Goodbye copper. Hello fibre!
It is well known that fibre is becoming the standard broadband connection in many developed countries. While DSL is still the dominant broadband technology, accounting for 60% of all broadband connection, fibre is gaining ground with 11% of all broadband lines.
In countries like Japan and South Korea there is a decline in the number of DSL services with a steady migration to faster fibre based connections. Fibre currently accounts for half of all broadband connections in Japan (54%) and Korea (49%).
The drive to fibre is however not only happening in Asia. The French Government recently launched a US$2.5-billion fibre program with similar initiatives on the go in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Finland has gone one step further, making 1 Mbps Internet access a legal right, with the aim of making a 100 Mbps broadband connection a legal right by the end of 2015.
Australia goes for fibre
In a recent development the Australian Government has convinced the country’s dominant telecoms provider Telstra (the equivalent of Telkom in SA) to move away from copper and cable lines in favour of fibre.
The agreement between Australia’s national broadband network (NBN) and Telstra means that there will be infrastructure sharing between Telstra and NBN, and there will further be a progressive migration of customers from Telstra’s copper and pay-TV cable networks to the new wholesale-only fibre network.
Ars Technica reports that Australia will have an open-access fiber network that reaches most homes in the country, with the rest served mostly by high-speed wireless (12Mbps minimum) and a few isolated places with new higher-speed satellites.
In South Africa Broadband Infraco is the equivalent of Australia’s national broadband network, but with far less funding and a less defined game plan. Broadband Infraco is set to provide affordable long haul wholesale bandwidth, but is unlikely to have any influence on access networks in the country.
More competition in the fixed line access market is sorely needed in South Africa, and while cheaper international and national bandwidth will result in more affordable ADSL ISP packages, the overall cost of ADSL – which consists of analogue line rental, ADSL access and ADSL ISP fees – is still largely determined by Telkom.
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