[AusNOG] AAB Statement

[Paul Brooks]

  On 2/09/2010 10:21 AM, Bevan Slattery wrote:
>
> It's actually a really good exercise in challenging perceptions with a
> basic 'belief' structure and putting forward a few suggestions at a
> sensitive time.  We wanted to put forward another viewpoint where we
> believe that the biggest telco asset in this country is the 4G spectrum
> - so let's not squander it.  We put forward a belief that we believe we
> need a 'fibre future' and Fttx is necessary.  We just put some
> qualifiers around that being it should be tested for value.

I found it really interesting that in most places in the press where this 
alternative-NBN was reported, the vast majority of the comments were in favour of the 
previous NBN.
In other articles which are pro-NBN, the vast majority of the comments underneath are 
anti-NBN. You can't win either way, the most vocal are those that disagree.


I for one think it is a really intriguing idea, very different from anything proposed 
before.

Please let me know if I've paraphrased the proposal correctly - you want to make the 
spectrum available for a reasonably-good wireless network that reaches almost 
everywhere (satellite for the rest)  - a broadband fixed wireless 
safety-net-of-last-resort - providing ubiquity, but not extremely high speed. Leave 
the commercial market to provide better connectivity and compete with this new 
wireless network however they choose - DSL, cable, higher-speed fixed and mobile 
wireless, fibre, just as happens now. And because the wireless network isn't trying to 
provide the fastest speeds, and doesn't have to serve every house but only those that 
can't get anything else, it shouldn't have the scalability problems that most 
commentators point to when comparing wireless with fibre - the end-point density in 
urban areas is actually relatively low on average, only having to serve isolated 
clusters, so you don't need too many towers.
Is this right?

Paul.