will the sno be any help

Two million ride the Aussie broadband boom

Mitchell Bingemann, PC World

23/09/2005 13:11:21

Broadband take-up in Australia has smashed through the two million mark and is growing rapidly.

Broadband users now total 2,183,200 - up 108.3 per cent from June 2004, according to the latest Snapshot of Broadband Deployment Report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), released this week.

The report said broadband growth remained at a steady 18.8 per cent throughout the March to June period.

"The take-up of broadband services is enormous," said ACCC Commissioner, Ed Willet.

"It's by far the greatest adoption of any Internet service in Australia."

The boost could be attributed to consumers responding to a marked drop in wholesale broadband services initiated by Telstra, after a competition notice was launched against them by the ACCC in 2004, he said.

"The resolution between Optus and Telstra provided the stimulus to a range of providers offering broadband packages with higher quality speeds and lower prices."

Senator Helen Coonan said in a media release that the government's Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS) was "having a real impact on broadband take-up rates in Australia."

HiBIS, which subsidises the provision of higher speed technologies to regional and remote areas in Australia, has been adopted by more the 600 communities.

"While we don't have the exact numbers, it is likely to be contributing to what we are seeing overall," Willet confirmed.

. . . Someone send this to Ivy . . .

Why should Ivy even care she gets her salary at the end of the month.

i dont think she can read

My 2 cents worth...

There are a number of factors pushing the broadband uptake rate globally, VOIP, streaming media and the massive movement of e-commerce (set to top 2 trillion dollars by 2012).

Globally there is a convergence of traditional entertainment with the internet, which is becoming main stream faster than technology vendors can develop solutions.

Many mobile networks in the USA for example (already working with 4G) are offering broadband at a set rate (uncapped) as more individuals progress towards an “online lifestyle”…. Good business & Good business sense – me thinks!

As I travel around the world, I personally turn to the PC as a form of entertainment and as a medium for information. In fact I can’t remember when last I watched a normal television set, listened to a radio or held a newspaper (other than for swatting flies).

Electronic Newspapers, Streaming radio, Podcasts, webcasts – hell even home grown content such as Mnet’s channels are all available online …. and of course considering that you are in a country that allows more than 3GIGs of data to stream without some kind of throttling.

So what the hell am I on about?

It is fair to say that I may be right up there with a rare bread information hungry tech junkies who fear being disconnected more than death….

BUT, it’s happening all over the world and faster than we can say “IVY GAAN K@K IN DIE BOS” - Telkom and the chimpanzees that govern it can only pull the wool over our eyes for so long!

Perhaps these anally retentive pricks who set policy can develop the foresight to see that there is a massive business opportunity looming here…. Or perhaps their qualifications don’t qualify them????

Keep fighting the good fight gang!

F##@ I miss a good Nederburg wine and a South African Sunset.