France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country(zdnet.com)
zdnet.com
France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country
http://www.zdnet.com/france-to-invest-20bn-in-high-speed-broadband-for-the-entire-country-7000011671/
18 comments
The Clinton administration bears a lot of blame for that--the government had a unique way of not, you know, actually making the credits conditional on rolling out nationwide fiber. Business is as business does, government is as government does, and apparently no one had the idea of modulating ISP rewards _after_ broadband service levels changed. I'm not sure you can blame the telcos for maximizing shareholder value as much as you can blame regulators for not understanding that the sky is blue.
> I'm not sure you can blame the telcos for maximizing shareholder value as much as you can blame regulators for not understanding that the sky is blue.
Actually you can. Regardless of legality, it is still stealing.
I'm just really sick of people condoning this crap just because the motivation is to maximize shareholder value. There's a thing called ethics.
Actually you can. Regardless of legality, it is still stealing.
I'm just really sick of people condoning this crap just because the motivation is to maximize shareholder value. There's a thing called ethics.
You're assuming that the government has the public's interest as it's main priority -- not that its purpose is to funnel value from the public to private owners pockets. That they are able to exploit the goodwill of the state isn't a flaw, it's a feature.
Does anyone of a credible study about this?
"The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit American public broadcasting television network with 354 member television stations in the United States which hold collective ownership.[2] Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia."
"Since the mid-2000s, Roper polls commissioned by PBS have consistently placed the service as America's most-trusted national institution."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS
"Since the mid-2000s, Roper polls commissioned by PBS have consistently placed the service as America's most-trusted national institution."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS
But it's not a PBS article. Cringley is a pundit and PBS is hosting his articles in an op-ed space called the "Pulpit."
It's about time to massively rollout FTTH in France. Paradoxically I think its deployment has been hampered by a good early ADSL coverage and the associated low prices on ADSL (with uncapped data). These low prices have decided the operators to only make minimum investments on their networks and to further seek to make profit in mobile where data plans are capped and where profits are better. Moreover the entry of a new actor in the mobile space last year has further exacerbated the situation, this actor has significantly reduced the subscriptions prices so the others actors seek to differentiate themselves and one way they found is to invest in LTE networks. So for all these reasons until now FTTH had low priority in France and is marginal. I hope it will change soon.
Don't forget FTTLA, which is vastly available in the most densely populated urban areas - it is not as fast as FTTH when there are a lot of households connected to the last amplifier, but i'd say roughly 20% of households could have access to it. On the other hand, FFTH is available for maybe 0.5% of the country (I mean, even in Paris itself, not one building in twenty is connected to it...)
I think you are right with your argument on cheap and good quality ADSL services : i think for most people an uncapped 10-20Mbps, that includes TV, phone, and our famous boxes for 30€ a month is more than enough...
I think you are right with your argument on cheap and good quality ADSL services : i think for most people an uncapped 10-20Mbps, that includes TV, phone, and our famous boxes for 30€ a month is more than enough...
Only 50 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload? I guess it would be okay for rural areas, but it's awfully obsolete for cities, even today, let alone for 2023 - at least for an European country, especially one like France. And why such low upload speeds?
Mmmm, describing 50 Mbps down as "okay for rural areas" doesn't really mesh with reality.
Most rural areas throughout Europe and elsewhere are struggling with <10 Mbps, if they can get broadband at all.
If you know any region in the world which isn't densely populated, but where every home (not just 1 or 2) has 50 Mbps download, I'd love to read about it. I know of a handful of self-starter village communities which are doing this (e.g. B4RN in the UK), and that's about it.
Most rural areas throughout Europe and elsewhere are struggling with <10 Mbps, if they can get broadband at all.
If you know any region in the world which isn't densely populated, but where every home (not just 1 or 2) has 50 Mbps download, I'd love to read about it. I know of a handful of self-starter village communities which are doing this (e.g. B4RN in the UK), and that's about it.
>Most rural areas throughout Europe and elsewhere are struggling with <10 Mbps, if they can get broadband at all.
That sounds like Tucson, where I used to live. Now I'm in New York and getting 50 Mbs down and 5 up for $20 – $30 less than I used to get 12 down and 2 up.
That sounds like Tucson, where I used to live. Now I'm in New York and getting 50 Mbs down and 5 up for $20 – $30 less than I used to get 12 down and 2 up.
That sounds really good. It's not like that in Toronto. We have a communications oligopoly in Canada though.
It's coming to Toronto http://www.beanfieldcondoconnect.com/index.html
It's more then an oligopoly, there's a government mandates to provide equal service to the north that also drives up prices.
It's more then an oligopoly, there's a government mandates to provide equal service to the north that also drives up prices.
We are talking about rural areas in 2023...
Today in France, most people in cities can have access to 100Mbps/5Mbps. Low upload speeds have been a constant around here since the first broadband offering, with upload speeds capping at roughly one tenth or on twentielth of download speeds.
I guess this is because the concept of Internet as an entirely decentralized network didn't make sense to France Telecom, the national operator which made the first investments. Why ? Because before Internet, France had the minitel, and entirely centralized network. And so as a pure client, you don't really need that much upload speed.
Also, some argued that low upload speeds were maintained to harm illegal P2P file sharing.
Nonetheless, we are seeing some symmetrical offers appear. Most notably, Orange (former France Telecom and France leading operator) is offering a 100/100Mbps connection for 45€/mo, whereas the 100/5 one costs 35€/mo.
I guess this is because the concept of Internet as an entirely decentralized network didn't make sense to France Telecom, the national operator which made the first investments. Why ? Because before Internet, France had the minitel, and entirely centralized network. And so as a pure client, you don't really need that much upload speed.
Also, some argued that low upload speeds were maintained to harm illegal P2P file sharing.
Nonetheless, we are seeing some symmetrical offers appear. Most notably, Orange (former France Telecom and France leading operator) is offering a 100/100Mbps connection for 45€/mo, whereas the 100/5 one costs 35€/mo.
To give the entire picture, you should say that ADSL is asynchronous, and the 100/5 Mbps (and also 200Mbps/10 which I currently have, but only available in Paris) are offers offers are from "Numericable, which is a cable operator (and the only one) were/are really famous for their... err. problems (euphemism).
In my last flat I was eligible to offers from "Free" ISP , and I got around 500Mbps to 800Mbps symectrical bandwith since it was only limited by the gigabit switch of the box. Sadly I had to move. And to be totally honest their peering problem (again euphemism since Youtube was slower than my smartphone with Orange in 3G) was killing the thrill. I got a faster "everyday" internet right now with 200/10/Mbps than during my "Free" days. (For the story Numericable has abandoned the peering part of the job and just buy bandwith to Level3, Neotelecoms, Telia and HE mainly. Their only job is to deploy and maintain a country wide backbone). During the 2000s France internet was really in advance, with the cheapest megabytes, but right now it tends to be like others countries :( The only good thing that remains is that traffic is always unlimited, in homes offers. The business market is still competitive. My point is I don't think €20B is really an answer, but that's not answering to how they are going to use it.
Huh? Only!
I live in London and have 5 people on the end of a 12Mbit down and 1Mbit up and it's fine. The company I work for has 100 people on a 40Mbit fiber.
This is all fine.
People are just greedy bandwidth whores these days.
I live in London and have 5 people on the end of a 12Mbit down and 1Mbit up and it's fine. The company I work for has 100 people on a 40Mbit fiber.
This is all fine.
People are just greedy bandwidth whores these days.
> People are just greedy bandwidth whores these days.
Not really. Having really fast broadband completely changes what is possible, and if we want to secure future economic growth for the internet, it's a great area to invest in. I have 120 megabits and easily saturate that on a regular basis. This in turn makes it possible to watch movies in the highest of defs on-demand, or purchase and download them to keep forever in less time than it takes to walk to the shops. We can download increasingly huge video games in less time than it would take to install from discs.
We have so many online businesses making huge amounts of money off entertainment while traditional platforms are dying, but if internet speed stagnates, or the fraction of the population that has very fast internet stops growing, that will limit the potential market for online media.
Another consideration is that 1mbit up. People are finding more and more awesome uses for larger upstreams. Yes, you wouldn't need a huge increase in your upstream to have great Skype video quality, but if you want to upload videos you make to YouTube in HD, or stream your gaming session in HD, you are going to feel the pain on the vast majority of broadband plans available today. We need to move away from the old online distribution model of "people consume, servers create".
Not really. Having really fast broadband completely changes what is possible, and if we want to secure future economic growth for the internet, it's a great area to invest in. I have 120 megabits and easily saturate that on a regular basis. This in turn makes it possible to watch movies in the highest of defs on-demand, or purchase and download them to keep forever in less time than it takes to walk to the shops. We can download increasingly huge video games in less time than it would take to install from discs.
We have so many online businesses making huge amounts of money off entertainment while traditional platforms are dying, but if internet speed stagnates, or the fraction of the population that has very fast internet stops growing, that will limit the potential market for online media.
Another consideration is that 1mbit up. People are finding more and more awesome uses for larger upstreams. Yes, you wouldn't need a huge increase in your upstream to have great Skype video quality, but if you want to upload videos you make to YouTube in HD, or stream your gaming session in HD, you are going to feel the pain on the vast majority of broadband plans available today. We need to move away from the old online distribution model of "people consume, servers create".
So basically it's an opportunity as always to monetize everything rather than lead to real social improvements?
Personally I think shifting creation from centralised gatekeepers to smaller organisations and individuals is a social improvement, and a lot of what is driving the need for upstream is things like video chatting which again is a social need.
I think it's particularly funny when you see people complaining about pipe sizes that have wider throughput than can be generated by the servers from which they get their content. I have three people on the end of a 12Mb down and sure (torrentors and streaming video-watchers), sometimes we saturate it, but not often.
Far more often I'm sitting there going "No-one else is home, and my pipe is barely being used - why is this download so slow?". A server giving you content at 300KB/sec isn't going to go faster because you upgrade from 12Mb to 100Mb.
More speed is always nice, but seriously, the change from 2Mb to 12Mb was far less noticable than the change from dial-up to 2Mb. I guess an increased bandwidth would give more opportunity to stream hi-def video, but that's icing-on-the-cake territory, not basic-civil-right stuff.
Far more often I'm sitting there going "No-one else is home, and my pipe is barely being used - why is this download so slow?". A server giving you content at 300KB/sec isn't going to go faster because you upgrade from 12Mb to 100Mb.
More speed is always nice, but seriously, the change from 2Mb to 12Mb was far less noticable than the change from dial-up to 2Mb. I guess an increased bandwidth would give more opportunity to stream hi-def video, but that's icing-on-the-cake territory, not basic-civil-right stuff.
I would argue that the ability to upload HD video is in the same basic civil right territory as telephony, what with the ubiquity of video calling to maintain family connections across long distances. Modern cultural participation, when not located in a major urban center, requires high upload bandwidth.
I think we're going to have to agree to disagree that only being able to upload vga video is a violation of basic human rights.
Internet access is a basic human right not because of long-distance communication with family (that's a luxury), but because, like telephones, you need it to access basic services. An increasing number only have online offerings now, or require you to jump through online hoops.
Internet access is a basic human right not because of long-distance communication with family (that's a luxury), but because, like telephones, you need it to access basic services. An increasing number only have online offerings now, or require you to jump through online hoops.
Most non major urban areas give less of a crap about such things. It's only the cities that care.
The internet doesn't have as much penetration as you think.
The internet doesn't have as much penetration as you think.
Like most things the French government do, it's obsolete before its even begun.
Hopefully the French public respond more maturely than the Australian public did to their similar plan - after years of bitching about how shit internet speeds were here, the gummint finally said "okay, we're going to build a great network with capacity for future use; it will be a great nation-building project", to which the public promptly turned on its heel and started whining about what a white elephant it was and how we have enough capacity and don't need the benefits...
You and I both know that the politics, economics and public finance implications of the NBN are far more complex than you're making them out to be.
(We've crossed swords on the subject before)
(We've crossed swords on the subject before)
My comment is meant to be more lighthearted than serious political analysis, not to mention that we both also know that the general public have short memories and the tone is set by whomever is bitching at the moment. I certainly don't agree that the general public is aware of the complexities - vocal opponents of party X usually take any excuse that's currently going and run with it.
Are you sure it's the same public? You're making it sound like the same people who were once for it swung against it.
I'm talking more about the general public tone, but yes, I do know some people that made that exact switch. There's really not much cognitive dissonance involved.
It reminds me of a friend of mine who grew up around poor people and was aware of how they struggle with money. Her family wasn't in poverty, but they weren't flush with money either. At around age 30, she made her way into the finance industry and started pulling down six figures. She mentioned that she got a raise recently, but had been infected by the finance mindset that any raise is tainted by the marginal tax rate, and was bitching that 'half of it went to the government' (for values where .37 = half, it seems).
Anyway, her version of the story went 'the government taxes so much money out that I can't give as much to my single-mother sister who is scraping by on welfare - they should lower taxes [for this reason]'. I asked what about all the other single mothers our there that don't have sisters in high finance - reducing the tax yield would mean they get less. My friend changed her tune pretty fast and realised that hey, she was actually in a good position and should be positive about it instead of negative.
The thing is, my friend wasn't someone who grew up amongst wealth, she knew what it was like to be poor, and she herself had worked the same shitty jobs as poor people everywhere. She was smart, and knew deeply about social opportunity (she dated a fiery, forthright anarchist for many years). People just tend to have short memories and short forethought and tend to think that what concerns them in the present is the most important thing always.
It reminds me of a friend of mine who grew up around poor people and was aware of how they struggle with money. Her family wasn't in poverty, but they weren't flush with money either. At around age 30, she made her way into the finance industry and started pulling down six figures. She mentioned that she got a raise recently, but had been infected by the finance mindset that any raise is tainted by the marginal tax rate, and was bitching that 'half of it went to the government' (for values where .37 = half, it seems).
Anyway, her version of the story went 'the government taxes so much money out that I can't give as much to my single-mother sister who is scraping by on welfare - they should lower taxes [for this reason]'. I asked what about all the other single mothers our there that don't have sisters in high finance - reducing the tax yield would mean they get less. My friend changed her tune pretty fast and realised that hey, she was actually in a good position and should be positive about it instead of negative.
The thing is, my friend wasn't someone who grew up amongst wealth, she knew what it was like to be poor, and she herself had worked the same shitty jobs as poor people everywhere. She was smart, and knew deeply about social opportunity (she dated a fiery, forthright anarchist for many years). People just tend to have short memories and short forethought and tend to think that what concerns them in the present is the most important thing always.
If he is referring to poll numbers likely he is taking them out of context and extrapolating tepid support for one element to majority support for the entire project. This happens a lot in the media analysis of polls. You can't take what the results of a poll question were and assume that 100% of the respondents in favor even:
1)know what the project is
2)favor it over alternatives
3)have judged the the disadvantages and are prepared for them
4)support it because they believe their party supports it
5)have faith in the political system
This isn't about the wording per se. Context matters.
To take a recent example: polls shows that Americans favor Obama over congressional republicans on economic issues. However, they still are (generally and marginally)opposed to his handling of economic issues and a strong minority of those who oppose the republicans do so out of a belief that they aren't cutting government enough. In other words, disillusioned republicans don't favor either party but aren't likely to support obama under any circumstances. You can look at the same polls with regard to china and democracy. Chinese both are satisfied with the direction of their country and want more democracy. If you aren't willing to consider context you can choose either poll to support your position.
1)know what the project is
2)favor it over alternatives
3)have judged the the disadvantages and are prepared for them
4)support it because they believe their party supports it
5)have faith in the political system
This isn't about the wording per se. Context matters.
To take a recent example: polls shows that Americans favor Obama over congressional republicans on economic issues. However, they still are (generally and marginally)opposed to his handling of economic issues and a strong minority of those who oppose the republicans do so out of a belief that they aren't cutting government enough. In other words, disillusioned republicans don't favor either party but aren't likely to support obama under any circumstances. You can look at the same polls with regard to china and democracy. Chinese both are satisfied with the direction of their country and want more democracy. If you aren't willing to consider context you can choose either poll to support your position.
Is there anyone else out there that thinks the investment may not be smart long term?
I enjoy the luxury of highspeed wired internet in Boston and LTE internet on my phone. In the short term, I am considering switching to an LTE hub for my home to get rid of Comcast completely. I could be wrong, but I feel like we will see rapid development of wireless technology which could make the entire 20bn investment somewhat foolish.
I enjoy the luxury of highspeed wired internet in Boston and LTE internet on my phone. In the short term, I am considering switching to an LTE hub for my home to get rid of Comcast completely. I could be wrong, but I feel like we will see rapid development of wireless technology which could make the entire 20bn investment somewhat foolish.
Unless there is some major advancement in physics, it is going to remain the fact that fiber in the ground is going to offer massively more capacity than wireless. For the foreseeable future, you're going to want to be able to maximize your total capacity by taking advantage of terrestrial links when you have them.
As for switching to LTE--don't. I tried that here in New York, and it's not what it's cracked up to be. The only service with solid LTE performance is Verizon, and while the speeds are consistently good (5-8 megabits), they are "good" only as far as wireless goes, and it costs you $10/GB. I blow through 10-12 GB a month just barely using the internet, and not even downloading movies, etc. You'll spend several hundred dollars a month getting a decent amount of bandwidth, and for that price you can just get a decent cable connection for home and save the LTE for when you're on the go.
As for switching to LTE--don't. I tried that here in New York, and it's not what it's cracked up to be. The only service with solid LTE performance is Verizon, and while the speeds are consistently good (5-8 megabits), they are "good" only as far as wireless goes, and it costs you $10/GB. I blow through 10-12 GB a month just barely using the internet, and not even downloading movies, etc. You'll spend several hundred dollars a month getting a decent amount of bandwidth, and for that price you can just get a decent cable connection for home and save the LTE for when you're on the go.
Unless there is some major advancement in physics, it is going to remain the fact that fiber in the ground is going to offer massively more capacity than wireless.
I'm not an expert in physics but if cell phones use radio waves and radio waves travel at the speed of light it seems like at some point technology will allow for very fast over the air data transfers without breaking any laws of physics.
I have LTE on my AT&T phone and it seems pretty good, but I am definitely apprehensive about switching all my data to it in my house. I'll probably wait a few years, but if Comcast does anything to really infuriate me, I am likely to switch.
[Added] I got a few downvotes on this one, while I don't care about the karma, I do want to say that I didn't mean to say "I'm not an expert" in a sarcastic way. My intention was to point out that I don't know what I am talking about.
I'm not an expert in physics but if cell phones use radio waves and radio waves travel at the speed of light it seems like at some point technology will allow for very fast over the air data transfers without breaking any laws of physics.
I have LTE on my AT&T phone and it seems pretty good, but I am definitely apprehensive about switching all my data to it in my house. I'll probably wait a few years, but if Comcast does anything to really infuriate me, I am likely to switch.
[Added] I got a few downvotes on this one, while I don't care about the karma, I do want to say that I didn't mean to say "I'm not an expert" in a sarcastic way. My intention was to point out that I don't know what I am talking about.
All those radio waves need to be shared between every phone connected to that cell, and between all the other radio based services out there (e.g. Television).
For a direct fibre link, all the available bandwidth is dedicated to you.
For a direct fibre link, all the available bandwidth is dedicated to you.
Both wireless and fiber optics act by transmitting information through electromagnetic waves. The speed of light isn't the interesting constraint here, because they're both bound by it. Fiber-optics will have slightly higher latency for the transmission component, because the speed of light is slower in a fiber than through the atmosphere.
The real constraint comes in bits per second. With wireless, the ability to improve that comes about by increasing the frequency spectrum in use. You can overlay a signal at, say 1GHz with one at, say, 1.5GHz, and the two signals won't interfere with each other. So the eventual capacity ceiling with wireless transmission is the size of suitable frequency spectrum that is budgeted to it. There is a physical ceiling (can't use 1Khz, for example, or 1PHz) to the amount of spectrum, and therefore, the total wireless bandwidth has a ceiling.
With fiber optics, to double bandwidth, you can simply drop a second cable next to the first. So the bandwidth is capped by the number of cables you can lay. This has a much higher ceiling than for wireless.
The real constraint comes in bits per second. With wireless, the ability to improve that comes about by increasing the frequency spectrum in use. You can overlay a signal at, say 1GHz with one at, say, 1.5GHz, and the two signals won't interfere with each other. So the eventual capacity ceiling with wireless transmission is the size of suitable frequency spectrum that is budgeted to it. There is a physical ceiling (can't use 1Khz, for example, or 1PHz) to the amount of spectrum, and therefore, the total wireless bandwidth has a ceiling.
With fiber optics, to double bandwidth, you can simply drop a second cable next to the first. So the bandwidth is capped by the number of cables you can lay. This has a much higher ceiling than for wireless.
Case in point, I'm Australian and just looking at Verizon's website and 50 GB is $375 on a small business plan. That's the wireless telco way of managing contention. Price any significant usage out of possibility.
Look up Shannon limit. Fundamental limit on bandwidth is directly related to signal to noise ratio and available bandwidth.
Then you need to think who you are sharing the bandwidth with. Basically all transmitters and those overlapping (either they are noise or impose bandwidth limits).
Then you need to think who you are sharing the bandwidth with. Basically all transmitters and those overlapping (either they are noise or impose bandwidth limits).
Hopefully it'll boost this branch of the French economy.
Let's hope that on the way to reach that goal, the cost of internet stay the same (30€/month, 40$, for unlimited internet, unlimited landline phone calls and TV).
Because it's maybe the best to learn of the French internet those days, its cost : http://newamerica.net/publications/policy/the_cost_of_connec...
Ultimately I think Internet access will reach utility status (like water, electricity, telephony), meaning it will be a given (in the developed world at least and hopefully more and more of the developing world as time goes on).
It's still priced as a premium product and there's no reason for this other than regional monopolies over the last mile.
The one thing that confuses me about the France proposal is how they plan on building this for 20B euros when the NBN in Australia is estimated to cost A$36B [1] for a country with one third the population of France.
The biggest cost in any communications network is the last mile so is proportional to population but inversely proportional to population density. Population density is low in Australia but there is 1/3 of the people.
Additionally, there are significant regional infrastructure costs. It is more expensive per mile to build fibre in, say, New York City versus Tennessee.
Inter-city links are really a small part of the total cost, even in a country as spread out as Australia (given the size, the population is 95% on the coast).
Hopefully the NBN in Australia (which I'm a big supporter of) will survive the next election. The Opposition is sadly against it and the present government is hanging on by a thread and in leadership turmoil.
For those not from Australia, the current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, became PM after ousting Kevin Rudd in a partyroom coup d'etat in Rudd's first term, something with little precedent in Australian politics and certainly not in a PM's first term. For example, then-Treasurer Paul Keating ousted fourth-term PM Bob Hawke in much the same way.
This sort of thing isn't generally favoured the electorate because (IMHO) it's perceived as the Number 2 saying "it's my turn to be Number 1" yet it plagues politics (Hawke-Keating, Howard-Costello, Blair-Brown in the UK, etc). Keating went on to narrowly win the "unwinnable" 1993 election and then get destroyed in 1996.
Gillard narrowly won the last election with a minority in the House of Representatives [2]. Who became PM came down to horse-trading with minor parties and independents such that the change of a single seat changes the government. Obviously this is not a stable situation.
Anyway, things look grim for the Gillard government as Kevin Rudd won't go away. He has already failed (twice?) to take back the top job in a partyroom ballot and the issue is rearing its ugly head again.
Tony Abbott (the Opposition leader) has campaigned on a half-assed cheaper version of the NBN that is basically the same ADSL system for most people. Technically the proposal is FTTN (fibre to the node) where nodes are within 1.5km of premises and copper the rest of the way, which should improve bandwidth (ADSL2+ can do about 12Mbps at 1.5km and VDSL/VDSL2 could potentially raise that).
The worst thing for Australian broadband (IMHO) would be for the NBN to be gutted in this nascent stage but it could happen if the Opposition wins big in the next election.
Luckily for the NBN, the National Party, which notionally represents "rural" interests, the traditional party of the Liberal Party, is in favour of the NBN because current (and proposed) broadband solutions for rural areas suck hard.
Now all we need is non-backwards reasonably priced broadband in the United States. We can but hope.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadband_Network
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillard_Government#Minority_gov...
It's still priced as a premium product and there's no reason for this other than regional monopolies over the last mile.
The one thing that confuses me about the France proposal is how they plan on building this for 20B euros when the NBN in Australia is estimated to cost A$36B [1] for a country with one third the population of France.
The biggest cost in any communications network is the last mile so is proportional to population but inversely proportional to population density. Population density is low in Australia but there is 1/3 of the people.
Additionally, there are significant regional infrastructure costs. It is more expensive per mile to build fibre in, say, New York City versus Tennessee.
Inter-city links are really a small part of the total cost, even in a country as spread out as Australia (given the size, the population is 95% on the coast).
Hopefully the NBN in Australia (which I'm a big supporter of) will survive the next election. The Opposition is sadly against it and the present government is hanging on by a thread and in leadership turmoil.
For those not from Australia, the current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, became PM after ousting Kevin Rudd in a partyroom coup d'etat in Rudd's first term, something with little precedent in Australian politics and certainly not in a PM's first term. For example, then-Treasurer Paul Keating ousted fourth-term PM Bob Hawke in much the same way.
This sort of thing isn't generally favoured the electorate because (IMHO) it's perceived as the Number 2 saying "it's my turn to be Number 1" yet it plagues politics (Hawke-Keating, Howard-Costello, Blair-Brown in the UK, etc). Keating went on to narrowly win the "unwinnable" 1993 election and then get destroyed in 1996.
Gillard narrowly won the last election with a minority in the House of Representatives [2]. Who became PM came down to horse-trading with minor parties and independents such that the change of a single seat changes the government. Obviously this is not a stable situation.
Anyway, things look grim for the Gillard government as Kevin Rudd won't go away. He has already failed (twice?) to take back the top job in a partyroom ballot and the issue is rearing its ugly head again.
Tony Abbott (the Opposition leader) has campaigned on a half-assed cheaper version of the NBN that is basically the same ADSL system for most people. Technically the proposal is FTTN (fibre to the node) where nodes are within 1.5km of premises and copper the rest of the way, which should improve bandwidth (ADSL2+ can do about 12Mbps at 1.5km and VDSL/VDSL2 could potentially raise that).
The worst thing for Australian broadband (IMHO) would be for the NBN to be gutted in this nascent stage but it could happen if the Opposition wins big in the next election.
Luckily for the NBN, the National Party, which notionally represents "rural" interests, the traditional party of the Liberal Party, is in favour of the NBN because current (and proposed) broadband solutions for rural areas suck hard.
Now all we need is non-backwards reasonably priced broadband in the United States. We can but hope.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadband_Network
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillard_Government#Minority_gov...
I don't think it's the population size that is the problem. It's the difference in land size[0].
AU: 7,682,300 km^2
France: 640,427 km^2
Australia is over 7 million square kilometers larger than France. Even though 95% of the population is centralized around the coast, the network will have to reach close to 100%. That last 5% is what pushes the price up.
If you look at the distance from Adelade to Alice Springs, from the south to about the middle of Autralia, which is around 1500km[1]. And compare it to the distance from Marsielle to Lille, sounth to north of France, which is around 1000km[2] you start realizing how large Australia is and why putting fiber down to get close to 100% coverage gets a lot more expensive here.
[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependenc...
[1]: https://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=di...
[2]: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=distance+from+Marsielle+t...
AU: 7,682,300 km^2
France: 640,427 km^2
Australia is over 7 million square kilometers larger than France. Even though 95% of the population is centralized around the coast, the network will have to reach close to 100%. That last 5% is what pushes the price up.
If you look at the distance from Adelade to Alice Springs, from the south to about the middle of Autralia, which is around 1500km[1]. And compare it to the distance from Marsielle to Lille, sounth to north of France, which is around 1000km[2] you start realizing how large Australia is and why putting fiber down to get close to 100% coverage gets a lot more expensive here.
[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependenc...
[1]: https://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=di...
[2]: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=distance+from+Marsielle+t...
I am Australian and totally agree the NBN is a great idea. After all, it will allow higher tech companies to operate in regional Australia, which can only do good things for people's health (move out of the city!) and presently suffering economies.
New Zealand also has an NBN-like initiative based upon dual fiber/wireless; they have just upgraded their rollout map here: http://koordinates.com/maps/BroadbandMap/sets/
New Zealand also has an NBN-like initiative based upon dual fiber/wireless; they have just upgraded their rollout map here: http://koordinates.com/maps/BroadbandMap/sets/
Not to mention NBN includes the launch of two satellites into orbit to provide coverage for the most remote (think outback) parts of Australia.
Telecommunications has been headed in the other direction. State monopolies get privatised and lose their monopoly status.
I don't think your other examples are standardised in the way you suggest either. Control of electricity becomes less and less centralised.
I wouldn't want internet to be treated as one-size-fits-all. With competition, if one company tries to block certain features, you can change to another. Also, having a government carrier makes it easier to regulate. This makes it easier for the state to mould the network to its convenience, something the Australian government have tried to do repeatedly. The most effective opponents to this are a handful of small private internet service providers.
I don't think your other examples are standardised in the way you suggest either. Control of electricity becomes less and less centralised.
I wouldn't want internet to be treated as one-size-fits-all. With competition, if one company tries to block certain features, you can change to another. Also, having a government carrier makes it easier to regulate. This makes it easier for the state to mould the network to its convenience, something the Australian government have tried to do repeatedly. The most effective opponents to this are a handful of small private internet service providers.
The extenuating circumstance here is that the opposition, which is now trying to get elected, privatised the national telco starting in 1997.
What that meant is we had a for profit company, Telstra, owning both the entire phone network and the biggest cable network, with big stakes in PayTV and joined at the hip through that to the biggest media organisation in the country, Murdoch's. The only competition worth speaking of is another HFC rollout by a competitor that Telstra overbuilt at every turn and made much less viable and DSLAMs by other providers in a minority of local exchanges that still require payments to Telstra including ULL fees. Telstra was also privatised without any vertical separation worth speaking of.
The NBN, evil as government run business may be, represents the most viable and sensible solution to the problem of Telstra. The people putting it together and the ACCC have made sure that it wouldn't be like Telstra at all. What it represents is, like water or electricity infrastructure, a single path to the premise at the lowest possible cost, a mandate of falling prices in real and nominal terms and restrictions by the ACCC being planned out until 2040 already.
How do we know it will be good for competition? Because every telco in the country, Telstra included, is unhappy wih particular details, but they are on board, and Telstra included, happy enough to be there.
Also, the NBN is fairly dumb as a network. A lot of things are handled by the provider, the FTTH deployment of the NBN goes up to layer 2 only. We've tried your proposal of letting private enterprise do the lot, and all it has led to is an increasingly decaying copper network and no HFC rollout of any major note since about 1997.
If broadband becomes a right, not a privilege, especially in a country of suburban sprawl, then you need to treat it like water or electricity. Dumb wholesale network at the bottom, vibrant conpetitive market at the top.
What that meant is we had a for profit company, Telstra, owning both the entire phone network and the biggest cable network, with big stakes in PayTV and joined at the hip through that to the biggest media organisation in the country, Murdoch's. The only competition worth speaking of is another HFC rollout by a competitor that Telstra overbuilt at every turn and made much less viable and DSLAMs by other providers in a minority of local exchanges that still require payments to Telstra including ULL fees. Telstra was also privatised without any vertical separation worth speaking of.
The NBN, evil as government run business may be, represents the most viable and sensible solution to the problem of Telstra. The people putting it together and the ACCC have made sure that it wouldn't be like Telstra at all. What it represents is, like water or electricity infrastructure, a single path to the premise at the lowest possible cost, a mandate of falling prices in real and nominal terms and restrictions by the ACCC being planned out until 2040 already.
How do we know it will be good for competition? Because every telco in the country, Telstra included, is unhappy wih particular details, but they are on board, and Telstra included, happy enough to be there.
Also, the NBN is fairly dumb as a network. A lot of things are handled by the provider, the FTTH deployment of the NBN goes up to layer 2 only. We've tried your proposal of letting private enterprise do the lot, and all it has led to is an increasingly decaying copper network and no HFC rollout of any major note since about 1997.
If broadband becomes a right, not a privilege, especially in a country of suburban sprawl, then you need to treat it like water or electricity. Dumb wholesale network at the bottom, vibrant conpetitive market at the top.
[deleted]
In my experience the cost of things is higher in Australia than France. That could explain why the Aussie system is more expensive.
France has a population density 42x higher than Australia, making it significantly easier to lower the per-person cost.
Not strictly true. The relevant number is population density as lived. Australia is really big with large empty areas, but it has huge concentrations of people on the coasts in urbanized, developed environments.
The NBN still needs to go to where people live, which means stretching the grid out over far more land than in France. The width of the lain cable doesn't change the point that you still need to get someone out to dig a trench in the first place, as it were... France is only about 700km wide - that distance barely gets you out of our most populated state if you start from from its capital and drive for the nearest border.
You don't actually have to provide fibre to someone living in Cobar for the NBN to be useful though. If you cover the ten biggest cities in Australia, you have covered about 90% of the population. If you cover the ten biggest cities in france, you haven't even got to 50%
That doesn't really matter though, since the goal is 100% coverage. I mean, technically, the NBN was 'useful' even when it just covered the couple of test-run blocks (one ended about 500m from me...).
I've been a city boy all my life, but we really need to stop treating regional and rural Australia as second-class citizens when it comes to these kinds of things.
The other thing you point out is interesting - the urbanisation rate of Australia. It's in the top 5 'big' countries, sitting at 90% - above France at 85%, and the US/UK at 80%. It kinda goes against the mythical image we have of ourselves, the rugged outback-seeker. Sod the wide brown land, give us tarmac!
I've been a city boy all my life, but we really need to stop treating regional and rural Australia as second-class citizens when it comes to these kinds of things.
The other thing you point out is interesting - the urbanisation rate of Australia. It's in the top 5 'big' countries, sitting at 90% - above France at 85%, and the US/UK at 80%. It kinda goes against the mythical image we have of ourselves, the rugged outback-seeker. Sod the wide brown land, give us tarmac!
I'm working in bringing high speed broadband to rural areas in the U.S. We are putting all energy in securing funding right now. You can't imagine how hard is for a start-up to secure funding for it. It has been exhausting. I applaud any initiative by the governments to invest in high speed internet.
We have ways of funding fiber to the home and farm in the US and Europe. We have ample backbone capacity. Send me an email to discuss funding you. info at eigenglasvezel dot net
Thank you for your offer. Right now I can't get into more detail. As soon as I can (Without getting into trouble), I'll post more news.
I'd be interested in hearing more about what you're doing and how (I have similar dreams). Shoot me an e-mail if you get a free minute ([email protected]).
If you'd like to know more about why the U.S. lags insanely far behind in the broadband race, and why we pay ~ 4 times as much for our inferior service, check out David Cay Johnston's The Fine Print. I don't recommend it for anyone with blood pressure issues.
Germany and UK were not even able to get in the ranking of the FTTH Council Europe… They do both not have 1% of all and at least 200.000 households connected to fiber… what a shame
The internet in UK (London, Virginmedia) is terrible; whenever I need to download and especially upload something (some video, hires pictures, system backups) there is serious swearing involved.
In comparison, _eight_ years ago in Bucharest I had 100/100 Mbps, just like anyone else.
At least Virgin realised they suck at it and sold the Broadband division to UPC/Chello, but that's not much reason to be optimistic.
At least Virgin realised they suck at it and sold the Broadband division to UPC/Chello, but that's not much reason to be optimistic.
I don't know what the deal is in Germany, but in the UK BT have finally launched a FTTH option, so the numbers will start creeping up.
The name, in case anyone wants to look it up, is "BT Infinity 160Mbps" - it's 160Mbps down, 20Mbps up.
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/broadband/fas...
The name, in case anyone wants to look it up, is "BT Infinity 160Mbps" - it's 160Mbps down, 20Mbps up.
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/broadband/fas...
In Germany you can easily get >100Mbps through cable in many cities. FTTH would be nice, but overall i dont think average broadband speeds are really lacking behind that much.
I got 50/5Mbit cable at home and 120/10Mbit in the office.
As we are moving more and more towards cloud/web based services and streaming content, the quality of our internet connections is getting more and more important while the performance of our local hardware is losing importance as time moves on.
Sometime it will probably end with big mainframes in datacenters and thin clients in forms of phones/tablets/pcs, much like it was before the PC revolution :)
Like every ideas there is some good and some bad. It's stupid to think about FTTH and FTTLA in the french countryside because nobody cares about it. We just have to wait and see how much will be actually spent in a useful way. I'm confident because in the past, France showed that it can make a success in telco.
France is larger than Paris. The countryside isn't populated by cows only and I'm very much concerned about it.
Meanwhile in the US where technology is a huge part of our GDP
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Our-National-Broadband-Pl...
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Our-National-Broadband-Pl...
Britain would be better-off doing this rather than building ahigh-speed line. High speed internet for the whole country would be a massive stimulus to all sorts of new business ideas and working practices.
Have you heard about B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North)? One of the most amazing community projects I've ever heard of.
They're using volunteers to dig trenches to massively cut the cost of delivering 1Gbps broadband to rural homes via fiber to the home (FTTH). Because farmers agree to let a trench be dug in their fields (getting insane broadband speeds and increased property values in return) and the trenches are dug by volunteers, it's possible to deliver 1Gbps for £30/month.
All this means that it becomes more economical to deliver broadband in rural areas where you don't need to tear up streets and and you don't need huge population density to justify the initial costs of laying fiber.
BBC did a story about them recently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21442348
They're using volunteers to dig trenches to massively cut the cost of delivering 1Gbps broadband to rural homes via fiber to the home (FTTH). Because farmers agree to let a trench be dug in their fields (getting insane broadband speeds and increased property values in return) and the trenches are dug by volunteers, it's possible to deliver 1Gbps for £30/month.
All this means that it becomes more economical to deliver broadband in rural areas where you don't need to tear up streets and and you don't need huge population density to justify the initial costs of laying fiber.
BBC did a story about them recently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21442348
BT offered this (nationwide fire lookout) to the thatcher government 20+ years ago in return for 20 years to payback. Refused of ideological grounds unfortunately.
But that would not had let the fast boys in the city make a killing.
I suspect that France Telecom will contrary to EU regulations will not allow this local loop to be unbundled - France Telecom still acts as a defacto PTT and national champion
But that would not had let the fast boys in the city make a killing.
I suspect that France Telecom will contrary to EU regulations will not allow this local loop to be unbundled - France Telecom still acts as a defacto PTT and national champion
Could be argued that if done properly and thoroughly, the rail line might not be necessary at all.
Eh, people doing internet things overestimate how game-changing fast internet is. I don't care how fast the internet is, people are still going to want to meet each other for dinner, see grand-babies in person, etc. Faster internet doesn't obviate the need for travel.
Cut even 1 trip in 50 and you can avoid building a lot of infrastructure. Netflix vs video rentals is one clear example of less trips, but there are plenty of others.
1) Cutting 1 trip in 50 is actually a lot;
2) A 2% reduction in travel doesn't do much when e.g. U.S. air traffic alone is growing 2-3% every year and car traffic is increasing at 2-4% each year.
Air travel is substituting for other forms of travel because it has become far cheaper with a 50% average cost savings between 1997 and 2006.
[deleted]
well, France has plenty (and still builds) plenty of high speed rail lines. So one does not necessarily prevent the other.
I wish the US didn't have such an extreme hatred of rail. Ooh well, enjoy sitting in traffic for hours every day, my fellow citizens. You can't buy that time back later in life.
Thats a much better idea than a railway no one cares about to birmingham
It's about $3 Billion a year. Not bad at all.
US could have done this and fixed the power grid when we had that $800 Billion stimulus plan, at least we would have gotten something worthy out of it.
US could have done this and fixed the power grid when we had that $800 Billion stimulus plan, at least we would have gotten something worthy out of it.
Desperate move...
It's a desperate move and it may not be that smart in face of ever faster wireless.
The problem with France is that for years they were bragging that they were the "4e plus grand puissance du monde" (world's 4th most powerful nation). Now they're fifth. By the end of Hollande's first mandate they'll be sixth (Brazil passing in front of them).
If Hollande is re-elected, France could very well be out of the G8 by 2022 (ouch: three more places lost).
Germany today said that french people only working 35 hours a week and only until 60 years simply isn't going to cut it.
Oh, sure, it may somehow work. But not if you plan to stay relevant compared to the other countries.
These are more words by Hollande: some more little faerie dust to dodge and delay discussing the real issue. Most notably: public spending representing 56% of the GDP and the private sector being taxed like crazy and which, hence, keeps shrinking and shrinking.
It's a desperate move and it may not be that smart in face of ever faster wireless.
The problem with France is that for years they were bragging that they were the "4e plus grand puissance du monde" (world's 4th most powerful nation). Now they're fifth. By the end of Hollande's first mandate they'll be sixth (Brazil passing in front of them).
If Hollande is re-elected, France could very well be out of the G8 by 2022 (ouch: three more places lost).
Germany today said that french people only working 35 hours a week and only until 60 years simply isn't going to cut it.
Oh, sure, it may somehow work. But not if you plan to stay relevant compared to the other countries.
These are more words by Hollande: some more little faerie dust to dodge and delay discussing the real issue. Most notably: public spending representing 56% of the GDP and the private sector being taxed like crazy and which, hence, keeps shrinking and shrinking.
Last time I heard, they were so poor they got more money from the EU than they paid. Category Greece and Spain. Meanwhile we're only paying...
That's always been wrong http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/europe/09/eu_budget_...
I don't know where this gif comes from but I have this source: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/figures/2011/2011_en.cfm
So in terms of "Total 'national contributions'":
DE: 21 189.9
FR: 19 075.6
IT: 14 517.6
UK: 12 918.3
It was published the 20/09/2012.
It was published the 20/09/2012.
the two things are not necessarily at odds: states put some money in (total national contributions), then take some more money out (resulting in net contributions).
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_0026...
http://www.cringely.com/2009/10/29/what-goes-around-teledesi...
TDLR: through mergers and good lawyers, the telcos were able to get the $200 billion of Clinton tax credits in return for nothing. Obama is trying again with a $100 billion plan