Huge Australian broadband project begins

Australia, a country about twice the size of the entire European Union, has begun a daring and complex project to bring very high-speed fiber-optic broadband to virtually all of its citizens.

The world is watching the Australian project that is intended to bring 90 percent of all Australian homes into the broadband fold, using state of the art fiber-optic cabling with a targeted download speed of 100 megabits per second. The total quantity of homes that are expected to lie within the system is stated to be 90 percent; at present, only .1 percent of Australians have access to fiber-optics, currently being connected to the internet via pairs of copper wires initially installed to bring landline telephones into Australia’s homes.

Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde made an attempt to explain how large the project is when he was quoted in an AFP story as saying, “There’s no kidding about it, it’s a massive job. You have to physically go to 10 million premises and bring a cable there, either (by) digging it or via (power) poles and then obviously it’s not just having the cable, you have to have the installation in the house.”

It goes without saying that 10 million residences and businesses is a huge number, especially since they are spread across a wide variety of terrain types and almost 8 million square miles, not including Tasmania, where fiber-optic cable is currently being laid. Australia is a huge country, and much of it (like the great Outback) is virtually empty. The challenges of the project are numerous, and recognized by all concerned as being of interest to many other countries.

Network expert Reg Coutts, who advised the government on the huge network project, said the venture had attracted top-level attention in the United States and other countries. Coutts has said”There’s really an absolute interest, particularly in America, but also in Europe. People are asking, ‘What the hell are you doing and how are you doing it?’ People of course are sceptical.”

Although the project is relatively straightforward, basically digging up the old copper table and replacing it with fiber-optics, as well as replacing the associated network hardware, it is still huge. The material and methodology used will be studied carefully by other countries, including the United States, who are interested in the same goal of bringing broadband to the vast majority of the populous. The success, both technologically and financially, of the project will be watched closely by all concerned, and used as a decision-making tool by many other countries.

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