Australia's National Broadband Network Officially Open For Business 161
sydneyhype writes "The Australian National Broadband Network is open for business. The 14,000 residents on the first roll-out will be able to order an NBN service (current ISP contract permitting). Internode, Exetel, and iiNet have released their commercial pricing. iiNet has undercut Internode with prices starting at $49.95 per month for 12Mbps down and 1Mbps up with 20gb on-peak and 20gb off-peak."
Re:I know where I will be for awhile... (Score:4, Informative)
The list of small towns which are being FTTH'd is pretty impressive though. There are places on there with populations as low as 800.
That said, the NBN outback and deep rural strategy isn't focused on exchanges and ADSL technology - it's focussed on wireless for rural and satellite for really remote places. They've a pretty good track record so far with sensible deployment decisions, and a point-to-point wireless technology in uncrowded spectrum would probably work out.
Re:Asia in general costs a lot (Score:4, Informative)
Internet costs more in Australia due to distance from the rest of the English-speaking world (i.e. where 95% of internet hosts we want to access are located), huge area and small population. We will never be able to compete with Europe on price. Also you're picking the entry-level 12/1 40 GB plan for home users (which includes a home phone service with untimed national calls BTW, not just internet) to compare with ... and it only costs only a few euro more than what you pay (59 AUD = ~42 EUR). That ain't bad, considering what prices and speeds are like now. Besides, if it ain't fast enough, up to 100/40 Mbit is available to everyone, and gigabit for business plans.
The relevant comparison is between what Australians can get now (generally ADSL2+ on which for most people get 10 Mbit unless they live close to the exchange), and what we can get on the NBN (same cost - much faster). Not between what you can get in Australia vs. what you can get in densely populated Europe. It's a pointless comparison - EVERYTHING costs more here (but wages are very high too - it all balances out in the end).
It's also likely unlimited plans will be offered by some ISPs on this network too. You have to remember - all you are seeing now is the first batch of pricing released from the first batch of ISPs. Once more get on board and the rollout gathers pace, prices will decline, just as they have been for the ADSL2+ offerings over the last decade. ISPs like TPG already offer unlimited ADSL2+ for $29/month, so I foresee them offering a similar thing on NBN eventually too. It's still early days.
Re:I want it NOW! (Score:4, Informative)
Firstly, it's 'only' around $29-30 billion now (the 40+ billion figure was the budget BEFORE the Telstra conduit-sharing deal was struck).
Secondly, $40 billion over the 12 or 13 years the rollout will take really isn't much. Compare it to what we spend over that time period on other infrastructure like roads, schools, hospitals etc. You make it sound like it's a $40B bill that's all due in one hit up front or something. Plus it'll form the 'guts' of the telecommunications network in this country for the next century. I really don't think the cost is outrageous when you consider that ... what do you think the original copper POTS network cost to roll out?