Australians are certainly behind the eight ball when it comes to Broadband Technology (as we all should know by now). While the Federal Government is bungling around in la la land over a new national high speed Broadband Network as the Federal Election looms, other regions of the planet such as Asia are far more advanced than Australia using robust Fibre to the Home Technology (that's since early 2000 as well).
Although not entirely wide spread yet, other regions such as Europe and more so Scandinavia have embraced the technology and implemented Fibre to the Home Networks. It's easy to see that the core of Australia's future depends on a national high speed Broadband network, so why is it that decisions and development on Broadband infrastructure in our country are taking so long and being left on the backburner?
21.2 percent of homes in Hong Kong were found to be wired with FTTH, followed by South Korea at 19.6 percent and Japan at 16.3 percent.
In Japan, FTTH often provides a 100Mbps connection for less money than Australians pay for a connection one-tenth as fast.
Take-up in Europe varies from country to country, although the most significant movement to date have taken place in the Scandinavian countries and, latterly, France and the Netherlands.
Current estimates put the number of subscribers across the continent at around one million, with Sweden leading the way with some 27 percent of subscribers.
Much of the debate around fibre in Australia remains around fibre to the node, with both the Coalition and Labor planning to authorise rollouts in the near future -- should they be elected.
Labor's communications spokesperson Stephen Conroy has previously lent his support to a FTTH rollout although the costs involved in such a move remain prohibitive, according to the Opposition senator.
Read the entire article at ZDNet.com.au