We’ve explored how Australia is planning to build a nationwide fiber to the home network providing 100 Mbps speeds to 93% of the population, with the other 7% getting 12 Mbps service via satellite or wireless (it even required paying $11 billion for an incumbent opponent). Ars Technica explores how this network was a key debate topic during the recent Australian elections, and helped the Labor Party to a 76-74 win. In other words, Australia’s national FTTH network has been greenlighted:The move means that the government will proceed with its plan to pay incumbent telephone company Telstra AU$11 billion to hand over most of its infrastructure and to dismantle its legacy copper network as fiber goes online. When the project is complete, NBN will not become an ISP; instead, it will administer a basic GPON-based, layer 2 bitstream service that will be wholesaled out to competitive ISPs. The (hoped-for) end result: numerous ISPs competing on price and services, all offering fiber speeds.The Australian government says they’ll sell their ownership stake in the company five years after the network is completed, which should take up to seven years. Meanwhile, here in the States, we continue to bicker over whether investing taxpayer funds in our telecom infrastructure is a good idea.
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