Pipe Network's Bevan Slattery, Nextgen's Malcolm Roe, Ericsson's Tony Malligeorgos and TransACT's Gordon Dunsford discuss what the federal government's national broadband network will actually deliver.



http://tv.misaustralia.com/video/7408

Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, has predicted the national broadband network (NBN) will bring hundreds of TV channels to Australia and flagged a consequential need for radical change in the media sector’s regulatory framework. Finally some-one is begining to realise the NBN is not just about fast Internet services. Hopefully this will bring the death to Foxtel's arrogant approach to the rest of the industry.

During a panel discussion session on the benefits of the NBN, Senator Conroy was asked how the NBN would affect the media sector’s regulatory framework. Conroy, pointed to IPTV providers in Hong Kong as an example of the kind of threat to incumbent TV providers that will force change to the industry.

“Convergence has happened. The broadband network is going to radically reshape the media sector,” Conroy said. “Some get it a lot, some don’t quite get it yet and some have been in a position of privilege for some time [editor: read FOXTEL] and had competition kept away from them. But broadband network IPTV will bring hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of channels of choice for consumers. That is going to force a radical change.”

All I can say is bring it on!

Read the full article on ARN

Opticomm has announced the commissioning of another 4 estates. Lochiel Park in South Australia and Alamanda, Chancellor and University Hill in Victoria are now connected to the Opticomm network with customers able to receive up to 100Mbps internet, television, telephone and PayTV services. At University Hill the network is also serving business customers with the first being connected in the coming month.

The Government's decision on National Broadband Network has seen its far share of critics. However a recently report published by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, offers some hard facts and evidence for anyone still in doubt about the government's decision on the NBN.

Whilst being US-centric it does provide some serious food for thought. Enjoy!

The Need for Speed

One of the discussions that has been occuring recently - and there have been comments on this blog - is the point of Bitstream or ULL Open access.

I will provide a detail post when time permits, but there is an excellent presentation by Stefan Keller-Tuberg, chair of the Regulation and Policy Committee, FTTH Council Asia-Pacific, in which he presents aspects of "over the top" service delivery and alternative mechanisms of delivering other services such as eHealth and SmartGrid.

http://www.atug.com.au/atugregconf09/ftthpres.pdf

Look at slides 11-14.

I came across this nice tool on the FTTH Council (Europe) web site which demonstrates the speed of different broadband technologies.

You can select the different purposes of the broadband (consumer, business, society), the type of content and then just click start.