Fibre To The Home

[JasonFlint]

If Labor are permitted to form government in Australia, they are going to roll out a National Broadband Network, which includes fibre right to the door of every home in Australia.

What can i expect from this? Before the election the quoted speed was 100Mbps, which magically rose to 1000Mbps during the election. Is this possible?

[CA3LE]

Wow, Gigabit uplink to the home!

Can you please provide a link to where you got this information?

The logistics of rolling fiber to every home in Australia would be immense.

But yes, it's definitely possible. I've even heard of 10 Gbps, 30 Gbps and 100 Gbps symmetrical fiber... not for residential obviously. Fiber has little limitation because if you hit the limitations of one strand of fiber you just need to add more strands.

Here's resource from Feb 2010 that talks about 1Gbps fiber to the home

Updated: Google yesterday announced Google Fiber, an experimental network that would connect between 50,000 and 500,000 people, or as many as 200,000 homes, to the Internet at speeds reaching 1 gigabits per second — a truly jaw-dropping and envy-inspiring rate. Being big fans of broadband, we’ve been following the race to 1 Gbps and have come up with a list of places around the world where you can get 1 Gbps connections to your home.

* Hong Kong: The Hong Kong broadband network currently offers a FTTH/FTTB 1 Gbps service for $215 a month and is available to nearly 800,000 households.

* South Korea: The Korean government has a plan to spend $25 billion that over the next five years to bring fiber-based 1 Gbps connections to each home in South Korea.

* Cologne, Germany: Netcologne, a German city carrier, is looking to launch a service that will allow consumers to buy 1 Gbps connections in the city of Cologne sometime this year. Nearly 70,000 homes in Cologne currently buy broadband from the service provider.

* Canberra, Australia: TransACT, an Australian service provider, is trailing a network with speeds of up to 1 Gbps for residential customers.

* Portugal: Portugese cable operator Zon Multimedia has announced the availability of a 1 Gbps service for home users. It costs about 250 euros ($342) a month. (via)

* Amsterdam: GlasvezelNet Amsterdam (GNA), BBNed and InterNLnet have conducted a pilot of 1Gbps symmetric fibre-optic connections. The trial was carried out in the Amsterdam districts of Osdorp, Zeeburg and Oost/Watergraafsmeer. This Open FTTH effort has been rolled out in Amsterdam and is available to about 100,000 households. Reggefiber, another Dutch carrier is going to upgrade all its networks to 1 Gbps in 2010. Reggefiber is active in > 40 cities, half a million homes passed with 320,000 homes connected, thus making it one of the largest 1 Gbps deployments anywhere.

* In the US, Rural Telephone of Lenora, KS is s currently serving approx 8,000 homes with 1Gbps to the home. Pineland Telephone of Metter, GA is in the process of replacing all of their old copper wire with fiber and currently have 4,000 homes connected to 1Gbps service. Lastly, 3 Rivers Telephone, Fairfield MT has 3,000 homes receiving 1Gbps. These three networks use gear from Occam Networks, a company I have often written about.<

* In Japan, both NTT and KDDI are offering 1 Gbps services to residential buildings.

* Thanks to our great readers, we have learned that Sweden has a 1 Gbps network which has been in place since 2007. There are several other such offerings in Scandinavia. Singapore is also building a 1 Gbps network that will be ready by 2012.

Resource: http://gigaom.com/2010/02/11/so-where-else-in-the-world-can-you-get-1-gbps-to-the-home/

..... all I know is that I would definitely find a use for that in my home

[zalternate]

And heres the Ugggg side of satellite based Internet for Australia.

Would be nice with the new high throughput satellites, but not enough people per satellite investment, for anyone but government to run the satellites according to the article. The outback is a big empty place with pockets of civilization and the new generation spot beams would have to be modified to fit the profile of Australia's needs. And carry other transmission platforms(TV, communications, etc) to make a profitable go at it.

Will satellite broadband crash?

31 Aug 2010

With rural policy now front and centre in determining the country’s political future, the most overlooked element of broadband policy – satellite broadband – needs a rethink to win the support of the three independents seeking a better deal for those in the bush. It seems that the roles of both commercial operators and government in delivering satellite broadband to remote areas still needs serious attention from both parties.

Although much of the election debate has centred around the battle between Labor’s expensive but advanced fibre offering and the Coalition’s cheaper but less ambitious approach, both parties agree that when you get to the most remote locations the only choice is satellite.

Labor’s current NBN plan is to spend around $1 billion on two satellites and 11 land-based gateways to provide a wholesale network to these locations – roughly 200,000. The service would offer rural users peak download speeds of 12Mbps and upload speeds around 3Mbps, with underlying prices comparable to what their city cousins on the NBN fibre network would pay.

The Coalition’s plan is lighter on detail, but was put forward as a “better” solution than Labor’s NBN satellite component, also offering $700 million in grants to stimulate improved satellite broadband services. But neither plan appears to deliver the best solution for those on the fringes in the long term.

Even though many existing satellites already provide coverage across Australia, to deliver the speeds promised by the NBN the satellites need to operate in a higher frequency band – known as the Ka-band.

When the NBN implementation report was released in May it raised the option of leasing commercial Ka-band capacity from a third party, but citing a lack of plans for commercial Ka-band coverage across Australia it was recommended the satellites should be built as part of the NBN – a component later revealed to be worth around $1 billion. But the commercial Ka-band satellite market is proving to be quite a dynamic industry.

Earlier this month, leading satellite operator Inmarsat announced a $US1.2bn order with Boeing for a new Ka-band system slated to provide global coverage commercially by 2014. In North America, ViaSat already provides Ka-band service to rural users in the US through its WildBlue offering and Hughes is set to commence a Ka-band HughesNet service on its new Jupiter satellite in 2012.

Over in Europe, Eutelsat is also due to start offering commercial Ka-band service to 20 countries later this year. Closer to home, Australian company NewSat – who were excluded from the recent NBN shortlist – are still planning to launch their Jabiru satellite in late 2012 to offer Ka-band capacity over Australia, Asia and the Middle East.

Even without mentioning other more speculative or unknown plans that might be in the pipeline, it’s clear that the Ka-band market is evolving commercially and should not be discounted categorically just yet. In addition, money is available for commercial operators to build and launch such systems – importantly, not using Australian taxpayers’ money.

Over half of the financing for Inmarsat’s new system is expected to come from the US Export Credit Agency, Ex-Im. The deal continues the recent trend of export credit agencies funding large slices of ambitious satellite projects (propping up their own aerospace industries in the process), with over $US3 billion of loan guarantees provided to commercial satellite operators this year alone.

With extremely favourable repayment terms and fixed rates in the 5 per cent range it’s easy to see why these operators are prepared to spend big on new systems. Hughes – which formed a new Australian subsidiary in May – recently opted for a French launch provider over an American counterpart for their Jupiter satellite due to the availability of cheap money from Coface, the French export credit agency.

Commercial satellite operators are clearly interested in new Ka-band market opportunities, and access to cheap export credit finance is helping these experienced operators to turn these plans into reality. With an up-front $1 billion investment on the table for a government owned and operated satellite network, the idea of a creative new approach utilising such conditions seems an obvious angle to explore further – and the satellite operators would be willing to talk. Beyond the question of who funds, owns and operates the satellite network, a privatisation endgame is also a dark cloud on the horizon that needs to be reconsidered.

Under the current timeline – right around the time of the planned NBN privatisation – a large satellite replacement capital cost will be looming as the first generation satellites reach the end of their useful lifetime (usually ten to fifteen years). With a likely replacement cost in the region of $600 million it would be a big immediate hurdle for any new owner of the satellite network.

Under the NBN wholesale model as it stands, it is difficult to see enough future cashflow being generated to warrant a capital cost of this magnitude on a commercial basis. Such a prospect would certainly not have commercial operators lining up for their piece of the NBN satellite pie – unless there was a significant government incentive.

From an investment perspective, the NBN satellite component in its current form could in fact look like a hole of hundreds of millions of dollars in net present value terms to any potential buyer. A privatisation scenario such as this would not provide much comfort for rural satellite users or potential purchasers.

Even with a current user base around five times of what the NBN satellite platform expects, government still plays a strong part in supporting commercial broadband satellite operators in rural America. In the last year alone, the two key US players – WildBlue and HughesNet – received around $80m of combined government grants. Even so, the commercial operators have been successfully able to fund, launch and operate these satellite networks. In Australia it’s clear that rural satellite broadband offerings need some form of government support to deliver pricing equality between city and country. What’s not clear is that committing $1bn to building a government owned and operated wholesale satellite system – with a possible privatisation exit strategy – is the best form of government support. But in the absence of a clear satellite business plan with realistic assumptions it is difficult to get a clear picture of the best way to move forward.

With experienced commercial satellite operators having proven their ability to work creatively with government in delivering rural service outside of Australia, the expansion of the commercial Ka-band market and the potential of cheap export credit financing it’s time for a serious rethink from both sides when it comes to satellite broadband. And that would please the man in the big hat and his colleagues as they ponder who to “give the gong”.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/NBN-broadband-satellite-Ka-band-pd20100830-8T4KM?OpenDocument&src=sph

Edited August 31, 2010 by zalternate

[WebUser]

Just think of the HD porn you could watch 24 hours a days, maybe even interactive

[JasonFlint]

Wow, Gigabit uplink to the home!

Can you please provide a link to where you got this information?

The logistics of rolling fiber to every home in Australia would be immense.

But yes, it's definitely possible. I've even heard of 10 Gbps, 30 Gbps and 100 Gbps symmetrical fiber... not for residential obviously. Fiber has little limitation because if you hit the limitations of one strand of fiber you just need to add more strands.

Here's resource from Feb 2010 that talks about 1Gbps fiber to the home

Resource: http://gigaom.com/2010/02/11/so-where-else-in-the-world-can-you-get-1-gbps-to-the-home/

..... all I know is that I would definitely find a use for that in my home

it was announced verbally during the election campaign, so its probably worthless. but the thought of such speeds is awesome. hopefully it goes ahead.

[CA3LE]

it was announced verbally during the election campaign, so its probably worthless. but the thought of such speeds is awesome. hopefully it goes ahead.

Yeah, allot of things are said and done during election time that never come to fruition. I live in Arizona and right now there is all kinds of stuff going on with the Mexico border... I don't think it's a coincidence that a bunch of National Guard troops were deployed to the border right before the primary. Do they think we're stupid. Funny thing is, those troops can't even make any arrests, they still have to defer to the border patrol. So basically they're doing the same exact job that the cameras and spotter planes already do. At least that's what I've taken from the whole situation. ..... Ahhhh, politics.

-D

[zalternate]

that a bunch of National Guard troops were deployed to the border ..... Ahhhh, politics.

-D

Well better the "U.S. National" guard is guarding the "U.S. National" border, rather than guarding "some other countries" National border. About 400 national guard killed in Iraq. They didn't sign up for going to war offshore. Guard the Nation for when regular soldiers have gone overseas.

No one has made the push to guard the borders by much other than drones and cameras for a long time. Hopefully it will last. Catch and detain and then tag and release back to Mexico.

Edited September 1, 2010 by zalternate

[Roco]

We got fibre to the cabinet , ( just 300 ft away) rolling out in the UK , by 2015

my old 2 mile copper phone line will see a boost no doubt , hopefully my 8 Mbps Max will be a past memory ,

8 Mbps max ? is for folk living close to the telco exchange , after overheads it comes down to 7150 Mbps at best ,

I syn at 6000 , on a line rated at 4000 , thanks to TMN knollege base, and a bit of DIY

from accoss the pond .I hit TMN speed test in 17 hops ,

11 are within the UK ,

":::.. Download Stats ..:::

Download Connection is:: 5659 Kbps about 5.7 Mbps (tested with 6152 kB)

Download Speed is:: 691 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Houston, TX USA)

Test Time:: 2010-08-31 13:08:04 GMT

Bottom Line:: 99X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 1.48 sec

Tested from a 6152 kB file and took 8.906 seconds to complete

Download Diagnosis:: Seriously? Are you kidding me?: You are running at 352% of your hosts average (as9105.com)

D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-LDTE61C8P&

User Agent:: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) [!]"

------------------------

Thanks Guys ,

Roco UK

BTW, as9105 is Tiscali Italy, a cut price org. it runs without fail for me, on ADSL ,

cost around $12 USD a month,