[LINK] Telstra ultimatum on fibre

[Chris Maltby]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 10:58:57AM +1000, Stewart Fist wrote:
> I think your friend is right about being able to share the use of dark
> fibres with no real problems (although spare fibres are there for a reason
> generally), but the nodes are different
> 
> They require racks, cards, electronics and electricity.

That was my understanding too - but apparently these devices are now not
much bigger than a paperback novel. Presumbably the main reason for the
dark glass is that it costs almost nothing to install extra and it may
be useful for later expansion - but my understanding is that the usable
bandwidth per fibre keeps getting better so the need for additional fibres
to meet growth in demand diminishes.

> The casual remark that "node boxes could be made a little bigger" begs the
> question as to who would want to make them bigger, and who would pay for
> them to be made bigger.

Those words were my addition - the report I heard was that there is room
within the proposed Telstra nodes for additional mux cards. But these things
would be made/supplied in sufficient quantity to allow minor specification
changes for little or no cost - much less than the cost of a duplicate FTTN
network.

> And when something went wrong, who would be responsible for fixing the
> problem.  Would each carrier have his own power supply, power feed, rack,
> etc. Would each system of electronics be entirely isolated from the others?

Good question. How does it work in existing exchanges?

> The only system that makes any sense at all -- and this has now been
> apparent for twenty years or more -- is for there to be structural
> separation between the cables/nodes and the services.
> 
>  Anything less than this will just leave a legacy of future problems until
> structural separation is finally achieved at much greater social and
> financial cost than making the changes today.
> 
> It seems to me that there are two ways we can achieve this, if the federal
> government (of either colour) isn't prepared to bite the bullet.
> 
> Either the State of the Local governments can take control of the ducting
> and introduce their own fibre -- or Telstra will divest itself of the
> infrastructure as an independent company, which will then be strictly
> regulated to produce reasonable profits (as happened in the USA) and with
> total prohibition on it providing competitive services.
> 
> Any attempt to just share ducting, fibres, nodes, exchanges, etc. just
> delays the onset of problems.

I couldn't agree more - but we seem to have a habit in this country of
avoiding the obvious solution when it cuts across the plans of powerful
vested interests. Those interests influence both major parties when in
government.

> The idea of two groups, each building their own network, just duplicates the
> problems -- in what is a small-population country which can't afford this
> double cost (which, on past experience we know will surely happen), or the
> potential for dual standards.

Absolutely, but the same logic applied when the HFC pay TV networks were rolled
out, and look what happened then. Why should we be more hopeful that common
sense will prevail this time? Maybe I'm just cynical...

Chris