The Urban Development Institute of Australia has made a submission to the Federal Government on plans to mandate FTTH in greenfield developments.

However I am note too sure if this position is supported by a majority of developers, because the feedback I am getting is that developers are begining to understand the benefits of FTTH infrastructure and how important it is in a package of tools used to market their properties.


Ry Crozier of iTNews writes about the UDIA submission to government and their request to delay the mandate until the following year.

The institute, which represents housing developers, warned the Government that its rush to mandate fibre-to-the-premises in new housing estates could impact developer cashflows and derail what would have been viable projects. However what should be pointed out is that with the mandation of FTTH the cost of such deployments are likely to come down as scalability increases and some of the providers already work closely with developers on management of their cashflow.

"Decisions in relation to the provision of FTTP are usually made a number of years in advance of subdivision work and are based upon cost calculations that are made as part of a commercial assessment of the development," it said in a submission to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. However many of the projects Opticomm have taken on have frequently occurred late in the development cycle of a project.

While the UDIA is keen to see the roll out of optical fibre in Greenfields at an early stage, it perceives a number of issues in the number of skilled operators
available to put in place the facilities, undertake the necessary planning, and put in place the appropriate governmental mechanisms at the various levels of government.

In general the submission by the UDIA was exceptionlly well balanced considering the cost increase the developer and ultimately the land purchaser will have to bear.