Friday, June 22, 2007

Broadband: 98 or 99

With an election due before the end of the year.

The government & opposition have unveiled their positions on broadband roll out.

The opposition wants to roll fibre to the node (phone exchanges) generally and to use public monies to do to. This would give high speed broadband to 98% of the population, they say.

The government policy is to roll fibre to the node in the five biggest state capitals (Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney). It would mix systems & technologies* to roll out some kind of higher speed broadband to rural areas. The total coverage would be 99% of the population. This would be funded by a mix of public & private monies. The government says it would be cheap for the public purse and be delivered earlier.

The opposition says the government’s proposal would introduce two tied broadband. One speed for the biggest cities, another speed for the rest.

How do I see this? Well let me explain my outlook. I’m in Canberra (the national capital), a city of about 300,000. A major city, but not one of the big five. My parents & brother farm, so definitely are rural. Australia's mobile coverage is 97% of the population. This is a mix of GSM and (soon to be replaced) CDMA technologies. At 97%, they don’t have mobile coverage.

So are they in the 98th percentile and get coverage either way? Are they in the 99th percentile and get coverage only in the government plan? Or maybe the 100% percentile and won’t get coverage either way?

I think we need to mandate a minimum service level for 100% coverage.

Ultimately, we need to ensure that that last percentile can get some kind of useable service.

After all, haven’t people been saying we, as a nation, should be trying to encourage people out of the state capitals and north to where the water is. It should also be noted that one of Australia’s most disadvantage groups, its indigenous people would be over represented this last percentile.

The government option looks better to me. Its got greater coverage, sooner and you can always roll fibre out to more nodes later.


Gnoll110

* I assume non satellite ones.

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Saturday, June 09, 2007

Broadband: Advance Australia where?

Over on Doc Searls Weblog, there is a post about the current level of Broadband penetration in the US. The original reporting is from DSLreport.com, under the title U.S. Drops Further In Global Broadband Rankings. Currently the US is 15 of the 30 OECD countries. Both Doc Searls and the Kevin Barron say 15th is a sad state of affairs.

So where does Australia sit on the rankings? After a little digging at the OECD site, I found this December 2006 reporting. Australia sits at 16th, just behind the US.

So, what are John Howard and Kevin Rudd doing about it.

Kevin Rudd wants the rob some money from the future retirement funds of some Australians. Is Kevin going to make the commitment to keep the money rolling for ongoing improvement of this broadband infrastructure?

John Howard wants private money to do the Broadband job. The problem with publicly listed private money is that it's looking to short term returns, and won't do the whole job. It will cherry pick the metro areas and bugger the rest. John needs to set (and enforce) a high broadband bar for both Telstra and G9.


Gnoll110

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