[LINK] Considering Fibre to the Home

[Matthew Sullivan]

Adrian Chadd wrote:
> FTTH can be useful for a variety of services. Those include, but not limited to:
>
> * multimedia access (think traditional TV, IPTV, subscription TV,
>   collaborative type projects, etc.) and this is where the money's probably
>   going to be made
> * general internet access, and this is where people tend to complain..
>
> Now, I keep seeing FTTH! FTTH! pop up in relation to internet access but
> people go very quiet when I ask what infrastructure will be in place to
> provide connectivity from the FTTH network to the general "internet".
> Will the networks be engineered to handle the ghastly proportion of IP
> traffic (think P2P, regardless of legitimacy) or .. heck, will we just
> be in the same position at the moment where international bandwidth costs
> three figures a megabit?
>   

Well part of that problem is peering arrangements.  Originally Australia 
only housed people wanting to get "stuff" from the USA which left us 
with very little in the way of a bargaining chip for peering..  Now, 
apparently, we have something they want in the USA and therefore we have 
a significantly larger bargaining chip when it comes to peering in the 
USA... Perhaps we should look at what we have to offer the world a 
little closer, and develop (where needed) what we are offering and then 
renegotiate the peers, then all we will have to do is pay for our half 
of the fibre regardless of bandwidth.

> (Not saying having the infrastructure to the home wouldn't be nice - god
> I'd love it - but I'd really like to see something sustainable, and not
> the current Australian yo-yo between "unlimited!" and "oh crap, unlimited
> isn't what we _MEANT_..")
>   

That's only because it costs to much to be unlimited...  More incoming 
(download) traffic than upload and peering points start leaning on you 
for more transit charges, you get the balance right and you can go 
unlimited.  Google is a classic example.. people want to peer with 
Google to get their content, that leaves Google in a strong position to 
negotiate terms.. (Just as the USA did with Australia in the '90s).. 
provide more services and content that people want, and you are in a 
stronger position to negotiate terms.. ie if all you have is home users, 
who wants to allow you transit for free?

> In summary, I think part of a FTTH buildout should really involve investigating
> ways to keep content local, or we'll have a mightily fast pipe to home
> with a 10 gigabyte cap on it - and at that stage I'll stick to ADSL2, thanks.
>   
I'd be happy with a fiber to home and my current 5G cap it would beat my 
8M ADSL1 connection hands down.... and whilst living in London I very 
nearly spent the 17,000 ukp/yr on a 155M fibre to the home, in fact I 
would have done if it wasn't for the 30,000ukp installation charge they 
wanted... that would have bought a 3 bed house in my home town...!


... on the same subject, I was under the impression that Canberra 
actually had some FTTH in the recent past... If I remember the details 
the ISP providing it went bust because the cost was too high... was this 
right or wrong?  Is the fibre still there or has it been taken for 
something else?

Regards,

Mat