Little up-take all round when it comes to fibre
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5:00AM
Wednesday April 09, 2008
By Adam Gifford
Citylink's customers are corporates who want fat pipes to the internet or completely private networks of fibre joining multiple sites in Wellington or Auckland.
The question from a colleague seemed simple enough. Is anyone supplying fibre to the home?
It's a good question. Fibre optic cable coming out of the wall means real high-speed anytime access to the internet, not having to rely on the wonders of ADSL alchemy to sweat the last dollar out of the state's historic investment in copper wiring (now owned by Telecom).
More than 21 per cent of homes in Hong Kong have fibre, 19 per cent in South Korea and 16 per cent in Japan.
It's meant an explosion of gaming in those countries, with IPTV and video on demand also moving out of the theory zone.
In Sweden, 27 per cent of homes are fibred up, and the Netherlands and France are enthusiastic adopters.
I turned for an answer to Citylink, which has one of the four fibre optic networks in Auckland's CBD.
"I've been in the fibre business for 25 years and fibre to the home has always been five years away. Now I think it's further away," says founder Neil de Witt.
Citylink's customers are corporates who want fat pipes to the internet or completely private networks of fibre joining multiple sites in Wellington or Auckland.
