Just wondering is broadband available in most towns in Oz or just in the cities??

Its getting better and better.

I live in a rural town and pretty much the whole place has it. We also have some good friends on a farm, about 80ks north east of Adelaide, and they have BB via satelite.

In SA (im sure all states do this too), you can get satelite BB subsidised by the gvt if you cannot get it at your local exchange. This is for country clients only i think, so if you're in a town and can't get it i think you just have to wait for it to roll out in your area.

Thanks for that

Is it similar to here in UK, as in unlimited downloads etc etc?

Or are you limited to how much data you can transfer?

you can get unlimited packages but you pay quite a lot for them. Have a look at some of the providers to get an idea.

www.bigpond.com.au and www.iprimus.com.au are two of the larger providers. There is also www.dodo.com.au

It terms of the cost and the speeds available its a good few years behind the UK.

Cool cos you can get upto 24mbps dl speeds now in OZ so in a few years dl is going to be so fast that its downloaded before you even click it.

Sorry this is wrong, only the big 'name' providers are offering bad packages still....

If you look around you will find companies offering 24,000k ADSL2+ download speeds and for not much, which is far better then any of my friends have in the UK.

www.whirlpool.net.au is a good resourse.

Correct. I have iinet 24Mb ADSL2+ (effectively get 17-18Mb) with a 40Gb limit (then shaped) for $79.99/month. It's really fast, I download a 30 minute program from UKNova in 20 minutes or less.

I am 30km's out of Perth.

Thats they way it should be, all the links on a page should be cached so as soon as you click it it appears instantly

Jeez, must have been a sleep a long while...We have been on Westnet for a while now, but looking at iinets vastly improved network with ADSL2, time to bin Westnet.

You're in Roleystone right? I'm sure the exchange there is ADSL2+ enabled like the exchange in Kalamunda. It helps the iinet are a Perth based company.

yes, have checked iinets network and it;s ADSL2 enabled at Roleystone.

It shits me that they are all doing the phone package with it though, so unless you get the phone with them you can only get 1.5mb or with Westnet they are charging an extra $10 a month if you dont