Telstra Launched Connected Home Services in Australia

Telstra is in the process of upgrading its infrastructure to introduce Australians to next generation connected home services.  As connected home services begin to take shape in the country Telstra wants to be the key provider of these services.  Telstra is proposing a host of services such as content streaming from ABC’s iView catch up TV and AFL Live, home monitoring, gaming and in home support.

Telstra said the recent upgrade to their HFC cable network will provide better download performance, with speed of up to 100Mbps.  They also plan to roll out ADSL2+ to some 2000 Australian street cabinets. A lot will be invested in educating customer and it own staff to the connected home concept and it possibilities.

To make it easier for its customers Telstra is putting a team of Telstra Plus support personal together to support networking devices such as printers, game consoles and T-Box.  Also in development are software tools that will help its Bigpond customers to quickly identify and fix common home networking issues.

Telstra said during this year its customers will see and expansion in its BigPond Movies services. Also in the pipeline is the introduction of ABC’s iView catch up TV service to complement existing services such as FOXTEL on T-Box and AFL Live.

To show their comment to the new services Telstra is investing in the creation of a new test lab in Melbourne - with prototype kitchen, bedroom and other areas of the real home. The lab will be a test bed for new networking systems and emerging services.