Dan Warne18 June 2007, 2:30 AM
Finally, rural, regional and outer-metro residents will get proper broadband through a government/Optus partnership.
 WiMax: Intel must be delighted with the announcement of a rollout of $2 billion worth of the technology |
Optus and investment partner Elders today announced a $2 billion WiMax and ADSL2+ network for outer-metropolitan and regional Australia.
The announcement coincides with the government's fibre-optic broadband plan. Optus, in partnership with Elders, will receive $600 million in government funding to begin building a rural network immediately, supplemented by $358 million of its own money.
Communication Minister Senator Helen Coonan said Optus/Elders had committed to tipping in another $900 million to scale up the network in the long term.
The Optus/Elders ("OPEL") network will be built using a mixture of WiMax wireless and ADSL2+ technology. 426 exchanges in rural areas, covering three million premises, will be enabled with ADSL2+ DSLAMs.
The minimum speed delivered to customers through the network will be 12Mbit/s.
Under the government's terms for the funding, the network will be available at wholesale for all ISPs to resell, with a retail price of $35 to $60 per month depending on the speed chosen.
"This demonstrates that we have met our commitment to ensure affordability and metro comparable pricing for all Australians regardless of where they live," Senator Coonan said in a statement.
The OPEL announcement also includes 15,000 kilometres of backhaul cabling to regional areas. Backhaul is the high capacity link cables that run from ISPs in metropolitan areas to regional areas.
ISPs have been hamstrung by the fact that Telstra has been the only backhaul carrier to most regional areas and have accused the carrier of taking advantage of its situation to price-gouge for backhaul.
The Government says in places where OPEL has backhaul installed, it will be 30% cheaper than what is presently there.
Michael Malone, Managing Director of iiNet, the largest broadband ISP behind Optus and Telstra, responded positively to the plan.
"While we'd like to see a lot more information, the initial overview
sounds great. The "right" solution for retail high speed broadband
is fixed line (ADSL or cable) where that is practical, wireless for
the bulk of the larger centres, and satellite for the really remote
places.
"The Optus Elders combination is about as good as the country
could have hoped for as well. Optus does have the credibility
to do this rollout properly and Elders has the regional reach and
experience.
"Overall, looks like a very sensible result for regional Australia," Malone concluded.
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