Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 09 September 2008 16:57
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
Which is exactly what we need in Australia: better informed debate before we commit to either a Telstra-owned network that will inevitably increase Telstra's market power, or a Terria Network that will be heavily dependent on access to Telstra infrastructure which will not be granted lightly, to put it mildly.
The BSG report presents the results of Analysys Mason's quantification of the deployment costs for three different types of fibre-based infrastructure and technology that can be used to deliver the next generation of broadband services in the UK:
FTTC/VDSL Fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) using very high bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL) - basically the model for Australia's NBN;
FTTH/GPON Fibre to the home (FTTH) using a Gigabit passive optical network (GPON) involves laying fibre-optic cables directly to the customer premises. Each fibre is theoretically capable of providing up to 2.5Gbit/s of download bandwidth to the customer premises. However, this bandwidth is typically shared between more than one customer.
FTTH/PTP Fibre to the home can also be deployed using point-to-point (PTP) fibre connections. By using this technology each customer premises has a dedicated fibre that using current technology is capable of supporting symmetric connections of up to 1Gbps.
British Telecom has already announced plans to rollout FTTC/VDSL and FTTH/GPON, but the mix is likely to heavily dominated by FTTCVDSL.
In his foreword, Meek says: "The report provides a detailed analysis of the deployment costs involved in deploying fixed-line infrastructure to provide next-generation broadband services in the UK. It is based on realistic assumptions that are detailed, clear and transparent and has been modelled on geographical data specific to the UK. The research has been informed and validated by the key commercial players, including network operators, technology vendors, deployment specialists and other industry experts. We believe it is the most comprehensive published assessment of how much fibre deployment might cost in the UK." Which is just the sort of exercise that should have been undertaken here before we embarked on the NBN exercise.
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