The availability comes some 18 months after its competitors, including iiNet and Internode, have been offering ADSL2+ speeds. Until now, Telstra's fastest DSL offering has been capped at 1.5Mbps.

Telstra's new uncapped ADSL plans can reach speeds of 8Mbps and will cover 2,400 exchanges and 91 per cent of the population. Its limited ADSL2+ offering will allow download speeds of up to 20Mbps, just shy of this technology's 24Mbps capacity.

In an Australian Stock Exchange statement, BigPond group managing director, Justin Milne, said the decision to limit exchanges to locations where competitors also offer ADSL2+ was due to "regulatory constraints".

"Cleary, this is a very defensive move by Telstra and not at all an offensive one," said Ovum research director, David Kennedy. "It's consistent with that fact that they are not looking for a fight from their ADSL2+ competitors because they are not undercutting their prices."

Kennedy said Telstra's avoidance of a price war was a wise move on its part and believed the telco would instead look to achieve growth by consolidating services through BigPond's range of deliverable content and its marketing clout.