Richard Naylor wrote:
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.
I see, I thought you were referring to 60-70 years ago.
(I could be cheeky and say don't bother - you're in Auckland, but that would be unfair)
Humm. Auckland seems to be the cash-cow for the rest of the country...
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.
Now you're making sense. And I don't disagree. If there is no equivalent Telecom technology, then the predatory price cutting they've done in the past is irrelevant. The next question then is, why hasn't anyone done it already? In theory, your vision sounds great. Hope it'll come into practice outside Wellington (Wired Country anyone?).
I disagree - ethernet IS widely deployed, just rarely in outside plant situations.
Which is what I meant.
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).
I don't want to sound defeatist, but I think I'll be withered and dead long before there's an affordable alternative to DSL outside the Auckland CBD. -- Juha