Do we even need a fibre National Broadband Network?

Here is an interesting article that has picked up 485 reader responses already:

Do we even need a fibre National Broadband Network? ===================================================

The following post is by Sean Kaye, a senior Australian IT executive. It first appeared on his personal blog, Sean on IT, and is re-published here with his permission. Kaye also blogs at Startups Down Under.

opinion As someone who is very pro-technology and likes to be on the cutting edge, I find myself staring at many of my colleagues and acquaintances in the industry with disbelief when the topic of the National Broadband Network comes up. People I know (and some who just email or tweet me) ask if I?ve bumped my head and forgotten what I do for a living. It even has had me re-thinking my views, but ultimately I keep coming to the same place.

Here?s what I think ?

First of all, $43 billion is a ridiculous sum of money to spend on anything. It is even crazier when the country finds itself coming off a $22 billion surplus and staring down the barrel of $100 billion of debt. I don?t think this is at all right now about need, but is entirely about our ability to cover the cost of such a thing.

The full story and responses at the following URL:

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Cheers Don...

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Don McKenzie

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Reply to
Don McKenzie
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Wireless LTE 100Mbps and up to 1Gbps coming out mid next year

LTE - Long Term Evolution LTE does a min of 100Mbps and up to 1Gbps.

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I do wonder if this NBN is a big mistake. And how much of Australia will be covered. How come they are able to install this in smaller towns. Cities all ready have fibre.

Reply to
Rob

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The ideal thing is fibre distribution and copper or wirelss last mile ,it means very little additional construction need be done

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Reply to
atec77

Rob wrote

already:

We have however spent that sort of money on other things like say hospitals.

surplus and staring down the barrel of

We could however spend part of what was raised by flogging off Telstra on the NBN.

ability to cover the cost of such a

Its perfectly possible to pay for it using part of what was raised by flogging off Telstra on the NBN.

Corse that may be better spent on other stuff like say hospitals etc.

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The significant difference is that it isnt shared with other users with FTTP.

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More likely its not that big a mistake.

Thats already been specified.

Because its just a matter of running the fibre down the streets.

So do all the smaller towns, almost all the phone exchanges and RIMs etc are connected by fibre now.

There isnt that much fibre directly to the individual houses tho.

Reply to
Rod Speed

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Do you want to give a cite for that 1gig wireless connection?

Reply to
keithr

His job category and position doesn't automatically make his assessment correct other than in his own mind and in the minds of those who concur with the point of view.

While the figure could be reduced through greater efficiency, sourcing more practically and not paying those like the CEO of the NBN such exorbitant sums of money, nonetheless it could have been argued by the citizens or any section of the community that the money spent at the time on the electrical network, the telecommunications network and the transportation systems around the nation should have been spent on something else and that Australia should do without them.

Fortunately for us, it did not work out that way. Imagine if it had, we would be still sending letters to each other by horse or horse and carriage, we would be doing things by candlelight and heaven knows what else we would have to put up with. Progress is sometimes financially costly, but the practical benefits and economic benefits can be huge if properly enacted.

Reply to
Arm's Length

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I think covers it.

Cheers Don...

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Don McKenzie

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Don McKenzie

keithr wrote

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Reply to
Rod Speed

Arm's Length wrote

already:

Yes, but we arent talking about whether to have any broadband at all, we are talking about whether FTTP when we already have very decent broadband available to most who want it.

That claim is completely silly. We arent discussing whether to have broadband or not, we are discussing whether to have FTTP or not.

And that cant be claimed for FTTP. The most most residential consumers might get from it is making downloading of DVDs more viable than driving to the video rental store.

You can make a better case for FTTP for business, but it makes absolutely no sense to be spending anything like $50B to provide FTTP to 97% of residential houses when they mostly have very decent broadband available if they want it.

Reply to
Rod Speed

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Maybe you can see something that I can't, this is the highest speed that I see there:-

Peak download rates of 326.4 Mbit/s for 4x4 antennas, and 172.8 Mbit/s for 2x2 antennas (utilizing 20 MHz of spectrum).

Reply to
keithr

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Peak data rate that you might get if you are standing under the antenna, and nobody else is trying to use it. Unlikely to be seen in practice.

Reply to
keithr

keithr wrote

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nobody else is trying to use it. Unlikely

We'll see...

Reply to
Rod Speed

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It's not a mistake. If Australia wants to stay in touch competitive in the world and be more productive and develop smart technologies we need to spend big to get decent infrastructure for the future and not waste money on patchjobs like the Liberals are proposing which ultimately will cost a lot more and will still find us struggling to be competitive on the global market.

Reply to
Clocky

naah, Fist ask him how high he and the other end were?

Reply to
terryc

Go on then, remember that others have used unmodified wifi routers over a distance of 125 miles, doesn't prove that its a practical disribution system though. Come to that, I took part in a experiment that tracked a

20 watt transmitter from across the other side of the solar system through the outer reaches of the sun and that was back in the 60s. That did help prove something - parts of the theory of relativity.

None of this has anything to do with providing reliable high bandwidth connections in an urban environment.

Reply to
keithr

I nominate this use as the flying car of the computer world. Backups will always max out the capacity of the system.

Reply to
terryc

: :Here is an interesting article that has picked up 485 reader responses already: : :Do we even need a fibre National Broadband Network? :=================================================== : :The following post is by Sean Kaye, a senior Australian IT executive. It first appeared on his personal blog, Sean on :IT, and is re-published here with his permission. Kaye also blogs at Startups Down Under. : :opinion As someone who is very pro-technology and likes to be on the cutting edge, I find myself staring at many of my :colleagues and acquaintances in the industry with disbelief when the topic of the National Broadband Network comes up. :People I know (and some who just email or tweet me) ask if I?ve bumped my head and forgotten what I do for a living. It :even has had me re-thinking my views, but ultimately I keep coming to the same place. : :Here?s what I think ? : :First of all, $43 billion is a ridiculous sum of money to spend on anything. It is even crazier when the country finds :itself coming off a $22 billion surplus and staring down the barrel of $100 billion of debt. I don?t think this is at :all right now about need, but is entirely about our ability to cover the cost of such a thing. : :The full story and responses at the following URL: :

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: :Cheers Don...

I haven't bothered to read al lthe various links referred to in this thread. I see it in rather simple terms as follows.

Putting fibre into every home is akin to putting a 6" diameter water main into every home. There is no way in the world a home could use the capacity of either a 6" waer pipe, and similarly so for fibre. "That's ok", you might say, "you don't need to pay for the full bandwidth capability of the fibre, just pay for what you reckon you need." Sure, but that is still like having a 6" water pipe but with a stop c*ck to regulate the amount of water you can pull out at any given rate.

There is simply no way that 99% of households can justify needing 100Mbps let alone 1Gbps. The only places which would justify fibre to the premises (dare I say for the next 10 years or so) are businesses, educational/research and the medical facilities. For the majority of households a guaranteed 20Mbps would be more than adequate and this could easily be provided using a FTTN solution which would cost around half as much as the FTTH. So, to my mind, fibre to the home is largely a waste of money. I think the best solution currently would be fibre to the node with the last 300m in copper. Perhaps later down the track FTTH would be justified and then it would be even cheaper to connect individual homes.

The problem is that both political parties who are capable of forming government have got themselves into a major bind because Telstra owns the existing copper network and neither one wants to allow Telstra to own any part of the infrastructure associated with a terestrial NBN, no matter what solution is used. A FTTN NBN would mean that Telstra's competitors would have to install their own fibre nodes (or pay Telstra to lease spare capacity on theirs), and then also rely upon Telstra copper for the last 300m, and that is a big no-no as far as they, and the libs and labor are concerned. That is the real reason we have this FTTH NBN proposal in the first place - it is pure pig-headedness on the part of the government of the day (whichever) which has put the nation where we are today with regard to a modern NBN.

It is possible that if labor gets in again and pays Telstra $11B for their ducts as they say they will, they could then change their minds and go for a FTTN solution, but somehow I can't see that happening.

Reply to
Ross Herbert

I'm friends with the guy who ran the trial which made a world record recently, 100Mbps over >70km, using Siemens Erikkson LTE equipment. Want me to ask him what conditions are required for 1Gbps?

Reply to
Clifford Heath

Sure, and even those piss-fart netbooks now have 250Gig Drives and a Lot of Notebooks now have 500Gig Drives.

It just makes good cents to have a Off-site Backup that's are so simple to implement and not reliant on their owners to do anything. The most unreliable thing in a backup system are People.

Reply to
son of a bitch

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