[LINK] fibre distance issues?

[Glen Turner]

> "The technical limitations are of course that the fibre doesn't go beyond
> 1.5 kilometres of a telephone exchange or a node."

No idea, 1.5Km is a trivial drive distance for single-mode fiber,
which usually runs into trouble around the 90Km mark.

Even using multi-drop, single-core fiber designed for
fibre-to-the-home 1.2Km is about a tenth of the range.

If I were designing a FTTN network I'd be keeping the fibre
lengths between the nodes short, but more as a economic
consideration and I'd certainly expect the occasional
long drive even in metro areas (eg, topologies like Alice
Springs, where the river bisecting the town leads to only
a few places where fibre can cross the river).

I'd suggest that the Minister may have misinterpreted
the engineer's remarks.

As for coverage, it comes down to political will and patience.
Those remote places have roads and power, so its a falsity
that infrastructure cannot be placed there.  The trick is to
do so economically -- people in those areas need to recognise
that these services took decades to arrive. Political will
is also needed to solve some political problems -- why is it
that the local council is funded to work on the road, but not
funded to install fibre whilst doing so?

Cheers, Glen