Telstra brings 30Mbps HFC to more cities

Telstra has almost doubled the theoretical speeds on its hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC) cable network in a clutch of cities around Australia, pushing the network from 17Mbps to 30Mbps — despite the fact that it will stop using the network to provide broadband services as the National Broadband Network is constructed.

The company had already offered 30Mbps cable speeds in Sydney, but yesterday revealed the faster speeds had additionally come to Adelaide, the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Perth. Melbourne already has 100Mbps speeds in a Telstra trial, but the telco will not be extending the 100Mbps speeds around the country.

To access the faster speeds, which Telstra is dubbing "BigPond Elite Cable", customers merely need to reboot their broadband modem.

"BigPond Elite Cable speeds mean customers can now download a full length movie [850MB] from BigPond Movies in less than 10 minutes and a 100MB file in under a minute," said Telstra Country Wide area general manager for Brisbane, Anton Jones. "Super-fast cable speeds are also perfect for the new Telstra T-Box, delivering quicker movie downloads and online streaming of BigPond TV and video-on-demand content."

The news comes as Telstra several weeks ago inked a deal with the builder and operator of the National Broadband Network that will see the telco eventually stop providing broadband over the HFC network as customers are migrated onto the fibre NBN.

However, that migration is not slated to take place until several years time — even as much as half a decade or more in some areas — meaning that Australian ISPs are still investing in legacy copper and hybrid fibre-coaxial cable networks.