[LINK] Turnbull's NBN

[Tom Worthington]

On 10/04/13 08:41, Kim Holburn wrote:
> ... VDSL which is 55Mbps but requires cat5 or 4 copper twisted pairs
> from the node to the house... nodes every block and recable the last
> mile with copper ...

We have had FTTN in Canberra for just over a decade, with the Transact
system. If you have power poles handy, and the citizens don't mind more
overhead wires, it is reasonably easy to do. Also it works okay in new
buildings. My apartment building has a fibre optic node in the basement
and twisted pair copper to each unit:
http://www.tomw.net.au/links/20020501.html

But if you are going to the trouble of putting new cables underground,
then they might as well be fiber-optic, as most of the cost is in
digging the trenches.

If the government, whoever they are, want to save money, they could
prioritize fibre roll-out in greenfield sites and areas with no, or poor
broadband. The areas with copper phone and Pay TV cable could be left
for last, where it is working okay. This would be somewhere between the 
Government and Opposition policies: install fiber (ALP) but not in areas 
with working broadband (Liberal).


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
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