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.