019/05
10 March 2005
Moore and Moore Australians connecting to broadband
Labor Senator Claire Moore should carefully read the latest 'Snapshot of Broadband Deployment' report released today by the ACCC before she continues her baseless claim of a 'broadband disaster', Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan, said today.
"The Snapshot shows total broadband subscribers had reached 1,548,300 in December 2004, with almost 850,000 of those subscribers signing up in the past 12 months. This is an increase of 121.6 per cent in the last year," Senator Coonan said.
"More than one million of those subscribers are connected to asymmetric digital subscriber lines which are attractive to homes and businesses wanting digital information at a high bandwidth, using existing phone lines. For the December 2004 quarter, growth was 18.2 per cent across all broadband services including cable, satellite, digital subscriber lines (DSL) and other services.
"Obviously the Government's $107.8 million Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme for rural and regional areas is helping this dramatic increase. Competition in the telecommunications market is clearly another contributing factor.
"There are now more than almost 30 Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS) providers. HiBIS offers financial incentives for service providers to supply high-speed broadband services in regional areas at prices comparable to those in metropolitan areas.
"Broadband rollout in Australia has rolled right over Labor's baseless carping and claims of a disaster. Not only is the take up of broadband rocketing ahead - the technology continues to improve.
"Just today, Telstra has announced a $210 million investment in ADSL broadband to upgrade its network to ADSL 2+. ADSL 2+ will provide broadband speeds up to 20 times faster than typical ADSL broadband.
"And Telstra has announced that by the middle of this year, half a million premises will have access to these upgraded exchanges. The upgraded infrastructure will also be available to Telstra's wholesale clients.
"Importantly, other carriers including iiNet, Internode, SPT and Optus have announced that they will be rolling out competitive ADSL 2+ infrastructure into Telstra's exchanges making the most of our successful access regime.
"During my recent visits to rural and regional Australia, broadband was the talk of every town I visited and it is being rolled out to more and more communities every day thanks to the Australian Government's investment in telecommunications services."
The ACCC's 'Snapshot of Broadband Deployment' can be found at www.accc.gov.au