Fibre broadband speeds pointless, claims Turnbull

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Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday claimed there was no evidence that there was any benefit to end users from getting access to broadband speeds higher than currently available under existing ADSL2+ technology.

Currently, ADSL2+ is limited to a theoretical speed of 24Mbps, although in practice, many Australians get much lower speeds from the technology. The National Broadband Network, however, will eventually provide most of the population with speeds of up to 1Gbps as it is rolled out over the next decade.

However, Turnbull didn’t appear impressed by the higher speeds which would be made available.

“There’s been no case made or evidence made that there is any benefit from having a speed higher than what we can get now in many of our cities, at least, from ADSL 2+,” the Liberal MP told radio station 2GB in Sydney yesterday. “If I connect your house with one terabyte per second speeds – the sort of speed you might get over a transcontinental cable – it would be of no use to you. There’s nothing you could do with it.”

Turnbull’s comments play into the Coalition’s line — repeated by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in a press conference on the NBN before Christmas — that the NBN would primarily be used for high-end entertainment applications in video and gaming.

“It’s pretty obvious that the main usage for the NBN is going to be internet-based television, video entertainment and gaming,” Abbott said at the time. “We are not against using the internet for all these things, but do we really want to invest $50 billion worth of hard-earned taxpayers’ money in what is essentially a video entertainment system?”

Yesterday, Turnbull reiterated the NBN would primarily be used for entertainment, and added there was no point to Australians getting high-speed broadband if there were no concrete applications for the technology. He pointed out internet video providers such as FetchTV were currently rolling out their services around Australia, using existing broadband to do so.

“In fact, I think they only need four-and-a-half megs download speeds to deliver it. So the big question mark is what is the use of all this extra speed at a household level?” he said.

The Shadow Communications Minister also attacked the NBN on another front — take-up, pointing out take-up in the Victorian testbed suburb of Brunswick had been 45 percent of premises so far. In Tasmania, the NBN will be connected to every premise by default, unless premise owners specifically reject the new technology. However, in Victoria, the State Government is opposed to this so-called ‘opt-out’ policy.

Turnbull described the Brunswick numbers as being indicative of what take-up numbers could be expected in other metropolitan sites around Australia.

“What you’re seeing is that a lot of people who do have internet access now are not interested in taking up the NBN,” said Turnbull. “So it underlines the point that we’ve made, which is that the NBN is only ever going to be able to achieve significant penetration at all if competition is eliminated.”

Image credit: Office of Malcolm Turnbull

259 COMMENTS

    • The worst part about this is that Australia is currently suffering massive natural disasters.

      Rather than pitching in to help with matters of much higher priority, Malcolm is blindly trying to fulfil his mission.
      No matter where you stand on the NBN. For or against, I think we can all agree that this is shameful.

      Shame on you Malcolm.

      Shame, shame, shame.

      PS, if you think 100mbit is excessive and wireless is better, please cancel your 100mbit cable connection and get yourself a 3G dongle.

      Oh, and do something useful and productive for a change.

  1. “In fact, I think they only need four-and-a-half megs download speeds to deliver it. So the big question mark is what is the use of all this extra speed at a household level?” he said.

    yeah for one Fetch TV Service to work.

    What if you have two in your house on two TVs?

    Most people have more than 2 TVs in there house.

    I’m really getting sick of Turnbull and his claims that people don’t need the NBN speeds

    I barely get enough connection speed at home for ABC iView to work.
    As I’ve said many times before, if I want to be gaming online at the same time my wife is watching iView I can forget about it.

    And I’m on ‘adsl2+’

    What happens when our kid gets to an age where she wants to be using the internet as well?

    We’ll have even more devices connected competing for the pitiful adsl2 connection speeds I currently can get.

    I’ve thought about getting a 2nd adsl2 connection run to my house….but have found out that the 2nd line coming to my current house isn’t viable for adsl!

    “What you’re seeing is that a lot of people who do have internet access now are not interested in taking up the NBN,” said Turnbull.

    Allot of people are in contracts with there Internet providers and it’ll cost them $$ to get out of said contract.

    Also I’d say 45% take up is excellent for a trial

    • I’ll also add if I have to work from home my wife cannot watch iView or other services because it’ll lag out my work connection and its horrible trying to do things via remote back to work with lag.

      Also situations like yesterday when the trains were delayed for ever and I was forced to work from home meant my wife couldn’t do much on the net all day

  2. I remember Thomas Watson (IBM founder) once saying we’d never need more than a handful of computers too

  3. Didn’t someone years ago say that they felt there’d only be a need for 5 or 6 computers in the world, Turnbull is starting to sound like that guy.

      • Putting the spokesperson for Coalition communications policy in Australia and what he says on the same level as supposed utterances from the founder of IBM and Microsoft is extremely flattering for Turnbull but that’s about it.

  4. Dear Mr Turnbull, do you know how many people on ADSL2+ don’t even get 4.5Mb? I’m one of them. My phone line is so old and so full of bridge taps that the wholesaler will not remove unless they actually cause a FAULT on the line, that I can’t get decent internet speeds.

    Why do we need fibre? Because the current technology is out of date and in such bad repair that it’s a wonder as many people can get “broadband” as do get it!

    Sincerely, somebody who is unfortunately related to you by marriage but will NEVER vote Liberal while you have such ridiculous “broadband” policy.

    • I don’t get even 3mbit on ADSL2+. My wife complains about speed. I have to stop everything when I want to video conference. Malcolm, just because you can’t see a use for it doesn’t mean households and businesses can’t either. Thankfully they and the government have more imagination than you do.

  5. I can upload large files to work if I’m really patient (at a rocketing 650kbps). I daren’t try to use VOIP at the same time though. There you go Malcolm, come over an tell me that anything faster than ADSL is of no use to anyone.

    • Your lucky I have I pay for a ADSL 2 (21Mb) connection I get a ADSL 1 (6Mb should be 8Mb) sync rate because the local local exchange has no ADSL2 ports. My actual download speed is 2.5-3.2Mb and upload is 140-320Kb ON VERY GOOD DAY, as a result I cannot work from home at all.

  6. I have a few business customers for whom the NBN will be great- and some of them HAVe high seed ADSL2+ connections.

    I want to do automatic offsite backups but their ADSL links can’t upload fast enough to make that feasible overnight. One of the sites is on 8Mb/384k and can’t get anything better (rejected for all forms of SHDSL & EoP despite being in Brookvale).

  7. “…pointing out take-up in the Victorian testbed suburb of Brunswick had been 45 percent of premises so far…”

    Operative phrase here is “so far”…applications are still open in Brunswick. And why not mention all the other mainland sites, where they are all seeing upwards of 70%?

    Convenient…

    • It’s also convenient to quote “hey it’s free why not” connect figures as distinct from figures that indicate how many then sign up for a NBN Plan from the four ISP’s (not Telstra or Optus) that are selling it.

  8. What a load. How about those who are too far away from the exchange to get useful ADSL speed, even though they are well within a metro area? I suppose you want us to pay through the *** for wireless?

    Thankfully we have the option of Telstra cable – 30mbit worst case – which is worlds ahead of DSL.

    Turnbull needs to STFU and stop pretending he knows what everyone uses their internet for.

  9. Is Turnbull really this ignorant, or is he just in opposition? I used to have a lot of respect for him, but his recent comments have caused it to evaporate…

    • That must be why the polls indicate that if a election was held now the Coalition would get into Government, the Gillard/Conroy honeymoon is waning.

        • The point of course is that Turnbull’s or Abbott’s comments on the NBN are having zero effect on their popularity, which alludes to the fact that perhaps the NBN in tech tyre kicker discussions like this looms large in self indulgent importance, but to the vast majority of the sucker taxpayers who are paying for it they couldn’t give a toss.

  10. Turnbull, like Abbot, happily ignore the “multiple device” aspect of broadband.

    Because it debunks the repeated claims that high speed internet isn’t required. Internet aware TVs, media players are fast becoming the rule, not the expection from a sales point of view.

    Libs like to point at “internet aware fridges” and snigger. Yes, it’s a joke. But the point isn’t. With Laptops. PCs, Macs, Tablets and both wired and wireless devices becoming an increasingly normal sight within Australian homes, it’s not a SINGLE user world any more.

    When you have multiple devices concurrently accessing the internet, including streaming video and media rich web sites, a multicast incapable 512k internet connection doesn’t really cut it any more.

    Turnbull is trying to sell the NBN as an unrequired waste. Problem is, that might have been the case 15 years ago. Not a relevant angle today.

    And they (Libs) can’t very well include uptake figures where there is actual demand, as that would, well, it’d support the whole idea that the NBN might have some merit!

  11. You still live in the dark ages. If you had supported the NBN at the last election. The Liberals would govern the country.

  12. 1981: “640kb of RAM ought to be enough for anyone” – Bill Gates
    2011: “four-and-a-half megs download speeds [ought to be enough for anyone]” – Turnbull

    Hmmmmmm.

    • Except Gates didn’t say that, but never mind it is enshrined in the urban myth world that is called the internet for ever.

      • Yeah, aware that the quote is dubious in source, should have added a disclaimer. :P

        The comparision I’m making is less “who said what”, but more that this “4.5 mb/s is enough for anyone” is just as silly today as the “640kb is enough for everyone” (allegedly) was in 1981.

        • Well not really unless you can quote figures that indicate that the vast majority of fixed line BB users in Australia NEED NBN speeds, in the same way you could perhaps explain why customers that are on ADSL1 1500/256 plans or only wireless BB for example are quite happy to renew and continue with that speed even though they could easily switch to ADSL2+ or Optus or BigPond cable.

          • What’s that got to do with the supposed ‘overwhelming demand’ for NBN speeds that is out there, perhaps you could explain why customers prefer to stick good old reliable 1500/256 rather than swapping to higher speed at the same monthly charge?

          • What has it got to do with it? Oh, buddha…

            It simply is not available to everyone! It must be great for you, living in the room above your local exchange, with a direct ethernet port into the switch downstairs, but the rest of us live in the real world.

          • You still didn’t answer the direct question but went off on a completely different tangent (again) and avoided it.

          • He likely hasn’t answered your question because it has been answered by the majority of people in these comments explaining why their current connection is not good enough.

            Now there are always going to be a select minority who don’t need the whole hog, but if we focused on them we’d never upgrade anything.

          • Well that’s the whole point is it not? – what constitutes the ‘select minority’ here, people who post in here or those that are totally happy with 1500/256, 512/128 or wireless BB speeds even though they could higher speeds?

          • Neither of them. However, I’d put more stock in the “geeks” than I would anyone else when it comes to this issue because they are the ones MOST DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY IT.

            And if that isn’t good enough, what about the survay posted in the Australian Financial Review that showed 75% support for the NBN? Does that statistic have no merit in this discusion at all?

          • the ‘geeks’ are often the ones doing stuff on the net a few years before the masses. So its good to watch what they are doing to see what everyone else will be doing.

          • That’s fine, well let the ‘geeks’ pay for it then if they need it so bad it hurts, I am sure many that are paying for it but don’t need it would be comfortable with that approach.

          • But thats the thing, the ‘many’ will be doing what the ‘geeks’ are doing now in the near future and so we will need infrastructure like the NBN to serve up what the unwashed masses want to be doing.

          • Ahh yes the totally arrogant and dismissive “we know what’s best for you” attitude that is common in discussions like this.

            I know how to configure a modem for VoIP and I can code in Android, and I was one of the first 100 people in Australia that queued up overnight and got a Apple Iphone 4 on release day – I know what’s best for Australia eh?

            :)

            But you only see it when someone else is paying for it like the sucker taxpayer, and if the Government blows billions against the wall on this one – who cares, that’s what Governments do.

          • Alain, could it be that given a meaningful investigation of ADSL1 numbers, you’d probably find a large chunk are either in “remote” areas/outer burbs that can’t access higher speeds, or just as likely stuck in RIM hell in inner metro areas and new housing developments. Considering how cheap ADSL2+ is these days, there’d likely be a heck of a lot less on ADSL1 if they could simply get access to the service in the first place. I would say a lot of those aren’t exactly “content” with ADSL1… hence the numbers crying for the NBN

          • one of the reason is my fucking ADSL2+ is only going at 1.5mb at max. Why spend the money for something that I cannot get. Fiber is different.

          • I would love faster speeds but there just not available and I live in a regional city in WA. I tried wireless internet but is was too expensive $100 a month a very hight data cost over my limit of 6G (no shaping). And it dropped out regularly 4 or 5 time a night. Best speed 1.2Mb worse speed 128Kb not good engulf for video streaming. Oh if I wanted a bigger (external) aerial I had to get a quote from Telstra. So can you inform me where I going to get this magic ADSL2 or cable solution you speak of.

          • Perhaps you (who sounds exactly like another FUDster, I have been disproving over at ZD and you do go there, looking at another of your comments above, LOL) should supply figures since it is you making supposed (ahem) factual comments, rather than offering opinions…

            Well, spit ’em out!

  13. If Malcolm Turnbull had his way we would all be using horse and cart !

    Wake up Liberals, this is why you are failing to win votes with young people. Your old people views of everything!

  14. I am disappointed that the Federal opposition can’t acknowledge the poor and variable speed of ADSL2+ broadband to Australian homes. I live in a well to do suburb in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and unfortunately I live 4.5km’s from the Telstra exchange where my copper ADSL2+ is being supplied from. I’m not using Telstra, but all ISP’s share their building and core infrastructure. I struggle to get 1Mbps download speed, yet I’m paying for ADSL2+ which if I where next door to the exchange I could get up to 24Mbps download speed. I don’t want faster broadband for ‘entertainment’ alone, but for my children to do their homework, and myself and my wife also use the internet for our work. It’s SLOW, it’s CRAPPY and you just don’t understand our frustration Mr. Turnbull. Our present system doesn’t work!!! Who is going to FIX it?

  15. Business want the NBN so they don’t have duplicate infrastructure to decent WAN links to field offices earlier last year we put in microwave links between our site because the best upload speed we could get on current infrastructure was 1mb.
    Forget about working from home get more than one user trying to use it is a painful experience and forget about voip.
    Cisco are selling consumer Video or IP phones now but you can’t use them in most of Australia because they require 1.5mbs of upload bandwidth.

    I get only 9mbs down and 900kbs up on my “24mb” connection

  16. Rubbish.. how can someone like this be a politician? or should I say only someone like this can be a politician..

    Turnbull is stupid. If he had done his research and compare the demand and the cost, maybe he will have a say.. Going on about there is no demand is totally stupid.

    If you can connect me with a terabyte per second line. I might just start a ISP selling all my speed. You are one *censored*

  17. I am in the unfortunate position of not being able to get any kind of fixed line service such as cable or adsl as i am on a pair gain. the only means of internet access i can get is dial up or 3g which is terrible and very expensive. i live roughly 30-40kms from melbournes cbd and my only hope for “proper” internet access is the nbn. i know many other people are also in my situation.

    • I have a friend with the same problem. He only live less than 5 km away from the city. His house is the only one in that area with this problem. Telstra didnt want to fix it and kept pushing 3G broadband to him. His only choice was to get the 10 gb for $100 AUD.

      High ping, unstable. I recon a dial-up might have been better.

  18. Oh ffs Malcolm. I know of small businesses now with a mix of traditional office and home based workers being strangled by the upload speed limitation of ADSL2+ today…. right now.

    Then there’s the uncomfortable fact that quite a lot of people don’t get ADSL2+ and that a lot of copper wires are just plain crap. aaaaargh.

    Malcolm surely knows what the A in ADSL stands for and he knows the limitations. He’s putting politics ahead of business sadly.

  19. All very well and good IF you have good speeds on ADSL2+

    I’m on ADSL2+ and I’m also 3.5km from the local telephone exchange so I get only 3.5mbit instead of 22-23mbit I would have if I lived next door to the exchange.
    I’m also in the metro area of a capital city and there’s nothing I can do to get faster speeds. I use the ADSL2+ for work, slowly.

    Roll out the NBN ASAP!

  20. The NBN is NOT about how fast home connections can be…
    It is about business in Australia utisiling this technology to make more money. And when they make more money, they pay more tax – and with more taxes from increased profits, the Government in turn can generate more funds for health, infrastructure etc…
    Their is a much grander scale to this that so many people miss and that is the effect that this will have on helping small business in Australia grow.
    I myself have a small business, it relies on the internet to make money. My clients pay money to download software and then view tutorial videos etc through my membership site. My problem though is that almost half of my clients cannot view the training materials on-line due to their extremely poor internet access. they cant attend my webinars which promote the sales of my products.
    With the NBN I would easily say that I would earn x5 times my current level of income – why, its simple – Internet access that will be stable, reliable and can cope with viewing internet video without having to log back in every 5 minutes after constant drop outs and shocking lag.
    BTW – Many people will argue that many business owners do quite fine without selling products on the internet… And that may be true, but those that embrace the internet correctly to promote their business see their profits sky rocket.

    • +1

      There are many indirect benefits as well…

      * A government study ( http://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/49/Files/wp71.pdf ) predicts that by 2020, Australia will lose $20b annually in lost GDP purely through traffic congestion. Get 10% of traffic off the roads by making telecommuting more viable, and you save $2b in lost GDP. Every year.

      * Less people on the roads means less wear and tear, and a subsequent decrease in the costs to maintain those roads.

      * Less people on the roads means less road accidents/trauma, decreasing the burden on the hospital system, the ambulance, police and fire services, and similar bodies like the various state SES.

      * Less people on the roads delivers a corresponding decrease in carbon emissions from motor vehicles of all types.

      All these benefits – (and countless more) – are before you add up the revenue the NBN in and of itself will generate for a GOVERNMENT owned business.

    • Actually Matthew Jones it IS all about speed that’s how the NBN is being sold, it’s the speed we need to take us into the digital age, without it Australia is doomed to be a backwater and the economy will suffer, all that sort of emotive no fact fortune cookie prediction crap.

      All the armchair expert opinion on all the amazing benefits to the economy are also fortune cookie stuff as well.

      The rest of your post hinges on one premise that all Australians need FTTH and we should be spending billions and billions to ensure they have it, the lobby promoting the NBN can never quite adequately explain why most residences decided NOT to take up high speed HFC cable even though it is in their street.

      The answer is obvious THEY DON”T WANT IT! – when the same argument is used against the NBN FTTH it is never explained why residences that don’t take up high speed fixed line BB available to them today will now suddenly want it because it has the term NBN in front of it.

      BTW it is your ‘opinion’ the last election that the Coalition lost by a whisker was all about broadband, and as such it remains just that.

      • It is only been sold to be “about speed” because that is all the layman can understand. If we started talking about increased CIR for businesses, better upload speeds, lower latancy, decreased contention, and increased retail competition viablity, all the things that the NBN will deliever, then we would never be able to sell it.

        Or at least that is the opionion of those pushing the NBN, personally I think that if you spend enough time to explain all these concepts then they would better understand what the NBN is all about and probably be more interested in it.

        As for your agruement about customers not taking up HFC, I am one of these people who have “failed to take up HFC on my street” for two, all too common reasons: 1) it is too expensive and run by Telstra who I don’t trust to handle my fixed line broadband connection, especially after they decided that they would voluntarily filter content for the governement, 2) I am in a rentting situation and as such I cannot afford to sign up for a two year contract for an HFC connection.

        Those problems far outweigh the benefits of an HFC connection with a PIR 100Mbps for me. And their are others who are in very, very, similar situations to me, and other circumstances, for explain my next door neighbour has decided they will use a BigPond NextG wireless connection because they are renting, and they don’t want to sign up for a 2 year contract.

        There is also the far bigger problem here: you can’t make copper work for you, (HFC, maybe, but still, risky), and the harder you try, the more it will cost you. At some point you need to rip it all up and replace it with Fibre. I’ll tell you a story, of a high school a friend used to work at, they had copper based gigabit ethernet between buildings, and that was serving them fine, everything was fine and dandy, except one day it started raining hard, and then their was lightening, and that lightening struck and the metal plate of a serving pit and water conducted all the energy, down to an exposed wire, where it spread freely throughout the network. Approximately $50,000 of damage was done as all the expensive routers in the school were burned out. Naturally this school replaced their entire network with fibre spurs between the buildings after this.

        Add to it this inheritant risk of failure, even when it starts raining a little hard and the serving pits full up because they aren’t drained properly is problematic enough in terms of reliablity. So what do you do? You replace it with Fibre.

        Now, unfortantely, here is the problem with Fibre, just like any other information technology out there, it is cheaper to deliever 1Gbps speeds to everyone within your fibre footprint than it is to give them a reasoniable “10Mbps” or “100Mbps” speed. Just like you buy a new computer because to buy components to upgrade your existing computer, i.e. RAM and Hard Drives, will cost to much to justify running the old machine, the same applies to the telecomications network. It is starting to cost to much to run the copper network, and we need to upgrade to a shiny and new fibre network.

        Now, yes, this is a multi-billion dollar network with a usable life of about 50 years, not a thousand dollar computer with a life of 2 years, but the same problem still occurs, because just like that thousand dollar computer, you know it is going to cost you more to keep that thing running well past it’s use by date than to replace everything. Spending $6.5b, as the Coalition proposes, is akin to upgrading the RAM in your old computer to get another year or so our of it. Come next year, the computer is still a dog, and you need to replace something in it.

        You can continue to yell at us, and nitpick all you want, just like Turnbull has been, but you to need to realise what the problem is, and instead of complaing about how the NBN is the wrong way to fix it, why don’t you suggest to us what the right way is? Because I don’t see any better ideas coming out from you, or Turnbull… and that is the biggest problem with the NBN debate.

      • Oh alain, the likes of Matthew Jones are not making as many “armchair expert” expert statements as you. And what’s worse is, you are baselessly and egotistically claiming all of your comments to be factual, but offering absolutely nothing to back anything you say.

        Because I said, may cut it at home with the kids and dog, but not here son.

        So instead of you blurting out biased BS and then expecting others to supply you with figures…how about you start supplying a few figures… preferably ones that aren’t “contradictory”, LOL?

    • Fast broadband has been done before, it’s not rocket science, and we’re not on the bleeding edge.
      Can you please point me to some doco that shows people in Japan and South Korea have experienced a 5x leap in salary? GDP in Japan is on the slide, and South Korea is only average with other developed countries in the region, and guess what? They’ve got 100Mb+ to the home!
      There are many good reasons for deploying next generation communications infrastructure in this country, but history in other countries shows that claims it will boost earnings by 5x are balderdash.

      • Who is saying that it will result in a 5x boost in income for everyone? That is crazy talk, in fact, anyone who thinks ANY investment can result in a 500% increase in salaries for everyone is deluded.

        This individual believes he can get a 5x increase to his income with the NBN, and that is probably very high optimism, however the reasoning behind it is sound: with an increased upload bandwidth the costs associated with running a dedicated Internet business will be reduced significantly.

        You are taking one point and blowing it all out of proportion. He did not say everyone will get 5x increase in income for everyone, only for himself, and given his business is directly related to the internet, and thus the NBN, he could be right.

    • Agree, business would benefit from 1GB fibre … service delivery and remote backups, but why should the Taxpayer foot the bill?
      As for your customers’ improved / faster connection: would they be happy to pay 4 times more for theirs? It appears the NBN “might” be able to deliver faster broadband, but at a steep cost to the subscriber, such that to keep the 12MBPS I now have on ADSL2+ it would cost MORE under the NBN. How much more for the full 1GB ???
      Do people realise that it will come at a cost? that the fast speed is not automatically granted and that it will be shared??
      The double whammy cost of laying out NBN via taxes will only add to the monthly cost of the subscription, and let’s not forget the installation.
      Are we really going to lease a Ferrari that is knobbled at 60Kph unless you pay a premium to get full throttle as well?

      • Generally speaking, when business benefits, so do the consumers. Businesses offer new services. If they make more money, then they pay more taxes. They may well employ more people, who will also pay taxes.

        You also forget about the millions of SOHO businesses out there. I run such a business, and the pathetic ADSL connections available to me cost me and society money. My regular uploads to clients take about 12 hours, during which time my internet connection is essentially unusable for anything else. There is a productivity hit for both myself and my client. This adds to my costs, and theirs. Sometimes I burn the files and drive them into Sydney because it will only take me 3 hours. While there is less lost productivity using this method, there are additional costs, CO2 emissions and I contribute to traffic congestion. With even a basic NBN connection, my upload times would fall from ~12 hours to ~30 minutes. How many other SOHO businesses are in a similar situation to me?

        ‘Regular Taxpayers’ (I’m not one of them?) will also benefit from the speeds of the NBN. Last year my wife finally got her employer to agree to her working from home 2 days a week. They set up a VPN for her, gave her a laptop and set up all her remote access. But just an hour into the first attempt, she gave up and drove in to work. The ADSL connection was so pathetically slow that her SAP system was unusable. How many other office workers would be able to work 1 or 2 days a week at home with universal fast data? How many cars would this take off the road? How much CO2 would it save? How much money would it save those ‘taxpayers’ in fuel, tolls, wear and tear and sanity?

        I find it hard to believe that you can get ADSL2+ for less than 12Mbps on the NBN. Look at the iiNet plans in Tassie. For $40 you get 25Mbps data, plus a VOIP phone and all local and national calls. I find it extremely hard to believe you are paying less than that now for those services.

        As for installation cost. What installation cost? The NBNco will install into a point in your house during rollout for free. The point has ethernet and phone connection points. You can plug in any standard telephone, and any wired or wireless router, or any computer with an ethernet port. There is no need to buy additional equipment, or pay anyone to install it.

        While many people may initially takeup the lower end services, there is no doubt that demand for the faster services will increase as time goes on. But unless we do the NBN, that option won’t exist.

        The above are just based on the unrealistic assumption that there will not be any unknown applications and uses that will be developed once universal fast data is widespread. And who knows where those innovations will take us.

  21. I am 4km from the exchange and get a max of 4mbps and 3.5mbps when it rains or really hot!
    I am in metropolitan Sydney within a stones throw from the CBD, yet have no other competing infrastructure than Telstra.

    Malcolm Turnbull your nothing more than a technology retard!

  22. The low socio-economic, mostly rental Brunswick takeup of 45% is unique. The average takeup of the mainland sites is over 75% already, and the Brunswick figure will be higher when the tenant-agent-landlord communication channel gets property owners’ responses back to NBNCo.

    Today we learn that Malcolm Turnbull considers 4.5 Mbps of bandwidth sufficient for every conceivable household and business in Australia. Perhaps he could request his ISP to throttle his home connection for a month and see how he likes that in 2011, before considering where he would like to be in a decade from now.

    The ABS reports that as at June 2010 only 50% of all ADSL connections in Australia ever see 2 Mbps, and 40% of Australians have no broadband at all (unless they opt for an expensive satellite solution). This means 70% of Australians cannot even get 2 Mbps, let alone Mr Turnbuill’s utopian 4.5.

    The failed OPEL and NBN Mark I proposals of 2005-2007 (comprising wireless only or FTTN) were both found incapable of delivering adequate service within their $5 billion budgets. Telstra wanted $11 billion extra for NBN mark I, plus relief from some obligations, so that would have cost around $20 billion. Mr Turnbull is still advocating this approach, so he is asking for a $20 billion budget to deliver an inferior service. He cannot claim that this will cost $6 billion, because we have it in black and white already that it will cost three and a half times that amount.

    Yet for $27 billion the NBN will deliver to 97% of premises wireless with committed 12 Mbps speeds, and fibre with no speed limitation ever to all premises in large towns and cities. We also get two satellites and a large amount of fibre backhaul within this cost. But best of all we avoid a patchwork of different systems, since all retail providers will resell a connection to any premise in Australia, with no need to worry how it is delivered, be it satellite, wireless or fibre. It will simply work, and this gives both small customer-focussed operators and monolithic incumbents an equal chance to make a buck.

    The universal fibre-supported wireless architecture of the NBN is cheaper and better for customers, cost-neutral for taxpayers, and maximises retail competition.

    Mr Turnbull knows better of course, but he is now on record wanting to spend almost the same amount as the NBN to deliver a vastly inferior service, and to throw customers back to the wolf pack of incumbent telcos who have denied broadband altogether to 7 million Australians after fifteen years of competition, and ripped off many of the rest of us.

    The coalition lost the last election over broadband and will risk another term in the wilderness if it doesn’t recognise that laying fibre to premises in large towns is in fact the cheapest way to deliver wireless to Australians, helping to close the digital divide which greed and competition has created.

    • The thing about statistics is that you can use them to suit whatever your argument.

      50% could ONLY get to 2Megs you say? What makes you think they know or even care?

      http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/9B44779BD8AF6A9CCA25768D0021EEC3/$File/81460_2008-09.pdf

      Page 48 – “PERSONS 15 AND OVER, Whether knows speed of home broadband
      connection—2008– 09”

      In not a single age demographic did the statistics show more than 34% even knew what their speed was.

      I see valid arguments for and against the NBN (and it appears to have possibly swung an election), but be fair dinkum.

      Since you started with the stats, you can read on in the ABS docs to see how this Government funded project will benefit those in the highest income bracket more than anyone else. “The percentage of households with home computer access continues to be significantly higher for households in the highest income quintile” …a fair and equitable use of resources for ALL taxpayers?

      Lies, damn lies and statistics.

      Just sayin’

    • These comments are plainly wrong and seem to come from a Govt stooge.
      Unless you PAY extortionate subscription prices, you will NOT GET the “fast” connection (not to mention that your ISP would also need to pay to serve you faster and “someone” would have to pay to get submarine links that are vastly better and more to get Internet speeds to lift up.
      It’s a furphy.
      Business can pay for their own fibre thank you very much. Teens can put up with current speeds for their Facebook experience.
      Malcolm is right.

    • @Francis=Labour troll.
      What $27 bil? It’s $50bil with Telstra buyout.
      Why can’t gamers and entertainment freaks use their HFC for speed? As well as business and home-based workers?
      Because Labour will use my money to get perfectly good already installed alternatives shut down?
      HFC is there for God’s sake where likely business or disposable income users live, metro.
      I have two cables connected, don’t use either because it is already too expensive.

      Doesn’t anybody realise the cost of hi-speed NBN will be MORE than the Optus/Telstra cable sub? With smaller traffic quotas?

      • “What $27 bil? It’s $50bil with Telstra buyout.”

        The Telstra money is an operating expense, not a capital one. But even if you dispute that, the fact remains that the portion funded by the taxpayer is ~$27 billion. Not 50.

        FYI, over the same 10-year period that the Govt will spend $27bill on the NBN, Australian Governments will spend over $1Trillion on public healthcare, over $500Billion on education and over $200Billion on defence. Does that put it into perspective for you?

        “Why can’t gamers and entertainment freaks use their HFC for speed? As well as business and home-based workers?”

        HFC? What’s that? I live an hour from Sydney, and there’s no HFC in sight. I can get pathetically-slow ADSL2+, but only from Telstra since they don’t share with others.

        “Doesn’t anybody realise the cost of hi-speed NBN will be MORE than the Optus/Telstra cable sub? With smaller traffic quotas?”

        Rubbish. http://www.internode.on.net/residential/broadband/fibre_to_the_home/nbn_plans/

        Sorry buddy, you FUD doesn’t work here.

    • @francis: “The ABS reports that as at June 2010 only 50% of all ADSL connections in Australia ever see 2 Mbps”
      Based on what data gathering? User stats such as speedtest? That measures Internet delivery not line speed. Unless significant investment is made to overseas links, as well as ISP exchanges, Internet traffic speeds will NOT increase regardless of the fibre (line) capacity. I get less than 1.5MBPS traffic measurements from speedtest, but my line synchs at 12MPBS.
      I would be soooooooooo happy with 12MBPS indeed ! Let current infrastructure be upgraded rather than shut down at taxpayers and shareholders expense!

      • @RevoltedTaxpayer, I am not a Labor stooge, in fact I continuously lobbied my local Liberal member and tech-savvy coalition members to avoid them shooting themselves in the foot electorally by failing to understand the NBN and bring their presumed superior financial management to deliver the project. My greatest dread was the faux-environmental Greens holding power as they now do, enabling them to push their anti-social, anti-family policies while giving lip-service to the environment. And Wotif.com, the Greens main donor, will never see another booking from me either.

      • The ABS statistic is not based on user survey, but line sync speeds. Speedtest is heavily used by geeks tweaking their connections, many of which are faster than most of us can get. It is therefore skewed to report higher speeds than average.

        So based on actual line sync speeds, which is therefore very reliable, they state that only 50% of ADSL connections ever deliver speeds in excess of 2 Mbps.

        A 2 Mbps median sync speed across all Australian exchanges is hardly surprising as the outer rings of concentric circles around an exchange will contain many more properties. Only the small number of properties close to the exchange will get more of the headline 24 Mbps bandwidth they pay for, so the average will be dramatically impacted by the larger outer numbers who sync at a much slower rate.

  23. Hat & Hands make the man.

    Love the quintessential ‘Turnbull’ photo: Batman in the outback.

  24. Malcolm, I have ADSL2+ technology, I live in Sydney within the suburbs (15 mins from city). I currently sync at 3Mbps and I am 3km from the exchange (I should theoretically be getting around 8Mbps). But thats not the problem.

    Due to the crappy Telstra copper lines and the inadequate maintenance they provide, my internet will constantly drop out for days at a time whereby I can not connect at all, and when it does connect – it will connect LOWER than dial-up speeds.

    The copper lines need to be ripped out ASAP, my problem isnt the only one – for the love of God PLEASE do some research of your own. Check out Whirlpool!

  25. I have bookmarked this story so that I can return to in the future (using the NBN) and laugh my arse off at the incredible ignorance and stupidity of Malcolm’s comments. They are hilarious enough now, let alone how they will sound in 5 years time!

    I wonder if Malcolm even bothered to check out a a CES round-up story before uttering such crap. The amount of bandwidth hungry, 1080p video systems are growing rapidly and pretty much every electrical device we own in the future will be connected to the net.

    Obviously reliable 2 way HD communication requires speeds higher than “4 megs” (I wonder if he even knows the difference between a megabit and a megabyte?)

    Just think of it this way – Even an average DVD has a bit rate of around 5-8 megabits a second. That is standard definition video at 480i or 576i resolution. Yes it’s MPEG2, and I know there are superior compression technologies now available, but it’s a pretty good example to show that 4 “megs” isn’t even close to being able to handle the demands of even good quality SD video, let alone Full HD (while leaving enough bandwidth for all the other Internet connected devices in your home).

    Malcolm Turnbull used to be a respectable and strong leader, with ideas and vision for Australia that made sense (leading the way for us to become a republic being the most memorable of his efforts). Now he is an embarrassing burnt out old Luddite, who continuously lies and misleads the public with the most absurdly ignorant claims.

    Whether he believes what he is saying or not (and I suspect he doesn’t given he’s no idiot) the fact is he is standing behind comments that will undoubtedly make him appear a fool. Why would anyone do this to themselves? Is this the legacy he wishes to leave behind?

    • I look the “4.5Mbps” thing this way…

      When Foxtel start distributing via the NBN, your IQ2 box, recording two channels while you’re watching another – that’s 4.5 + 4.5 + 4.5 = 13.5Mbps…

      Boom! There goes your 12Mbps…before anyone else in the house does anything else online at all…

      Such technology is existing technology…right now…not in five years, not in ten years. Right now.

      • Exactly. Not to mention all our current free to air and pay TV channels are horrible quality, as they over-compressed to hell. Good quality 1080p video (@ 25 frames a second) or 1080i (at 50 fields a second) requires around 15-20mbps to retain detail and not show compression artefacts. This is with H.264 too, MPEG2 requires closer to 30mbps.

        Our current free to air “HD” channels are only broadcast at 9-13mbps and that’s using inferior MPEG2 compression. Not to mention the vast majority of content is up-scaled from SD, so unlike the US and Britain there is very little true HD on air at all.

        One of the main things I want to see from the NBN are TV networks providing higher quality HD broadcasts (I would even pay for a higher quality stream) along with movie services like Netflix in the US providing 1080p HD films on demand. The only way this will work is if you have a 100mbps connection able to handle a constant stream of 20mbps for TV and the rest dedicated to the huge amount of devices we’ll all have connected around our home.

        I live with a family of 5 other adults. We all have smartphones, we all have Internet connected set top boxes, laptops, 2 desktops, an X-Box, Blu-Ray player and several other devices (I can’t even think of them all).. all sharing an ADSL 2 connection at roughly 16mbps peak speed.

        Even with ADSL 2+ this many devices often brings our connection to it’s knees. I could easily make use of 100mbps NOW. Let alone in 5 – 10 years time!

        • Totally agree Simon.

          We, like you, have a household that’s fully connected to the net, with an iPad, 2 laptops, 2 smart phones, a main desktop workstation, a network server, xbox 360, PS3, HTPC, HT Receiver, AppleTV, Internet Connected TV… and any friends/family that visit.

          Often we have the Mac Mini downloading a TV show for us to watch while my son watches a movie on Apple TV, while my wife and I work between the laptops or me on my desktop…. and as a web developer I’m constantly uploading and downloading files.

          We pull around 13Mbps sync with Internode, and while it’s bearable, I could easily do with a lot more.

          I also hear the comments from those who are not near enough to an exchange. When I lived in Sydney, I was 3km from an exchange and actually got slower speeds on ASDL2+ at that house than I did at my previous house on ADSL1 fast. I have since moved to the country, Ulladulla, and now get 13 – 14Mbps because I’m within 2km of the exchange. LOL.

          • Scott –

            I’m really pleased for you that you have all that shiny kit. Tell me again why you think the taxpayer should be subsidizing your broadband connection?

          • Because as much as he is willing to pay for a faster connection, and as much other highly connected familes, as small to medium businesses, large businesses who want their customers to telecommute, are willing to pay for a faster connection, the market just doesn’t exsist for it?

            Because all this mobile connectivity is becoming an important part of everyone’s lifes and ensure that their is plenty of spectrum free for mobile solutions by keeping any and all traffic off the mobile networks that can reasonibly expected to be off the mobile network is something the government should be doing to prevent the mobile wireless market from facing a spectrum crisis, like what the US is said to be having at the moment?

            Because it has to be built at some point and the government is the only entity that will accept the low rate of returns presented from such an endevour?

            Because building infrastructure is one of the things a good government will do, and the NBN is infrastructure important for an information based economy?

          • NightKhaos –

            I think your first point (market doesn’t exist) and third point (only the government will accept low rate of returns) essentially say the same thing – widespread fibre to the home won’t happen without a subsidy. I agree, but that’s not an argument for providing the subsidy. (To take an extreme case, Ferraris for every household won’t happen without a subsidy, but that doesn’t prove there should be one).

            Your second argument is an interesting one (keep traffic off mobile networks). While the NBN may help, do we have any idea whether it’s actually a cost effective way to do that? For instance, is taking fibre to every household cheaper than using smaller cell sites? Cheaper than freeing up other spectrum?

            On your fourth point (NBN is important for an information based economy) – is it? I can see widespread decent broadband is important for an information based economy, but is 100 Mbps? Even for an information based economy, I think that’s overkill (and overinvestment). If you want multiple HD video streams, fair enough – but we shouldn’t expect big economic benefits from that, and there’s no reason the consumer in question shouldn’t pay the extra costs of that speed, rather than expecting the tax payer to.

          • “I think your first point (market doesn’t exist) and third point (only the government will accept low rate of returns) essentially say the same thing – widespread fibre to the home won’t happen without a subsidy. I agree, but that’s not an argument for providing the subsidy. (To take an extreme case, Ferraris for every household won’t happen without a subsidy, but that doesn’t prove there should be one).”

            Technically the agruement is that widespread upgrades to the entire broadband infrastructure, be it FTTH, FTTN, or a hybrid option (which I would prefer), without some from of government intervention or subsidy, will be… somewhat reluctant to occur given the nature of the Broadband market here in Australia. But I take your point, they are essitenally the same point just phrased differently. However it is the primary reason that the whole Broadband debate has been in progress since the “Broadband Connnect” (later OPEL) proposal back oh so many moons ago.

            “Your second argument is an interesting one (keep traffic off mobile networks). While the NBN may help, do we have any idea whether it’s actually a cost effective way to do that? For instance, is taking fibre to every household cheaper than using smaller cell sites? Cheaper than freeing up other spectrum?”

            Freeing up spectrum is, for all intents and purposes, a stop gap measure. Ensuring that their is universal fixed broadband avaiable is the only way, without forcing consumers to cull their usage habits by charging them even more than they are currently charged for Broadband Access. The NBN is not the most cost effective way to do it, I have always conceeded this point, the NBN is means to an end.

            “On your fourth point (NBN is important for an information based economy) – is it? I can see widespread decent broadband is important for an information based economy, but is 100 Mbps? Even for an information based economy, I think that’s overkill (and overinvestment). If you want multiple HD video streams, fair enough – but we shouldn’t expect big economic benefits from that, and there’s no reason the consumer in question shouldn’t pay the extra costs of that speed, rather than expecting the tax payer to.”

            Okay, here is where we have a problem, you are confusing the what I want the NBN for, which you support (widespread decent broadband) with the what the NBN is capable of (ultra highspeed connections in the order of 10x what we are capable of getting now). What I consider “decent broadband” as you put it, althrough aceviable through FTTN solutions (provided the node density is high enough) and HFC solutions (provided the network owner is happy to resale services to any retail service provider) is BEST achieved through FTTH. The reason being is decent broadband for me consists of three things:

            1) a reliable connection (ADSL is not reliable, connect dropouts are common, and highly variable depending on weather conditions)
            2) a connection with a consistant speed (what you pay for is what you get, the fact that you can get 24Mbps on ADSL2+ is irrelevent if the average is closer to 7Mbps and speeds go as low as 1.5Mbps, the most annoying thing about this is that the technology technically provides an inverse relationship to capital outlay, it costs MORE to deliever that 1.5Mbps to a house 3 km away than it does to deliever the 24Mbps to the house 100 meters away because of the extra ducting work, and copper that needs to be laid, for new estates ADSL2+ coupled with PSTN service seems like a stupid investment)
            3) a connection that can easily be modified to suit the needs of different usage patterns (HFC could, with a bit of creativity, be used to provide symmertic and commited business services, a minimual cost, FTTN has the ability to (relatively) cheaply upgrade to a FTTP connection if done correctly, and FTTH has such a large inital bandwidth capacity that selecting a “speed” package that best suits your needs is trival to say the least, however to do any such modifications to DSL is a complex an expensive extercise. To get SHDSL for exmaple you need to install another two dedicated phone lines, an expensive exercise which Telstra charges in the order of $5K to do).

            So, althrough everyone doesn’t need 100Mbps, there are an minority who do, (mostly businesses) and this minority is only likely to increase, not decrease. Ideally what I would want to do is:

            FTTP in inner urban, CBD and Industrial districts, FTTN + FTTB in outer urban and rural towns with populations more than 1000 people, wireless solutions for the rest (as the population density decreases, the amount of spectrum required to serve them also decreases, hence in the sparsely populated rural areas a small spectrum allocation, say 20Mhz, would be more the adequate.

            But that is the technical arrangement, if you could achive that sort of result without “picking the technology” I would support that as well, which is why it concerns me that Mr Turnbull is considering investing $2b in fixed wireless, and then turn around and say “you shouldn’t back fibre because that would be picking technology and governments shouldn’t do that”…

          • NightKhaos –

            In which case I think your view and mine is not that far apart. As I understand it (and I’m not trying to put words in your mouth), I think you’re saying:

            “NBN is not really the most efficient way to accomplish what I think needs to be done. However, what needs to be done is important, and NBN is the only thing on the table that gets us there – so, I support NBN”.

            As it happens, I don’t agree with this (for me, the costs required are just too vast), but I accept it’s a credible and defensible position.

            Do you have a view on the cost difference between FTTC and FTTH? Numbers elsewhere suggest a 5x difference – for me that’s just too huge a premium to pay for the extra bandwidth (say 100 Mbps vs 40 Mbps).

          • VoR, I agree completely that our viewpoints are not similar as you stated. Regarding your question:

            “Do you have a view on the cost difference between FTTC and FTTH? Numbers elsewhere suggest a 5x difference – for me that’s just too huge a premium to pay for the extra bandwidth (say 100 Mbps vs 40 Mbps).”

            The cost differences, as I understand it, only arise when you are dealing with PREEXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE. For example, if you already have copper pairs going into the households that converge at a common point between a maximum of 300m and 1500m from the household (which we do) then the cost is only effectively replacing the the copper with fibre up to the point of converage. A very cheap and cost effective excercise, with noticable increases in speed, especially if coupled with a VDSL2+ upgrade.

            However, when you are laying NEW INFRASTRUCTURE, such as in Greenfields, the cost of FTTH vs FTTN actually converge, to the point that FTTH can actually be cheaper than a FTTN solution.

            The reason for the cost differences are labor and civic works. The cost of a fibre cable vs a copper cable are approximately the same, and the cost of fibre equipment vs copper equipment is about the same, because althrough fibre equipment is generally more expensive, you also need less of it to achieve the same function.

            This relationship holds true for other situations, for example office networking. Did you know it only costs about $10 more per desk to run fibre to the desk than running Cat5 cable for new buildings? And that was 5 years ago.

      • So MW what percentage of the Australian population watch FOXTEL that requires the taxpayer to pump billions into a infrastructure build so a private company can make more money than they lost on the HFC PayTV debacle?

        That’s right the majority of residences that can get HFC PayTV decided they don’t need it – but let’s not go there in any justifications for the NBN?

          • You need to catch up mate, the Optus and Telstra HFC rollouts never made a profit, they lost millions.

            The irony is that Conroy is negotiating taxpayer billions with both of them for the HFC customer base to help justify the NBN and make the takeup figures look good, the Telstra and SingTel management must be having a good laugh all the way to the bank on that one eh?

          • I’m sorry, but I compeletely forgot they spent millions on capital expendutire that they will take years to recover. But right now they are turning a profit on their operating costs despite the low usage numbers aren’t they? Should have been more specific in that I meant “managed to turn a profit now.” In fact, a profit of serveal billion for a few years running, surely that pays for the millions they lost when rolling out HFC?

            Which is why the government is investing $26b for the “bound to lose all that money” phase of the rollout. When the NBN is just serving its debt and operational expenditure it is projected to return a profit as well.

          • That article supports my point exactly. Durring the PERIOD OF THE ROLLOUT the companies, collectively, lost $1.4b a year, however now, once the infrasture is in place, they are both posting profits of almost twice the amount they were losing during that period.

            Which is consistant with the NBN, big, massive, capital expendutre, followed by a period of debt recovery, followed by decent profits. Which is exactly what the NBN business plan has projected.

            Also this article shows that Optus SUPPORTs the NBN, so I’m still not getting what point you are trying to make here?

          • I am still waiting on the links that show that both Telstra and Optus have recouped their massive billion dollar losses on the HFC infrastructure rollout and are now in the black with revenue from Pay TV and cable broadband streams.

            It is one thing to say the infrastructure has been written off as a loss in the respective companies financial reporting, but that does not mean those written off losses have now been recouped by HFC product revenue since the write off accounting period.

            Don’t forget there is still ongoing maintenance of the HFC, even though the rollout has stopped.

          • Well, it’s 4 years old but it seems that Foxtel has been “come into the back” as it were. http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/foxtel-turns-a-profit-after-ten-years/2006/08/10/1154803026644.html

            More recently Foxtel made a profit of around $100 million: http://www.foxtel.com.au/about-foxtel/communications/foxtel-announces-solid-subscriber-and-financial-growth-in-a–21656.htm

            And that is just Foxtel, Telstra on the other hand made a profit of $4.1 billion in the same year: http://www.crn.com.au/News/152886,telstras-profit-at-41b-for-2009.aspx

            Now, based upon that, I think you can be pretty confident they have paided off their HFC network at some point ha?

          • I am not talking about the separate company called Foxtel and it’s profit & losses over a period of time in selling PayTV product and IQ boxes ,T-shirts etc, Foxtel didn’t bankroll the HFC rollout.

            I am referring to the massive write off of the HFC infrastructure CAPEX by the companies SingTel and Telstra.

  26. Sometimes when I read the comments on this issue I wonder whether the supporters of the NBN have lost touch with financial reality. This is not a freebie – it will cost many billions of dollars and it will require a massive taxpayer subsidy. If it were a commercial venture funded by the private sector then it would be up to the owners of the telcos concerned to make their decision as to viability, but in this case it is the taxpayer who is going to pick up the tab if the NBN is not financially successful. That being the case prudence and responsibility requires that there be a thorough cost benefit analysis of the plan, so that we can understand what the benefits will be, weigh them against the costs and then make an informed decision. After all this is not the only claim on taxpayers funds for worthwhile infrastructure – and as if there wasn’t enough to be done already, the cost of rebuilding the infrastructure wrecked in the Qld floods will be enormous. This is only to remind that taxpayers money is a scarce resource and given the competing claims on that money we need to be responsible how we spend it. The NBN argument is not about bandwidth or applications or technology, at its heart is a debate about financial responsibility.

    And in the interests of brevity I won’t repeat my concerns about the monopolistic nature of the NBN and the extraordinary way in which the Government is stamping out any potential fixed line competition with the nBN for the last mile.

    • …. but that’s an entirely different argument to the proposition that

      “There’s been no case made or evidence made that there is any benefit from having a speed higher than what we can get now in many of our cities, at least, from ADSL 2+,”

      Maybe the government needs to do better at making that case, but what you have in the comments is real world users making that case to you from their own experiences. Even in cities ADSL2 is highly variable depending on location and the pot luck on quality of the line… and on Telstra infrastructure (the majority of connections available on ADSL2) the upload bandwidth is limited to 1mbps. Pockets of DSLAMs that support Annex M get you up to 2.5mbps upload in theory…. if you are 1km from the exchange and are lucky with line quality.

      That’s a constraining factor on business activities today. Much business activity happens in residential premises.

      • Malcolm, you are on record advocating universal broadband. You are on record (Australian live blog) agreeing that the capex for the NBN is $35b, not $50b. So far, so good.

        But you are also on record advocating wireless-without-fibre and FTTN and claiming that this will deliver 12 Mbps for a $6 billion investment. It is well known that the actual cost of building this is around $20 billion, not $6 billion. And your advocacy for private investment to do it only perpetuates the 15-year competition disaster we have lived through with copper. Both OPEL and NBN Mark I failed because they could not deliver an adequate service within their announced budgets.

        Despite the appalling failure of the Rudd-Gillard government to educate the electorate in the NBN, voters still managed to intuit just enough not to quite throw out an otherwise unpopular government. As they get good news stories from mainland takeup of the NBN, more voters will realise that laying fibre to large towns is actually the best way to make universal WIRELESS broadband cheaper, which anyone who read the May 2010 NBN Implementation Report already knows.

        In a nutshell, you are arguing we should build an inferior short-term service for $20 billion, not $6 billion. And you expect us to believe that private companies will deliver it equitably. Do you think voters came down in the last shower? We have had fifteen years of this.

        Every taxpaying household and business will be contributing less in extra tax each month than their monthly saving on communications. Pensioners will get the saving without paying the tax. And the NBN will be profitable well before the forecasts in its business plan. But you know all of this, and are being the worst kind of politician right now, lying about it to the detriment of regional and urban Australians, undermining your own parties’ electoral prospects, and pandering to corporations at the expense of taxpayers.

    • The financial cost of NBN is huge. The fact is ADSL2+ just cannot give us the speed we need for now and for the future. We cannot rely on copper wires. Lib need to acknowledge this fact! Another fact is wireless will never be the next generation connection. It never will.

      Until the Lib comes up with something else that give us the speed and cost less, we are going with the NBN.

    • This is simply moving the goalposts. In the article, you’re saying that current ADSL 2+ speed is enough for current uses. The comments are all focusing on that argument and the blatant silliness of it. The fact is, a huge number of people are NOT getting “ADSL2+” speeds, and even if they were with continuing trends in data usage, it’s not going to be enough in 5, 10 or 15 years time.

      A straight yes-or-no question: does the coalition plan to scrap the NBN if it gets back into power at the next election?

    • Malcolm, it is only a debate about financial responsibility because that what you’ve made it into.

      Let us look at your own proposal. $6.5b to give everyone 12Mbps/1Mbps. That’s great. That is problem okay for now.

      What do you propose to spend in 5 years from now to get everyone up to say, 24Mbps?

      What do you propose to spend 5 years after that to get everyone up to say, 50Mbps?

      What do you propose to spend 5 years after that to get everyone up to say, 100Mbps?

      What will the total cost of all these rolling upgrades be over the next 20 years? Less than $27b? Somehow I doubt it.

      And then after that 20 years, what happens then? Do we spend yet ANOTHER $27b – (or it’s 2030 equivalent) – rolling fibre out everywhere? Just to catch up with all of our trading partners who’ve already done it and are reaping the rewards?

      Does this mean that your version of the “NBN” will cost Australian’s $33b? $39b? $45b? Add to that the benefits LOST to the Australian economy for having NOT done it?

      Where is the cost-benefit analysis of your plan? Never saw one.

      Should you produce a CBA for your plan, will it include reference to the LOST opportunity for the Australian economy?

      You speak of economic and financial responsibility. You look at a narrow three-year election cycle of “economic and financial responsibility”.

      Some of us have a broader vision for the Australia we want in 10 or 20 or 30 years from now – not of a narrow view of getting out of political opposition.

      This is where you fail on this Malcolm.

      • Except of course we won’t be paying $6.5b to give everyone at least 12/1. If we were it might actually be a valid alternative. We will be paying instead to fix problem areas, only acknowledging it to be a problem if the can’t get ADSL2+, even if they only get 1.5Mbps on the line, and to provide fixed wireless infrastructure for greater urban and rural areas, even through we know that it in the former it won’t scale properly.

      • It is a debate about financial responsibility MW, it’s not sufficient to say it’s NOT a debate about financial responsibility just because you don’t want it to be.

        • Yes, alain, it is also a debate about financial responsibility, but that is not the subject under discussion on this page, rather Mr Turnbull’s claim that fibre broadband speeds are pointless. What everyone here has said is that 4.5 downstream and 1 upstream is not enough for every household and business. We therefore need a network capable of supporting small and large requirements now and into the future.

          Today a business can buy SDSL with 10 Mbps bandwidth down and up, but it will cost them $2400 a month from Internode, for instance. The NBN expects that its resellers will offer a fibre 50/20 Mbps connection and 200 GB of data for about $80 a month. Suddenly, business continuity planning becomes cheaper thanks to affordable offsite backup. A pensioner’s phone service will cost the same as now but include unlimited calls, since everyone else also has an NBN VoIP service.

          If you want to also talk about financial responsibility, though, it is irresponsible for Mr T to perpetuate the myth that his proposal will (a) deliver broadband of any kind to all; or (b) deliver the stated architecture for $6 billion.

          Mr Turnbull is advocating either FTTN (i.e. at least 20,000 additional power-hungry ADSL cabinets in the suburbs linked by fibre to exchanges, cf. Telstra advice to OPEL) or up to 60,000 new wireless towers that are susceptible to signal degradation (cf. NBN Mark I submissions). Either of these will actually cost around $20 billion, and he says it will be delivered commercially, not as social infrastructure, so we know who will miss out again. Not the big end of town, certainly.

          Both these solutions will cost more to maintain and operate than fibre from exchange to premises, and within a decade we will be discussing how to deliver fibre to premises all over again.

          Everybody seems to get this except Mr Turnbull. Of course he does get it, but political mischief-making has become his only tool these days. He hasn’t made a positive statement in about two years, which frankly suggests he is tired of politics and has no goals for his time in a future government.

          Could it be time the coalition finds a new member for Wentworth? I don’t think he cares about the party any more.

      • Huh? – that’s a doozy, so if the HFC rollout failed financially (it did), we still have the infrastructure to benefit the Australian economy – it won’t because both Telstra and Optus are being gifted taxpayer billions for the HFC customer base to help justify the NBN’s existence then it will be decommissioned.

        • Learn to think outside the box a little.

          Even if the $27b isn’t recouped within the 30-year timetable – (so incredibly unlikely given the expected conserative revenue and cost projections) – it will still be generating revenue.

          It will still be delivering economic benefits.

          Really, it’s not that hard.

          • Except its not $27 billion it is $43 billion, you are right it is not that hard as long as you quote correct figures, now all we have to do is convince customers to increase the 15% of the quota that available to them today to around 100% and then more than that on top.

            Oh that’s right they all going to pay IPTV monthly charges on top of the monthly NBN Plan for the privilege of sucking down massive amounts of HD video, like they do today with HFC PAYTV – err, perhaps not eh?

            Nothing a few lazy million to a marketing company paid to hype up the NBN won’t fix , that’s what marketing is all about after all, persuading punters to buy stuff they didn’t really need in the first place.

    • Malcolm mate – you’re a funny guy. Are you supposed to be an investment banker? You can’t make money from no investment (hmm maybe you ARE an investment banker!).

      Luckily you weren’t around when:

      1. the wheel was invented – “why would you want to go anywhere that quickly”
      2. fire was invented – “do you need food that hot anyway??”
      3. writing – “do you need to remember all this stuff?”
      4. space shuttle – “what!?!?!?!?!”

      Seriously you are eroding your fine political capital quicker than a Toowoomba queenslander in a flood.

      Working for Abbott must be killing your soul.

    • Shame on you for trying to use the QLD floods in your argument Malcolm. Have a bit of respect.

      I used to have some respect for you, but your ignorance on this issue, and consistent pushing of CBA even after making it plain you would never support the plan anyway has really eroded that.

    • Malcolm,

      With all due respect, you’re moving the goalposts. Your argument above is that there is no case for people wanting more than 4.5Mbps, not a financial/cost argument.

      The extensive number of replies surely must demonstrate to you that there is an extremely strong case for download speeds exceeding 4.5Mbps, not to mention the demand for upload speeds faster than ADSL can manage, particularly for the thousands of SOHO business operators.

      Sure, the costs of building the network are a valid point to make. But it seems that you are using an invalid point about speeds in order to make the financial argument, because you know that if you admit faster speeds are required, then the only way to get there is through an NBN-style network.

      You would be far better off starting with an accurate idea of what home and business users will require over the next 10 years, then developing a policy to deliver it. Because the current Coalition policy falls a long, long way short of the mark. By all means, ensure the NBN is built well and efficiently. But don’t try to tell us that patching up our 100-year-old copper network is a viable plan for dragging our nation out of our 3rd-world internet status.

          • We certainly are, and not all of them are pro-NBN, in fact quite the opposite, and even if they were if you think ~170 replies in tech geek web sites like this is in any way a statistical representation that the NBN is a goer your are dreaming.

          • If you think that the overwhelming majority of responses on this isn’t representative of the wider population, maybe you’d prefer a study of the general public by Swinburne Uni:

            6.16 Do you think that the development of a
            National Broadband Network is a good
            idea?

            There is wide agreement that the development of the NBN is a good idea. Just under threequarters of Australians think that it is a good idea (74.5%) and more than four in ten ‘strongly agree’ with the idea (42.6%). Less than one in ten disagree that it is a good idea (8.9%).

            http://cci.edu.au/sites/default/files/sewing/CCi%20Digital%20Futures%202010%201.pdf

          • I love those generic questions that have a broad based feel good theme about them and offer nothing other than a high agreement response, it is a lot like saying “Do you think the world should get rid of malaria” or “Should hospitals be given more funding?”.

            How about a question : “Do you think the development of a National Broadband Network costing at least $43 billion dollars of taxpayer funds, and where the company running the NBN becomes a Government monopoly just like like Telstra was and where all fixed line competitors are bought out and eliminated is a good idea?”

          • I think you need to shut up now. You are so selfish and close minded. No matter what the other people say, I see no sign of you accepting. You worry about the tax payer money but have you even think for once about those that doesn’t have internet. I have friends that live next to the city but unable to get ADSL. Explain your reasoning to them. What about those in rural area? mining site? Grow up man!

            Its like I’ve got internet and it works, why waste my money for a new one. If we do not invest, we dont get result! If you have a better plan to move forward, then please enlighten us. Yes we all know NBN is expensive!

          • But then, that’s just a question from some conservative alternate-reality, isn’t it?

            It will not cost $43bn taxpayer dollars. It will cost ‘taxpayers’ $27bn, and all of it will be repaid, with interest. In the end, it won’t cost taxpayers a cent so long as it runs relatively close to forecasts. Taxpayers are just putting the money up front, because noone in private industry has made a move to do so. Construction of infrastructure capable of delivering fast broadband in this country has effectively been at a standstill for ~15 years.

            “All fixed line competitors”
            You mean Telstra? because they are the only fixed line competitor for the vast, vast majority of Australia. For those areas that have Optus cable, there is no agreement to switch that off.

            And the NBN will not end up anything like Telstra. They ar a vertically-integrated monopoly, trying to protect their big retail business margins by closing out competitors through the denial of access to wholesale products. The NBN is an open-access, wholesale only company. They have no big retain margins to protect, and no group of shareholders demanding bigger profits.

          • Ahh yes the NBN Co the benign friendly monopoly where there is only one wholesaler of BB the NBN Co, unlike today where there are a number of ADSL wholesalers.
            There will be only one fixed line BB product, you take what the NBN Co sells you, if you don’t like it you don’t retail fixed line BB.

            The so called ‘friendly monopoly’ where the owner the Government can legislate all potential competition into oblivion if it wants to to ensure NBN success and spend taxpayer billions to ‘artificially’ shore up its customer base by buying the two biggest ISP’s customer base.

            It will make the old Telstra monopoly seem like a walk in the park.

          • alain, the NBN monopoly is nothing like (vastly superior to and more transparent than) the Telstra monopoly.

            If you cannot even understand this most basic of comparisons, how will you ever be able to comprehend the tricky stuff, hmmm?

  27. ADSL2? Whats that? some new technology? Where do you get it?
    Good thing NBN is coming..
    In anycase , NBN will be able to deliver far more than common copper.. Oh and upload speeds?
    Did you consider that?
    Steeewth.. I will pay for my NBN connection , if it will make you happy..

  28. I’m a Victorian waiting for the first chance to opt in so I can get good enough upload speeds to get my web-based home business off the ground. ADSL2+ is not adequate for serving a popular website with more than a few simultaneous connections at a time, and never will be.

    I thought the Liberals were meant to be supporters of free enterprise?

  29. LOL, Maybe the Free To Air TV Stations are barracking for the Libs to get in…. if we all have average/poor internet connections, we’d be less likely to download TV shows in HD (ie: better than network TV), and use their transmissions instead.

    Sorry but we need internet connections that can stream bluray quality and better. The folks at Apple are waiting for internet speeds to be good enough to stream high quality (bluray) video.

    We already have cameras and TVs supporting 2k and 4k resolutions. Soon we’ll want to be able to stream it. Sorry, but 12MBit, or 24Mbit isn’t going to be near enough to allow us to stream something in 4K…. I know it seems pie in the sky, but it’s not that far off folks. Quadruple a bluray stream of around 25Mbps, and you get a 4K image streaming at 100Mbps. Or, 4 blurays being streamed to different rooms of the house at the same time.

    Honestly… in 10 years, that fibre better be pushing 1Gbps, not 100Mbps.

    Scott

    • Perhaps we can persuade the folks at Apple to rollout FTTH for us then in partnership with media companies waiting to flog HD IPTV , then we can decide if we want to buy their product or opt-out!

      There is such much pent up demand out there they cannot lose – surely?

  30. Poor old turnbull… and this guy wanted to be prime minister ?? No idea of future proofing vision, forward thinking at all.

    NBN is all about future proofing and ensuring austrlias infrastructure meets FUTURE demands no current demands.

    A so called leadr that has no vision or understanding of this is merely a manager and we had 11 years of John Howards lack of vision.

    For those of you that want to argue the NBN cost. For 11 years of the Howard government they had the chance to implement any “future” broad band vison and they didn t do it, the market didnt do it. And now when the labour goverment finally addresses this need you all whinge.

    And dont even get me started on the technical morons who think this can be done with wireless.

      • Of course you don’t mention the largest and highest speed Australian wireless network Telstra NextG in that statement, but never mind.

        • Wasnt mentioned because if you understand the technical spects of wireless and the engineering lifecycles costs you would realise how absolutely ridiculous your reference to Next G is

          • I don’t think you get it or you are just avoiding it, the current Vodafone problems are not a indicator of how wireless infrastructure works, as the Telstra NextG and to a lesser extent the Optus networks indicate.

            The response subject matter is not about technical comparisons of wireless BB vs FTTH.

          • My friend lives about 5 min drive from the city but his house cannot be connected with ADSL. He is forced to use this Telstra NextG. It is the worst and most useless connection I’ve ever seen.

            He is begging me to get him connected to a fix line. Asked iinet, optus. There is basically no other way unless Telstra wants to do something about it.

            His hope is on NBN now.

  31. I finally think i’m becoming religious. Buddhism seems the way to go – something about reincarnation and all that….

    All you had to tell us was that you were Richard Alston’s second coming, and follow it up by saying that the only people who use the internet are porn addicts… then it would all make sense

  32. I’m still amazed that the whole discussion completely misses the point and neglects the needs of small businesses. Small/Medium business urgently need some decent speeds, which cannot be provided reliably by copper. Very little is also ever mentioned about upload speeds, which are needed to store any data away from business premises to cloud services. No use having Online Services when you can’t get to them.

    In Milton (2km from Brisbane CBD) we are getting 6 Mbit (symmetric) on 3 bonded copper pairs (with Telstra out every week to fix somthing on their rotting copper 100 pairs in street). And it’s costing us $1,000/months. Or we could have gotten Telstra fibre (build-time 15-20 weeks) and pay $2,000 for 10Mbit, in addition to $15K install cost.

    When is anybody going to speak up (even from Labour) and mention how this kind of rubber-band copper technology is holding back businesses? Not to mention cost? Personally I can live with 5Mbit on my ADSL2+ at home, but for a business that’s just simply not good enough.

    • 900Kbs is all you need just ask Matt (Posted 11/01/2011 at 10:02 pm), you must be one of those LW he was talking about :p

  33. I get about 900kbps download and this suits my family and myself perfectly with ADSL1 8192 connection. I cannot see the need for faster internet. Malcolm has my vote. You lefty wankers should consider that if this is a government owned and run internet it will come with government owned and run filters. Smell the roses!

    • So Mat everybody should have the same requirements as you for a data connection. What about people that run home offices why should you call them lefty wankers I bet most of them vote liberal. And we will get a filter where or not the NBN is built it’s all the short sighted religious wankers pushing for that.

    • come out of that stone hole you are living in. Look at the real world. In the real world, People drive cars. People watches Blue-ray. People get stuff online. We need a super internet for businesses to work. New jobs for many. Host servers.

      Ever wonder why successful gaming companies are all in Korea and US? Why is it that Facebook and Youtube are coined in US? What is Australia doing? Why do I get suggested to host website in Singapore rather than Australia even though Australian will use these site?

      Get out of that stone hole please.

  34. The bottom line here is, for the crux of this article Mr Turnbull has postulated that the speeds that the NBN will provide are “pointless”.

    I think there have been a plethora of examples presented here – (and in other places) – so far that categorically display that this is clearly untrue.

    • Plethora, really…

      So far all I have seen are various different takes on high end entertainment. bluray, watch various channels of IPTV at same time, download content faster to avoid buffering etc.

      I think the Labor party are doing a crappy job of selling what should be their jewel in the crown so they probably deserved to be taken to task by the coalition. I am not convinced that it will be value for money or will even turn a profit but I do admire Conroy’s passion for the project and his vision for the NBN. He had the balls to go head to head with Telstra which I also admire.

      I dont particularly care for the NBN but will take up the option of a connection but not a service. Wireless suits my needs at the moment and I imagine it will continue to do so in the future.

      • Plethora…yes…it’s a nice word…I’m sure you are intelligent enough to extrapolate the usage models people have described here into any number of other usage models.

        As for the government and their inability to truly sell the NBN to the people – is this why they have just awarded tender to a marketing company to take over those duties? They’ve identified their weakness in that area.

        As for the Coalition stance on the NBN, they haven’t really identified anything of substance other than the “it costs a lot of money” angle. Instead of trying to exploit the government’s shortcomings in their ability to “sell” it, all they can manage is to try and beat with a big stick.

        Right now, the stick is splitting and broken. People are getting tired of their own inability to come up with anything other than “it’s costs a lot of money”.

        The Coalition proposal would end up costing just as much money.

        • Michael Wyres wrote:
          “As for the government and their inability to truly sell the NBN to the people – is this why they have just awarded tender to a marketing company to take over those duties?”

          So how much are they paying you? ;)

      • I’m curious, what is your general usage pattern?

        What is the make up of your household?

        How often do you use your mobile connection out and about?

        How much quota do you have and how much do you pay for it?

        Do other members of your household, if applicable, agree with “wireless being fine”?

        Have you considered other options like ADSL2+ or cable at the moment? If so, why did you reject them?

        I don’t mean to presume here, but all too often I see people using a mobile connection in a static context, for one or more of the following reasons, they can’t get a (decent) fixed line connection, they have a fluid living condition, or they just don’t know better. All three circumstances which will be dealt with via the NBN and generally result in some savings for them.

        You however might be the minority who generally utilise the mobile access however, but in my experience, this is rare.

        • I’m curious, what is your general usage pattern?
          Use around 8 Gb a month on Vividwireless.

          What is the make up of your household?
          Wife and i use Internet for emails, browsing, youtube, I also use it for WOW and Guild Wars. We dont download video in large amounts.

          How often do you use your mobile connection out and about?
          Connection is used around Perth and I can have more than one wireless (not wifi) device hooked up on the 1 account.

          How much quota do you have and how much do you pay for it?
          $75 a month for 25 Gb

          Do other members of your household, if applicable, agree with “wireless being fine”?
          No Complaints, especially when you consider the above complaints in regards to the copper lines available in this thread.

          Have you considered other options like ADSL2+ or cable at the moment? If so, why did you reject them?
          With no homephone needed (Mobiles), the plan makes good sense. I move around a lot and wireless is convenient, 7 different houses in 10 years (not solely with Vivid, have previously used Three).

          I don’t mean to presume here, but all too often I see people using a mobile connection in a static context, for one or more of the following reasons, they can’t get a (decent) fixed line connection, they have a fluid living condition, or they just don’t know better. All three circumstances which will be dealt with via the NBN and generally result in some savings for them.
          In my location I can get Telstra or a Telstra reseller and thats it. The NBN will accommodate this with its “free” connection but if my pattern of moving continues then I will continue to roll the dice with connections. The OPT IN/OUT fiasco will further continue that. Thats why I am a fan of mandatory fibre if the NBN is too be done.

          You however might be the minority who generally utilise the mobile access however, but in my experience, this is rare.
          You experience may be limited to the circles you travel in, I know many people who move around every few years. If the NBN is relying on a 70% take up rate it doesn’t take too many people who dont want it, cant afford it, or prefer wireless to cause it to become economically unfeasible.

          That said if it is to be done lets hope for the best, I for one still dont see myself using it as i believe Wireless will continue to evolve at a rapid pace. The more people on the NBN will mean less takeup on wireless, which will be good for me :)

          • Okay, Jackey let’s break it down for you shall we?

            “25GB for $75” So you’re currently paying about what I can pay for eight times the quota. Even if the doomsday predictions of CVC prove true, you’ll still be, by my calculations, be charged for about one third the quota, and that includes home phone services.

            “No complaints, especially when you consider the above complaints regarding copper lines”

            The complaints are based upon lack of IR, which you still suffer from, WiMax in Perth delivers between 3Mbps and 15Mbps depending on location, contention etc, and with much higher pings due to contention. If on VividWireless, these complaints you’re hearing will still exist.

            “I move around a lot and wireless is convenient, 7 different houses in 10 years (not solely with Vivid, have previously used Three).”

            As do I, although I don’t live in Perth with VividWireless where the “devide” between wireless and wireline isn’t as bad thanks to VividWireless, and I still calculated it would be cheaper to get an FLC. This is because I went for the no contract options.

          • Okay.

            “25GB for $75” So you’re currently paying about what I can pay for eight times the quota. Even if the doomsday predictions of CVC prove true, you’ll still be, by my calculations, be charged for about one third the quota, and that includes home phone services.

            “No complaints, especially when you consider the above complaints regarding copper lines”

            The complaints are based upon lack of IR, which you still suffer from, WiMax in Perth delivers between 3Mbps and 15Mbps depending on location, contention etc, and with much higher pings due to contention. If on VividWireless, these complaints you’re hearing will still exist.

            “I move around a lot and wireless is convenient, 7 different houses in 10 years (not solely with Vivid, have previously used Three).”

            As do I, although I don’t live in Perth with VividWireless where the “devide” between wireless and wireline isn’t as bad thanks to VividWireless, and I still calculated it would be cheaper to get an FLC. This is because I went for the no contract options.

            “The NBN will accommodate this with its “free” connection but if my pattern of moving continues then I will continue to roll the dice with connections. The OPT IN/OUT fiasco will further continue that. Thats why I am a fan of mandatory fibre if the NBN is too be done.”

            The Victorian Premier is an idoit for choosing opt-in I agree, but one bad decision won’t affect the benefits for the rest of Australians.

            “You experience may be limited to the circles you travel in, I know many people who move around every few years. If the NBN is relying on a 70% take up rate it doesn’t take too many people who dont want it, cant afford it, or prefer wireless to cause it to become economically unfeasible.”

            As stated above, I am in a similar circumstances to you with a fluid living condition and I still opted for a fixed line connection. And I am not alone, despite ADSL2+ faults it is still cheaper and performs better than Wireless generally.

            “That said if it is to be done lets hope for the best, I for one still dont see myself using it as i believe Wireless will continue to evolve at a rapid pace. The more people on the NBN will mean less takeup on wireless, which will be good for me :)”

            Exactly. So you’re fine to pay more for your connection considering the added convenience. I still believe you are a minority, and if the NBN allows for more no contract options I predict you will decline further. I’m glad you understand the more people that use wireless the worse it performs. Which is why we need a fixed line connection, and while wireless will improve, it will never improve to the point it supercedes wireline services. Except of course if we stop investing in wireline upgrades, which is why I don’t like the Liberal Plan. $2b in fixed wireless solutions? Bad idea.

          • 25GB for $75″ So you’re currently paying about what I can pay for eight times the quota.
            Why would I need 8 times the quota when I have stated I use roughly 8Gb and dont download video? I have a gateway that I can take anywhere in Perth (subject to local wirless signal) or use another USB wireless device at the same time, much more beneficial to me than extra quota. Ping times dont matter to me much, I can get 300ms if I use Battleping to US servers for gaming, good enough for MMORPGs, maybe not FPS.

            The Victorian Premier is an idoit for choosing opt-in I agree, but one bad decision won’t affect the benefits for the rest of Australians.
            We will see how the other State Govenernments fall in line. WA probably wont, Qld may not if Brisbane City Council gets its way. Who knows with NSW given Labor look likely to lose. Opt IN/OUT are part of the problem, both solutions will leave houses unconnected. Mandartory fibre (to the Fibre mapped areas) is the only real answer to ensure everyone gets access to the NBN now and in the future. Given the amount of times I have moved and required “Techinicians” to come out and connect me to the phone/internet I save a heap of money there by not choosing a Fixed Line (apporx $200-$400).

            “Exactly. So you’re fine to pay more for your connection considering the added convenience. I still believe you are a minority, and if the NBN allows for more no contract options I predict you will decline further. ”
            The NBN may allow for no contracts but I expect RSPs will require some sort of contract depending on equipment provided, line needs connecting etc… I accept I am in a minority, how small that minority is will be shown in the future when NBNCo rolls out its network whilst at the same time Telstra rolls out it $11 Billion + subsidised wireless network.

            My guess on what I have read is that the NBN will not ever be profitable in my lifetime. I hope it wont be the case.

          • The reason I point out to you that you can get significantly more quota for about the same you are paying now is that you can, logically, get the same quota you have now for less than you are paying right now. Depending on your circumstances this might be something to consider.

            Regarding opt-out vs opt-In I think that forcing everyone to get fibre is not something any government will do, hence why they are doing opt-out, as it is the next best thing,

            I don’t know how the profit situation with the NBN will be but their projections seem to indicate a profit within a few decade and they seem accurate to me.

            And 300ms? How do you cope? I couldn’t even use an SSH shell on such high pings, let alone game, MMO or otherwise. :)

          • And 300ms? How do you cope? I couldn’t even use an SSH shell on such high pings, let alone game, MMO or otherwise. :)

            You cope because thats all you know :) My friend on ADSL2+ though Internode averages about 250ms (same place) so the difference isnt really that great.

            If I was moved from a <100ms Ping to that then I might be upset.

            If NBN means more Servers (gaming and otherwise) are hosted in Aust than that would be a good thing. I do think the Government should be working towards encouraging uses of the NBN rather than just building the Infrastructure and expecting Industry to plug the gaps. Champion the cause rather than responding to critism.

    • It also indicates a plethora of reasons why HFC cable and ADSL2+ is needed also, it still doesn’t quite explain why if people can get it why they don’t want it!

      Tech tyre tech kicker web sites like this is skewed with tech tyre kicker opinion, it makes it seem as if ‘opinion’ posted in here somehow represents how the population at large thinks.

      I saw one ‘expert’ opinion on another tech site where the need for the NBN was based on the massive world wide sale figures of the game Call of Duty: Black Ops – unbelievable stuff.

      • Could that possibly be because we are experts in the field here and we know that, just like a mechanic would know and tell you, that “run that old heap for any longer and it’s going to break down on the side of the road”?

        Because as I, and others here have pointed out, that is exactly the problem we are facing with the PSTN networking, right here, right now. Labor are proposing we buy a new car, while the Coalition are proposing we change the oil, fan-belt, spark plugs and battery, and give the cyclinders a bit of a clean so we can keep chugging along for another year before it does finally blow up. In that situation, what would you do? I know what I’d do, buy a new car and be done with it.

      • That ‘expert’ really dont know what he is talking about. To play the Black ops, you need a decent computer. Now estimate how many decent computers out there.. Games like Black ops doesnt need a super fast connection, It needs low ping time. The NBN is not about one guy sitting at home playing his computer.

      • No alain (yawn) the Black Op’s analogy was a small part within an entire article by David Braue at ZDNet. Here…

        http://www.zdnet.com.au/merry-xmas-nbn-grinches-here-s-your-cba-339308176.htm

        It was an article, which was basically presented tongue-in-cheek, to prove to you incessant FUDsters (in layman’s terms) just how easy the NBN can not only help the nation (as in NATIONAL Broadband Network), particularly those who currently do not have decent comms (the ones you gladly pretend don’t exist) and by just singling out a few areas, which may in general may not even be considered – such as Black Ops – just where the money can and will come from.

        The fact that you are unwilling or unable to comprehend such a basic, everyday, “outside the square” analogy, is sad if not pitiful indictment upon you, imo…!

  35. He loves to try and flog ADSl2+ – but even assuming everyone is achieving a fast ADSL2+ sync, which they are not, he is overlooking the 800Kbps upload speeds, and reliability.

    Statistically, I have a good ADSL2+ connection – around 10Mbps, but I can’t keep a sync for more than 12hrs, it’s constantly dropping out at the most inconvenient times, imagine if I was trying to run a business on this connection, impossible, and again – it’s good compared to most.

    What’s funny is a year ago I was getting almost 20Mbps, and had sync times exceeding a month, but according to Telstra (and Liberals) the copper is fine, at this rate I’ll probably not even have a connection in 2 years bar NBN :||

    As others also mentioned, he is delusional when he says ‘4Mbps is fine for FetchTV’ – uh, what if you want to do something else on your connection at the same time?

    Many people, and devices share a broadband connection – right now it’s 2 in the frigging morning yet there is 1 internet TV and 2 computers using my connection, it’s even more in the day, and my family is small compared to some who have like 5+ people living in it..

    And also, I can’t get Cable, I’d be laughin if I could get it but alas… 4G / Vividwireless isn’t a option as it averages like 64Kbps here.

    Honestly, if the Liberals supported the NBN they would be running the country, they had my vote until they dropped the bombshell at the last minute.

  36. I am in SE Melb Metro and sync at around 4-6MBps, the real kicker is when it hits peak time my exchange is congested and its around 1-2Mbps with Telstra still considering this to be normal and not interested in expediating the problem.

    I would be more than happy to pay for a 50 or 100MBps connection if I am fortunate enough to see the NBN pass my house. WIth two young children who are about to start school in a couple of years this connection will become so untenable I may be forced to consider moving house from an area I adore just to avail myself of a decent connection.

    All I can hope for is that the NBN is too far gone for the Liberals to shut it down, I cannot believe how shortsighted that policy is on Broadband and the amount of votes it continues to cost them.

  37. You idiot Turnbull, it’s not about the applications and services that are CURRENTLY designed around the internet as we know it now, it IS about what the internet will evolve to be once unleashed. As a society growing around the technology available to us, we must provide the best platform for us to build on, to allow us to reach a new level. Saying that ‘what we have now is sufficient for what currently available’ was ignorant and short-sighted, you obviously should not be in a role where voicing such opinions about our country’s future gets the notice it does; Get some insight as to where this country; this world is going and you’ll see that such infrastructure is a necessity for our growth.

  38. So all I got from the comments, is that people are crying that they are unable to hook up their xbox’s, multiple streaming devices (TV’s, iPads) and multiple PC’s/Laptops, Blue Ray Players and all stream at the same time using current ADSL2+ infrastructure and they are expecting the government to fork out billions of dollars for what is essentially entertainment reasons? This is also already possible over the current HFC network

    There is no argument against Fiber in schools,hospitals, university districts (which most have fiber currently anyways)

    Also a lot of people are arguing from the point of view that they are making an assumption that we will be stuck with ADSL2+ forever, and that telecommunications speed won’t increase ever if NBN is never built, which is the exact opposite of what has been happening in history (regardless of what technologies you want to use or upgrade).

    The FCCC report done shows that the ubiquitous broadband speed that should be made available to each home is 4mbits.

    Also if you want to quote average speeds from ISP’s, TPG’s average sync speed is ~10 mbits, Exetels is ~9 mbits, internodes is available here (they have different bands http://www.internode.on.net/residential/broadband/adsl/extreme/performance/). The amount of people that have low speeds due to distance from exchange, is a very vocal minority that go around on tech news sites complaining about their speeds

    NZ, who actually got their act together and did things properly (on the government level), have done an FTTN (which is almost completed, now covers 80%+) and is already offering 60/40 plans with a capital investment of $1.5 billion and not having to go around screwing with the whole telecommunication industry (no buyouts, monopolistic laws or overly generous assumptions).

    The funny thing is, with the CVC charges that NBN is proposing, we will go backwards to the days of pre 2005 when everyone had to wholesale through Telstra, and we will end up having shitty quota’s at over inflated prices compared to the rest of the world. If you really expect a $37 billion dollar capital investment to not take internet backwards in terms of pricing (when our current internet is used on an infrastructure that has completely depreciated in cost, and is offered at lowest possible value due to ACCC), then you have to be joking. Currently all ISPs (apart from Telstra), where they can (which is around 60-70% the area of Australia) use the ULL or LSS to completely bypass Telstra’s AGVC (wholesale) charges (the ULL/LSS is an actual layer 1/layer 2 retail service). The only reason that figure is not higher is because in certain areas of Australia there isn’t any backhaul available there apart from Telstra’s, so you are forced to wholesale through them

    The matter of fact is, if you read the business case (the devil is in the details), especially the part about CVC pricing, all the NBN will do is give everyone fat pipes but due to cost reasons most Australian’s will only be able to afford a vastly inferior service (in terms of quotas and speeds) due to NBNCo expecting, as a private company, to pay back the capital that was used to build the network in the first place.

    Of course Labor ignored all of this in their press conference (as well as all of the risks outlined in the business case)

    • “So all I got from the comments, is that people are crying that they are unable to hook up their xbox’s, multiple streaming devices (TV’s, iPads) and multiple PC’s/Laptops, Blue Ray Players and all stream at the same time using current ADSL2+ infrastructure and they are expecting the government to fork out billions of dollars for what is essentially entertainment reasons? This is also already possible over the current HFC network”

      This is accruate, however HFC only runs to 2 million homes and is not an open network, which does not encourage retail competition, unlike the NBN which will. It has been suggested that we mandate Telstra make their HFC network “open” in order to “springboard” as it were the NBN, but this was fallen on deaf ears from both sides of the arguement.

      “Also a lot of people are arguing from the point of view that they are making an assumption that we will be stuck with ADSL2+ forever, and that telecommunications speed won’t increase ever if NBN is never built, which is the exact opposite of what has been happening in history (regardless of what technologies you want to use or upgrade).”

      First of this is actually quite an accruate assement, all technologies that supercede ADSL2+, with the exception of VDSL and VDSL2 require siginficant infrasture rewiring. VDSL and VDSL suffer from the same distance limitations that ADSL2+, to the extent that after approximately 500m out from the exchange you are effectively on the same curve you would be for ADSL2+ (the same happened with ADSL2+ vs ADSL1).

      “NZ, who actually got their act together and did things properly (on the government level), have done an FTTN (which is almost completed, now covers 80%+) and is already offering 60/40 plans with a capital investment of $1.5 billion and not having to go around screwing with the whole telecommunication industry (no buyouts, monopolistic laws or overly generous assumptions).”

      Except of course, we are not NZ, we have a different country, different requirements, different economic constraints, different current broadband enviroment. What works for them may not work for us, and visa versa.

      “The funny thing is, with the CVC charges that NBN is proposing, we will go backwards to the days of pre 2005 when everyone had to wholesale through Telstra, and we will end up having shitty quota’s at over inflated prices compared to the rest of the world. If you really expect a $37 billion dollar capital investment to not take internet backwards in terms of pricing (when our current internet is used on an infrastructure that has completely depreciated in cost, and is offered at lowest possible value due to ACCC), then you have to be joking. Currently all ISPs (apart from Telstra), where they can (which is around 60-70% the area of Australia) use the ULL or LSS to completely bypass Telstra’s AGVC (wholesale) charges (the ULL/LSS is an actual layer 1/layer 2 retail service). The only reason that figure is not higher is because in certain areas of Australia there isn’t any backhaul available there apart from Telstra’s, so you are forced to wholesale through them”

      Okay, the projected pricing is almost, within a reasonable margin of error, exactly what we pay now. Now when you consider 1) majority of Australian’s only use around 15% of their quota and 2) the quota system is a way of culling traffic to prevent over usage of the network by restricting the amount data that travels through it, we come to the following conclusion: a reduced quota in favour of better performance will be acceptable for the majority of Australian’s, and because the NBN is such as “big pipe” when it comes to network costs the probablity of retails NEEDING to reduce quotas is quite silm when you consider why they have them in the first place (rememeber, only RETAIL customers are charged per GB in the real world).

      “The matter of fact is, if you read the business case (the devil is in the details), especially the part about CVC pricing, all the NBN will do is give everyone fat pipes but due to cost reasons most Australian’s will only be able to afford a vastly inferior service (in terms of quotas and speeds) due to NBNCo expecting, as a private company, to pay back the capital that was used to build the network in the first place.”

      Even if they can only afford an entry level plan of say 12Mbps/1Mbps with 20GB of quota + a voice service for $50/m (which seems perfectly reasonable considering the CVC pricing) they are getting more speed by about 2Mbps based upon the “averages” you presented just before, and about exactly the same quota you would otherwise have recieved.

      You see, I don’t see all that much wrong with the projected pricing considering a) the network improvements we will get and b) the fact we spent $28b of tax payers money to get us there.

      Now, I do agree that maybe NBN Co shouldn’t be so optimisitc about paying back the capital expenditure, and maybe use that knowledge to drop the CVC pricing to something better, but unfortunately that will fall on deaf ears also. It won’t stop me from trying, as I have been in my blog, to point it out, however. :)

      • HFC runs covers 30% of premises covered in Australia, and it is deployed in the areas where there is actually market demand for the service (Telstra/Optus didn’t deploy HFC in areas of the market where people didn’t want them).

        Furthermore, even though HFC passes 30% of premises, only 15% of those premises only use the HFC cable internet (the others use xDSL or other forms of internet, which means that even that cherry picked high demand 30% area, only half of those people actually use the increased speeds from cable)

        In regards to VDSL2, it does not require “rewiring”, all it requires is an FTTN (and anyone close to exchange can use VDSL2 currently, with no investment whatsoever), which is a fraction of the cost of what an FTTH (that also has to buy out Telstra and possibly optus HFC as well). In fact, one of the main reasons that VDSL2 isn’t being used in Australia is that its not properly standardized like ADSL2 is for use with Telstra exchanges

        And regarding CVC charges, the matter of the fact is that current ISP’s do not pay it at all (and ULL is only $6 in city and $17 in metro) compared to $24 for the minimum 12/1 + CVC charges, which are ridiculously massive. You can forget about, for example, TPG offering unlimited over the NBN with those charges, especially if everyone actually does start download at 12/1. No charges for AGVC (old Telstra Wholesale days) or CVC (proposed NBN) = high quotas. In fact you can already see this difference, the ‘unlimited’ plans for 60 a month is what TPG offers in areas they can serve with ULL/LSS, the 500 a month are the plans where they are forced to wholesale through Telstra

        Again, the only reason quotas have dropped so massively is because ACCC has forced Telstra to turn into a retailer (ULL/LSS) which means that companies do not pay any wholesale fees per megabyte. CVC costs are $20 per mbyte, and have to be paid for at every POI/CVS that the ISP connects its customers through. Opening up the ULL/LSS is what allowed companies such as TPG to start offering much higher quotas, which due to RETAIL (not wholesale) competition forced Telstra and recently Optus to increase their quotas due to the massive churn rates they were getting

        The project pricing released by Labor does not take into account a lot of factors, if you have a look at other industry analysis (like at ZDnets over here http://www.zdnet.com.au/nbn-is-too-expensive-at-80-retail-average-339308162.htm) we can be expected to pay $80 for what we currently pay as $55. ISP’s over the NBN will loss less money if they offer lower quotas and expend to other areas, which means that basically the CVC costs on the NBN are killing competition, not helping one. It will be the massive Telcos (TPG/Telstra/Optus/iiNet) which are the only ones that would be able to leverage CVC prices to offer reasonable quotas by having a ridiculously high market share, which basically is going to make it harder for startup ISP’s

        Its basic common sense, what we pay for currently represents a network that has no capital cost whatsoever, and has its prices mandated by the ACCC to be the lowest possible (Telstra basically makes no money off ULL/LSS)

        • I also forgot to mention that in regards to the comment by quota, if you read the buisness case, the NBNCo making a profit relies on the assumption that quota will skyrocket (NBN is paying off its capital through those CVC charges), so its a lose lose situation

          If quota’s don’t skyrocket, then NBN will run into a continuing loss, which either means they will raise prices further (or that NBN will run at a loss, which means that all Australians will have to pay more one way or another)

          If quotas do skyrocket, then this will raise prices substantially, because every ISP will have to pay ridiculous amounts of CVC charges to actually supply that quota (either that or you simply put won’t download at the speeds that the fiber could provide). This means that (compared to the rest of the world), we will actually be paying a ridiculously high premium for internet. Its only recently (thanks to opening up of Telstra retail and competition) that we have comparable internet plans with the heavyweights like America or Japan (in terms of quota), even though those countries have 80% of the internet traffic locally (where as we have it internationally)

          • Deetgo, It is interesting you make the point that for the NBN to recoup its outlay customers use of quota needs to sky rocket.

            Interesting in the light of the latest published survey results that state that Australian BB users only use 15% of their quota today!

            Oh dear!

          • In that case NBNCo won’t make any money and will run at a loss, or be forced to increase CVC charges even higher then they are.

            So yes, its a lose lose. NBN is banking on people downloading excessively (which is what will cause RSP/ISP’s to purchase more CVC from NBNCo).

            On the other hand, and what is most likely, is that the incredibly ridiculous CVC pricing will basically force every ISP/RSP to turn into a horizontally integrated triple/quadruple pay providers, where quota for the (internet) part of the service will be much much lower then it would have normally been (and much lower then it is now, and this is just with ADSL2+ speeds)

          • Did you read anything I say, or are you just going around trolling on the tech sites supporting the NBN no matter what?

            In order for the NBN to be financially viable, it has to charge incredibly high CVC charges to RSP’s/ISP’s, which means that RSP’s/ISP’s (unless they all want to become bankrupt) will pass the charges onto people, which means we will be stuck with big fat pipes on low quotas (or speeds).

            CVC’s is a charge that current ISP’s/RSP’s do not pay for if they go through ULL/LSS (and they go through ULL/LSS everywhere they can, which is around 60-70% of Australia), futhermore the retail service for ULL/LSS is much cheaper then the lowest AVC charge of $24 (and can actually provide a faster service to people who happen to be closer to the exchange)

            There is not going to be any freaking point of FTTH (for home users) if we are all stuck on <200 gigs of usage a month for the next decade unless you want to shell out a ridiculous amount of money per month

            Furthermore, that financially viability is about as likely to happen as Guns N Roses coming together. 3GPP, (which Verizon already demonstrated in America of being able to provide 12/4mbit speeds under heavy congestion, around 30/15 in light usage, thats not even 4G yet) can easily undercut NBN (since you know, private companies don't have to cover 37 billion dollar capital costs in providing wireless) for all the lower bands of speed, which would make NBN go bankrupt

            Or the Telstra deal failing, or a number of other things (labor skill shortage etc etc)

          • Yes – I did read what you wrote. Did you read what you wrote?

            You said “$20 per megaBYTE”…suggesting that if I trying and download a 10 megabyte attachment in an email – (common in my workplace) – that it’ll cost my ISP $200 to let me do it?

            Maybe it might cost me $250. Per email.

          • Wow, do you know what CVC is? Did you even read the business case?

            (Hint: CVC is the payment method that ISP’s/RSP’s use to purchase bandwith from NBNCo, not the cost per megabyte for a consumer, they are not the same thing)

            And I thought all the people supporting the NBN actually understood all the details and what they are arguing about…..

          • Yes actually, I have a hard copy right here next to me.

            You’ve misread it. It’s $20 per megaBIT of available bandwidth between the POI serving the customer and the POI serving the ISPs connection to the NBN.

            It is not $20 per megaBYTE of data downloaded.

          • You do realise that megaBITE>megaBIT right?

            One megaBIT is around 125 kilobytes (which is around 8 times less then a megaBYTE)

            Furthermore, if you have a hard copy of it right next to me, you would KNOW that the CVC is not a direct charge to every user, i.e.
            “You said “$20 per megaBYTE”…suggesting that if I trying and download a 10 megabyte attachment in an email – (common in my workplace) – that it’ll cost my ISP $200 to let me do it?”

            Matter of fact is you were trolling before, I was talking about the CVC (which as you pointed out, is charged by megabit, I accidentally wrote megabyte as typing off the top of my head, and has nothing to do with end users paying $20 per megabit or megabyte)

          • Just to be clear here, you said “megaBYTE”, not “megaBYTES per second”…one is a measure of volume of data, one is a measure of speed between two points of that amount of data.

          • Hi Michael, our friend [sic] deteego is as usual, talking complete FUDulent nonsense… and when inevitably found out, trying to weasel.

            He tries this on everywhere he goes (as you probably know)!

            Sadly, when he is found out though, rather than being adult and just admitting, “heaven forbid… that he had actually erred” (or even made a freudian slip or typo) he will not only not do these things (especially the former) but actually, disgracefully endeavour, exactly as he tried on with you, to turn it around and make you out to be the one who made the incorrect comment/error… dear oh dear.

            But if you persevere and challenge him, to put up or shut up, he crumbles… Mind you, he neither puts up or shuts up, but he avoids the questioning of his embarrassing faux pas’, like the plague…!

            Funny thing is by him avoiding, one can keep asking and asking, further embarrassing him, LOL!!! Whereas, if he just admitted that he had erred (after all – Errare humanum est) it’d be over!

            Precious…!

        • “In regards to VDSL2, it does not require “rewiring”, all it requires is an FTTN (and anyone close to exchange can use VDSL2 currently, with no investment whatsoever), which is a fraction of the cost of what an FTTH (that also has to buy out Telstra and possibly optus HFC as well). In fact, one of the main reasons that VDSL2 isn’t being used in Australia is that its not properly standardized like ADSL2 is for use with Telstra exchanges”

          Which indicates to me that you didn’t even read my reply in full. Let me repeat WITH THE EXCEPTION of VDSL and VDSL2 all technologies designed to supercede ADSL2+ require siginficant rewiring. FTTC is siginficiant rewiring, and if you’re saying that we need FTTC to take full advantage of VDSL2, you’re right, but like ADSL2+, the Teleo’s won’t care, and thus we’ll still be stuck with the people who live far out only get 1-5Mbps.

          “And regarding CVC charges, the matter of the fact is that current ISP’s do not pay it at all (and ULL is only $6 in city and $17 in metro) compared to $24 for the minimum 12/1 + CVC charges, which are ridiculously massive. You can forget about, for example, TPG offering unlimited over the NBN with those charges, especially if everyone actually does start download at 12/1. No charges for AGVC (old Telstra Wholesale days) or CVC (proposed NBN) = high quotas. In fact you can already see this difference, the ‘unlimited’ plans for 60 a month is what TPG offers in areas they can serve with ULL/LSS, the 500 a month are the plans where they are forced to wholesale through Telstra”

          Why is it that everyone always ignores voice when looking at current prices? With a reasonable contention ratio of 100:1 you can expect a wholesale for 12/1 INCLUDING VOICE of approximately $26/mm and that includes CVC charges.Now, to offer this service currently they would be paying between $30/m (city) and $41/m (metro). So, the way I see it, $26/m is less than $30/m or $41/m, but maybe I got all my highschool maths wrong or something? This pricing options including proposed options for retailers to provide are all detailed in the pricing documents, please, go read it: http://www.nbnco.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/main/site-base/main-areas/publications-and-announcements/publications/product-and-pricing-overview

          “Again, the only reason quotas have dropped so massively is because ACCC has forced Telstra to turn into a retailer (ULL/LSS) which means that companies do not pay any wholesale fees per megabyte. CVC costs are $20 per mbyte, and have to be paid for at every POI/CVS that the ISP connects its customers through. Opening up the ULL/LSS is what allowed companies such as TPG to start offering much higher quotas, which due to RETAIL (not wholesale) competition forced Telstra and recently Optus to increase their quotas due to the massive churn rates they were getting”

          At no point, anywhere, in the pricing document or the business case, did NBN mention ANYTHING about charging on a per megabyte basis. If you want to be taken seriously, get your terms right, and also learn a few facts about how ISPs operate in general. The CVC charges are per mbps, not megabyte. And it is in fact common place, to have a contention ratio of around 100:1. Telstra at the moment has worse contention ratios, and this can be easily demonstrated when you note that they ofter get the famed “backhaul congestion”.

          For the record, in telecomications, a contention ratio of 100:1 is considered acceptable, a contention ratio of 50:1 is considered average, and a contention ratio of 20:1 is considered excellent. Even commited services, what have an ensured amount of bandwidth (for which at the moment businesses pay over $2000 a month for a I might add) have a conention ratio, usually between 10:1 and 3:1 depending on the provider.

          “The project pricing released by Labor does not take into account a lot of factors, if you have a look at other industry analysis (like at ZDnets over here http://www.zdnet.com.au/nbn-is-too-expensive-at-80-retail-average-339308162.htm) we can be expected to pay $80 for what we currently pay as $55. ISP’s over the NBN will loss less money if they offer lower quotas and expend to other areas, which means that basically the CVC costs on the NBN are killing competition, not helping one. It will be the massive Telcos (TPG/Telstra/Optus/iiNet) which are the only ones that would be able to leverage CVC prices to offer reasonable quotas by having a ridiculously high market share, which basically is going to make it harder for startup ISP’s”

          Of course, again, ZDnet ignored the fact that voice services are extremely cheap to provide. As for CVC charges limiting competition, just like the 120 POIs requirement made it harder for small ISPs in the market?
          It’s not just NBN Co making “bad decisions” when it comes to competition now is it? And I don’t thinking lowing quotas is that much of a bad thing when we consider that the majority of Australian’s only use 15% of their quota: http://delimiter.com.au/2011/01/11/australians-using-just-15-percent-of-broadband-quota/

          Lowed quotas would be it down to more reasonable levels, which I suspect to be about what Internode are oftering (with the top plan being 100-200GB not a few terabytes).

          Look, we all have problems with the NBN, for example I don’t think the government should be creating a new GoE to do it, they could do it by investing in Telstra Wholesale and modifying the terms of the USO, basicly forcing Telstra Wholesale to upgrade their lines from Copper to Point to Point Fibre within 30 years.

          But I must point out that based upon what I have read pricing isn’t as bad as you’re trying to make it out to be. It could be better, sure, but if the cost of a universal consistant service across the country is that prices stagnate over the next decade in terms of nominal value, then so be it, it’s a price I’ll gladly pay. Afterall, being a geek, I will pay the higher price for the better plans won’t I?

          • You don’t have to rewire VDSL2 in order to use it, you just need to rewire VDSL2 to get the maximum effect out of it (just like you would with the current network). You also do not need FTTC, FTTN would be more then adequate (especially since there are FTTH equipment for the FTTN cabinets as a possible upgrade path, FTTC would be an overinvestment).

            Regarding CVC, I accidentally wrote mbyte, instead of mbit, I know how that works (also with contention ratios). As I said earlier, the only reason ISP’s like TPG are able to provide unlimited is because they don’t pay any contention charges whatsoever (and the fact that TPG owns PIPE, which has backhaul and international links). TPG gets all of the leechers, they have incredibly high costs for contention ratios. They will not be able to provide the (same) level as service as they do know with those CVC charges, and this is just for ADSL2+

            In regards to CVC, read this commday article (http://www.commsday.com/commsday/?p=1975). It is as bad as you make it out to be, it just never got any attention.

            Voice services are currently very cheap to provide if bundled with ADSL2+ and LSS, which is what almost every telco does (or providing your own voice service like what Optus does). There is also naked service. The line rental isn’t that expensive at all (if you compare naked with bundled line rental + ADSLx plans.

            In regards to the point to point fiber, I agree. Honestly if you wanted to do a national FTTH, the best approach would have been to provide point to point fiber from the current Telstra exchanges at a retail service (no CVC’s, no AVC’s, just a flat rate for the cable and how you manage contention/speeds is up to you). However there is still the capital cost.

          • “You don’t have to rewire VDSL2 in order to use it, you just need to rewire VDSL2 to get the maximum effect out of it (just like you would with the current network). You also do not need FTTC, FTTN would be more then adequate (especially since there are FTTH equipment for the FTTN cabinets as a possible upgrade path, FTTC would be an overinvestment).”

            Okay, let’s clarify a few things here, FTTC is FTTCurb, which is defined to be approximately 300m (maximum) from premises. VDSL2+ requires a maximum 500m before it begins to dip off.

            FTTN is FTTNode or Neighbourhood and is effectively what we have now in MOST major cities, and is technically defined of anything OVER 300m, but in partice is goes out to about 1.5km, which is not good enough for VDSL2 as a lot of people will get no better speeds than they get on ADSL2+.

            I don’t know how many times I’ve pointed this out, but there it is. And it is very well documented here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_x

            “In regards to CVC, read this commday article (http://www.commsday.com/commsday/?p=1975). It is as bad as you make it out to be, it just never got any attention.”

            Alright, assuming you’re right, why aren’t small ISPs taking NBN Co to the ACCC like the large ones did with POIs? I mean, surely if it’s that big of a deal they’d want to do something about it. They have had just as much time as you have to read up on CVC and come up with a Plan of Action when it comes to their NBN plans, and so far no one has come up and said “these CVC charges are way to much.”

            I suggest you write to the CEOs of the ISPs, like Simon Hackett from Internode, and ask if he is concerned about the CVC charges being to much. Since he saw fit to complain about the POIs issue in a blog psot, maybe he’ll do the same with the CVC issue, and hopefully get some media attention, and ACCC involvement, hmm?

            “In regards to the point to point fiber, I agree. Honestly if you wanted to do a national FTTH, the best approach would have been to provide point to point fiber from the current Telstra exchanges at a retail service (no CVC’s, no AVC’s, just a flat rate for the cable and how you manage contention/speeds is up to you). However there is still the capital cost.”

            A very siginficant capital cost, and who is going to pay for it? I am impressed that, unlike Turnbull, you agree their is just cause and a market to upgrade to Fibre, but I am unimpressed, that, like Turnbull, you would rather point out the current plans flaws than to try and (as I am, but it’s taking a while to put together) put together a valid alternative. If you do that, I’ll gladly read it, and if I think it will work better than NBN Co, I will gladly advocate and support it, as I have been for the NBN.

            I will go with whatever plan is best for Australia, and sadly it’s the NBN right now, even with the CVC charges, the fact they are using a PON over AON, etc, etc. Because the alternative that Turnbull has provided is quite frankly, useless.

          • I know what FTTC is, and I said its an overinvestement because the cost difference between FTTC compared to FTTN is massive for little benefit. The market for anything higher then 50mbit (let alone 25mbit) is almost non existant. The point of FTTN is its very cost effective and provides the medium usage market (up to 50/40 mbit’s) with the service they need for a fraction of the cost. If you need higher speeds then that, cabinets then can be converted to provide Fiber to the house (and with 1.5km of distance, that won’t make any difference on fiber). FTTC is a ridiculous waste, FTTN is very smart, NBN is a ridiculous waste

            “Alright, assuming you’re right, why aren’t small ISPs taking NBN Co to the ACCC like the large ones did with POIs? I mean, surely if it’s that big of a deal they’d want to do something about it. They have had just as much time as you have to read up on CVC and come up with a Plan of Action when it comes to their NBN plans, and so far no one has come up and said “these CVC charges are way to much.””

            The business case just came out a few weeks ago, ISP’s are still going through and digesting it. I also take anything Simon Hackett says with a grain of salt regarding these matters. He has incredibly heavily vested interests, and anything that helps “bigger players” has has a cry/whige/tantrum over it. What Malone said here is much more accurate (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/national-broadband-network-tangled-up-in-red-tape/story-e6frg8zx-1225985867050) of the actual issues

            Even how (exactly) CVC pricing is done is unclear. If the CVC pricing needs to reflect the amount NBN Co needs to pay for itself (and is taken literally of how its panned out in the business case), then yes it is that massive, if its not then NBNCo runs into a loss. You can’t have it both ways. And it has to be massive, these funds are required for NBNCo to pay off 36 billion with INTEREST + opex for actually running the NBN. Malone is banking on the idea that NBNCo will run at a loss and be forced (due to political reasons) to lower CVC prices, but that will make a financial blackhole in Australia due to the ridiculous interest NBNCo will be paying

            “A very siginficant capital cost, and who is going to pay for it? I am impressed that, unlike Turnbull, you agree their is just cause and a market to upgrade to Fibre, but I am unimpressed, that, like Turnbull, you would rather point out the current plans flaws than to try and (as I am, but it’s taking a while to put together) put together a valid alternative. If you do that, I’ll gladly read it, and if I think it will work better than NBN Co, I will gladly advocate and support it, as I have been for the NBN.”

            This (NBN) alternative isn’t valid, its completely pathetic. Common sense says that if you spend that amount of money (for such a small population) and except it not to have a significant backlash in an area you are smoking some bad granola. Maybe people need to accept that (almost) ubiqitous FTTH is simply not in the best interest, even regarding internet. If we were in a massive surplus, and the money was just given (without NBN or Telstra wholesale being expected to pay it off) to upgrade a retail layer 1/2 point to point fiber service, that would have more support (at least that way it would be cheaper, since you only have capex) and more importantly won’t raise any prices.

            You are also (like many people here) misrepresent Malcolm Turnbull. I am with Malcolm on this one, there isn’t a market for fiber with COMPLETE FUNDING ON GOVERNMENT BONDS WITH INTEREST on a fully national level. Furthermore implementing policies which prevent competition (and all the other crap) is a massive nono.

            The market (currently) for fiber to every home is virtually non existant, and whether that will change in the future is ‘dubious’ (and by that I mean speeds >60 mbits).

            By far the best approach would be to fix the over-regulated telco industry in Australia (its a mess, and always has been), split Telstra, and to create a proper market to allow proper upgrading of infrastructure, something that Australia has never had

            The problem with people arguing on these blogs is that (most) of them are all nerds/geeks who completely ignore the economic/fiscal and market issues with the NBN (and only argue the NBN in tunnel minded way saying that fiber is the best technology)

          • “I know what FTTC is, and I said its an overinvestement because the cost difference between FTTC compared to FTTN is massive for little benefit. The market for anything higher then 50mbit (let alone 25mbit) is almost non existant. The point of FTTN is its very cost effective and provides the medium usage market (up to 50/40 mbit’s) with the service they need for a fraction of the cost. If you need higher speeds then that, cabinets then can be converted to provide Fiber to the house (and with 1.5km of distance, that won’t make any difference on fiber). FTTC is a ridiculous waste, FTTN is very smart, NBN is a ridiculous waste”

            Look, let me put it this way, the Internet does not work on Copper. It is like trying to get high speed rail to work on the existing rail network, where things like level crossings are danager, the corners aren’t banked correctly, and the rail isn’t maintained enought to maintain a consistant distance between the tracks. FTTN is what was developed for the Telecomications when the only service needed to be deployed was voice.

            In fact, in actuality, copper shouldn’t have anything to do with a long distance telecommications network, and the only reason it has historically is the costs of fibre cable used to be (it isn’t anymore) more expensive than copper cabling.

            So technologies like DSL were developed, and another medium that wasn’t designed for the Internet, HFC cable, took up the job as well. In this respect, they have always, and always will be, a cost saving technology to prevent you from needing to rip up half your network in one go.

            So, we should be looking at the technology in terms of a) can it deliever services of a reasonable level that will adquate for at least another 20 years, and will this service deliever model by upgradable to a technology closer to FTTP in another 20 years with minimal investment?

            FTTN/E can be upgraded to an AON PtP FTTH network, but at the cost of tens of billions of dollars, however at minimal investment now (less than 10 billion for Australia), and will NOT service us for the next 20 years or so, espeically if we can only deliever a minimum of about 10Mbps (assuming we increasing the footprint to around 1.5km maximum).

            FTTC can be upgraded to a PON FTTH network, but at the cost of less than 10 billions for Australia, however at considerable investment now, around $20b. And it WILL service us for the next 20 years or so, since we can deliever a minimum of around 40Mbps.

            A PON FTTH (NBN) can be upgraded to a to a better PON network at the cost of a couple of hundred million dollars, however at extreme investment now (around $40b). It will service us for the next 20 years or so, since it can deliever a minimum of 78Mbps to each household (assuming 32 households per spliter) with burst speeds of up to 1Gbps/400Mbps).

            An AON FTTH can be upgraded to a better AON FTTH at the cost of a couple of hundred million dollars, however at a very high investment now (around $60b). It will service us for the next 20 years or so, since it can deliever a minimum of 1Gbps to each household.

            Of course I don’t take into account contention ratios at the exchange, on from the exchange to the home. However, as you can see, with the exception of an AON, where future spending will be about the same as a PON setup, the more you spend now, the less you will need to spend in the future to upgrade the network.

            Stop thinking of the network for now, and for the future, the reasonable middle ground is FTTC, the smart choice is FTTP, and finally, the option you’re after, the cheap and nasty plan is FTTN.

            You have to stop thinking about what we need now, and looking at the growing trends of increasing need for bandwidth. It is not unreasonable to expect we will need, not want, at least 20Mbps by 2030. FTTC, HFC, and FTTH (either PON or AON) are the only systems that can ASSURE we get this level of bandwidth, and obviously, we go for the cheapest option if you’re worried, which is FTTC. So, I don’t think FTTC is wasteful, at all. I think FTTH is zealous, makes a few assumptions (probably correct, but they are still assumptions), and I think FTTN is a stupid, cost saving, and says only one thing to me, and that is “We don’t give a shit about the future of Australian Broadband.” The same goes for fixed wireless.

            “This (NBN) alternative isn’t valid, its completely pathetic. Common sense says that if you spend that amount of money (for such a small population) and except it not to have a significant backlash in an area you are smoking some bad granola. Maybe people need to accept that (almost) ubiqitous FTTH is simply not in the best interest, even regarding internet. If we were in a massive surplus, and the money was just given (without NBN or Telstra wholesale being expected to pay it off) to upgrade a retail layer 1/2 point to point fiber service, that would have more support (at least that way it would be cheaper, since you only have capex) and more importantly won’t raise any prices.”

            So basicly, between us, we have determined we have two completely invalid plans, for different reasons, in tradditional debating forums the course of action would be to make concessions until we come to a middle ground that we are both happy with. Are you willing to do that, or are you going to continue to, like Turnbull, bash the NBN without any consideration for maybe, just maybe, you’ve got the wrong idea too?

          • “Look, let me put it this way, the Internet does not work on Copper. It is like trying to get high speed rail to work on the existing rail network, where things like level crossings are danager, the corners aren’t banked correctly, and the rail isn’t maintained enought to maintain a consistant distance between the tracks. FTTN is what was developed for the Telecomications when the only service needed to be deployed was voice.”

            FUD, false and incorrect

            Internet does work on copper fine, otherwise we wouldn’t be using copper for internet. Obviously its not as good as fiber, but saying it doesn’t work is completely ignorant and misleading. Corporations like Siemans (Phantom DSL) are continuously providing technologies to give improved services over copper

            Upgrading fiber to premise on a FTTC would be chaos since FTTC cabinets are not large enough, and furthermore the amount of cabinets that would have to be placed to service a country that has one of the lowest population densities would be ridiculous. The FTTC are literally small cabinets on the curb of every street with minimal amount of room for the cards (because they really have to be small, they service a ridiculously small area)

            “Stop thinking of the network for now, and for the future, the reasonable middle ground is FTTC, the smart choice is FTTP, and finally, the option you’re after, the cheap and nasty plan is FTTN.”
            Incorrect and misleading

            And stop making the assumption that without the NBN, the network will “freeze” and stay the way it is forever

            Reasonable middle ground is FTTN, that is what is being done globally in countries that don’t have ridiculous population densities (such as Singapore and Korea and Japan). America is doing FTTN/upgrading HFC, Europe is doing FTTN mixed with fiber deployment etc etc. FTTC is just stupid, its not being done anywhere. AT&T was doing it in America, realized how much of a waste it was (since its not really upgradeable) and moved back onto doing an FTTN. If you do an FTTC, you will be stuck with it, for likely forever. Its the most wasteful and stupid plan, and is barely being done anywhere (the closest thing being done is FTTB for MDU’s, and thats a different story)

            “So basicly, between us, we have determined we have two completely invalid plans, for different reasons, in tradditional debating forums the course of action would be to make concessions until we come to a middle ground that we are both happy with. Are you willing to do that, or are you going to continue to, like Turnbull, bash the NBN without any consideration for maybe, just maybe, you’ve got the wrong idea too?”

            This is NOT true

            Problem is that there is little evidence, whatsoever, that such speeds will be a requirement in every household (instead of what will most likely happen, as it is now, where you have a small minority of heavy users and everyone else using the slowest service”. You are assuming that speeds won’t naturally increase over time without the NBN, you are assuming that the NBN is REQUIRED to provide such speeds. Unless you have a crystal ball, you cannot predict that such speeds will be used as an average in every home, and more importantly, that the bandwidth is going to be used on applications that actually give returns to the government (and not just entertainment/gaming etc etc, which is the homes in Japan, Korea and Singapore predominantly use the FTTH for)

            Your premise is entirely correct, because the premise for NBN is that
            1. Such high bandwidths will be required for the bread and butter applications (not the entertainment) in the future
            2. If the NBN does not exist, current telecommunication development will freeze (historically has never hapenned) and that the market naturally (with government subsidies) will not be able to provide services as the demand increases
            3. Almost Every home user will be using 100mbits+ bandwidth in the future
            4. VDSL2 will be the last step in DSL advancement

            We don’t go around building highways everywhere, around Australia, in every street and corner for demand that “might come because I say so”. You deploy infrastructure where there is demand in a cost effective manner.

            There is however empiric evidence that this NBN will send telecommunication backwards in regards to affordability and pricing.

            Stop looking at this like a geek who is only happy with the fastest speed service (fiber)

            The FCC in America has already done a report on this (including projections for how internet will be used in the future) and its the complete opposite of what you are saying.

            What is certain about the NBN is it will put telecommunications backwards because no average person could even afford to use the “extra” services that the NBN will provide due to the massive increase in price for anything thats not the basic service. It will even increase the basic bread and butter service due to the global subsidy model its doing

          • “Internet does work on copper fine, otherwise we wouldn’t be using copper for internet. Obviously its not as good as fiber, but saying it doesn’t work is completely ignorant and misleading. Corporations like Siemans (Phantom DSL) are continuously providing technologies to give improved services over copper”

            And we thank Siemans for continuing to innovate with these technologies, without them the cost of bring the Internet would be prohibitative, and the kind of universal access we have come to enjoy would not exist. I’m not saying you can’t, I’m saying that it is making a technology do something it wasn’t designed to do, just because you don’t like the cost of doing it properly.

            In most other engineering professions, when you something like this, the risks associated with failure are such that you’re likely to end up killing someone if something goes wrong. So you simply don’t, telecommications, we’re lucky, high bandwidth commication such as broadband won’t cost any lifes, but it will be, and is, extremely unreiable and inconcistant.

            “Upgrading fiber to premise on a FTTC would be chaos since FTTC cabinets are not large enough, and furthermore the amount of cabinets that would have to be placed to service a country that has one of the lowest population densities would be ridiculous. The FTTC are literally small cabinets on the curb of every street with minimal amount of room for the cards (because they really have to be small, they service a ridiculously small area)”

            I am aware of this, and you are forgetting the population density in the majority of areas (sub-urban) isn’t actually that bad. We DO NOT HAVE THE POPULATION EVENLY DISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE COUNTRY. Another thing I seem to be constantly repeating hmm?

            “And stop making the assumption that without the NBN, the network will “freeze” and stay the way it is forever”

            I’m not making that assumption, I’m making the assumption that if “Real Action” there won’t be any significant changes to the shape of broadband market for 20 or so years. Which is something I cannot accept, and will not allow to happen. I am willing to look at options, like FTTC, and maybe FTTN if you can convince me (so far you haven’t) that it’s a good idea, or FTTH to a smaller footprint, or openning up the HFC network to more retail competitors, and many number of other options, and I have asked you, thrice now, to outlay your plan that maybe me happy, and addresses your concerns as well.

            Stop, please just stop, and READ my posts, you’ll notice I don’t care to much for the NBN either, however, you continue to make the assumption that I believe in the assumptions that the NBN has been made, do I have to spell it out for you? I have concerns, and I’m trying to make sure they are all addressed, and I am lookng at our options objectively from my field of refernece, which is IT.

            “Your premise is entirely correct, because the premise for NBN is that
            1. Such high bandwidths will be required for the bread and butter applications (not the entertainment) in the future
            2. If the NBN does not exist, current telecommunication development will freeze (historically has never hapenned) and that the market naturally (with government subsidies) will not be able to provide services as the demand increases
            3. Almost Every home user will be using 100mbits+ bandwidth in the future
            4. VDSL2 will be the last step in DSL advancement”

            To counter the above:

            1) I never made this assumption, afterall we can survice on a dail-up connection now, however the media enriched experience of the internet has increased, from photos requiring us to get broadband, to videos requiring us to get fast broadband, to high definition requiring us to get super-fast broadband. This tread I don’t see plateauing anytime soon.

            2) As stated, I don’t believe this, I just believe that it will be survealy restricted without government intervention, and that xDSL technologies, for the most part, are past their day.

            3) I said I predict we will need at least 20Mbps downstream (and 10Mbps upstream, maybe I should have mentioned that) by 2030. I’m not stupid enough to assume we need 100Mbps, I’m trying to be realistic here, but as I covered in point 1), the media enrichment of basic access is ever increasing. Did you know that basic browsing requirements in terms of data allowance have gone up 20 fold in the last decade? I could survice, happily, without any auxilary content, on 200MB a month in the year 2000, now I need 4GB just for my basic browsing needs, thanks to Facebook and all the photos on that Flicker and other sites, thanks to YouTube and TED. And this isn’t letting up anytime soon!

            4) I never made this assumption either, VDSL is the last step in DSL advancement that does not require some kind of restructure of instructure. For example, their are ring structures, which require new copper to be lain, their are new technologies which require another line to be run to the house in question… etc etc. Their might even be another version of VDSL that offers even better characteristics for the select few who live a few hundred meters from the exchange. But I don’t see any of these technologies really helping those on the fringes, those that even “Real Action” acknowledges to be a problem.

            “We don’t go around building highways everywhere, around Australia, in every street and corner for demand that “might come because I say so”. You deploy infrastructure where there is demand in a cost effective manner.”

            Which is wire fixed wireless solutions from Australian companies are being developed to service the remote and hard to service, but the assumption that just because their isn’t a high population their isn’t demand is false.

            I have said it on many occasions, maybe 93% fibre is optimisitic and zealous, and by the sounds of your concerns about costs, it probably is.

            “Stop looking at this like a geek who is only happy with the fastest speed service (fiber)”

            … Umm, yes, I’m a geek, but over the course of this conversation, as stated, I dunno twice in this post alone, I am willing to make concessions on concerns on viability provided they are future proof, address the concerns which I consider paramount, and most importantly, that you aren’t compeletely happy about either. Truth be told I would perfer a AON FTTH solution to be deployed over the next 6 weeks, at the cost of a few trillion dollars I’m sure, but as it stands with the NBN I have to wait up to 8 years, which I am unhappy about, and if I make any further concessions, I’ll be unhappy about them too.

            But let me point out something very important that I will not give up: I will not stop looking at this as a geek, because that is who I am, and always will be. And I want FTTH for when I’m forty (20 years), so that my kids can enjoy the freedoms of the Internet I’m fighting for right now, so I can show them how to game, so I can have the home I want with all the connectivity, and gadgets I could dream of. So, I’m going to look at this from one end, and you and others like you are going to look at it from the other, and you know what’ll happen if you start listening, as I have been to you (CVC is now on my radar, something I wasn’t aware of), we might reach some kind of… I don’t know… agreement?

            Oh, and:

            “The FCC in America has already done a report on this (including projections for how internet will be used in the future) and its the complete opposite of what you are saying.”

            How can you assert this when you seem to have no idea what I am saying?

            “America is doing FTTN/upgrading HFC, Europe is doing FTTN mixed with fiber deployment etc etc. FTTC is just stupid, its not being done anywhere. AT&T was doing it in America, realized how much of a waste it was (since its not really upgradeable) and moved back onto doing an FTTN.”

            Okay, 1) America, is doing a FTTP network at the moment, called FiOS, Google it. Yes, AT&T stopped FTTC, but they are one company, who were competing heavily with cable companies which at the time could provide better services for less. 2) FTTC is being done by BT in the United Kingdom, as based upon what I have read on Crown Fibre Holdings, in New Zealand as well.

            “There is however empiric evidence that this NBN will send telecommunication backwards in regards to affordability and pricing.”

            No, it will stagnate pricing, and MAYBE increase quotas, it will not increase pricing by the projections I’ve read, and it will actually IMPROVE affordiablity cause we won’t have people who can only get the MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE Wireless solutions like NextG. But I’m nitpicking aren’t I? Oh wait, that’s what you’re doing too.

          • “I am aware of this, and you are forgetting the population density in the majority of areas (sub-urban) isn’t actually that bad. We DO NOT HAVE THE POPULATION EVENLY DISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE COUNTRY. Another thing I seem to be constantly repeating hmm?”

            False, incorrect

            Population density of Sydney (most densely populated area in Australia) is ~2200 km^2, Seoul is 17000, Singapore is 7000 and Cities in Japan vary from 3000-10000. So even in that tiny area of where Australians live, we are spaced out more then a stoned monkey (Australia has a massive amount of large properties and very few MDU’s)

            ” I never made this assumption, afterall we can survice on a dail-up connection now, however the media enriched experience of the internet has increased, from photos requiring us to get broadband, to videos requiring us to get fast broadband, to high definition requiring us to get super-fast broadband. This tread I don’t see plateauing anytime soon.”

            This trend shouldn’t be payed for completely by the government (even subsidies raises eyebrows). This is for entertainment, not basic essential services. If you want entertainment fine, private companies should pay for that (and they will if there is a market in it)

            “i’m not making that assumption, I’m making the assumption that if “Real Action” there won’t be any significant changes to the shape of broadband market for 20 or so years.”
            Which is also an assumption, and a very “expensive” one. In my opinion this is the equivalent of gambling (or investing in the .com boom)

            “No, it will stagnate pricing, and MAYBE increase quotas, it will not increase pricing by the projections I’ve read, and it will actually IMPROVE affordiablity cause we won’t have people who can only get the MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE Wireless solutions like NextG. But I’m nitpicking aren’t I? Oh wait, that’s what you’re doing too.”

            The actual costs of CVC charges in the business case say otherwise, even Simon Hackett stated this (although he seems to be arguing on the premise that CVC charges are so high due to the POI increase, even though if the POI’s did not increase then the CVC would have been changed to be even higher, NBNCo needs to get a flat amount of money to pay for the debt through CVC).

            Im telling you, financially this argument that it will just “stall” and “slightly” slow down quotas and whatnot is looking through a rose tinted glass. I have shown links for the costs, they are not in any way “slight”, they are incredibly massive, and the only way to get around that is to turn Telstra into a monopolistic ISP (again) so they can globally leverage CVC costs. Here are the costs
            12/1 Mbit – 30G $35.00
            25/5 Mbit – 30G $45.00
            50 Mbit – 60G $60.00
            100 Mbit – 60G $70.00
            250 Mbit – 200G $150.00
            500 Mbit – 200G $200.00
            1000 Mbit – 1000G $325.00

            12/1 Mbit – 100G $55.00
            25/5 Mbit – 100G $65.00
            50 Mbit – 200G $100.00
            100 Mbit – 200G $110.00
            250 Mbit – 1000G $400.00
            500 Mbit – 1000G $450.00
            1000 Mbit – 3000G $950.00

            They also completely ignore backhaul costs for ISP’s to provide bandwidth, the interconnection fees, and the bundling of phone line service. And NBNCo, being a monopoly, we have no choice but to pay those (inflated) prices

            “How can you assert this when you seem to have no idea what I am saying?”
            I was talking about the FCC saying that its easily possible for the private enterprise to deliver the broadband required with minimal government is possible by upgrading and re-utilizing current networks.

            “I never made this assumption either, VDSL is the last step in DSL advancement that does not require some kind of restructure of instructure.”
            This is also not true, VDSL2 doesn’t use all available bandwith on the copper pair nor does it prevent all the crosstalk. Further improvements do exist

            “Okay, 1) America, is doing a FTTP network at the moment, called FiOS, Google it. Yes, AT&T stopped FTTC, but they are one company, who were competing heavily with cable companies which at the time could provide better services for less. 2) FTTC is being done by BT in the United Kingdom, as based upon what I have read on Crown Fibre Holdings, in New Zealand as well.”

            Verizons FTTH stopped for commercial reasons, and guess what, its market print (the amount of people it services) is a PINPRICK. Again download the FCC report here
            http://download.broadband.gov/plan/national-broadband-plan.pdf

            Go to page 20

            You will see that compared to upgrades of HFC, FTTN (and other deployments), the FTTH deployment done by Verizon is minuscule. They also stopped doing it because it would financially kill them, furthermore for their (last) deployments they had to resort to the cheapest method, aerial deployment on poles

            The most logical solution is a government/private industry development of FTTN, which can be upgraded to an FTTH. FTTC is a stupid solution, and there is a reason why companies stopped doing it.

            Either that, or get the private entertainment and IT companies to do some robin tax to provide the capital for an exchange to fiber network without people having to pay for it (via government bonds or direct tax payer funds)

          • “False, incorrect”

            “Population density of Sydney (most densely populated area in Australia) is ~2200 km^2, Seoul is 17000, Singapore is 7000 and Cities in Japan vary from 3000-10000. So even in that tiny area of where Australians live, we are spaced out more then a stoned monkey (Australia has a massive amount of large properties and very few MDU’s)”

            No. Actually I’m right on this. And Population Density, In Sydney, is increasing as well, or having you noticed all the townhouses and apartments popping up? Let’s take some examples:

            Population Density of Urban New York City is 2,098.7/km2. And that majority of these premises will have an HFC connection.
            Population Density of Los Angles is 3,168/km2. And the majority of these premises will have an HFC connection.
            Population Density of Kyoto is 1,779/km2. And the majority of these premises will have a FTTH connection.
            Population Density of Frankfurt is 2,706 /km2. And the majority of these premises will have an HFC connection.

            Most damning of these examples has to be Kyoto, as you used Japan as example of an extremely dense population, when Kyoto says this isn’t always the case now is it?

            “This trend shouldn’t be payed for completely by the government (even subsidies raises eyebrows). This is for entertainment, not basic essential services. If you want entertainment fine, private companies should pay for that (and they will if there is a market in it)”

            I don’t want the government to pay for it completely, nor does the NBN (however I think we can pay for less) however the assumption that is all for entertainment is false, there is also a very positive aspect to it in terms of businesses by offering them a lower tier access point for super-fast broadband (which they need). The government has also melded in other entertainment issues, or did you forget it recently told everyone to get the hell off analog airways so we can auction them? Or how ACMA ratings for various entertainment media, I mean the government could just leave it self regulate like they do in the United States right? I’m sorry, but like it not, this is now a politcal issue, deal with it.

            “The most logical solution is a government/private industry development of FTTN, which can be upgraded to an FTTH. FTTC is a stupid solution, and there is a reason why companies stopped doing it.”

            And yet BT in the UK is doing FTTC, or did you decide to completely ignore that side of my post because it doesn’t fit with your agruments?

            Okay putting that aside, and reading further into Crown Fibre Holdings, (I thought they were encouraging FTTC, but it seems I was wrong) I would much prefer that approach, which is, and it is decepitively simple: we want to give each home a 100Mbps/50Mbps connection, we don’t care how it’s done. Of course, they’ve noted that Singapore and us have settled on FTTH, and rightly quote Singapore and us as example of how to achieve this mandate.

            In fact this is exactly the idea I have been pushing: modify the USO, split Telstra, force them to open up their HFC network to retail competition, and then say “everyone in Australia must have 10/2 by 2015, with 80% of the nation having access services in excess of 100/50 by 2025. Here is a couple of billion dollars.”

            And I must apologise, but the reason I quoted FiOS in the first place because they have made waves in the technology industry for being a striking innovation, etc, etc. Just like the NBN has been.

            “This is also not true, VDSL2 doesn’t use all available bandwith on the copper pair nor does it prevent all the crosstalk. Further improvements do exist”

            And how much extra speed do you think using the full spectrum aviable to us, even when we consider the fact that the spectrum available to you deceases with distance, will gain us? How much extra bandwidth do you think we can force out of the cable by reducing crosstalk? Not much, that’s grasping at straws. Innovative, yes, cool, yes, but just replace it with fibre and be done with it. You’ll have to replace it with another copper pair in another 5-35 years or so anyway!

            The majority of telecommications infrasture has moved away from voice and into data, Telecoms should be embracing this fact and utialisting technologies that embrace this fact. I mean we already have FTTH in new estates.

            “I’m telling you, financially this argument that it will just “stall” and “slightly” slow down quotas and whatnot is looking through a rose tinted glass. I have shown links for the costs, they are not in any way “slight”, they are incredibly massive, and the only way to get around that is to turn Telstra into a monopolistic ISP (again) so they can globally leverage CVC costs. Here are the costs:”

            I’m curious as to what contention ratio this particular indivdual used and weither he experimented with different contention ratios to show the difference between “standard” and “premium” services. Cause all I see is a cross reference here of prices. I’m not saying they are wrong, it’s just I came up with slightly less figures, and I would like to see a better anaylsis than the one presented.

            No offence, but just throwing a whole load of prices at me and saying “these are the prices” isn’t very reputable. Afterall as I said I did come up with a different anaylasis, and in my anaylsis it wasn’t that bad.

            There is also a deeper concern here, one which I think you need to fathom, if we ackonwledge to upgrades to the network are required, then the contiued drop of pricing (and thus the associated drop in margins by ISPs) will only serve to complicate matters when it comes to any upgrade. Pricing will thus need to level off at some point, otherwise we are going to get a sudden rise in pricing as the next technology comes along. This is unavoidable, and might be what is happening with the NBN.

            And I’m still waiting for your alternative plan. Where is it? Have you written it? Thought about it? Considered the issues? Asked a sample of people across country weither it addresses the issues they consider important? Posted it on the web or sent it to a news paper? Had Mr Turnbull or Mr Conroy look over it? Because I’m still waiting, and youre still ripping apart the NBN, which I have already acknowledged is flawed.

            In fact, I am tired of this agruement, because right now we’re agruing:

            1) Do we need to do anything at all, which I fundamentally think yes, and you, it seems fundamentally think no. This is an impasse, and will mean no matter how hard we try and go over the issues we will conflict because we are coming from completely different sides, and I honestly have better things to do.

            2) How bad is the CVC issue? I think it will result in stagnation of pricing and might have detrimental affects to competition, and you think it will destablise the broadband industry and put us back half a decade, and will require us to form a retail monoploy to leverage it.

            3) FTTN vs FTTC, which is fundementally related to point 1), FTTN requires less effort, and is therefore the cheaper, and safer option, you also think that FTTC can’t be upgraded (sound familar? You were saying I thought that ADSL2+ won’t be upgraded, and that is false), whereas FTTC requires more effort and has more associated risk.

            4) Australia is a special case. Well we both seem to think this and have come to different conclusions, both, again, related to fundamental point 1). You think that because we have a distributed population, concentrated in a few areas, that we should consider technologies that better suit the distributed nature of our population, such as FTTN. I on the other hand think that all that our distributed population means is that we will have to invest more in order to get the results Australia Needs.

            5) And this is by far the most important reason why this will be my final post, I have asked you continously to provide constructive developments, and all you wish to do is rip apart me, the NBN, and even go so far as to point out that the readers of Delimiter are out of touch, and are only thinking about the speed, and not the cost (which is false, I have considered the cost quite seriously, I have just had little time to digest much of the information presented to me like the CVC costs). So, like I have asked Mr Turnbull, where is your alternative? And by this, I don’t mean that you can just point at “Real Action” and say “there” I mean, have you seriously heard I thing I have said, or have you dismissed it off cuff? Because so far, you have not demonstrated to me that you are taking me at all seriously, apart from your continuted replies.

          • I’ve been resisting returning here, simply to become involved in more slanging matches, with the usual NBN nay-saying FUDsters (some who strangely sound identical to others at ZD, but go by different names here, LOL, eh?), but…

            deteego, why don’t you tell everyone here those magical FUDged figures, you tried to pass off as factual over at ZD, relating to per head/household?????

            Also also tell everyone here, how you (the keeper of all wisdom [sic]) argued with about 6 different posters because you claimed (and have never retracted, LOL) that the Senate was the house of parliament which forms government, LOL….?????

            Then you expect us to believe the rest of your biased FUD? LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

          • Also here is someone who has done costs of the CVC charges

            “I have not included the following:
            1) Telephone line rental being bundled, and how that will play on retail prices.
            2) Minimum of $60k per month of Interconnection fees ($500av x 120 POIs)
            3) 120x Backhaul from POIs to the ISPs POP (estimate absolute minimum of 200k per month).”
            http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1602178&p=13#r245

            In other words, the CVC charges are freaking ridiculous, even on conservative estimates. And this is completely against the trend of telecommunications nationally, where internet prices have been plumetting (as they have in Australia) and quotas skyrocketing

          • I love the new plan! I live 15km from my exchange. The max I’ve seen is 2mb/s. I paid 100 bucks for 100gb but I only use 40gb usually shared by 3 persons in my house.

            We need speed. Not quota.

          • Long time ago I was using ADSL 256kbps. I had unlimited quota. Guess what? we took a new ADSL2+ for less quota. Now ISP is offering crazy 500gb quota. I cant even finish my 100gb quota.

            NBN is doing the greatest thing if u ask me.

          • Forgot to ask.. If we went with Liberal’s wireless, wouldn’t we get even less quota? just comparing the price for copper and wireless now. Wireless quota is much more expensive than copper. If we have had wireless, we probably have a few GB of quote with less speed than fiber!

          • 60k a month for CVC? Is that all deteego?
            I’ve seen the bills a couple of years ago for some small and midsized ISP’s for a single gigabit link.
            You could buy a house with it. Every month.

          • Those prices are 1:1 contention what it costs the ISP to deliver the service, in the real world contention exists. Telephone rental is insignificant as you already have the AVC, just deliver it over VoIP for peanuts.

            This is also buying the CVC at 1:1 from NBNco, there will certainly be resellers suchas PIPE / Amcom / Nextgen / Powertell who will resell CVC with contention ratios at much cheaper prices.

            Also note, Jason’s ISP will have a very high cost base as it owns zero infastructure, many other ISP’s, even small fry like Exetel will have a much better cost base, nevermind Telstra, TPG, Optus and iiNet.

  39. @Alain @Revoltedtaxpayer and the other couple of naysayers on here:

    You are making much noise about the Government spending all this money on this project. So, needs aside, lets just concentrate on the money.

    First, the total cost of the project (from a taxpayer perspective) is totally irrelevant. The only relevant numbers are the Government contribution, the return and the final value of the network. The Libs didn’t even give a total cost of their policy, just the Govt contribution to it.

    So, the total gross Govt contribution is $27 billion over 10 years. But (assuming KPMG can add up), this entire amount, plus 6-7%pa ‘interest’ will be returned over 25 years. So, unlike other typical Govt spending, the entire contribution will be paid back, with interest. On top of that, the Govt will own a highly valuable asset which (although I disagree) can be sold, bringing in even more cash for the taxpayer.

    To draw an analogy, it would be like the Govt putting $27bn in a bank account for 25 years, earning 7% interest, and then being given a ~$30bn bonus at the end as well.

    To top it off, the NBN will employ 30,000 Australians during the build phase, which will return a further ~$600,000,000pa in income tax to the federal Govt. Taking their net contribution down another $5+billion, plus the additional GST and business tax income that will also result.

    Even if we are extremely pessimistic and assume construction cost blow outs halve the return, we will still be left with a incredibly valuable and well used asset at zero net cost to the taxpayer. For a Govt infrastructure build, it doesn’t get much better than that.

  40. You failed to mention that the NBN business plan is relying on a minimum 70% takeup rate nationally.
    In the Tasmanian trial, which has been heavily subsidised by the Government, the takeup rate is less than 20%.
    So the Government’s answer is to give a listed company, Telstra, $11,000,000,000 of taxpayers money to migrate all of their customers onto the NBN, and then to create an artificially high number of POIs (120), which will absolutely limit the number of ISPs who can enter the market (don’t take my word for it, Simon Hackett has said it all before).
    AND, still worried that competition might hinder Telstra, oops sorry, I mean the NBN, the Government is doing it’s damndest to outlaw competition by forcing any network that is built to Wholesale at NBN rates.
    There is a right way and a wrong way to build infrastructure. I’ll let others infinitely more wise than myself decide if this is the right way.
    Just think, Telstra has always fought tooth and nail to avoid structural separation, and retain control of it’s assets. With this proposal, they are saying “yes please, bring it all on asap!”.
    What does that say to you?

    • Because of the reasons you mentioned, the NBN will have no problem achieving a 70% takeup rate.

      But, even without the deal (only some of which relates to decommissioning copper, while the remainder is long term lease of duct/pole infrastructure), I doubt there would be an issue achieving that sort of takeup eventually. Tasmania is a unique case in that it was a trial network deployed in generally low socio-economic areas. Even their connection rates were low compared to most of the mainland sites which are getting over 75%. Of course, service rates are not yet available for those areas.

      The other point is that you’re talking about adoption rates for the NBN *right now*, just 6 months after a small trial network was activated, 3 months before a federal election that could have made it all redundant. But what will the natural rate be in 10 years? I’d suggest that if you looked at ADSL adoption rates for the first 6 months after it was made available, you’d find takeup similar to the Tassie NBN levels. Now, just 8 years later, it’s almost universal (where available).

      The POI issue is debatable from both sides of the coin, and so is a compromise directed by the ACCC. Smaller ISPs wanted the NBN’s 14 proposal, while bigger ISPs like Telstra wanted 500. The ACCC made a compromise decision which minimised the amount of existing backhaul which would be overbuilt, while still minimising the cost of entry for new players. Whichever way they went, their would be winners and losers.

      The Government is not forcing any competitors to wholesale at NBN rates, they are forcing them to provide a wholesale only, open access network. Just as they should.

      Comparing the NBN to Telstra is ridiculous. NBN is an open access, wholesale-only network. Telstra was a massive, vertically-integrated monopoly. They owned the infrastructure and the retail business. They prevented smaller competitors from using their gear, so they could keep their retail prices high. Their objective is to make a profit for their shareholders. NBN are happy to just break even, plus the bond rate.

      • Hi haztechdad,

        I wasn’t attempting to compare the NBN to Telstra, and if it came across that way I apologise for my poorly worded comment.

        I am attempting to compare what Telstra will become under the NBN to Godzilla.
        -Unmatched International capacity on multiple cable systems (which they already have)
        -Unmatched domestic backhaul (already have fibre in the ground) to connect to 120 POIs at no incremental cost other than CVC.
        -An $11 Billion dollar warchest, funded by the taxpayer, and they will still collect lease payments on the duct access from NBN on top of that.
        -An agreement with the Government (under Kevin Rudd) of which the Govt is refusing FOI requests for. What else are they promised under that agreement? Volume discounts perhaps? Who knows, certainly not the public. Where’s Julian Assange when you need him?

        I support the notion of more widespread broadband, at the expense of the taxpayer, where it is needed, and where it does not damage the competitive market.

        I think that even the biggest NBN supporters on this site would have to admit that the NBN, in it’s current proposed form, is not good for competition in this country.

        An article that Renai published recently re Gerry Harvey was inundated with comments about the great deals people were getting via competition on the Internet, and that Harvey Norman was an antiquated dinosaur being rightly destroyed by competition.

        I find it interesting that those same people come on here day in day out praising the NBN, while choosing to ignore the fact it will reduce the number of ISPs with the financial ability to compete with Telstra.

      • “Of course, service rates are not yet available for those areas.”

        No indeed, it’s one thing to quote the connection rate which is based on the ‘it’s free why not’ principle, then to quote active sign up rates with the four ISP’s in Australia selling it. ie NOT Optus NOT Bigpond.

        “Now, just 8 years later, it’s almost universal (where available).”

        It is?? – I appreciate the need for time travel here, otherwise you are just guessing with two fingers crossed.

        “The Government is not forcing any competitors to wholesale at NBN rates, they are forcing them to provide a wholesale only, open access network. Just as they should.”

        Err what? – there is only ONE wholesaler of the NBN product, the NBN Co which is a government owned monopoly just like Telstra was, I think you have your wires crossed (again).

        “‘They (Telstra) prevented smaller competitors from using their gear, so they could keep their retail prices high.”

        Huh they did? – and the relationship to high retail prices escapes me.

        “NBN are happy to just break even, plus the bond rate.”

        They are? – what bond rate? – where does this piece of fantasy come from?

        • alain (I can’t get used to that, I’m so used to calling you advocate at ZD) and your possible many other aliases, LOL… As usual you say a lot but say absolutely nothing. Nothing but baseless contrived FUD… that is!

          1. HazTechDad said – “Of course, service rates are not yet available for those areas.”

          alain (advocate) to HTD – “No indeed, it’s one thing to quote the connection rate which is based on the ‘it’s free why not’ principle, then to quote active sign up rates with the four ISP’s in Australia selling it. ie NOT Optus NOT Bigpond”.

          RS to alain – Once again you ignore the common sense view, that people are currently on contracts (are you???) which dissuade them from actually becoming NBN customers immediately, but not from having it connected…!

          2.HTD – “Now, just 8 years later, it’s almost universal (where available).”

          a – “It is?? – I appreciate the need for time travel here, otherwise you are just guessing with two fingers crossed”.

          RS – and a CBA is…a Crystal ball? Nostradamus? Or guessing with two fingers? Even though Graeme Samuel (the non-political) head of the ACCC said, “he doesn’t think an NBN CBA is possible”…you want one!

          3. HTD – “The Government is not forcing any competitors to wholesale at NBN rates, they are forcing them to provide a wholesale only, open access network. Just as they should.”

          a – “Err what? – there is only ONE wholesaler of the NBN product, the NBN Co which is a government owned monopoly just like Telstra was, I think you have your wires crossed (again)”.

          RS – yes HTD seems to have his wholesale/retail mixed up, which is understandable when looking at the mishmash BS we have now, Telstra being a wholesaler with monopoly last mile, retailing to itself?

          This makes your comparison foolishly incorrect alain, as NBNCo is “nothing like” Telstra was and is ultimately fairer, being “wholesaler only”. This leaves the retailers to “conduct their core business of competitively retailing” in relation to comms NOT construction of networks (again I ask, how many runways and/or planes do QANTAS build?)!

          4. HTD – “‘They (Telstra) prevented smaller competitors from using their gear, so they could keep their retail prices high.”

          a – “Huh they did? – and the relationship to high retail prices escapes me”.

          RS – YES THEY DID and were fined $18.55m for doing so. Anyone who knows even the basics about comms knows this, so…

          It is sadly apparent that a lot of things, especially facts, escape you alain…!

          5. HTD – “NBN are happy to just break even, plus the bond rate.”

          a – They are? – what bond rate? – where does this piece of fantasy come from?

          RS – Once again anyone who knows anything (so not you) would be aware that at the initial announcement of the NBN, Conroy spoke of bonds.

          And if that was, and still is, the plan, then they must (as HTD said) be happy at that, eh?

          Obviously, the only fantasy here alain is your incessantly incorrect, anti-NBN fantasy, which you circulate under at least two (and perhaps many other) names… as only a true FUDster could or would…LOL!

          • Correction for the pedantic…

            3. should read “retailing itself”, not “to” itself!

  41. Somebody give the man a 56K modem and let those of us who appreciate technology keep doing what we’re doing.

    • “Somebody give the man a 56K modem and let those of us who appreciate technology keep doing what we’re doing.”

      AMEN!

      • Those that ‘appreciate’ technology don’t mind it as long as they don’t have to pay for it.

        • alain, it is impossible to work out why you are sniping from your comments. You don’t want to see tax money wasted, you don’t want to see infrastructure built that will not be used by people, you don’t want to see big companies given a leg up by the taxpayer at the expense of smaller players.

          So far, you have made the case for the NBN, not against it.

          The government continues to fail to educate the electorate into what the NBN is, what it isn’t, what it will mean to household budgets, including pensioners as well as taxpayers.

          Here’s the problem: 40% of Australians, including many in large towns and cities, cannot get broadband today. Fifteen years of competition have delivered fast speeds to high-profit areas, dragged the chain getting basic services to some towns, and neglected nearly half the population. The ABS reports that 50% of ADSL connections never deliver more than 2 Mbps, even though we pay for “up to 24 Mbps”. No wonder almost 90% of the people in first release fibre sites where community groups ran education campaigns have taken up the NBN.

          By laying fibre to large towns and cities, the NBN can also deliver 12 Mbps wireless to 97% of Australians. The cost of $27 billion over a decade is under $25 a month per taxpayer. The average taxpayer spends $80 or more each month on phone and internet. Make more calls and you spend much more. Use more data and you spend much more. For around $50 a month, NBN customers will get unlimited national phone calls and 50GB of data delivered at 12 Mbps. Health card holders will pay the same as now for a phone service, but with unlimited national calls. $50 NBN plus $25 extra tax is less than the $80 you pay now, but you get more.

          Mister Turnbull promises wireless-only everywhere for $6 billion. This was tried in 2006-07 and found to actually cost close to $20 billion, because without offloading the heaviest data onto fixed fibre, you need 60,000 wireless towers. If everyone is on wireless then bandwidth is rationed, making data expensive. Fibre to premises is actualy what makes universal wireless work, and why the NBN is the cheapest, greenest and fairest way to deliver broadband to the 7 million Aussies lacking it today.

          • First of all Francis it is interesting you make the comment that anyone who has the audacity to criticise the NBN is ‘sniping’ as distinct from those that support it who no matter how outrageous the claim are ok of course.

            You are correct the Government has failed to make a case, the reason being it doesn’t have a case to sell, all the whizz bang crap about higher speeds and the need for multiple IPTV streaming and movie downloads per household supported by a taxpayer funded multi billion dollar infrastructure is ludicrous.

            I see you used the lower figure of $27 billion in your NBN calculation instead of the correct figure of $43 billion, don’t forget to include the taxpayer billions being given to Telstra and Optus for their customer base because the NBN needs to be propped up, what better way is there than to buy the two biggest ISP’s in Australia customer base eh?

            I don’t have a problem with FTTH as such, if media companies, ISP’s, Telco’s etc want to sell me IPTV or a movie download service let them build it, I will then decide if I want their product.

            Oh that’s right we already have two companies that did that, Optus and Telstra with their HFC rollout in the most highest population density high income suburbs in our biggest capital cities, it failed because not enough customers WANTED THE SERVICES! – funny that eh?

            Somehow magically a similar infrastructure rollout labeled NBN will make people get all excited about paying a monthly fee for multiple IPTV streaming and multiple per household movie downloads etc – not that there was any proper survey on need done before the NBN was announced because the result would not look to good, and it would hard to justify it.

            But we ( the Government) know what’s best for you, and the tax burden on this turkey will be felt for generations!

            That’s the primary ‘household budget’ you should be concerned about.

          • The speed arguement for FTTH infrastructure is unfortunately the only one the layman can understand, as I have stated before. It’s the only thing the government THINKS it can use to sell the project. But in all honestly, we all know if you do that, a few people will cry foul, as you have and stratch their heads.

            It is about UNIVERSAL ACCESS. This means that everybody gets a consistant level of access no matter where they live, for a reasonable amount. You cannot deny that the Internet has become and esstienal part of our day to day lives, and as such ensuring that everyone has access should be a priority of the government.

            Is FTTH a little bit overkill means to that end? Well yes, and no. Yes, right now, giving people the option of 1Gbps/400Mbps connection is a bit overkill. Very few home owners will be able to use all of that bandwidth (althrough a large percentage of businesses will find the bandwidth useful). But if you decide on a “good minimum” of 12Mbps, as both parties have, then you actually need to ensure that you actually deliever that “minmum”. Under the Coalitions Broadband Policy, we won’t get that “minimum”, but under the NBN we will. And we will also have capacity for future growth.

            The other agruement for the NBN is UPLOADS. Familes are now uploading more than ever before, home videos, photos, etc. And unfortunately the current infrastructure is unable to cope for this. Until recently their was an assumption that their would be nothing of siginfiance to upload from a home. This is even worse for businesses who can only get ADSL2+, because businesses always need to upload a large amount of data.

            The figure of $27b is how much the government has decided to commit, in the form of bonds, to the project. The rest of the money is meant to be raised by investments and operational revenue, including the Telstra deal. The $43b amount is the actual cost of the project. Also the deal is only to Telstra, not Optus.

            We have tired to let them build FTTH. In fact they have been in new estates for a while now (where the developer has the foresight to think of it that is, which isn’t often). However, unfortunately, because it is a natural monoploy, the only company with the market pressene to justify a phased rollout of FTTH infrastructure is Telstra, anyone else would have to compete heavily with them and would end up losing because in order to price competively they will need to write off their construction costs. . JUST LIKE TELSTRA AND OPTUS BOTH DID WITH THEIR HFC NETWORKS. Unless the entity has other income, that means they will go bust as well.

            So it wasn’t about not enough customers WANTING THE SERVICE as you suggested, it’s about the fact they can’t enter the market without presenting a price to the customer that will be considered unreasonable considering the increase in “speed” provided by the new infrastructure. So it’s about not enough customers wanting the service AT THE PRICE PRESENTED WHEN COMPARED TO ALTERNATIVE BUT INFERIOR OPTIONS. I ask you, how much do you expect to pay for an increase from 30Mbps HFC to 10Mbps FTTH? It’ll be in the order of $5 – $20/m, which isn’t enough to pay off the cost of building the network.

            So the government decided, and decided correctly: we can only win the price battle if we chose not to play. And we’ll do that by forcing Telstra to migrate their customers. As I have stated before, if you like it not, this has become a politcal issue, and as such a poltical solution to the problem will happen. As I have stated before, althrough the NBN is a case of overkill for the problem, the Coalition’s Broadband Plan is worse than DOING NOTHING to fix the problem.

            As I have stated before, please, as I have been thinking about for quite a while (and I think I have a fairly manageable idea forming) instead of slagging the NBN for doing it wrong, which they are, I admit, but not because they are ofterning to much speed, not even because they are spending billions, but because they have commited to a course of action where too much can go wrong. If you want an example, take the floods. They have all but derailed the NBN because the public considers the project to be a luxury spending, not an essitenal service. Instead of slagging the NBN, come up with a better idea and campaign to make THAT happen.

            Surely, if you have enough time to repeatively comment on articles re the NBN across the web you’ll have time to put together an alternative plan. And I look forward to reading it, and debating the merits of it.

  42. Is there any chance Delimiter could install an “alain filter”? It would work exactly the same as Senator Controy’s proposed internet filter, but rather than block RC material, it would simply block all bullshit that comes from alain’s mouth (i.e. everything) . I’ve read enough of his posts to know that they all follow the same mindless coalition propaganda formula, so there’s really no point me being subjected to his nonsense any further.

    • If that’s the best you can do SR with a ‘play the man not the ball’ strategy (when all else fails, and it does) then I have nothing to worry about whatever – thanks.

    • Simon, we understand your frustrations at having to sit through the lies and ramblings of FUDCo…

      But to be fair, everyone (even baseless FUDsters) are allowed an opinion, so let’s, let alain have his say. That doesn’t mean we can’t correct his mistruths and ignorance, when delivered as fact, not as simple opinion though, as he ultimately and incorrectly does.

      And most importantly, where else would we get our side-splitting laughs…?

      • You’re right of course. My comments were obviously a little on the facetious side and I agree that our good friend Alain is frequently the source of much amusement. However I’m getting a little sick of my inbox clogging up with his same tired old arguments that have been unequivocally debunked by yourself and others here on numerous occasions.

        It feels like trying to argue with a fundamentalist Christian about evolution vs creation. No matter how many scientific facts you present to them that squash their arguments flat, they will still continue to spew forwarth the same old onsense and cherry pick data that only supports what they want to beleive.

        Ultimately these people can’t be reasoned with as they are so brainwashed that they are incapable of ever acknowledging the validity of anything you have to say and equally as incapable of ever admitting that they are wrong.

        Can you imagine Alain ever admitting he was ver wrong about anything? No, neither can I.

        • “same tired old arguments that have been unequivocally debunked by yourself and others here on numerous occasions.”

          They have?? – I must have blinked and missed them.

          “No matter how many scientific facts you present to them”

          What facts are you referring to here? – you never address the content of my posts but go for the lazy option of ‘playing the man’ with emotive waffle.

          The rest of your post is just no fact off topic rant, you make counter argument so easy because you don’t present anything new of substance to argue with, we end up not even discussing the topic at all.

      • “Simon, we understand your frustrations at having to sit through the lies and ramblings of FUDCo…”

        Not that you ever pointed them out, but never mind merely ‘saying it’ is enough it seems.

        “That doesn’t mean we can’t correct his mistruths and ignorance,”

        I wouldn’t mind if you did, but you never do so it’s a moot point.

        As I said, I have nothing to worry about if that’s the best you can come up with..

        • At last you respond to me alain/advocate… LOL! I have been prodding for about a week (and you pretend I haven’t)!

          I note with interest that neither your (nor advocate at ZD) have refuted my claims that you are one in the same, disgracefully spreading your FUD under different personas!

          Well it’s pretty hard when you…

          Look like

          Sound like

          Smell like

          Good thing I didn’t tread in you…!

          So anyway, where would you like to start (there’s a sporting gesture – you pick) with the dissection of your BS…?

          The NBN monopoly, be careful you don’t contradict yourself AGAIN…

          RFP to build the NBN (which you wrongly call FTTN tender).

          The HFC network bleeding million but then being used as competitiveness bliss, when that suits…Another of those contradictions..

          You name it and lets start (since it’s taken you a week to even raise the courage to respond) the “easy debunking of your bunkum (FUD)”.

          Well…!

          • Anyway alain/advocate, gotta fly (for now, have an appointment) so say phew, when I don’t immediately reply, because your dissection (if you so choose) like that at ZD, will occur A G A I N, so choose wisely and cya soon!

          • 10:30, in fact 22:30 as in the pm… yes what a night owl I am, eh, phew?

            But trolling? No… you?

            I love the way the FUDsters jump in to snipe/flame, but as soon as someone does it to them (or their FUD clones) and especially if you challenge them to put up or shut up, they turn to water and claim, “troll”…LOL!

            Speaking of LOL – from the LOL files… the irony and hypocrisy of you comment is, that you your self are trolling me, which has obviously gone over your head and eluded you…! Anyway, for ALL the dummies…

            alain made accusations that I had “not”, said/done particular things, when I had. So I am now sipmly making it abundantly clear, even to those sadly lacking basic comprehension skills, that if he wants to debate, well – here I am (and most tellingly, for one previously so vocal… here, he isn’t)!

            You think calling me a troll will save your buddy? But don’t you think it, at best odd, but at worst, downright dishonest that a person would and does, post comments under more than one name?

            Or is that you A G A I N alain (persona 3, desperately trying to rescue persona 2 …OMG) as I have noticed the mysteriously named “me”, who sounds just like you (pun intended) alain and advocate, has magically appeared since you disappeared, LOL? We already know that you post under many different names, so…

            Keep up the games “boys” (oops I mean boy), as your baseless FUD is continually and “easily” disproved and you desperately resort to more and more, BS!

          • It would appear that #1 Delimiter/ZD FUDster alain/advocate, who is normally here trolling, sniping and flaming baseless antiNBN FUD and lies… is in hiding/MIA, since he “obviously” is refusing to debate the issues with me, as I kindly offered, 2 days ago!

            Let’s hope that poor alain/advocate, hasn’t fallen over the edge of his flat world…!

          • Thank god, alain/advocate hasn’t fallen off the edge of his flat world after all phew…

            But what a reply… LOL!

            That would explain why you don’t respond to deteego, revoltedtaxpayer and of course alain/advocate, but mine was a simple offer to debate the issues, which I would have thought someone who claims to know a lot about comms (LOL!!!!!!!!!!!) would relish. Particularly if you could put someone like me in my place, with that wisdom [sic] of yours!

            But alas you cannot, so you simply continue to run and hide…

            Very odd for one who “was previously” so opinionated (even without any factual basis for being so) and ready to tell others, with snide innuendo and sarcasm, just how it is 24/7…

            Considering this, for you now to cower like a cur, is quite amusing…?

  43. Well put, NightKhaos.

    Simon Reidy, I wish you’d tell us what you really think. :-)

    alain, my apologies for characterising your scattergun ad hominen one-liners as sniping. They are obviously the deeply considered constructive thoughts of a well-informed contributor to public discourse.

    Mister Turnbull thinks the NBN cost is $27 billion, too, alain.

    On his live blog on The Australian website about a week before Christmas, Mister Turnbull disagreed with a questioner who said the NBN capital cost was $50 billion and should include the progressive payments to Telstra. Turnbull stated that the capex is indeed $35 billion, and that the lease arrangements and customer transfer fees are legitimately considered operational expenses. Of this, $27 billion will be funded by government over ten years, and the rest raised privately by NBNCo. Note that the original capex forecast of $43 billion is now $35 billion, thanks to the cooperation of Telstra. This represents a direct saving to the taxpayer of the $8 billion difference for ducts, pits and exchanges that will not need to be constructed by NBNCo. The whole arrangement is very cost-efficient, yet delivers a reliable service including all phone calls for everyone in Australia, at a very low cost of $50 a month for most (before rebates to pensioners), but making possible higher bandwidth and data volumes in both directions for those who require it, at their expense. As more homes and business purchase services requiring higher bandwidth, NBNCo will receive more wholesale revenue, which will hasten its return on investment.

    Remember also that Telstra will be a retailer of services under the new regime (as obliquely suggested in 2001 by the Productivity Commission inquiry into telecoms regulation.) Because it will no longer own the infrastructure, it can no longer be expected to deliver the Universal Service Obligation, hence the additional $2 billion provision to guarantee service restoration or workarounds post-NBN. Once shareholders endorse Telstra’s liberation from maintaining copper and the USO, expect its share price to rise dramatically. Telstra is an expert marketer, and unless it badly drops the ball on customer service it will be a very profitable player on the new level playing field.

    The NBN is the cheapest, greenest and most pro-competition way to deliver universal internet access to all Australians. Unless the coalition supports it by 2013 they will repeat the miracle of losing an eminently winnable election.

      • Of course he didn’t dispute it. Why would he dispute it?

        “Well actually Jim, it’s $27 billion of tax payers money over ten years, and it’s using government bonds, so in actuallity if we reallocated the funding to the project to something else, say Queensland Flood Relief, we will actually only net about $1 billion at most for use. This is because the government bonds are being invested in NBN Co in the assumption that they will make a return and therefore the next cost to the government is assumed to be $0. Of course, if fails to meet the return target of 7% or private investers decide they do not want to invest in the project then the government may have to bail out NBN Co from it’s debt.”

        Yes, I can totally see that coming out of his mouth. Afterall, if he didn’t explictly say that it was $43 billion and let the host say that, then he did nothing wrong right?

      • Firstly, alain, my genuine apology for my sarcastic comment about the sniping/flaming. It will not happen again from me, as it is the worst kind of contribution to such comment streams as this, and quickly alienates readers and other contributors. I will in future return to supplying referenced sources of information when I something I think needs correcting.

        Now, as to the new (mid-December), lower estimate of a $35b cost for the NBN, of which $27b is publicly-funded.

        You quoted me saying “Mister Turnbull thinks the NBN cost is $27 billion, too, alain.” which he stated in the Australian live blog on the Friday a week before Christmas.

        Then you said “He didn’t dispute the $43 billion figure in this discussion:
        http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/transcript-2gb-sydney-10-jan-2011/

        You are perfectly correct – he didn’t correct the error on 2GB, though it is an important matter and he knew that the cost had been revised down thanks to the deal with Telstra. Mister Turnbull is a sneaky operator. Later in the very same blog above in which he carefully outlined his objection to a poster asserting that the capex cost should include $13 billion to Telstra, he allowed similar assertions of a $43 or $50 billion capex to go unchallenged.

        This is politicking at its most deceitful and disingenuous. But we have on public record his unequivocal defence of the capex being $35 billion, and the lease and customer transfer payments to Telstra being rightly described as operational expenses. In fact, it is leasing Telstra ducts, pits and exchanges which has reduced the capex from $43 billion to $35 billion. Without Telstra on board, NBNCo would have had to construct its own, and would have had to compete against Telstra to get its customers to migrate to fibre. The agreement means that Telstra retail customers on copper will be migrated to become Telstra retail customers on NBN fibre, wireless or satellite. It’s a win-win-win (i.e. for NBNCo/taxpayers – Telstra – customers) situation.

    • “Telstra is an expert marketer, and unless it badly drops the ball on customer service it will be a very profitable player on the new level playing field.”

      Haha… Telstra, with good customer service?! That’d be the day.

      • @NightKhaos, I was only being slightly ironic about good Telstra customer service as an NBN reseller, but thanks for picking it up!

        Telstra got away with poor customer service and high prices when it was the only game in town.

        When each and every retail provider is competing on infrastructure provided by NBNCo, its market share will grow or shrink hugely based on price and customer service, and a part of the market will also care about the reliability of their backend network, gaming latency and any differentiation on content arrangements such as deals with IPTV providers like Foxtel, Hulu, video store chains, etc.

        • @Francis

          “Telstra got away with poor customer service and high prices when it was the only game in town.”

          That one is wearing a bit thin don’t you think? – it has been a very long time since Telstra (BigPond) was the only game in town, the likes of Optus, iiNet, Internode AAPT, Primus, Netspace have been around flogging BB for years, and the ACCC has been regulating the Telstra exchange link for over 13 years now.

          As fixed line BB nears saturation the best the smaller ISP’s can hope for is to poach customers from the big two Optus and BigPond by offering better value plans on their own ADSL2+ DSLAM’s and also with the Naked DSL product – post NBN there is no such thing as having your DSLAMS or a product called Naked DSL – good luck with that approach when everyone is selling the same vanilla NBN quotas and speeds.

          In reference to your comment about a better playing field retailing NBN plans those ISP’s that have the biggest customer bases pre NBN national release will still be the biggest post NBN.

          iiNet recently purchased Westnet, Netspace and AAPT for their respective customers bases, they know the best way to survive post NBN.

          • @alain, you are very capital city centric in your comments.

            In 2011, Telstra is still the only game in town for more than half of Australia’s regional exchanges.

            The NBN will finally permit full competition, by taking responsibility for connecting every premises in Australia to its backbone and then allowing every retail provider to compete for every single customer at the same price, regardless of their geographical remoteness or the technology used for the last-mile connection.

            You are correct that the best starting point for an ISP will be to get as many customers into its fold as possible. A current Bigpond/iiNet ADSL customer will seamlessly become a Bigpond/iiNet fibre customer if the retail offering is competitive, otherwise the customer will choose an ISP whose offering is better.

            No customer will be excluded because they were less profitable, as happens now. No retail provider will be disadvantaged by higher costs in getting services to some customers. As the NBN comes closer, we can even expect smart ISPs to try harder at customer service, because the more satisfied customers they have on their books when the fibre arrives at their house, the more customers they will retain going forward.

          • @Francis
            Yes Telstra does have the most regional exchanges ADSL enabled, and most ISP’s have resold Telstra ADSL1 and ADSL2+ from those exchanges for years and years, you are not forced to have BigPond ADSL from a Telstra ‘only’ ADSL enabled exchange.

            There was nothing stopping ISP’s putting their own gear into regional exchanges and reselling ADSL2+ and many have in the bigger regions, but it is still obviously cheaper to resell Telstra Wholesale in many regional exchange areas also, and that also includes many city exchanges.

            I repeat, the ISP’s going into the NBN world with the biggest customer bases will still be the biggest ISP’s post NBN, there will be no change except increasing customer for the big two, BigPond and Optus because they have the total package winner in their arsenal – wireless.

            Remember the big two (and they are the two biggest ISP’s by a hefty margin) are being gifted taxpayer billions for their HFC customers, that buys a hell of a lot of NBN marketing power, it also buys a hell of a lot of wireless infrastructure upgrade!

          • “Yes Telstra does have the most regional exchanges ADSL enabled, and most ISP’s have resold Telstra ADSL1 and ADSL2+ from those exchanges for years and years, you are not forced to have BigPond ADSL from a Telstra ‘only’ ADSL enabled exchange.”

            Except of course that the reason that a lot of ISPs are calling foul of this is that Telstra have quite often undercut the WHOLESALE PRICE with their retail ofterings, effectively “encouraging” customers to stay with BigPond ADSL offerings.

            “There was nothing stopping ISP’s putting their own gear into regional exchanges and reselling ADSL2+ and many have in the bigger regions, but it is still obviously cheaper to resell Telstra Wholesale in many regional exchange areas also, and that also includes many city exchanges.”

            Just like there is “nothing stopping” Telstra from upgrading their infrastructure to FTTH/HFC options? Or “nothing stopping” a competior from introducing FTTH/HFC options to the market? There is nothing stopping the market from moving forward in terms of technology used to deliever service, so why are we still stuck with Telstra Twister Pair Copper? It is simply because, althrough there is “nothing stopping” anyone from doing anything, there is TO MUCH RISK associated with such a venture, because Telstra holds a natural monoploy over the services. Competiting with them is an expensive exercise. Or did you learn NOTHING from the HFC wars?

            “I repeat, the ISP’s going into the NBN world with the biggest customer bases will still be the biggest ISP’s post NBN, there will be no change except increasing customer for the big two, BigPond and Optus because they have the total package winner in their arsenal – wireless.”

            And? What precisely is your point? Two ISPs have the ability to ofter package discounts by signing up to their wireless services as well as their wireline service. Big fucking deal. VHA can also enter the wireline market if they want and also provide package discounts. Other ISPs will start oftering “niche” service offerings, like FetchTV services, gaming servers, etc.

            This is how it works in the rest of the world, WHY NOT HERE? Comcast and Verzion in the US, as well as BSkyB in the UK, can ofter cheap cable broadband services because they make most of their money off television advertising and PayTV subscriptions. BeThere/O2 and Orange in the UK can ofter cheap ADSL services because they make their profits off their mobile networks. VirginMedia in the UK ofters TV and Mobile services to suppliment their cheap HFC network.

            You are right in thinking that a basic ISP that just sells the internet may have trouble surviving in the NBN market, but let me point out to you, they don’t exactly do well in the current markets either, so what makes you think they will under the NBN? What precidence do you have for this?

            “Remember the big two (and they are the two biggest ISP’s by a hefty margin) are being gifted taxpayer billions for their HFC customers, that buys a hell of a lot of NBN marketing power, it also buys a hell of a lot of wireless infrastructure upgrade!”

            Actually, no, they are not. Only Telstra is being “gifted money” for migrations, the “Optus deal” has not be finalised, and to be honest, I don’t think it was even tabled, or ever will be. I have also explained to you why this particular practice is important to ensure the NBN suceeds, and also why the fact that doing it isn’t that much of a big deal.

    • We have referred to it briefly, but I see it as a bit of a non-issue; I don’t think there was ever really an expectation that NBN Co would be subject to FOI. Partly it has also been that I don’t have enough time to write about everything ;)

        • I also am with Renai on this, if I understood him correctly. I think he is saying that he knew going in that the NBN likely would not be subjected to FOI regulations because of it’s status as a Government Owned Enterprise, and he has already taken it into consideration and did not consider it that much of a big deal in the first place.

          But remember Renai, you report the news, even if you think it’s a null issue to report on, because it’s… news.

          • Actually I personally agree with Ludlam; NBN Co is virtually a government department (until it is privatised) and it should be subject to FOI laws.

            However, what NightKaos said is right — I considered it a null issue.

            As for reporting the news … journalists make subjective judgments constantly about what is “news” and what isn’t “news”. Sometimes it’s important to report something even though you know nobody will read it, while sometimes you report something which isn’t important because you know a lot of people will read it.

            With the NBN, Delimiter is taking the position at the moment that we will not report issues regarding the NBN which are simply re-hashes of previous arguments, or discussions which do not move the debate forward. So, we will not report the utterings of the Opposition simply because they issue a press release. We will only report them if they actually have something substantive or entertaining to say.

            Similarly with the NBN FOI issue.

            NBN Co was never expected to be subject to FOI laws. And so, the debate around this one has been a small, and, I think, an inconsequential one.

            In retrospect, Delimiter should have probably done a brief article on it to facilitate reader discussion. But at the time it seemed like a minnow (as 90% of stories that we get told about do), and so we skipped it. If I had several more staff we would have definitely covered it, but I don’t ;)

  44. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US defines “basic broadband” as 4096 kbps. If you read the system requirements of most software that utilises the Internet this is what the requirement of a broadband connection means – 4096kbps or greater.

    This is compared to the Australian Broadband Guarantee, a metro-comparable broadband service is defined as any service that offers a minimum 512 kbps download and 128 kbps upload data speed…..

    This is abysmal and draconian. You can hardly expect any sort of innovation or creativity from Australian developers in this day and age. This limits the Australian net-space to just email and lowend websites and the foul practice of throttling legitimate applications such as BitTorrent, World of Warcraft (12 milllion registered users) and Secondlife (20 million registered users) but some fools can’t recognise this as an economic benefit. Game developers who develop MMO’s such as Blizzard Entertainment is big business but none are located in this country.

    We also do not need that 300ms latency overhead either. LAG LAG LAG LAG.

    On the 21st December 2010 the Federal Communications Commission issued rules to preserve Open Internet (Net Neutrality) inline with United Nations recommendations. (FCC 10-201)

    ============================================================================
    I. PRESERVING THE FREE AND OPEN INTERNET
    1. Today the Commission takes an important step to preserve the Internet as an open platform for innovation, investment, job creation, economic growth, competition, and free expression. To provide greater clarity and certainty regarding the continued freedom and openness of the Internet, we adopt three basic rules that are grounded in broadly accepted Internet norms, as well as our own prior decisions:

    i. Transparency. Fixed and mobile broadband providers must disclose the network management practices, performance characteristics, and terms and conditions of their broadband services;

    ii. No blocking. Fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices; mobile broadband providers may not block lawful websites, or block applications that compete with their voice or video telephony services; and

    iii. No unreasonable discrimination. Fixed broadband providers may not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic.
    ==============================================================================
    The Australian Federal Government on both sides of the fence just needs to wake up – about 10 years behind and most notably the Australian Govt. did not invent the Internet.

    • Yes, the FCC are doing it right by mandating it be 4Mbps/1Mbps. They also have the idea that updrading the defintion periodicly is the way to go to ensure that demand is meet.

      The ABG isn’t actually that helpful in terms of situations, you see, if you get broadband that is capable of delievering those speeds, even if it is under extreme contention and unable to deliever those speeds the majority of the time, like what occurs on RIMs where the users often refer to it as “worse than dail-up”. So they have a “1.5Mbps” barely cable of deliever a 64/64 connection and they can’t do anything about it because they are “covered” under the ABG.

      If you want some examples of the above problems you need only explore the Whirlpool Forums for a few minutes and you’re sure to track down one.

      And this is probalbly my biggest grib with the alternative propsoal given by Mr Turnbull and the Coaltions, it doesn’t do anything to address the problems with the ABG, meaning that even through they are going to spend money to get people off RIMs and Pair-Gain, what you get is… what you get.

      My other grip is the fact they have decied to invest $2b in fixed wireless under the premise that “the world is going mobile, look at NextG, look at the iPad, why would anyone want a fixed line connection” and conviently forgetting that fixed wireless is well… fixed.

      The Open Internet debate will continue to go on in the background, however do not be concerned that the NBN is going to magically give Labor the power to deploy filtering. It is not, because to do so would fundementally go against what a Level 2 network. The issues are completely unrelated, however it does show a general theme that concerns me, neither side of the “debate” is actually aware the problem they are debating.

      Because the NBN is a little bit overkill, not in that it uses FTTP, no, because that is likely the technology that is going to be deployed in the endgame, but because it completely ignored the innovate private enterprise we have before us. I would do something much simpiler. I would say “you have to deliever this amount of upload and download at a maximum of this latancy (likely something like 80% less than 35ms/1000km) by this date, oh and 5 years after that we’ll be upping the rate again, for fixed connections, and deliever this amount of upload and download at a maximum of this latancy (probably more like 80% less than 35ms/1000km to tower+ 50% less than 10ms to reciever), and we’ll be upping those requirements too.” I’d want to make the requirements not only something that are easy to achieve, but a user can go and measure and say “HEY, I’m not getting good enough service here.”

  45. Yes Malcolm. Whatever you say Malcolm. What hope have we got when the federal comms minister hasn’t a clue and the opposition comms minister hasn’t one either. It seems Malcolm’s job is just argue with whatever is put in front of him.

    OK Malcolm we might not need the full speed to every home at this time. Are you suggesting we should invest in a hodge-podge of broadband systems that do the job now instead of laying the groundwork for whatever we might need in the future? Fibre is the way to go. A standard system of delivering internet and much more (which you seem to completely ignore) is the way to go. Delivery of multiple services of many kinds will require the use of very high speeds networks.

    High speed data transmission, ni-def and ultra hi-def TV services, “phone” services, video conferencing and telepresence services to name just a few. Try sending all of that down a copper pair Malcolm.

    • Hi Peter…

      As an NBN supporter, I may also come across as a Labor supporter, but rest assured that’s simply due to circumstances…as my vote is earned, not a given!

      But the difference between Conroy and Turnbull imo… as politicians?

      Conroy is building an NBN for all Australians and has also achieved what no other comms minister has, he’s tamed the 800lb Telstra gorilla, so much so they are now agreeing to separation… something that was always taboo for Telstra!

      Whereas Turnbull has….???

  46. A lot of the problem here is that too many people who have no technical knowledge including politicians only see the NBN as “the internet”. It is intended to be much more than that. The NBN connection point in every household will be more like the standard power outlets we have in every household. Electrical connection to a building was originally designed to power electric lighting only. Then they created so many more devices that could use electricity. There were scores of variations of power sockets which made things difficult until a standard power socket was introduced..

    The NBN socket is designed to enable the connection of many more devices and services than just the internet and will provide a totally standard way of doing it.

  47. @deteego “One megaBIT is around 125 kilobytes (which is around 8 times less then a megaBYTE)”

    If you want to get pedantic it isn’t. It is 1/8 or 12.5% of a megabyte.

    Why can’t people understand ratios and percentages? It’s so annoying when people who should know better will describe 800 as 800% more than 100. It’s not; it’s 700% more. You can’t describe something as “8 times less than a megabyte”. Eight times WHAT less than a megabyte?

    …. and while we’re here (because so many people seem to have trouble with this) and this is nothing to do with deteego’s post, a kilobyte is by definition 1000 bytes not 1024 bytes which is why a megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes not 1024×1000 bytes or 1024×1024 bytes, amounts for which there are other terms. Under the ISO standard mega = 10^6 and should represented using a capital M not a small m which would be a millibyte.

  48. This broadband thing is a big deal.. I need 1Gps for fast download, otherwise wifey will catch me lookin at the all the “big booty” sites! Right now I can’t download fast enough so I have to watch Master Chef with Wifey.. Who cares if you can’t make a farking zuchini flower! Ohh! reality TV is truly evil.

    Someone please tell George Calombaris to get some table manners (forearms on the table ! How rude! Farm animals have better ettiquete), and Matt Preston needs to to join biggest losers.. And stop eating!

  49. Total rubbish. I’m on a 4.5meg service (on a good day with no rain, 2.5 when it rains). I’d kill for a RELIABLE 24meg ADSL2+ service, but 90% of people on ADSL2 or 2+ dont get anywhere near the full speed that is theoretically possible die to distance, line issues, or RIM’s.

    The big point for me with FTTH is I get a reliable connection that is not weather dependent. Do i NEED 100mbit or faster, no, and I’ll probably start on 25meg or so, but with 4 people in the house, often streaming youtube, TV on demand, music or simply surfing the net, my poor 4meg connection often hits the limit for ages, much to everyones disgust.

    FTTN still relies on the final mile of cable, and when you find that cable buried 2 inches below the ground direct in the dirt (no trenches, pits or conduit here !!!!) and 11 connections between my house and the main pit some 600 meters away thanks to numerous backhoe accidents when putting driveways in the street, that 80meg connection looks like a total pipe dream – I’d be lucky to get 8!

    I want reliability and the oppositions use of existing cable may work for some, but has a snowballs chance in hell of working here.

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