Telstra will upgrade its Melbourne hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) cable broadband network to increase speeds to 100Mbps by Christmas. The rollout is stage one of the telco giant’s plans to deploy high-speed broadband technologies into its cable system.
Work will start with the immediate installation of DOCSIS 3.0 software and related infrastructures in the city’s cable network. The upgrade will bolster download speeds for up to 1 million Melbourne homes to 100Mbps, triple the current peak speed. Telstra claimed there was potential for further upgrades to increase that speed to 200Mbps. It will invest about $300 million in the cable upgrade this calendar year.
“We are going to be transforming Telstra’s cable network into a super-fast, two-way interactive fixed and broadband network with download speeds that, I would venture to say, are among the highest in the world.” Telstra CEO, Sol Trujillo, said during a media conference.
Despite the claim that the fast downstream speed of HFC service will facilitate two-way interactive capabilities such as video conferencing, upstream speeds will remain relatively low at around 2Mbps. Telstra stated that upload speed was not a pressing issue and cited low customer demands to justify the lack of improvement.
Telstra declined to comment on upgrade schedules for the rest of Australia until the Melbourne upgrades are fully implemented. No pricing information for the new HFC service was released.
