Any old Telecom blokes out there?

It would be an interesting exercise to calculate the tonnes of copper that would be returned to the pot, if the wires were to be replaced.

There is a possibility that we have exceeded "peak copper" worldwide. Who knows - that copper might make a small but useful contribution towards the cost of the new system.

- just a thought -

The article is suggesting is that we spend $20bn on wires to bring the Internet that last mile into the home. If this was an investment like building a port or a new rail line, then I would be in favour. But it isn't.

The most likely scenario is that in low density areas we won't be using wires to transport the Internet in 10 years time. Right now Telstra is trialling using its 3G network to go that last mile or two instead of installing wire in rural areas. It isn't a bad solution, as it runs as 1.6Mbps - faster than most ADSL lines, and has voice and fax as well. Anybody can right now buy from 3 a 2Gb Internet plan for $70/mo - using 3's 3G network only.

That doesn't sound like a huge threat to the wired network, but the 4G designs are already done. As 4G networks add another factor of 10 to the speed they will be in a position to replace wire for the last mile. This must be attractive to the other Telco's around - at last something to break Telstra's last mile monopoly. I bet they are itching to pour in the $billions required to do just that - and would if it weren't for the fact that 5G designs are working their way through the standardisation processes now.

To get a return on $20bn you have to recover $1000 from every man, woman and child in the country before you start to turn a profit. If you had 20 years to do that, then perhaps. In the current environment you might be lucky and get 10.

The cost of installing FttH for new developments is actually about $3-5,000 per lot for greenfield subdivision projects. FttN looks like a practical, cost-effective solution, not an unsatisfactory 'half-way house', under those circumstances.

OC16 is right of course and I believe that the advantages of high speed
internet are grossely exagerated.
Any company who needs really high speed, eg > 10 mbits can obtain it
without going near FTTN. 99.99% of users will not notice any improvement
with say 5 or 10 Mbit.
After all if you have to wait 1 Millisecond instead of 5 Milliseconds
would you notice it. About the only ones in that 99.99% of users who
might notice are the on line gamers !
Should we spend all that just to make them happy ?

Really, lets have a real value based enquiry.
Most delay in the internet will not be overcome by speeding up the
individual uses end, but the servers to which you connect at the
other end and the network in between.

Bazz, I didn't see anywhere in OC617's post that he thought there wasn't a benefit in speeding up the last mile. What he did say was that FttH is probably the best option for new estates - something I don't disagree with. I am not sure it is relevant though as I presume none of the $20bn figure mentioned was for new estates.

As for speeding up the last mile - if you want to start shipping everything across the Internet infrastructure (voice, video, www) you need a minimum of 10Mbs to the house, preferably more. Not just to houses within 1.5Km of the exchange - 10Mbs to everyone, with QoS guarantees so the real time traffic (voice and video) will work. If you get that working there is a presumption you get a lot of other new things piggybacking on top of it that will help pay for it. That seems like a big presumption to me - but its probably worth the gamble.

Yes, getting those things to work will require bigger servers and bigger pipes to them. But the cost of putting in those servers is dwarfed by the cost of getting the 10Mbps to the house in the first place. The gamble I guess is if you organise for the 10Mbps to happen then private investment will finance infrastructure need to make use of it.

OC617 did mean there was a benifit in a speed up.
Its just that I disagree that it needs to go above one or two megabits
to the average user with FTTN. It perhaps could be pushed to five
megabits but then you are up around 30 Mhz on the copper and into a real
problem area with radiation from the telephone line and interference problems.

I don't know what maximium length of copper is intended for FTTN and
I don't know what is possible, but I would have guessed at 100 metres,
perhaps 200 metres with nicely balanced lines.
With 100 metres you get about six to eight houses.
To go to 10 Mbits and above you are up around 60 Mhz and I just don't see it working at all.
I have not seen any real info on this and I must admit to being very
sceptical.

Can anyone tell me, 'Does FTTN depend on Landline Telephony?' If it does than we would be better of with VDSL.

FTTN is both possible and feasible for delivering the necessary speeds for most near future applications, such as video on demand (realise that it involves buffering), FOXTEL, voice, data etc. And yes, a highly connected society will also enable a paradigm shift in the way we socialise, entertain, work and interact with business and service industries both Locally, Nationally and Internationally. The key resource in almost all industries is their human resources/skills. A connected world enables the commoditisation of human resources/skills in the most egalitarian manner. It empowers those who are connected to achieve Worlds best practice at Worlds best price in whatever endeavours of their choosing.

FTTH will be an extension of the FTTN, but only when the economies stack up. The factors that will dictate the extension to FTTH will be costs associated with maintenance of the copper distribution network and the take up of FTTN. The reason being that the more Customers on FTTN the less capable the copper network of handling the data traffic due to transmission constraints and cross talk problems (interference from adjacent pairs in the same cable).

The FTTN needs to be built by a group that has the know how and capability. At the moment, that is Telstra. The G9 proposal is simply a ploy by the group of other Telcos led by Singtel to put a stake in the ground on an access price. I could as well put together a back of envelope proposal, with a heap of binding conditions that gaurantees the success of my proposal and eliminates any future competition. How is this any better than what Telstra is seeking, in the form of a commercial return for a risky investment, but at least allowing full access by competitors on an equal basis. If we as a Nation are to reap the benefits of a connected society then we need to get on with building this highway to prosperity sooner rather than later. Let us not make the mistake of jeopardising the future on principal alone.

Bazz, ADSL2+ achieves 20Mbps using a 2.2MHz signal over distances of 1.5km's. Speed drops down to 10Mbps at about 2.5km's. ADSL2 achieves 10Mbps at the same distance using a 1.1MHz signal, but tops out at 12Mbps. You can verify these figures on Wikipedia.

The attraction of FttN is I am guessing that most houses are within 2Km's of the node, so ADSL2 will run at 10Mbps thus making real time HDVT over IP a possibility.

My problem with the article wasn't with the suggestion of FttN. It was the suggestion that we should be doing FttH instead. I can't see how that could make economic sense.

4G, by comparison, deliverers around the same speeds as ADSL2 at the same distances. 5G will do better - not as good as FttH, but better than ADSL. Like ADSL wireless would be installed at the node, so it too requires FttN to work.

ratuart:
You said 20Mbits in 2.2Mhz, I think you mean a bandwidth of 2.2 Mhz.
ODFM I presume so how many carriers and at what frequencies ?

I was under the impression that VDSL is up at least 20 Mhz.
I'll have a look at Wikipedia although somewhere I have other info.

VDSL go to http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/vdsl.htm

Can no one tell me, do you need landline telephony for FTTN?

Bazz, you may well be right with respect to VDSL. I am not familar with it. You can find more about the modulation technique used by ADSL, G.DMT, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.DMT

southerner, I can't tell you, but I will guess. The "node" used to be wiring frame before the house, depending somewhat on which country you are in. Given all the electronics are will have stuffing into them for FttN I imagine they start looking more like a mini exchange. Under the old wiring frame definition the answer was obviously "yes" - we are talking landline only. But now they are going to have more computing power than exchanges do 10 years ago - well they could do anything really - including sticking a aerial on them.

I haven't heard that anybody is planning to do that mind you (not that I necessarily would), so it is probably reasonable to say that for now FttN implies landline. But merely putting fibre in the node changes it from a few krone blocks in the dirt to a full blown exchange. They are not even vaguely similar things. Extrapolating from what was done with the old nodes to see what will be done with the new ones simply doesn't make sense.

Given the magnitude of the changes currently happening I'd put anybody who stands on their soapbox and authoritatively says "this is how the world will be in 10 years" in the class of prophet as opposed to forecaster. In 10 years time FttN may well not imply landline.

Me thinks the Government, Telstra and the G9 Group know nothing, they have not done their homework.

How does FTTH work?
The Internet "backbone" is made up of fiber optic cables (very thin glass filaments) that have enormous bandwidth and use light pulses to carry information. Most customers, however, connect to the backbone through copper-based technologies like twisted pair and DSL or Hybrid Fiber Coax cable, which have limited bandwidth and limited capacity to carry integrated voice, video, and data services. This creates a speed and service bottleneck in the "last mile," the distance between the fiber optic backbone and customers.

Some providers are beginning to deliver integrated services over fiber optic cables that go from the Internet backbone directly to customers' homes or businesses. These cables may be buried, strung overhead or run through existing structures like sewer lines.

Providers primarily offer FTTH through two types of architectures, point-to-point and passive optical network (PON). Point-to-point requires providers to install an optical transceiver in the provider's central office for each customer. PON uses a single transceiver with a splitter to serve up to 32 businesses and residential customers who share the bandwidth. The splitter is located up to 30,000 feet from the central office, and a single strand of fiber can carry the signal another 3000 feet to the customer. Once the fiber reaches the customer's home or business, an optical electrical converter (OEC) on the side of the building converts the optical signal to an electrical signal that can interface with existing copper wiring. The current standard for PON is the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)-based ITU-T G.983.

Some providers are also using Gigabit Ethernet over fiber to provide customers with broadband access.

How fast is FTTH?
Fiber optic cables can currently carry information at speeds greater than 2.5 gigabits per second. Residential/business FTTH typically offers speeds from 10 mbps to over 100 mbps, which is a hundred times faster than most cable or DSL service and over twice as fast as a T3 connection.

The way that FTTN is used is that fibre is run from the exchange to an
area near a group of customers. A box on a pole or presumably underground
connects to the copper of the customers telephone copper line.
The much shorter distances enables the use of VDSL on the wires.
50 to 100 Bits is possible to distances of about 300 metres.

I agree with Bazz; the benefits of super high speed internet have been hyped. I didn't say (or mean to imply) in my post that FttH is the best option for new estates: it's simply too expensive for most consumers for the benefits they would get over FttN. I think that puts me on the same page as Bazz and rstuart.

A basic rule of Economics is limited resources and unlimited demand. At least in while costs are high the best services must be delivered to the places of greatest, the capital cities and major (100,00+ people plus regional centres). No commercial retailer would build a superstore in a town with 800 people. Apart from inter-city links, the best of the best needs to be provided in a concentrated to high population areas in national terms geographically small.

It is good to wait a while for the best technology of the time, but too long. as with PAL TV.

I am writing from Asia and have a 10 Mb connection. Works brialliantly [as do the trains, but that's another story].

When I hear people saying that Telstra or some other group should have the rights to develop FTTH in this country, it begs the question "How much are they paying you."

The Scandinavian approach, where all providers work together, that the service can be provided across the nation at a cost around the same as ADSL+2.

If you think that Telstra or some other group should have the sole right, than what you will find is:
1. The service will be bundled.
2. A lack of competition.
3. The unsuccessful group will create its own service. In other words we will have several providers with their own form of FTTH just as in America.
4. Because we have a small population, around 21million, than only business will take it up.

It will in fact be beyond the reach of Families.