Telstra's cable broadband speeds to get faster

Tuesday, 10 March, 2009

Telstra announced today that its hybrid fibre coaxial cable broadband network in Melbourne will be upgraded to 100 Mbps by Christmas this year.

Using new technology already successfully deployed in several cable networks overseas, Telstra will immediately begin work to turbocharge its five-city cable network.

Melbourne is stage one of Telstra’s deployment of next-generation super-fast broadband technologies into its cable network, which already passes 2.5 million homes in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Work will start immediately with the installation of DOCSIS 3.0 software and related infrastructure in the Melbourne cable network. Telstra will invest about $300 million in the cable upgrade this calendar year. This upgrade will increase the peak download speeds in Melbourne homes to 100 Mbps, with further upgrades potentially to speeds of up to 200 Mbps.

It will build on the recent BigPond Cable Extreme upgrade, which already provides download speeds on the cable network of up to 30 Mbps to 1.8 million homes, with another 700,000 homes having speeds up to 17 Mbps.

Telstra estimates that nearly one million Melbourne homes stand to benefit from the experience of super-fast broadband once the upgrade to provide speeds of up to 100 Mbps is completed.

Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo said “BigPond Cable Extreme transformed the cable network into a high-speed broadband network.

"Now we are going to the next level: super-fast broadband with download speeds among the highest in the world.

“Late last year, Telstra foreshadowed that we would continue our investment in our cable network and, with the DOCSIS 3.0 software now well established internationally, we have the ability to dramatically increase speeds into Australian homes.

“Melbourne will be the first city to benefit from the cable network’s super-fast broadband speeds. This broadband upgrade will bring the next generation of the internet to Melburnians, enabling new work-from-home, learning, security, entertainment, healthcare and energy-saving choices at home. It will help spawn an innovative, video-based, applications and content services sector in Australia. "