Bringing the tally of NBN Providers in Tasmania to 5, Telstra consider the respective state to be the perfect test bed for experimenting with various types of services and plans over the NBN which should give them a great insight into offering services on the mainland once the NBN becomes established there. Optus is yet to decide whether they will offer fibre to the home broadband services in Tasmania, however I would suspect that they will feel obliged to now that Telstra has raised their hand.

With iiNet, Primus, Internode, Exetel, Telstra and potentially Optus joining the race down under on the Tasmanian NBN, it certainly sets the scene for a interesting mini telecommunication battleground. With the NBN now looking certain to take shape nationwide, the Tasmanian first release sites of Midway Point, Smithton and Scottsdale are sure to be in for a treat of technology, innovation, competitive telcommunication prices and of course very fast broadband.

Search and compare Telstra Home Bundles via BigPond right here! 

Source: AustralianIT.com.au

High speed broadband internet has been heavily debated in Australia over recent times, especially in conjunction to the upcoming new National Broadband Network project. It’s been established that super fast broadband internet will become a valuable and useful tool in the future for our individual needs and business prosperity. The question is, how fast is fast enough and what type of upgradeable, efficient and environmentally sound Broadband technology should we adopt?

Internet speed and technology leaders, on a global scale, appear to have always emerged from Asia, such as Korea, Taiwan and Japan. Other countries currently researching potential broadband technologies for future use could possibly look toward these respective nations for the lead . After all it’s these countries who, for years, have previously developed and utilised the likes of FTTN & FTTH broadband networks over a national coverage to achieve speeds in excess of 100Mbps.

One of these technological leaders, Japan, is reaching for the stars by currently trying to harness the potential of satellite broadband technology and is making substantial progress. Forget about wired, fixed or wireless internet because according to the Japan Exploration Agency and the National Institute of Information, a 1.2 gigabits per second satellite speed was achieved in a recent test which is believed to be a record for satellite communications.

In the test conducted back in May this year, a combined up and down satellite speed transmission was recorded at 1.2Gbps (1244Mbps)! In actual terms this figure equates to a whopping 622Mbps each way! Although speeds of this magnitude might not be available to us mere peasants anytime soon, Japan, nonetheless, is intending to offer satellite broadband services to homes and businesses in remote areas (in the event of disaster) along with providing satellite broadband speeds up to 155Mbps by this coming July. This invigorating news makes Australia’s plans for a FTTN network already look outdated. A satellite network of this type appears to have the potential which would be ideal for Australia’s conditions and it’s vast regions whilst providing an ‘environmentally friendlier’ and ‘wire free’ environment that would sufficiently meet all our personal and business requirements. However the underlying issue here could revolve around network (load) sustainability. Could the future mean satellite broadband? Didn’t we kind of already envisage this the whole time?

In the tests done on May 2, data was transmitted on two 622 Mbps channels, both up to the satellite and down to a receiving antenna. Together, the combined data transmission speed was 1.2 Gbps, according to PC World. Japan launched the Kizuna satellite in February and plans to use it to offer broadband services to homes and businesses in remote areas in the event of disaster. The aerospace agency said it should be able to provide homes with speeds up to 155 Mbps by July.

source: Japan tests super fast satellite broadband

While the two major Australian political parties are at logger heads over high speed Broadband for Australia, one thing is for certain, a new fast Broadband network will have a major positive impact on our nation. To reiterate on a article I recently wrote titled ‘Broadband Future’ back on Aug 10 2007, it appears that more and more people are starting to see the potential positives that a high speed Broadband network will have on Australia once it’s established.

A recent Nine MSN article and expert government executive ‘Matt Healy’ have stated that very fast Broadband will give people more than just IPTV, Video-on-demand and High definition TV, it will give the nation the ability to work from home – even from regional and remote areas. However, even the fastest Broadband network will need to be affordable in order to make these predicitons reality.

According to Matt Healy, napredictionstional executive regulatory and government with Macquarie Telecom (a member of the G9 group competing with Telstra for the right to build the national fibre network), it’s not the sexy services like high-definition TV on demand that will have the biggest impact, it’s the ability for people anywhere – even in remote areas – to work from home.

Video-conferencing is another area that holds great promise, especially in healthcare and education. Doctors in city hospitals could assist with the diagnosis of cases in remote areas via a video link, providing treatment recommendations long before a patient could get to a specialist.

Read the entire Nine MSN article here