With the full details set to be released on May 30, OzEmail CEO Justin Milne said the company had been quite successful in locating 100 participants to sign up as OzEdsl guineapigs.
Based on an ADSL service, OzEmail offered to supply trial participants with an Alcatel Speed touch USB modem, and other infrastructure at a charge of AU$189.
Connection charges were then set at $55 for the OzEdsl Trial 256/1500 Mb, $70 for OzEdsl Trial 512/3000 Mb and $90 for OzEdsl Trial 1500/3000 Mb. Excess charges for all three services have been set at 10 cents per Mb.
OzEmail has specified that the trial prices may not be sustained when the final plans are released. However, Milne indicated customers would only be charged for downstream traffic and not for uploads, and that further changes to this pricing schedule should be expected.
-So far we have had good feedback from those participating in the trial," Milne said. -We have been able to draw on the experience from the US, and were essentially able to help our wholesale providers by specifying exactly the kind of service we wanted to provide."
According to Milne, the first phase of the service would be provided throughout urban, suburban, regional and rural NSW and VIC, wherever exchanges had been DSL enabled.
-The first products we launch will be aimed at the residential market," explained Milne. -But there is a fine line between high-end residential users, and small business or SOHO users, and the product will be perfectly suited to the needs of both."
Milne wants to distance the OzEdsl service from the -chronic unreliability" he said was associated with earlier DSL products, and said the product is significantly different from such services due to the Layer 2 Tunnel Protocol (L2TP) on which it is based.
-The architecture of OzEdsl ensures that OzEmail retains tight control over billing, authentication and support," Milne said.
The technology L2TP enabled OzEmail to have significant control over its authentication, broadband delivery, and methods of customer support, according to Milne.
-All we are relying upon our wholesaler for is the twisted copper pairs and the DSL enabled exchanges," Milne said. -We will maintain complete control over the rest of the infrastructure, authentication, billing, support and so forth."
Yeeha. Maybe this will spur Optus into the ADSL market at last. Telstra has had ADSL all to itself for far too long.