Could BigPond Cable become the fastest broadband in Australia?

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Dan Warne22 January 2007, 1:44 AM

Rumours are circulating that BigPond could be set to upgrade its cable broadband technology to leapfrog ADSL2+ operators, as Foxtel prepares to shut down the analogue channels on its cable.


Rumours are circulating that BigPond could be set to upgrade its cable broadband technology to leapfrog ADSL2+ operators, as Foxtel prepares to shut down the analogue channels on its cable.

Foxtel CEO, Kim Williams, said late last year that 99% of all Foxtel subscribers were already on Digital pay TV, and the remaining one percent should be switched over by January.

Once that happens, Foxtel will be able to completely shut down its analogue pay TV network, which runs in parallel over the same cable as Foxtel Digital and BigPond Cable. It will free up a massive amount of bandwidth on the cable, opening the door for BigPond to dramatically increase broadband speeds.

Although Telstra has been slow to come to the table with faster broadband, its main complaint has been infrastructure access regulations - the company is adamant that its competitors shouldn't be allowed to sell services based on Telstra's network at what it claims are below-cost wholesale rates.

However, the cable network is already completely closed and unregulated, which gives BigPond the exclusive rights to resell it. It's likely that Telstra will seize on this opportunity to market BigPond Cable as the premium broadband choice in Australia.

BigPond recently completed a total network upgrade (including replacing older CLDP customer modems) to the Data Over Cable Interface Service (DOCSIS) 1.1 standard, which allows download speeds of 40Mbit/s and upload speeds of 30Mbit/s. To date, Telstra has only marketed plans at 17Mbit/s, but with extra Foxtel bandwidth, it could ramp up speed significantly.

The DOCSIS 3.0 standard, only finalised in August last year, boosts speed to 160Mbit/s downstream and 120Mbit/s upstream. Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde says it probably won't be affordable until 2008-10, however Telstra's new management team has shown a willingness to install expensive new technologies - its HSDPA wireless network was among the first in the world and is the largest.

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Anon:

Its great that BP are looking at offering a REAL broadband service however there are going to be a LOT of ppl complaining when there piddly 1GB quota vanishes in 5 minutes.

Not only this but BigPond STILL count outbound traffic in quota.

Whats teh point of having the speed if you can not actually use it due to capping or heaven forbid excessive usage charges.



29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Anonymous:

Exactly, Anon. Now, if we can just get someone to lay their own infrastructure...

29 February 2008, 8:36 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tony:

If Telstra give "both" the download speed and upload speed that DOCSIS 1.1 supports that would be absolutely excellent, depending on pricing of course. Can't happen soon enough!

Maybe Telstra will upgrade the cable coax cable (over time) to fibre for most of the network? Then Telstra would have a separate network to POTS that is far superior and would beat ADSL (in any form) and which Telstra's competitors won't be able to get access to.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Anonymous:

DOCSIS 1.1 does NOT do 40Mb/s down and 30Mb/s up. Where do you get this from?

29 February 2008, 8:36 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tony:

Sorry I meant DOCSIS 2.0 - Telstra upgraded people's modems with new Motorola SB5101's which supports DOCSIS 2.0 i.e. 40Mbit/s download and 30MBit/s upload.

It will be interesting to see what the next BigPond Cable Broadband plans look like

29 February 2008, 8:36 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

tin:

I would never, ever describe Bigpong Cable as the "the premium broadband choice in Australia". For starters, it's rarely a choice for Australians. It's only a choice for selected areas in some capital cities.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

zugzug:

That's great what about us with poor mans pay tv called austar the people that foxtel and telstra still to this day dont give a shit about cause the didnt wanna roll the cable out north of brisbane and still dont have any plans to do so.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

John:

Sure, theoretical upload speed is 30Mbps, but given BigPond's history, what reason does anyone have to believe they would support that speed. Their ADSL1 network supports a maximum of 512kbps upstream, even though 1Mbps is possible. And in order to get 512kpbs up, a huge sacrifice needs to be made in terms of downstream speed (512kpbs, rather than up to 8Mbps).

Additionally, BigPond's plans are very poor value in terms of download (and in their case download/upload quota), with all bar one plan having extortionate excess fees. The only way I'd consider going with BigPond for broadband is if they were truly the only choice (NB I don't consider satellite truly broadband due to latency).

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tom:

Actually no. There is no sacrifice of downstream sync/download speed in order to achieve a higher upstream sync/upload speed.

ADSL 1 is capable of 10mbit/1mbit, and thats it. It can run at any combination of speeds down and up without any one direction affecting the other.

And its not that their network only *supports* 512kbps up, its an artificial limitation which they had imposed upon the network. Their network has LONG been capable of upto 10mbit down and 1mbit up, they simply refused to "turn it on". However, I have the view that it was not only a business decision, but also a technical decision. At least they were able to offer *EVERYONE* a 1.5mbit/256kbps line if they passed the Service Qualification to get ADSL in the first place. When you open it up and let the line sync at its maximum, theres no guarantee on what sort of speed you will get.

Its only now that ISPs have started pulling people off their network and onto their own where they *CAN* offer these higher speeds. Obviously Telstra was starting to feel it, even if only a little bit, and they finally realised that people *DO* want higher speeds.

29 February 2008, 8:36 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Anonymous:

I thought the max for ADSL is 8 Mbit/s down and 1.0 Mbit/s up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL

Could you please give me a link to your ADSL speed information?

29 February 2008, 8:36 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

julzzw:

It would be good if Optus decided to upgrade their cable network (not that I am complaining about the 10Mbit downloads!, although uploads could be a lot better). They don't charge uploads and for $50 a month you can get 7GB peak and 14GB off peak in downloads, which is a far better deal than Telstra...

I hope Optus are considering this

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Anonymous:

thats a whole load of *
* = $150/gb excess downloads (uploads counted too)

not to mention their $300/gb excess wireless services

D

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Anonymous:

What is the point of "premium" 40Mbit/s download when no doubt Telstra will charge at least 200% more then other countries and also limit the actual download quota to a few GB or less.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Grant:

What a load of rubbish. They already have plans on cable ranging to 60GB, and I am happy with my $69.95 10GB ****unlimited, never really had a problem with it.

So, if quotas moved in proportion to the speed it would be fine.

We don't all want a ferrari but are only willing to pay for a VW :)

29 February 2008, 8:36 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Anonymous:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Brian:

I have been asking Bigpond Sales, Technical and complaints to improve the Cable upload speed for over a year. Have also sent an email to the Communcations Minister which did get a response. I have read that no one is complainting and asking for better broadband which sounds like total BS too me. As ADSL2+ isn't available for me and took 2 months to get an answer from Bigpond to confirm that I in a RIM area. So everyone complain to Bigpond and this is the how too via their web site.

Go to www.bigpond.com

Select “Help” and “Contact Us”

Select “Contact Activations”

Select “Email Us”

Create a Email and select “What’s your enquiry about?” and from the dropdown box select “Feedback and Suggestions”

From the new dropdown box select “Complaint”

From there it is follow the screens and add your comments.

Submit and submit as the page will guess you problem, otherwise it will not give you a reference number.


29 February 2008, 8:30 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

garyows (New user):

Just arrived in Australia for 5 weeks hols, cant believe how slow your broadband is, back home in Wales I am on 50mb download and 1.5 mb upload on cable broadband

08 August 2009, 7:31 PM (7 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

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