| % of Population vs % of Geography It is fairly easy getting to high %'s of "population" in places like Australia. The challenge happens when the expectation is to build to remote locations with costs to build that far exceed any revenue expectations.
Population density is something people tend to forget when quoting stats around "areas poorly served" in geographies like the US
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"Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy |
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 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | said by yt:It is fairly easy getting to high %'s of "population" in places like Australia. The challenge happens when the expectation is to build to remote locations with costs to build that far exceed any revenue expectations. Population density is something people tend to forget when quoting stats around "areas poorly served" in geographies like the US Australia is the same size of he US with 1/10 the population. |
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 Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | reply to yt
This NBN may not be completed because to get approval, the Labor Gov't had to cut a deal with 2 rural independent MPs in order to form a gov't.
That deal reversed the rollout plan from metro areas first & the rural areas next in order to finance the costs of the rollout.
Under the deal, the rural areas now go 1st and the metro areas last. Besides throwing the financing plan on its head, it will also erode voter support(who mostly live in metro areas) due to higher broadband costs in metro areas in order to subsidize rural costs. The Labor Gov't is a minority gov't that may not last very long. Some think less than 1 yr. Not long enough to see the NBN rollout to conclusion.
»www.news.com.au/features/federal···16158760 |
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 MrMoodyFree range slavePremium
join:2002-09-03
Smithfield, NC | reply to BF69
said by BF69:Australia is the same size of he US with 1/10 the population. With most of it concentrated in relatively small areas along the coast.
I'd like to know the minimum number of square miles it takes to cover 93% of the population. I bet Australia's number is much smaller than the US.
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Real estate taxes are a violation of property rights. |
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| said by MrMoody:said by BF69:Australia is the same size of he US with 1/10 the population. With most of it concentrated in relatively small areas along the coast. I'd like to know the minimum number of square miles it takes to cover 93% of the population. I bet Australia's number is much smaller than the US. Uhh...no. Australia's spending upwards of $5000/household to roll fiber out to 93% of its population. Compare that with Verizon's sub $1500/household FIOS project. The AU fiber is crisscrossing the entire country and reaching even remote areas, which was key to Labor gaining voter support for the project.
Your cynicism is misplaced, and your arrogance is a bit annoying. |
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MrMoodyFree range slavePremium
join:2002-09-03
Smithfield, NC | said by sonicmerlin:Uhh...no. Australia's spending upwards of $5000/household to roll fiber out to 93% of its population. Compare that with Verizon's sub $1500/household FIOS project. The AU fiber is crisscrossing the entire country and reaching even remote areas, which was key to Labor gaining voter support for the project. Your cynicism is misplaced, and your arrogance is a bit annoying. Who pissed in your cornflakes? I said nothing about the project and your attribution of arrogance is mistaken. I merely made a guess about population distribution and stated it as such.
Verizon hasn't covered anywhere near 93% of the customers in their territory, despite much of it (i.e. the northeast corridor) being relatively high density. $5000 per household is still not that bad, I would pay $5000 to get fiber service to my door. You can easily spend that remodeling a bathroom.
You might be surprised to hear that I actually think that building infrastructure for commerce is one of the few things the government should be doing, as opposed to corruption and stupidity like occupying foreign countries, warring on victimless crimes and bailing out or giving legislative advantage to crony banks, insurance companies and casino markets.
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Real estate taxes are a violation of property rights. |
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 mocyclerPremium
join:2001-01-22
Naperville, IL
 ·AT&T U-Verse
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And what excuse will be tossed up ten or twelve years from now, when half the network isn't built, the half that is complete doesn't work right, and the whole deal is billions over budget?
Much like the USA, the more the government screws with something, the worse it gets. Sit back and watch the implosion.
I guess they can always blame George Bush.
mocycler |
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JPLPremium
join:2007-04-04
Downingtown, PA
kudos:1
1 edit | reply to sonicmerlin
said by sonicmerlin:said by MrMoody:said by BF69:Australia is the same size of he US with 1/10 the population. With most of it concentrated in relatively small areas along the coast. I'd like to know the minimum number of square miles it takes to cover 93% of the population. I bet Australia's number is much smaller than the US. Uhh...no. Australia's spending upwards of $5000/household to roll fiber out to 93% of its population. Compare that with Verizon's sub $1500/household FIOS project. The AU fiber is crisscrossing the entire country and reaching even remote areas, which was key to Labor gaining voter support for the project. Your cynicism is misplaced, and your arrogance is a bit annoying. Actually his cynicism is very well placed. The numbers you're quoting indicate that this would be attrociously expensive for the US. Let's ignore the fact that the US population centers are all over the place, vs. Australia. Let's assume they're equal. At $5000/household, Australia can do this (and let's assume that there will be no cost overruns, because Lord knows NO government program EVER overruns its cost) for a total expenditure of $11Billion. They can do it becaues they have a population of about 22Million. Which is roughly 7.5% of the US population.
Assuming that the cost per household of doing that here in the US is the same, it would cost us $1,500,000,000,000. BTW, your comparison with FiOS is very misplaced. The reason that Verizon can get it down to $1500/household is because they can afford to be selective about WHERE they run their fiber. There are some Verizon markets that will never get FiOS because it's too sparsely populated. Verizon keeps the cost down precisely because they only fiber up areas that are densely populated to begin with, with no fiber stringing across vast swaths of the fruited plains.
If you did this type of thing here in the US, you couldn't be selective like that. And there is no way in hell you keep the cost down to $1500/household if you have to run fiber to every small town in the country. Heck, in my mind $5000/household is unreasonable in light of that. |
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| said by JPL:Actually his cynicism is very well placed. The numbers you're quoting indicate that this would be attrociously expensive for the US. Let's ignore the fact that the US population centers are all over the place, vs. Australia. Let's assume they're equal. At $5000/household, Australia can do this (and let's assume that there will be no cost overruns, because Lord knows NO government program EVER overruns its cost) for a total expenditure of $11Billion. They can do it becaues they have a population of about 22Million. Which is roughly 7.5% of the US population. Assuming that the cost per household of doing that here in the US is the same, it would cost us $1,500,000,000,000. BTW, your comparison with FiOS is very misplaced. The reason that Verizon can get it down to $1500/household is because they can afford to be selective about WHERE they run their fiber. There are some Verizon markets that will never get FiOS because it's too sparsely populated. Verizon keeps the cost down precisely because they only fiber up areas that are densely populated to begin with, with no fiber stringing across vast swaths of the fruited plains. If you did this type of thing here in the US, you couldn't be selective like that. And there is no way in hell you keep the cost down to $1500/household if you have to run fiber to every small town in the country. Heck, in my mind $5000/household is unreasonable in light of that. FCC estimates put a fiber network at $300 billion. There are about 112 million households. Unlike Australia most rural households are directly adjacent to a main road. Only a very tiny % (5 or less) of homes are truly out in the middle of nowhere, and they could easily be serviced by wireless or satellite. |
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| reply to Romney2012
said by Romney2012:This NBN may not be completed because to get approval, the Labor Gov't had to cut a deal with 2 rural independent MPs in order to form a gov't. That deal reversed the rollout plan from metro areas first & the rural areas next in order to finance the costs of the rollout. Under the deal, the rural areas now go 1st and the metro areas last. Besides throwing the financing plan on its head, it will also erode voter support(who mostly live in metro areas) due to higher broadband costs in metro areas in order to subsidize rural costs. The Labor Gov't is a minority gov't that may not last very long. Some think less than 1 yr. Not long enough to see the NBN rollout to conclusion. » www.news.com.au/features/federal···16158760 In my reading of AU politics, Andrew Robb is an absolute nutcase. But why feed the troll? |
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1 edit | reply to sonicmerlin
I remember when I first heard about NBN 2-3 years ago, I did some paper napkin math on what it would take to do it here. And those numbers feel pretty accurate.
VZ FiOS showed a lot about large scale fiber deployments in the US. Particularly that it isn't as expensive as pundits would have you believe, and that costs come down.
If take into account the economies of scale that a country wide deployment would have, costs come down even further.
Also when you have a single piece of infrastructure, with everyone investing into, and competing on top of it, costs come down dramatically. There's good reason why there's only one electric, gas, water, sewer line into your home or business. It follows that there should be one, publicly owned, fiber line as well. |
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