[AusNOG] Long live the NBN. The NBN is dead?! [personal]

[James Andrewartha]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Sam Silvester wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Tim McCullagh <technical at halenet.com.au> wrote:
> >
> > Who would even think that the speed is going to be slowed
> 
> Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I'm not saying it would be "slowed", I'm
> saying if we're going to spend Government money to do this, what's the
> point - those kinda speeds are already available.
> 
> Actually, I've worked out what my real beef is. The "12 to 100" range
> that has been proposed is pretty much "today's standard". As Tom Sykes
> has pointed out somewhat - it's too big a gap, too inconsistent,
> meaning you can't deliver a consistent product set to the "majority".

It's not really "12 to 100" - it's 100Mbps FTTH in the cities, and 12Mbps 
wireless/satellite everywhere else.

You talk about consistency - imagine if FTTH was done privately, by 
several different companies in each state, with different technologies. 
Now each ISP has to negotiate with 10 or more wholesale providers, who 
will probably set different prices. And compete with said wholesale 
providers' retail arms.

At which point consumers in different inner-city suburbs end up paying 
different amounts for the same service, which is hardly fair given the 
last mile is a natural monopoly so there's no other option. So why not 
just get one company to run the whole thing? Do we suggest that some 
houses don't need 240V of electricity, and can get by with a 12V line? Or 
is it run past every house because it's become essential to our way of 
life?

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Matthew Zobel wrote:
> See.  that's the thing about the market, when the need arises there will be a business case to implement it.  At which point
> there are plently of people on this list who represent companies that would be more than happy to meet that need.  And in any
> case how are we supposed to know what the requirements will be in 30 years time (the investment time of the NBN)??  Maybe
> wireless will be the be all and end all becuase everyone is using tablet's and phones? Maybe not.  Maybe we'll be kicking
> ourselves because we put down the wrong type of fibre, and we're stuck paying off a useless investment that we have to
> overbuild again. Point is we just don't know.  Better to give the market the flexibility to meet those needs as/when
> required.

GPON seems like a pretty safe bet, it's being rolled out worldwide. 
Requirements in 30 years time - I think it's pretty safe to say bandwidth 
requirements aren't going down. Even if we are using tablets and phones, 
surely it's better to have a fat pipe to every house which can have its 
own internal wireless rather than having to share thousands of devices per 
phone tower.

-- 
# TRS-80              trs80(a)ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au #/ "Otherwise Bub here will do \
# UCC Wheel Member     http://trs80.ucc.asn.au/ #|  what squirrels do best     |
[ "There's nobody getting rich writing          ]|  -- Collect and hide your   |
[  software that I know of" -- Bill Gates, 1980 ]\  nuts." -- Acid Reflux #231 /