FTTH – Just get it done!

Why bother with FTTN if we are just going to have to run cables to homes in the near future anyway?

Essentially, our bandwidth demands will increase as our technology cravings increase, and more bandwidth intensive ‘crap’ is released.

YouTube is just one recent example of ‘crap’ that uses a lot of bandwidth.

Add on internet gaming, VoIP, IPTV, Browsing, Wireless Internet theft, Linux ISOs, and all of a sudden bandwidth demands quickly over power even today’s residentially available connection.

Why bother going to FTTN, if eventually, we will need to tear those nodes down and add FTTH anyway?

Recent research has revealed that using the VDSL technology, it might be possible to increase the speeds on offer up to 250Mbps, which is pretty impressive.

However, the technology still has 4 years to go before it will see any retail deployment.

And after we suck down that 250Mbps to homes, what do we aim for after that?

Of course, you could always just connect another phone line and get a second connection, and use network load balancing and have a big 500Mbps connection.

Then, 10 years later, we have more bandwidth demands? We need 10Gbps to be future proof by that point in time?

Well, that’s where FTTH would have already proven viable, and put Australia as world leaders. We could easily have connections in the area of Gbps right now, if a government decides that the way forward is indeed through a national infrastructure program, rolling out FTTH.

It’s not a “premium” investment. It’s a FUTURE investment. Spending them dollars now, means you get to not require the upgrade in the future. You spend it now, get it out of the way, and that’s it. We are done with broadband infrastructure.

That’s a SOLUTION to the long term problem.

FTTN is a bandaid. It patches over the problem and helps it heal (by allowing extension to FTTH).

Of course, FTTN is a bit useless if you have nodes sitting everywhere that you are going to take out anyway..

Future proofing the national infrastructure for the extreme long term will see less demand on government resources in that area.

Enjoy!