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."

Comments

Re:Telstra's back door

[marcushnk]

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

Re:It's always the same 90%

[kaos07]

Rubbish. Do a tiny bit of research. NO ONE in Australia has access to 100mbps. SOME people have cable (10mbps) and SOME people live next door to the DSLAM and get 24mbps ADSL2+. I live in the inner-city, but I'm stuck between two exchanges so I only get 8-10mbps. Me, and 90% of Australia will be getting fibre to the home and speeds of 100mbps. Unfortunately for rural folk, it's completely un-feasible to roll out fibre to every backwater town. So to make up for that, they're getting what they were promised at the last election - 12mbps.

Re:What's the point

[mjwx]

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.