Australia begs residents to accept free fiber connection

If your government had decided to install a national, open-access fiber-to-the-home network to 93 percent of all residents, if the installation was free, and if the fiber hookup had no effect on your existing phone or cable service and committed you to nothing... wouldn't you take it?

Not if you live in Tasmania, where the Australian government's ambitious new National Broadband Network is getting underway with its first fiber deployments. The government-created NBN Co. has the right to dig up streets and trench along rights-of-way, but to install that "last-mile" connection to a home or apartment it needs permission -- and Tasmanians have been slow to offer it. According to local news accounts, only half of the homes and business in the first dig zone have given permission to access their property. That led to this week's rather pathetic press release from NBN Co. in which the CEO basically begged "residents and businesses within the Willunga and Kiama First Release Sites to sign up." Those who don't accept the free install when crews pass through their area will need to pay for an install at some later date if they need service from the network. And they will need service, eventually. Under the government's plan, the incumbent telco Telstra will turn over its old copper phone lines to the government, and all of these will be disconnected within eight years. Telstra, along with other telecommunications and Internet companies, will then compete by offering IP phone service and 'Net access through the new fiber network. Consumers can pick their choice of provider.