Lucky Australia..

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Oreo

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Australia Plans Broadband Network - WSJ.com

Australia launched a plan to become one of the world's most wired countries, shunning private bids and announcing that a new state-controlled company would build a high-speed broadband network.

The government's decision stunned observers, who said the plan was far more ambitious than had previously been signaled, and could reshape Australia's telecommunications landscape.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Tuesday that the 43 billion Australian dollar (US$31 billion) national network would deliver broadband speeds of 100 megabits per second to 90% of Australian homes, schools and businesses by 2018 through fiber-optic cables connected directly to buildings. The other 10% of people would get a wireless upgrade.
[telstra shares]

The new speeds are 100 times faster than most Australians currently get -- enough to watch multiple high-quality downloads of movies or television shows at once from the same connection. A handful of countries -- including South Korea, Japan, France and Germany -- currently have comparable speeds.

A yet-to-be named company would build Australia's network, funded by government money with private companies invited to invest and provide technical expertise.

Private-sector ownership would be capped at 49%.

The network is to be built over eight years, with the rollout expected to begin next year. The government will make an initial investment of A$4.7 billion, with the rest to come from private companies and the issuing of government bonds.

The government would sell its stake in the five years after the network is completed if conditions allow, Mr. Rudd said.

Critics said the plan could fail if the desired level of private investment isn't attained, leaving the public to pay the whole cost through higher prices for Internet access. "The government has provided no evidence that there will be sufficient demand for this service at prices that enable the network to deliver a commercial return," opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull said.

Mr. Rudd promised a comprehensive network as part of his successful 2007 election campaign, and subsequently invited companies to bid for the project.

But Mr. Rudd said Tuesday that none of the tenders -- which came from providers including Axia NetMedia Corp. of Canada and the Optus unit of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. -- offered value for money, in part because of the global financial downturn.

Mr. Rudd said the network is essential to boosting long-term economic growth in Australia and would increase the country's productivity and competitiveness. The government expects the new network to create thousands of jobs.

Access to the fiber-optic network would be offered wholesale to service providers, a move welcomed Tuesday by smaller companies that complain that Telstra Corp. has a near monopoly over the existing copper-wire network.

All companies, including Telstra, were invited to invest in the new company. The government previously had excluded Telstra from bidding on the project after the company's application to build the network failed to meet the government's criteria. Telstra Chairman Donald McGuachie said the company welcomed the new plan.

Unfair ! Lucky ozzy's.

Com'on britain..
 
Pete's got it on the money methinks. If we had something like that in our country, we'd have a bunch of people complaining about how the government shouldn't control everything...unless they were all too busy watching porn.

And I guess Australia is no longer the land that bandwidth forgot. ;)
 
Yeah. If KRudd is still planning on putting in the internet filter, we need all the speed boost we can get.

2 Steps forward, 3 Steps Back.
 
We get you your "This site has been filtered" message to you 100 times as fast!
 
I'm pretty sure the US is much worse off than the UK in this.. haha.

Me thinks not ;) Internet connection: The top 10 countries | ReasonPad

And even if it is, it's understandable. The UK is a tiny country and they could lay fiber out relatively cheeply from anywhere between £5Bn and £50Bn depending on how they did it.
Imagine laying fiber over the whole of the US though.. That'd be like $100 to $150Bn minimum.

Look > Speedtest.net - World Results

That says, Europe 1st, and North America 2nd with 5.53Mb
I just took the average, and the UK is 40th in global download speeds with an average of 4.62Mb. Europe are top because we have lots of filthy rich scandanavian countries like Sweden, Switzerland and Norway. heck even Latvia has a much better connection than us :\ Wtf ..
 
The only reason we have higher ratings than some countries is because of FiOS. Major metropolitan areas have it, but it's spread out so thin. Our numbers seem high since a lot of people in those areas get it, and the 20/20 speed is dirt cheap compared to some ISPs.
 
We get you your "This site has been filtered" message to you 100 times as fast!

Yeah, gov't controlled media is the first sign of fascism.

At least here in America all the gov't control over the media is backroom deals with the big media conglomerates. people with vested interests in certain news NOT getting out just order CNN or whoever not to do any documentaries on it. Prime example being fluoridation. So many people have lost their jobs just trying to make a show about it.
 
The only reason we have higher ratings than some countries is because of FiOS. Major metropolitan areas have it, but it's spread out so thin. Our numbers seem high since a lot of people in those areas get it, and the 20/20 speed is dirt cheap compared to some ISPs.

Same for over her. City centers and places that are very close to city centers have Virgin Media 50Mb FTTC, it may even be FTTH.

BT are spending a cool £1.5Bn installing 40mb fiber services to 40percent of houses by 2012. So you may ask, "Why the heck are you moaning then ?" because 38percent of that 40 already have access to Virgin Media.:mad: Great eh ? It'd only cost the Gov about 5 to 10Bn to roll out FTTC to 95percent of houses supporting 100mb, and around 28Bn for FTTH services with the equipment to support aroun 1GB/s further down the line.

Worst thing is 95percent (particularly where i live) of these areas that are close to town are run down areas full of council estates, most the people can't even afford fiber.
 
Virgin media connections are all lies! they can't even get the speed close for there lowest speed packages and there top packages are suppose to be atrocious as they simply don't have the infrastructure or the bandwidth, all they have is the talk and not the walk. BE generally offer the best fastest service for a good price in most areas.
 
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