[AusNOG] NBN: "i want a pony! but can I afford it"

[Matthew Moyle-Croft]

On 15/08/2010, at 9:55 PM, Grahame Lynch wrote:

> Genuine question here
>  
> If aggregation is such a possible and desirable outcome in the NBN world why isn't it happening now with Band 3 exchanges? I accept the economics of DSLAMs in band 3 are poor for individual access seekers but presumably a wholesaler who aggregated demand could make a case for Band 3 LSS deployments, especially given the complaints about TW. To the best of my knowledge the last 4,500 of 5,000 ESAs remain unsullied by competitive DSLAMs to this day....

The build cost in regional is only marginally more than metro, however, the backhaul is completely differently.   Even if you aggregated demand then you'd find a lot of the 4,5000 ESAs do not have the population to make even a high percentage of takeup viable.  (we're talking a lot of towns with 1000 or fewer people, and a lot of km between them).   

Let's face it, Telstra, even with their voice business and others still put out their hand to the government with HIBIS/ABG etc to build DSLAMs in these places.  (And overbuild where we had built DSLAMs first I might add).

At the moment a lot of us have still a fair bit of metro to build (having said that I work for a company who's been building in regional for a long time).  

>  
> Given the obvious opportunity for aggregation now and the reluctance of anyone to bite the bull by the horns, what specific drivers will encourage this to change when the implied "minimum bar" in terms of "volume"  transit and backhaul requirements in regional Australia (ie higher speeds, higher quotas) actually increase dramatically? (along with implied access cost - $25-30 NBN entry price compared with $2.50 LSS price today).
> I can't actually see where the incentive lies for a smaller carrier to stay in the market or to specifically go to regional Australia when they don't now....and I am aware of the new Nextgen cable (is that the solution???)

I think you're confusing a few concepts Graham.

The NBN Blackspots cable is definately a huge win and a good thing,    it will get backhaul to places where it just wasn't viable (eg. Darwin).

Comparing NBN to LSS is a bit of dumb thing.   NBN is going to be aggregated back to sane places and include all of the ports.   

The question with NBN is - How many POIs and where?   Then we'll see how it all works.  Until then - <shrug>.

MMC