NBN was fait accompli: workgroup

To wire or not to wire, perhaps a bit of both

Fiber to the node is important for public infrastructure such as hospitals and schools to allow high density transfer of all types of digital content. This may also go a way to reducing some operating costs by using IP telephony and other associated tech.

However, I see little benefit is having fiber to the house for the general population, IMO, we would be much better served by having increased wireless coverage as personally, i spend about 50% of my time surfing the net on my mobile! While this is obviously not where most people stand at the moment, it is a sure sign of the times to come.

Whilst fiber to the home would be great for me, (i could run my own web and email servers and reduce my overheads) it is not important to everyone. Localised wireless distribution networks, i believe, would afford a far better bang for buck in an initial roll out in metropolitan areas and would be far less costly in rural communities.

I fear that the pressure being brought to bear from big telecommunication companies with regards to their ongoing and existing business models is outweighing the long term benefits of a hybrid FTTH, FTTN and Wireless infrastructure projects.

For example, it is not in Telstra's or Optus's best interest for people to start using services such as Skype for VIOP. Which is a fraction of the cost of a regular telephone.

Food for thought!

FttH essential

mobile computing is very important, but will never deliver capacity or cope with peak times. Fibre to the home is the way forward, for all countries, and the ones that get there first will lead the way, good luck Australia, well done. chris

Are you a Telstra employee ? or investor?

Telstra deserves to be hammered, as they reek of arrogance, just like yourself!

Bring on installing a new fast truly wholesale only network, and simultaneously make the Telstra monopolised copper obsolete, and get rid of all the nonsense that Telstra goes on about.

In the country where I live that is just the plan - replace copper to the home with a fibre network. Wake up Australia!

Wrong

You are wrong, Wireless internet will always have problem with density and latency. Do some reading first before you start blabbering on about future developments.

Why do we even have internet? we should just wait for teleporters and star drives...

Wireless is the Future

Wireless is the future.

The LTE roadmap will provide downloads of 100mbps within a few years. That IS big bandwidth, and it is only the beginning.

Issues of Latency and throughput will cease to be an issue as speed increases and the technology evolves.

Seriously guys, you have the same argument of those who though aviation could never possibly replace shipping as a passenger transportation medium. Or that mobile phones would never replace fixed lines. I recall many years ago that a lot of people said the internet would never catch on due to technical limitations and complexity.

The Govt should fund backhaul fibre to mobile base stations, and allow ISP's to aggregate their transmission on fibre. That would truly provide a level playing field for the carriers to provide 100mbps mobile broadband to the entire nation within 5-7 years. Much more competitive, much more suitable to the issues of population density in this country, a more future proof technology, and at a fraction of the cost to taxpayers.

These sorts of capital intensive FTTH rollouts AT BEST make sense in densely populated areas such as Korea and Western Europe. Not here.

It serves neither the commercial or technology realities of the Australian landscape.

Wireless IS the future

Just the current incarnations arn't sufficient.

To rule out wireless completely, is ridiculous.

In very innter-metro areas (and business areas), FTTN/FTTH makes perfect sense, but when we're talking about Australia's typical low-density urban sprawl and regional areas, to implement FTTH is UTTERLY F____ RIDICULOUS! Absolute waste of money.

People love mobility, and that love will only grow.

What we need is FIRRE BACK HAUL into all regional areas throughout Australia. From that, competitors can build ADSL or WiMAX POP's and we can get things moving.

Kinda like OPEL? Remember that? Other than the crappy unliscened wireless spectrum part, it was a bloody good idea. Typical of the dick heads in Labor to kill it - Now we're stuck with a farce for at least 5-10 years.

Australia has 100Mhz of 2.3Ghz WiMAX spectrum that isn't used, and a 100Mhz in the 2.5Ghz range. If the government actually bothered to use some of this spectrum, we could have more than adequate wireless coverage for everyone.

Why people bitch piss and moan about wireless, is due to the fact that the only decent wireless internet is from the 3G providers, who don't care about mobile internet (as if the performance is good, it'll merely undercut their voice revenue via VoIP etc), and in any case, don't have the CAPACITY to roll out REAL WIRELESS. Telstra, Optus, Vodafone etc.. only have about 5Mhz to play with, and in any case it's dedicated to soon-to-be-superseded 3G anyway!

3G WAS NOT DESIGNED FOR DATA

Companies already doing that.

Internode and iiNet are doing wireless hotspots already (Optus and what not have USB Wireless) - alot of companies got Wireless networks up and running now too.

We eventually will need to replace the copper network, it's unfortunate that so many people do not see that the advantages of Fibre network (apart from all being on the same network, and not connected to RIMS etc) - no private company is willing to put the dosh ($$$$) into upgrading the network, because they want something in return (special treatment etc).

We wouldn't need to do this if we had the companies working together on upgrading the copper network, but unfortunately it's all about greed and control.

The problem with Wireless it needs spectrum (especially for big bandwidth) - and we don't have much of that to spreed over the country side - thats why it won't work here in Australia.

Wireless future, Fiber now.

Some of you seem to be mistaking current wireless technologies for future wireless technologies.

The current wireless technologies wouldn't be able to handle EVERYONE using it - that kind of bandwidth (in densely populated areas) just isn't possible without putting a tower every couple hundred metres.

Forget wireless speeds, forget latency (which by the way is how long it takes for a packet to be sent and acknowledged - not how how many can be sent at once) - it's bandwidth that is needed.

You could potentially do it with thousands upon thousands of wireless base stations around the country with fiber backhaul - but then, you STILL need the fiber!

Yes, Wireless will be the way of the future - but the technology just isn't capable of what you're suggesting right now. So either we wait until it is (years + a few for it to be afforable) or we do what is guaranteed to work now (fiber) and then invest in wireless later.

The future backbone is FOC plus ancilliary wireless

Some of the posts here seem to be assuming that their present wireless Net access needs will be the same in 10-15 years.

They won't, for two reasons. In a few years time we will be routinely using big-volume apps unthought of today, and only fibre will offer the consistent and reliable capacity needed.

And if the wireless networks were to be expanded in a probably futile attempt to meet the backbone capacity then required, the resulting level of EMR emissions in urban areas would rise to an unacceptable level.