Telstra turns on 30Mbps cable in Sydney, Melbourne

Telstra has upgraded its cable speeds in Sydney and Melbourne, offering users a bump to 30Mbps.

The 30Mbps upgrade will reach 1.8 million homes in the two cities, with cable customers outside Sydney and Melbourne seeing speeds increased to 17Mbps.

BigPond users already on 17Mbps will be able to access the 30Mbps service for free, after turning their modem off and on again, while those with the standard 8Mbps will have to pay AU$10 a month extra should they want the increase.

In addition, upload speeds in the 30Mbps areas will be raised to 1Mbps.

BigPond has no plans to increase cable speeds outside of Melbourne and Sydney, currently, according to a spokesperson: "We're going to monitor it and see how take-up goes in Sydney and Melbourne but we have no immediate plans".

Despite faster downlinks, BigPond users won't find themselves with a corresponding enhancement in their data caps, the spokesperson added, with the largest cap remaining at 60GB.

The speed bump comes after Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo told investors at the company's annual results day both its cable and Next G mobile network were set for faster speeds. Telstra expects its 3G network to outpace its cable counterpart by 2009, with a planned downlink of 40Mbps.