Telstra opens floodgates on massive ADSL2+ upgrade

- Telstra to upgrade 900 exchanges with ADLS2+
- First 370 exchanges upgraded within seven days
- Telstra will “not be forced to resell” to other ISPs, says Telstra CEO

If you’ve been waiting for ADSL2+ to arrive in your neighborhood, then today’s news of a massive ADSL2+ network upgrade from Telstra will interest you.

Telstra is opening the floodgates – upgrading 900 exchanges in total, with speeds of up to 20Mbps for homes less than 1.5Km from the exchange. The rollout will happen in stages, with the first 370 exchanges getting the upgrade within a week.

The biggest rollout will be in NSW, with more than 750,000 homes served by the planned upgrade, followed by Victoria with 660,000 homes.

The first 370 exchanges will be in several states including Alice Springs, Kalgoorlie, Newtown in Tasmania, Mittagong in New South Wales, and Victor Harbor in South Australia.

The telco has previously limited its ADSL2+ service to areas where other ISPs were also offering the faster speeds –clearly a problem for hundreds of suburbs where no-one was offering the service.

The catch could be for rival ISPs wanting to offer faster speeds in those same areas. Telstra has sought assurance that the government would not enforce “third-party” access by other ISPs to its network. Today’s comments from CEO Sol Trujillo indicate that Telstra is expecting other ISPs to upgrade and install their own equipment if they are to join Telstra in the new suburbs with ADSL2+.

"Regulatory forbearance will be good . . . for shareholders because Telstra will not be forced to re-sell to competitors services they can provide simply by choosing to invest their own capital,” said the statement by Trujillo.

Internode CEO Simon Hackett expressed concern about the move on the broadband news site Whirlpool: “You can rest assured that we have already sent queries and requests for information about this and its implications to both Telstra and the ACCC this morning and we will look forward to the responses with interest”.

Internode is one of several ISPs that is expanding their ADSL2+ coverage. In Internode’s case, the ISP is combining its rollout with the launch of its naked DSL service early this year.

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