Ian Grayson | July 22, 2008
WITH the broadband debate firmly focused on fibre cables, it's easy to forget there's still plenty of life left in Australia's network of copper phone lines.
The metal that carried morse and voice is now serving the internet
Connected to nearly every home and business in the country, these lines have faithfully provided voice telephony services for more than 100 years.
Now, with dramatic advances in transmission technology, this copper is also providing broadband internet services for growing numbers of people.
Copper's new lease on life began with the emergence of ADSL in the late 1990s.
Operating at frequencies not used for voice, ADSL allowed high-speed data to be transferred over existing telephone lines.
Rather than grappling with dial-up speeds of about 40Kbps, users switching to an ADSL service found they could get speeds of more than 1Mbps.
The days of the World Wide Wait, as the internet had become known, were over.
Now an enhancement to the technology, ADSL2+, is stretching the capabilities of the humble copper phone line ever further.
Rather than speeds of 1Mbps, ADSL2+ users can expect data to download about 20 times faster, while typical upload speeds are about 1Mbps.
ADSL2+ manages this by increasing the frequency band used to transmit data over copper lines.
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This is achieved without interfering with voice calls made over the same line.
D-Link product strategy manager Dean Williams says ADSL2+ services are becoming increasingly popular as people come to understand what they can do with the higher speeds on offer.
As well as faster loading of web pages, ADSL2+ enables rapid downloads of large files such as video content.
To enjoy the faster speeds, Williams warns, users need to be relatively close to their local phone exchange, keeping the length of their copper connection to a minimum.
"The biggest limit is the customer's distance from the exchange," he says.
"With ADSL2+ you have to be within about 2.5km of the exchange to get the full speed.
"After that, the speed will gradually drop back (from 20Mbps) to about 1.5Mbps when you get to about 5km from the exchange."
Despite this restriction, carriers are aggressively introducing ADSL2+ equipment in exchanges and promoting high-speed services.
Telstra has more than 1400 of its exchanges equipped with ADSL2+ equipment following a major upgrade completed in April. These exchanges serve some 16.6 million people.
"With about 80 per cent of the exchanges located outside the major metro areas, this is an important step forward for telecommunications in regional and rural Australia," Telstra public policy head Phil Burgess says.
Meanwhile Western Australian internet service provider iiNet has built a national network of ADSL2+ equipment and is reporting strong customer acceptance of it.
IiNet chief operating officer Mark White says his company focuses on the major cities. It has about 95 per cent coverage in Perth, Sydney and Canberra and about 75 per cent in Brisbane and Melbourne.
"Our focus is the metropolitan areas because that is where we can get maximum exposure and the backhaul costs are not prohibitive," he says.
"We are constantly extending our network."
Speeds vary, White says, because of distance from the exchange and the quality of the copper wire in the ground. Old or damaged wires reduce performance.
A survey of Sydney iiNet customers shows 80 per cent were getting at least 5.7Mbps, 60 per cent were getting at least 10Mbps and 50 per cent were getting at least 12Mbps.
"To stream high-definition television you need between 6Mbps and 7Mbps, so most of our customers can do that with their current connection," White says.
IiNet is also taking advantage of the speeds to offer a growing array of on-network content services that users can access without affecting their monthly download quotas.
One example is on-demand transmissions of English Premier League soccer matches.
"We don't want to become a content creator but we do want to add value by partnering with companies that have content. ADSL2+ allows us to deliver this."
Many users wanting to take advantage of ADSL2+ services will find they don't even have to upgrade their equipment. Most ADSL modems sold in the past couple of years are ADSL2+-compatible.
D-Link's Williams says set-up is straightforward and many modems incorporate a wireless base station that uses the latest 802.11n technology.
Equipment using the n standard can theoretically move data at about 248Mbps.
Equipping each device on a wireless network with an 802.11n card will allow easy streaming of high-definition video around a home, Williams says.
It will also allow each user to take full advantage of the speeds offered by ADSL2+.