Australia - Broadband - Infrastructure Analyses

Synopsis

With the FttH National Broadband Network announcement in 2009 life will be brought back into this industry. There have been very few broadband infrastructure developments since 2005. Elsewhere the broadband infrastructure market is undergoing changes that are unprecedented in the history of the 100-year-old network. Internally, Telstra is in the process of upgrading its network to NGN but has not started rolling out innovations. We desperately need open networks to improve the competitive environment and this is set to happen with the new plans. An explosion has taken place in local loop unbundling and DSLAMs – this is a critical development on the road to FttH. Copper-based networks will remain the major infrastructure for years to come. In order to tap into new revenue streams FttH-based NGNs are also needed to develop trans-sector models for healthcare, education, smart grids, smart buildings and smart cities. This will require a host of value-added wholesale services such data centres, content hosting, billing, cloud computing and other activities essential to the emerging digital economy.