NBN 'working' on pay-for-fibre-to-your-premises product NBN Co, the company building Australia's national broadband network, has released “broad principles” it says “will determine which access technology will be deployed to connect communities to the National Broadband Network (NBN).” For each service area NBN Co will consider whether: Existing infrastructure can be leveraged to …
@aberglas
The problem is, of course, that such offerings will only be available in certain areas anyway. The result being that if you live in one of the more economically viable areas you will have the choice of faster services but otherwise you will only get a lesser service.
. . . which is one of the problems we have now - a two (or more) tier system - and one of the problems the NBN was originally designed to rectify.
> . . . which is one of the problems we have now - a two (or more) tier system - and one of the problems the NBN was originally designed to rectify.
Labor's NBN was designed with speed tiers and Labor's estimates, as documented in each update of the NBNCo Corporate Plan, was that close to 50% on fibre would connect at 12Mbps well into the future, while only a tiny fraction (<5%) would connect at 1Gbps in 2028. To me that defines a two tier system between the poor and rich. Sadly almost 12 months after NBNCo reportedly made 1Gbps plans available to RSPs it is still not possible to order one, because it is simply not economically viable.
The reality is that direct fibre for high speed users (>100Mbps) is likely to be cheaper than Labor's NBN and RSPs (e.g. Optus) have already commented that they would spread connection fees out over a 2 year contract, so the price difference (if any) shouldn't be that high, especially when Labor predicted that 12Mbps would be adequate for half the country.
The second observation I would make is that imposing speed tiers on FTTN is likely to be more challenging because performance is more variable, so for the average person who would have connected at 12Mbps they will likely see a speed increase.
The losers are those seduced by Labor's shiny fibre who didn't realise they wouldn't be able to afford the fast speeds anyway.
If it were a mere $1000 per km, I'd hop on it, even if I had to take out a second mortgage, sell the wife, or prostitute the cats! 6km from the nearest NBN planned estate... heck, $5K/km and I would probably have a serious sit-down with the Financial Planner Who Must Be Obeyed.
But of course, we're talking about yet more options for already over-crowded cities with some of the highest real estate prices on the planet. Instead of using technology as a means to shift populations and companies into regional areas.
> Instead of using technology as a means to shift populations and companies into regional areas.
Under Labor's plan many regional areas (population < 1000) were going to have their ADSL connections ripped out and replaced by wireless. Secondly in regional areas you tend to live closer to the exchange so the distances are less and it is often easier to run fibre.
Providing reasonably priced backhaul to country towns should be a higher priority.
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