Ericsson announced today that Regional Internet Australia (RIA), a rapidly growing Internet Service Provider in North Queensland, has ordered a further 100,000 lines of Ericsson's EDA ADSL2+ broadband equipment. The new equipment builds on previous orders and will be used to support RIA's sales in their existing footprint of Townsville and Cairns, and to extend services throughout regional Australia.
Warren Thomson, RIA's CEO said: "It's clear that people living in regional Queensland, like most regional Australians, have been waiting for faster speeds and more affordable broadband for quite some time. Demand for our services has been extraordinary; RIA is seeing over 500 new subscriptions each week. We are using the Ericsson equipment to provide up to 80 times faster broadband Internet access than the speeds offered by the traditional carriers. Users are seeing speeds seldom experienced in regional Australia.”
He added: "Now that we have proven how strong demand is, we have decided to accelerate our build into new areas such as Mackay and Rockhampton, Gladstone, Dalby and smaller regional centres in between. We'll be announcing the availability of services in these areas soon. Also having recently successfully completed true video-on-demand trials, RIA will be fully utilizing the triple play functionality in the Ericsson product soon.”
Tony Malligeorgos, Ericsson's Director of Marketing and Business Development congratulated RIA on their success: “The latest Government figures now confirm what we have previously forecast; that broadband Internet access has overtaken dialup access in Australia. And our own experience shows that Australians are now demanding much faster services than the 1-2Mbps that previously passed as broadband."
“Speeds of 10-20Mbps allow residential and business users to take advantage of the full range of “triple play” services (Internet, video and telephony) that are now taken for granted in leading broadband countries such as Japan and South Korea,” he continued.
By supporting the very latest DSL standards, ADSL2+ and VDSL2, the EDA family of broadband equipment supports the fastest possible broadband speeds that copper can deliver. Ericsson is a major vendor of broadband equipment and networking services in Australia, and in 2005, the third-largest supplier of DSLAM's (DSL Access Multiplexers) in the world.
Ericsson is driving the adoption of full service broadband through IP and Ethernet based access solutions with more than 90 commercial contracts. Today, service providers around the world are using Ericsson’s EDA products, now in their fifth generation, to carry very-fast Internet access, IP-TV and Telephony-on-IP.
Ericsson is shaping the future of Mobile and Broadband Internet communications through its continuous technology leadership. Providing innovative solutions in more than 140 countries, Ericsson is helping to create the most powerful communication companies in the world.
Read more at http://www.ericsson.com
