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 Internode has confirmed that its regional WiMAX rollouts are
going "gangbusters" despite today's announcement that the Federal Government
has cancelled its OPEL regional broadband agreement.
Today, Optus and Elders announced that the Federal Government
had cancelled their OPEL contract to build a WiMAX-based broadband network. In
June last year, Elders' parent Futuris and Optus, in a joint venture called
OPEL, were awarded $958 million by the Coalition Government to construct a
broadband network for rural and regional Australia.
Internode managing director Simon Hackett said Federal
support for its Yorke Peninsula rollout was completely
separate from the OPEL deal. "It's full steam ahead with our regional rollouts,"
he said.
"The Internode regional rollouts on the Yorke
Peninsula and in the Coorong region are completely unaffected and
are going gangbusters. Our regional partners are flat stick connecting new
customers to our WiMAX network, so it is delivering the benefits that we
committed to."
WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a
telecommunications technology, based on the IEEE 802.16 standard, which can deliver
wireless communications over large distances.
Internode has reported that, with good line of sight, its
customers are achieving speeds as fast as six megabits s per second at
distances up to 30km from the base station.
Last month, Internode won a prestigious telecommunications
industry award for its deployment on the Yorke Peninsula of Australia's first
region-wide, wireless broadband service using the WiMAX standard. At the annual
Australian Telecommunications User Group (ATUG) awards ceremony in Sydney, Internode won the
ATUG Excellence Award for the Best Regional Communications Solution,
recognising Internode's outstanding achievements in innovation and services to
end users.
Internode started construction of its high-speed wireless
network in 2005, establishing a series of towers along the "spine" of
the Yorke Peninsula, a largely rural area west of Adelaide. This provides line-of-sight
connectivity to coastal communities that are too far from telephone exchanges
to use ADSL-based broadband services, for the same price as customers who live
in metropolitan areas.
Mr. Hackett said wireless broadband would continue to play
an important roll in delivering rural broadband services alongside the Government's
planned Fibre to the Node (FTTN) network. "FTTN can't work in outback Australia
because of the large distances involved, so I strongly suspect that wireless
remains the key answer in the bush," he said.
"This may create new regional broadband opportunities for
Internode because we know how to do it and make it work right."
Internode is already replicating the successful Yorke
Peninsula WiMAX network to the Coorong, where it has an extensive network based
on earlier wireless broadband technology.
Internode
is a first tier IP carrier committed to using broadband technology to redefine
the national telecommunications environment. The Australian-owned
company is a trailblazer that delivers broadband services to individuals and
businesses throughout Australia.
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