> In Australia we do have a sparse consumer distribution
Nonsense, Australia is one of the most urbanised countries on Earth. We are less dispersed than the USA.
> There is a lot of resistance from the opposition as the government is largely funding our new network.
The government is right that FTTP is the most future-proof technology choice. But the way the project is being run is shameful -- they're carefully hiding the costs and debts behind "commercial-in-confidence" for a company wholly owned by the government.
And the dealing with Telstra, and creation of a new monopoly ... there's lots not to like.
> Nonsense, Australia is one of the most urbanised countries on Earth. We are less dispersed than the USA.
That is a good point. To be fair, I am not fully aware of what our distribution looks like.
Perhaps I should clarify the point I was trying to make.
Whilst it is true that a large proportion of our population reside in urban environments, one of the aims of the fibre roll out here is to reach almost all of the population with fibre to the home.
For those not in urban environments (which is still significant), the geographic spacing is quite large, and I would imagine in that context we are sparsely distributed. Is running fibre to the home in that context a viable option? Hard to say, and perhaps even the google roll out will not give us much more information or real world example then we currently have.
> ... the way the project is being run is shameful
The thing I hope most to see out of the google roll out is how they handle it. I don't know of many data points regarding nation-wide roll out of fibre technology, or any similar infrastructure, in recent times, so the potential to 'see it done right' is an exciting one.
Australia is a bit odd. It is among the lower ones in terms of average density but among the higher in median density. We're very clumped; 89% percent of the population is in urban areas. Compare with densely populated Netherlands, with only 61% percent in urban areas.
Nonsense, Australia is one of the most urbanised countries on Earth. We are less dispersed than the USA.
> There is a lot of resistance from the opposition as the government is largely funding our new network.
The government is right that FTTP is the most future-proof technology choice. But the way the project is being run is shameful -- they're carefully hiding the costs and debts behind "commercial-in-confidence" for a company wholly owned by the government.
And the dealing with Telstra, and creation of a new monopoly ... there's lots not to like.