Internode wins ATUG award for rural WiMAX rollout
This week, at the annual ATUG (Australian Telecommunications User Group) awards ceremony in Sydney, Internode got the gong for the Best Regional Communications Solution. The ATUG Excellence Award recognised Internode's outstanding achievements in innovation and services to end users through its deployment of Australia's first region-wide, wireless broadband service using the WiMAX standard.
Internode started construction of its high-speed wireless network in 2005, establishing a series of towers along the "spine" of the Yorke Peninsula, a largely rural area west of Adelaide. This provided line-of-sight connectivity to coastal communities that were too far from telephone exchanges to use ADSL-based broadband services, for the same price as customers who live in metropolitan areas.
Internode managing director Simon Hackett said Internode was honoured to receive an award that recognised the company's leadership role in Australian technology. "Internode aims to be at the forefront of innovation," he said.
"This first WiMAX deployment shows the way for the OPEL consortium's network by demonstrating that it can succeed in the real world as long as licensed spectrum is used."
Internode is currently evaluating the potential of replicating the successful Yorke Peninsula network to the Coorong, where it has an extensive network based on earlier wireless broadband technology.
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