Internet Society of Australia
A Chapter of the Internet Society
ABN 36 076 406 801
Media Release 8 August 2000 Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU) 2000/08 The Internet is for Everyone! Telstra's breakthrough announcement of ADSL broadband Internet technology will leave Australia behind other countries in maximising economic and social benefits from the Internet, according to the Executive Director of the Internet Society of Australia, Mr Tony Hill. "Australia has been waiting nearly a decade for the rollout of low cost, high speed data services suitable for Internet access by homes and small businesses", Mr Hill said. "The long awaited announcement by Telstra of ADSL pricing, today, will only satisfy power Internet users. Many low frequency users and small businesses will continue to be left on the wrong side of the digital divide. "To break even with the lowest level of ADSL pricing, users will need to have already installed two phone lines and be making more than 3 local calls per day for Internet connection. They will then be faced with significant setup costs. "Use will still be subject to download limitations of 250M Bytes per month before an additional download charge is applied at the lowest price levels. This is a significant barrier for small business that will find it difficult to monitor their level of data traffic. "Small business will not be able to effectively operate their own Internet web servers under these limitations and the standard conditions of use "Internet users in many areas will welcome the implementation of ADSL as a long awaited technology step beyond the so called 'world wide wait' of dialup modems. "However, technology overseas has already overtaken the capability being delivered by ADSL. In Canada, telcos are already seeing the advantages of offering a dedicated data network delivering speeds 1,000 times faster than ADSL. "The implementation in Canada has been done with government and telco support and provides a dedicated coast to coast gigabit data network. "Australia should quickly move to implement a dedicated high speed data network to service Internet traffic, in addition to our current telephony networks, if it is to fully capture benefits from the Internet and the information society." Editor's Note: ADSL stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line and will provide Internet access speeds of 256K to 1.2M bits per second, or 10 to 50 times current dialup modems. Contact: Mr Tony Hill, 0412 128 755, ed@isoc-au.org.au Mr Leni Mayo, 0418 377 937, media@isoc-au.org.au INTERNET SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA The Internet is for Everyone http://www.isoc-au.org.au