[LINK] The PLAN, and broadband speeds?

[rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au]

Serious questions deserve serious answers, so...
> BUT if Jamie Packer wants to buy an outback property and run a fibre 
> link to it -- and PAY for that -- he should be allowed, right? 
...Yep. Now; if a theoretical Extremely Rich Person wants to build it 
and gets the relevant council approvals to do so (ie, for the 
constructions), he can do so. And it happens (occasionally) but usually 
the owners are companies linking offices.
> Or if xx telco can see a way to make a buck out of running fibre off a 
> backbone to a cluster with microwave line of sight to get to the town, 
> they should be allowed, right? 
Yes ... actually, that's a nice idea from a technical sense, it's just 
the cost of construction that kills it. People like to rattle off "fibre 
is cheap to construct" when they're looking in cities, and if you can 
safely assume that there is duct access.

But if you're talking about digging a new long-distance trench, start at 
thousands per kilometre. Put rock in the way, and make it thousands per 
*metre* for rock-drilling (a company who does this for a living told me 
the drill bits cost $5,000 each, are not insurable, and regularly break).
> At one time, the educational institution I worked for in metro Phoenix 
> was the largest 'phone company' in the state because of the microwave 
> system we owned. Yes, we licensed the frequencies, but we owned the 
> gear, bypassing all but the need for a few trunk lines to make 
> outgoing calles. Ran highspeed (at that time) data and video across it 
> as well. Saved heaps of money, too, merely from replacing the leased 
> data/voice lines which were often only needed for internal communication.
>
> Is any of that possible in Australia or is it so tightly regulated 
> that we're stuck in quagmires of "plans" that never see the light of 
> day? Isn't that the area of competition that we should be looking at?
It's all possible and happens. I would cite AARNET as a considerable 
carrier in its own right.

It isn't so expensive to "be a carrier" if you are, say, Broken Hill 
City Council. The problem is that if you want to go away from Broken 
Hill you need someone to carry the traffic. That means millions for a 
fibre build to get somewhere useful (say, Adelaide), or pay for backhaul.

Competitive backhaul is almost non-existent west of the Great Divide. 
Where there's only a couple of long-haul providers, it's expensive. You 
need to be somewhere that (say) Telstra, Optus, Nextgen and Powertel 
*all* have fibre to get a decent price.

Regulation doesn't prevent initiatives beyond the sandstone curtain; 
lack of competition and the high cost of reach (relative to subscriber 
numbers) is the problem.

RC
>
> Jan
>
>
> Jan Whitaker
> JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
> jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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