Ageing Australia doesn’t want 1Gbps: Linton

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The fiery chief executive of internet service provider Exetel has opened fire on the National Broadband Network’s support for 1Gbps speeds, saying those excited by the higher speeds are “unthinking and just plain stupid”, with wireless broadband waiting in the wings.

During the election campaign, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy revealed the NBN would support speeds of up to 1Gbps, instead of the 100Mbps initially planned — after NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley informed him the upgrade would cost no extra.

But in a blog post published today, Linton — who leads one of the few ISPs to provide broadband in Tasmania over the fledgling NBN network in the state — said it was “the unthinking and just plain stupid” who were excited about the additional speeds.

“Pretty much along the same lines as the stone age cargo cult dwellers in the jungles of New Guinea are excited about the next ‘goods drop’ from the strange coloured bird,” he wrote.

Linton added Australia’s ageing population — who he said didn’t “play online computer games or get a surrogate sex life from pornography” had no interest in terabyte broadband plans (such as have been recently released by some of Exetel’s competitors on ADSL) and speeds that could never made a difference to the internet applications they used.

“They are going to be the ever growing percentage of Australians who are going to drive the percentage of residences that don’t have any sort of wire line connection to their home,” he said.
Linton has been a long-time critic of the NBN and a supporter of the incoming generation of 3G mobile broadband and wireless solutions as an alternative.

The Coalition has proposed wireless solutions as one plank of its own broadband policy and would abolish the NBN project if it wins government — which is still a possibility, with both sides of politics negotiating with the independents with a view to form Government after the hung parliament result of the Federal Election more than a week ago.

However many figures in the industry — including Quigley himself — have strongly pushed the view that even if much of the nation’s broadband needs could be served with wireless, increasing mobile data usage would force telcos to lay fibre infrastructure to their mobile towers in any case.

“My point, made more badly than I had hoped for, is that the actual market for wire line residential broadband is going to fall rather than increase,” Linton wrote today.

Image credit: Delimiter

170 COMMENTS

  1. They may not want or see the need for 1GBps, but do they honestly want to be responsible for their children or grandchildren being prevented from having it and potentially creating innovative business on top of the NBN ? I think not.

    • To be honest, I kinda agree with Linton to a certain extent. I mean just three weeks ago the screaming internet masses were crying out that everyone needed 100Mbps so that new business models could emerge and innovation could proceed and yada yada yada. Suddenly after Quigley flicks the “1Gbps is possible” switch, the exact same people are claiming that we need 1Gbps.

      It’s complete bullshit. Realistically, for almost all applications, there is no difference between 100Mbps and 1Gbps right now — and there won’t be for half a decade more.

      • “Realistically, for almost all applications, there is no difference between 100Mbps and 1Gbps right now — and there won’t be for half a decade more.”

        Right now, no. But it’ll be a half decade before this ball really gets rolling anyway. By then we might well be looking at entirely new classes of services and content delivery… Or we might just be looking downcast and wishing we had the sort of bandwidth required to support them.

        The *last* Australian national fibre broadband network ( http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/2010/08/11/the-national-broadband-network-2-0/ – this has actually been implemented previously) took nearly seven years to roll out, and that’s without connecting any of the consumer-connectivity equipment and last-yards cabling (other than in the couple of trial districts when the prototype was under evaluation).

        • Ok lets put it another way – name one activity, worth $43b no less to citizens, that you will be able to do on a 1gb connection that you can’t do on ADSL2+ at 2,500 KB/s

          Now go to every homeless person in your CBD and explain to them why you being able to X (download a movie in minutes, access Facebook more quickly) is more important than them having a roof over their head.

          $43b would easily put a roof over the head of every homeless person in the country. But feel free to whinge about how awful it is to only have access to 25mbit internet speeds

          • Fair enough point, but do you really think that ANY of that $43bn would have been spent on homeless people? I think not…

          • Try telling that to the millions of Aussies who CAN’T get ADSL2/+, or even ADSL1. Think outside of your own world for a change.

            Wireless internet will never be viable as a “fix all” solution. The response times simply are not up to scratch. Do you do anything at all on the internet that requires a fast response time between servers? No? Oh… well consider the millions of Aussies (children AND adults) who play online computer games. What about anyone who works from a home office and requires video conferencing? I personally work in IT and need decent response times so I can remote manage servers and client pcs.

            Wired internet is here to stay until someone can address the lag problem. I’m sick of “authorities on the subject” mouthing off and sharing their views that are not representative of the majority of Australians.

          • I agree entirely with Silly Rabbit. Currently I pay $100-$110 a month to get ADSL1 in my area. Due to very high amounts of congestion my download speeds average about 30kb/s. Split this between 4 devices connected to the internet in my house and it is incredibly frustrating to try and do anything short of Google search.

            I get the impression that a large portion of those opposed to the NBN are currently sitting on a decent ADSL2+ or cable connection. I doubt that any of them are using a 3g usb stick as their main source of internet…

          • As a network administrator for a global Company managing 50 servers on 4 continents i can say 100% that 1gb speeds would be great, we would see an increase of caps (already seen in tasmania) reduction of internation bandwidth costs and greater connectivity.

            Due to current costs we currently have a 4mbit connection between our syd/melb offices, if 1gb was available would we take it? hell yes! it would mean any user on 1gb could essentially have a VPN connection to the corp office at gigabit lan like speeds.

            Not to mention that like most people i have multiple devices on my network at home (3 comptuers, 2 iphones an ipad, ipod, ps3) and thats JUST NOW. how many of these devices existed 5 years ago? the 3 comptuers. hell it was only 25 years ago that Microsoft really got momentum and look where we are now. we are at the limitation of how fast we can make the electron go down the copper for the computer CPU so they add extra cores. why the hell would we want to commit to FTTN or even HFC? the limit of HFC is 100mbit (docsis 3.0) – no further upgrades available at this time. with a quick switchout of ‘exchange’ hardware this 1gb network can become 10gb! can HFC do that NOW? no can FTTN do that now? NO can wireless do that? Dont even dream about it.

            At the end of the day the only way to make a network for the here, now and into the future is FTTP. to do anything else would be like converting your local city’s freeway into a dirt track. sure itll be there for a while and be functional but wake the f*** up and realise it is not the way to the future.

            One might argue that todays computers cannot write data that fast, and this might be true to the ‘average’ user but hell only 25 years ago you had an MS DOS disc and a Program disk. if you were to graph the increases in technology it would be parabolic; and where would we be in 25 years time? i could only imagine. who’s to say you wont have your tv/fridge/alarm clock/AC/microwave on the internet? all needing their own 25mbit connection? especially with the push to cloud computing i would not be surprised to see more and more devices operating solely on the internet. as a network admin im not 100% sure of the idea of a ‘thin client’ connection and running their desktop from ‘the cloud’ but it could certianly be possible with 1gb connections.

            … but lets wait and see if you get capped by telstra to 64kbit if you go over ;)

          • I’ll bite:

            Streaming 2 high definition movies at the same time while someone is making a phone/video call.

            Each high definition stream would be about 15Mbit/s making an average of 30Mbit/s with that number peaking higher due to the variable compression used. The phone/video call’s data stream would also need to be uninterrupted and prioritised. This isn’t counting anyone else using the internet or idle internet downloads such as software updates running in the background, network cloud data and other traffic.

            This happening is valid and likely just 5 years from now. Doing the above with ADSL2+ would be impossible. Hell, streaming a single HD movie now can be a problem, not to mention that because of bandwidth issues most providers heavily compress HD internet streams and drastically reduce the quality of the video as a result, the max bitrate of a Blu-Ray video is 40mbit/s for a reason.

            Looking into the future, say 20-40 years from now potential technology like holography would command very high bandwidth requirements which only fibre optics could provide.

          • I don’t think anybody is doubting the need for highspeed broadband, based on fibre, in the future. The question is: do we roll the entire thing out NOW, at incredible cost, rather than a more sensible, staggered rollout over the next (say) 50 years? 43 billion is an INCREDIBLE amount of money, and could be used to fix so many more pressing problems than internet connectivity. A few thousand more hospitals, hundreds of new highways, enough new schools to provide for the entire country, these are a few of the things 43 billion would buy. Just the interest each year on that outlay would be enough to keep 35,000 people in jobs FOREVER. So yes, it will benefit the community, certainly. It will be necessary at some time, for sure. But at a national cost of tens of BILLIONS of dollars, it’s hard to justify the expense now. And no matter what they might spruik, this network is never going to both be affordable and make anything like a commercial return. In fact, it will lose fistfuls of money, guaranteed. Let’s do the maths – 10 million or so premises (best case, more likely is a 30-40% takeup rate), each would have to pay around $500 per year JUST for the network to break even on interest repayments. That’s $40 per month WITHOUT considering any of the following: data costs, staffing costs, retailer expenses, retailer profit margins, network maintenance, network upgrades, etc, etc, etc. Considering Telstra currently puts a value of around $7/month on it’s copper network (for costs related to initial installation, not anything else) and most wholesale customers question this, that means at LEAST $35 more per month for anything under the NBN to make returns similar to those today. And of course since the services running over it that we NEED RIGHT NOW are going to require vast amounts of data, add quite a bit more on top to pay for that increase as well. So best case scenario is that either the network loses a few billion each year, or we pay $35/month MORE for services compared to what we already have, more realistic for a lesser takeup is a $60-$70 premium for commercial return rates. Not going to happen.

            It’s the same situation as when telephone lines werent’ rolled out to the entire country in one hit, or paved roads, or water (which STILL isn’t available in amost all rural areas). Are we suggesting that fast internet is more important than running water or sewerage? E-health is all well and good, but is it better than having ACTUAL doctors or a very real hospital, full of the latest equipment, in country regions? Teleconferencing is great, but more important that actual real roads? You don’t buy Foxtel when your kids are starving, and right now this country has a whole list of things to fix that are considerably more important than the telecoms network. Yes, start the upgrade in the most needy areas, and let private enterprise take care of it in the profitable areas (which they certainly will if there’s $$$ to be made). Then over time gradually increase the network to cover everybody, just like copper wires did over the last century, just like mobile phone coverage in the last 20 years. But of course sensibility doesn’t look quite as good in an election campaign, does it, and there’s probably more voters persuaded by fast internet than there are sick children, homeless people, etc, who would benefit from the alternative.

          • Think of how much prices seem to be rising each year, and then think about how much something like this will blow out if you try to do it over 50 years as prices keep rising?

            Doing the lot in one go now will obviously cost alot but once its done, its done. If this nation building project is delayed by policitians and lobbyists of ‘future technologies’ and we still end up with the same conclusion in 10 – 15 years its going to cost even more to get moving.

            The current internet landscape in Australia needs help across the board and private companies are too concerned about the immediate short term return for their investors and will not step up to the plate and provide adequate services to the bush. Government intervention is required to help bring everyone up to a new acceptable level where the bush can at least get a service that is alot better than what they currently have.

            The whole thing isn’t about getting that internet speed NOW! It is about setting up Australia to be in a position to attract investment from global and local companies in expanding their service reach through the internet and using the NBN to do so. If you build it, they will come.

          • Your very wrong by using 2,500KB/s ADSL2+ as a comparison.

            99% of people sync at slower speeds than that, Fiber on the other hand is 100% speed 100% of the time.

      • Oh really mr expert? Server backups can finally be stored offsite, branch offices can use replication far more effectively. 1Gbps is fantastic for business, in fact i would definitely not be surprised if we have two or three lines setup in our main office to take full advantage of it.

      • I suspect that Linton wants to sell you wireless data at $10 per GB instead of fibre data at a few cents per GB. Telstra under Sol tried a similar spin tactic – launch an overpriced 100 Mbps HFC service to a few suburbs, wait a few months during which about 3 customers buy it, then announce that everyone must be delighted with their ADSL and there is no demand for anything better. He’s a fool.

      • Renai, I don’t think anyone has ever said that we need 1Gbps. Realistically we don’t, not now anyway.

        However, it is good to know that the network is capable of going to 1Gbps and not just the 100Mbps. I will certainly be signing up for 100Mbps if the NBN makes it through this impasse. Have a look at South Korea, they are currently rolling out a 1Gbps network to their residents after building a 100Mbps network within the last decade. That is at an additional cost of what it was to establish their 100Mbps network, whereas the NBN will already have the 1Gbps capability built-in for when we need those extra speeds.

        Why let our country’s communication needs fall into the same sad situation as our cities poor road network? Traffic congestion, more users on the road with no extra capability available to cope with the demand. That is where our IC&T industry is going if we don’t roll something like the NBN out now.

        Will you use 100Mbps, well that is up to you. Will my grandparents use 100Mbps, probably not. But will you finally get what you pay for, yes! There is no need to buy 100Mbps access with slower options available at cheaper prices, but for those that want/need the speed that is there too. Just because some people don’t need access to 100Mbps now doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to need it in 5 – 10 years time.

        Already the likes of Internode and iiNet are offering iPTV services requiring users to have a download bandwidth of no less than 8Mbps and that is only to watch streaming TV. Forget about playing online games, browsing the net, downloading files or sending emails whilst you are watching iPTV as the bandwidth isn’t there to cope.

        Moreover, a vast majority of Australians have moved on to ADSL2+ networks, yet a good majority of those people don’t get what they pay for. I for example pay for ADSL2+ “upto” 24Mbps, yet I am not able to exceed 4Mbps. Am I getting what I pay for, no. In fact there are people within 1Km from the telephone exchange that aren’t even achieving 24Mbps. Will the NBN be able to deliver 25/50/100Mbps, yes. Fibre-optic doesn’t have the same limitations that wireless and ADSL have, it is virtually perfect compared to the other forms of broadband. In fact ADSL and wireless use fibre-optic backhaul to move the data around the country at high speeds, something that would not be possible without fibre-optic. Hence it makes sense that this is where the last mile between the exchange and our houses be upgraded to fibre-optic.

        Is wireless growing, yes. But has anyone sat down and look at the reasons why? I know of three friends that have wireless connections. Why do they have wireless connections, because they can’t get any other form of broadband. How many people out there have got wireless broadband because they can get ADSL? Does every new mobile phone customer who also takes a mobile data pack get counted as a new wireless broadband subscriber? Do any of these new subscribers also have an ADSL connection but also want an additional service to simply check their emails and do some internet banking whilst “out and about”? These are all questions that need to be asked when looking at the reasons for wireless growth.

        To say that we don’t need 1Gbps or even 100Mbps broadband speeds in Australia is pretty insulting and short-sighted. I certainly hope that the NBN can manage to survive all of this and continue on with their infrastructure building project, even with a change of government.

      • “The aging population does not want the higher speed broadband?”……I am afraid Mr Linton is unaware of the growing use of Skype for interaction between granchildren and their grandparents when they live a long way away. He is also unaware of the growing development of Digital babysitting where grandparents read to, tell stories and interact with young grandchildren (whilst the parents are in the room doing something else.) Great for occasions when Mum needs to do her makeup etc.

        High quality HD Skype will make these interactions more common, frequent and “normal”. The current shaky Skype is barely enough. Imagine if it was on a full size HD TV. It would be like they were all in the same room. Now that is a quality of life issue for seniors.

  2. @Jason – You’d think not, but Abbott’s generation and older have an established modus operandi of selfish short sightedness, of sacrificing the future for their own benefit and comfort.

    I will not be surprised.

    I will also not be shocked when, faced with bankrupting the nation or supporting the now retired Abbotts and older, the nation chooses solvency and sustainability instead of supporting the selfish.

    • I have a good idea, spend the $43B on nursing homes now, as it does not sound as if you will be kind to fogeys later.
      Seriously, anyone installing hardware now expecting it to be used for 30 years has no IT experience.
      What about emerging technologies such as tunneling Xray nanotubes, the Exafibre, or the organic plastic fibre invented in India, very low cost, made from recycled rice hulls. It is bio-degradable, and when deployed generates millions of green jobs.
      I have omitted quantum entanglement, as quanta do not entangle, they were developed from Schrodinger’s cat, and they walk alome, or sometimes not at all.
      Why would you want to freeze Australia at the stage of silica glass/LED technology.

  3. Speaking as one of Australia’s ageing population myself, the difference between 100 Megabits and 1 Gigabit (an order of magnitude) isn’t a vast concern for me *today*. By the time the NBN’s cthonic and glacial rollout actually gathers any momentum to the point where it might connect about 50% of the population, however, 100 Megabits might be starting to look a bit old-hat in the first-world, so I’m in favour of the Gigabit plan right there.

    On the other hand, caps and quotas are of far greater concern to me. Whether it’s 100Mbps or 1Gbps doesn’t really matter, if you can only run the network at those speeds for an hour or so each month before hitting the wall.

    My current cable connection is 10Mbps – I can afford to run it flat-out at that speed for less than four hours, before I hit the monthly cap. Gigabit speeds more or less require terabit or petabit caps, otherwise the high-speed network becomes obsolete in a whole new way.

    • 5 years ago ; Facebook, Twitter is relatively new and unheard of…. youtube is not that crash hot due to lack of bandwidth as most of the population have only got ADSL 1….

      We can’t always use the yardstick of yesterday’s to measure tomorrow’s dimension.
      It’s just like saying; who needs email when you have fax machines.

  4. Just because some “Old people” won’t need 1Gbps IS NOT A GOOD REASON. Sure you can argue that the posted price is high (not really) or come up with other arguments but this is not one of them.

    Back in the day people said they didn’t need anything faster than a telephone didn’t they? My father was dead set against mobiles when they first came out, well guess what they were wrong then and we don’t need them making a mess of the future now either. /endrant

    • I agree that it’s not a good reason overall … but it may be a good reason to think about the whole NBN thing in a more economically rational way than just plonking down $43 billion on the table.

      For example, if some 20% of the population will never want or care about the 1Gbps speeds, then you might be able to push the NBN investment out a bit further, roll it out slower and not have to worry about absolutely all of the spend today. You might also be able to let the market take care of a fair bit more of the development rather than the Govt funding the entire thing.

      #justsayin

      • Make the connection from the fibre on the roadside to the house an opt-in and end user pays. This way if you don’t want fibre you don’t have to get it. It also saves a huge wad of cash on installations and drops that $43 billion figure down.

        I’m sure there are other ways to minimise cost of rollout without limiting the network capacity and coverage area.

      • Hang on a minute; how does it serve democracy if decision are made based on choices derived from 20% of the total population ?
        What happened to the choices made by the remaining 80% ?

          • Just like paying taxes is undemocratic! Viva revolution!

            But seriously….democracy is the majority. Bad luck.

          • Nobody is compelled to buy a car if their road is sealed, but that’s not an argument for leaving segments of a road as gravel if the road crew is coming through anyway.

            Nobody is compelled to use the fibre, It makes no sense whatever to fibre a suburban street and leave half the houses not connected until the householder decides a year later to pay five times the price to have it done as a one-off.

            Let’s have a democratic vote on this stupid suggestion.

  5. “Linton added Australia’s ageing population — who he said didn’t “play online computer games or get a surrogate sex life from pornography” had no interest in terabyte broadband plans”

    –News flash Linton, we aren’t building this just for Australia’s ageing population.

    • But don’t you just love how everyone in favour of these high speed services must be a nerdy gamer or a pervert?

      Because no one ever uses the internet for business, communication, education or social networking. Ever. I wish you could all see me rolling my eyes.

      • “I wish you could all see me rolling my eyes.”

        If we had a more–affordable, and higher-speed broadband, then we could! Just imagine! :)

          • Well some lucky parts of the country have skype. some of us stuck behind rims are thankful to have adsl1 that is marginally faster than dialup. video calling is a dream that is probably 20 years away for remote parts of Australia, like Bunbury WA.

          • Or at Coolangatta on the Gold Coast living in a $700k, 25 story beachfront unit.

            Don’t have to be in the bush to be stuck on a stupid 3G connection.

  6. So some old people have no use for high speed broadband. And?

    I am 26 and I have no use for aged care facilities. Does that mean they shouldn’t exist? Of course not.

    Government ought to be about the needs of everyone, now and in the future. Not ‘what one portion of one age bracket demographic doesn’t want just now’.

    Everyone, now and in the future.

    • True.

      But don’t discount the need for aged care facilities — you can go in there and play Wii for free and the old people won’t even notice.

  7. Linton’s opposition is basically an argument from ignorance, and from over generalisation. Just because many people won’t need 1Gbps, doesn’t mean there aren’t many who do. There are a lot of applications where a high bandwidth is useful both for individuals and for businesses.

    For individuals, a higher bandwidth will, for example, open up more possibilities for entertainment. The ability to buy and download full HD 1080p content quickly and easily, which is currently held up within Australia in a large part by the limited bandwidth and usage caps. (It’s also held up by the slow-to-adapt entertainment industry, but they’ll get there eventually). Obviously, this also opens up new business opportunities for iTunes- and Spotify-like streaming and downloading services.

    Also for businesses, the higher the better. While an individual may not need more than 100Mbps for any given browsing task, you stick a few dozen or few hundred people in an office together all sharing the same connection simultaneously, the strain really shows on slower connections.

    Web hosting services should also benefit from the NBN, which may finally allow them to start competing with the significantly cheaper competition located overseas. For services that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars per month here, we can get for pocket change in the US.

    So the need for high bandwidth really depends on individual and business requirements, the decision on whether or not to provide additional bandwidth at no extra cost should not be based on the needs of the majority who may not fall into the categories who do. The fact is, it is at no extra cost, it will benefit some constituents greatly, and so it would be stupid to decide against it.

    • “Just because many people won’t need 1Gbps, doesn’t mean there aren’t many who do.”

      Fine – name one. One organisation that will exist that doesn’t now because there is no 1gb internet

      “The ability to buy and download full HD 1080p content quickly and easily”

      You can do that already on ADSL2+ – I do frequently

      “an office together all sharing the same connection simultaneously, the strain really shows on slower connections.”

      Get a decent system administrator – NBN won’t solve that. I’ve seen systems with 20,000 employees provide all the bandwidth needed.

      “Web hosting services should also benefit from the NBN, which may finally allow them to start competing with the significantly cheaper competition located overseas.”

      Err – why? A US hosted site will be slower than an Australian one (to an Aussie user) now anyway – increasing that difference wont change the fact Aus hosts are uncompetitive on price.

      “The fact is, it is at no extra cost”

      Apart from $43b, which the country could use MUCH better than providing geeks with faster download speeds.

  8. Linton’s sweeping generalisation annoys me on a couple of points …

    As one of those “aging Australians” I resent the implication that I have little or no interest in the Internet and better access to it, and on behalf of other aging Australians I’d like to suggest that a prior lack of opportunity does not automatically mean a current lack of interest or ability – the key difference between boomers and GenY around computers and the internet ISN’T one of age, it’s one of familiarity.

    Second – I have worked in the wine industry for some time, and even now I’m selling a webservice to wine companies … don’t tell me there aren’t good reasons for faster internet access in rural area, or that there isn’t latent demand for bandwidth there. Most wineries, and most vineyards (in case you hadn’t noticed) aren’t in metropolitan areas. That’s the industry I know – there are plenty of other businesses (mining, agriculture, and their support systems) beyond the current easy access most of us city dwellers enjoy. And one of the reasons there isn’t more use of broadband out in the sticks is that a lot of what could be used right now is still beyond the reach of most available speeds … let alone what (for instance) my company would like to make available to winemakers.

    Third, as someone else has pointed out, while MAYBE the current copper network can handle what we are likely to push down it today, does anyone really think that we can’t put more bandwidth to good use over the next 30 years? That’s what the NBN is about – not TODAY, but for three decades or more.

    Yes, 3G and wireless will continue to be incredibly useful for mobile devices and applications, and yes, it will continue to improve in speed and spread – that’s a good thing all round. But there will always be a need for fixed-line access, and there will always be a benefit in faster speeds than wireless will be able to give us. And if you think that wireless will improve in the next few years, how much more will fibre?

    Oh – and has anyone looked at the possibility that to achieve the ubiquity and speeds that we are talking about with wireless, we might have to turn our suburbs into microwave ovens? :)

  9. If they don’t want 1Gbps then they don’t need to get it.

    It’s that simple. The Network is not just for them, it’s for the entire Australia, and Future Australia.

    • If it’s for the future Australians then they can damn well pay for it not me. I work in IT and there is honestly barely a need for 100mb in the coming decade and certainly no need for 1gbps. Remember the biggest bottleneck is not your connection to the internet it is the servers and connections to foreign countries where most servers are located.

      • That is nonsense.

        Companies will benefit from it greatly. Terminal services, file access, interoffice replication, off-site backups, etc…

        Not to mention that the are cache servers (mirrors) located within Australia, for example, Microsoft.

      • Why do people keep saying this?

        We are paying for your crap constantly, why can’t you pay for our crap?

        Taxes are paid to provide services to everyone, not just whatever you please.

  10. Yep, but how about asking the aged if they want

    access to the internet at a reasonable price, because many Australians can’t afford $100s a month.
    reliable access to the internet, because many Australians suffer from constant drop outs.
    access for all, because many Australians currently have no access at home.
    the ability to video conference loved ones, because many Australians can’t.
    the option to choose their internet privider, because many Australians have no choice.
    cheap or free telephone, both long distance and local.

  11. Hold on, Quigley said that there is no or very little cost difference between the equipment that supports 100Mb/s and 1Gb/s. Sticking to the 100Mb/s equipment is being penny wise, pound foolish. It is like trying to buy ADSL1 only equipment for the copper network today.

    Think of it this way. Say you need to buy a new modem router and you have a choice of two, one that only supports b/g wifi and another that supports b/g/n wifi). Would you get the lower spec router to save $2?

    Besides, who says the older folks won’t want to use high speed broadband? They might use it to conference call “face-to-face” with friends and family, overcoming any mobility or cost (for far away friends) problems they may have.

  12. To be honest over 80% is illegal file sharing.I suppose with 1gb speeds means that it will be quicker to download all the illegal copyright content.

    • Sounds like Civil disobedience to me…

      … if copyright was fair and balanced, would this occur?

      We need some kind of reform.

  13. It’s true, we don’t need 1Gbps at the moment, nor are we likely to need it in 10 years time. But having the fibre in the ground to achieve lower speeds now, and higher speeds later according to demand, is simply good business sense.

    The theoretical peak speeds today, next week or next decade are not important. Australia needs a future-proof telecommunications network to the entire country – that’s what the NBN is all about. Short-sighted musings about what Australia needs right now, or in 2 years time, is pointless and ill-considered.

    Wireless technology is simply not reliable enough, nor cheap enough, nor efficient enough, to be used as the basis of a national communications network for Australia.

  14. 1gbps NBN is a myth.

    The NBN uses 10gbps GPON that is split between 32 subscribers giving only a maximum of 312mbps sustained transfer rate.

    I can get 100mbps “burst rate” now on cable. Why should we wait 8 years & pay $43bn in taxes for 312mbps fibre?

    • Posted 31/08/2010 at 11:43 am | Permalink | Reply
      1gbps NBN is a myth.

      The NBN uses 10gbps GPON that is split between 32 subscribers giving only a maximum of 312mbps sustained transfer rate.

      I can get 100mbps “burst rate” now on cable. Why should we wait 8 years & pay $43bn in taxes for 312mbps fibre?

      you do know that not all 32 users are likley to be online at the same time, and have you heard of DWDM
      10gb per wavelength over a single fibre pair so there is potential for way more than 10gb to each GPON, your burst rate is just that ,question what is your average D/L rate at peak times? i bet it aint 100meg.

      the HFC network is a single shared NODE the more users online the less BW avalible because the there is only one HSD router per node at the headend with limited BW. GPON uses unique wavelengths for each user via passive optical splitter/combiner back to the POI to each users Provider (eg:iinet,internode) the NBN will also provide a “telephone” and you will not be forced to take up any internet service if you do not wish.

      • I know lots of business people who would love to connect to cable (metro and regional). They can’t.

        Are you proposing a national cable rollout instead of fibre ? ;)

          • Most businesses can get cable in metro areas. Regional areas are different, however ncable in Geelong is upgrading to 100mbps at present (currently 30/4mbps).

      • What you state requires upgrading the NBN – thus extra costs upon the tax payer ($100-200bn?), otherwise we have an “over subscribed” NBN service.

    • That is assuming every user is downloading at full speed, which isnt going to happen, do you know how slow your 100Mbps cable would be if every user of it was downloading at full speed??? sub dialup speeds.

      On that note over 80% of the population cannot get HFC, speak for yourself, I would love to get cable but alas I cannot…

  15. Wow, another bitter selfish Baby boomer comment. Is it any wonder nothing major with vision is built anymore? All these old people crawl out of the woodwork like the money is personally coming out of their pocket! It’s us Gen X, Y or newer who will pay for this stuff, not the old whingers who end up in a home; a home that will more then likely be paid for by us young folk again!
    Seriously, I give up. Lets all just go back to Stone tablet and caves, seems like something these baby boomers would love!

    • @BigScotty – please don’t lump all of us boomers together – that’s the mistake Linton made :) … check out my comment earlier to see what this boomer thinks

  16. It’s a national infrastructure project. What an aging population wants today is almost completely irrelevent. 1gbps connections for retail consumers isn’t needed right now but it’s an indication of the ability to meet future demands.

    Even if everyone in the country could get ADSL2+ today, it doesn’t meet business needs in many cases today, let alone in 5yrs, 10yrs, etc. Upload speeds are a killer for many people who work from home or are in a satellite office connecting back to a main office. 1mpbs maximum. More like 2.2 if you’re lucky enough to have an ISP offering annex M and are close to an exchange on a decent quality line.

    WIreless has a place for mobility and at the fringes. Even at its best, perfomance is unpredictable.

    An aging population might not want 1gbps today. It doesn’t matter. I sure don’t want Linton having any input into national communications infrastructure projects. He’s apparently a short sighted dinosaur ;)

  17. I’m not even going to read the story because it has the name LINTON in it.

    We don’t want the aging Australia they cost us too much, Put them on boats and ship them out.

  18. Linton is wrong on this as wireless/3g/4g will never be as reliable as a wired connection.
    Wireless is in reality just an add-on to a wired always on connection.
    Older people are more concerned about price and how reliable the service is.
    Linton needs to seriously improve his companies customer service levels and quality of service, before going off about something else.

    • Sniper, making blanket statments like “Linton is wrong on this as wireless/3g/4g will never be as reliable as a wired connection.” may just make you look silly in years to come.

      Im pretty sure many people could have been quoted as saying “mobile phones will never be as reliable as landlines, we dont need to worry about them” infact, I think telstra even was until about 3 years ago!

      Look at it now.. people are dropping landline voice services, for mobile/wireless voice services all over the place.

      You can argue its a different situation/scenrio, but its the technological advancments and improvements that have made what was an inferior, drop-out ridden, expensive alternative one of the most popular methods of voice communications today – all in 10-15 years.

      • Sniper is right. wireless will never be as reliable as wired. Ever. Wireless is subjected to a lot more interference from environmental factors than wired. It would be a physical impossibility for wireless to be as reliable as wired.

        As to your example of mobiles, you are missing out on another variable. mobile phones are still less reliable than land lines, but they offer more mobility and convenience than cordless land lines. The question there is whether the mobility advantage outweighs the reliability disadvantage and not whether the reliability of mobiles has reached the reliability of land lines.

        • Exactly. But reliability isn’t its only downfall. Performance and cost as well. You would have to spend hundreds more in order to get the same download cap as a wired connection. And the performance, well I think its been proved that wireless will never ever ever be as fast as wired (seriously people, do your research or go do an electrical/telecom engineering degree if you’re interested), so do we really need to go there?

  19. The ABC had a great piece the other day looking at nation building and the NBN, and economic rationality. Their key example was the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and how it wasn’t until the late 80s that it was finally paid back, but the economic prospects created by the bridge, whilst not heavily rationalised at the time, ultimately led to the ongoing economic expansion of Sydney’s business districts. Because they had vision, Sydney has prospered.

    Back in 2001 or so, I remember wandering past the telly and seeing a rep form Telstra letting the audience of journos and co know that, owing to slow uptake, Australia was happy with dial-up and would never be interested in mass-uptake of broadband. More food for thought there.

    As for things I can’t do on ADSL2+ – despite my relatively short distance from my exchange, I max out at 4-5mb connections. This means that when I work from home and need to remote in, my connections are slower. It means when I’m developing software applications and need to upload large files, it takes a fair whack of time. It means that if I need to coach one of my staff through something, I’m talking over the phone and not video Skyping due to how I use my connection. It means I can’t stream HD video through to my home entertainment setup on the fly.

    With NBN, I would have amazingly low latency when working from home and had to remote into the office, transferring files around the place would be much faster (and thus increasing my productivity), I can coach my staff using video as well as audio and true IPTV can take place, with options such as offsite storage of recorded footage available on demand. It would also mean I could keep backups of my home server and PCs offsite in case of damage to my existing equipment quickly and easily.

    And this isn’t factoring kids into the picture – when my wife and I start a family and our kids get to school age, it will open the doors for enhanced teaching tools, multimedia and improved groupwork between students, more media rich applications, things like that. Already schools operating on the NBN in Tasmania are reporting better inter-school collaboration, which can only be better for students. It also means student scan better utilise online learning technologies and research without maxing out the outbound bandwidth so quickly.

    Electricity was considered a gimmick over 100 years ago as well, as people couldn’t imagine what was to come. Funnily, computers were still seen as high end machines for specialised industries 30 years ago too.

    Abbott and co. are short sighted and ignorant, and they are unable to see the bigger picture. Australia’s future should not be penalised because these people lack any vision in the realm of telecommunications.

  20. Hey Linton some of us old Farts have some life left in us yet
    were not all stuffed and decrepit like you apparently are (I to can make unsupported assumptions)
    May I suggest that you only speak for yourself and not others that you know nothing about
    Apart from the age slur this is not just about now this is about our childrens future beginning from now
    Either we get this right for them now or we screw their place in the future world economy

    Look to the Future not the present

  21. The 1 Gbps speed is such a furphy. It just happens to be the off-the-shelf speed of current fibre switches.

    The NBN is about having ubiquitous always-lit optical fibre to premises that can support multiple simultaneous services without ever becoming a bottleneck. The fact that a Windows update takes two seconds and then frees the channel is obviously lost on Linton, or rather he see more profit in lobbying for a flaky wireless service with highly contended capacity, that can’t even support VoIP. And remember we are talking FIXED rooftop mast wireless, not mobile wireless, for the bulk of users, even in parts of our cities!

    Fibre is also a greener solution that doesn’t require electricity supply to 20,000 FTTN ADSL nodes or 60,000 mobile towers. It can even be run to premises without grid power, where a 200W solar cell and backup battery could supply a phone and laptop to use it, at WHATEVER speed up to and including gigabit the householder chooses.

    Half our hospital beds are occupied by patients who need only have a face-to-face chat with a doctor every day, without which it would be too risky to let them travel home, often far away. It is possible that delivering such face-to-face services in between physical visits will alone save the cost of the NBN over the next decade, by savings in the health budget.

  22. 1GBPS is for BUSINESS only. They need it. Home users aren’t getting 1GBIT. Please learn to read.

    1GBIT at head office means no more branch servers, branches on crappy remote desktop/128k isdn. Inter office conferencing, calls, sharepoints, live meetings.

    If you aren’t in B2B it services then of course you have no idea what a business would do with 1GBIT so please don’t comment on it.

    Most business clients requiring bandwidth where ADSL (even though its useless for upstream) are using E1 which is $1500 to $2500 per month + install off $0-$1,000,000. This is $2500 a month less tax they are paying and less profit in the company. Believe me when I say its needed and well overdue and business is falling behind without it.

    Extel are a poor ISP by any standard and 1GBP is probably their entire peered network bandwidth in total, it probably scares them that the CPE > Them in total.

    • Now you just confused people even more with your usage of CAPS. 1GBP 1GBIT? Seriously

    • The 1Gbit speeds are actually available to homes if you pay for it, speeds up to 10 gig are on direct fibers.

      But it’s irrilevent, NBNco has entry level pricing at 12Mbps iirc, noones forcing you to signup to the biggest speed.

  23. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at Linton’s statements, espcially given that he’s CEO of an ISP.

    Given the various proclamations made historically, like everything that needs to be invented has been, the telephone will never replace the letter, no-one will need a computer in their home, 640k of memory will always be adequate etc., it’s slightly baffling that people continue to make the same short-sighted arguments when it comes to broadband internet.

    The NBN is an infrastructure project that will have far-reaching benefits over decades. I dread to think what it’ll be like in 10 years time if we still have the same aging copper, rotten speeds and paltry data caps.

    At the moment Australia is relatively prosperous thanks to our abundant natural resources. But minerals are finite and with no manufacturing industry to speak of, we’ll rapidly find ourselves suffering if we’re not sufficiently aligned with other first-world nations in terms of broadband infrastructure. Look at the amazing tech industry they have in South Korea.

    I work in the media, and I can tell you that content providers are champing at the bit for the NBN to be put in place. The home entertainment industry alone will be completely revolutionary. HD 3DTV streamed to multiple points in the house, choices of audio channels and/or camera angles on movies and live sport, customised in-game graphics are just the tip of the iceberg. Japan’s going to be broadcasting the World Cup holographically in 2022 (it’s part of their bid).

    Leaving aside entertainment for a moment, ubiquitous ultra-fast broadband will make it easier for companies, small and large to compete on a global scale. We’ll be able to build a digital economy of sorts for other countries still languishin where we are now. I despair at Linton and Abbott’s luddite assertions that wireless is good enough, and I resent the implication that old people don’t care about broadband. My 85-year-old grandparents are avid Skypers, Youtubers and ‘newspaper’ readers. Grandad even likes the odd game of Wii tennis!

    So please let’s ignore the luddites and the technophobes, and work together to ensure the NBN gets built and Australia becomes a bit less of a laughing stock in the tech world.

  24. Rubbish article. The whole point of population growth is just so there is a greater proportion of the young vs the old. Ageing people are not the future which is why we all retire and sit back and enjoy our lives. Mean while back in the real society the youngs continue building for the future……the NBN.

  25. This is coming from a crackpot who is literally stupid himself. No one cares about his opinion nor his tiny little company. He rants and raves about everything, but has very little technical knowledge nor understanding on complex issues. Seriously what is this rubbish doing on news websites?

  26. Some of you people have absolutely zero idea.

    The 1gbps stuff is just political banter (obviously), if you want fast/reliable/cheap internet over time then you will need FIBRE to your home, its that simple.

    Once you have FIBRE to your home you can possible get 1gbit /100mbit/10gbit in the future possibly, please remember that what is going to cost the most of the “NBN” is the FIBRE that is rolled out and upgraded throughout every possible area keeping in mind areas that would require you to dig/plough kilometers to get to 1 persons home.

    Please keep in perspective what the NBN is, its not just internet, its phone / TV (TV digital media is starting to pick up speed and may end up costing cheaper than blu-ray in the future, we may be downloading all our HD movies instead of renting them). We cannot say how much bandwidth we need in the immediate future, but all you have to do is look back what we were doing 10 years ago, and now look at where we are today (even though its nothing compared to the rest of the world), copper just will not cut it in 10 years time (yes including coax).

    The reason this has such a massive $43b price tag is because of the amount of fibre that needs to go to every street in every home.

    If you are going against this then you are just delaying what will eventually happen another 5-10 years time anyway when they realise it was a big mistake to can it, seriously just bite the bullet and put some money up for something that is going to be significant factor in our kids/grandkids lives.

    • The civil works will be the most expensive – it always is. Moving dirt / pouring concrete (from the concrete farmers/fairies i.e. civil engineers). Since the NBN is so large – the cost per kilometre ($/km) will be tiny.

      • I know civils will cost the most but you still have to do the civils to lay the fibre thats what I meant, guessing
        aye Blake M.

      • Civil work is only expensive because you are paying the 4 guys to stand around to watch the one guy doing the work ;)

        /I keed….

  27. Linton is too black and white/shallow for me. Hellooooo Linton but it is not just about the ageing population but about teh future of our great country and future generations. The technology can be adapted to the use of numerous practical applications to actually benefit the diversity of our population. The benefits are extremely significant. Linton you obviously have no idea whatsoever or imagination on this one. Your type of thinking is 50’s thought and certainly not progressive. This is something we need to steer away from that is for 100% certain. The economic benefits in the future will be tremendous. There arer a few reasons I always opted not to go with exetel and this type of thing coming from this guy is one of them. He calls others stupid but does not realize how stupid it is what he is sayingbecause he is a one dimensional thinker who is stuck and does not see the other colors of the spectrum. Working for exetel one would think he may have some kind of idea of the benefits that will arise from the NBN. He obviously has zero idea.

  28. It just another example of “We don’t need it now” and show how short sighted Australian are.
    We don’t need a high speed train system in Australia 10-20 years ago and now we are enjoying the third world train system.

    • That is nonsense.

      Companies will benefit from it greatly. Terminal services, file access, interoffice replication, off-site backups, etc…

      Not to mention that the are cache servers (mirrors) located within Australia, for example, Microsoft.

  29. So John (obviously an aging man himself) doesn’t see the need for faster internet speeds, which is ironic, as an ISP owner (or is it still owned by Annette Linton?), where he can charge/Gb for downloads, and if there are capable speeds of 1gb/second, he should be seeing dollar signs.

    As for not having this ability, back in the 1990’s, you would have argued that there was no need to look at speeds about 56.6k because there wasn’t anything you could really do that required more than that, was there…

    Today, there might not be a need for more than my 24mbit ADSL 2+ speeds, but when companies and broadcasters are looking at things like VoIP, TV over IP, Radio of IP, and doing things like live-streaming pay/view movies, etc, then there is potential for massive amounts of data usage from the standard householder.

    Aging folk love to sit down and watch their Deal or No Deal, which could soon be delivered over IP to their TV, or they might want to be able to take calls from their grandchildren over Skype, or VoIP calls, so the requirements are there.

    Commercial infrastructure might want a Head office in Sydney, and have 100 retail outlets running a VoIP link back to head office, so there is no physical phone line in the building, just a data link back to H/O.

    I am sure John sits at home, has a VPN to his office, most likely a VoIP handset running through his own network as well, so he might be able to relate to what I am saying.

    This article suggests a man that has not thought properly about the infrastructure.

    Look at the medical world, Doctors are able to remotely operate on patients via IP datalink to a machine that performs the physical surgery. The machine provides feedback to the doctor so he/she has ‘feeling’ of the patient. If there was a data-glitch as the signal was given to stop cutting, where would that leave the patient that is having a simple job done?

    I think it’s sad that an ISP owner of all people would discredit the potential for our NBN network.

    It’s time to realise what is happening out there John, not everyone is downloading porn or pirating TV shows, there is actual genuine requirement for decent quality broadband in Australia.

  30. Wireless cannot provide the same level of service as fibre, full stop. It’s extremely unfortunate that someone who should know better would make such false claims.

    What is wrong with these people? Very short sighted and have no vision… disappointing.

  31. Linton’s just angry that he can’t compete with the NBN prices offered by other competitors. The bastard should go back to the dark ages and make his fortune there.

    • Korea has 100Mbps as pretty much the default nowadays and is expected to finish rolling out 1Gbps broadband nationally the year after next. They recently jumped ahead of Japan, now in second place for speed, followed by Portugal, France, and the Netherlands.

  32. People need 1Gbps now.

    Corporate networks are almost all 1 Gbps now, and it isn’t to stream HD movies over. It’s for boring shit, like making sure accessing files on your network shares is fast.

    Private citizens would use that now, if they could. They’d keep their photos remotely and view them on their iPads and internet-enabled TVs. They’d keep their music collections in the cloud, and access them when they needed them. Worrying about private storage is so last decade!

    However, this works cloud-centric vision of private computing only works if everything happens as fast on the network as is happens locally, and usually the difference between local and remote access is best measured in terms of the last byte received. For that, we need FAST networks. 100Mbs is ok, 1Gbps is better, but if we had 100Gbps we’d use that too.

    And don’t say the older generation doesn’t want this. They want it more than anyone – it’s just that people are asking “do you want a 1Gbps network connection?” instead of “do you want to stop worrying about where you saved all those file?”.

    The NBN enables worry-free computing. More speed means more capabilities can migrate to the cloud, meaning less worries.

  33. aging australians dont have long to live….we shouldnt be taking advice from decaying geezers , its not like can give back to society

  34. This is like saying we don’t need 6 lane highways, people are still on horses and cars are toys for rich folks, who’s going to use the 6 lane?

    Government should plan ahead and not purposely restricting infrastructure in the country.

  35. The whole purpose of the NBN network is to put a system into place that is going to cope with the every increasing technology that is coming our way over the next 5 to 10 years.
    Back in 2002 I had a knee reconstruction – before it was done I had to have an MRI, which involved me heading 2 suburbs over – then waiting for 3 hours for the films, before heading back to the surgeon for him to read the results.
    Just last week I had a follow up MRI, I rocked up to get it done – again a few suburbs away – no need to wait for the films – my surgeon had all the results available to him in high definition to download over the internet.
    There is no way that this could have been done back in 2002 – the speeds werent available – but even worse is that MANY parts of Australia dont have access to internet speeds (or even a stable connection) to be able to do this in 2010.
    Back in the eighties I was in a computer store buying my first computer – either a VIC20 with 3.5k of memory or a Commodore64 with 64k of memory. I was basically told that I would NEVER EVER use 64k of memory – and to get the VIC20 which would basically do everything I wanted for the next 20 years with its tape drive that took 30 minutes to load software. (Using the attitude of many who criticise the NBN – I should still using that old VIC20).
    The point being made is that technology is changing and its doing so at incredible rate – and its not just the home user this is being aimed at. What about current business owners having to struggle with ADSL+1 – the business owners of Australia need this more than anything at the moment – they employ more then any other industry and if they are unable to grow their technology they get left behind – and when they do, they shed staff – thats you… The person they will ‘Put Off’ is the person complaining that we dont need NBN – now does it affect you!!!

  36. It seems that John Linton is arguing that because gigabit is available, that means “gigabit is compulsory”. NBN Co’s documents clearly tell us that consumers would be able to buy anything from 12 Mbps upwards – the plans on offer from the ISPs will be whatever they think they can sell.

    If a gigabit port today costs the same as a 100 Mbps port, someone building the network would be a damn fool to put the slower speed ports in; because they’d only have to upgrade them one day.

    There are good arguments against this NBN model – industry structure, ownership, maybe viability. But “we don’t need a gigabit” is just a distraction.

  37. Does he realise that the wireless technology, that he is referring to (3G), is not the same wireless technology that is being proposed by either government? WiMAX is being proposed and you can’t connect your iPad or smart phone to that (though the libs suggested in their campaigns you could). WiMax is a way of providing internet over a large distance, where there is low population.

    When people use the wireless argument, they need to compare apples with apples

  38. Gee, I remeber when dismal – whoops! decimal currency was planned and some linton or other opined that it would be too hard for all the old people to handle the changeover.

    He suggested that we wait for all the old people to die off.

    Yeah, right!

  39. Mr. Linton, I whole heartedly agree. As a pioneer of modern day higher capacity plans when exetel went the extra mile by bringing out the plans they did, I am glad to see you stepping up against the trend of technological hippies who want to download their porn faster.

    I was out in the bush the other day speaking to farmers about land use, organic farming, etc, and the topic of the NBN always came up. They all couldn’t care less… One farmer, who was part of a large organisation of farmers used broadband regularily but said what he had now was fine. The others said they don’t need it as they simply preferred meeting face to face to find out latest farming techniques, trends, and sort out other aspects of their life. So much for NBN being cried for in rural areas! They just want access to internet, they don’t care for the high speeds and they want no strings attached, wireless, connectivity.

    • I live in the bush every day (rather than just visiting). Your depiction of farmers is far from universal.

      Even if every farmer said “my ‘net’s alright mate”, I’m not sure that we should build national infrastructure intended for many decades of use by surveying farmers about what they think about their current connections (or any users really).

      I’m in touch with small business people regularly who complain that the upload speed available to them is pretty pathetic (it’s not all about downloads).

      What the hell was it with the hippies and porn comment. I’m going to assume that your comment is intended as satire ;)

  40. This country needs decent broadband. If someone wants to put a roof over the heads of the homeless then perhaps governments should stop handing out all our tax dollars to parents with young children and all the welfare bludgers out there. Like roads and railways broadband is essential national infrastructure which has to be built.

  41. Why are we treating telecommunications infrastructure any differently to a major highway? The biggest problem in the industry is Telstra’s ownership of all copper going into the premises. We know the private sector won’t come up to the plate because there is no incentive for any party to go build a nationwide network; we saw what happened with the Telstra and Optus HFC networks.

    Howard screwed up when he sold Telstra. We really need the NBN to remove Telstra’s monopoly of fixed line services.

  42. I’ll give you 1 figure:

    10 billion!

    This is how much the government gives away in negative gearing every YEAR!

    I say scrap this, pay for the nbn over 3-4 years :)

    26 billion isn’t a lot considering how much we spend on everything else.

  43. @ Cynic: your statement about hardware not being used after 30 years is wrong. What about our current copper infrastructure?

    Also… Fibre has already been around for 30 years and new switching technology and laser diodes are constant being developed which increase the amount of data existing fibre optics can handle.

    Fibre still has a lot of potential and will for some time. Don’t forget that there is a major difference between hardware and the actual communication medium when it comes to lifespan.

    Mike

  44. Dearest Old People,

    You’re opinions are irrelevant, your time is over; it’s our time now, please hurry up and die…

    kthxbai, Everyone.

  45. How many webservers are hooked up to 1 gig connections? Or have hardware that can dish it out? Linton is right.

      • Thats the problem right there (with this article/author and people opposing 1Gbps). What webservers are hooked to 1Gbps? All of them in Australia will be if we have this. 1Gbps connection proposed is for businesses!!

  46. Linton is about as relevant as conroy or uncle (I’ll kill you in your sleep)Jimbo wallace.If only they could direct their passion for some good.

    Instead of bigoted,mindless hate they aspire too.But haters will always hate.

  47. Linton is soooo wrong. What does he do – check emails?
    I already require more speed for Video, voip, and gaming. I’m getting just over 8,000 on my ADSL2+ plan.
    I seem to recall MM also saying the same thing some time ago about a poll that he ran – the grays are lacking in information and know-how – and it doesn’t mean that that is actually what is needed for the here and now, let alone the future.
    John0

  48. $43B = hospitals?

    CRAP

    1. The govt cost of the network is $27B
    2. The network generates income thus has no ongoing govt costs
    3. The network likely adds to GDP and therefore generates additional tax income as well – this income will not be costed “against” the NBN
    4. The network also generates savings which will also not be costed “against” the NBN in the same way having a freeway between Sydney & Melbourne rather than a single lane road is not costed as a “saving” yet it is exactly that
    5. Spending $43B on hospitals makes a great simplistic sound byte, however where are the running costs coming from? Or do we simply build $43B of hospitals and not bother to staff or run them?

    • One thing people also seem to forget is we currently spend $620bn on hospitals in the same timespan as the NBN.

    • Grimgo, John Linton is the only person in the Australian communications industry with a clue who is prepared to air his real views. Every other MD/CEO is either too scared of NBN, Telstra or the Government to say boo.

      • The guy doesnt know his left from his right. And there have been plenty of CEOs/MDs and other PR that release their thoughts and opinions on the NBN and the future of comms in Australia, a few examples are Internode (Simon Hackett and John Lindsay), iinet (MM), and Optus are continually trying to push the NBN along. So what you say is untrue, just like Pinton.

  49. Linton is a joke, I know many old relatives who want faster internet, and as many have said – old people are not the future of Australia, the young people are.

    Do I want cash to stop being spent on nursing homes? No, so stop complaining about cash being spent on communications, the nursing for the young.

  50. I am soon to leave exetel because of Linton’s attitude. In the future 1 GB will be seen as slow. Much communication eg; phone will be via fibre.

  51. Shutup Linton, you are an idiot, you speak only for yourself. Wireless is a “bottom of the barrel” option.

  52. Hold it, Hold it.. Just a minute there Bud.. !
    I am an Old Pensioner, and i can make up my own mind thank you..!!
    I am on Wireless BB, which is absolutely no substitute for High Speed fixed BB.. I am eagerly awaiting FTTH and i am prepared to pay what it takes, to get it connected. 100MBPS minimum , thank you.
    Roll on NBN..

  53. Typical shortsighted comments coming from Linton who runs one of the worst ISP’s in Australia.

  54. Yeah. 1Gb/s. Nobody will ever need that!

    Like nobody will ever need more than 640kB of memory in their PC.

    And these horseless carriages will never take off.

    The NBN is infrastructure Australia needs for the future. The hard bit – the physical fibre that’s going in – is just the base layer. As technologies improve we’ll squeeze more and more bandwidth out of it – better transceivers, better encoding, smarter protocols.

    And over this, smart people with vision will start coming up with uses for it.

    Look at the friggen iPod Touch/iPhone. Nearly 1/3rd of Australians own one… not because of the hardware, but because of the Apps. And I guarantee Apple didn’t envision a fraction of the uses to which the iPhone is now put… many of which people find essential to their daily lives.

    The same will happen with the NBN. So just because this idiot can’t see what the hell it could be used for, we shouldn’t have it? This is why he’s a manager, not a visionary.

  55. If we are focusing all our attention on servicing the needs of the ageing boomers then everyone else may as well back up and take their lives, tax dollars, and intelligence elsewhere. If the younger generations businesses cannot adequately service the needs of the ageing populations through growth and sophistication in business and services (for which IT will be a primary driver – especially in the health sectors for which high speed communications will be key) then everyone will loose. Wake up and show some vision and confidence in your younger generations Australia.

  56. Money could be spent elsewhere, I agree (hospitals / homeless etc) but to say we don’t need an updated network is a bit silly.

    I live in our nations capital which already has a fibre network, I live in an area established only 15 years ago, until a few years ago (some 5 years after adsl became available at my exchange) I was on dialup and isdn. I am 10 minutes from a population centre, 3km from the exchange, in an estate I can’t get the fibre network or adsl2, and I mobile reception is so bad with any company that wireless isn’t even on the cards (neither is decent tv reception) Telstra simply has no competition where I am and they arbitrarily restrict rims speeds, so I can’t even get best line speed from an overpriced resold Telstra infrastructured product

    In a country with so many connected to the net, in a city that’s supposed to have among the best connectivity within the country, it’s a poor state of affairs for the broadband industry.

  57. My husband and I are late boomers. ;)

    We both started with mainframes in the late 70s, and have been actively involved in computing ever since. On his behalf and my own, I resent Linton’s implication that older Australians are too technologically ignorant to appreciate the benefits of FTTH.

    Even people of our age who haven’t had the same opportunities still want the benefits of much faster, consistent Internet connections. As another commenter said, it’s not a matter of “Do you want 1Gbps?”, it’s “Do you want to be able to videochat with your grandchildren?” (something I personally long to do), “Do you want to be able to download your favourite movies, TV series and sport?” and “Do you want to be able to have a doctor’s appoointment without travel and long waiting times?”

    Let’s not judge an entire generation, or country, by one man’s comment. As Pete said on Jabber just now, when we were discussing this, “This is the trouble with anything that becomes a political football. People who don’t have a clue suddenly have an opinion.”

  58. Anyone care to estimate how much data would be required to stream a 3D virtual office with a central hub and say 10 people on spokes? Until this happens, remote working as part of team can be done, but simply doesn’t work any where near as well as being in the same office.

    Oh, and my wife would also need one. So times that bandwidth by two.

    Oh, and perhaps a couple more for the kids for their virtual classroom.

    And it better all be low latency, otherwise my keyboard’s going through the screen.

    Then we can start the diaspora from crammed capital cities to fill out the more sparsley populated regional areas. That sounds important doesn’t it?

    It’s completely irrelevant what the wrinklys like Linton won’t use, they won’t be keeping the country running. I care what the workers of the near future (5-10 years) will need and won’t be able to afford to wait for when everyone realises what’s possible.

    • Linton’s an asshat, hes against something his company has a vested interest in. This guy’s got no clue. Why listen anymore ? Raving lunatic in my opinion…

      He undermined himself the minute he signed on with NBN Tas for internet supply deals, then says the NBN is a waste ? Cmon mate pull the other one

  59. The NBN 43bn cost is nothing. The savings are huge for several reasons. An interestng one is…

    Suppose you make the NBN Free. And in the terminating box in everyones house add a 5$ chip so everyone gets a voip phone account…

    OK, you put every phone company and interner company out of business. You make the electorate happy. You save the electorate on average a MINIMUM of between 50-100$ per month. multiply this by a minimum of 10mil people per month (bases on the numbers of people with >1.5mbit broadband let alone phones) and you get 6-12 BILLION PER YEAR given to anyone with a phone or internet connection. The rest don’t save but get internet and phone for free.

    So, by putting 6bn a year into peoples hands the cost to build (which is estimated at 2.6bn a year) is far outweighed by the cost to build. AND…. this is every year. I suppose you need to ask who gets the omney from telcos at the moment – overseas investors and banks?
    All you need do is find the running costs of the network, which with fibre is minimal as it’s pretty reliable.

    Then of course add in all the other savings to the environment, health, new business, education. etc. etc.. etc..
    As for all the telcos who are out of business, they have a few years to work out new things for us to spend this saved money on.

    • “OK, you put every phone company and interner company out of business. You make the electorate happy. You save the electorate on average a MINIMUM of between 50-100$ per month.”

      You fail to mention the cost of putting all those companies and workers out of business. In this economic climate 90% might end up on welfare and the taxpayer would then have to fund that.

      Look I think the only viable approach is FTTN now, extended to FTTH later. But don’t take my word for it take a look at what virtually EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD HAS DONE!

      https://sites.google.com/site/golfmanrants/independents-misinformed-over-broad-band

      The only standout nations to *attempt* FTTH are Portugal, Spain and Singapore. Portugal and Spain are european economic basket cases. Singapore has a debt to GDP ratio of 117%.

      I’m not saying Fiber to the Home (FTTH) sends your country broke but it seems to be the ‘broad band option of choice’ for economically incompetent governments.

      The “smart money” seems to be on rolling out FTTN first using mainly private sector who have a great chance of ROI with FTTN and then extend that network later to FTTH as required. No wastage, no huge debt and everyone has the speed they need at the time they need it. I know that makes far too much sense for those blinded by the NBN’s ‘hopeful agenda’.

      The only reason Telstra hasn’t rolled out FTTN now is because it doesn’t need to. NBN creates that competitor and so the NBN may just become a blip in Australia’s telco history. Oh, you say, let’s legislate that Telstra can’t compete with the NBN… Isn’t lack of competition the reason we’re in this dilemma in the first place?

      • Not heard of the IT skills shortage.
        The money has to be spent somewhere… Maybe the companies out of business (well they have 8 years to work out something) get into cloud applications that we will be crying out for with gigabit internet. Ooh and wait, these new cloud services that get developed by these out of work companies can be sold to our country but also every other country in the rest of the world… so effectively these companies just grew 10000 %.
        Maybe some of them can get a job with the govt ISP. It’s going to be making less money but it’s not for profit. It can pay bods to sit around and think up new schemes and improve the NBN… just need a bit of imagination.
        But perhaps my glass is half full.
        1Gbps for home, 10 for business.
        Or you could just pay 43bn and get nothing apart from rich ISP’s and telcos.

        Forgot to add… How much cash will business save as well, they all get free internet as well, They will all suddenly need cloud email etc… The real loser is a bigger picture, thinking microsoft office myself. Of course Google will be a big winner, but they deserve it cause they were smart to see this coming !

        • Cloud is good. Using it already – even on a 4Mbps connection. Even own a company making cloud apps. That doesn’t make me want to adopt economic insanity as my new mantra. I’m not opposed to FTTH. My beef is with how we get there. I prefer to go FTTN now (0-18months) so that I can get 50Mbps instead of 4Mpbs and then extend that network with FTTH later. But don’t trust me: realize that the rest of the world has discovered that’s the only economically feasible path to take.

          “AND BTW, I have solid 100mbps symmetrical internet and it’s painfully slow for many things. Who knows how bad it will be in 2-3 years.”

          Not sure you should be saying stuff like that while our rural cousins are still on dial up :)

      • Not heard of the IT skills shortage.
        The money has to be spent somewhere… Maybe the companies out of business (well they have 8 years to work out something) get into cloud applications that we will be crying out for with gigabit internet. Ooh and wait, these new cloud services that get developed by these out of work companies can be sold to our country but also every other country in the rest of the world… so effectively these companies just grew 10000 %.
        Maybe some of them can get a job with the govt ISP. It’s going to be making less money but it’s not for profit. It can pay bods to sit around and think up new schemes and improve the NBN… just need a bit of imagination.
        But perhaps my glass is half full.
        1Gbps for home, 10 for business.
        Or you could just pay 43bn and get nothing apart from rich ISP’s and telcos.

        Ever tried copying a few GB (days camera snaps with the odd 720p video) to a backup server somewhere. gigabit in the house is painful. Maybe I have lots of big files.

        Forgot to add… How much cash will business save as well, they all get free internet as well, They will all suddenly need cloud email etc… The real loser is a bigger picture, thinking microsoft office myself. Of course Google will be a big winner, but they deserve it cause they were smart to see this coming !
        Going to make replication and DR nice for so many companies, big EMC clarion dmx wins as well. But then we”ll likely soon to ditch HDD’s and tapes.

  60. The NBN 43bn cost is nothing. The savings are huge for several reasons. An interestng one is…

    Suppose you make the NBN Free. And in the terminating box in everyones house add a 5$ chip so everyone gets a voip phone account…

    OK, you put every phone company and interner company out of business. You make the electorate happy. You save the electorate on average a MINIMUM of between 50-100$ per month. multiply this by a minimum of 10mil people per month (bases on the numbers of people with >1.5mbit broadband let alone phones) and you get 6-12 BILLION PER YEAR given to anyone with a phone or internet connection. The rest don’t save but get internet and phone for free.

    So, by putting 6bn a year into peoples hands the cost to build (which is estimated at 2.6bn a year) is far outweighed by the cost to build. AND…. this is every year. I suppose you need to ask who gets the omney from telcos at the moment – overseas investors and banks?
    All you need do is find the running costs of the network, which with fibre is minimal as it’s pretty reliable.

    Then of course add in all the other savings to the environment, health, new business, education. etc. etc.. etc..
    As for all the telcos who are out of business, they have a few years to work out new things for us to spend this saved money on.

    AND BTW, I have solid 100mbps symmetrical internet and it’s painfully slow for many things. Who knows how bad it will be in 2-3 years.

  61. NBN via FTTH says, “Give me really high speed in around 5 years (if you don’t live in a regional area), I’m happy to use my crappy ADSL connection until then”
    High speed via FTTN then FTTH says, “Help us catchup to the rest of the world within 12-18 months by getting us 50Mbps via FTTN that can be extended over time to FTTH when/if required”

    Each method will get us to FTTH eventually for those who need it but only one method lets us stay within reach of the rest of the world so that we don’t fall behind and become the laughing stock of the developed world – even NZ is offering high speed via FTTN now….

  62. I fear that the world is reaching the limits of the economic growth model.

    Will we regret spending money on youtube instead of sustainable agriculture research? Probably.

    I work in IT and I am young, but I can also factor in big picture issues such as overpopulation and resource scarcity. Are you guys factoring in those ideas too?

    I’d love to live in the bush. Regardless of internet access.

    The NBN might provide an opportunity to do that for me. But I doubt we could finance the infrastructure needed to support people in the bush. It’s an arid nation.

    • Soylent Green, Australia is a land of droughts, but also of flooding rains. We can easily sustain our population by sustainably employing all that water. Bob Katter, for all his quirks, put it this way:
      “My electorate of Kennedy is responsible for half of Australia’s total annual freshwater runoff into the sea. If we captured just 7% of that runoff water, and cultivated just 2% of the land in my electorate, we could sustain a population of 60 million.”

      It sounds like you need to get out and see a bit of Australia first-hand, and not even the remote bits. Just make sure you get more than 200km from any capital city and you may be surprised how green and productive – and empty of people – our “arid” land is!

      Farmers deserve a far better deal than the supermarkets and banks give them, and they and their families should have a chance to use the Internet for less a $10 per gigabyte.

      The NBN will go a long way to addressing this social inequity.

      • I agree about the social inequalities for the Bush – no contest there. The NBN would just increase the attraction the bush has for me personally.

        I have travelled extensively in country Western Australia and have driven across Australia twice.
        It is green a few months of the year and productive only with good rains(luck) and huge fossil fuel inputs.
        The rail networks which are more efficient than trucks are neglected or being abandoned.

        Have a look at WA via satelite image, the damage done in the 50s and 60s is massive. The land is going to keep on degrading. Thus able to support fewer people over time.

        I just don’t see a huge influx of people being desireable anywhere in Australia, especially the bush.

        Katters ideas seem good, until you factor in some hard realities:
        1. Removing water flow from an already high nutrient river system is playing with fire
        2. With more agriculture in a river basin you increase contamination of the water – which has flow on effects in the ocean.
        3. How do you pay for all the infrastructure to build new cities in the bush?
        4. Will the bush be desireable if it has all the social and economic problems of the city?
        5. Modern agriculture will fail if fossil fuel fertiliser and fuels become more scarce.

        The NBN may even mitigate for a time some of the effects of dwindiling economic growth and fossil fuel shortages. I’m on the fence. But what I do know is that humans should not be spreading across the fragile landscape of Australia any more than has been developed already. It’s a ponzi scheme and will bite us in the end.

  63. Linton’s opposition is basically self centered interest as it cuts down his firm’s huge profitability . A sad sack he is really.

    Someone else’s comment: ” Abbott and co. are short sighted and ignorant, and they are unable to see the bigger picture. Australia’s future should not be penalized because these people lack any vision in the realm of telecommunications.”

    How true but not only that, he and his cohorts oppose just for opposing’s sake. Take the “Mineral tax” for example, resources in the ground are owned by you and me (all Australians) and shouldn’t we not get a little bit back from these resource companies ripping our owned minerals out of the ground and selling our owned resources for MEGA profits without us benefiting by it. The little tax they pay is just what their tax experts worked out as the barest necessary payment needed. But Abbott and co being Liberal, meaning big business, hence opposition to the “mineral Tax” is just one example.

    Some ignorant wag above is commenting:

    “I was out in the bush the other day speaking to farmers about land use, organic farming, etc, and the topic of the NBN always came up. They all couldn’t care less… One farmer, who was part of a large organisation of farmers used broadband regularily but said what he had now was fine. The others said they don’t need it as they simply preferred meeting face to face to find out latest farming techniques, trends, and sort out other aspects of their life. So much for NBN being cried for in rural areas! They just want access to internet, they don’t care for the high speeds and they want no strings attached, wireless, connectivity.”

    I don’t know where he/she comes from and to which farmers he spoke to but most farmers need fast and cheap internet connection just for checking weather forecasts, finding out about new farming techniques, latest crop and produce prices, meat markets, transport informations, checking prices, availability and ordering supplies, checking out farming machinery, new and second hand, new seeding, planting, harvesting techniques, animal husbandry, veterinarian information, pest and weed control, feral pest informations, downloading the latest GPS info for tractor/harvester/combine control, upcoming field and auction days etc.

    Unless he/she thinks, the farmers he/she spoke to are one of the old breed and hence not understanding these “newfangled things”. I also think he/she is short selling a smart and educated farmer (being one myself in the late 60s) and I am in contact/speak to lots of these too and I am all for the NBN to provide me with a fast and cheaper alternative I have now (satellite internet connection with its HIGH charges) as there IS NO other alternative for me as you read on further below.

    Another “smart alec” states further above:

    “The “smart money” seems to be on rolling out FTTN first using mainly private sector who have a great chance of ROI with FTTN and then extend that network later to FTTH as required. No wastage, no huge debt and everyone has the speed they need at the time they need it. I know that makes far too much sense for those blinded by the NBN’s ‘hopeful agenda’.”

    Does this above quoted person REALLY think, private sector will do this? I don’t know where he/she comes from or where he/she grew up, PRIVATE SECTOR WILL ONLY invest IF there is a buck (meaning BIG BUCKS) in it for them.

    What do you think if our forefathers had the same thoughts as you do regarding “Private Sector”? Then we will still be waiting for any of our railways to be build, the Sydney Harbor Bridge not having been build yet, the Snowy Mountain Scheme none existing, the Overland Telegraph Service not in place yet, the Perth to Coolgardie/Kalgoorlie water pipe line not in place yet, the South Australian water pipe network being none existing, the Ord River Scheme not on the map yet. Or all other Federal and State Government projects funded in the past whould have waited for the Private Sector to build these, these would still be waiting to be build.

    Well, what a bl**dy stupid statement/comment that really is to wait for the Private sector to build but apparently you still do not get it. Just look what happened when our State governments started to sell off OUR public owned assets (electricity, gas, water, railways etc.) and the utility charges we ALL PAY NOW went sky high and still keep on rising disproportional to CPI.

    Then his/her further statement:

    ” The only reason Telstra hasn’t rolled out FTTN now is because it doesn’t need to.”

    Too bl**dy right! Why should they, as they have a monopoly of the infrastructure, exchanges etc., they can charge WHAT THEY LIKE. Why should they spend more money on fiber when the cash cow we used to own ourselves is now privatized and they (TELSTRA) can virtually do as they like and dictate to us NOT what is needed but WHERE the biggest profit for them is. The only reason they also are building a fiber network is because THEY thought they would have the same monopoly there too as they have with the copper network. Hence they cry foul when the NBN was announced.

    Your further statement:

    “NBN creates that competitor and so the NBN may just become a blip in Australia’s telco history. Oh, you say, let’s legislate that Telstra can’t compete with the NBN… Isn’t lack of competition the reason we’re in this dilemma in the first place?”

    What does your quote mean, to me this does not make sense?

    Thanks Christ for the NBN, at the very least the NBN stops TELSTRA’s monopoly and pulls them into line to play a reasonable ballgame. Just check the current TELSTRA internet plan pricing and compare that to the proposed NBN pricing. I rest my case!

    Just spare a thought for us country people, take my case as example. I live in rural South Australia, less than 300 km from Adelaide towards Pt. Augusta. Thanks to TELSTRA’s glorious and ingenious placement of their repeaters/transponders there is NO NextG wireless coverage in my area (some 500 square km around me), yet I live on a main rural road. So much for technology, mankind can place a man on the moon in the1960s, yet now in 2010 there is NO wireless coverage here in my area. I do not live in the Simpson Desert nor beyond the Black Stump. Again, TELSTRA’s monopoly, being now a “Private Sector”, there is NO profit for them to upgrade this area as the revenue they would receive is less then it costs to upgrade.

    Similar (off topic) is the TV reception in my area, only Southern Cross 10 and Southern Cross 7 (beside the normal SBS and ABC channels) are getting received here. No Channel 9 nor any of the Adelaide HD channels like 1HD, 7two, 9HD etc getting received here. Southern Cross TV broadcasting from Pt.Pirie in SA some 100 km away with NO repeaters in between them and my place, so you can guess what the TV reception is here?

    We will get Digital TV Changeover in December this year but guess what? We will ONLY receive the current channels we are getting now and NONE of the other channels Adelaide do currently receive and enjoy. As Australia is divided up into TV areas where only certain TV stations are allowed to broadcast, when I spoke recently to Channel 9, they said they can not broadcast here nor have they any plans to do this in the future. Southern Cross will NOT broadcast 1HD nor 7Two although the have the channel 10 and channel 7 license. I inquired about buying myself a satellite VAST decoder box, which has a smart card inside, with which I could receive all these Adelaide TV stations here but guess what. That smart card needs to be enabled by Southern Cross TV (permission to receive the other channels) and also by the Digital TV Task Force and NEITHER will give me permission as it would cut down on Southern Cross’s advertising base as I am able to watch less of their TV and more of other channels and the Digital TV Task Force refusal is based on: I can receive TV at this moment, no matter if this is only one or two TV stations, let alone the awful reception I am getting, hence also no permission re enabling the smart card.

    So, don’t lecture me/us about the private sector. They will build i only if it serves them and ONLY THEM!

    Herb

    • Hey herb, get your facts right:

      “But Abbott and co being Liberal, meaning big business, hence opposition to the “mineral Tax” is just one example.”

      Gillard struck a deal with on the mining tax with who? Thousands of smaller Australian owned mining companies?

      NOOOOOOOO!!!!

      She ignored the smaller Aussie mining companies and undertook discussions with only the largest 3 mining companies, significantly being owned by NON AUSTRALIANS. The workings of the deal is economically much more favourable to the big 3 overseas owned companies and disadvantages the smaller, mainly Australian owned companies.

      Get informed and stop being such an ignorant labor robot.

      With all this rhetoric anyone would think that the miners are currently not taxed. They are taxed at the company rate like any other company and in addition to that they pay state royalties (another form of tax). They are already being taxed fairly highly compared with miners in other countries.

      Tax isn’t just a medication you simply rub in to your debt ridden economy and everything gets fixed. Often medication has side effects and if you tax an industry too much it will do business elsewhere so you will lose the very thing you’re taxing – possibly even so much that you’ll end up in the embarrassing situation of gaining less tax revenue even though you have increased the tax rate.

  64. Linton is clearly trying to keep this sweet cash cow he has had for a while, I mean c’mon… what a joke of a man.

    Harsh as this may sound Mr Linton, ageing Australian’s will be dead soon, while they may not want or need 1Gbps, the rest of society do need it going forward… to say otherwise is as ignorant as the people who believed 32KB of RAM would cut it forever…

  65. “My point, made more badly than I had hoped for, is that the actual market for wire line residential broadband is going to fall rather than increase,” Linton wrote today.

    Blithering idiot.

  66. Of course the biggest scam the government pulled off with the NBN is by claiming it to be a ‘commercially viable investment’ – even though no business case was carried out!

    You see, the *pure genius* of investing in a commercially viable infrastructure project means that they didn’t need to declare the $43 billion as part of their election costings – BRILLIANT! …. yet they had the hide to criticize the coalition’s costing policies even though, allowing for their “hole” they would still spend less and get the budget into surplus in 2013 and with a much greater surplus than labor would have – no surprises there.

    A business case would have shown that *pure genius* for the bunkham that it is.

  67. Soylent green makes a valid point but I think the conclusion is inconsistant with the quoted blogspot.
    The NBN is a simplification and should be welcomed.
    We definately need at least 1 gb speeds if not more.
    Fixed line networks with little risk of interferance, and lots of video and other communications with many people.
    Linton needs to get real – maybe he is showing his deteriation in mental acuity – who knows – if he meant something else then say it from the start.
    Sounds like back peddling.

  68. Spot on SoylentGreen!

    Tell the boffins in Canberra to give me fibert to the node now so I can go from 4Mbps to 50mbps because that’s what my business needs NOW!!!!!

    Do it now, do it without draining money from hospitals, railways etc., and do it with FTTN!

    I really can’t wait 5-8 years for the NBN to roll fiber past my door and neither can the rest of Australia I would think. In 5-8 years my 4Mbps ADSL is going to look like dialup while 50Mbps via VDSL2/FTTN will be very repectable. 1Gbps… give me that in 10-15 years when most of the experts are saying that *some* of us might need that. When we do need that THEN and only then extend fiber from the FTTN nodes to the home.

    • I’m not sure if everyone got my point. We may have left the tracks on the keynesian economics setup.
      The Quantative Easing in the USA is not encouraging. Just pushing the deflation out a bit, but it’s coming.
      Our bubble here in housing especially is troubling.

      Should we be powering down for a resource scarce future or spending up big on something that may be irrelevant if what I think is happening comes true(There may be no internet as worst case scenario).

      Deflation then stagnation then inflation on Weimar levels may be on the cards, thus the exodus to gold right now.

      Permaculture may become mainsteam – who knows? I’m biting my nails and keeping my mouth shut (Outside of anon blogging). No-one likes a smart arse.

      Hold tight!

  69. @Golfman, you are already on a relatievly good wicket getting 4Mbps over copper ADSL, and remember that it left the exchange at 20Mbps. Copper FTTN can be upgraded to 50Mbps for distances of up to 1km, and again speed fades quickly over that distance, it is at great expense for each node, and street pillars which terminate copper pairs don’t need electricity wheraes DSLAMs in street pillars will need power.

    Nor is FTTN even a “stepping-stone” to FTTH, which requires a fibre strand from each premise all the way back to the source exchange. When the fibre rollout happens, powered street pillars will simply be ignored. They are a short term and long term waste of money.

    The 40% of Australians currently without any broadband are also ahead of you in the queue. Just be patient and your fibre will eventually come, and will deliver any speed upgrade ever imaginable without ever being touched.

    • “Nor is FTTN even a “stepping-stone” to FTTH, which requires a fibre strand from each premise all the way back to the source exchange.”

      If you think the NBN is going to run an individual fiber strand from every house to the exchange then you’re very optimistic. The mostly likely approach will be passive nodes (google GPON).

      GPON uses passive nodes with glass prisms that divide the signal from the exchange into a number of different fibers that then run to each house. It uses time slicing and requires encryption to stop people snooping because the same data is visible to every device at the end of the fiber (although they should only read data in their allocated time slice). It’s not really an optimal way of using the backhaul fiber but it sure is cheaper than giving everyone a direct fiber all the way back to the node.

      The NBN’s FTTH approach is far too optimistic for a world teetering on economic collapse. The sheer expense of it and slow roll out will make the masses who voted for labor thinking they were going to get 1Gbps within this term of government get very frustrated and unforgiving with their 2-4MB ADSL connections in 3 years time while the rest of the world enjoy 30-100Mbps via various technologies, largely FTTN/VDSL2 (even NZ has this NOW!!).

      If Australia insists on this ridiculous obsession with FTTH then In 3 years we’ll be the laughing stock of the digital world with our 4Mb ADSL connections – most international websites will probably unbearable at that speed by then… but as always, emotion over ‘promised’ nirvana wins over logic and rational thought…. seems Australians keeps falling for that BS

  70. The last NBN deployed (almost 20 years ago now) was FTTN. Gigabits-per-second decoders were then to transform that into fibres or copper into as many as a dozen homes per node. That was *called* FTTH at the time. My assumption so far has been that the current NBN’s FTTH would be essentially the same FTTN solution that the last one had.

  71. I don’t have time to read all the responses here but all I have to say is that this bloke should know better and certainly does not reflect my views.

    I consider myself as one of the older generation (59) and I certainly want the NBN.

    I am currently on an ADSL connection which costs me $70 per month plus the $30 line connection so anything less than $100 per month is a bonus. Is he willing to roll out ADSL2 to my area but he would have to get around the RIM I am attached to.

    Although I have a 1.5Mbps connection my upload speed is only 256Kbps. I host certain documents and notes at home but to upload a 1MB document takes a theoretical minimum of 40 seconds and typically takes over a minute, liveable (Just) but not if you are in a hurry and if you add in a ‘3’ wireless connection at the work end it gets slower again.

    I also have few Gig of family photo’s hosted at home which I share with my extended family. It takes about 2 to 3 minutes to load each photo, useless for browsing.

    I do not need a 100M connection (yet) but my kids certainly will in the not too distant future, just check the bandwidth usage growth and extrapolate it out say 10 years.

    I would love to have a off site backup for those photo’s I mentioned above but with my current speeds that is impossible. I currently have copies on 3 different hard disks and a DVD off site but setting up a regular backup would be much easier and reliable.

    • I feel sorry for you with that 1.5Mbps ADSL connection. I’ve got a 4Mbps ADSL connection – whooeeeh! ~3 times faster.

      If you want to get a faster connection soon then you’d better hope that the NBN in its current form gets dropped, and quickly, because if you have to wait for fiber to run past your house you’ll be stuck on crappy ADSL for another 5-8 years – Oakeshott and Windsor just made sure all the white vans left the city areas and are now rolling out cable in regional areas.

      Much better to get a fast FTTN rollout in the next 12 months than hang around for years waiting for a ‘pie in the sky’ fiber to the home rollout….. that *might* happen …. some day…. maybe…..

  72. It’s clear as day that this is a business man who is using the veil of purporting to be interested in what older Australian want, whilst all the while he is only 1. drumming up business. And 2. Trying to drum up support for fear of losing what business he has when the NBN provides a better service.

    In regard to 1. This is so clearly an advertisement and not a news article. What a businessman says about his competition is not news, it is advertising.

    2. if this man knows anything at all about the technology and service he sells he also knows that it will be Australian businesses who benefit from the NBN and that is when older Australians will benefit. Increased capacity isn’t for speed, speed will eventually not be an issue. It is the richness of transmitted data that will provide the benefit to not only older Australians, but all Australian.

    This is actually a very strange document. It is clear as day that the story is the product of a particular way of thinking. This is a political piece. Anti government propaganda.

    It should be called Linton doesn’t want NBN, wants to sell his product instead.

    Or it could be called. Journalist writes advertisement for Tasmanian internet Business criticizing competition.

  73. A couple of points that most people seem to have missed.
    1. It’s a political argument not a technological one. Abbott and co. opposes it for political reasons pure and simple. Labor proposed it so liberal oppose it!
    2. Any financial cost/benefit arguments are flawed because no one can know the future, especially in the world of technology.
    However, if a reliable super high speed broadband was put in place it will be utilised by all, including the naysayers. New businesses, many of which haven’t even been thought of yet will develop and grow. This will increase employment, income and tax revenue etc., especially in the country regions. The argument, that we don’t need it for the things we do now is just plain stupid. Decentralisation is a major key to Australia’s development and sustainability. With a reliable high speed broadband this is a much more viable. Businesses are more likely to establish their computer based operations in country areas where it is cheaper to operate. Many more home based business both in the city and country will become viable. Plus, so many other uses we haven’t even though of yet will develop. Not only will this benefit country Australia immeasurably, but city dwellers as well, resulting in less crowded cities, less commuters on the road, less need for childcare, less pollution, etc etc etc. How do you do a cost benifit on that?
    So, let’s try to move forward, rather that stay stuck in our conservative past. Oh! By the way I’m a baby boomer and not in IT.

    • “1. It’s a political argument not a technological one. Abbott and co. opposes it for political reasons pure and simple. Labor proposed it so liberal oppose it!”

      Sorry but if you really believe that then it shows a grave deficit in your knowledge of technology and business. Verizon USA has dumped it’s “ambitious FTTH (NBN style)” rollout. Abbott and co. are not alone in the world in opposing the mega expensive FTTH approach. Most of the world are happily humming alone with the much less insane FTTN approach to providing high speed broadband.

      Any responsible opposition wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t try to force the government into a more sane approach to broadband that is affordable and able to be implemented in a short time. FTTH takes much, much, much longer to roll out… just wait and see…. you’ll be stuck on your current crappy ADSL line for years if the NBN goes ahead with the current FTTH approach

  74. My,my golfman what an angry little liberal spin doctor in training you are. Of course its a political argument. You seem to think you know everything about every thing,but looking at some of your other posts you resort to angry politcal rhetoric,insults and spin to make your points.
    Just because some private american telco has changed direction on its fibre approch doesn’t mean it’s what Australia should do. Version is a private company, it bases its needs purely on self interest and profit . Australia is a country and its decisions should be based on the needs of all its people for now and into the future. Of course you really know it’s a politcal argument, you just want to keep fooling the gullible. Good luck with that!

  75. I seen a few people say that you want need 1gbps now.. well your not going to exacly 1gbps when you go to test the speed its likely to be around just over 100mbs anyway look at the bigger picture……. plus its not coming out for 8 more years. who know you could be controling robots

    • Glen, this just shows your lack of knowledge and inexperience on the project and how any infrastructure project is run.

      And the FTTH just doesn’t come out in 8 years time, its not like they just click a magic button and BAM the whole country has FTTH. It will be ROLLED out over the next 8 years. Fibre will be available continuously at new locations across the country over 8 years. Some people have it now, you might get it in a years time, I might get it in a few months.

      The problem is people like you and others who don’t understand, making up fibs and delaying this project. We need to get this project underway now!

  76. Here’s an analogy for those people who are stuck staring into the headlights of the “promise” of 1Gbps via the NBN:

    Imagine that your current ADSL connection is a push bike.
    Imagine that NBN via Fiber to the Home (FTTH) is a Ferrari
    Imagine that high speed via Fiber to the Home (FTTN) or some less expensive but satisfactory solution is a Ford.

    Many people voted for and are insisting that the government buy them a Ferrari while more people voted for a more affordable Ford. Thanks to the independents who thought it was possible to deliver Ferrari’s to regional areas the ‘Ferrari’ promise won the day.

    Ferrari’s are hand made: “In comparison to a normal car e.g. a ford which never stops on a production line a Ferrari will stop 29 times and takes many days to produce not one or two hours.”

    It’s ok that Ferrari’s take a long time to make because not many people have the money to buy them but when you decide to deliver a Ferrari to everyone in the country and that requires lots of labour then you’re going to have a very, very long wait for delivery of your Ferrari – many, many years. So you’ll be stuck on your push bike for up to 8 years while you wait the delivery of your Ferrari – assuming the guvment doesn’t decide it’s all too expensive by then and decide to buy Ford’s for everyone instead.

    A Ford takes just a couple of hours to produce and is easy and cheap to deliver. You could be driving your Ford in months instead of 5 – 8 years.

    At the end of the day a Ferrari can to 300km/hr but in reality it will be limited to the speed limit, just like the Ford – both will have a max average speed of around 100km/hr (100Mbps). The fact that you can get 1Gbps from your house to the exchange (the on ramp to the freeway) is irrelevent when you finally hit the freeway and are limited by the speed limit that’s imposed on it because it must be shared by all the cars trying to go as fast as the highway will allow.

    What this means is that NBN supporters have been sold a lemon by the car salesman, no doubt a good looking, bright red lemon that can go no faster than a Ford but only on a private road. Once it hits the public highway the difference in theoretcial ‘top speed’ is irrelevent and by choosing to wait for the delivery of a Ferrari you ensure that you’re stuck riding your push bike for the next 5-8 years while the rest of the western world travel at high speed in Fords.

    • More like, think of the FTTH solution as a multi-lane highway and the current ADSL situation as a one lane two-way street.

      • How many 6 lane highways run a dedicated 6 lanes from the main freeway to everybody’s front door?

  77. What a load of waffle,Who writes your speaches, Donald Rumsfeld ?
    News flash golfman, No one is listening!

  78. “The use of Skype is growing” – obviously the current ADSL speeds must be adequate or this wouldn’t happen. If it works fine on a 4mbps ADSL connection imagine how much better it would be on a 40-60Mbps VDSL2 (via fiber to the node) it would work – and everyone could get this in a few short years – unlike with current FTTH plan where some people could be stuck on slower ADSL or even dial up until 2021 while others get 100Mhz rolled out – doesn’t seem too egalitarian or fair does it?

    • Golfman, the problem is that FTTN will cost just as much to build as FTTP, and will not be completed sooner.

      Both parties now plan to borrow to construct the NBN, but fibre to premises will deliver more from day one to premises, and will therefore yield more revenue per premises. So, FTTP will repay its construction loans sooner, and will then become a cash cow for Trreasury. FTTN will probably need a taxpayer bailout.

  79. FTTN costs much less to build than FTTP as demonstrated in the USA, Germany, NZ, UK etc., This isn’t something you can argue FTTN is cheaper because it eliminates most of the labour intensive work – rewiring every single house in urban Australia – by reusing the existing 800m of copper. That’s not up for debate. FTTN would have never been adopted so widely if it were not cheaper and so much faster to roll out. (UK rolled out FTTN to about 14 MILLION premises in under 2 years). The slow rollout of the #NBN and increased costs over forecasts is more evidence of the cost of rewiring that last 800m.

    I agree with “FTTP will deliver more from day one”. Unfortunately ‘day one’ won’t be till 2021 for some people – the estimated completion date of the current #NBN plan. If those people are currently on dial up or slow ADSL then it blows apart the argument that 100Mbps is needed by everyone real soon now.

    Better to get everyone on at least 25Mbps -100Mbps via FTTN in just a few years for a much cheaper price and let those that *really* need it go for a user pays system on their last 800m. You’ll soon find out how many people *really* need 100Mbps.

  80. Golfman, the coalitions plan to build wireless, satellite and 25 Mbps FTTN is alleged to cost $29 billion.

    The 2007 plan to build FTTN of 6 Mbps nationally was abandoned because it would cost $31 billion.

    The coalition plan does not allow for powering its 60,000 2KW refrigerators, nor replacement and maintenance of components including 8 car batteries per box. It does not factor in the $1.3 billion annual ost of maintaining the copper, most of which is spent swapping copper pairs. And it does not even mention that to get 50 Mbps many preemies will need to get a second copper pair laid.

    Both the coalition and the present NBN plan will cost about $40 billion. Turnbull is already climbing down from his latest disingenuous presentation. The reason your broadband has been delayed is that Turnbull delayed the enabling legislation in parliament, then the ACCC took four months after the 99.25% Telstra shareholder vote in October 2011 before it gave approval on 28 February 2012. After one year, we now see the effect, and the takeup figures prove that FTTP is self funding.

    We also see that the entry level GPON units are now 10 Gbps per 28 premises, so your business can get any speed up to gigabit, with 400 Mbps uploads, from day one.

    The government should not be laying new copper any more than it should be building blacksmith shops.

  81. “The government should not be laying new copper any more than it should be building blacksmith shops.”

    The whole point of FTTN is so you don’t need to relay any new copper. Why do people think that FTTN means laying out a new copper network. FTTN is cheaper because it reuses the last 800m of the existing copper network – i.e. don’t need to rip up the footpaths and front yards and drill holes into the walls of every house in the ‘burbs.

    BTW it’s laughable that NBN Co’s new *estimate* of wiring from the pavement to the house is a ridiculous $100/home. Do you really believe that?

    I spoke to a Telstra contractor who said it’s a f**kin’ joke. He said after years of trucks and cars running over the conduits and soil movement etc., the conduits can be crimped or broken but even then the copper than still work fine if the insulation hasn’t been pierced – but try to run a fiber through that crimped conduit and it’s ‘out with the backhoe’ through your front yard. Oh, so you’ve hit rock have you… oh dear…

  82. $100 would be a joke. In fact, NBNCo has found that the cost in brownfields premises is $2300 to $2600, though the cost is now declining as they hit their stride.

    http://www.itnews.com.au/News/340462,nbn-co-defends-rollout-costs-with-new-data.aspx talks about this.

    The actual parliamentary submission from NBNCo is here:

    http://www.nbnco.com.au/assets/media-releases/2013/report-to-parliamentary-joint-committee.pdf

    Where are the figures for Malcolm Turnbull’s alternative, and what are they based on?

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