At 10:29 a.m. 27/12/2003 +1300, Juha Saarinen wrote: <snip>
In terms of business models look back in time and see how little NZ got power to its smaller towns and cities. They were build by community owned power boards. Its a very effective way of raising the capital as well as providing lots of local employment. They weren't build by NZED/transpower/etc and Telecom won't invest in real broadband in those areas while its share price/value slides to zero.
Although I agree that community networks are probably the only way out of this mess, your analogy doesn't quite hold.
To start with, there were no existing electricity grids in the past, and they didn't have to link up with one another. With Telecom in place, anyone wanting to build a community network would have to contend with a national giant with deep pockets that is allowed to offer predatory street-by-street pricing and charge hair-raising fees for interconnectivity.
OK- now I have to confess Juha. I spent 14 years in teh power industry in both Wellington and London. The model I'm talking about does work. You know only a power system with standard plugs and 110 or 230v AC - I know a different one that sells/sold commercial DC - that has/had ties so that when teh state generator wasn't there, things still work (inter ties with other boards) that had its own genies - remember the coal station on Evans Bay ? I'm too young to remember the one on Harris St where the Michael Fowler Center is now, but the cables going into teh Duxton Hotel substation go back to where it was. The lines companies have hugely deep pockets, already own poles and lines, GIS systems, crews (or contractors) and use a different non-telco architecture. They are community owned and know about community development. They also talk to each other. But focus on the ARCHITECTURE. (I could be cheeky and say don't bother - you're in Auckland, but that would be unfair) The problem with them so far (ie United Networks, and perhaps a few others I won't name) is that being too conservative they keep hiring "telco" engineers to tell them how to build a comms network. What they're really building is a new comms utility. Thats why some of them sell kbps instead of Mbps as they should be. This "telco" thinking leads to prices around the same order of magnitude as Telcom. They will always compete with the 5% discount technique. In reality if you want major change you have to do something major. So you have to come out with a compelling price/performance that just blows them away. That is talking megabits not kbps or be 25% of Telecoms prices. That way customers will make the change because its just so obvious. You WON'T get this major change by using Telecoms infrastructure because the architecture and technology is WRONG (and Telecoms prices would have ensured just a marginally better deal - remember the 5% discount). LLU just encourages more of the same crap we have now. We have to forget it and move on.
And as for why Telstra would want to build dsl over copper networks today with new plant, well I can only think of Lemmings......
Well, DSL is a known technology with lots of off-the-shelf products available for it. (So's Ethernet, but it's not widely deployed like DSL, and certainly not by telcos.)
I disagree - ethernet IS widely deployed, just rarely in outside plant situations. But look at the economics of ethernet (GigE nics for half the price of a 56k modem) and you can see why we have to get rid of the old copper plant. DSL technology is the best it can do - and that ain't good enough in 2003/2004 (for those worried about the date or time). After all most dsl modems have an ethernet port on them, so theres gotta be more ethernet than dsl. But you're right a telco sees only dsl - because thats what telcos do. Someone looking at the bigger problem sees a different solution - ethernet. What is it that the customer wants ? high speed low cost reliable networks. Doesn't sound like dsl to me. Compare a dslam with an ethernet switch and remember the KISS principle. Then look at the architecture behind DSLAMS, SDH, et al - and its just old school and doesn;t scale into massive gigabit networks. (in the 100,000s of nodes). Asynchronous data networks like ethernet DO. So the telco industry has just got it all WRONG. So the Regulator got it right. Telcos can use the Telecom network, people looking for real networking solutions can innovate (and leave them to wither and die). Siesta time - back soon. rich (who has some rare time to answer emails)