On 26 Dec 2003, at 20:15, Richard Naylor wrote:
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.
Here in Canada the local loop is unbundled. Bell (in Ontario, where I live) appears to do a reasonable job at selling wholesale ADSL access to other ISPs: they provide either a PPP over ATM or a VLAN-per-customer on gigabit ethernet hand-off direct to ISPs, for example, with no visible layer-3 topology. There are also ISPs who provide niche services directly over the copper (e.g. lower-speed DSL services to rural areas where the wire-line distance to the subscriber exceeds Bell's limits, or includes load coils). There's legacy CATV plant in most Canadian cities which has also been widely upgraded with sufficient back-channel to provide internet services. This competition (together with the competition from unbundled local-loop) might help explain why the ex-incumbent's wholesale services don't suck too badly. In any case, the general availability of good-quality, affordable ADSL has led to widespread uptake. Even though the local-loop has been unbundled there are still plenty of people doing fixed-wireless, two-way satellite and fibre builds where there is a market for their services, all at speeds beyond the minimum that which Telecom NZ would call broadband. It is reasonable to think that those alternative access infrastructures would find a larger potential catchment if they didn't have to compete with cheap 4M ADSL services in the same areas, but it also seems reasonable to think that without the groundswell of appreciation for broadband services in general those (more expensive) alternative high-speed access media might be a lot harder to sell. [Canada is number two on the 2000 OECD broadband penetration list, after South Korea. In terms of physical logistics per population it's not too dissimilar to New Zealand (small population, large country, unpleasant terrain to deal with in many places). New Zealand is number 16 on the list, with 14 times fewer lines installed per 100 people than Canada. 4 out of 100 homes in Canada are served by CATV or ADSL broadband internet access. It is substantially cheaper now to become a broadband ADSL or cable modem customer on an existing phone or cable connection than it is to order a new phone line and use a $10/month dial account at 56k. So, it seems to me that it's much easier to sell someone on the idea of fibre-to-the-home if they're already of the mindset that they can't live with anything less than multi-megabit internet access, and don't have to be taught that 56k access is pathetic.] So maybe good and affordable ADSL in New Zealand is a prerequisite to widespread deployment of innovative Internet access, and not just a poor-quality alternative. Joe