David Isenberg has set the scene for the busiest TUANZ Telecommunications Day on record (standing room only!). According to his ‘back of the envelope’ calculations he reckons it will cost $4.2 billion to bring build a fibre network to every house in this country and an additional $2 billion to get the required international capacity with an additional cable to the Southern Cross Network.
He sought to explode the myth that the internet will run out of capacity when he held up a 864-fibre cable, telling us that each fibre can carry 160 wavelengths. According to Isenberg, each of these 864 fibres has a terabyte capacity – and one signal can go from Russell to Dunedin without regeneration.
When he originally sent TUANZ the abstract for his presentation for the programme it was titled the ‘Four Paths to Kiwi Internet Leadership’ and centred on the separation of Telecom. But in the two months the programme was printed and after speaking with various industry people since arriving in the country he decided the four paths have changed, they are now:
Open fibre
Open fibre
Open fibre
Open fibre
He went on to say that he sees regulatory changes like Operational Separation as akin to Lite Cigarettes – they don’t stop an addict from smoking but they do lead him or her to admit they have a problem.