Picture from Flickr: Perry Costello
The new government will be making a mistake that could affect Australia’s technological future if it downgrades Labor’s National Broadband Network.
New NBN targets would deliver connections sooner, cheaper, and more “affordably”, but with downgraded speeds which would need upgrading in the near future.
The Liberals back “fibre to the node” (FTTN) to deliver Australia’s broadband needs instead of “fibre to the premises” (FTTP), a cable that supports more bandwidth.
FTTP is a better technological approach, because the cable would run directly from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to people’s homes, providing super fast speeds.
The Liberals campaigned as the party that would save Australia money, and bring the economy into surplus, but their NBN strategy isn’t helping their claim.
FTTN connections like DSL and cable are usually cheaper, but can be harder to install than fibre optic connections.
It’s easier to damage copper because it’s heavier than fibre, and needs to be pulled with light force, making it difficult to pull for servicing.
A cheaper NBN strategy will cost Australia more in the future, as FTTN costs more to service, and would need to be serviced more often.
It will also cost Australia significantly more when higher speed connections are required, and full upgrades need to be made.
There are currently no devices that could use more bandwidth than can be sent over fibre optic cables, so it’s top notch, and generally needs less servicing.
According to technology organization, Wisegeek.org, fibre loses about three percent of its signal strength over 328 feet.
The technology organization says copper can lose up to 94 percent of its signal strength over 328 feet.
Many Australians seem to prefer FTTP to FTTN, as a petition with 200,000 signatures pro-FTTP was handed as proof to Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Mr Turnbull rejected the petition saying it wouldn’t be “democracy” and his party would not reverse its NBN policy.
But the Communications Minister announced a widespread review of the NBN, just days after the entire board of the NBN resigned.
Mr Turnbull said the current rollout would continue for now, but a strategic review would commence when a new board is appointed.
For now, the Liberals have revised their target to just 729,000 connected homes by 2014, down from 981,000 making winners and losers in the NBN rollout.
When the strategic review takes place, winners will be FTTP connected, losers will be those unfairly left with the new government’s proposed FTTN connection.
