$5000 fibre links for new developments
Verity Edwards and Michael Sainsbury
OCTOBER 25, 2006
TELSTRA is poised to unveil an aggressive plan to install super high-speed fibre connections for internet, telephone and pay TV, costing up to $5000 a home, in new property developments.
Telstra Country Wide group managing director Geoff Booth said the first phase of the project, codenamed Velocity, would be launched next month in conjunction with the sales release of Darwin's $300 million 700-home Lyons estate.
Telstra is understood to be in talks with developers around the country, including on Queensland's Gold and Sunshine coasts.
Fibre optic links to all homes in new developments of at least 400 houses will carry underground phone lines, high-speed broadband internet connections and pay television cables.
Mr Booth said the system would deliver internet access at speeds of between 20 and 100megabits, compared with the current standard entry level of 256 kilobits.
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"When you start to think about a family of four, they'll be downloading their various movies for the night, they'll probably want to surf the internet at high speed at the same time. There may be games, there may be, from a business point of view, downloading of heavy-duty PowerPoint slides," Mr Booth said.
"You could download music or even ... internet-protocol TV. You can soon see it getting gobbled up."
But the new project, part of Telstra's Smart Communities strategy, may create two tiers for broadband services after the telco shelved plans for a national network of the so-called fibre-to-the-node technology, which would have made similar speeds available to at least four million homes. Telstra plans to launch a faster version of copper-based broadband known as ADSL2+ before Christmas, but it will only offer speeds of about 12Mpbs.
Mr Booth said the the cost of installing Velocity would be negotiated between the developer and Telstra. Prices could range between $3500 and $5000 per home.
The Australian understands that as part of the deal developers would pay Telstra an extra fee of about $4000 per lot to connect fibre rather than copper-based ADSL broadband.
Telstra has trialled fibre connections to homes at the Gold Coast development Emerald Lakes since mid-2004, with fixed line technology provider Alcatel.
The new networks are being built under a ".5 billion contract signed with the French group.
Mr Booth said Velocity would only be installed on greenfield developments and would not be available to existing housing, or brownfield developments. "We have no plans at this stage to roll it out to brownfield developments," he said.
"This could change in the future. We are looking closely at multiple dwellings."
Lyons Development Corporation project director Geoff Smith said owners would be connected to the network and receive a package of Telstra products, including access to the Next Generation network.
Darwin was chosen as the first Velocity site because of the city's location and demographics, Mr Smith said.
"Darwin being so far away from the rest of Australia, a lot of our residents will be people who have lived here a long time or people who have been here a short time who have relatives interstate or overseas with defence and will benefit from broadband," he said.
Blocks will be offered for sale through a public ballot on November 25.
Related links on AustralianIT
October 24 | Beattie's project too far for Telstra
The Australian
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"Darwin being so far away from the rest of Australia, a lot of our residents will be people who have lived here a long time or people who have been here a short time who have relatives interstate or overseas with defence and will benefit from broadband," he said.
Our complaining paid off!!