Slashdot Mirror
Australia To Build Fiber-To-the-Premises Network
candiman writes "The Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, has just announced that none of the private sector submissions to build a National Broadband Network was up to the standard, so instead the government is going to form a private company to build a fiber to the premises network. The network will connect to 90% of premises delivering 100Mb/s. The remaining 10% will be reached with wireless and satellite delivering up to 12Mb/s. The network cost has been estimated at 43 billion AU dollars over 8 years of construction — and is expected to employ 47,000 people at peak. It will be wholesale only and completely open access. As an Australian who voted for the other guys, all I can say is, wow."
90% of premises already HAVE access to high-speed internet in the form of ADSL2+ or cable. And these are the same premises which are going to get upgraded while those with only low-speed DSL and dialup are going to be ignored again. Rage.
How did this get modded up?
For the last time, this has already been voted down in parliament once. Every new government tries something like this only to see it shot down. Labour could never hope to get this passed without the support of the Greens and they don't have the support of the Greens.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
took the Federal money that was to be used for fiber to the home, and used it for other things instead.
Now, they are complaining about Cable monopolies and the cost of taking fiber to the home, in order to combat cable.
Boo hoo. We have lots to complain about, with these cable companies. But the telcos are as guilty for creating the status quo as anyone else.
Not cynical enough good sir. The next Liberal government will just privatise the entire network just like they did to every other bit of government infrastructure to raise enough cash to give themselves a pay rise.
Actually, according to the Whirlpool homepage story they are already planning it's ultimate sale (in the not too distant future)
Ever stop to think
eh?
It's 51% taxpayer funded, 49% private investment then wholly sold off after 5years of running (Like Telstra, for a fucking huge profit).
Huge bonus' to this plan.. (stolen from the good Simon Hackett shining knight of Aussie ISP's)
Best path: FTTH (not FTTN) (Fibre To The Home/Node)
Retain ADSL2+
Abandon flawed FTTN approach
same (high) speeds for everyone
Retain copper access regime
New infrastructure in parallel
Retain competitive tension
Retain innovation
Retain competitive pricing
No overbuild protection needed
No legal battles needed
more innovation, more choice
long term consumer benefit
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Conroy and labour lost the support of Xenofon (Anti-gambling) and the Greens (anti-pollution) so unless he gets 6 Liberals to help him out this is all but buried.
To be totally honest I don't think that Conroy hasn't got much of a career left, if labour has any brains they'll drop him for the next election. The Greens and Xenofon want the public to forget that they were ever in favour of this because they need the public to vote for them as they don't have what the major parties consider safe seats.
For all the idealoges in Australian parliament there is enough people who rely on public popularity and sentiment just to stay in parliament to counter them. Conroy's getting plenty of negative press regarding the internet filter (which is why the NBN announcement came from Kevin Rudd not the Minister of Communications), although enough people see through the "think of the childern" rhetoric (the more he says child porn the less people beleive him) but that's no reason for us to let up on him.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Digging a trench is expensive.
Also our largest cattle ranch is bigger than Texas. Literally.
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
The lies and deceptions that accompanied it all were no better. For example, the prices were falling in real terms faster before privatisation than after it because most of the new exchanges had just paid for themselves. Instead of the lower effective overhead going back into the network or into customers pockets it went into shareholder's pockets. The press focused on the price reductions without referencing the falls that were already happening. Pure spin doctoring. It will come as no surprise to you to learn that the very first resellers were AAP (Australian Associated Press). In fact they used a loophole in the act to effectively resell space on their private networks before it was actually legalised.
The other thing that has occurred is a lack of routine maintenance. That is one thing that private companies rarely do but government departments always do. Speak to any tech or liney working in the field that was around in the Telecom days as well and he will tell you the same thing - things only get fixed when they break now. Now it's all about time and not about quality; get in and out as fast as possible. Private companies like going back later to fix things so they can make a buck, a public servant doesn't give a crap about the money - he just doesn't want to do go back and do more work, end of story. His boss doesn't care either, he wants good performance stats not good profit figures.
The unions told everybody these sorts of things would happen and it has all come to pass. Bowing to the great god of privatisation fills the pockets of the greedy, it does not improve the lot of the public regardless of how much the media try to spin it that way. Some things should be owned by the people (basically ALL essential services). The cables and pipes on government land in the streets should always be owned by the people. Privatise what is hooked up to them sure, but the actual infrastructure, no. Unfortunately though there is too much money spent on PR to convince the average idiot voter that he is better off if some corporation is able to suck money out of things instead of owning it himself. Apparently they prefer to swallow ads like mindless sheep than to retain the ability to hold the providers of their essential services accountable.
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
Doing it with a plough might work, but copper is a lot more robust than fibre (especially for fairly vague definitions of connection quality). Running it alongside the power lines is probably the most cost effective way to do the planning, but you still have to pay someone to go up the pole and add another one. Again, you're not saving a huge percentage by already having the poles (probably enough to pick it over trenching though). Long-haul fibre can span transoceanic distances. If you have dispersion-compensating segments you can get it up to a few hundred km without significant bandwidth loss on the to-the-home scale.