VoIP Over Power Line For Canberra, Australia !!!

Queanbeyan in the Australian Capital Territory is the site of the latest broadband over powerline initiative, this time bringing in VoIP service provider, Freshtel, to partner with electricity company Country Energy.
While many in the nation focus on point scoring over who will build a new national broadband network, some organisations are getting on with initiatives which could revolutionise the Australian Internet and telephony industries.

While the incumbent and its new competitors are busily trying to get their hands on as much government funding as possible and our esteemed politicians have now realised that technology, in the form of a proposed high speed broadband network is a cudgel they can use to beat on each other, the broadband overpowerline industry continues with its trials in the hope of getting commercial services running that could make much of the current debate somewhat redundant.

As a last mile network, the electricity grid is the most pervasive in the country and if viable broadband services can be combined with reliable telephony services, Telstra's Golden Egg - its aging, poorly maintained copper network - could be quickly retired.

Country Energy, which manages Australia's largest power supply network across 95 per cent of New South Wales is the latest to launch a broadband over powerline trial with an announcement that over the six months from May, 300 Queanbeyan area households will trial a services carried over their existing electricity infrastructure.

The electricity supply companies have a significant business rationale for deploying data over powerline. Not only does it hold promise as an additional source of revenue from residential broadband, but operational efficiencies from remote meter reading, diagnostics and monitoring are expected to make the additional infrastructure expense a viable proposition.

This is in stark contrast to the telecommunications industry which has some considerable difficulty in justifying a return on the deployment of high speed broadband to residential customers.

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