Most of the Australian population will be able to connect to broadband services within two years. Speaking at the launch of telstra.com.au, Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski said that with the roll-out of ADSL from August this year, plus the 2.5 million homes already covered by Telstra cable, plus satellite for isolated users, 90 percent of the Australian population will have broadband by the beginning of 2002. While Telstra wants to also wholesale its ADSL connections to other carriers, it admits that it may have to provide access to the bare copper.

Telstra.com.au gives all the appearances of being a mega internet portal, but Telstra says it will be much more. It will offer secure, single-sign-on credit card payment facilities so users won't have to repeatedly transfer their details to make a transaction. To date Telstra has signed up more than 300 content providers for its portal, ranging from Westpac and ANZ for banking services to Lonely Planet for Travel. Negotiations are underway with Telstra to provide national and local news services.

Telstra.com will be delivered in standard, broadband and WAP versions and also via TV consoles such as the Sega Dreamcast. A heavy TV ad campaign starts this weekend, pushing the 'personalised' aspects of the portal which welcomes each user by name. We wonder how happy users will be giving Telstra not only their credit card details, but their ToDo list, their calendar and who knows how many other private details. Despite protestations that this is a secure service, one of the hardest battles will be to convince new users that they're safe.

The "telstra.com experience" will also be wholesaled so that third parties can operate portals within this one, or have separate, rebranded entry points.

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