Good news for Aussies - Super-fast speed broadband on its way

BBC News - Australia strikes broadband deal with Telstra and Optus

And boy do they need it!

When we were out there at Easter most of central Australia lost its internet, mobile and telphone communications thanks to a digger driver somewhere between Adelaide and Alice Springs... It was chaotic; no cash machines, no EPOS (credit cards), no telephones of any type, no internet because there was just one fibre link supporting the lot!

Thankfully the repair 'only' took about 14 hours, but it was a painful day!

This came up on my iGoogle as below, so it's not ALL good news :)

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Originally Posted by elsiegee40

BBC News - Australia strikes broadband deal with Telstra and Optus

And boy do they need it!

When we were out there at Easter most of central Australia lost its internet, mobile and telphone communications thanks to a digger driver somewhere between Adelaide and Alice Springs... It was chaotic; no cash machines, no EPOS (credit cards), no telephones of any type, no internet because there was just one fibre link supporting the lot!

Thankfully the repair 'only' took about 14 hours, but it was a painful day!

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Hopefulyl it will make broadband cheaper, its pretty expensive out there.

@FN-GM the consumer home bb is getting not bad now. I pay $60 which is about 40 quid for unlimited (proper unlimited) ADSL2+ and phone line. In scotland I pay BT line rental plus 30 quid a month for BE for the same unlimited adsl2+. So pretty comparable.

However at work, our 12meg fibre connection is $6k a MONTH!!

Hopefully the NBN will make that cheaper for us.

Theres an ongoing debate here that giving telstra 11bn dollars, will just empower them to build a rival network in a few years. Ive not really been following it much to be honest, not being able to vote Im just an innocent bystander when it comes to the politics.

Im just sitting wiaintg for FTTH to arrive so hopefully my slingbox will be able to stream a decent picture for once.