BuddeBlog

According to a study by the University of Melbourne, Australia’s Internet will be slowed down further as a result of a surge in energy consumption caused by an increase in the uptake of broadband. The study has shown that even with an expansion in the energy efficiency of electronics, the Internet’s power consumption will rise from 0.5% of today’s national electricity consumption to 1% by about 2020.

The capacity of the Internet will have to be considerably increased to support the new high-bandwidth services eg video-on-demand, social networking, web-based real-time gaming, peer-to-peer networking, video conferencing, tele-working, and outsourcing etc. Greater than ever amounts of energy will be required to power and cool high-speed broadband Internet equipment, and this will lead to an increase in energy consumption, which will place a load on the country’s power infrastructure and contribute to the production of greenhouse gases. The University’s model takes in the network infrastructure needed to supply the growing traffic volume caused by the new high-bandwidth services.

For more information see: www.ee.unimelb.edu.au/green_internet/.

See also:

• Australia – Smart Grids – The Market in 2008;
• Australia – Smart Grids – Climate Change and the Environment;
• Australia – Smart Grids and BPL.

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It looks as though Telstra customers in Australia are going to pay more for true broadband services than those serviced by other providers such as Internode and iiNet.

Obviously Telstra has a much larger network coverage than any other player in the country, and that situation is not going to change in the near future. However, these competitors, as well as other such as Optus, AAPT and Primus, are increasingly offering high-speed broadband services – often at half the price paid by Telstra customers.

Without national coverage companies such as iiNet (through Westnet) and Internode are now offering Telstra’s high-speed service (ADSL2+) to customers who are not on their network. To do this they have to buy the Telstra wholesale service, and this is often double the price of the retail service they are charging for their own service.

It will be interesting to see how long Telstra can maintain this situation, as surely their customers will eventually start complaining about it.

Also, in its response to the NBN tender proposals Telstra is still talking about very high charges going forward – not a good omen for affordable broadband under a Telstra NBN. This must be of concern to the government, which has done everything to entice Telstra to be part of the NBN.

Paul Budde

See also:

Australia – Broadband – ADSL2+ Providers;

Australia – Broadband – DSLAMs and ADSL2+;

Australia – Broadband – Network Operators and Wholesalers.

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In North America e-commerce has grown steadily over the past five years. During that period, the average rate of growth in the value of online sales has been approximately 25% per annum. During 2007 the growth rate dropped to approximately 17%, largely reflecting a slowing economy, although the growth rate still greatly outstripped GDP.

The fastest growing e-commerce sectors by mid-2008 included, for instance, video games, consoles and accessories, furniture appliances and equipment and sport and fitness. Other sectors during that period witnessed a decline in spending, such as computer software, music, movies and videos.

By 2008 the value of e-commerce sales in the US was estimated at around $130 billion. This value amounts to approximately 3.3 percent of total US retail sales, up from around 1.5% in 2003. The share of retail accounted for by e-commerce is expected to continue to grow steadily over the next 5 to 10 years. In the short to medium term however, growth of e-commerce in absolute terms will remain constrained by the global financial crisis and the US recession.

See also: USA – Internet Market – Analysis, Statistics & Forecasts.

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