Communications in Australia
Encyclopedia
Telecommunications in Australia deals with telecommunications in Australia
, involving the availability and use of electronic devices and services, such as the telephone
, television
, radio
or computer
, for the purpose of communication
.
Following federation, the colonial networks (staff, switches, wires, handsets, buildings etc.) were transferred to the Commonwealth and became the responsibility of the first Postmaster-General (PMG), a federal Minister overseeing the Postmaster-General's Department
that managed all domestic telephone, telegraph and postal services. With 16,000 staff (and assets of over £6 million) it accounted for 90% of the new federal bureaucracy. That figure climbed to over 120,000 staff (around 50% of the federal bureaucracy) by the late sixties.
Public phones
were available in a handful of post offices and otherwise restricted to major businesses, government agencies, institutions and wealthier residences. Eight million telegrams were sent that year over 43,000 miles of line.
There were around 33,000 phones across Australia, with 7,502 telephone subscribers in inner Sydney
and 4,800 in the Melbourne central business district. A trunk line between Melbourne (headquarters of the PMG Department) and Sydney was established in 1907, with extension to Adelaide
in 1914, Brisbane
in 1923, Perth
in 1930 and Hobart
in 1935.
Overseas cable links to Australia remained in private hands, reflecting the realities of imperial politics, demands on the new government's resources, and perceptions of its responsibilities. The PMG department became responsible for some international shortwave services - particularly from the 1920s - and for a new Coastal Radio Service in 1911, with the first of a network of stations operational in February 1912. Australia and New Zealand had ratified the 1906 Berlin Radio-telegraph Convention in 1907.
During the 1930s the PMG became responsible for the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC).
Background to the service:
In practice Aussat's charter restricted it from acting as a competitor to Telecom, including a prohibition on interconnecting public switched traffic with Telecom's network. Aussat's viability was undermined through restrictions on raising capital, of critical importance given tepid government support and increasing costs. It wasn't until 1985 that Australia's first geostationary communications satellite was operational; by late 1990 it had debts of about $400 million.
The Australian Telecommunications Commission was restructured as the Australian Telecommunications Corporation, trading as Telecom Australia, in 1989. That year saw the last domestic telegram handled by Telecom, with responsibility for telegram operations handed over to Australia Post.
Proposals for a merger of Aussat and OTC (thereby permitting national delivery of telecommunication services in competition with Telecom) were rejected in favor of disposal of the satellite operator to a non-government entity that would be allowed to compete with Telecom.
Immediately following the decision that Optus Communications - a private sector entity owned by a consortium that included BellSouth
- would be given Australia's second general carrier licence purchased the Satellite assets with many of the Non Satellite Assets remaining with the Government as part of Telstra.
Cable & Wireless, privatised after several decades of UK government ownership, took a controlling stake in Optus in 1998 (under the banner Cable & Wireless Optus) before control passed to SingTel
in 2001.
Optus was initially allowed to enter the Australian telecommunications marketplace for national long distance and international telephone calls, with other players prevented from entering the general telephone market until 1997 and 'pro-competition' mechanisms under the Trade Practices Act 1974
- such as guaranteed access to Telecom's existing infrastructure on reasonable terms - meant to ensure its viability.
Telstra
also faced competition in market niches such as long distance corporate voice and data services, with AAPT
(a spinoff of the local AAP financial data/news service) active from 1991. MCI Communications, later absorbed by WorldCom, was an early major shareholder of AAPT but departed in 1994. New Zealand's Todd Corporation
took a 24.5% stake in AAPT in 1992. In 1995 AAPT launched a mobile phone service, using Vodafone as its network supplier, acquired a 50% of Australian ISP connect.com.au Pty Ltd and bought NewsNet ITN. In the same year SingTel acquired a 24.5% shareholding in AAPT.
In 1996 AAPT bought 40% of Cellular One Communications, followed by QNET Communications. In that year it gained a carrier licence, offering long distance services to the residential market and building communications networks for the South Australian and Victorian governments. It subsequently moved to 100% of CorpTEL Communications, its AAPT Sat-Tel satellite joint venture, connect.com.au and Cellular One. US operator Primus
acquired Axicorp (rebadged as Primus Telecom) in 1997, gaining a carriers license and expanding into internet services.
AOTC was rebadged as Telstra Corporation
in 1993, trading internationally as Telstra
from that year and domestically as Telstra
from 1995. International expansion was wound back back in 1997-98. In 1996 Telstra
recorded the largest profit in Australian corporate history, some $3.8 billion and was partly privatised in November 1997 through sale by the Commonwealth of around 33.3% of its shareholding.
Australia's telecommunications market was formally opened to full competition in July 1997, with removal of restrictions on the number of licensed operators and anti-competition mechanisms (replaced by general competition law under the oversight of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
). The new regime featured a single national phone numbering scheme and any-to-any connectivity requirements, with the expectation that mobile phones, fixed-line phones and other devices would be able to communicate with each other irrespective of whether the service was provided by Telstra
or one of its competitors.
A further 16.6% was sold by the Commonwealth in September 1999; but the sale of the government's remaining 50.1% stake required legislation. In November 2006, the government sold an additional 33% stake, with the remaining 17% being placed in a Future Fund, of which the Commonwealth is the primary shareholder.
At the end of 1998 there were over 20 licensed telecommunications carriers controlling facilities in Australia, with several hundred other entities using those facilities to provide services to consumers. That number had climbed to 99 by May 2002 (with 11 licences surrendered); the Australian Communications Authority estimated that the benefits to consumers of telecommunications services from competition in 2000/1 were between $5.5 billion and $12 billion.
Some of Telstra's
overseas ventures had proved unsuccessful, with withdrawal from some South East Asian markets and major writedowns of joint venture investments such as the $2.7bn Reach
undersea cable with Hong Kong-based PCCW
.
C1 D1 and D2.
There are also a number of satellite earth stations, which provide access points into the Australian networks:
network which operated from 1999 until 28 April 2008. Next G uses the 850 MHz band, since it requires fewer base stations to provide coverage, providing a lower capital cost. This network was implemented under contract by Ericsson
as part of a project internally dubbed "Jersey" and launched on 6 October 2006. HSPA technology was included in the network to provide Australia's first wide area wireless broadband network.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, involving the availability and use of electronic devices and services, such as the telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
, television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
or computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
, for the purpose of communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
.
Early
Postmaster-General's Department
The Postmaster-General's Department was created at Federation in 1901 to control all postal services within Australia. Its minister was the Postmaster-General. In mid-1975 it was disaggregated into the Australian Telecommunications Commission and the Australian Postal Commission...
that managed all domestic telephone, telegraph and postal services. With 16,000 staff (and assets of over £6 million) it accounted for 90% of the new federal bureaucracy. That figure climbed to over 120,000 staff (around 50% of the federal bureaucracy) by the late sixties.
Public phones
Payphone
A payphone or pay phone is a public telephone, often located in a phone booth or a privacy hood, with pre-payment by inserting money , a credit or debit card, or a telephone card....
were available in a handful of post offices and otherwise restricted to major businesses, government agencies, institutions and wealthier residences. Eight million telegrams were sent that year over 43,000 miles of line.
There were around 33,000 phones across Australia, with 7,502 telephone subscribers in inner Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and 4,800 in the Melbourne central business district. A trunk line between Melbourne (headquarters of the PMG Department) and Sydney was established in 1907, with extension to Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
in 1914, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
in 1923, Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
in 1930 and Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
in 1935.
Overseas cable links to Australia remained in private hands, reflecting the realities of imperial politics, demands on the new government's resources, and perceptions of its responsibilities. The PMG department became responsible for some international shortwave services - particularly from the 1920s - and for a new Coastal Radio Service in 1911, with the first of a network of stations operational in February 1912. Australia and New Zealand had ratified the 1906 Berlin Radio-telegraph Convention in 1907.
During the 1930s the PMG became responsible for the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC).
Background to the service:
- Australia's first telephone service (connecting the MelbourneMelbourneMelbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and South MelbourneSouth Melbourne, VictoriaSouth Melbourne is an inner city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2 km south from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the Cities of Port Phillip and Melbourne...
offices of Robinson Brothers) was launched in 1879. The private Melbourne Telephone Exchange CompanyMelbourne Telephone Exchange CompanyThe Melbourne Telephone Exchange Company operated Australia's first telephone exchange. The exchange was located at 367 Collins Street. It commenced operation in August 1880. H.B.Moore was the first manager. W.H. Masters and T.T. Draper were the owners of the company. It later became the Victorian...
opened Australia's first telephone exchange in August 1880. Around 7,757 calls were handled in 1884.
- The Australian networks were government assets operating under colonial legislation modelled on that of Britain. The UK Telegraph Act 1868Telegraph Act 1868The Telegraph Act 1868 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
for example empowered the Postmaster General to "acquire, maintain and work electric telegraphs" and foreshadowed the 1870 nationalisation of competing British telegraph companies.
- The nature of the networks meant that regulation in Australia was undemanding: network personnel were government employees or agents, legislation was enhanced on an incremental basis and restrictions could be achieved through infrastructure. All the colonies ran their telegraph networks at a deficit through investment in infrastructure and subsidisation of regional access, generally with bipartisan support.
- Government-operated post office and telegraph networks - the largest parts of the bureaucracy - were combined into a single department in each colony on the model of the UK Post Office: South Australia in 1869, Victoria in 1870, Queensland in 1880 and New South Wales in 1893.
Deregulation and the establishment of Telstra
In Australia the 1982 Davidson Enquiry regarding private sector involvement in delivery of existing/proposed telecommunications services recommended ending Telecom Australia's monopoly. In the preceding year Aussat Pty Ltd, another government agency, had been established to operate domestic satellite telecommunication and broadcasting services.In practice Aussat's charter restricted it from acting as a competitor to Telecom, including a prohibition on interconnecting public switched traffic with Telecom's network. Aussat's viability was undermined through restrictions on raising capital, of critical importance given tepid government support and increasing costs. It wasn't until 1985 that Australia's first geostationary communications satellite was operational; by late 1990 it had debts of about $400 million.
The Australian Telecommunications Commission was restructured as the Australian Telecommunications Corporation, trading as Telecom Australia, in 1989. That year saw the last domestic telegram handled by Telecom, with responsibility for telegram operations handed over to Australia Post.
Proposals for a merger of Aussat and OTC (thereby permitting national delivery of telecommunication services in competition with Telecom) were rejected in favor of disposal of the satellite operator to a non-government entity that would be allowed to compete with Telecom.
Immediately following the decision that Optus Communications - a private sector entity owned by a consortium that included BellSouth
BellSouth
BellSouth Corporation is an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after the U.S...
- would be given Australia's second general carrier licence purchased the Satellite assets with many of the Non Satellite Assets remaining with the Government as part of Telstra.
Cable & Wireless, privatised after several decades of UK government ownership, took a controlling stake in Optus in 1998 (under the banner Cable & Wireless Optus) before control passed to SingTel
Singapore Telecommunications
Singapore Telecommunications Limited , commonly abbreviated as SingTel, is a Singaporean telecommunications company, with a combined mobile subscriber base of 416 million customers from its own operations and regional associates in 25 countries at end of June 2011 increased by 19 percent from a...
in 2001.
Optus was initially allowed to enter the Australian telecommunications marketplace for national long distance and international telephone calls, with other players prevented from entering the general telephone market until 1997 and 'pro-competition' mechanisms under the Trade Practices Act 1974
Trade Practices Act 1974
The Competition and Consumer Act 2010 is an act of the Parliament of Australia. On 1 January 2011 the Trade Practices Act 1974 was renamed the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. The act provides for protection of consumers and prevents some restrictive trade practices of companies. It is the key...
- such as guaranteed access to Telecom's existing infrastructure on reasonable terms - meant to ensure its viability.
Telstra
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
also faced competition in market niches such as long distance corporate voice and data services, with AAPT
AAPT
AAPT is Australia's third largest land line telecommunications company and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telecom New Zealand. The company is a member of the Infrastructure Assurance Advisory Group for the Critical Infrastructure Protection branch of the Attorney-General's...
(a spinoff of the local AAP financial data/news service) active from 1991. MCI Communications, later absorbed by WorldCom, was an early major shareholder of AAPT but departed in 1994. New Zealand's Todd Corporation
Todd Corporation Ltd
Todd Corporation is a New Zealand company owned and controlled by the Todd family and based in Wellington. The corporation is controlled by John D. Todd its chairman who according to Forbes Magazine is New Zealand's first billion dollar company. John D...
took a 24.5% stake in AAPT in 1992. In 1995 AAPT launched a mobile phone service, using Vodafone as its network supplier, acquired a 50% of Australian ISP connect.com.au Pty Ltd and bought NewsNet ITN. In the same year SingTel acquired a 24.5% shareholding in AAPT.
In 1996 AAPT bought 40% of Cellular One Communications, followed by QNET Communications. In that year it gained a carrier licence, offering long distance services to the residential market and building communications networks for the South Australian and Victorian governments. It subsequently moved to 100% of CorpTEL Communications, its AAPT Sat-Tel satellite joint venture, connect.com.au and Cellular One. US operator Primus
Primus Telecom
Primus Telecommunications Group, Incorporated is an integrated facilities-based telecommunications services provider offering international and domestic voice, voice-over-Internet protocol , Internet, wireless, data and hosting services to business and residential retail customers and other...
acquired Axicorp (rebadged as Primus Telecom) in 1997, gaining a carriers license and expanding into internet services.
AOTC was rebadged as Telstra Corporation
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
in 1993, trading internationally as Telstra
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
from that year and domestically as Telstra
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
from 1995. International expansion was wound back back in 1997-98. In 1996 Telstra
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
recorded the largest profit in Australian corporate history, some $3.8 billion and was partly privatised in November 1997 through sale by the Commonwealth of around 33.3% of its shareholding.
Australia's telecommunications market was formally opened to full competition in July 1997, with removal of restrictions on the number of licensed operators and anti-competition mechanisms (replaced by general competition law under the oversight of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is an independent authority of the Australia government. It was established in 1995 with the amalgamation of the Australian Trade Practices Commission and the Prices Surveillance Authority to administer the Trade Practices Act 1974...
). The new regime featured a single national phone numbering scheme and any-to-any connectivity requirements, with the expectation that mobile phones, fixed-line phones and other devices would be able to communicate with each other irrespective of whether the service was provided by Telstra
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
or one of its competitors.
A further 16.6% was sold by the Commonwealth in September 1999; but the sale of the government's remaining 50.1% stake required legislation. In November 2006, the government sold an additional 33% stake, with the remaining 17% being placed in a Future Fund, of which the Commonwealth is the primary shareholder.
At the end of 1998 there were over 20 licensed telecommunications carriers controlling facilities in Australia, with several hundred other entities using those facilities to provide services to consumers. That number had climbed to 99 by May 2002 (with 11 licences surrendered); the Australian Communications Authority estimated that the benefits to consumers of telecommunications services from competition in 2000/1 were between $5.5 billion and $12 billion.
Some of Telstra's
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
overseas ventures had proved unsuccessful, with withdrawal from some South East Asian markets and major writedowns of joint venture investments such as the $2.7bn Reach
Reach Global Services
Reach Global Services Ltd. is a subsidiary of Telstra International. Reach, headquartered in Hong Kong, has interests in more than 40 submarine cables and international satellite systems, mainly servicing the Asia Pacific area...
undersea cable with Hong Kong-based PCCW
PCCW
PCCW Limited is the holding company of HKT Group Holdings Limited, Hong Kong's premier telecommunications provider in the Information and Communications Technologies industry. PCCW also holds a majority interest in Pacific Century Premium Developments Limited...
.
Satellites
Satellites are used to provide telecommunications services in very remote areas. These are primarily the Optus satellitesOptus fleet of satellites
This is a list of the satellites operated by Optus, an Australian telecommunications company. The satellite communications facility is located at Belrose on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.-A-Class:*Satellite Type: Hughes HS-376...
C1 D1 and D2.
There are also a number of satellite earth stations, which provide access points into the Australian networks:
- IntelsatIntelsatIntelsat, Ltd. is a communications satellite services provider.Originally formed as International Telecommunications Satellite Organization , it was—from 1964 to 2001—an intergovernmental consortium owning and managing a constellation of communications satellites providing international broadcast...
has 10 earth stations, 4 on the Indian OceanIndian OceanThe Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
and 6 on the Pacific OceanPacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
. - InmarsatInmarsatInmarsat plc is a British satellite telecommunications company, offering global, mobile services. It provides telephony and data services to users worldwide, via portable or mobile terminals which communicate to ground stations through eleven geostationary telecommunications satellites...
has 2 earth stations, which serve the Indian and Pacific Ocean regions. - SingTel Optus Earth StationsOptus fleet of satellitesThis is a list of the satellites operated by Optus, an Australian telecommunications company. The satellite communications facility is located at Belrose on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.-A-Class:*Satellite Type: Hughes HS-376...
has several earth stations located in the major cities.
Submarine cables
Australia is linked to the world by several fibre-optic cables:- Southern Cross CableSouthern Cross CableThe Southern Cross Cable, operated by Bermuda company Southern Cross Cables Limited, is a trans-Pacific network of telecommunications cables commissioned in 2000....
s to New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, HawaiiHawaiiHawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
and the US mainland with a capacity of 620Gbit/s, with planned upgrade in Q2 2012.
- Southern Cross CableSouthern Cross CableThe Southern Cross Cable, operated by Bermuda company Southern Cross Cables Limited, is a trans-Pacific network of telecommunications cables commissioned in 2000....
s to FijiFijiFiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
, Hawaii and the US mainland with a capacity of 620Gbit/s, with planned upgrade in the Q2 2012.
- Australia-Japan CableAustralia-Japan CableThe Australia–Japan Cable, or AJC, is a 12,700km submarine telecommunications cable system linking Australia and Japan via Guam that became operational in 2001. It had an original design capacity of 640 Gbit/s, but was initially equipped to utilise only 80 Gbit/s of this capacity. In April 2008 a...
to GuamGuamGuam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
and JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Primarily used as an alternative path to the United States with a capacity of 320Gbit/s.
- Sea-Me-We3SEA-ME-WE 3 (cable system)SEA-ME-WE 3 or South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3 is an optical submarine telecommunications cable linking those regions and is the longest in the world, completed in late 2000. It is operated by India's Tata Communications and 92 other investors from the telecom industry...
to IndonesiaIndonesiaIndonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
and onto Asia, Middle East, the United States and other destinations with a capacity of 40Gbit/s.
- APNG2APNG-2 (cable system)The APNG-2 submarine communications cable is being constructed to link Papua New Guinea directly to Australia and indirectly to New Zealand and the rest of the world, and has been in service from late 2006....
(previously part of Pac Rim West) to Papua New GuineaPapua New GuineaPapua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
with a capacity of 2x565Mbit/s.
- JasarausJASURAUS (cable system)Jasuraus is a 5 Gbit/s, 2800km optical submarine telecommunications cable connecting Jakarta in Indonesia to Port Hedland In Australia. The name was derived from a concatenation of the original planned sites of 'Jakarta' - 'Surabaya' - 'Australia'...
(linking to APCNAPCN (cable system)APCN or Asia-Pacific Cable Network is a submarine telecommunications cable system linking nine Asian countries.It has landing points in:*Petchaburi, Thailand*Mersing, Malaysia*Changi, Singapore*Ancol, Indonesia*Lantau, Hong Kong...
Asia Pacific) to IndonesiaIndonesiaIndonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
with a capacity of 5Gbit/s.
- Gondwana-1Gondwana-1Gondwana-1 is a submarine communications cable network connecting New Caledonia and Australia brought into service in mid 2008.The cable landing points are:*Narrabeen beach, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
to New CaledoniaNew CaledoniaNew Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
.
- TASMAN-2 to New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
.
- PPC-1Pipe Pacific CablePIPE Pacific Cable is a submarine cable laid by PIPE Networks between Guam and Australia.The cable is approximately 6900 km long, and runs from Cromer, Australia, to Piti, Guam....
(a joint venture of PIPE NetworksPIPE NetworksPIPE Networks is an Australian company, based in Brisbane, Queensland, primarily involved in setting up peering exchanges. PIPE itself stands for "Public Internet Peering Exchange"...
and Videsh Sanchar Nigam) to GuamGuamGuam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
with lit capacity of 80Gbit/s, and potential capacity of 2.56Tbit/s.
- Telstra Endeavour to Hawaii with a capacity of 320Gbit/s.
Next G
Next G was built to replace Telstra's CDMAIS-95
Interim Standard 95 is the first CDMA-based digital cellular standard by Qualcomm. The brand name for IS-95 is cdmaOne. IS-95 is also known as TIA-EIA-95....
network which operated from 1999 until 28 April 2008. Next G uses the 850 MHz band, since it requires fewer base stations to provide coverage, providing a lower capital cost. This network was implemented under contract by Ericsson
Ericsson
Ericsson , one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks...
as part of a project internally dubbed "Jersey" and launched on 6 October 2006. HSPA technology was included in the network to provide Australia's first wide area wireless broadband network.