Apr 8, 2009 11:54 AM | 1 Comment

Labor’s plan to build a government-controlled fibre to the home network is the best broadband news we’ve had for some time. But questions still remain, including what Telstra’s response will be to being cut off at the knees.

Very pleasantly surprised, I must say, at the Government's fibre-to-the-home plan, since this was the first time I’d seen an Australian government do something really forward thinking when it came to technology. No more stop-gap fibre-to-the-node measures or jury rigging telephone copper to squeeze a little more life out of it – we’re going to take the full leap to the next generation.

Along with that leap, I’d expect to see an explosion in local content services designed to take advantage of the massive bandwidth available to fibre subscribers, as well as a boom for VoIP services.

Of course, plenty of questions still remain about the new network. We know it’s being rolled out in Tasmania starting this year, thanks to the Tasmanian Government’s readiness to do so (it was one of the bidders for the NBN tender), but when will the rest of us get it? At the moment, we only have a vague completion timeline of 7-8 years.

And how much international backhaul is being built along with the network? If we’re going to have 100 megabits to the home, we’re going want to see a significant improvement in the quality of our international links. Local quota-free peering options should at least be available to encourage us to cut down on international bandwidth usage (sadly, I can’t see anybody introducing all-you-can-eat broadband, especially at this speed.)

Also, how much is it going to cost the consumer? Around $80 per month for broadband seems sustainable, especially considering most of us are probably paying close to that now when you factor in both broadband charges and phone line rental costs.

This ABC news story quotes several analysts as saying the price of the network will be unsustainable for consumers, since (as one source notes), people are accustomed to paying between $35-$45 for broadband – but I have to disagree. When you factor in line rental charges, most of us are probably paying considerably more than that, and $80 doesn’t seem unreasonable. Much more than that, however, and there will be problems.

Finally, what happens to Telstra now? Once the fibre network is in place, the existing copper network effectively becomes obsolete, even for fixed-line phone services.

I’d expect that Telstra will have to offer significant discounts on wholesale and retail services using the copper network to keep it viable, while at the same time focussing on improving its hybrid fibre-coax network to make it a reasonable competitor to the fibre network.

Of course, for broadband customers this is all good news – even if we decide not to go with fibre, we can expect costs to go down once there is a real wholesale competitor to Telstra around.

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mainframe May 27, 2009 8:33 PM

Great story, have a look at internode website. Some great prices for FTHH. In Queensland new development housing projects are coming with FTTH included in the price of the house or townhouse. Prices start from 50 bucks to 200 bucks give or take depending on "your need for speed". So, i think this will keep all parties happy.