Telstra's first foray into fibre to the customer

Stuart Corner
Monday, 10 March 2008 08:37

Opinion and Analysis

Blount confirmed plans to serve metropolitan areas by fibre up to remote integrated multiplexors to be supplied by Alcatel Australia, but added: "if anything else was said about taking fibre all the way to the home I haven't seen it...Don't write that we're putting fibre to the home. That's not true. We're not going to do it and there's never been any plans to do it. I don't care what you've read there have never been any plans to my knowledge to do it. Nobody has ever spent any money saying we're going to put fibre to the home."
 
Well that was pretty definite and a Telecom corporate affairs staffer later suggested that the division responsible for LaserLink had "oversold" the concept of fibre to the home. Not so: the original press release announcing LaserLink described it a "the name for all (Telecom's) activities involved in providing optical fibre capabilities to the business and home." And John McCarter, manager customer access network planning in Telecom's Commercial and Consumer Division, was quoted saying: "The challenge of the 90s is to move the potential of optical fibre right to customers' premises."

Blount, however was having none of this, saying: "We'll do whatever it takes to get broadband to the home. Whichever way is the most economic and provides service quality. The most economical right now is co-ax."

And I observed, presciently as it turned out: "It would now appear that Telecom's intent, at least in the next few years, is to extend broadband communications to domestic customers on co-axial and not fibre cable."

One reading of all this is that Telecom did plan to take fibre further into the customer network as far back as 1992, but realised that it would need to partner with others to fund the project. Then along comes the new CEO battle-hardened from seeing the once mighty monopoly that was AT&T broken up and restricted to only certain markets by regulation and decides that, on his watch, Telecom Australia will go down the same path no further than it absolutely has to.

Not much has changed. If only structural separation had been pursued more vigorously in those early days of deregulation...