How much does Australia’s Internet suck?

How much are you paying for your internet connection? Shitloads? I thought so. Well there is a report out there that just confirmed it. Australia's internet is slow and expensive compared to much of the developed world.

It’s from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (some yank Think Tank) and is appropriately title The Role of Competition in a National Broadband Policy. It’s appropriate because the lack of said competition is the reason that we score so low on the world rankings. When Telstra was the only dog in town they deliberately kept us in the dial-up dark ages.

They’re still miles behind the competition. If you are Bazza Sixpack and you call up Telstra to get yourself some broadbands these are the offers available to you.

256kbps	$30	0.2GB
256kbps	$60	12GB
1500kbps	$70	12GB
1500kbps	$100	25GB
24000kpbs	$60	0.6GB
24000kpbs	$120	25GB
24000kpbs	$150	60GB

Stats are boring I know, but the gist of it is that Telstra is screwing you blind. 256kbps should not be classified as fucking broadband (it's not in the rest of the world) and ADSL 2+ with a 600MB download limit means that at its theoretical top speed you could use up that $60 worth in three and a half minutes. Bastards. How can they legally even sell that?

It is worth noting that the only reason we have ADSL 2+ in Australia is that individual ISPs installed their own DSLAMs (magic internet boxes) in Telstra’s exchanges. Telstra didn’t start offering it until years later and presumably only did so because they were forced to to compete.

Now in Australia I’m on a pretty good deal with TPG, but compared to the rest of the developed world I’m being screwed. If we take the cost per month per Mbps ratio Australia works out at 2.4. In Japan that ratio is 0.27. In other words, for my $60 connection here in Australia I would be paying $6.50 a month in Japan.

25GB ADSL 2+ : Telstra - $120 a month, Japan Super Happy Internet Company - $6.50 a month. Yep, we’re getting the Joan Collins special.

But that’s not really the whole story, because I doubt if you would be able to get a new 24 Mbps connection in Japan. Australia’s average speed is 1.7Mbps while Japan’s is 60Mbps. That right, their average speed is 35 times what ours is. Japan and Korea are probably not fair comparison for Australia (they’re so advanced I hear their children are born with USB ports now) but even when looking at the rest of the world we are behind. Especially for a country like ours that considers itself technologically advanced.

Besides the absolute masses of illegal multimedia out there, there really is a huge swag of legal content available that is just inaccessible for slower speed/limit connections. Things like Miro, the free internet TV player (I recommend the democracy now channel), or the daily show putting it’s archives online recently. Not to mention all the video available on news sites. Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that we have Aussie kids out there forced to download porno pictures instead of porno movies. Oh the shame.

Will the new Lib and Labor Internet plans fix the situation? Probably not entirely, but it should be a good start. Just keep Telstra out of it.