Communications Infrastructure and Services Availability in Australia 2008
©Commonwealth of Australia 2008
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Contents
Executive summary
Introduction
About this report
Information and sources
Feedback
Chapter 1: Broadband services
Digital subscriber line (DSL)
Wireless broadband
Hybrid fibre coaxial cable (HFC)
Fibre to the kerb (FTTK)
Fibre to the home (FTTH) or building
Satellite broadband
Backhaul transmission networks
International connections
Government programs and initiatives to improve broadband availability
Internet take-up
Internet use
Chapter 2: Mobile voice and data services
Mobile telecommunications infrastructure
GSM mobile networks
3G mobile networks
Government initiatives to improve mobile availability
Mobile take-up
Mobile use
Chapter 3: Fixed voice services
Fixed voice availability
Government initiatives and programs to ensure fixed voice service availability
Fixed line take-up
Appendix A:
Telecommunications network architecture
Glossary
Executivesummary
In 2008 consumers can access a broad range of communications services and benefit from increasedinfrastructure deployment.
Digital subscriber line (DSL) is the primary broadband serviceand internet service providers (ISPs) are increasingly using their own infrastructure in telephone exchange buildings to provide DSL rather than reselling wholesale DSL. Consumers are also adopting wireless broadband rapidly.
Broadband connection speeds are rising; this is predominantly the result of evolution from ADSL1 to ADSL2+ services.
Mobile services are evolving from second generation (2G) to third generation (3G) mobile; 3G offers many advanced services which are also available on broadband. The combined footprint of mobile services has not increasedbut the take-up of mobile phones increased beyond one for each person in Australia during the year.
Fixed voice remains a large part of consumers’ communications services spend. Alternatives to the standard telephone service (STS)for making fixed voice calls are slowly emerging. During the year voice over internet protocol (VoIP) has become more widely available although take-up is still relatively low. VoIP take-up has been stimulated by ISPs offering a traditional handset, a local number and other featuresin conjunction with their VoIP services.
Communications Infrastructure and Services Availability in Australia 20081
Introduction
About this report
This is the second annual joint report issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The report is issued as part of a program of cooperation to minimise overlap in industry information collection and reporting between the two agencies.
The examination of infrastructure and service take-up undertaken in this report is intended to provide an overview of communications infrastructure and service availability across Australia in residential and small business retail markets. Telecommunication pricing is examined separately in the ACCC reporting series, Telecommunications Competitive Safeguards and the Changes in the Prices Paid for Telecommunications Services.
Maps included in this report use colour to representthe availability of infrastructure and service provision. Grey-scale printing may make it difficult to accurately interpret these maps and it is recommended that this report should be printed in full colour or viewed on a computer screen.
Information and sources
Information for this report was obtained directly from major telecommunications carriers and carriage service providers (CSPs) on the service types and geographic areas served by them as part of an annual data request by ACMA (referred to as the ‘ACMA data request’ throughout the report). Carriers and CSPs were selected to participate in the data collection arrangements on the basis of providing networks supplying access to fixed voice, payphone, mobile or data services.
Other sources of data included:
- data provided by Telstra for public release in conjunction with the Telstra Customer Access Network Record Keeping and Reporting Rules 2007 (Telstra CAN RKR data);
- the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Internet Activity in Australia survey;[1]
- carrier licensing and numbering allocation information available to ACMA;
- the examination of data provided to the Audit of Telecommunications Infrastructure Assets – Record Keeping Rules 2007 and published in ACCC decisions over the year;
- reports purchased by ACMA;
- publicly available information on government funding initiatives; and
- news articles and media information about commercial initiatives, actions, network coverageand service take-up obtained from publicly available sources such as company websites and public announcements.
Feedback
ACMA and the ACCC welcome comments on aspects of the report, including the comprehensiveness of the information provided and the report’s style. ACMA and the ACCCwould also like to hear from service providers who have not been included in the reportandare willing to provide information about network coverage and availability of services for future reports.Comments about the report should be sentby email to .
Communications Infrastructure and Services Availability in Australia 20081
Chapter 1: Broadband services
Depending on their location, Australian consumers have access to a range of broadband services including,digital subscriber line (DSL), hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC), wireless broadband, fibre to the kerb (FTTK), satellite and optical fibre.This chapter discusses the availability of broadband services, the rollout of new broadband infrastructure and consumertake-up of broadband services.The chapter also examines take-up and use of internet services.
In June 2008, Australia had a total of 5.7million active broadband internet subscribers, an increase of 1.1 million over the year.[2]DSL is the most common broadbandservice (70 per cent of broadband services) followed by wireless broadband (14 per cent). The remaining16 per cent of broadband services consists of HFC, FTTK, satellite and other broadband.
DSL is offered over the copper network and is either offered by:
- the network owner as a wholesale or retail service (53 per cent of broadband services);or
- other ISPs using unbundled lines(17 per cent of broadband services).
To offer DSL over an unbundled line an ISP uses the Telstra copper plus its own infrastructure in the exchange building. An unbundled service is either an unbundled local loop service (ULLS) or a line sharing service (LSS).[3]
Broadband growth and service share by technology type are graphed in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Broadband service share and per cent of yearly increase
Source:ABS data, Telstra CAN RKR data and industry sources.
One notable feature of broadband over the year from June 2007 to June 2008 has been the composition of broadband growth:
- wireless broadband surged to make up 47 per cent of new broadband connections;[4] and
- DSL is increasingly being provided on unbundled lines. Of the 1.1 million new broadband services, 33 per cent[5] were DSL offered on unbundled lines and only 9 per cent were network owner wholesale and retail services. There were more than one million unbundled services in operation, by 30September 2008.[6]
Broadband access speeds increased during the year. Subscribers with download connections of 1.5Mbps or greater increased to 3.1 million (43 per cent of all subscribers) by June 2008from 2.5 million (36 per cent) at December2007.[7] The increase appears to have been largely driven by the evolution of DSL from ADSL1 to ADSL2+ (which offers much faster broadband speeds, particularly for customers within 1.5 km of the telephone exchange).
Digital subscriber line (DSL)
DSL continues to be the dominant broadband service (70 per cent of broadband[8]). The most common form of DSL is asynchronous DSL (ADSL) which makes use of the Telstra copper phone network. In past years, ISPs have mainly resold a wholesale DSL service from Telstra. Two alternatives, collectively known as unbundled services, have recently grown. These are line sharing service (LSS) and unbundled local loop service (ULLS). To make use of these services,access seekers (ISPs other than Telstra) use the Telstra copper line to provide DSL from their own infrastructure installed in individual telephone exchange buildings.
Take-up of unbundled services increased by 412,000 to 950,000 over the year to June2008 and had further increased to 1.04 million by 30 September 2008.[9] The growth in unbundled serviceswas mainlydriven by ULLS, as can be seen in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Take-up of unbundled services
Source: Telstra CAN RKR.
In addition to connecting new DSL customers on unbundled services, as reported in Figure 1, access seekers are also migrating DSL customers from wholesale to unbundled services.[10]Figure 3 shows that while Telstra’s retail fixed broadband line share has remained fairly constant, wholesale line share is declining as ULLS and LSS increase.
Figure 3: Fixed broadband line share[11]
The continued take-up of unbundled services is supporting facilities-based competition in exchanges. Access seekers are investing to connect their own digital subscriber line access multiplexers (DSLAMS) and multiple service access nodes (MSANs) to ULLS and LSS lines. Offering DSL on unbundled lines has allowed ISPs to supply end users with higher quality products such as ADSL2+.
The measurement usedby the ACCC to assessaccess seeker investment at exchanges is the number of DSLAM sites. Telstra provides a quarterly report to the ACCC which records the number of access seekers taking up unbundled services at each of its exchanges. This information indicates how many DSLAM sites have been taken up at each exchange.Each DSLAM site may consist of a number of DSLAMs or MSANs (as individual access seekers may install multiple DSLAMs and/or MSANS to accommodate demand) and demonstrates that the initial investment in obtaining backhaul connection to the DSLAM site, leasing floor space in the exchange building from Telstra and servicing the DSLAM site with power has been made.
Access seekers are steadily increasing their footprint of DSLAM sites by 5 per cent per quarter (an annualised rate of 23 per cent). This is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: DSLAM sites taken up by access seekers and Telstra
Source: Telstra CAN RKRand public websites.
Outside Telstra’s DSLnetwork, the most extensive rollouts of DSLAMs sites have emerged from iiNet, Optus, PowerTel, Primus and TPG.
At 30 June 2008, there were 2,757out of 5,069exchange service areas (ESAs) where DSL had been enabled (98 per cent of homes and businesses are located in these ESAs[12]). However, there are customers within these ESAs who are not able to access DSLbecause they are either:
- located too far from the exchange, the ACCC estimates that 89 per cent of homes and businesses are close enough to an exchange to obtain a DSL service;[13]
- have a technology block such as large pair gain system (LPGS)on their line; or
- are not connected to a copper phone line.
Quality of service for DSL is limited by:
- distance from the exchange—the DSL signal attenuates as it travels further from the exchange;
- line quality—some copper lines are inadequate for DSL connection;
- external interference, such as from tramlines;and/or
- asymmetry—ADSL offers much slower speeds for sending information to the internet (uploading) than for obtaining information from the internet (downloading). Upload speed is particularly important for user generated content websites such as Facebook and YouTube.
Quality of service for DSL is improved by creating smaller access networks. This reduces the length of copper between the end user and the DSLAM.
Facilities-based competition at the exchangeis concentrated in the capital cities of Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
Table 1displays the availability and number of competing DSLAM sitesat exchange locations.Access seekers are clustering in some exchanges rather than expanding into new exchanges; the number of exchanges with two DSLAM sites (Telstra plus one access seeker) has fallen over the period from January 2007 to September 2008from 163 to 148while the number with five or more has increased from 154 to 245.
Table 1: Number of DSLAM sites(including Telstra)
Number of infrastructure providers / Number of exchanges31 January 2007 / Number of exchanges
30 September 2008
NoDSLAM site / 2,638 / 2,315
OneDSLAM site / 1,973 / 2,221
TwoDSLAM site / 163 / 148
ThreeDSLAM sites / 80 / 82
FourDSLAM sites / 62 / 58
Five or more DSLAM sites / 154 / 245
Source: service provider websites, the previous report and the Telstra CAN RKR.
ESAs vary greatly in customer number, almost half the ESAs in Australia do not contain a DSLAM site but these ESAs only servetwo per cent of the population. The 521 ESAs with more than one DSLAM site are in the very heavily populated metropolitan areas (ULLS bands 1 and 2). There are 602 ESAs in ULLS bands 1 and 2 and these contain over 7 million customers (services in operation, SIOs).In November 2008 the ACCC published on its website take-up information for DSL and unbundled services as well as SIO information disaggregated by ULLS band.[14]
The distribution of ADSL enabled exchanges is mapped in Figure 6.
ADSL2+ infrastructure
At September2008, there were 1,403 exchanges enabled with ADSL2+, compared with 412 at 31January2007. ADSL2+ services are now available in nearly all metropolitan exchanges.
ADSL2+ services can provide download speeds of up to 24Mbps although speeds greater than 12Mbps are only available within 1.5 km of the exchange. Analysis conducted by the ACCC hasfound that 48 per cent of the population live within 1.5 km of an ADSL2+ enabled exchange.[15]
The distribution of ADSL2+ enabled exchanges is mapped in Figure 7.
Figure 5: Number of ADSL and ADSL2+ enabled exchanges, 23 September 2008
Source: Telstra CAN RKR and provider websites. Metro is ULLS bands 1 and 2. Non metro is ULLS bands 3 and 4.
Communications Infrastructure and Services Availability in Australia 20081
Figure 6: Availability of ADSL services, September 2008
Source: service provider websites.
Figure 7: Availability of ADSL2+ services, September 2008
Source: service provider websites.
Communications Infrastructure and Services Availability in Australia 20081
Wireless broadband
There are two platforms of wireless broadband available in 2008. The first, fixed wireless,uses an air interface as an alternative to other access media (such as copper or fibre) to connect a broadband service. The second, mobile wireless,connects broadband customers using the 3G mobile phone network. Mobile wireless is examined indetail in Chapter3 of this report.
Quality of service on both platforms of wireless broadband is limited by:
- contention—there is limited spectrum available for all users served by each radio transmitter/receiver.
- radio frequency interference—this is particularly the case when services are offered in unlicensed spectrum.
- distance—radio signals attenuate; this is particularly the case with higher frequencies.
Quality of service limitations for wireless broadband can be overcome by creating smaller access networks(or mobile cells). Smaller access networks require more base stations.
Figure 8: Fixed wireless broadband
Fixed wireless plays an important role in providing broadband in Australia. There are 225 companies providing fixed wireless broadband services in Australia, with three-quarters providing services to regional areas, the majority in Queensland.[16]
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reports that wireless broadband increased nearly 90 per cent in six months, with over 809,000 subscribers at the end of June 2008, compared with 433,000 subscribers at the end of December 2007. (The ABS includes some mobile wireless broadband where the connection is to wireless modem or laptop but excludes connection to mobile phones).[17]
The increasing growth in wireless broadband services can be seen in a services share analysis of the ABS internet activity survey data.[18]Figure 9demonstrates increasing broadband share of wireless services. The increase in wireless broadband reported by the ABS is due to:
- the upgrade of mobile networks to 3G which allow mobile wireless broadband access via mobile data cards and USB modems; as well as
- reduced prices and increased bandwidth forwireless broadband access plans.[19]
Figure 9: Broadband services share
*** Excludes mobile phone data packages.
Source: ABS[20]
Hybrid fibre coaxial cable (HFC)
Hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC, also known as cable), uses optical fibre pluscoaxial cable to provide broadband, pay television and voice services. Optical fibre forms thebackbonewithin the access network and coaxial cable runsfrom fibre nodes to customers’ premises.HFC currently available in Australiacan provide bandwidth of 30Mbps and new technology, including data over cable service interface specificationversion 3 (DOCSIS3.0),offers much higher speeds.
HFC is a contested network where a number of customers share each coaxial cable. Quality of service falls as the number of users increase. As the coaxial cable is shielded, high speed connections are possible over reasonable large access networks.