Will The NBN's 12Mbps be enough? Not nearly, say some

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 22 July 2008 10:10

Opinion and Analysis

He added: "NSN is expected delays in GPON deployments due to three factors: operators balking at the cost of fibre rollouts; questions regarding just how much more bandwidth GPON will provide versus substantially cheaper and technically more mature DSL-based FTTx architectures; and lack of regulatory clarity, particularly regarding local loop unbundling regulations in Europe, which adds to operators' FTTx investment risks. It expects this situation to persist until at least 2011 at which point NGOA technologies based on different network architectures will support more financially viable FTTH networks."

Ovum analysts Lynn Hutcheson and Dana Cooperson spoke to Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) about its decision and were not overly impressed, saying: "We think NSN's FTTH strategy is risky. NSN's GPON pessimism is unwarranted given competitive pressures pushing operators to extend fibre to the premise to support higher-bandwidth services.

"Second, catching the next FTTH wave is unlikely to be as easy as NSN hopes. Even if deployments are delayed from our (more conservative than some) projections, GPON vendors will have an advantage in future FTTH deployments: competitive advantage will accrue from crucial matters of field experience, including techniques for decreasing installation and maintenance costs."

It's in this highly uncertain and extremely complex environment that the Rudd Government is trying, hastily to make a decision that will be fundamental to Australia's economic future and to the lives of all its citizens. And most of its energy seems to be focussed not on what should be the optimal solution but on just getting a solution, and as quickly as possible.