide fast broadband connection in rural area and very remote area. Fixed wireless provides speeds up to 50/20 Mbit/s. Satellite technology uses two Sky Muster communication satellites launched in 2015 and 2016 to provide fast broadband in very remote areas and offshore. It provides speeds up to 25/5 Mbit/s. The network will be the largest single infrastructure investment in Australia's history.


Incidents


2023 Optus outage

On 8 November 2023 at around 04:00 AEDT, all Optus services, including wireless phone, internet, and mobile, stopped working. This led to over 10 million people and over 400,000 businesses without services provided by the telco. The outage lasted from 9-13 hours, with mobile coverage being the first thing restored.


See also

* List of LTE networks * List of mobile network operators of the Asia Pacific region * Indigenous Remote Communications Association


References


Further reading

*


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. {{Telecommunications