Under the digital data service obligation you should be able to get ADSL unless "line conditioning or pair gain" is on your PSTN line. (Given you live within the distance limits of ADSL)

This applies even if you live next door to a telephone exchange.

Line conditioning is another way of saying insufficient infrastructure. Instead of installing more phone lines Telstra has been "fiddling" with the lines. This lack of infrastructure has been happening for years, ever since Howard decided to try and sell it.

If you cannot get a "broadband" (Most Australians really do not know what it means) connection it works against de-centralisation. Many internet based businesses could be run from "the bush" if only the infrastructure was there.

Maybe you should move to Christmas Island they have great digital telecommunications I wonder why?

I agree strongly with wobbles...the core network asset should have stayed in public hands. The Howard administration is selling the telecommunications infrastructure to instituional investors for a song.

As Sol has pointed out the infrastructure has been "runned down" under Ziggy, which allowed for those very generous dividends to flow on to the major shareholder.

Considering the amount of funds that have gone into the telco, we all should have fibre to the door by now... and rather than just talking about "broadband;" we should all be talking about "ultraband".. a throughput whereby you can stream HD TV if you chose....

Another issue.. is the Foxtel equation, and how the telco wants to protect its investment in that venture.

I disagree with Sylvia, in that, in this day and age, telecommunications infrastructure is just as important, if not, more so than, road transport infrastructure.

The sell - off is the equivalent to selling off the pacific highway.

Unfortunately, we will all be paying "top doillar" for an antiquated system.

I live less than 20 Kms from Newcastle CBD, and ADSL access only became available about 6 months ago.

Telstra has been promoting ADSL since 1996. . .heaven knows when regional areas will have access to ADSL2+

On a personal note, before the line was upgraded for ADSL, I went the 1xRTT/ 1x EVDO high speed mobile wireless CDMA route because the dial up kept dropping out when I was sending large files.
I found this service to be extremely expensive, and I would not recommend it to anyone. Unlike cable/landline connections, atmospheric conditions had a big part to play if I was online or not.
Telstra is now in the process of deploying its "Next G" wireless mobile broadband. Hopefully, when this system is rolled out to your neck of the woods, the service will not be affected by atmospheric condition to the same degree, and the plans and pricing are reasonable.

AFR reported on 5/10/06:

"The refusal to proceed with even a more modest version of an upgraded fixed network will mean broadband speeds on fixed lines for most Australian homes will remain at levels now considered unacceptable in most other developed countries.

Telstra is instead promising that it will deliver much faster wireless broadband speeds to 98 per cent of the country on its so-called Next G Network, a $1.1 billion third-generation mobile phone network on the 850 MHz band that is central to Mr Trujillo's turnaround strategy.

It says this will deliver speeds of up to 3.6 megabits per second on this service this year and up to 14.4 megabits per second by the first quarter of next year. The Telstra CEO is expected to argue that congestion will not be an issue most of the time for most users."

This subject has descended into a "them and us" attitude between regional and city folk, a tired argument about everything you can name, as old as civilization! Let's have some lateral thinking, i.e., (1) allocation of spectrum from the Federal Government for wireless broadband; including kilowatt power upgrade of existing towers Australia wide; piggy backing of services on existing spectrum towers with appropriate security for OTC and Defence traffic; (2) a committment to broadband services via power supply companies; Ergon and the like. It can be done technically, even though probably more expensive; but if power companies were subsidised, by the taxpayer, I'm sure they would be interested as a commercial additional enterprise.

Poor communications and lack of services are reasons why people have drifted from country to town. However the federal government has a policy of encouraging people to move in the reverse direction.

It is reprehensible that Howard's government, driven by ideology, sold a government agency that was delivering services to the country and remote areas and making a healthy profit for the taxpayer as well.

In the future the taxpayer will be subsidising the country services or they will not be provided.

The corporatisation and eventual sale of Telstra has not helped me and I now pay much more per annum for phone services that I ever did before. Some of this is because of the mobile phone rip-off.

Cornflower put it pretty nicely.

And fair enough, you can argue that perhaps country people should pay more - but the thing is, it's still an issue of what we consider to be government services. What exactly is the role of our government?

I for one, consider the foremost role to be the provision of services. Under the logic that the country people should pay more, then we also should be introducing increased taxes for regional citizens for road maintenance.

Sparsely populated areas cost more to maintain. So do telecommunications services.

By the same brush, we should be charging regional people more for access to water, (increased requirements for pipeline infrastructure) more for power (more powerlines and grids) and more for pretty much all government services really. Anything centralised is easier to maintain.

This of course, would cause a massive exodus from regional areas - struggling infrastructure in cities would collapse, and road congestion would spiral. This is happening already.
Australia's agriculture industry, (and we're among the top three nations for wheat exports) would effectively perish if taxes were to increase on top of subsidisaton practices overseas.

I won't go too much further into that, as it's stretching relevance as is, but suffice to say I simply think the foremost role of our government should be providing some services to all citizens. Apparently that changed somewhere along the way, and I don't think the majority of Australians are happy about it either.