AUSTRALIAN Telecommunications Users Group national director
Walter Green said there had been a significant cost reduction in the delivery
of fibre to homes in the first half of last year.
“Our experience in putting in fibre to homes and running
services to homes right now is break even,” Dr Green said.
“In other words, if you were to go for a new greenfield
development, you should be putting in fibre now.
“You can put in the alternate copper equivalents but they
have a short-term life and they are not likely to meet future needs.
“It is only literally within the last year that the whole
dynamics in pricing and how you deliver services to the home have changed quite
significantly.”
Dr Green said the reason for this was that the components to
deliver fibre to homes dropped by about 220 per cent in price in the space of
three months.
Chime Communications CEO Stephen Dalby said this cost
reduction was creating commercial opportunities for service providers.
“We’ve been looking at rolling out our own infrastructure
and it is clear that, six months ago, quite a few new components came into the
market,” Mr Dalby said.
“We are starting to get contact from the manufacturers
presenting to us a variety of technology that had experienced a quantum drop in
price.
“What we might have said 12 months ago from a commercial
perspective isn’t going to fly. Today we can look at that and say, ‘there is a
good business in this’.”
But with all new technology, he said, there was always a
danger that consumers and businesses would get locked in to cycles of
technology.
