It is important to stress again that an NBN is about infrastructure – no different than electrifying or bringing clean water; it need not be complicated. Just because the government supplies electricity doesn’t mean it needs to be able to manufacture every single electronic gadget on the planet, nor does it mean they have to monetise what every single gadget does. It just has to monetise the lowest common denominator – the simplest, least complicated, least controversial part. That might be dark fibre but could be conduit too –it really doesn’t matter too much – just as long as conduit is open all the way to the customer premises. The cost of getting there is negligible relative to value to the (digital) economy.
We should learn from some of the projects that have taken place in the last few years (for instance, Broadband over Powerline – BPL and FttP) regarding some of the very basic problems that may occur.
As an example, from these projects it became clear that not all electricity and telephone poles are suitable to have extra cable strung along them.
And most of the underground network of cables is not easily accessible for the underground deployment of an FttP network.
To avoid problems such as these, plus delays and cost blow-outs later on, it would be wise to investigate these issues upfront. A mapping project is essential – this will be a useful tool in pinpointing problem areas and planning and designing this national network.
It obviously makes a great deal of sense to utilise as much as possible of the existing infrastructure – and in one way or another that needs to be brought into the infrastructure company.
As this infrastructure will be essential for healthcare, education etc, all homes will need to be connected as, by law or by custom, many of these essential services need to be available to everyone, not just to those who take up a commercial subscription. This element is causing a great deal of anxiety and discussion.
As we have seen in some of the European FttP rollouts, penetration is far more important than Average Revenue per User (ARPU) in order to get the project off the ground. This will also significantly bring the residential access price down.