For the traveler in Australia there is Internet access available in most towns, with the remote regions of the outback having less coverage. In backpacker friendly places you’ll find excellent access near or inside hostels, caravan parks & hotels. In the peak season these places are often packed, sometimes with people queueing up to get online.

The access is usually good to excellent, although in peak periods the Internet does slow down considerably. If you have to wait more than a minute for pages to load, you might want to try again during a less crowded time.

There are some Internet chains that offer deals sometimes with phone card discounts if you signup with them. Global Gossip is one such chain you’ll see around Australia. These businesses offer top notch services for all your travel needs including card readers and CD rom burning.

Wireless Internet is a sad story in Australia. Unlike the US, Europe and Canada where wireless hotspots abound, Australia has taken the opposite road and decided that all Internet access must be paid for. Oh you’ll see lots of ads for web hotspots in airports, hotels, even McDonalds all over the country. However, these require either a paid subscription or on the spot credit card payment. And the fees are very steep. In other words there’s no free Internet lunch in Australia.

If you try finding a hotspot, you’re pretty much wasting your time because most private and business wireless setups seem to lockout unknown computers, often causing a warning message to appear on the computer of the wireless owner. I’ve even been glared at by those who’ve been affected by my cruisin’ for hotspots.

I only found one free wireless spot in a restaurant, where the owner (a Dutchman) had no problem with the public accessing his node. I quickly became a regular customer of his fine establishment, saving hundreds in fees (which I ended up paying back for drinks and food).

If you’re going to be setting up a home Internet account, you can find many good deals online. You don’t need a local provider, just make sure the company you choose covers your area. Unfortunately, Australia is on a restricted bandwidth model, and all companies will cut back your speed if you exceed a certain amount of bandwidth usage in a month.

I went from a Telstra account that went from 256K to 64K after just 200 MB of download to a Curl Internet account that offered me 512K, going to 64K after 25 Gigs of download. A much better deal, for just A$35 a month. You also must pay separately for the phone line, about A$30 a month, but you get good deals on international calls (10 cents a minute to the states).

Do yourself a favor and avoid Telstra, as they were once the phone monopoly, and think that they’re doing you a favor by charging outrageous rates for everything including mobile phones.