Business Plays Catch-up When It Comes To High-speed Access
Sun Herald
Sunday June 22, 2003
IT'S time for businesses to get serious about broadband the latest internet technology that's fast, always on and even comes with a wireless connection.
How serious? Well, McDonald's is installing it in its Australian restaurants, which means you really do get chips with your burgers. That's Intel's new Centrino chip, which picks up the internet on your laptop, receiving signals just like a mobile phone.
How big? Whole areas, such as Balmain village , are being trialled as a Hotspot for wireless broadband reception.
How fast? Whether it's in the air, via satellite, through cable or singing along telephone lines, broadband access to the internet is coming in a rush, 10 to 20 times faster than narrowband, dial-up internet.
Despite figures by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission showing that 423,600 high-speed connections had been made to the end of March with digital subscriber line (DSL) technology registering a 200 per cent surge in 12 months our business community trails the world in its support for broadband. This is despite its capacity to handle huge files, video, graphics and quick financial transactions.
Broadband makes it easier for companies to share customer information or inventory records or to communicate with business partners. The home office can quickly download large files and view webcasts in real time from home while the kids use the internet for homework, play extreme interactive games or enjoy web surfing without the long wait for pages to download; all without blocking the phone line.
``The technology's rapid spread will affect the market structures of many industries. Be prepared!" the latest McKinsey Quarterly warns business.
The management consultants say broadband is on track to be the fastest-growing technology-based consumer offering ever. At current pace, broadband will achieve 25 per cent penetration in six years in the US. PCs took 15 years, mobile phones 13 and the internet seven.
Australia is still in the first, three-year ``launch" phase, where it has limited use outside the telecom-internet sectors.
The ``expansion" phase, when the number of subscribing households rises from 10 to 40 per cent, has been reached in the US, Belgium, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands and Sweden. This is when businesses begin tailoring their internet activity to broadband users. The ``saturation" stage of more than 40 per cent penetration is being reached in Korea, parts of the US, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Telstra got the hurry-up last year from the Federal Government and vocal critics such as telco consultant Paul Budde . This resulted in a broadband summit and a $50 million broadband promotion fund.
The telco is now promoting broadband heavily, offering entry-level, self-install technology for $29 and $54.95 monthly plans for 500 megabytes of data (up to 20 CD downloads). That can be competitive with dial-up internet for many users when you add up all the phone charges and a second phone line, or consider the inconvenience.
Yet the greater capacity invites further use and exceeding the download caps can lead to big bills for novice users. There have also been some teething problems, with the immature technology causingnetwork crashes for hours at a time, and disappointingly slower speeds from overseas.
Telstra is aiming for 20 per cent broadband penetration among internet households, with a target of 1 million broadband lines by 2005. But Budde says this isn't enough.
``Telstra wants to protect its existing data market and it is not seriously rolling out the new network service," he said. ``It would prefer spending the money on a clean balance sheet for investors."
He wants more upgrades of its exchange and phone line network. He also said that by charging for the amount of information downloaded, Telstra was confusing download customers, with inexperienced users running up $1000 bills for exceeding download limits.
Yet Australian small businesses are finally moving to broadband because it's fast, not because it's smart, the 1000 users surveyed told ACNielsen.consult .
A survey of 200 companies by consultants IDC Telecommunications Research found that more than half of Australian companies expect to increase their spending on both broadband and internet services during 2003.
``DSL current deployment almost doubled to 49.5 per cent the highest adoption is coming from the small business segment," IDC senior research analyst Landry Fevre said.
Lobby group Broadband Xchange believes one reason this is happening is the pent-up demand for cheap data communication by small business.
Dennis Muscat , managing director of internet service provider Pacific Internet , expects 70,000 businesses to take up broadband this year.
``We are lagging compared with overseas," Muscat said. ``The Government should see there are big economic benefits from increasing the efficiency of business."
One problem is lack of competition for Telstra, which owns 800 exchanges the next competitor has 100.
This means broadband has been less vigorously marketed in Australia than in Hong Kong or Japan.
TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES AT A GLANCE
Digital Subsciber Line (DSL)
What it is: A group of technologies, the most common being ADSL (A for asymmetric), that uses existing telephone lines to deliver internet access.
Advantages: Cheap; always on, does not block phone line.
Disadvantage: Must be within five kilometres of an ADSL-enabled exchange.
Cable
What it is: Pay TV cable network connects you to internet.
Advantage: Can be cheapest solution.
Disadvantage: Cable must run past your home or business.
Satellite
What it is: Satellite dish connects you to the internet.
Advantage: Available everywhere.
Disadvantages: One-way satellite ties up your phone line when you dial-up the internet for uploads; more expensive; affected by heavy rain.
Wireless (WiFi)
What it is: Broadband delivered by using radio waves instead of cables or wires in a local area network (90-metre range) or Wide Area Wireless.
Advantage: mobile; no cables.
Disadvantages: more expensive; less secure; competes with phones and microwaves for bandwidth.
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
What it is: A connection sends phone, data and fax via a digital phone line and can be used for high speed internet access.
Advantage: Has two voice or data lines for faster uploads of large amounts of data favoured by business.
Disadvantages: Slower download speeds; expensive.
© 2003 Sun Herald
