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BigPond
Company typeSubsidiary of Telstra
IndustryTelecommunications / Media
Founded1996 as on Australia
Headquarters
Sydney, NSW
,
Australia
Key people
Greg Winn
Group Managing Director
ServicesInternet service provider
News
Email
Online Television
Number of employees
10,500 (2007)
ParentTelstra
Websitebigpond.com

BigPond is an Australian Internet service provider and is a subsidiary of Telstra. BigPond is Australia's largest ISP, and as a subsidiary of Telstra, has a majority share of internet penetration in Australia, primarily due to Telstra owning most telephone exchanges. Based in Sydney, BigPond is now a nationwide company, providing access to internet services across the country.

Internet

  • Cable - BigPond is Australia's largest provider of cable internet, which covers parts of Australia's main cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and the Gold Coast). Speeds available are 'Standard' speeds (8 Mbit/s down/128kbit/s up) and 'Extreme' speeds (30Mbit/s down/1 Mbit/s up in select areas of Sydney and Melbourne and 17Mbit/s down/256kbit/s up in all other areas).
  • ADSL - BigPond provides both ADSL and ADSL2+ services where available, with speeds ranging from 256 kbit/s down/64 kbit/s up to 20 Mbit/s down/1 Mbit/s up. The current speeds available on ADSL plans that BigPond offers are 256 kbit/s down/64 kbit/s up, 1.5 Mbit/s down/256 kbit/s up, 8 Mbit/s down/384 kbit/s up and "up to" 20 Mbit/s down/1 Mbit/s up.
  • Wireless - Through Telstra's Next G network, Bigpond provides the largest wireless network coverage in Australia, claiming to reach up to 99% of the population[1]. Download speeds range from 256 kbit/s to 3.5 Mbit/s in regional and interurban areas, and up to 7 Mbit/s in metropolitan and city areas. Currently the network has a maximum speed capability of 14.4 Mbit/s, yet user side hardware is only capable of 7.2 Mbit/s download. Users report that even 7.2Mbit/s is rare
  • Telstra Wireless 'Hot Spots' - In almost every Australian Starbucks, Novotel and Hilton hotels, and in such venues as Qantas' Airport Lounges and cafes, BigPond has activated wireless 'hot spots' that people can use if they have a BigPond account or credit card[2]. The connection fee is usually $5 per 10 minutes but prices can vary from each hot spot. Most McDonalds HotSpots are now free to access.
  • Satellite - Bigpond provides Satellite internet mainly for regional customers who are too far away from the exchange to get ADSL, and can not get Cable. Satellite comes in two forms - 1 way Satellite and 2 way Satellite. From 30 November 2008, BigPond will no longer provide 1 way Satellite[3]. Speeds on BigPond Satellite range from 256 kbit/s down/64 kbit/s up to 800 kbit/s down/128 kbit/s up. Satellite internet is comparatively expensive with other forms of internet such as ADSL or Cable, with pricing ranging from $104.95 to $499.95 per month[4]
  • Dialup - Dialup plans range from $9.95 to $25.95, with discounts for Telstra customers[5]. Over the last few years BigPond has aggressively moved customers off dialup to a broadband platform, and in 2006 its broadband customers surpassed the amount of dialup customers respectively.

Recent developments

Cable speed upgrades

On the 10th of March 2009 Telstra announced that they would be upgrading their HFC cable network to allow for peak speeds of 100Mbit/s. Melbourne is the first of five cities to receive the upgrade which is due to be completed by Christmas. The upgrade will take peak download speeds from 17 - 30Mbit/s to 100Mbit/s and will be achieved by changing to the DOCSIS 3.0 standard. [6] Telstra CEO, Sol Trujillo, said that the network will be "capable of speeds of up to 200Mbit/s" after further upgrades in the future.[7]

Services

File:BigPondWebPortal-Jul07.jpg
BigPond webportal design.

BigPond Movies
Allows Australian residents to rent DVDs online, which are then mailed to the customers house. More recently, BigPond introduced the ability to buy movies online, which can be downloaded and played on their computer for a certain amount of time (usually 48 hours). BigPond members get a discount on the price of each movie.

Customer Service

Customer Service Issues
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) reported 14,692 complainst against Telstra Bigpond for the period 1 January 2009 - 31 March 2009. [8]. This reflected 47.5% of all complaints against all internet service providers reported to the TIO in Australia in that period. Customer Service, Complaints Handling, Faults & Provision accounted for 8,103 complaints in that period.

Bigpond uses offshore call centres to provide most of their Technical Support. The Technical Support 133933 number connects through an VOIP line to support staff mostly based in The Philippines. Technical Support officers have limited ability to resolve issues and cannot refer any issue to a Complaint Handling Officer or Customer Advocate. If the support call relates to network issues the Technical Support team cannot take any action to resolve the problem - indicating they are not technical and not supportive.

Telstra Bigpond representatives have a D series number for identification - a D followed by 5 numerals. This is the only form of identification they provide.

The Pond on Second Life
Telstra BigPond owns and operates a number of virtual islands on the online game Second Life.[9] Use of the eleven BigPond islands is unmetered for Telstra BigPond customers.[10]

BigPond Games and GameArena
GameArena is the name of BigPond's free online games service, previously known as Wireplay. The service is managed by Mammoth Media and based on the east coast of Australia. Use of the file library, public servers and booking service is freely available to anyone, but provides specific advantages to Telstra customers such as preference in downloads and unmetered usage, as well as various bonuses in competitions. In order to gain access to a majority of game servers, the client The Arena, must be installed to connect through the firewall. This means that GameArena administrators can ensure troublemakers are consistently dealt with.[11]

The site provides news, downloads and servers primarily for the PC, though it has recently also branched out to include console sites. GameArena also provides an online game shop GameNow, which again sports various benefits to BigPond customers.[12] GameArena recently went through a new shift with the merging of GameNow and Gameshop into itself. The new name is simply BigPond GameArena.[13]

GameArena currently operates over 100 gaming servers, which are monitored by a volunteer force of administrators, known as GameOps. GameCreate is a service offered free of charge where users may book a server for a specific game for a 2 hour period of time. This server is private and can be used for either ladder training or social events.[14]

Bigpond Security

Bigpond Security, a BigPond-branded distribution of Authentium Security Suite[15], security suite that includes an email spam filter, email virus filter, content filter, desktop anti-virus, personal firewall, anti-spyware, anti-phishing and privacy protection. It is designed to be set and forget. The program is also unmetered for existing Bigpond customers, meaning it does not count towards their download limit when the program is downloaded or updated by the customer.

References

  1. ^ http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/networks/coverage/broadband.html Telstra Next G Coverage
  2. ^ http://www.telstra.com.au/wirelesshotspots/index.htm Telstra Wireless Hotspots
  3. ^ http://my.bigpond.com/internetplans/broadband/satellite/about/default.jsp BigPond Satelilte info
  4. ^ http://my.bigpond.com/internetplans/broadband/satellite/2_way_plans/default.jsp Satellite plans and pricing
  5. ^ http://my.bigpond.com/internetplans/dialisdn/single_user/ BigPond dialup plans information
  6. ^ http://www.nowwearetalking.com.au/news/telstra-to-build-super-fast-cable-broadband-116
  7. ^ http://www.cnet.com.au/telstra-to-upgrade-cable-broadband-network-339295362.htm Cnet Telstra Cable Upgrade
  8. ^ http://www.tio.com.au/statisticsByMember.htm
  9. ^ http://my.bigpond.com/pond/secondlife The Pond on Second Life
  10. ^ http://bigpond.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bigpond.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=12634&display=content http://bigpond.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bigpond.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=12634&display=content#5
  11. ^ http://www.gamearena.com.au/downloads/details.php/13876 GameArena COGS Page
  12. ^ http://www.itwire.com/content/view/4702/127/ ITWire article on GameNow
  13. ^ http://pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php?id=976973335 PC World GameArena article
  14. ^ http://www.gamearena.com.au/getconnected/servers/ GameArena list of servers
  15. ^ http://apcmag.com/bigpond_offers_internet_security_for_99_optus_offers_it_free.htm
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