TechNewsReview comment: Australia’s high cost broadband costs are the focus of a story in today’s The Australian newspaper. It seems there is another reason Australia has some of the highest broadband costs in the world. A table of selected countries in the print edition actually shows Australia with the highest costs. Those outed in today’s paper are AJC and Southern Cross – the duopoly that provides the two routes out of Australia and so keep prices artificially high. So for all of Telstra’s bad points (and good – they’re my ISP and the cable service is excellent, but a little pricey), they are by far the only cause of our high costs.Some of Australia’s ISPs have been upping the prices for their customers who are “download-hungry”, and part of the reason has been a cost recovery. Previously low-download customers have subsidised high-download customers, but this is now changing.The article in The Australian is available at http://australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,21926920-5013040,00.html
Cable duopoly chokes Australian fibre speeds
TechNewsReview comment: Australia’s high cost broadband costs are the focus of a story in today’s The Australian newspaper. It seems there is another reason Australia has some of the highest broadband costs in the world. A table of selected countries in the print edition actually shows Australia with the highest costs. Those outed in today’s paper are AJC and Southern Cross – the duopoly that provides the two routes out of Australia and so keep prices artificially high. So for all of Telstra’s bad points (and good – they’re my ISP and the cable service is excellent, but a little pricey), they are by far the only cause of our high costs.