All Frankly, you Yanks have NOTHING to complain about. In Australia, we live under a government where the Communications Minister is acknowledged as the Grand High Luddite (check Slashdot for anything about "Alston", or http://whirlpool.net.au). For broadband at the retail (single consumer) level, there is effectively only one choice (Telstra) for the majority of Australians and a few in a couple of the major coastal cities have access to the only other currently viable provider. There is an emergent market of small providers coming into the market, but they're not currently serious options.
I won't go into the hopelessness of the market in terms of Telstra's effective monopoly, you can all read about that yourselves at any one of a number of Australian media outlets (Whirlpool, au.internet.com, australianit.com.au, zdnet.com.au, etc.), but I will give you a laugh by telling you about my broadband access: * installation fee (including ADSL modem) from AU$399 (3 mth contract) to AU$189 (18 mth contract) * 512 down/128 up speed capped ADSL * PPPOE * 3Gb/month data limit (combined upload/download) * AU$94.95/month (approx. US$51.63/month) IF I have Telstra preselected as my long distance provider * $0.139/Mb data over 3Gb * NO dialup unless I pay for it If I want the other data options I can have: * same installation fee * 300MB/month, $59.95 preselected/$76.45 not selected, 256/64, $0.159/Mb over limit data charge * 1GB/month, $76.95/$93.45, 512/128, $0.149 * 5GB/month, $224.95/$241.45, 1500/256, $0.129 * 10GB/month, $429.95/$446.45, 1500/256, $0.119 So don't tell me how hard you have it! Steve C ___________________________________________________________________ | Stephen Collins, Technical Consultant - ACIS (www.acis.com.au) | | Macromedia Certified ColdFusion 5 Developer | | Ph +61 2 62822662 Fax +61 2 62824328 Cel +61 410 680722 | | [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | ICQ UIN : 56321783 Yahoo! : trib | |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~oOOo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | Are you building your best Body-for-LIFE? | | www.bodyforlife.com | |___________________________________________________________________| ______________________________________________________________________ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
