[LINK] Fibre gets nimble: small telcos weaving fiber web

[Jan Whitaker]

At 07:58 PM 9/08/2009, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>Another way of looking at it. Wikipedia lists 273 American cities with
>more than 100,000 population (in fact, all of the cities Wikipedia
>lists). We have 18.

yeah but yeah but yeah but:

There are many assumptions about Australian services that have never 
made sense to me. I grew up in rural Indiana. Not as rural as 
Oklahoma or Kansas, but still rural, on a farm. The local town was 
<500 people. We had an elementary school, post office, branch bank, 
cafe (where the teen girls got their first jobs), 2 gas stations, a 
car dealership, funeral home, and one general store.

The biggest town was Terre Haute, 55,000 people. 4 public high 
schools, 1 Catholic. 2 hospitals, 1 private, 1 Catholic. 2 local tv 
stations, 2 others on repeaters from the capital city. 1 state 
university, 2 private, 1 vo-tech. There was cable tv at least back in 
the 1970s.

Now I live in a 'city' of >250,000 people. Get the difference. 1 
public high school, several private. 2 hospitals, 1 public, 1 
private. 0 tv stations, all tv from Melbourne, and even then, only 5 
'real' free to air stations. 1 state uni, 1 multi-campus vo-tech.

So how does this work? If we could 'afford' equal amount of major 
services for 55k versus 250k, where is the rest of the funding going 
for public services here? The economies of scale must be there.

Here's a story from 2006 about Ft Wayne, Indiana and fiber to the 
home. Estimated 2008 population: 250,000. 
http://indianaparley.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html In 2006, we 
were still working to get ADSL services in some areas of Casey that 
were well-established neighbourhoods, outer metro Melbourne.

"Another way Fort Wayne officials have used partnerships and worked 
to create a globally competitive city is though the use of fiberoptic 
broadband services. Richard said the broadband services help connect 
small businesses, schools and households. He said that with the 
services, individuals are able to take college courses they may not 
have had access to previously. Richard said 87 schools and about 
110,000 households and businesses are able to use the service. "

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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