Australia’s Gigabit Future needs an end-to-end ecosystem – Telstra CEO
Australia must think very carefully about its policy and investment settings as it prepares for the rapidly approaching Gigabit Future, Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo told the CommsDay Summit held in Sydney. In his keynote speech, Sol said that FTTN was crucial to Australia's future, but that it was just a part - albeit an essential part - of an infrastructure ecosystem that only Telstra could deliver.
Edited excerpt from Sol's address to the Summit:
"Often we view concepts such as the Gigabit Future as merely theoretical and a long way off. In this case it is not - it is coming at us in a rapid and chaotic way, driven by the growing demands of Australians using broadband in their homes and businesses, and on mobile devices wherever they work or play.
"We are at a point now where we really need to understand what infrastructure, investment, priorities, and products and services will best enable the gigabit future.
"We need to wisely think about policy and investment settings.
"It is much like designing, managing and building a transportation system for the nation. It isn’t just about freeways and feeder roads and on ramps for cars, it is also about railways, mass transit, stop lights, ports, monitoring, environmental input, traffic flows, safety and security, an so on.
The two day CommsDay Summit - Get ready for the Gigabit Age - is presented by Communications Day, a leading source of telecom news, opinion and analysis in Australia. Telstra is one of the high profile sponsors of this important annual event. Telstra CEO, Sol Trujillo was the first speaker at the Summit's Plenary Session held today in Sydney. Tomorrow Public Policy & Communications GMD Dr Phil Burgess will speak immediately after the Federal Communications Minister. The first day of the summit included a FTTN discussion panel, in which Telstra's Regulatory Affairs Executive Director, Tony Warren took part in the debate.
"The nation’s fibre-to-the-node project needs to be seen in this context. FTTN is important – in fact, it’s crucial to Australia’s future – but it’s dangerous to think FTTN is the only element in a Gigabit Future. Instead, it is part – an essential part – of an infrastructure ecosystem that must exist for the promises of the gigabit age to be delivered.
"We are witnessing unprecedented and exponential growth in information traffic. In February 2001 our networks carried approximately 200 Terabytes of traffic. Five years later, they carried almost 8,000 Terabytes. A mere 15 months later - in November last year - the traffic had grown to almost 18,000 Terabytes for a single month. That's a 90-fold increase in less than seven years. And the pace of that growth isn't slowing.
"This traffic is not created in isolation. It travels in an end-to-end ecosystem. The weakest link in this end-to-end chain can be the Achilles heel that destroys the user experience.
"Australia’s Gigabit Future needs an end-to-end ecosystem that is scaleable, integrated, flexible, device agnostic, secure, widely available and fast. When I say fast I don’t mean one, three or even 12 megabits per second. Australia will need 30, 50 or 100 megabits per second in a relatively short period of time.
"So is Australia ready for a Gigabit Future? Well at Telstra we’re doing everything possible to make Australia ready. For the past three years, we’ve been undertaking detailed, complex planning.
"Australia needs to be in a position where all the information is captured, managed and distributed.
"In capturing, managing and distributing information these functions must be integrated flexible, reliable, scaleable, secure, widely available, and fast.
"Which means carrier-grade. Only Telstra has the capacity and proven capability to undertake this critical nation-building task. This is not just about a fibre network. It’s about delivering an end-to-end, ecosystem.
"Australia has one of the world’s most challenging combinations of distance, density and terrain. This simply, but importantly, means it’s more expensive to rollout infrastructure here.
"There are not, and will not be, companies flocking to Australia to invest billions in light of this nation’s size, population density and terrain. The economics have to be right.
"Australia’s future must be tied to a Gigabit future. That’s a future only Telstra can deliver."
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