Why is broadband so damn expensive?
Australian users have to absorb the cost of building cross-pacific pipelines like the Southern Cross Cable (http://www.southerncrosscables.com/), which is in itself over 30 thousand kilometres of multi-core fibre optic cable. Even after the pipeline is built, Australian companies have to pay American networks for the ability to “plug in” to the internet. Dial-up internet can be more costly than you think. You could be paying anywhere between 20 cents to one dollar per day in phone calls (that’s between $6 and $30 per month), not to mention the cost of line rental for a second phone line, something that most regular internet users need when using dial-up.