Telstra to kill off dial-up

Telstra will retire its dial-up internet plans and migrate the last of its remaining customers by December this year.

The telco's director of fixed broadband Stuart Bird today said customers still on a dial-up account would be contacted about migrating their services over the coming months, and would be able to keep their existing email addresses as part of the migration.

“With the expanded availability of ADSL/ADSL2/VDSL, cable, fibre, wireless and satellite broadband solutions, including over the national broadband network, and the continued decline in the use of dial-up, we have decided to retire dial-up internet services for the small number of our consumer customers who still have them,” Bird said.

“When you think about it, using any photo-rich website or video streaming service would be almost impossible on a dial-up service. For instance, even at peak dial-up speeds, it would take at least 6 hours to download a 150MB video.

"In contrast, at typical speeds over ADSL2+ it would take around 2 minutes.”

A Telstra spokesperson told iTnews the move only applied to consumer and wholesale accounts, not business or enterprise customers.

The use of dial-up accounts as a fall-back solution was once a relatively common feature of business broadband internet packages.

While there are still business accounts that use dial-up access as a fall-back, that number has fallen to “around 10”, according to the spokesperson.

But due to contractual obligations, these services will continue to be active after consumer services end, and will be switched over to alternatives over a longer timeframe.

TPG stopped selling its dial-up internet plans at the start of this year.

Fellow telco Optus told iTnews it had made no decisions about the closure of its dial-up internet services.

It said dial-up services were rarely used with its business accounts, with the company instead emphasising its WIP VPN (wireless IP virtual private network) and Evolve products.

iiNet told iTnews it had no plans to end the "important" service.

"Dial up remains the most affordable option for a small number of customers who only use the internet occasionally and the only option for some that still find themselves in broadband blackspots," an iiNet spokesperson said.

Telstra last year announced plans to close its 2G network by the end of 2016, similarly citing outdated technology.

Optus this week also said it was “continually reviewing” the future of its 2G mobile phone network after parent company Singtel opted to shut down its Singapore 2G network.