Broadband News
Wed, 12th Apr 2017
Telstra share price plummets after TPG's mobile move
Telstra's share price plunged more than 7 percent today on the news that a new rival is about to enter the mobile telecommunications market.
Source: iTnews Australia
NBN Watch: NBN, and subsequently, the Government, needs to own its network, now
While NBN spends countless amounts of money shaping its narrative – mainly by feeding stories about improvements to the mix (Did you hear FTTC is up to 1 million connections now?) and highlighting how technology is improving (2x Faster Speeds on Fixed Wireless!) – most of what you hear in the trenches and the media is about the carnage left in its wake. While countless NBN connections are likely being installed and set up without any problems, there are hundreds of thousands that are not.
Source: PC Authority
TPG to deploy $2bn mobile network
TPG is set to become Australia’s fourth mobile network operator with a $2 billion investment to cover 80 percent of Australia’s population.
Source: iTnews Australia
TPG and Vodafone snap up last 700MHz spectrum
TPG and Vodafone have snapped up management rights for the 30 MHz worth of radio frequency spectrum in the 700 MHz band that was left unsold in 2013 auctions.
Source: iTnews Australia
TPG to build own mobile network after $1.2b spectrum splurge
TPG will build its own mobile network in a move set to shake up the Australian telecommunication landscape, having paid the government $1.26 billion for a slice of the nation's 4G mobile spectrum.
Source: SMH
Tue, 11th Apr 2017
NBN Congestion Is Forcing ISPs To Build Their Own Private Networks
The NBN is a complicated piece of technology -- the largest infrastructure project in Australian history. From its inception in 2007 as a mostly-fibre network to the multi-technology mix of 2017, it's evolved into a Byzantine mess both for customers to understand and for internet service providers to manage. The main pain point is congestion -- a lack of virtual capacity on the network that slows some connections to a crawl. It's bad enough that some smaller ISPs are provisioning their own networks rather than relying on existing backhaul from NBN and their own competitors.
Source: Gizmodo
NBN expands FttDP network to 1m premises; trials 10Gbps fibre with Nokia
NBN will expand its FttDP network to 1 million premises across the country, also announcing that speeds of around 10Gbps and all the way up to 102Gbps have been attained with Nokia during a trial of NG-PON2.
Source: ZDNet Australia
NBN should deliver wholesale mobile service: Vodafone
NBN should deliver a wholesale mobile service using its fixed-wireless towers, or alternatively allow easier collocation and share backhaul and spectrum with mobile providers, Vodafone has said.
Source: ZDNet Australia
Is the NBN heading towards a mobile iceberg?
The federal government needs to make urgent and drastic changes to the structure of the NBN or face having the bottom of the network cannibalised by mobile services, according to telco industry experts.
Source: iTnews Australia
NBN considers roll-out of NG-PON2
NBN sees potential in NG-PON2 (Next-Generation Passive Optical Network 2) as means to deliver on its future bandwidth and capacity requirements, the company’s CTO said today.
Source: Computerworld
nbn shakes up rollout mix, again
nbn is boosting its FttC footprint to one million premises, in yet another shake-up of its rollout technology mix.
Source: ARN
Mon, 10th Apr 2017
Telco body urges caution on NBN speed monitoring
Telecommunications industry body the Communications Alliance has urged caution over the broadband monitoring programme announced by the government last week.
Source: iTWire
SBS calls for unmetered access over NBN
SBS wants the government to unmeter access to on-demand content produced by Australia’s “national broadcasters” over the national broadband network.
Source: iTnews Australia
Vodafone worried that NBN will stunt 5G
Vodafone has raised concerns that prime 5G spectrum in Australia is parked with NBN Co and may need to be “withdrawn” to accommodate next-generation mobile services.
Source: iTnews Australia
Fri, 07th Apr 2017
NBN cable rollout delayed as HFC 'false activations' leave homes offline for months
Ongoing NBN installation faults have delayed the Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) rollout, while red tape has left hundreds of homes in broadband limbo for months – with relief finally on the way following Fairfax Media investigations.
Source: SMH
Qantas kicks off commercial in-flight Wi-Fi with speeds of around 7Mbps
Tests during Qantas' first on-board Wi-Fi flight have seen speeds of around 7.24Mbps download and 0.61Mbps upload on the day of its commercial launch across domestic flights in beta mode.
Source: ZDNet Australia
ACCC to expose internet companies that lie about broadband speeds
The Federal Government announces it will spend $7 million to monitor NBN broadband speeds across the country.
Source: ABC News
Australia launches NBN speed monitoring program
Up to 4000 households will be invited to participate in a national broadband network (NBN) monitoring program from next month, to show consumers what speeds telcos are really providing during peak and off-peak hours.
Source: SMH
Thu, 06th Apr 2017
Superloop acquires subsea cable company SubPartners
Superloop has acquired submarine cable construction company SubPartners for approximately $2.5 million following its announcement of the new Indigo subsea cable being built with Google, Telstra, Singtel, and others.
Source: ZDNet Australia
ADSL connections begin to decline in Australia
Australians managed to download 2.6 exabytes — 2.6 million terabytes — in the last three months of 2016, new figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal.
Source: Computerworld
Google, Telstra back new subsea cable system
The APX West and Central cable system has a new name — INDIGO — a number of new backers, with a consortium comprising AARNet, Google, Indosat Ooredoo, Optus parent company Singtel, SubPartners, and Telstra announcing today that they had struck a deal with Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) to build the subsea cable.
Source: Computerworld
Superloop buys SubPartners in capacity push
Superloop Limited has bought telecommunications infrastructure company, SubPartners, in a move to expand its international capacity.
Source: ARN
Google is helping to build another Asia-Pacific submarine cable
Google is investing in another massive undersea fiber-optic cable as a part of its plans to build out network connectivity around the world. The company announced Wednesday that it is helping to fund a project called Indigo, which will connect Jakarta, Singapore, Perth and Sydney to one another.
Source: ARN
ABS calls BS on Aussie broadband performance by sticking with NBN 'advertised download speeds'
While Australians are chewing through more data than ever, the latest Internet Activity report continues to steer well clear of the quagmire surrounding real-world NBN broadband speeds.
Source: SMH
Wed, 05th Apr 2017
NBN lower-grade services 'not acceptable': Queensland government
By both sticking remote Queenslanders on satellite services and making them subject to rollout delays, NBN is preventing them from 'functioning as equals' in the digital economy, according to the state government.
Source: ZDNet Australia
NBN Co hiding poor technology from users, says expert
The NBN Co has not undertaken any demonstrations to show Australians what kind of speeds are needed to get good response times when streaming videos, because to do so would show the inadequacy of the technology being used, a network expert says.
Source: iTWire
TPG spends SG$23.8m on more Singapore mobile broadband spectrum
The Singaporean comms authority has announced that Singtel has paid SG$563.7 million, StarHub SG$349.6 million, M1 SG$208 million, and TPG SG$23.8 million on mobile broadband spectrum in its auction.
Source: ZDNet Australia
Investigator: NBN blues
The rollout of the NBN has caused not end of grief for many people. Stories of long service interruptions during the changeover from old services to new are common. So, it was refreshing when one of our readers, Carl, sent this through.
Source: PC Authority
NBN resellers see connections surge
The company behind the rollout of the country’s National Broadband Network (NBN), nbn, has flagged a new milestone, as resellers of the network see new connections surge.
Source: ARN
Tue, 04th Apr 2017
Optus beefs up connectivity and support for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games
Optus has inked a strategic partnership with the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation for communications infrastructure and managed services for the event.
Source: ARN