Canada is in the same situation as Australia - huge country, few people and still manages to get
GBPS broadband in the sticks at about 1/3 the cost of here. Even Kenya, Nigeria, Khazakstan and Lithuania all have faster, cheaper broadband than Austalia.
I don't know where Kal got the idea that there is infrastructure in county areas, our nearest transmitter is 100K away! Its not even a proper transmitter - just a relay station!
Apart from just out 'n out unregulated money-grubbing, one reason is that under the lpast gov't, there was a huge row over the public/private split, and whether competeing firms should pay for infrastructure. It also spent all its cash trying to buy-up or into foreign telcos and mobile co's.
Telstra, once a world leader in telecoms, stopped investing in high-speed
internet, and are now playing catch-up.
Another reason is competition and ownership of infrastructure. Most telcos abroad shoulder some burden of owning/maintaining exchanges, towers etc, which spreads the costs over several parties.
I get caught out every month. Usually going over 200% of my allowance. I have to remind myself that Telstra's MBPS means
Mega-Bits
not Mega-Bytes!
Yeah. In short, its pretty outrageous, but we continue to pay the charges
so they'll continue to charge the rates.
