The news comes as Labor proposes the government build a national Fibre to the Node network within five years - ensuring 98 per cent of Australians have internet access of at least 12Mbps. Should it win this year's federal election, Labor intends to contribute $4.7 billion of government money towards the project, with the private sector kicking in as much again. Around $2 billion of the government's contribution would come from the existing communications fund and the rest from the "Future Fund".

Since Labor's policy announcement, the Federal government has insisted it's very close to breaking the deadlock between Telstra and the government regulator over building a national FttN network. Telstra denies this.

Labor's 12Mbps FttN plan has been criticised as too slow, considering 91 per cent of the population could get at least 12Mbps today if Telstra enabled all of its ADSL2+ exchanges across the country. Such speeds are only just enough to support the current triple play of voice, video and data on the one connection - so shouldn't we be aiming for something a little higher in the future?

The speed bottleneck in a Fibre to the Node network is the "last mile" - in this case the copper running from the box in the street (the Node) to your home. Fibre to the Node generally means the last mile is no more than 300 metres - under such circumstances ADSL2+ should be able to deliver far more than 12Mbps. The first phase of Canberra's TransACT Fibre to the Curb network - meaning the last mile is generally less than 100 metres - used Very high Speed DSL. VDSL offers up to 52Mbps downloads or 26Mbps each way. 

Telstra's FttN proposal now includes the use of VDSL2 for the last mile, which offers speeds of up to 100Mbps. This is the kind of broadband the rest of the world is talking about and it makes Labor's proposal look pretty shabby.

While Telstra's plan sounds enticing, don't be blinded by talk of data speeds. If Telstra is allowed to build a Fibre to the Node network under the same conditions it operates under today then it might break the broadband drought in the short term but it will condemn Australia to forever be at Telstra's mercy.

The concept behind Labor's proposal is still the best for the country, but Labor needs to flesh it out and offer a significant speed boost if it wants to be a credible alternative to Telstra's plans.{moscomment}

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Adam Turner  Broadband  FTTx  Internet  Telecommunications  Telecoms regulation  Telstra