[AusNOG] AAB Statement

[James Spenceley]

On 02/09/2010, at 3:40 PM, Andrew Oskam wrote:

> Speeds at say...1Gbps is neither available nor affordable to the average citizen much less most small businesses so they really don't know what they can have and what it can do for them until they have it.
> 

I think the thing to remember is that the Internet is one very large network, by trying to jump forward a number investment cycles and give everyone 1Gbps you are likely to give them a pretty crappy service :-) compared to the service expectation you are setting.

Think about how often you download a file and it comes in much slower than your line rate DSL ... will having 1gbps fix this ?  How often do you get a torrent at full line rate ?

Even the singapore FTTH model, that has been held up as the mantle of what we are trying to achieve has a 100-200mbps line rate but a limit of 15mbps of International capacity (and International is much cheaper in .sg than here). Do we want that solution ?

The problem is, this network, this NBN, hasn't solved enough problems. Yes we'll all get 1gbps from the house to the POI but in most cases the cost of the backhaul will artificially limit this to the speeds of today's DSL.

Not letting the market and the Internet evolve at its own pace will most likely result in a lot of broken dreams ("hey i have 1gbps how come it is the same as my old DSL and cost twice as much and I'm not creating any new apps and increase GDP and reducing the amount I use my car") and a real possible white elephant.

Look at the difference in pricing between FTTH in Singapore and DSL in Singapore 

Entry level FTTH is $85 [15Mbps International]
Entry level DSL is $31 [6Mbps International]

Now that is in a country that is significantly more densely populated (and cheaper) to do FTTH. Have we come up with a magic bullet that lets us do it cheaper but over a land mass 13,000 times larger for a population 5 times greater ? Even Singapore hasn't tried to do 93% of the population and it is 581 sq kms.

Just saying we should get past the I want 1Gbps so go spend $43b NOW, and actually think about the best possible way to answer the largest number of problems so that the service people get. is cost effective (so my mum can buy it), performs the best it can, and is commercially sustainable. 

--
James


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