Internode gets down to business with Annex M

Internode is inviting applicants to trial its ADSL2+ Annex M broadband service that allows upstream ADSL speeds of upto 2.5 megabits per second.

Internode managing director Simon Hackett (pictured) said ADSL2+ providers currently used ADSL2+ Annex A, which was limited to an upstream speed of 1Mbps.

Annex M would "fill the gap" between consumers of the company's home packages and its SOHO and business grade packages, he said.

"We find that a lot of our customers working from home purchase the consumer package and we want to shift them something more appropriate,” said Hackett.

“The upstream package we plan to trial is designed for people with a business at home, or a SOHO or an SMB with employees that work from home and need to upload information onto a web server.”

While no packages had yet been set out for Annex M, Hackett said Internode was likely to offer the technology free of cost to users which upgraded to a business or SOHO package.

Hackett said internode had engaged Dr. Paul Brooks of Consultel (now with Layer 10 Consulting) to assist it with engaging Australian Communications Industry Forum (ACIF) to standardise the use of Annex M in Australia.

“As part of the ACIF process, Telstra engineering technicians have run extensive simulations and modelling to ensure the proposed Annex M deployment rules ensure Annex M can operate trouble-free alongside existing ADSL2+ Annex A services,” he said.

“Internode has negotiated permission to run an ACIF-supported, limited trial of the Annex M deployment and we will be the only ISP to running an Annex M technology” he said.