Au Fibre Optic 2001

1. 1987 Telstra completes Fibre Optic cable Sydney - Melbourne, in 1990 Sydney - Brisbane, having 1,000 times the bandwidth of copper, able to travel 100 times the distance.
2. 1992 Optus opens its Sydney office, offering cheaper prices on Telstra's 1G mobile phone network - AMPS - transmitting via Telstra's one thousand or so mobile towers. Optus constructs its first 2G GSM digital tower in Sydney alongside Telstra, now having an auto-encryption service. GSM networking opens in 1993, with Vodafone building its first tower later that year. However, having a lower transmission distance, 35km compared to AMPS at 70km, there was fairly low takeup until 1996-1997.
3. 1993 Optus constructs fibre-optic cable Sydney - Melbourne, and in 1994 Sydney - Brisbane.
4. 1995 Foxtel, a partnership between News Limited and Telstra, opens TV cable network in Sydney Brisbane and Melbourne via mostly underground cable.
   Optus TV opened its rival TV network one month earlier, via mostly overground cable.
   Telstra Bigpond purchases AARNet Australia's Academic and Research Network based at Melbourne University, who since 1989 oversaw the Internet in Australia, including its .au domain. Oversight of Australia's .au domain administration passed to auDA, a Commonwealth department, in 1999.
5. 2001 Telstra's fibre optic cable reaches 140,000 kms around Australia, Optus reaches 8,600 kms.
6. 2002 Nextgen built its Melbourne - Sydney and Melbourne - Adelaide fibre optic link, and in 2003 extended to Perth and Brisbane. In 2016, Nextgen became part of Vocus, that included Dodo and iPrimus.
7. 2007 PowerTel merged into AAPT at a time when AAPT belonged to Telecom New Zealand.
   PowerTel had started in 1998, building fibre optic cable Brisbane - Melbourne with two shareholders
   (1) Williams Communications a subsidiary of the U.S.-based Williams Companies and (2) Downtown Utilities - a consortium of three major electricity distribution companies Energy Australia, Citipower and Energex.
   • In 2013 AAPT was sold to TPG.
   • In 2020 Vodafone also merged with TPG.
   • In 2025 TPG sold its AAPT / PowerTel business and government infrastructure to Vocus.

   Click here for further background.

8. 2025 NBN, National Broadband Network, formed in 2007 nationalizing fixed line cable to Australia's 10 million or so households via their POI Point of Interconnect, based in the old Telstra Exchanges, with each customer appointing an RSP Retail Service Provider for backhaul. In 2025 about 80% of Australia's households have signed up, with the network carrying more than 80% of Australia's download data.

** End of Page

Go Top