During the election campaign in Australia, both political parties put up their plans for an improved broadband Internet service, with Labor providing a fibre-to-the-premises plan for most metropolitan, regional and rural areas and satellite for other areas while the Liberal Party put up a plan based on cable-Internet, ADSL and fixed-wireless technologies with a fibre-optic backbone.

One of the issues that I have noticed is that the broadband issue hadn’t touched on the issue of “redlining” when it came to provisioning of infrastructure. “Redlining” is where districts that are capable of receiving infrastructure aren’t provided with the infrastructure due to a perceived economic environment that is in place or the goal of particular parties like developers or investors to “shape” a particular district to a desired usage vision. An example of this was what happened with the way cable-based pay-TV service was provisioned around the cities in Australia. Some neighourhoods had the cables in the streets while other neighbourhoods didn’t have the cables and in those neighbourhoods that didn’t have cables, pay-TV was provisioned by satellite while broadband Internet was provisioned by ADSL. This became the same situation even though some of these suburbs were inhabited by wealthier professionals, “empty-nest” couples or others with more disposable income.

This can easily backfire as the demand for this kind of infrastructure shows up in the areas that are “redlined”. It can be caused by situations such as the subscription price for the services becoming more affordable for most people. As well, it can be exacerbated more by changes like gentrification of former working-class neighbourhoods or “empty-nest” couples moving to neighbourhoods with plenty of small houses.

Whenever anyone decides to roll out next-generation broadband, they need to make sure all areas that can be covered by a particular medium are covered by that medium.

La montée en débit des réseaux ADSL se précise – DegroupNews.com (France – French language)

My comments on this article

From my understanding of this French-language article, there had been some reports that the performance of “regular” ADSL broadband service (including the triple-play services) in areas where FTTH next-generation broadband service had been rolled out.

But there are some main factors that could lead to this.

One is that the “early-adopter” technology enthusiasts who would make most use of the Internet would have shifted to next-generation broadband as soon as the technology is available. This would apparently “free-up” the load on the regular broadband services for most people who may be doubting the need to shift to next-generation broadband.

Another is that the backbones that bring the data to the broadband-service networks, both the next-generation variety and the regular variety would have to be upscaled to cater for increased data traffic caused by the next-generation networks. This would then lead to increased performance for the Internet services.

But the main reason is due to capital improvements on the existing telephone network that have been taking place in order to increase the possible bandwidth available at the customer’s door. This has mainly been through revising the telephony-system architecture and eliminating aging and derelict infrastructure in order to improve the performance of ADSL-based Internet services

As I have observed with the UK and France, once you have serious commercial and government interest in developing a nation’s telecommunications infrastructure, such as through implementing fibre-optic-based next-generation broadband, there is a strong likelihood that the quality of the nation’s Internet service will improve. This can only happen with real competition in the telecommunications sector and a government that is behind real telecommunications improvement.

 Coalition will ‘wind clock back’ with NBN axing – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

My comments

I have observed other countries like the UK and France push on with next-generation broadband Internet developments and they have taken various initiatives to achieve this goal.

In some cases, most notably in the UK, local communities had set up localised next-generation broadband deployment for villages and other areas which wouldn’t be serviced by this kind of broadband, let alone any broadband service. As well, a lot of European towns are “wiring up” with some form of fibre-based next-generation broadband and there has been efforts in place to assure competitive service to the customer’s door.

Similarly, Finland took the bold step of having broadband Internet with a minimum speed of 2Mbps declared as a universal service in the same manner as a home telephone or mains electricity.

At the moment, we have situations where people in the country cannot get proper broadband service either through issues like distance to the exchange or very old telephone infrastructure; and we have a common situation where people have to count bandwidth used because of ridiculously expensive Internet-access tariffs and quotas. In some cases, we have situations where multimedia Internet like Internet radio or YouTube streaming video cannot be enjoyed especially during the late afternoon in a metropolitan area due to poor bandwidth allocation.

Is the Coalition intending to provide us with a lesser-standard next-generation broadband service or why are they simply doing this? If there is an alternative solution being proposed for an improved-technology broadband infrastructure, it needs to be cheap to maintain, including low failure rate; cheap to adapt to changing demainds as well as being cheap to establish. It also must be able to provide robust always-live broadband-class Internet service to rural and remote households as well as more dense communities. Finally, the service must see a decent increase in value for the amount the customers are willing to pay.

Whoever gains power in the Australian Federal Government should look at what the UK, France and Scandinavia are doing to assure their citizens of proper value for money as far as broadband Internet service is concerned.

Electoral Disclaimer

This comment is based on my observation and research of other countries concerning their provision of Internet access and service and is a viewpoint expressed independently of any political candidate or party contesting the current Australian Federal Election.

News article

thinkbroadband :: Fibre broadband is coming to Broughton, near Huntingdon

From the horse’s mouth

Vtesse web site

My comments

Previously, I have commented on Vtesse setting up a fibre-to-the-cabinet next-generation broadband Internet service servicing two villages in Hertfordshire. This was based on underground deployment of the necessary fibre-optic links to the cabinets and VDSL2 copper links via “sub-loop” unbundling between these cabinets and the customers’ premises.

Now Broughton, a small country hamlet located near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, has moved towards next-generation broadband with the help of the same company. This has been done with two differences – one using FTTH technology which may be known as “fibre-to-the-premises” technology. The other involves the use of overhead poles used for electricity distribution and telephone service in this area to support the fibre-optic cables.

Through the planning stages of this development, issues have been raised about ownership and control of infrastructure like poles or ducts used for providing electricity, telecommunications or other services and whether competing service providers should have access to this infrastructure if an established service provider set it up in the first place. Issues that could be raised include right of access by the competing service-provider’s technicians and whether a competing service provider’s technicians have access to the lead-in wiring on a customer’s private property up to the point of demarcation where the wiring becomes under customer control.

Another issue worth raising is whether an FTTH setup is more likely to suit larger country properties where the main house is set back further from the road and whether it will suit larger country estates that have many individual-customer households yet remain as a cost-effective next-generation broadband-delivery method.

At least what I am pleased about is that there is action being taken to bring rural Internet access out of the back-waters.

Article

thinkbroadband :: Two rural Lincolnshire villages to get fibre-to-the-home

My Comments

Another step has occurred in the right direction for providing homes and small businesses in two rural England villages with city-grade next-generation Internet service. Again, this initiative has been undertaken by a small operator and has allowed the village to be competitive with the city.

Here, Fibrestream are two-thirds of the way there with gaining interest from the potential users which will open doors to establishing the basic infrastructure and “lighting up” the villages. One of the bonuses that have been offered is that there is the option of helping with the installation to your premises as a way to defray provisioning costs.

They have also provided for a cheaper fixed-wireless-last-mile delivery option if they can’t raise enough money for the full fibre-to-the-premises option. Any monies saved from this option would be reinvested so they can establish the infrastructure for the full fibre-to-the-premises deal. This could still be factored in to villages with farms and similar large properties surrounding them so as to service these properties with high-speed Internet.

Like what has happened with other British villages like Lyddington in Leicestershire, this has become another way of bringing these rural villages in to the online age. Come on everyone who is in the country or underserved outer-urban and regional areas and work together to establish local-broadband initiatives.

News article

BBC News – Plans to regenerate four Carmarthenshire towns

My comments

I had been reviewing this BBC News article about plans to regenerate some Carmartheshire towns but had found scant information about improvements to broadband Internet service in those towns.

If there are plans to regenerate a country town, these plans should also include improvements to infrastructure that provide broadband Internet access. This could range from reassessing the telephony infrastructure so that ADSL2 broadband is capable of 2Mbps “at every door”, through improvements in wireless broadband coverage to provision of next-generation broadband in that town.

It could then allow for the town to become competitive as far as technology-driven businesses, such as R&D or universities, are concerned. As well, the town can also allow other small businesses that operate therein to “come on to the map” and be competitive on the world stage. It will also benefit the outlying properties and neighbouring villages / hamlets by exposing them to proper broadband service rather than just horrible old dial-up Internet.