[AusNOG] VDSL2, was Re: 4G advances

[Mark Newton]

On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 02:52:06AM +0000, Mark Delany wrote:

 > Buying a VDSL-ready module in advance of a possible Telstra deployment
 > has almost nothing to do with the cost of rolling out VDSL across
 > Australia. The modules are the easy bit and available at incremental
 > cost. This is nothing more than buying a lottery ticket in whatever
 > Telstra happens to decide at the time.

WTF? If you're buying DSLAMs, what difference does Telstra make?

While you're talking about the VDSL modules being the easy bit, 
consider that the hard bit was already done to support the ADSL 
rollout the same carriers were doing:  Fibre backhaul, POP builds,
TEBA builds, contracts and agreements, etc.  Once those bits are
done, whether or not a copper pair terminates on an ADSL2+ port
or a VDSL port is largely an issue for software.

 > To compare apples with apples, you need to argue that the last-mile
 > deployment of VDSL was at the forefront of ISP investment plans in
 > 2006/2007.

VDSL was barely a twinkle in ACIF's eye in 2006/2007.

ISPs in 2006/2007 were buying contemporary technology, just like they
were in 2001 and just like they are in 2012.  Some time between 2001
and 2008 it became essentially impossible to buy DSLAMs that didn't
support ADSL2+, so 2+ became the standard.  Over the last couple
of years it's become increasingly easy to find DSLAMs that support
VDSL *and* the other standards at the same price as the DSLAMs that
support the other standards without VDSL, so if anyone was building
or expanding new deployments now that's what they'd be installing
(even if they aren't allowed to turn on the VDSL features)

But it isn't happening because nobody is installing anymore.  
Whatever broadband options you have at your house now are all you'll
have until the day NBNCo rolls past, because nobody is building or 
expanding any alternative options like they were during the last
decade.

 > The point being that most ISPs never were and never will be investing
 > in the last-mile which is 90% of what this NBN/VDSL discussion is all
 > about. So I'm at a lost to understand the claim that last-mile changes
 > caused by the NBN became a Damocles sword over ISP investments.

It's not just about last mile, it's about the access networks.

Investment plans in access networks were iced when the NBN was
announced, and haven't recovered since.

I think we're talking at cross purposes.

  - mark