dinsdale said..
All this talk of "light speed" Tx is irrelevant. For a start electricity travels at near warp through copper. It's what happens at each end that counts. Dedicated Cu systems have been doing Gbit speeds for years. It's pretty much the standard for ethernet right now. Whilst I agree completely that fibre will be a better system, the question is, "How much better?" The cost will be several times more than Cu, and we already know that a sizable percentage of of the population won't see more than a tiny part of the benefit. Many won't be on fibre anyhow, but on terrestrial wireless or satellite, and don't try to tell me that either of those are satisfactory. I live in rural WA where I can't get any wired internet at all. Terrestrial wireless and satellite are absolutely hopeless - I've been there and done that!! At the mo I'm on 3g internet. How many of you spend $60.00/month for 8Gig download limit and think it's great, simply because it works?
Infrastructure like this will always be expensive in Oz because of the distances involved for a very limited user/tax base. It's all very well waxing and fawning over what places like Sth Korea have, but anyone could afford it with that population density. It's high time we learnt to live within our means.
I think I am with dinsdale on this one.
Do we really need fibre to every home, right now, whether the home will use it or not, at the public expense.
It seems a great idea, I just query the 'every home' bit.
Every exchange yes, every hosptial yes, everybody who wants it, OK. Everybody, ? not so sure.
I am not suggesting fibre to every node, that just seems stoopid, I am just suggesting an upgrade to fibre when it makes commercial sense to that particular property.
As for the roads and bridges analogy I see it more like :
do we need a decent road network everywhere : yes
do we need a dual lane highway from Sydney to Brisbane : yes
do we need an upgrade to the highway running into the Fremantle freight terminal : yes
do we need a dual lane highway to everybodies front door, whether they have a car or not : ? yes, but not for $36 billion of public money
do we need the sydney harbour bridge : yes
do we need a six lane single span iconic bridge over every watercourse on the Gibb River Road, the Canning Stock Route and every back road west of Nimbin : yes, but not for $36 billion of public money
Fibre anywhere it makes sense, not fibre everywhere at any cents
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