Lucent brings the Internet to the Outback Australia is a country with a land mass larger than the continental United States, but with only one-tenth the population. Obviously, this is a part of the world where communication over long distance is important. It's especially important to the South Australian Regional Development Association, Inc. (SARDA), a government funding agency that recently bought nine PortMaster 3 InterNetworking Systems Concentrators to extend local-call Internet access into geographic areas not covered by Internet service providers (ISPs). The Challenge: Too little for too much Before the Lucent PortMaster 3s were deployed, libraries and local businesses providing Internet access in the remote regions of southeastern Australia had to dial a server in Adelaide with maximum connect speeds of only 28Kbps, and connection costs for this snail speed were very high - $7 (Australian) per hour for the AUSPAC service provided by Telstra's Big Pond Internet. Compare that with the unlimited online hours most United States citizens can get for $20 a month plus line charges! The Solution: PortMaster 3 deployment In April of this year, a consortium made up of the Local Government Association of South Australia in partnership with the Public Libraries Automated Information Network and SARDA succeeded in obtaining a grant of $1,125,725 (Australian) from the Australian Commonwealth Regional Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (RTIF) to extend Internet access at local-call rates to remote communities that, until now, have not offered a sufficient revenue incentive to commercial ISPs. Through its funding capability, SARDA will provide three commercial ISPs with nine PortMaster 3s at nine different points of presence (POPs). The ISPs awarded these contracts are RBE Internet in Balaklava, Bridge Online Systems in Murray Bridge, and Southeast Online in Mount Gambler. Various local councils, public libraries, and schools have also made a significant contribution to this project by agreeing to house the POP equipment to ensure affordable Internet access for their communities. The SARDA fund will subsidize 100% of the three ISPs' operating costs for three years. After that, the three ISPs can re-negotiate their contract with SARDA. By 2001, though, it's likely the three ISPs will have generated enough revenue to finance their own operations. The Results: Much more for much less Thanks to this deployment, people living thousands of miles from any large city in Australia will have fast and easy access to email and the vast resources of the World Wide Web any time of the day or night because it will be available at their local library. The numbers already look pretty promising. Now that the three ISPs are using Lucent PortMaster 3s, their customers can dial into local POPs at much higher speeds - 64kbps ISDN or 56Kbps dial-up. And the costs have dropped from $7 to $1 per hour! "I'm excited about being able to extend the Internet to areas where ISP service has not been readily available in the past," says John Mundy, Executive Officer at SARDA. "I'm especially impressed by the features and performance of the PortMaster 3 and convinced this is the best product to deliver the best possible service."