National broadband company Internode today turns on the 200th telephone exchange equipped with its own ADSL2+ broadband equipment, in Nuriootpa, in the Barossa wine-growing region of South Australia.

Internode has installed its own DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer) equipment at the Nuriootpa telephone exchange, allowing it to deliver faster, lower-priced and more innovative broadband services to customers in and near the town. Benefits of Internode’s new equipment include access to:

1. - Easy Broadband services, which are more flexible, more affordable and potentially faster than standard ADSL2+ plans
2. - ADSL2+ Annex M protocol services, which support maximum upstream speeds of 2.5 megabits per second
3. - FetchTV, Internode’s Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service, which utilises a high-definition, three-tuner set-top box and personal video recorder to access dozens of free-to-air, digital Internet-streamed TV channels and YouTube as well as downloading on-demand videos.

• Internode chose to install its own DSLAM equipment in the Nuriootpa exchange because of a Federal Government-funded Regional Backbone Blackspots Program to create affordable competitive fibre-optic links between remote and regional areas and metropolitan cities, where major Internet links are located.

Backhaul company NextGen has created a major three-state fibre-based connection that links Adelaide with Nuriootpa (SA), Broken Hill (NSW), and Mildura (VIC). This major fibre-optic run creates a circuit with an existing fibre-optic connection between Mildura and Melbourne.

The lighting up of Internode’s 200th installed DSLAM occurs in a milestone year for Australia’s largest privately-owned broadband company. Last May, it celebrated 20 years since Simon Hackett established the company, which has about 200,000 fixed broadband customers and is on track for revenues of $200 million.

Internode managing director Simon Hackett said the availability of Internode’s innovative ADSL2+ services at Nuriootpa helped fulfil the company’s vision of delivering the benefits of broadband throughout Australia. “Internode has always been about more than just broadband in the cities,” he said.

“As well as our award-winning networks on Yorke Peninsula and in the Coorong Region, we’ve installed our own DSLAM equipment in many other regional locations. It has irked us that a town as close to Adelaide as Nuriootpa was inaccessible due to unrealistically high backhaul charges, so it’s a real pleasure today to give the residents and businesses of Nuriootpa access to the best we have to offer.

“The good news is that we expect to light up DSLAMs we’ve installed in Broken Hill and Mildura in the next week or two, delivering the benefits of competition to people in those two towns as well.”

The full list of Internode’s 200 active DSLAMs is available at www.internode.on.net/dslam. 

Internode PR for media assistance: Impress Media Australia www.impress.com.au

Call John Harris on (08) 8431 4000 or email jharris@impress.com.au.

About Internode www.internode.on.net

Internode is a national broadband company with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Already a leading supplier of National Broadband Network (NBN) services, Internode delivers ADSL2+ services nationally and has its own infrastructure at more than 200 exchanges in every state and territory of Australia. Internode offers a wide range of value-added broadband services including more than 400 Internode WiFi hotspots throughout the country, NodeMobile Data 3G wireless broadband, Internode Business Connect Private IP networks, NodePhone VoIP telephony and a pioneering IPTV service through its partnership with FetchTV. Follow Internode online at www.internode.on.net/followus