Aussie National Broadband Network Will Be Gigabit

schmidty-au writes "NBN Co, the Australian Government company established to build Australia's national fibre-optic broadband network, announced today that, instead of the previously announced 100 Mbps network, it will provide 1 Gbps, within the existing AU$43 billion budget. Meanwhile, the Australian opposition, which has announced that it will scrap the network if it wins the 21 August election, and instead provide incentives to the private sector to improve the existing copper network, and to install wireless broadband (with promised peak speeds of 12 Mbps), does not understand or believe that this would be possible. The man who wants to be Australia's next Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said today 'This idea that "hey presto" we are suddenly going to get 10 times the speed from something that isn't even built yet I find utterly implausible.'"

That's why you use fiber

[Jens de Smit]

Tony Abbott apparently doesn't understand a thing about modern networking. Today's optic fibers can support frightening data rates, the limiting factor currenly is what the hardware on both sides is capable of. With the speeds of the high end of the market recently increasing to 40G and 100G (from 1G and 10G) per channel I would not be surprised if that jump suddenly made 1G FTTH possible. Investing in copper technology now is outrageous and a waste of money. Utilizing it for the last mile while you're not done rolling out fiber to each premise is acceptable at best. Wireless broadband might be acceptable for remote locations but even those base stations need a good fiber connection for their uplink.

Re:Hmm...

[Pento]

If you don't want your preferences going to Labor, vote below the line.

Greens are currently on course to hold the balance of power in the senate. They've said many times that they're for the NBN, but they will block any attempt to implement the net filter.

Re:Sex Party

[qazadex]

Why is Slashdot so pro Sex Party and not greens? They have around 15% of the primary vote, compared to the 1% or so of the Sex Party, and have very similar, left leaning policies. http://greens.org.au/policies [greens.org.au]

Re:Somebody Tell Tony Abbott about Moore's Law

[c0lo]

No, he won't understand: according to him, he's not Bill Gates [zdnet.com.au]

Re:Somebody Tell Tony Abbott about Moore's Law

[loki_tiwaz]

i don't know how it wasn't obvious it could go to gigabit with very little tinkering. it's OPTICAL right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber-optic_communication#Bandwidth-distance_product [wikipedia.org]

Through a combination of advances in dispersion management, wavelength-division multiplexing, and optical amplifiers, modern-day optical fibers can carry information at around 14 Terabits per second over 160 kilometers of fiber [4]. Engineers are always looking at current limitations in order to improve fiber-optic communication, and several of these restrictions are currently being researched

14 terabits over 160km? does tony abbot's advisors do any research? presently, we have a copper network that can manage at best 24mbit at a max distance of 4km, at best. the NBN is an *optical* network, and is likely to be dispersed at network segments of less than 100km per run. lol. do i really need to point out the stupidity of saying it can't be gigabit? do i also need to point out the stupidity of saying a 100mbit network is not gonna be a piece of cake to roll out with optical in australian metro areas? what a retard.

anyway, i'm voting for the sex party. you can bet they are all on for the NBN. super HD pr0n here we come :)

Re:implausible? it's magic!

[ta bu shi da yu]

I'm sure that more major network links will be created over time. There's no reason why they shouldn't be.

Your problem is that you feel that everything is hosted overseas. It's not. Not everything runs through the International links, unless you are some sort of stupid corporation that uses an MPLS network to route your traffic - hi EMC network admins! There are vast numbers of servers and Internet based services within Australia that are required or are extremely useful to Australian organizations. That isn't just businesses, it's Universities, charitable organizations, government services, medical organizations - you name it, it will be used.

Re:implausible? it's magic!

[mikkelm]

"This network is not going to get built, no matter who gets elected. A national fiber network for australia with connections to even 10% of houses ... I seriously doubt it could be done with hundred times that budget."

So you suggest that it would be unlikely to deploy GPON to about 800,000 households for $AUD 4.3 trillion, or approximately $AUD 5 million per household? You knowm just the opinion of one network engineer who has actually been involved in nationwide GPON deployments, the current assessment of about $AUD 5,500 per household is a very sensible budget for this kind of deployment.