[LINK] Telstra separation deal accepted

[Paul Brooks]

On 23/02/2012 4:50 PM, Nick Ross wrote:
> Had a great meeting with Cisco today.
>
> They reminded us that Telstra's Copper network doesn't hold any value in
> the wire - just the ducts!
"Value" depends on who is doing the valuing. The ducts are valuable to NBN Co, and all
the other carriers using duct access to run their cables up and down the streets.
The wire certainly still has value to Telstra - as a (decreasing) revenue source for
the next 10 years, and possibly as an alternate access network should the current
regime of enforced copper disconnection be overturned, or the NBN be changed to an
FTTN model on a change of government.

Its a bit premature to say the wires don't have any value currently.

>
> Oh... and also that by 2015 general society data requirements will
> obliterate the Coalition's plans for FTTN. WIthout knowing anything about
> politics or NBN strategy, the figures presented illustrated how top-quality
> coaxial could make FTTN work (until replaced by fibre) but other copper
> wasn't good enough. When asked about 4G/LTE connecting the nodes to homes
> he looked at me like I was crazy for suggesting it (that or he was annoyed
> I hadn't been listening to what he'd been saying about data requirements).

With all respect to cisco, I generally take the cisco predictions of global video
traffic growth with a large grain of salt - much like the Worldcom predictions of
Internet traffic growth in the 1990s that brought about the tech crash in the early 2000s.
they've got a fairly vested interest in encouraging people to plan and purchase for a
very high volume future.
(he's perfectly correct on the 4G/LTE thing though :-)

2015 is only 3 years away. I highly doubt general society data requirements will
exceed FTTN capacity in that timeframe - 6 -10 years maybe, but not by 2015.

I highly recommend these two articles....

Did WorldCom Puff Up the Internet Too?
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=18702

Bubbles, gullibility, and other challenges
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3142/2603



Paul.