Australia To Build Fiber-To-the-Premises Network 300
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."
Filtering (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If I was cynical (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Sounds Great (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds great in theory, and I applaud the thought, but the cynic in me says "I'll believe it when I'm connected to it".
Bigger internet pipes first? (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad Australia needs a bigger pipe to the rest of the world first before this will be a decent benefit.
RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
The other 10% will get satellite or wireless support, at 12 Mbps. It's still a big improvement for many.
Fact is, it's a big country, and running FTTH to every cattle station out in woop-woop is just silly. Can't please everyone.
Re:Bigger internet pipes first? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly what I was about to say - all well and good that we can chuck bytes at each other fast, but we're constrained by the puny pipes out of the country to the US (shared with 3 million in NZ), Japan and Singapore.
OTOH, lag on Australian servers should be non-existant - that's got to be incentive to host locally. Not bad for my future employment prospects.
Obama, take note... (Score:1, Insightful)
President Obama should be looking over the shoulder of this guy and try to learn a thing or two.
I think that it is great to see a Government deciding to create an entity that delivers only "naked", "wholesale" service and then requires other entities to sell it. It opens the door in a serious way to everyone that wants to be an Internet provider or whatever.
What's really attractive about this press release is that it apperas the Government is willing to change the legislation if the incumbent telco (Telstra) attempts to use the courts to delay the deployment of the project - which of course threatens their copper network. he he.
There are soooo many things right about this... it just makes me wish I was living there when it is available!
The other guy. (Score:1, Insightful)
This is the Australian equivalent of voting for Bush, so judge accordingly.
Like the previous NBN proposal (Score:5, Insightful)
build out a fiber (or wireless) from a block-level, or even subdivision level green box to the end point. After that, allow the private enterprise to connect to the boxes and then provide various services.
Building out the last mile but not the backhaul would still entail spending 96% of the money, and wouldn't leave you with a working network. This way, the whole thing is out of the control of Telstra, so that access can be sold wholesale without any conflicts of interest. ISPs will still get to compete on price (even small ones), and the bigger ones could still replace the backhaul segment with their own connection if they felt it gave them a competitive advantage.
Re:If I was cynical (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure. Just like the present Liberal government.
Although I was one of those who helped elect Rudd, I was never under any illusions that current Labor party policy is in any way distinguishable from the Liberals'. We just needed to get rid of that vile little twerp John Howard and his posse of jackbooted fascists.
Rudd's short tenancy has been characterised by the odd ray of sunshine here and there, but for the most part he has been a sheep in sheep's clothing.
Re:Won't someone think of the tax payers!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Never believe a politician.
Three upgrades are coming (Score:5, Insightful)
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'Cept it's shared (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. But until it is slapped down definitively, Conroy is going to keep talking the thing up. Trouble is, there are still far too many nanny-state idealogues in Parliament, and I am not nearly so confident that this censorship won't be imposed. There are also too many naive twits there who fail to see the "thin end of the wedge" aspect of the thing with regard to freedom of speech.
Re:Actually that's already in the plan (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt there is a business case for private industry to buy back a $50bn investment in a fibre network. The buyers would be lucky to turn in $2bn in revenue from household and business use of the network. Much of that revenue the industry is already making via use of existing broadband technologies such as ADSL, Cable and private fibre networks. "Up to" 100Mbps internet by 2018 is not an impressive aim either. Many large businesses in Australia already have access to private 1Gbps private fibre networks within cities. Many consumers already have access to internet speeds of 20Mbps.
There is no doubt a national fibre network is a desperately needed infrastructure project for Australia. Currently it costs ~$30,000 to get a premises connected via a 200-300m fibre run to a private fibre network. If the number of houses connected to broadband is 5 million, it works out to each household costing $10,000 to connect (and the actual value is much less considering the number of businesses that would also connect, the number of new household connections, etc).
If you compare ~$30,000 vs ~$6,000 for connection to a fibre network, it really does make sense to make this a national project. Infrastructure rollout becomes dramatically cheaper when everyone is connecting at once.
I just don't see how private industry would be interested in investing their money into this network when the return on investment period is probably going to be as long as 30 years.
Another problem is Australia will turn into a Korea/Japan situation where internal bandwidth capacity within the country is impressive, but external transit to the rest of the world is still expensive/in short supply.
Re:Actually that's already in the plan (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you mean by "will"?
Internal bandwidth already outstrips international bandwidth, and the average broadband speed is 1.5 mbit/s. Australia only has 3 pipes out of the country.
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It's the 21st century equivalent of building a dam (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me, or is this quite a clever way to spend money in a recession?
Building dams and bridges is no longer work that requires thousands of relatively unskilled labourers (compared to skilled tradespeople).
You need a plan that's going to take a long time to complete, and employ a lot of people who have become recently unemployed from sectors like mining. So what do you do? Propose to dig a trench to every single house in Australia!
Brilliant!
Fiber to the premises by country (Score:2, Insightful)
great, now we can catch up with the rest of the world... in another 8 years time.
FTTH is in operation in many parts of the world, including developing countries. I think 100Mbps in a decade is an anti-climax.
See Wiki's 'Fiber to the premises by country'
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_country [wikipedia.org]
A$2,022 for every man, woman, and child? (Score:3, Insightful)
Read the Australian government announcement [dbcde.gov.au].
LOL: "... if you're in Tasmania (and who isn't?)"
Re:Who pays the ISP's bills? (Score:5, Insightful)
Errr... Look at the big picture for a while. Massive infrastructure projects helped pull a lot of countries out of the Great Depression in the 30's - except maybe Germany that spent all of their gdp on militarizing.
It's the jobs that count here. More infrastructure projects like Canberra's new terminal, rail, inland ports, schools and so on, on a State and National level is only good and probably the best strategy.
Yes, $2000/head of population is a lot of money, but Joe Blow can invest in it via bonds, get a job through it, and use it 6 years from now. It also involves every industry, from building towers, ditches, cable making, a whole pile of IT work as well as providing continued employment in many sectors for years to come.
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Re:RTFA (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A$2,022 for every man, woman, and child? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A$2,022 for every man, woman, and child? (Score:3, Insightful)