According to Federal Communications Minister ‘Stephen Conroy’, a Fibre-to-the-Home nework is still a very realistic proposition for tenders, although the Government isn’t prepared to pay any more for it?
Labor has already pledged $4.7 billion toward the development of a new high speed Broadband network which is meant to deliver minimum speeds of at least 12 Megabit-per-second to 98 per cent of Australia’s population.
Network specifications are expected to be released in the next couple of weeks and Senator Conroy stated that he would welcome any Fibre to the Home (FTTH) proposals. With healthy interest from consortium’s seeking to bid for tender rights using a Fibre-to-the-Node blueprint, the possibility of a few FTTH network proposals still remains high.
There’s no doubt that a FTTH Broadband network would be the way to go, but this would obviously require a higher government pledge than that already allocated at $4.7 billion ($10 billion would be more realistic). I wouldn’t be at all surprised, although it may seem like a sheer waste of time, that the government may obtain a tender that has plans for developing a national FTTN network with the ability of upgrading to FTTH down the track.
“There’s a number of consortiums talking to us about fibre-to-the-home and I have been engaged in a number of discussions,”
“Fibre-to-the-home has some wonderful potential but it is more costly and people have got to build the business case, they can’t expect the government’s going to give more than $4.7 billion,”
Snippets courtesy from a Brisbanetimes.com.au article
