But guess what! The money is gone, the project hasnt a prayer of being completed as planned and the government is about to change within the next twelve months.
FTTH was always a pipedream (geddit?) and Australia as a geographically spread out population was a ridiculous place to try to introduce it. And for the government to pay for it was even dumber. Its a premium product, for a premium consumer and in the end only users who demand it will get it. I am sure it will be connected to major centres of population and to institutions where it makes commercial sense but for Joe Farmer out in the styx it was just unrealistic.
What the plan will evolve to in my view is to work alongside telstra's 4G and later wireless platform via FTTN to get high speed coverage to areas where currently ADSL does not work or cant be implemented and for people who pay the connection fee (which will be foisted on them by a later government (who is broke and trying to cost cut everywhere) which inevitably will be in the commercial areas and the main population centres.
Telstra just connected coax to my parents house in Perth and the technician told me that internally they think FTTH is years away, if at all. The technical team also think it will be canned by the next government.
I think it would be wonderful if a perfect world existed where money was free and there was unlimited quantities of it but you guys are living in a dreamworld where the forces of the market are catching up to the government and all these shibboleths are going to be chucked in favour of survival.
