Australia goes structural separation for near-nationwide FTTP

After Singapore and New Zealand, now it's Australia to help fund a National Broadband Network. It will be FTTP after all: FTTH + FTTO. (There are 21.5m Australians in 7.5m homes, but how many offices? - anybody?)

Here are the specs:

• Ownership: government, managed at an arm's length; majority i.e. at least 51%; may not be sold until 5 yr after launch; private investment expected; any RSP max 15%.
• Technology, topology: FTTP, max 100 Mb/s, to cover 90% (all towns of >= 1k people), elsewhere wireless/satelliet, 12 Mb/s.
• Total cost: AUD 43bn (initially AUD 4.3bn), funding through Building Australia Fund and the issuance of Aussie Infrastructure Bonds (AIBs)
• Time-line: 8 year roll-out; simultaneously in metro, regional and rural areas from early 2010; first national backbone and Tasmania (July 2009, to be built by Aurora); FTTP mandatory in greenfields from July 2010.
• Jobs: 47k jobs, 25k staff every year (peak: 37k).
• Government strategy: facilitate access to land, poles, ducts; e-health, e-learning; FTTP required for greenfields from July 1 2010.
• Regulation: consultation on measures considered at Telstra: access, functional separation, horizontal separation; response due June 3 2009.

Questions remaining:

• PON (effectively 2-layer; no unbundling, just WBA) or P2P (3-layer, WBA or ODF access) network?
• How about in-home wiring?
• Role of Telstra: horizontal and/or vertical separation; access to infrastructure; spin-off assets into the new company?
• Pricing?
• Penetration targets?
• Will 1 Gb/s come into play?

Remarks: similarities to Singapore (PON) and New Zealand (probably P2P - see page 26):

• Clear choice for FTTP over FTTN.
• Mixed ownership of the passive layer.
• Open access.
• Structural separation.