re: broadband, page-2

re: broadband The fact remains however that today the telecom sector
in Australia is dominated by one player -Telstra - by
virtue of it being the sole provider of the local access
network connecting virtually every home and business in
this country. Telstra not only owns the local loop, it
is the dominant mobile operator and the largest ISP in
the country. Telstra’s control of the wholesale inputs
for the entire telecommunications market coupled with
the fact it then competes in retail markets makes it a
formidable force and creates many regulatory challenges.
Telstra’s structure gives it the incentive and means to
discriminate against those seeking access to its
essential, bottleneck infrastructure.
This monopoly means that even in the more competitive
markets, those seeking to compete with Telstra often
must continue to rely on Telstra for some of form of
access to its network. This leaves those seeking to
compete with Telstra with just two alternatives - either
reselling its services or infrastructure; or bypassing
some of, or its entire network by investing in competing
infrastructure assets.
Building your own wireline Broadband Access network
In general, the analyses from various research conducted
in this area confirm the cost of increased bandwidth in
the access network for interactive broadband delivery is
high, independent of the operator’s existing network
situation, area type and broadband technology choice.
Civil works still account for the major costs in rolling
out a wireline infrastructure and remains the major
impediment to the delivery of broadband services to the
home.
Comparing the rental case and the own network build, one
of the main differences is the timing of the
investments. When building his own network the new
entrant operator will have heavy investments in the
first years before any customers are connected. In the
rental case the investments in the first years are much
less, but the rental cost will be a continuous burden to
the business of the new operator. So what are the
technology options?
Fibre to the Home (FTTH)
Fibre technology is the predominant technology in the
backbone of the telecom network and into the
metropolitan area to wire up the enterprise and is
slowly snaking its way to the access network.