LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
  To  : John Edwards <isplist@pinnacle.net.au>
  Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 15:40:34 +1030

Re: Broadband options in SA (was Re: ADSL talk suggestion)

On Saturday, 25 November 2000 at 10:05:56 +1030, John Edwards wrote:
>> Jason Tan <jason@rebel.rebel.net.au> wrote:
>>>
>>> What other broadband is there in sa?
>
> Amcom (who's name was previously Fibretel, that should give a hint) are busy
> doing a lot of work around Adelaide for business. They're also laying fibre
> from Melbourne <-> Adelaide <-> Perth. This fibre is going to run through
> some lucky suburbs to reach it's ingress in the Adelaide CBD. Don't bother
> them too much, it's not going to be price-competitive with ADSL just
> yet.

Do you have any info on where it's going to go?

> ETSA officially became a carrier on November 13, and have an
> existing infrastructure that they can setup data networks
> on. Purists will cringe at the thought of fibre being strung from
> pole to pole, but ETSA have years of experience at doing this with
> cables. I'm sure most readers of this list don't care how the 100's
> of Mbps of bandwidth gets to the end of their street, as long as
> they can have some of it at a reasonable price.

That's interesting.  I don't see any reason not to hang fibre from
power masts.  In the last 3 years, I've had my phones cut off 4 times
for over a day (longest was 5 days) as a result of backhoe damage.
That won't happen if it's 10 metres up in the air.  And it's a lot
cheaper to lay for people in outlying places like where I live.

> To save Leigh from the embarrasment of a plug, Agile are also happy
> to give you a broadband link. Since they're connecting places as
> remote as the Coorong, they're obviously happy to provide service to
> more than just the denizens of the CBD.

While I'm really sympathetic to Agile and what they're doing, don't
forget the price issues.  Telstra's overpriced copper notwithstanding,
wireless is still very expensive, at least in outlying areas, and I
can't see how I can justify the expense if some alternative might be a
year or two away.

Greg
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