| |
Research
consultancy IDC predicts there will be 2.1 million Digital Subscriber
Line (DSL) subscribers and 520,000 cable modem users in Australia by
2004.
Telstra
and other carriers have recently launched the high speed broadband Internet
service, DSL. IDC Australia research manager Joel Martin said: "The
DSL subscriber base will easily outpace cable modem adoption and will
be quadruple the size of the cable market by 2004." "DSL will quickly
expand beyond the small and medium enterprise (SME) markets to faster
internet access customers, home networking and always-on connection
to digital media."
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) decision to
unbundle local loop access would accelerate the adoption of new technologies,
he said. The further liberalisation of the Australian telecommunications
market opens up a new channel for services to SMEs", Mr Martin said.
The IDC report on faster access technologies says carrier bundling of
services will increase dramatically, with the killer application being
voice over DSL (VoDSL) if Australia follows global trends. VoDSL provides
always-on high-bandwidth data and inexpensive voice servies.
©
ASSG 2001
|
|
Telstra's ADSL (Asymmetrical
Digital Subscriber Line) service has been experiencing some teething
problems since its introduction late last year.
Telstra's early-adopter ADSL customers endured long periods of
intermittent service during February, despite being promised a
reliable service.
ADSL is one of the more expensive high-speed internet connections
currently being rolled out to Australian businesses by the carrier
and its wholesale partners.
However, the service was plagued by a series of "brown-outs"
for an extended period in February. One Sydney sound post-production
house, using ADSL for uploading files to a client in the U.S.,
reported that the service was repeatedly interrupted or unavailable
during that time, and that they experienced long waiting times
when calling Telstra's help line, only to be told that there was
little that could be done. They also said that upload speeds have
not met their expectations.
Link:
www.telstra.com
|
|
