Broadband: Which plan is for you?

Beyond the black stump
Unfortunately, on the other side of the coin, some locations in Australia have no access to any type of broadband services at all. Even some of the newer urban estates are lacking and if you live up bush on the wrong side of the black stump you can pretty much forget any "wired" form of broadband.

These situations are, of course, improving as more and more DSLAM's are installed in exchanges around the country. But as mentioned earlier, unless you live within the DSL or ISDN radius of the nearest exchange, then wireless or satellite are the only broadband options. The federal government, without the fanfare of the recent AU$3 billion announcement, has several initiatives already underway to improve broadband availability.

One of these schemes is the Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS) -- an AU$107.8 million project run by the federal government's Department of Communications Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA), which provides registered ISP's with financial assistance to provide broadband services in regional and remote areas. A further AU$50 million has recently been added to cover the Metropolitan Broadband Blackspot Program (MBBP). The financial assistance is to offset some of the initial setup costs for the ISP so that they can provide the service to the regional customers at price parity with metropolitan services.

The initial threshold specification of 256/64Kb/s may seem a little weak, but the majority of ISPs offer much higher speeds, some up to 3000/768Kb/s for one cable plan.

HiBIS is of course not restricted to just ADSL and copper wire, in many remote regions this would simply be impractical, if not impossible. The scheme has various subsidy levels -- one for wired connections and a higher subsidy for wireless broadband with delivery methods ranging from satellite to radio.

At last count just over 40 ISPs had taken advantage of registering for the HiBIS scheme offering hundreds of plans, with more registering every day.

The MBBP program helps those potential broadband users who live in metropolitan areas whome for some reason, have no access to broadband services. It seeks to apply the same methodology to the program as HiBIS does for the regional and remote areas.

To protect the taxpayers' dollars and to ensure that the registered HiBIS providers live up to the service level agreement, DCITA contracts the Test Lab to perform regular scheduled testing on all the service providers. We also supply a facility for the HiBIS end-users to independently test their Internet connections online. This system works very well and goes to show that the government is proactive in ensuring that it does not just offer cash incentives to all and sundry, and that the service providers maintain an expected level of service and performance for HiBIS clients.

< Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next >
Advertisement

Print feature brought to you by Adobe

Talkback 11 comments

    Broadband review WOW ! Anonymous -- 14/11/05

    Wow what an excellent review, keep up the great work. This is what we love to see

    Legends Anonymous -- 14/11/05

    You guys really know your stuff great test and informative review. Pity there were not a whole lot more broadband providers included.

    Great Review... NOT Anonymous -- 14/11/05

    Love that fact that when I went to that page there was an AAPT ad at the top!!!

    I can't really see how this review is measured nor does it seem to be discussed.

    Why is the static IP options mentioned for Netspace and AAPT but not internode?

    Don't AAPT buy their international bandwidth though someone else?

    What the hell is future proofing? and how the heel can it be measured?

    I'll review the review..... poor very poor.... Some of the lines don't even have similar information.... and there not categories as to what they are there for...

    I think someone needs a kick in the arse for this review.... I'm now dumb from reading it!

    Read the How we Tested Anonymous -- 15/11/05 (in reply to #120123270)

    If you read the review you would see the How we Tested section.

    http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/software/internet/0,39023437,39221708-7,00.htm

    Pretty much covers it all.

    Wow, you really got this one correct... NOT. Anonymous -- 15/11/05

    How about you get a clue. Then have another crack at it.

    Why no mention of VOIP Anonymous -- 15/11/05

    Surely, a big component of any broadband review must focus on wireless and the elimination of line rental. All DSL does is give unearned revenue to Telstra.

    VOIP and Wireless present a big saving without the $30 dead money each month.

    Yes I have dumped the home phone..

    Very informative Martin Hamil -- 15/11/05

    Seems not all services are created equal despite purporting to be so!

    Very interesting to see the critics of this report don't publish their details or whom they are affiliated with.

    This is a bias article Anonymous -- 18/11/05

    This is a bias article for a number of reasons:

    1. It forgot to include Telstra and Optus
    2. It recommended AAPT and their website/banners have AAPT ads everywhere.

    I would not believe everything you read in this article.

    Did you even read the review before commenting? Mark Jacobs -- 24/11/05 (in reply to #120123486)

    It seems you did not even read the first few paragraphs! before commenting my friend. Both companies you mentioned are described and the reasons they gave for failing to participate.

    START QUOTE >>> "This month we invited the Internet service providers generally considered to be the top 10 in Australia to submit a plan for this review. Interestingly, both Optus and Telstra declined to submit, as did Exetel.

    Telstra's response was that they were simply too busy to participate as this extract from their e-mail shows: "Telstra Business and Government have declined your invitation and the BigPond production team has been flat out and indicated it's not able to assist at this time."

    Optus states that it does not have DSL available in the area of the Test Labs, and were clearly not willing to use Telstra's." >>> END QUOTE

    Seems to me that this review was very well put together and each provider thoroughly tested over time by an independent organisation Test Labs it seems. To wit an excellent and thoroughly scientific test methodology has been described, provided and used by them, and the resulting facts are supplied in a easy to understand format.

    Seems to me that AAPT have won fairly and squarely and have advertised complementarily.

    By the way what organization do you represent your post was marked anonymous, perhaps this Telstra or Optus hmm?

    WiMax Anonymous -- 24/11/05

    I am on a Hibis airspan Wimax service. It generally seems really good and the speeds are not bad - according to ZDs tester it is generally around 450Mbs. However I use alot of Voip and I am not sure that it isn't abit lumpy/has some lag problems..(I have tried pinging my Voip server and it generally comes in at 400-500ms)...any thoughts from anyone..any similar experiences

    What a review! I Anonymous -- 26/10/09

    Thanks so much for such thorough insight. I was a bit iffy in considering AAPT as a provider, but they're serious contenders now. Thanks!

Add your opinion

Back to top

Featured