Hutch

This is huge and extremely good news. Rudd has given the green light to a full fibre based national broadband network which will be paid for partly by the government and partly by businesses. This is amazing on many levels - not least of which is that Telstra have been completely cut out of the entire deal.

So what does this mean for you and I? Well, this network is fibre to the door - instead of getting your Internet via 20th century copper wire, you'll be able to get it via 21st century fibre optic wire which has the capacity to run at speeds thousand of times faster than current ADSL offerings. This means you will be able to dispense with current large telcos entirely if you wish. You'll be able to get your phone via VoiP and your Internet via the fibre.

90% of us will be on this new fibre network and the remainder (those in the outback or island based) will be hooked up with WiMax or satellite connections. They're starting work on the new network in Tasmania in the middle of this year and will roll out the rest of the network town by town over the next five years. The government have said they will legislate to stop Telstra, Optus or any of the other old telcos from trying to delay the network in court.

http://business.smh.com.au/business/...0407-9v8m.html

datamile

Lets hope so. Perhaps we could get some decent websites, and some price competition going.

Or is it a white elephant with currently six times more people signing up for wireless over fixed line.

Hutch

People get wireless mainly because they're forced to - they have no other option. I've got lots of customers on Telstra's NextG network who pay ludicrous sums of money for pathetic volumes of bandwidth.

Fibre to the door opens up whole new avenues of commerce - such as delivery of hi-definition video on-demand. Or true video calls. Nobody in their right mind will stick with NextG-to-the-home if they're offered access to this new network.

datamile

Oh the days of my unthrottled 350gb a month for 18 quid, amazon, home shopping, easy price compare

Hutch

lol - 350Gb - that's quite a habit.

Bix

Hutch, is it possible for Wireless to develop in such a way to compete with fibre?

5 years is a long time in the techie world.

Would hate to see every street being ripped up only to find it's pretty much redundant by the time it gets completed.

And is this fibre system also going to replace the current delivery system for tv and radio ?

dmpp

It looks good on paper but there is a lot which isn't said eg. how much will it cost to use, if everyone uses it will it be actually any faster, goverment running a large project so it will go over budget and over time, tax payer paying twice once for building it and once for usage etc...

Hutch

It could certainly get up there - WiMax, the current standard offers close to wired ethernet speeds over the air. But fibre optic wire has huge capacity - the wires under the sea that connect the Internet together are bundles of fibre optic. And wires aren't prone to the vagaries of atmospheric effects - when it rains you see a considerable reduction in wireless transmission speeds - when it hammers down you lose the signal completely - just like you do with satellite telly.

And yes - it could easily replace the current TV and radio broadcast system - although obviously not to cars! Doesn't mean it will of course - but I fully expect we'll see media companies moving to video-on-demand services once there's sufficient numbers of homes hooked up to the fibre.

Yea I suppose all that could be true. But the simple fact of the matter is that if government hadn't intervened - it would never have happened. End of. And yes - it'll be incredibly fast because it's fibre from the node to the home. And with the new trans-pacific and trans-indian fibre pipes going online there'll be plenty of outbound capacity to cope with it all.

bridie

Let's hope we get it where we are, bearing in mind we dont even have gas and the only way to watch digital TV is to have a great big giant aerial fixed to your roof

ozzieeagle

When is that Trans Pacific via Guam link happening ? I'm expecting that extra capacity to increase competition with ISP's ?

Bix

Thanks mate.

I guess we could see the next evolution in media and entertainment conglomerates encompassing all forms of delivery services.

Anyone for MGM = Media Giant Microsoft ?

Hutch

Any day now, I believe. Got an email from Internode the other day which suggested that they've also upgraded the big city nodes to cope with the extra bandwidth.

In a way it's already happened and the infrastructure's just playing catch up. I simply don't watch broadcast TV any more - it's either recorded off over the air signal (stripped of adverts and re-saved automatically), downloaded or streamed live. And I don't think I'm unique in that regard. And I manage all this off a 40Gb cap!

harrip

I'm not so sure on this particular point. I understand the Government will still be seeking investment for 49% of the cost - maybe Telstra will see fit to bid for a slice of the cake?

I also wonder if, when the Government detail all the extra jobs this will create, they have factored in the redundancies from Telstra?

sram466

Sure hope this create more n more jobs for folks in the fields of IT and Telecommunications.

Vash the Stampede

The best part of this is the demise of the Tel$tra monopoly.

Copper kept us going for more than a century; fibre will be viable for at least that long, if not longer. The timeframe (8-year rollout!!!) is unfortunate, but at least it's FTTH at a decent speed.

Of course, if the ISPs don't drop their bandwidth caps it will all be a complete waste of time. And I shudder to think what they'll be charging.