opinion I don’t know how many times we have to say it before the message gets through: For all its flaws, the Federal Government’s National Broadband Network project is here to stay. It’s being rolled out as we speak, and all the nay-saying in the world isn’t going to do more than give Stephen Conroy twenty seconds of outraged pause over his Weet-Bix at breakfast.
And yet, like the junkies who can’t quite quit their self-harming addiction, the haters of the NBN project just refuse to give up the object of their fevered opposition, fumbling around in the dark continuously for their next fix; the perfect argument that might just prove once and for all that the project is a dud. After every fruitless shot fired, they reel back in ecstasy for 5 minutes, before lapsing into self-loathing.
The latest hit comes direct from no less than the inspired lips of US President Barack Obama.
Tragically ill-informed commentators like News Ltd columnist Andrew Bolt have seized on Obama’s support for a US NBN vision backed by wireless as evidence of why the choice of fibre for Australia’s own effort is oh so wrong. Writes Bolt:
“What Obama is promising is what the Gillard Government claims is impossible: high-speed wireless coverage for all … But if Obama is right, then Gillard is spending $36 billion on a fixed-wire technology that will be outdated even before it’s built. At best, the competition from improved wireless technology will shrink the NBN’s customer base so dramatically that it cannot possibly justify anything like the billions spent.”
And this morning the same empty Obama rhetoric was trotted out by the Australian newspaper, which blithely accompanied its own extensive story on the evils of a fibre NBN with a massive picture of Rupert Murdoch’s newest attempt to arrest declining print newspaper revenues; The iPad-based Daily digital newspaper. The Australian, of course, is also a Murdoch daily … a fact of which the reader could hardly fail to be aware of by now. In fact, the Daily went on sale in Australia yesterday.
Now the Australian’s piece is a great deal more balanced than Bolt’s … which is not surprising, given the good commentator’s penchant for one-sided rants shared by this writer. But it still contains very little in the way of positivity about the fibre-based NBN, and is capped off by a quote by the man who is speedily becoming the anti-NBN brigade’s chief junkie: Malcolm Turnbull. Quoth the Member for Wentworth:
“The Government is goping down the wrong track in so many ways here … nobody in the world is making the investment of taking this one technology bet that this government is.”
Now, over the past several years I’ve been known as an NBN critic; like Turnbull, I would rather see the private sector solve the broadband problem, and Conroy’s arrogant manner of pushing through the project, transparency be damned, has gotten up my nose as much as anybody else’s. However, let’s issue a sharp reality check to ourselves here, shall we, and label these latest petty attempts to bring down the NBN as the pathetic attempts of junkies for one last fix that they truly are.
Firstly, the implied claim that Uncle Sam knows what it’s talking about on broadband and that Obama’s model can simply be transplanted into Australia is a notion as ridiculous as it is quaint. Australia’s telecommunications industry has always shared much more with our European cousins in countries like France and the UK than it has with the US, which has mismanaged the sector for so long and into so many fragmented and incoherent ‘Baby Bells’ that most US residents would — if they ever cared to visit, which Obama hasn’t — recognise Australia’s telco industry as, relatively, a bastion of simplicity and common sense.
Secondly, there is the notion that Australia’s Government, fresh from an election which demonstrated popular support for the NBN policy and a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the Coalition’s watered down alternative, and after half a decade of exhaustive debate on the issue, should re-evaluate its NBN policy simply because the US has come up with something different.
To call this notion quaint is to give it a gravitas that it scarcely deserves; I would prefer instead to describe it as the sort of ridiculous notion you would only expect to have come from Fox News, which, coincidentally, tends to attract the sort of lunatic fringe that represents most of the anti-NBN sentiment currently to be found online.
Now there’s a funny thing about junkies, no matter which specific poison they prefer to gradually kill themselves with.
After a while of getting fix after fix, their vision narrows, and they start to live in a world entirely of their own devising, where ideas that would not normally be part of mainstream human life take on an immediacy and importance far beyond their objective truth. They cannot see the wood for the trees — or even, sometimes, the wooden slats keeping the harsh light of the sun from entering their dilapidated boarding house.
It is in this light that we must consider the sort of anti-NBN ranting that is going on in Australia’s telecommunications sector (the worthwhile additions of players like Bevan Slattery’s rebel alliance being a notable exception).
The fact is, that no matter how obscure and irrelevant they might be, there are some NBN critics out there who are currently ignoring the whole half-decade of debate about the NBN that we have lived through since 2005, and are perversely using any stick they can find — no matter how grubby and splintered — to beat the Government about the head with.
But — as with junkies looking for a fix — the fact that something runs counter to current Federal Government NBN policy does not make it worth debating.
The US Government’s broadband plan should be looked at as what it is — an interesting sister project to Australia’s own effort. But it should not be used as an argument to question the very fundamentals of the NBN policy itself.
There is no doubt that the NBN policy has weaknesses. The high amount of Government capital required, the risk of competing technologies, the potential to create a new Government-owned telco monopoly, and even the potential to destroy competition in the sector; all of these are obvious flaws in the plan.
But then too, it has strengths. The provision of next-generation broadband to every Australian is nothing to be sneezed at; and neither is the long-awaited separation of Telstra and the chance for fresh blood in the telco sector courtesy of new and more innovative retail players. Setting the industry free from its constant dust-ups in front of the ACCC will also bring everyone a welcome break to focus on real business.
And more importantly, it’s what we’ve got right now. To simply cancel the NBN at this point — especially because of a spurious US alternative — would be a disaster and would set back Australia’s telco sector another half-decade. Nobody wants to start this debate from scratch again.
We’ve already spent five years sitting on our hands with respect to broadband. We now have a policy which is actually being implemented. So let’s stop treating arguments from NBN critic junkies as gospel and ship them off to rehab for adjustment therapy to the new NBN paradigm.
Image credit: Jesse Pinkman from the TV series Breaking Bad, AMC
My favourite comment from Mike Quigley at last week’s industry forum was pertinent. He said that of course the NBN would be a monopoly – why would Australia want to build two of these networks?
Yeah, I love Quigley’s matter of fact responses to everything. He’s like “yeah … so?” <-- which defuses all the tension in the room and forces people to focus on what the common sense, collaborative approach is. As much as it makes for boring copy for journalists, it's the right approach.
Further, it is more indicative of the net neutrality debate in the US that seems them pushing the wireless barrow, rather than more solid technologies.
The FCC has recently ruled that no communications carrier be allowed to discriminate for/against the routing of traffic based on the source of that traffic – UNLESS the carriage medium is contended and requires “reasonable network management” techniques to ensure service to end users.
So the big communications companies over there – (the Comcasts, the Verizons, and the AT&Ts of the world) – who sling large political donations for favourable conditions and rulings from US federal bodies, think okay, we CAN discriminate over wireless.
They threaten to cut donations unless wireless is pushed.
So the government appeases the net neutrality people by guaranteeing neutral carriage on fixed networks, but allow “reasonable network management” on contended networks.
Talk about fence straddling. At least Australia has the foresight to make a clear decision, and follow it through, rather than pandering to special interest groups / companies.
Hi Micheal.
This is not exactly true. You missed some very important points defined clearly in the three rulings and report.
“Further, it is more indicative of the net neutrality debate in the US that seems them pushing the wireless barrow, rather than more solid technologies.”
The debating is well and truly over and the fat lady has sung for Internet Freedom and Openness. All those thousands of petitioners, mostly US Internet users – the citizens, have won. Thats Democracy.
Also the Canadian watchdog, the CTRC, has for some time has similar rulings, and apparently, as from NOW and into the future, we will see those two Comissions acting almost in sync. In fact as we speak. CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein and vice-chairman Len Katz discuss their recent decision on usage-based Internet billing and congestion, network management and much more.
http://www.cpac.ca/forms/index.asp?dsp=template&act=view3&pagetype=vod&hl=e&clipID=5030
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality_in_Canada
The central issue of the FCC ruling is all about getting “network management practices” under control as its got way out of hand. Data from the OECD clearly shows America lagging the world when it comes to, but not limited to, advertised speeds and Internet penetration and the Obama Administration is acting accordingly and promptly. This includes the US National Broadband Plan to deliver 100mbps to US residential users and pumping economic stimulus back into Silicon Valley.
It has been uncovered that the reasons for the bottleneck is the technologies that are used by ISPs to control the traffic passing through their network as an attempt to miraculously cure congestion as the CISCOs sales brochure for their Deep Packet Inspection based Traffic Management Systems and applications suggests. It has however backfired. Instead Internet users on a large scale report experiencing slow speeds; peer-to-peer download rates throttled down to 0.5kB/s including encrypted data and MMORPG traffic throttled and reprioritised rendering these games unplayable and glitchy videos and high latencies.
All these antics described much better in the FCC Report and Order
http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1223/FCC-10-201A1.pdf
and not forgetting the Commissioners Statements as they are inportant:
CHAIRMAN JULIUS GENACHOWSKI
http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1223/FCC-10-201A2.pdf
COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS (concurring statement)
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201A3.pdf
COMMISSIONER ROBERT M. McDOWELL (dissenting statement)
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201A4.pdf
COMMISSIONER MIGNON L. CLYBURN (approving and concurring)
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201A5.pdf
COMMISSIONER MEREDITH ATTWELL BAKER (dissenting statement)
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201A6.pdf
1. ALL ISPs, both fixed and wireless, must state clearly the full details of their network management policy – which control techology is used and what traffic protocols are throttled. This is so that the Internet user can make an informed decision BEFORE they sign up that the service meets their needs.
2. ALL ISP’s, both fixed and wireless, MUST NOT BLOCK legitimate traffic.
3. No Unreasonable Discrimination is for Fixed ISP’s only. The FCC has clarified this and why wireless ISP’s are exempt. However the FCC clearly warns wireless operators that they will be watched very closely, especially their behavour in regards to rules 1 and 2.
I don’t think it would be a good time for wireless providers to overstep their mark. After all, Verizon had a lot of input into these FCC rules.
The FCC also rules that “BASIC Broadband speed” is greater than 4096 mbps and this “network management malpractise” is dragging US speeds down.
Wont be long before Australia faces the same problem and speeds will start to go south. After all some of Australia’s ISPs are CURRENTLY misusing traffic management systems in the exactly identical way to their US counterparts, and exhibiting the same behaviour – avoiding blame by finger pointing and providing unneccessary and misleading technical support because these devices are not detectable by the majoritiy of Internet users.
“Talk about fence straddling. At least Australia has the foresight to make a clear decision, and follow it through, rather than pandering to special interest groups / companies.”
You are joking of course. Not a single peep on Inrernet Internet Freedom and Openness rulings from the Australian media, telecommunications regulators, ACCC or Conroy. Conroy even announced back in 2008 during his Internet Filtering hype, that he was also going to include blocking BitTorent traffic. The lack of activity in regards to Internet Freedom and Openness is obvious by their silence.
United Nations will very soon be having a word in Conroy’s ear about the new “Information and communications technologies for development” resolution and what are Australia’s intentions.
“ALL ISP’s, both fixed and wireless, MUST NOT BLOCK legitimate traffic”
Actually, there is a very SIGNIFICANT difference between BLOCK and THROTTLE, which is where their position falls down. Sure, Comcast, I won’t block peered traffic from Verizon, but I’ll whittle it down to a few Kbps.
Go to Canada, where Rogers actively throttle Skype sessions down once they reach about an hour in length. Sure, the FCC has little influence over Canada – (their decisions do affect Canada though, given that Canada exists within NANP, for one example off the top of my head.
Where does most of Canada’s international bandwidth flow through? Where do most of the submarine cables from Australia ultimately terminate?
Yes, the United States where peering bandwidth policies between US carriers can influence ultimate throughput in Canada and Australia. A US decision to favour domestic traffic would most likely severely influence international transfer rates.
On the surface, their decision to “support” net neutrality “seems” clear enough, but there are many subtle twists and turns, as some carriers and customers in the US are already finding.
Try watching Hulu or Netflix from a Comcast service and tell me Comcast aren’t shaping to show their own offerings in a better light.
“Actually, there is a very SIGNIFICANT difference between BLOCK and THROTTLE, which is where their position falls down.”
Yep! Thats why there is Rule #2 that covers BLOCKING and Rule #3 that covers THROTTLING (also known as shaping, packet reprioritisation etc)
“Comcast, I won’t block peered traffic from Verizon, but I’ll whittle it down to a few Kbps.”
Thats in the wholesale market where such practices are prohibitied. FCC have already enforced decisions especially on the recalculant Comcast. Comcast is complying, but only after these FCC rulings. The same goes for AT&T.
“Go to Canada, where Rogers actively throttle Skype sessions down once they reach about an hour in length.”
Yeah – because Rogers and others have interest in their own VOIP network. Like I said the CTRC in Canada have had long standing net neutrality rules although they are bring their rules up to the FCC rulings so as it is more effective against the likes of Rogers or TechSavvy. The CTRC and the FCC have very similar functions and attitude.
“Try watching Hulu or Netflix from a Comcast service and tell me Comcast aren’t shaping to show their own offerings in a better light.”
Yep they were but not any longer. Comcast have pulled their head in, finally.
“Yes, the United States where peering bandwidth policies between US carriers can influence ultimate throughput in Canada and Australia. A US decision to favour domestic traffic would most likely severely influence international transfer rates.”
Yep it affects global traffic and national traffic and don’t I know it. I have just left one Australian ISP about a fortnight ago because of their dodgy “traffic management policies” World of Warcraft game latency meter was clocking up to 20,000 ms rendering the game unplayable.
A CASE STUDY AND TESTIMONIAL
I purchased the game World of Warcraft late last year. This also incurred downloading around 4-5GB for the game and latest patches and a bit more for expansions.
Because the ISP is throttling P2P protocols to the point where I could easily classify it as blocking (i.e. download rate 0kbps) the software distibution failed. Luckily there is an option in the WoW Loader to disable the P2P option and after lots of fiddling around and several late late nights managed to get WoW installed. But this completely defeats the purpose of software distribution via P2P.
After the painful exercise getting Wow downloaded and installed, getting the game to load and work properly was basically “mission impossible”. I was lucky to even get a successful authentication at BattleNet, even if I did chances of disconnection or failure to load characters or a complete machine hang from which I had to cold boot. When I did manage to log in all I got was massive latency ranging from 5000ms to 20,000ms.
After a bit of monitoring I soon discovered that the ISP ceased their blocking and shaping p2p at 2am, and I was able to BitTorrent at acceptable speeds and log into the World of Warcraft game and play properly and actually carry out quests. Unfortunately, at 6am the ISP reactivates their traffic management policy and I looked in awe as latency gradually blows the roof off – immediately starting at 5000ms amd climbing up to a massive 20,000ms
Do you think I should cough up USD$ for the World of Warcraft subscription or similar application services? The answer is definately NO!
Do you think I should cough up for an overpriced $99.95 a month for a crappy congested and shaped wireless connection that is obviously non-productive? The answer is definately NO!
The other very obvious symptom are Internet speed tests. Later it was obvious that the ISP could only achieve 400kbps in Sydney’s CBD as it is heavily congested and over-subscribed even though I was on a 1024 kbps connection. What are they doing selling plans to customers for speeds that they are not even capable of meeting.
In this country, the only solution available is to switch your provider. There are no laws here to protect the CONSUMER.
Tale a good look over at the Blizzard Tech Support forums you will get an even more insight into the world-wide dilemma currently affecting a potential customer base of 12 million WoW enthusiasts. The Number One rated MMORPG.
Recently Blizzard launched the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion and in the initial 24 hours sold 3.3 million units and after one month 4.7 units. This breaks the record set by the World of Warcraft: The Lich King selling 2.8 million units worldwide holding its record against Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2.
Why ISPs would want to play “whackamole” with this sort of development and the DIGITAL ECONOMY I would not know. Its a multi-Billion dollar industry , and you can be rest assured Blizzard Entertainment is doing something about it.
So who is game to take the risk of doing something in the way of innovation and development, only to find your valuable customers client base is being practically decimated by their respective ISPs.
Anticompetition laws apply in Australia, as they do in the US and Canada.
You must really enjoy taking political potshots against America because they don’t happen to be doing an NBN?
If you think I am taking taking pot shot at America well I can safely say you must be illiterate!!!!!
I can I assure you that I am not, if you read more carefully in fact I am bagging Australias lack of attention to Internet Freedom and Openness which some people call Net Neutrality.
Correction!!!! They do have a National Broadband Plan and that includes 100mbps residential connections as well as 60 key points.
http://www.broadband.gov/plan/broadband-action-agenda.html
The US, Canada and even New Zealand is light years ahead of Australia when it comes to Internet Governance. Get real!!!
…and whats more I am bagging certain Australian ISPs (which I shall not name) for unreasonable traffic management policies which is clearly obvious and the myopic attitude (discrimination) toward online gaming and p2p applications. Perhaps the same discrimination exends to the Internet features of gaming consoles such as XBox. Playstation, Nintendo et.al.
That was addressed to Michael Wyres, not you (he is the one taking political potshots against America)
“That was addressed to Michael Wyres, not you (he is the one taking political potshots against America)”
Sorry mate – slight misunderstanding. My apologies. Those comments are right over the top (grossly inacurate BTW), so he copped to from me. :P
Thats what you get when your only tech news is derived from the Australian press.
No pot shots…just pointing out that no matter how you skin the cat, you can always “manage” a network within the rules, and deliver (or not deliver) the bandwidth you want.
In a completely innumerate, misinformative and political manner
*innacurate
I’ll bet you have never read the book Snow Crash authored by Neil Stephenson in 1992 where the main character, Hiro resides in a self-storage unit and has a Fibre-To-The PC Internet connection and participates in Virtual Worlds.
It is in this book that the word “METAVERSE” was first coined. The Metaverse Roadmap has been around for a while now.
http://metaverseroadmap.org/
I’ve written a bit about my support for the NBN, with some reservations which were largely addressed by the Greens successful effort to remove the mandatory sale provisions. Bring it on.
I disagree with the contention in your first paragraph, though: It isn’t “here to stay.” The Gillard Government is currently one by-election loss away from falling. All they need is for an ALP lower house MP to get sick, die, get prosecuted for corruption or get photographed in a gay brothel by the Daily Telegraph and the NBN will very likely be consigned to history. For the next two and a half years, ALP MPs need to be ethically perfect and immortal.
You can also only conclude that it’ll be built in the way the Government says it’ll be built if you think it’s credible that the ALP can ace six elections in a row (due to the 10-year build cycle and the fact that they’re in their second term and they’ve barely started yet).
In the fullness of time I reckon we’ll end up with something that’s a bastard stepchild of the ALP and Coalition broadband proposals, with a change of direction arising from an electoral embarrassment somewhere along the line. It won’t be the outcome we currently associate with the concept of “The NBN,” it’ll be something different.
… unless there’s an unexpected by-election, then all bets are off.
Planning for that is perfectly prudent. Not planning for it is probably negligent.
– mark
I guess it just gets down to how the legislation gets put together, how soon contracts are signed, and how binding those contracts are.
Over here in Victoria, we are getting a desalination plant – (which isn’t even finished) – that is tied up in a binding contract that sees the operator given billions of dollars of government funding over the next 30 years, regardless of whether or not a single drop of water is desalinated and feed through to the water grid.
That’s an ALP contract. Don’t run it past them here too.
Remember OPEL?
Binding contracts were signed, delivery dates were agreed. Change of Government, change of policy, and it all went out the window.
– mark
Oh, agree completely.
But in the example of this desal plant, apparently the contract is watertight and unbreakable. I’m not a contract lawyer, so I don’t know – but that’s what the new government is telling us.
Governments can always cancel contracts, it’s just a question of how much it will cost them to do so.
hey Mark,
I think it all depends on when a change of government takes place. I’ve been saying for a while now that if the Coalition won the next election, they would still need to go ahead with most of the project, as by then some 1.7 million premises will have the NBN — and the population would not suffer the project to be cancelled.
After the NBN passes a tipping point over the next three years, it will become inevitable. But I do agree with your contention that it may end up being a bastard mix — especially if its chief architect — Quigley — steps down at some point in the next five years and is replaced with someone less capable.
Renai
I think it comes down to a question of what the NBN is supposed to deliver.
There are several schools of thought.
One goal is clearly industry/regulatory reform. One could argue that that has already been delivered, with the passing of the Telstra breakup legislation last year.
Another goal is “broadband ubiquity.” I think we’re going to end up with that, one way or the other.
A third goal which is on decidedly more shaky ground is, “FTTH to 95% of the Australian population.” I reckon that’s a pipedream.
But I also reckon the third goal is arguably superflous if the first two have been achieved, so perhaps that doesn’t matter very much. If you’re a home user and you’re connecting to a broadband service on an Ethernet jack, do you seriously care whether that ethernet jack is tied back to an NBN POI via GPON or… something else?
From a political angle, I find it intriguing that the ALP is pitching the third goal (which is the one least likely to be achieved) to the electorate as the metric by which the NBN should be judged. They’re really setting themselves up for failure there: In 15 years time, will the electorate look at an FTTH network which only reaches (say) 30% of the Australian population and view it as something which could have been so much more, if only the ALP was able to deliver it?
(the coalition have made it easy for themselves: All they have to do to deliver on their promises is to say, “No.” Not much uncertainty there, eh?)
– mark
(following up my own post)
It does strike me that the Coalition’s alternative at the 2010 election was aimed at delivering on the second goal, but left the first goal and the third goal swinging in the breeze.
Perhaps if they’d given some attention to the first goal they’d have had a supportable policy: “Industry/regulatory reform and broadband for everyone.” That’d certainly be a big step forward from where we are now.
– mark
Uh, there is no reason why the coalition needs to stay with the NBN in its current form (as in, FTTH to 93%) if they win the election
None, whatsoever. The 1.7 million premises with FTTH will continue to use it, and the rest will be decided upon
I have no idea where this idea is coming from that NBN HAS to be completed, even if there is a turn of government
Except if NBN Co is looked in contracts with very expensive exit terms, as Michael Wynes suggested.
However, assuming they don’t lock into such contracts, you’re right, but it isn’t going to acceptable for them to just throw in the towel either. And they know this. Turnbull isn’t say he’ll throw in the towel, he’s saying “we’ll look at the project” (by putting it through a CBA) and then “chose the best option for Australia”. Meaning that a Broadband Policy may continue along at some form.
Currently the agreements are just tenders, they can easily be cancelled and have been done many times in the past
Even “unbreakable” contracts have been broken by changes of government and whatnot, but that is going into a totally different area.
Correct Mark, I agree with you.
The NBN is far from a certainty.
1- Telstra needs to agree on the $11Bn agreement, which in my opinion is not a very good deal, considering it will be for 20-30yr lease of Telstra’s CAN.
2- There is no bipartisan support, in fact, the Coalition has set it self up to a degree in the opposing poistion that even if elected, a backflip on NBN policy or augmented form would be very embarrassing, hence I do believe that there is a high level of spin doctoring in Labor’s NBN, which is why the Liberals are confident in putting all their chips in the opposing view.
3- The business case and international and technological drivers do no support the NBN. A back to front approach to infrastructure does not make sense. It is a bit like building a superhighway to Geelong or Wollongong and expecting a future industry to sprout which has only a tentative dependency between the two.
“3- The business case and international and technological drivers do no support the NBN. A back to front approach to infrastructure does not make sense. It is a bit like building a superhighway to Geelong or Wollongong and expecting a future industry to sprout which has only a tentative dependency between the two.”
US venture capitalists are currently looking for Aussie tech startups right now because of interest in the NBN. There has not been this opportunity for Australian developers for at least the last ten years.
There is a flawed argument going around. That FTTP must be built for new technologies to flourish.
First tthis is very incorrect. it is the cart before the horse problem.
Take skype for example, this technology developed out of some very basic communications infrastructure, but the ‘idea/technology’ of skype evoloves over when the infrastructure evolves, eg. moves to HD or telepresence. but the skype essentially is skype.
Now apply that to facebook, youtube etc.
All the so call new visions of technology can be achieved by ADSL or FTTN, the only difference is when the technology needs to evolve as it has outgrown the infrastructure, it will require something like fibre.
eg. telecommuting, cloud computing, education, health etc. in its infancy can be done on copper! you can do a hell of a lot on 2-4Mbits.
However such technologies have not even been born yet, its like buying a new car for a 5 year old, thinking that when the child is 17 , he will be able to use it to get a job. you see how ridiculous this argument is?
The fact is that given todays mixture of business technologies like metro ethernet, IP VPN, hosting, DSL, SDHSL, ATM/FR, wireless etc. there is enough capability and capacity for such next gen technologies to be born, the blockage in my view is more to do with telco’s, R&D, and access.
In fact, if telstra allowed the current network infrastructure to be used efficiently a great economy of scale is achievable, and you can see that our network has a lot of unused capacity, which can easily handle nextgen technologies like ehealth or cloud computing. The fact is that the network in australia has been held back artificially or capped, its not a problem with the ‘ageing copper’.
A prime example, is to look at on-net and off-net ISP networks, eg. iinet, tpg, internode, they can do much more with the network because they have more freedom, but still the restraints are lack of backhaul, market competition and access to key infratructure.
Even with the current CAN, if you removed all the caps and limitations artificially imposed, the network will fly! everything is unlimited on ADSL2+ or cable etc. and telcos peer with eachother, you can achieve ahell of a lot, not even with FTTN .. just plain copper! ..add then WiMAX and 3G, and australia already has an nbn!
See the problem today is not the infrastructure per se, it will be when telecommunting, teleconferencing, cloud computing, ehealth etc. reaches its maturity and peaks, then fibre is needed, but today, the problem is that the network is running WAY BELOW its capacity.
how do i know this? im a telco engineer, and i worked for many telcos in the past, inc. telstra
S’ur’F:-).
Do you believe the PSTN will last another 10, 20, 40 years?
There is a flawed argument going around. That FTTP must be built for new technologies to flourish.
The argument you are referring to is usually only propagated by those who have a vested interest in FTTP technology. Most advocates of FTTP do not support this mobile, and acknowledge that less efficient alternatives can be utilised in lieu of FTTP but insist either that the usage of said interim technology is a waste of resources (i.e. why build ferry terminals when a bridge can serve the same purpose more efficiently but for extra cost?), or that the interim technology utilised must allow for further expansion to FTTP options should demand be presented for it (i.e. if we build the ferry terminals such that the foundations can be utilised for a future bridge, both in physical placement, and cost, we will reduce the cost of building the bridge at minimum extra cost?)
Take skype for example, this technology developed out of some very basic communications infrastructure, but the ‘idea/technology’ of skype evoloves over when the infrastructure evolves, eg. moves to HD or telepresence. but the skype essentially is skype.
Now apply that to facebook, youtube etc.
Just like an internet connection is still an internet connection, no matter how it is done. However, Skype would not be what it is today if they didn’t add the extra features you refer to. There is a market for the advancements you refer to, that the consumer will gladly pay for in time, but what if, for technical reasons, a consumer is not allowed to utilise these advanced services they demand? Which is the situation we are getting ourselves into right now.
All the so call new visions of technology can be achieved by ADSL or FTTN, the only difference is when the technology needs to evolve as it has outgrown the infrastructure, it will require something like fibre. eg. telecommuting, cloud computing, education, health etc. in its infancy can be done on copper! you can do a hell of a lot on 2-4Mbits.
Which is why countries like the United States have put the minimum definition for broadband to be 4Mbps. Which is why figures like 12Mbps are being thrown around by politicians as a “reasonable minimum”. However the unfortunate fact of technologies like FTTN and ADSL2+ is that such technologies cannot achieve this “minimum” after a certain line length. So how do you provision for those people who can’t get the minimum and ensure future proofing? Well you have to do it with fibre, but that is expensive (when pre-existing infrastructure is in place the can be reutilised).
However such technologies have not even been born yet, its like buying a new car for a 5 year old, thinking that when the child is 17 , he will be able to use it to get a job. you see how ridiculous this argument is?
At yet people start saving for their child’s college education at the age of 5 for when they get to 17. It is called provision for future. Your argument only works if the asset depreciates faster than the intended life-cycle. For example, if your brought a car as you suggested, in 12 years time it will be a relic, however this can’t be said to be the same of a FTTH network. Where minimum continued investment (relatively speaking) will allow the technology to remain state of the art. Building a FTTH network is more like building a garage. The switches, the NTUs, the GPONs, they’ll all need replacing, like the car, as time goes on, but the garage? Well that’ll still be useful in 12 years time won’t it?
The fact is that given todays mixture of business technologies like metro ethernet, IP VPN, hosting, DSL, SDHSL, ATM/FR, wireless etc. there is enough capability and capacity for such next gen technologies to be born, the blockage in my view is more to do with telco’s, R&D, and access.
So you acknowledge that there is a problem with the Telecoms, that needs to be addressed, and quickly. So we’re in the same boat here it seems, because I, and if you had been reading you would note, a lot of the other people here don’t believe the NBN is the perfect solution, but it is the only one currently on the table that will do something to address the stagnation the market is facing.
In fact, if telstra allowed the current network infrastructure to be used efficiently a great economy of scale is achievable, and you can see that our network has a lot of unused capacity, which can easily handle nextgen technologies like ehealth or cloud computing. The fact is that the network in australia has been held back artificially or capped, its not a problem with the ‘ageing copper’.
That’s a very big if, and as the state of play is right now, unless someone does something about Telstra, it is NOT going to happen.
A prime example, is to look at on-net and off-net ISP networks, eg. iinet, tpg, internode, they can do much more with the network because they have more freedom, but still the restraints are lack of backhaul, market competition and access to key infratructure.
They only got this freedom after getting the ACCC to stepped in and mandated local-loop unbundling, and only maintain it by getting the ACCC to step in when Telstra abuses their power, like with Telstra charging it’s retail customers less than it charged it wholesale customers.
Even with the current CAN, if you removed all the caps and limitations artificially imposed, the network will fly! everything is unlimited on ADSL2+ or cable etc. and telcos peer with eachother, you can achieve ahell of a lot, not even with FTTN .. just plain copper! ..add then WiMAX and 3G, and australia already has an nbn!
It won’t fly, it will finally utilise it’s full capacity, and all of the “choke points” of the network will be exposed. In particular last mile infrastructure and fibre to the exchange. For someone in Telecoms you sure seem to have an idealised version of the state of play in Australia.
See the problem today is not the infrastructure per se, it will be when telecommunting, teleconferencing, cloud computing, ehealth etc. reaches its maturity and peaks, then fibre is needed, but today, the problem is that the network is running WAY BELOW its capacity.
See… this doesn’t make any sense. The primary reason the consumer sector is not flooded is for technical limitations, not artificial ones. The choke points, such as ADSL2+ signal degradation over distance, will still exist. So you’re telling me that network is running below it’s capacity, but you don’t want to invest in ways for it to be used to capacity?
If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying we don’t need to upgrade last mile at an exchange because a backhaul line to said exchange is under used, and we should only upgrade the last mile when said backhaul is congested, even through without upgrading the last mile it will be impossible for us to congest the backhaul?
If this isn’t what you are saying I’d ask you phrase it better.
how do i know this? im a telco engineer, and i worked for many telcos in the past, inc. telstra
So far you haven’t shown that much technical expertise for me to actually believe you. You have just thrown around a few statements about how we shouldn’t build until there is demand for it, and put together an argument based upon some somewhat questionable logic.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here, and ask you one simple situation, given the current situation with Telecoms in Australia, what would you do to fix it?
To answer your question “What will I do to fix it… ”
Firstly, I want to point out that the gov’t and the likes of Paul Budde and Alan Kohler have been going around pushing this logic that application and systems advances come AFTER the infrastructure. Eg. ehealth, telecommuniting/working, cloud computing, education etc.
The reality is that its the other way around. It’s a false argument because technology has proven that the innovation always comes from existing technology eg. internet evolved from dialup and dialup evolved into broadband, yet they are suggesting that without broadband the internet would have never existed. Remember that companies like iiNet was born through its dialup business.
The problem is that the network in Australia is not run efficiently. It is artificially capped across the board. I made refernece to ISP on-net services as a example of how liberating the network allows it to run efficently. ISPs have done a good job, but speak to them , they will tell you that they are still very much held down by the incumbent telco.
But my point is simply to disprove that FTTP is necessary to facilitate producitivity and innovation growth. You can do it just as easily by having an open access or a privately funded FTTN network. FTTN is also a hybrid fibre network and is a generational jump from the current copper network to a hybrid system and is considered a major overhaul of the access network. Difference is that it costs significantly less, and I think the innovation achieve are similiar to the more expensive FTTP network.
Firstly, I want to point out that the gov’t and the likes of Paul Budde and Alan Kohler have been going around pushing this logic that application and systems advances come AFTER the infrastructure. Eg. ehealth, telecommuniting/working, cloud computing, education etc.
The reality is that its the other way around. It’s a false argument because technology has proven that the innovation always comes from existing technology eg. internet evolved from dialup and dialup evolved into broadband, yet they are suggesting that without broadband the internet would have never existed. Remember that companies like iiNet was born through its dialup business.
So let me get this straight, the give someone technology and they will innovate a better technology idea is debunked by the idea of…. give someone technology and they will innovate a better technology.
I never understand this agruement fully. You’re basicly saying that we shouldn’t upgrade the network because there is no real need for FTTH, but why then did we upgrade from dial-up to broadband? There was no real need for broadband because everything worked fine on dial-up, it just worked better on Broadband. Just like there is no real need for FTTH, it’s just things work better on it.
I remember having an arguement with my dad before we first got ADSL. Why do we need Broadband he would tell me, everything works fine on dail-up. No need to upgrade at all. And now, he won’t settle for anything less than 10Mbps on ADSL2+ or Cable. He’s pushing 65 BTW.
No, the infrastructure does not come before innovation, but nor does the innovation come before infrastructure. The infrastructure allows for innovation that would not otherwise be possible, but with or without, people will still innovate.
So the arguement on weither we need FTTH is irrelvent, the arguement is instead can we afford it? So I believe we do agree on something here, and you summed it up nicely:
But my point is simply to disprove that FTTP is necessary to facilitate producitivity and innovation growth. You can do it just as easily by having an open access or a privately funded FTTN network. FTTN is also a hybrid fibre network and is a generational jump from the current copper network to a hybrid system and is considered a major overhaul of the access network. Difference is that it costs significantly less, and I think the innovation achieve are similiar to the more expensive FTTP network.
Because things will work better on FTTN too won’t they?
When something is crap its is crap, Renai you may wish to digest it for your own perverse reasons.
But it is CRAP.
Those who recognise it will fight it all the way till it is DEAD before it is completed, or offloaded from the GOVT funds that it will run off at a multi billion dollar loss per year.
In which case congratulations to the new owners of the NBNco who will pick it up for a fraction of what it cost to build, including paying off Telstra and Optus for their submission and decommissioned assets.
Now the monopoly protection regulations will be withdrawn go and compete and enjoy.
The Australian People have been bent over, Conroy the XXXX and his govt has wilfully and criminally negligently wasted Billions . . . . and life will go on.
P.S. With over 2.5 mill. homes with access to 100 Mb/s TODAY. Did you get that T O D AY. Their will always be at least 50 companies who will always be waiting for the day the artificial political life support for the NBNco is removed. To provide fixed broadband services to compete against the NBN.
Amongst other things that Foxtel cable will still be right there waiting.
This post is doing much for my argument that much of the NBN opposition is the lunatic fringe :)
Ever noticed how many supporters are happy to put their name on posts, but those opposing have to hide behind monikers? What have they got to hide?
I for one only use a alais rather than my real name because my alais can be readily traced back to my real identity, and as such I consider them interchangable.
But… things like “Reality Check”…. try tracing that back to an actual person. Gonna be difficult.
Yes indeed and what’s worse… some people actually use multiple monikers and some, even support their own previous comments, under different names. Dear oh dear!
The funniest part they give themselves names like, Reality Check, Advocate, Coolguy, or something equally egotistical.
Now I’m not trying to flame here, I’m just quoting the facts…
BTW – RS are my initials… so no cloak and dagger or hypocritical stance here. Although in the heat of debate and when the nay-sayers are inevitably cornered with nowhere to go, you can imagine what some of these ultimately intelligent [sic] specimens have suggested RS stands for (enter intelligent comment……… NOW nay-sayers) …LOL!
The NBN comments are somewhat addictive. hmmm…
[spam]
I’m playing World of Tanks. A free to play released into open beta on my birthday (27th jan). I like tanks.
http://www.worldoftanks.com
[/spam]
(Dont worry Renai, I wont be making a habit of it.)
Touche` Renai…LOL!
“homes with access to 100 Mb/s TODAY. Did you get that T O D AY.”
It suddenly dawned on me that I might know where this questionable data is coming from.
In household surveys, the Internet user is asked for the speed of their connection. Because 80% of Internet users do not know their connection speed, or what they are entitle to under their plan, they are perhaps specifing the speed capability of their network interface card instead. Some households might of even falsely claimed that they have a gigabit connection. Doh!!!!
This 80% is an unfortunate statistic a result of a FCC Survey
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-10-670A1.pdf
The Results
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-298525A1.pdf
Average Australian broadband speed is 2.8Mbps. Cold hard ABS facts.
2.5 million homes have access to 100Mbps…sure. What’s their upload like? Maximum upload in Australia is 2Mbps – (unless you have SHDSL.biz – but who has ten phone lines to bond for that?).
What of the other 10 million homes? What do they have? Ever ventured out of your ivory tower in the city and seen what rural people get, or rather, don’t get?
“To simply cancel the NBN at this point — especially because of a spurious US alternative — would be a disaster and would set back Australia’s telco sector another half-decade. Nobody wants to start this debate from scratch again.”
I disagree with this statement, I think starting this debate from stratch again is EXACTLY what some of the people in it want. They are unhappy with the way things turned out. In saying that maybe the NBN can be replaced with another policy.
However, I am only all for Mr Turnbull throwing out the NBN in the next term IF he has an alternative he can present to the houses within a maximum of 6 months of getting elected. That means, Mr Turnbull, that you need to start thinking now about what it is you are going to do.
I understand that the situation is fluid, the contracts have yet to be signed, and you need to see all that information before you make a decision, but something as simple as say “Defining the problem you intend to slove” might be a good place to start? Because so far the picture you have painted for me is not one of cohensive pragmatism regarding the problem, but one of pushing the policy you were given by Mr Smith from the Election (which I think everyone who has read it knows is not actually good enough) and taking every aveneue to attack the NBN.
You’re a smart man Mr Turnbull, and a lot of people trusted you to bring a voice of reason to the debate when you took over the position of Shadow Minister, however instead of doing that you have reverted to petty politics. I’m reminded of your below the belt comments regarding the birbary scandal, I’m reminded of your continuous touting of mobile devices being the future when you know that the proposal handed you by Smith invested in fixed wireless, which wouldn’t help with those devices. I’m even reminded of you attempting to equite Mr Conroy saying he’d sell the spectrum licenses as favouring the NBN by putting unnessiary expense on the mobile wireless networks, when said networks are actually quite profitable and don’t need a helping hand from the government by cheap spectrum licenses.
All of the above actions mentioned don’t seem like something the “voice of reason” would revert to. But you still have time to change tact Mr Turnbull. And we’ll be here waiting with some idea when you do.
Renai, again you miss some very obvious flaws as revealed by the NBNco itself.
The tipping point being reached in the next three years, is not even close to a chance.
By the NBNco own figures it hopes to rollout passed 1.6 million premises after 3 years.
contrast that with the fact that over 2.6 million premises have access to 100 Mb/s TODAY.
And if the tassy trial is anything to go by rolling fibre passed 1.6 million premises and only 70,000 premises actually subscribe will guarantee the coalition hero status for shutting down / reorienting it.
I think its clear its the stupid supporters of the NBN who are the mindless addicted junkies.
I dont have access to 100mb. I got 3 poles with pay-tv cables within 10 meters of my house… can’t connect to any of them. but hey, thats what you get when you live in the midel of nowhere…. 7ks from the center of Brisbane. oh, and I aint paying $400 for last mile ethernet.
2.6 million is 20 – 21% of the final fibre footprint of 12 to 13 million. So you’re saying the the other 79 – 80% don’t produce any value to the Australian economy?
That we just swing them in the breeze?
I get 1.5Mbps.
To Michael Wyres,
No thats not what being suggested.
No one is arguing that those who don’t have any or adequate broadband go with out.
Thats just what the fools behind the NBN would like you to believe about the exposing the criminally negligent plan that is the NBN 2.0.
And by the way its approximately 9 million households.
Criminally negligent? Hahaha…thanks for that…
But if that’s not what being suggested, you’ll have to come up with a better argument than “2.5 million Australians have access to 100Mbps now”…
Go ask Telstra, Optus and Neighbourhood Cable if they think their investments in their HFC networks have been worth it. Their answer may surprise you.
Yes interesting topic HFC, indeed MW.
You will recall another NBN nay-sayer here, who uses HFC as a negative, claiming it was a waste and rightly so in many respects due to “duplication (but which he refuses to acknowledge, as a factor, LOL).
But he does this as a direct comparison to the NBN, to suggest as HFC failed, so too will the NBN. He even said, that he has HFC hanging in his street is used primarily just for the pigeons to perch on…
But now we have another nay-sayer claiming the exact opposite (and funnily, he wasn’t nearly as, umm “forthright”, in his follow-up comments, following Rena”s quick and concise rebuttal to his first reply…LOL).
This is one of many reasons why such nay-sayers have absolutely no argument, imo!
Precisely.
HFC failed because there was an alternative. A cheaper alternative. The copper network.
On a per user basis, the NBN will still be streets (no pun intended) ahead of any of the HFC networks for price.
For price?
Lol
The HFC network is completely sunk in cost, and there is no capital at all for the Telcos that have them (Optus and Telstra). There is no way in hell NBNCo’s fiber can compete against HFC for price, thats why its being shut down. If FTTP was to compete against HFC, fiber would lose hands down.
HFC is already offering 100mbit down, and even in the cherry picked portions of Australia where there is HFC penetration the take up rate of that is low
Yeah. Take up is low because the cost is high. They spent so much installing it where there was a cheaper option, that to make a reasonable COMMERCIAL rate of return, they have to have high prices.
As per per connection costs – sure. If you bother to do the research, you’d know. I’ve been to every industry forum and briefing NBN Co have put on. You should try it – it would open your eyes VERY wide.
“As per per connection costs – sure. If you bother to do the research, you’d know. I’ve been to every industry forum and briefing NBN Co have put on. You should try it – it would open your eyes VERY wide.”
I dont care if you have been to NBNCo briefings, they are a party with vested interest, obviously they will “sell” their FTTH plan. If I went to the NBP (national broadband plan) forums in America, which actually had PROPER consultation with massive number of industry players (and they changed/altered their plan, not just trying to sell it to people), then they would be saying the opposite of what NBN is saying. Or if I went to Sweden/Finland where their plans are also completely different to NBNCo
“Yeah. Take up is low because the cost is high. They spent so much installing it where there was a cheaper option, that to make a reasonable COMMERCIAL rate of return, they have to have high prices.”
Uh, did you read what I said?
Take up rate is low because there is little demand for 100mbit, not because of cost. The capital cost for HFC is SUNK, that means they already “payed” for that cost years ago (same with the copper network). If there was no commercial rate of return, then the 100mbit speed boost offerings from Telstra/Optus wouldn’t have even been released.
And cheaper option, lol? HFC was originally installed to provide cable, not internet. There wasn’t any cheaper version of “cable” around
Hmmm…
So who do we believe!
The guy who goes to every NBN meeting and hears it from the horse’s mouth or the Uni student, who doesn’t know the difference between the Senate and the HoR’s…?
Gee what a choice!
I have all the info I need from the business case, and with those CVC charges and HFC having no initial capital cost or debt tied to it, it doesn’t take Einstein to realize HFC will beat NBNCo on price
Oh, the business case which you previously described as “toilet paper” is now your factual source…
Ah it’s Tuesday…of course!
Couldn’t your also use this example against the NBN?
If the NBN wasn’t buying the customers off the HFC networks then the price of the NBN would be prohibitively high compared to the exiting infrastructure in those areas that have cable already there.
What will ultimately be the price of having a ‘cheap’ NBN connection once you remove the competition.
Yep, Renai is right, this guy definately does more to support his point than refute it.
So Mr Reality Check, given that there is something “criminally negligent” about the current NBN prosposal, what is it, exactly, you intend to do about it? Because I seriously doubt you reminding us of the flaws of the NBN, and blowing them way out of proportion I might add, is actually going to make that much of a difference.
Have you contacted Mr Conroy voicing your concerns? Have contacted Mr Turnbull asking what he will do to fix Broadband if/when he gets into power?
And it’s not 9 million households. It’s not just houses, and I’m quite sure that the ABS projections that at least 12 million premises will exist by 2020 are more accurate than anything you can pull out of the air.
Do you really think that no new houses will be built in the next 10 years? Look at the population projections…they have to live somewhere.
Apply a little logic.
Oh I just noticed. Kudos for using Jesse from Breaking Bad. ;)
Hehe I was going to use Walt … but he’s not really a junkie ;)
He’s addicted to DANGER…. well… not really… he just has a habit of getting into it. :)
Perhaps the wireless evangilists should try replacing long standing and robust fiber backbones in the enterprise LAN/WAN environment with wireless if its is so wonderful.
Some should just go back to secondary school and restudy the physical properties of copper & electricity, radio waves and the transmission of light and their pro and cons.
second that…..
Why are they the rantings of a junkie when someone suggests wireless as an alternative to FTTH, but it’s a worthwhile addition to the debate when the same suggestion comes from Bevan Slattery’s rebel alliance?
Seems a bit Orwellian…
Bevan Slattery’s “rebel alliance” is a group of companies predominantly selling wireless services. Of course they are going to back wireless!
Firstly, the question was to Renai. If you read his article, he himself said that the grouping of which Bevan is a part of is a worthwhile addition to the debate.
Part of what they are arguing is for a National Wholesale 4G network. My question to Renai, was why is this a worthwhile addition to the debate, when in the very same article he labels people suggesting wireless as an alternative are ranting junkies.
Now, since you chose to bring it up, have you ever actually read the statement from the Alliance for Affordable Broadband? Or know any of the people who signed?BigAir is the only signatury to the letter who runs wireless networks.
People Like Bev and JRS@Vocus stand to benefit massively from the NBN. James sells International bandwidth, and NBN would make him richer than he already is, yet he chooses to voice an opinion that maybe this isn’t the best way to be spending tax payer dollars.
Same for Bev, he is building DC space now, and would also benefit from an NBN. EFTEL, AAPT, Allegro, all of these guys will benefit from ditching Telstra as the incumbent.
To label them as self serving goes to show me that you have probably never dealt with any of them before, and should get to know people before casting aspersions
A mind is like a parachute – it only works when it is open.
“Firstly, the question was to Renai” – perhaps you should have addressed him by name then? I’m sorry, my mind reading powers are a little below par tonight, and apparently I mistook this for an open discussion.
I think you are refering to this:
“It is in this light that we must consider the sort of anti-NBN ranting that is going on in Australia’s telecommunications sector (the worthwhile additions of players like Bevan Slattery’s rebel alliance being a notable exception).”
While the NBN 3.0 was flawed technically, it did however bring an alternative policy to the table, and the “Rebal Alliance” has been open to neogications from the “Empire”, and a lot of the policy was focused on universal concerns such as they “strongly put their view that competitive markets were “better managers of capital and technology risk” than governments”. Their arguements thus far presented have been asking for anaylsis of the NBN, and clear information, like the business plan to be released.
So their cristisms have in fact been well reasoned. However, the junkies that I think Renai are refering to, like the Australian, ask the government to do something completely unreasonable, like throw out the policy and start from stratch.
The whole pro NBN debate is orwellian, welcome to the club…
Hey Snow Crash,
Dont be stupid, again stop misdirecting, non one is suggesting replacing fibre backbones.
Some of you guys are seriously comprehension deficient.
By the way as an employee fibre has been very good to me, I understand its merits well and have convinced many others of its merits for the right circumstances / applications, over the years, much to our mutual benefit.
And for bandwidths inexcess of 10 Gb/s. Wavelengths actually, for Escon, Fibre Channel and GbE etc.
But its just plain dumb to run fibre to peoples holiday homes, to 3.5 million premises who have fixed wire just for voice, and an environment where its confirmed the fixed wire to mobile substitution trend is growing exponentially.
“But its just plain dumb to run fibre to peoples holiday homes, to 3.5 million premises who have fixed wire just for voice, and an environment where its confirmed the fixed wire to mobile substitution trend is growing exponentially.”
And how prey tell will you tell the difference between someone’s hoilday home, and their actual home where they could utlise the bandwidth? Also, how would you determine that they can’t actually use the bandwidth while on hoilday? And how, and this is the crucial bit, will you determine that the house you are running to will always be opting for a voice only service?
You can’t, so you roll out to all of them. This is what Optus and Telstra did with HFC. They didn’t roll it out to only people who wanted the service, they rolled out to everyone in a given area.
Also, there is no statistics at all that support the fact that people are “subsistuting” fixed for mobile wireless. The statistics actually point to them complementing their fixed with mobile wireless.
The amount of fixed line subscriptions is still rising, albiet at a slower rate than wireless yes, and the amount of data utilised on the wireless network is decreasing, while the amount of data utlised on fixed networks is increasing.
Hi NightKhaos,
Do you have a source that fixed line subs are rising and wireless data usage is decreasing?
Would be interested to take a look at the figures.
Interesting that you say data used on wireless is decreasing. Cisco are predicting wireless data usage to double annually worldwide until 2014.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-520862.html
I apologise, I meant to say that these figures were on a per-capita basis. And I should really have bookmarked that link that showed the data to support this. It’s like a phatom link for me. Everytime I need to link it I can’t find it!
Okay, I put a shout out on Twitter, maybe someone can remember it and did actually bookmark it. :)
Not EXACTLY the article I was looking for.
The information is based upon ABS 8153.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1562551
Highlights: Wireless subscribers increased from 2.2m to 3.5m, but wireless data usage returned from 14.2PB to 13.3PB. Even taking to into account usage fluxualtions, etc, that still to me indicates a reduction in usage per capita. (It’s also absolute, but given the sample period I doubt that’ll hold true, we’ll see next year ha?)
In the same period, fixed line broadband subscriptions increased slightly from 4.17m to 4.25m and data usage increased from 113.4PB to 141.9PB.
So your thoughts on wireless are that it essentially a tech going backwards and is doomed?
My thoughts? No… hardly. Those are the statistics. ;)
But since you asked:
My thoughts are that the popularity of smartphones is increasing, but the power users of smart phones, i.e. the ones who are most likely to use it to need high data quotas, have already subscribed. So now we have an influx of people subscribing who are light users, who will do very little on the network.
These people will use less data than those already subscribed (in general) and therefore the per-capita average will go down when it comes to data usage. However data usage will tend upwards (even through the ABS data contridicts this, but as I said, I highly doubt that’ll hold true for long) because the number of subscribers are tending upwards quite rapidly. This is mirrored by Cisco’s predicts on data usage increasing.
However, the assertion by the original post in this chain was that people are subsituting their services for mobile wireless. If this was the case, we would see a rather sharp downturn of the number of fixed line subscribes on the network and a corrosponding decrease of data usage on the fixed line network coupled with a similar increase on the mobile wireless network for a similar amount. We have seen neither.
So based upon these statistics, and my personal experience, I see mobile wireless as a complementary service to fixed line.
It is certainly not going backwards, it is more popular than ever, and it is certainly not doomed, just… limited. Convience will trump the technical limitations, meaning there will always be a market for it. But that market is healthy, unlike the fixed line market that has suffered for too longer under Telstra’s oppression.
“So based upon these statistics, and my personal experience, I see mobile wireless as a complementary service to fixed line.”
As intended, and will always be the same.
However some applications simply do not like wireless protocols and some developers of Internet reliant client/server applications (esp. real-time) don’t recommended wireless because of the high latency, high ping times to even first hop and its other quirks such as packet loss and jitter.
Try getting connection support from those services if you have a wireless connection. They will quickly refer you to the minimum requirements specifications and terms of use agreement.
@ Someone else (who funnily, sounds like everyone else from the naysayers camp) I find it a little odd that you ask NightKhaos to supply a URL to statistics and when he does exactly as you request, all you do in reply is accuse him of of suggesting tech is going backwards?
All of those wireless figures relate to mobile wireless. The wireless component of the NBN is fixed wireless. Quite a different market dynamic.
This link is better then you can see all statistics, including usage and methodologies as Cisco adds more whitepapers. They would know the global trends.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns827/networking_solutions_white_papers_list.html
@Reality Check
Who in the hell are you calling stupid?
NightKhaos,
Thats for the reminder.
Whats the difference between [censored]?
[Editor’s note: There are limits. I won’t have you abusing loyal readers, now. Renai]
What… the… [expletive]?
Don’t stress it NK, people who need to reduce an argument to personal attacks clearly don’t have much of an argument.
Like calling people ranting junkies?
It’s a metaphor ;)
I think I’ll sit this one out. But I’m still going to watch.
It seems there are already fireworks going off ;)
In all fairness though, if you write a rant calling people junkies, are you really surprised that they might be a bit touchy about it. :)
I agree though – you do know how to stir up a hornet’s nest… ;)
Did you burn ants with magnifying glasses growing up?
Hehe in the words of the great Orochimaru:
“Well… I sort of have a goal. If I were to state it in words… I like to see moving things. They’re boring when they don’t move. A windmill that is not moving… can be nice from time to time… But most of the time, it’s not even worth looking at.”
Also, how do I get to have an avatar?
Start an account at Gravatar dude … :)
ta dude.
Why the Australian media, government and commentators thinks that the only aspect of the Obama Administration’s National Broadband Plan is confined to the ramping up of their wireless networks, (ie. the opening up of 500 MHz spectrum OVER THE NEXT 10 YEARS) would have ones head reeling if they were to actually read and comprehend the text of the plan. Even the Executive summary makes it clear that it is not. In fact there are 60 key actions for Christs Sakes.
http://www.broadband.gov/plan/broadband-action-agenda.html
The plan, like the Australian National Broadband Plan, also promise delivery of 100mbps to residential customers. It also promises much more than just benefits to Health Care – many industries get a mention and recognised in the plan.
You can safely say that there won’t be much in the way of technical innovation and research in this country. If you have ideas I would get yourself and your innovation(s) over to the US pronto. This sort of childish naivity and hostile environment has been for decades a major innovation preventer and only contributes to a massive multibillion dollar ICT Trade Deficit which last time I looked was clocking more then $20 billion.
Furthermore US Congress gave The Federal Communications Commission the authority to formulate and regulate the plan and that includes the recent rulings on Internet Freedom and Openness, which so far does not exist in Australia. This makes the NBN a fat lot of use.
In fact because I have business and financial interests in SecondLife I should get myself over to the US pronto myself so my creativity and freedom to earn a living in the virtual world is not at risk or threat by halfwitted decisions and bogus claims from those who have no business interferring especially from the boneheads in this country.
Skills shortage indeed.
~~ We will all be rooned ~
Once you have to resort to childish name-calling like this, Renai, you’ve pretty well lost anyone you might’ve eventually gotten on side.
Outing yourself as a supercilious condescending prat towards those whom you want to force to pay for your new toy simply reinforces the impression many out here in the real world had towards the NBN spruikers all along.
Keep it up, People Who Are Smarter Than Us™ – you couldn’t alienate the general population at a greater rate of knots if you tried.
There is an argument about the NBN that is never really discussed… “Where is the funding coming from”.
I stand to be corrected – and please do so if I have this incorrect, but the majority of funds are not coming from our Tax dollars, instead the Government is using debt to fund the project. The revenue produced from the NBN is then used to cover the interest on these debts.
So, if the NBN was cancelled there would be no funds available for the QLD flood recovery or new transport or new hospitals – The government will not take on a huge funding arrangement like this without a return on the capital expenditure…
Then there is the Liberal alternative which they have actually budgeted to be paid from our tax pockets – No-one is going to invest dollars on a patch up job of systems that are failing on daily basis. it would actually cost you and I more under the Liberal plan.
Interesting side note. During the Brisbane floods we had a Telstra Technician visit onsite to fix damaged lines. His comment is that he didnt want the NBN, quote “Currently Brisbane has about the worst phone infrastructure in Australia, cannot keep up with the faults. Currently being flown up from NSW for months at a time on huge rates of pay and living away from home allowance etc so Telstra can keep up with all the faults. When the NBN does come in, wont be required anymore for these costly interstate trips”.
$40b wasted seems like a hell of a ransom note but worth every cent for the current mob to make a complete mess of it ,and make sure those real ugly laws now passed by labor cant be enabled and dont turn us into an Iran just yet.
Vote Labor and the current NBN, so it never happens and we keep FOI and choice.
(copper is green and just fine. until we can get in range of the USA wireless NBN).
“$40b wasted seems like a hell of a ransom note ”
Where did you conjure that figure from. I even see the $50 million figure getting bandied around by certain boneheaded politicians.
“Where is the funding coming from”
The NBN is being funded initially by equity funding from the Commonwealth. So far the Commonwealth has provided $662 million equity funding to NBN Co which covers all of NBN Co’s commitments as well as projected costs into the medium term. The Government’s Implementation Study estimates that $26 billion in equity funding will be required for the project. It is intended that the remaining funds needed to build the network and fund the company will come from NBN Co’s own revenues and, at an appropriate time, the private debt markets.
Source:
http://www.nbnco.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/main/site-base/resources/about-nbn-co/faqs
Additionally the Commonwealth govt’s Future Fund is being INVESTED in something more relevant than where its been sitting doing practically nothing for several years.
“Future Fund is being INVESTED in something more relevant than where its been sitting doing practically nothing for several years.”
It’s been properly invested, not just stuck under someone’s bed, you know. There was at least $51billion in it back in mid ’07 when it was with Northern Trust, IIRC.
Are you that confident that a nationalised government-monopoly broadband scheme can earn more than a traditional fund manager could get it to earn?
Nothing Labor has done so far gives me much confidence they can get anything right, to be honest. If they can beat the top fund managers out there at their own game, more power to them. But if it turns into another “Pink Batts”, “School Sheds” or “Green Loans” debacle…….
P.S. What ever happened to all those Super Clinics promised back in ’07? …..
“Anti-NBN junkies need to go to rehab”
That would be a waste of time unless you send them to Detox first. haha
“Are you that confident that a nationalised government-monopoly broadband scheme can earn more than a traditional fund manager could get it to earn?”
Indeed I am. The reasoning here is the characteristic behaviour openly displayed by American and Canadian ISPs – corruption and shannigans as you would only expect from private enterprise.
If these anti-competative practices persist on a GLOBAL scale, either governments or United Nations will need to step in. That includes taking over ICAN because the UN senses corruption. United Nations certainly will, if UN members shirk at their duties.
In fact the very first cab off the mark is the new final draft resolution filed in the UN General Assembly 22nd Nov 2010. http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ac265l56_en.pdf
What is at stake here is the state of The GLOBAL ECONOMY – the Internet is now seen by the global decision makers as the main conduit to assist in recovery from the Global Economic Crisis.
What is Australia going to do in the event that the resources boom goes bust and ends up like agriculture? There are currently indicators that China might very well be going into recession.
Beside all that – the Future Fund is finally being used for what it is intended to be used for – not lining private enterprise pockets where there is no tangible benefit to the Australian public. ie public infrastructure such as electrictity supply, water supply and affordable and adequate telecommunications – BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS.
Uh-huh. Whatevs, dude.
/backs away slowly
Wireless will only ever be an adjunct ot a fixed connection for at least 2 reasons if not more.
1. Wireless is a lot less secure then a fixed connection.
2. Wireless doesnt have the stability of a fixed connection in that weather and other conditions will always effect it.
Solar flares and sunspots also
I love how all the NBN-haters state the NBN will be obsolete by the time it is rolled out. Compared to what? Our outdated copper network? Our HFC network which is only available to a small percentage of the population? Our wireless network which can barely cope with standard telephony traffic let alone provide low-latency high-speed internet?
If the NBN is cancelled and in 10 years time we’re still using the same old creaky combination network Australia is going to look pretty stupid as a “technology innovator” to the rest of the world.
Whenever they say this I ask them directly what technology they think will supercede FTTH in the next 20 years, and they always repsond with “that isn’t the point, look at the Colins Class Sub, the government can’t do anything right!”
But they didn’t say that. They didn’t say that the government shouldn’t be building the technology, which I agree with in part, they said the technology will be out of date in 10 years. It irks me a little bit. Say what you mean people.
“NBN will be obsolete by the time it is rolled out”.,,,, ROFL . IF someone says that it goes to show just how LITTLE they really KNOW. The Fibre network WILL last multiple decades with fairly minimal cost upgrades over time.
Wireless will be an expensive upgrade every time keep costs to the consumer high.
Wireless is not the answer. Where as FTTP IS, and with a life span of 60 plus years it is actually the cheaper option.
Only a ID 10 T would say otherwise.
The core of the arguement usually stems from the history of government projects stagnating development due to lack of innovation and compliancy (which, technically, isn’t limited to government, it’s linked to dominate position in the market. Telstra suffers from the same problem even through it is in private hands), which I agree we should avoid by allowing innovation (by means of competition) to progress.
There arguement is not that the NBN will be out of date at launch, the arguement is that the NBN will be released, and then will be able to roll out the same technology without any pressure, except of course a government mandate, to improve anything. And they personally don’t want to “make the bet” on a particular technology because a better technology might be developed, but of course won’t be deployed because there is no reason for it to be.
A classic is example is ADSL2+, Telstra wouldn’t upgrade to it until another player (Internode) did it first. As I stated in my last post, I have no problem with this logic, but that isn’t what they say. They say that the NBN will be obsolete at launch, which, as it is launching now, is completely false.
After I made that comment I got berated by an individual on Twitter who was trying to clarify his position because I think he thought I was painting his point of view in a negative light. An unfortunate result considering I had to block him because he wouldn’t allow me to explain this to him, that my problem wasn’t with what he is trying to tell me, which I agree with, it’s that he started it by saying that the “NBN will be obsolete at launch.”
Interesting rant renai, what story or comment etc spurned you to chastise the dictaphone to such a great extent?
This poor article is typical of what the “bandwidth at any cost” brigade seem to be touting. Instead of engaging in an informed debate, they assume that anyone who is not supportive resorts to insults and calling people idiots.
Don’t forget, the NBN is under the control of a minister who engages in this practice, but also at the same time believes he can filter the internet.
Haha!
Death by association again! How many times will the anti NBN people pull out the Internet filter as an indication that the NBN is a bad idea. You know it just proves the case when they have to resort to insulting the Senator and I don’t even support the filter.
You can present any perfectly reasonable argument but the fact of the matter remains the communications industry in this country had a problem and the NBN is the solution. Created by some of the best minds in the country, it did not start out as a political issue. So why is it such a political issue now? Because you, the people of this country, yes those around you, saw the deficiencies in the system and they wanted something better.
I can tell you right now that unless Gillard screws up in a big way the NBN will carry them through the next election because it is a solution that makes sense and offers a fantastic future for the Australian people. I can get six different services into my home (2 voice, 4 data) across the NBN instead of the one we have now. It will revolutionize the way we live today. The best part, in the end, we wont have to pay a dime for the project.
The opposition are too little, too late. They had their chance, did nothing and thats what they will get in return.
Kevin
i like Fiber. its the IP fixed line networking solution for the future. No doubt about it.
But this NBN policy is rushed. It feels like they are making it up as they go along. Its dodge legislation, and they are hiding the details.
A monopoly is bad news in a free market economy. No FoI. Changes to competition laws. Bad bad bad.
Investment in IT/C is great. But i just feel like they are creating a monster.
P
I am quite impressed with your article Renai. I have read a few of your articles lately in which I didn’t necessarily agree with, especially the article relating to rolling the NBN out in metro areas before rural areas, however this article really hit the nail on the head.
To me it appears that people are viewing the NBN on a political basis, that the NBN represents Labor vs Liberal, with NBNCo caught in the middle.
It was good to read an article without all of the bias and political influence of the Murdoch Media Empire. Honestly, The Australian holds no journalistic neutrality and stinks of political bias, which IMO makes all of their articles worthless and not worth my time. It’s like reading a Coalition media statement every time you see an article written by The Australian.
Cheers, glad you enjoyed it! I can assure you that Messeurs Conroy and Turnbull are both annoyed at Delimiter in equal measure … Turnbull with perhaps a little more good humour ;)
A journalist isn’t a good jounralist if he spends his time sucking up to politicains. :)
And the opposite is also true — a politician is not a good politician if they spend their time sucking up to journalists ;)
A government is kept accountable when there is proper scrutiny and transparency. Vocal criticism from a vigorous opposition, sceptical media and a wary public is part of that process.
I believe in democracy Mr LeMay, do you?
The key words there are: “proper scrutiny and transparency”. So far we have seen very little of that
When the “scruity” is pointless politcal points scoring, like using the disaster from the floods to attack the justification for the NBN (playing on a tragdey).
Or using irrelevent facts of a key member’s personal history (Quigley and the Bribes) that were proven to be completely unrelated to where said individual was placed the affected organisation to question the accountablity and controls in place for the project.
Or sometimes, just plain lieing or completely misrepsenting a situation to push your agenda as a few of the critics have done (fortunately Tony Abbott and Mr Turnbull seem to have refrained from such actions, but it has not been beneith the Australian apparently).
Such attacks are not the actions you would expect for “proper scrutiny and transparency.”
“Scrutiny and transparency” needs to be intelligent to be effective. Simply parroting an Obama plan at the Australian Government is hardly that.
Would Andrew Bolt prefer Abamacare over our Medicare? Should we drive on the right hand side of the road? Should the ABC be financed by donations as NPR and PBS are? Should we have voluntary voting? Should we manage our cyclones the way Americans do?
“The US Government’s broadband plan should be looked at as what it is —” the best a once, but no longer, great country in which community funded projects are anathema, is reduced to considering acceptable.
Would Andrew Bolt prefer Abamacare over our Medicare? Should we drive on the right hand side of the road? Should the ABC be financed by donations as NPR and PBS are? Should we have voluntary voting? Should we manage our cyclones the way Americans do?
“The US Government’s broadband plan should be looked at as what it is —” the best a once, but no longer, great country in which community funded projects are anathema, is reduced to considering acceptable.<<<<< PRECISELY
The above would make the liberals and Howard throw the biggest party ever if it is allowed to happen here.
Howard tried to make Australia into the 52nd state of the USA, the current liberals are still trying.
Australia is NOT the USA, Australia is far better. People like the Liberals and their supporters need to remember the USA has 9toes over the bankrupt line, hell cheap arsed wireless is more then they can afford in reality.
Telstra was sold off by the liberals in the vain & stupid hope that Private enterprise would build the nation a new network that they knew that was required then, here we are a decade later, still waiting on a new australia wide network whilst the OLD crapped out POS that is the current network, collapses around us.
FTTP is the way of the future and the ONLY way all of Australia is going to get a new telco infrastructure is for the government to build it, It is far to important to the countries future for it to be kicked around as a political football. It is already 10 years late, it needs to be built NOW. And it needs to be built with fibre as a wired connection.
Andrew Bolt and others who cherry pick only one (1) of the sixty (60) points out of the American National Broadband Plan, namely the wireless network strategy simply indicates that they couldn’t tell the difference between their backside and a hole in the ground. Complete load of tripe.
You are supposed to use the scrollbar there on the right to read past the the first point of the 60 point agenda.
National Broadband Plan – Connecting America.
http://www.broadband.gov/plan/broadband-action-agenda.html
Renai,
Telling anti-NBN supporters to go to rehab is akin to Conroy’s censorship regime, but on the other hand it does generate traffic to your site.
Tell us again where is the NBN productivity commission report?
I have multiple DSL & cable connected to my premises, why do I need fiber?
Comrade, the whole point of this rant of Renai is to point out to some of the Anti-NBN arguements presented, such as those presented by the Australian, are thinny vailed poltical agenda and distract from actually debating the proper problems facing the NBN such as:
“Is it the right solution to fix Australia’s Broadband?”
I don’t see how pointing out that Obama has pledged to free 500MHz spectrum in order to provide wireless services to 98% of the country (we already have wireless services to 99% of the country thanks to Telstra NextG) is helping answer this question, especially when said pledge is only one aspect of a far larger plan.
I don’t see how pointing out that a few cables got knocked down in the wind (which happens regularly in that area) is helping answer this question.
I don’t see how pointing out that a country with 1/77th land area and twice the population manages to do it 24 times cheaper than us (especially considering they also said it was 10x slower, when was S.Korea rolling out 10Gbps services?) is helping answer this question.
I have multiple DSL & cable connected to my premises, why do I need fiber?
You don’t, but that isn’t the point. It never was the point. The point was the familes in suburbia and out in country town who can’t even get basic ADSL. If it wasn’t for the fact my house was serviced by cable I would be unable to get fixed line Broadband at all at my new house because it is under a RIM, and I live in suburban Sydney, 20 minutes from the CBD. It is for small businesses stuck on ADSL2+ who would benefit greatly from a service with far better than 2Mbps uploads that doesn’t cost them $4k a month.
It may be overkill for a lot of reasons right now, and that is why I, personally, would prefer a more measured apporach involving a mix of FTTP and FTTN technolgies, deployed by private enterpirse with government subsides, rather than the government coming in and “doing it all for them.” We’re more mature than that, we don’t have to throw in the towel just because Telstra decided to throw a paddy when we said we’d have to force them resale some of their assets to other providers (as they did when NBN 1.0 was being discussed).
But how is focusing on petty issues like cables breaking and what the US and SK are doing going to help us? They aren’t.
How is promising a series of patchwork susides and a big database telling us what the state of broadband is (we already know it’s not good, we don’t need a database to prove that) going to help us provision for the future and ensure that we don’t end up in this situation again? It isn’t.
So I like that you’re asking that question, but there are other questions you need to be asking as well.
“I have multiple DSL & cable connected to my premises, why do I need fiber?”
The National Broadband Plan infrastructure includes fibre, wireless and satellite.
http://www.nbnco.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/main/site-base/main-areas/our-network/
The NBN makes your DSL and cable redundant because these technologies have been superseded as is your ancient noisy copper wiring and must be replaced.
When the NBN is rolled out in your area you will get only one connection.
You already have a fibre based service right now. Does your cable have a better performance than your DSL connection?
“I have multiple DSL & cable connected to my premises, why do I need fiber?”
I am going to assume this is an obvious troll. Or you are simply completely ignorant. There are whole suburban areas in each major city within Australia that do not even have access to basic ADSL. Or their ADSL infrastructure is shared hence is so congested as to be unusuable.
The NBN is all about creating a level playfield to rid this country of the scourge of the have’s and the have-nots. People who do not have a choice where they can live because they may not be able to afford to live in areas which have a smorgasboard of internet options to choose from.
Next time engage brain before ass before making a comment like this.
I have multiple DSL & cable connected to my premises, why do I need fiber?..
Lucky you seeing as your in the .001% who can get the above.
Plus tell that to the person who is 3km for the cbd of rockhampton, who NEEDs to use satellite because1 cant get adsl or use dial up cos the lines to shitty, barely holds a wireless/3g signal long enough to hold a convo before it drops out.
the there is the other 70% of the country that are lucky just to get adsl, and if they do get it, a lot of the time its congested.
The other 29.999% are lucky they can access a non telstra ADSL dslam, who only have to contend with failing copper infrastructure.
Just because you dont need fibre the rest of the country DOES.
Along with the Education, health and business at ALL levels that will benefit hugely from having a decent wired connection thats fast enough to actually use.
Think of others that DO need it even if you might not.
“I have multiple DSL & cable connected to my premises”
Yeah … I have never seen anybody with this, to be honest, apart from businesses.
US investers and tech startups are about to enter the forray. These are the main driving forces of the Internet.
“Telling anti-NBN supporters to go to rehab is akin to Conroy’s censorship regime, but on the other hand it does generate traffic to your site.”
Really! Get a firm grip
This article has generated 121 comments so far – this post make it 122.
We need the NBN now so a breathless nation can subscribe as one to The Daily, which is already suffering criticism for being a slow download.
Then were can all read Andrew Bolt every day and possibly see him deliver a video version!
“I don’t see how pointing out that Obama has pledged to free 500MHz spectrum in order to provide wireless services to 98% of the country (we already have wireless services to 99% of the country thanks to Telstra NextG) is helping answer this question, especially when said pledge is only one aspect of a far larger plan.”
and the 500MHz spectrum is going to take an entire decade to roll out.
How is communication different from other infrastructure?
Roads provide access to your doorstep and allow businesses to provide services on this publicly owned infrastructure, multibillion dollar industries use that infrastructure in innovate and provide a huge boost to our economy. It is conduit through which services are provided. It is also a government owned monopoly where access is to sold. Why hasn’t this been left to the private sector? Could it be because if it was left to the private sector only those in the most profitable areas would have access to roads with standard dropping substantially in left profitable areas.
Lets look at electricity recently privatized in areas. This is the most similar infrastructure to communications. Access is provide to private sector to sell services. That access is a government sponsored monopoly(the power grid). No one has argued that the grid itself should be opened up to the private sector as duplication of access infrastructure is wasteful. Access to the grid is provided in an equitable way to access seekers and allows all access seekers to provide services and innovation on an even footing. It also allow one consistent grid to me maintained and improved instead of a hodgepodge of solutions that varies depending on which side of the street you are on or good forbid is all access point on your street where sold and company with services in your area are going to do an upgrade just for 1 extra user.
Communications in Australia was in very strong position and a technology leader when Telstra(then Telecom) was a government owned monopoly. If the CLP government had done the right thing and maintained control of the infrastructure while opening up access to the private sector to innovate and sell services on consistent infrastructure we might be in a better position now. For a start on the money paid by the private sector for access would have been put back into the infrastructure and we might already be well on our way to a complete NBN.
The current copper last mile is falling apart, the network needs to be replaced and going to fibre is the cheapest option. FTTN is a joke, as that is what Telstras RIM&CMUX’s are and the competition on those is limited to ONE wholesaler Telstra Wholesale.
NBN Co is the only real option for competition in the retail sector to provide reasonable prices. We all know what prices Telstra would charge the consumer if they were allowed to build the FTTN out in the metro areas, and leave the country areas on 3rd country infrastructure.
The NBN is the horse so that when its built new better tech can be used, voice is no longer the be all, end all of communication’s DATA IS.
FTTP is the HORSE and DATA is the CART!
Verizon, in the USA, started a big fiber to the home FTTH rollout a few years ago like the nbn’s architecture but have since ceased the rollout – why? Because it wasn’t financially viable. It couldn’t compete with more sensible and financially non delusional solutions like FTTN (fiber to the node) and HFC and probably wireless would have been competing against it as well. The only way you could ensure that the NBN isn’t a major dismal financial failure instead of a slightly less major dismal financial failure is if you basically legislate to prevent any other forms of internet broadband – something which non communist countries don’t normally do.
For my money – while, yes, the NBN is ‘in progress’ :
It has a ‘proposed 8 year roll out’ (that’s another 3 elections where anything can happen)
AND
the fact that it’s an ALP ‘promise’
AND
the fact that the country independents have hijacked/refocussed the NBN away from Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane to country centres
AND
the fact that it costs $BILLIONS$ and our debt is getting bigger every day
AND
we need to pay to rebuild half of Queensland after the floods and cyclones
means that you’d have to be a complete nutter to hold out hope for a fiber running past your house any time soon….
My advise – push for FTTN NOW so we at least have half a chance of getting ‘better than ADSL’ within the next 6-18 months instead of waiting up to 8 years for a ‘promised’ FTTH ‘solution’.
FTTN is dead tech what do you think Telstras rims/cmux’s/LGB are.
besides why pay for 2 network’s when going to FTTP first will get the job done, and for the basicly the rest of this century.
the fact that the country independents have hijacked/refocussed the NBN away from Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane to country centres.
HIjacked HAHAHA good one The build in proposal is really the only way to go as the metro areas are mostly served with ADSL2+ at a reasonable speed and cost.
t has a ‘proposed 8 year roll out’ (that’s another 3 elections where anything can happen)
the fact that it’s an ALP ‘promise’
Is about the only thing you have said thats anywhere near the mark.
we need to pay to rebuild half of Queensland after the floods and cyclones
If Queensland isnt prepared to insure its own infrastructure, why should the rest of the country (which does insure) pay for it.
the countries debt is actually really quite small.
Lastly the current last mile copper based infrastructure is falling in a heap. And not only that you need the horse before the cart. IE the new network to be built, before the new programs and services right across all sectors can be rolled out.
@Sniper: “If Queensland isnt prepared to insure its own infrastructure, why should the rest of the country (which does insure) pay for it.”
A commonly made criticism, but how informed is it? Given Queensland’s propensity for cyclones and floods has anyone paused to ask if insurance coverage was “economic”? Do you know all other governments insure all their assets? Citation? Andrew Bolt? Is any of the money to be spent on infrastructure repairs going to NSW or Victoria?
anyone who is against the nbn should try living in an area where cheap ass telstra decided to install 500 RIMs all designed to only handle dialup speeds, then see what happens when they offer everyone in the area ADSL or ADSL2, my bandwidth during peak times (which is basicly all the time) is at a snails pace & my sync speed to severs in sydney that should be 20ms is a whoopying 800ms
just to put it in perspective, my sync speed to Texas servers before this influx congestion occured was 250ms
why does it seem that everyone who is against the nbn is stuck in a stone age frame of mind & or knows jack about computers & or technology
Just because people are anti NBN does not mean they are anti cost effective high speed broadband – at a fraction of the cost and rolled out in most areas in 18 months instead of 8 years.
I feel your pain for being stuck behind a RIM. FTTN is a great, fast to deploy, much cheaper solution than FTTH and it is not to be confused with RIM.
FTTN is like bringing the exchange closer to your house so that your ADSL distance calculations work out much better and with the new VDSL2 the speeds get up to 100Mbps if you’re <1km and up to about 384Mbps if you're <400m from the node.
RIM is like strangling your phone line by forcing too many connections through a slow pipe. FTTN has fiber from the node back to the exchange so it's virtually impossible to strangle that link. With hybrid nodes people can pay extra to have the fiber extended from the node right to their doorstep – i.e. user pays rather than ramming a $43billion piece of proverbial down everybody's throat.
yeah but what about congested exchanges which also seems to be a pretty common problem & also what happens when the rest of the population decides its finally time to get online, the infastructure in alot of areas can barely cop as it is, id love for this FTTN thing to happen as it would solve my problem for now but it doesnt seem very future proof imo
And let’s not forget the ageing copper from the node and umm, guess who still owns that?
Back to square one we go!
For many countries, such as Sweden, FTTN was the first stepping stone to FTTH. It got fiber out of the exchanges for the first time and into nodes in the neighbourhood. That gave most people in the burbs speeds that make our ADSL look like a 2400 baud modem.
There next phase was to extend the fiber from the nodes to the houses – that obviously takes a heck of a lot longer and it is a lot more costly. Compare the cost of running a 10 fibers out to 10 nodes in a suburb against running 5,000 fibers out to every home in the suburb. Do the maths and you see where YOUR $43 billion vanishes pretty quickly.
In terms of the ‘age’ of copper. Copper is naturally anti corrosive. Our copper is usually younger than the copper in the many European countries that have successful FTTN rollouts. If the sheathing on the copper has done it’s job and prevented water getting in then the copper should be fine, regardless of it’s age.
The most amazing thing about copper and the reason why FTTN is so cheap is because-
it’s already there for us to use, we don’t have to roll it out! We just need to roll out fiber to neighbourhood nodes (Telstra already has fiber in many places just waiting for such an FTTN rollout!).
The biggest problem was that Telstra was a government owned monopoly – inefficient, slow to react, no incentive to provide good service… so Conroy’s plan is to fix our broadband issue with … wait for it…
…. a government owned monopoly – innefficient, slow to react, no incentive to provide good service…
I know the plan is to sell it off to private (overseas no doubt) interests… but really? They would have to sell it for at least $43billion so the Australian public aren’t left looking like they just got most severely ripped off – and no company would by a business with no publicly available, viable business case study for that insane amount of money. You’d have to assume we’re all going to be stuck with another government owned slug paced behemoth.
@Golfman
It’s not $43B anymore.
Telstra were a lumbering 800lb gorilla even following privatisation (only the threat of NBN made them act).
FTTN now and a stepping stone, FTTH later – then do it all now.
Re copper … one word… “patina”
Anyway the TOP 10 (imho) reasons we need FTTP are –
1. Perhaps the most significant. The copper network is nearing; if not past its use by date… it will not last forever. As such it needs replacing. So do we wait for a mass failure then say, umm now what?
2. Wireless is an alternative, but with its limitations, not a plausible stand alone option (very handy in conjunction with fibre). It also requires fibre, anyway! FTTN, needs the dilapidated last mile copper and is therefore, not a plausible alternative either.
3. Telstra own the monopoly last mile and have had a stranglehold on Australia’s comms, which will end under this arrangement. Telstra as owner of the copper will not update to fibre, without keeping the monopoly last mile (as demonstrated in 2005).
4. Other companies will not invest with Telstra having the last mile monopoly (placing a few DSLAMs into Telstra exchanges and using Telstra’s network is hardly constructing? Also, they of course will not build infrastructure in unprofitable areas anyway (leaving the government to do so)!
5. Some naysayers suggest enticing private companies to invest in these areas (per #4) by offering $B’s in subsidies. Problem being, inevitably the network, although largely funded by the taxpayer will be owned by a private company with “no ROI for the taxpayer”!
6. Australia’s comms is a natural monopoly and even if private enterprise would invest nationwde, it is silly to have multiple cables from many companies, just as it is silly to expect multiple water/sewerage pipes or electricity cables to homes.
7. Lots of Aussies currently have 3rd world comms (even those in cities/RIMs) and need improvement. The NBN will be this improvement also offering retail competition/choice, not just Telstra, rurally!
8. History has shown speed and up/download requirements have increased rapidly each year. FTTP will ensure that we are not only replacing the ageing copper with new technology which covers our current needs but we will be ready for future needs, in line with past trends.
9. Anything less than FTTP “would possibly be ok for now”. But as outlined in #8, what will happen if the copper fails? By utilising anything less than FTTP, further costly ongoing upgrades will be required. And in the end, we will still have an old, worn out network with a few new parts and over paid for it.
10. Affordability… the naysayers continually say, we can’t afford it. Yes it is expensive. But… doing the job properly rather than cutting corners and doing it half-**sed, is always more expensive – but worthwhile in the log run! Regardless, obviously, we can afford it, because it “will pay for itself”(I’ll say it again… pay for itself). Also, as the funds are both Capex (via debt) but more importantly Opex, other budgetary requirements are NOT affected.
So what is the problem?
>FTTN now and a stepping stone, FTTH later – then do it all now.
It’s a bit like saying they should have built a freeway from Sydney to Brisbane in one go but they didn’t – they did it a section at a time because it was all they could afford. Sure we would have loved to see an 8 lane freeway built in 1930 but section by section is the only affordable, sustainable approach to the growth of most “organic” structures – including societies.
>1. Perhaps the most significant. The copper network is nearing; if not past
>its use by date… it will not last forever. As such it needs replacing. So
>do we wait for a mass failure then say, umm now what?
Massive failure? What? Do you think all residential copper lines will simultaneously decide to keel over one day to cause a massive failure? Even though phone lines are for communications I don’t think the individual lines could talk to each other to organize such a fiendish massive failure :). What’s more likely is that back hoes accidentally dig up the occasional cable – like they do now and like they could do with fiber also. My parent’s copper lines have given faultless service for more than 40 years with no sign of ‘aging’ because, from high school chemistry, copper’s oxidization process (rusting) is self protecting – much like aluminium’s.
>2. Wireless is an alternative, but with its limitations, not a plausible
>stand alone option (very handy in conjunction with fibre). It also requires
>fibre, anyway! FTTN, needs the dilapidated last mile copper and is
>therefore, not a plausible alternative either.
If you are right then you’d have to ask why is FTTN rolled out successfully in most other countries in the world, many with copper networks much older than ours. They chose to use copper over other methods for a reason!
>3. Telstra own the monopoly last mile and have had a stranglehold on
>Australia’s comms, which will end under this arrangement. Telstra as owner
>of the copper will not update to fibre, without keeping the monopoly last
>mile (as demonstrated in 2005).
The government just approved the purchase of a chunk of Telstra. I’m sure another chunk is not out of the question – or they could force sharing of that infrastructure like they forced sharing of the exchanges… the issue of Telstra is not insurmountable as we’ve seen recently.
>4. Other companies will not invest with Telstra having the last mile
>monopoly (placing a few DSLAMs into Telstra exchanges and using Telstra’s
>network is hardly constructing? Also, they of course will not build
>infrastructure in unprofitable areas anyway (leaving the government to do
>so)!
FYI – unprofitable areas – i.e. outlying rural areas, won’t be getting fiber – even under the NBN plan. So don’t persist with the government’s deceit that makes country folk like Windsor and Oaskshot think that the NBN means fiber to the farm. That’s bull**** – will never happen – it’s wireless all the way for them under the NBN plan. On the other hand rural centres are just as profitable for other players as suburban areas given similar population density.
>5. Some naysayers suggest enticing private companies to invest in these
>areas (per #4) by offering $B’s in subsidies. Problem being, inevitably the
>network, although largely funded by the taxpayer will be owned by a private
>company with “no ROI for the taxpayer”!
You just argued that the taxpayer would be missing out on ROI on an investment in areas that you say are unprofitable anyway… in that case there is no ROI to be had in any case so I agree it would be stupid to subsidize private companies to supply those areas… but those are special areas that need government attention. The NBN’s draconian, one size fits all, approach is why it’s so stupid. The profitable areas, like suburban Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane should be opened up to competitive pressures to provide “whatever” technology gets the people the speeds they need at a price they are prepared to pay – if enabling that competitive pressure to work means making Telstra’s last mile a community resource then so be it. If someone wants a 1GHz connection then let THEM pay for a fiber to run from a node to their place.
Open up the infrastructure for shared use and let the various technologies compete with each other – the market will find a way to deliver high speed – whether it’s FTTN, HFC, wireless or even FTTH – like it has done in most other countries. The NBN should focus on providing unprofitable areas decent broadband – which probably means wireless in most sparsely populated areas.
>6. Australia’s comms is a natural monopoly and even if private enterprise
>would invest nationwde, it is silly to have multiple cables from many
>companies, just as it is silly to expect multiple water/sewerage pipes or
>electricity cables to homes.
I agree – we need to share the existing infrastructure: copper/HFC and encourage private industry to extend that infrastructure (eg., as much fibre as required).
>7. Lots of Aussies currently have 3rd world comms (even those in
>cities/RIMs) and need improvement. The NBN will be this improvement also
>offering retail competition/choice, not just Telstra, rurally!
Australia will continue to have 3rd world comms for many years to come. The speed of rollout in your area will be roughly equivalent to how marginal your electorate is ;). The deal with the “independents” showed that the NBN is every much the political football it was always going to be.
>8. History has shown speed and up/download requirements have increased
>rapidly each year. FTTP will ensure that we are not only replacing the
>ageing copper with new technology which covers our current needs but we
>will be ready for future needs, in line with past trends.
Phase 1: fiber to the node – gets fiber out there, closer to the homes with copper last mile.
Phase 2: extend fiber from nodes to homes as/when/if required.
This means we’re reusing much of the existing infrastructure but still rolling out fiber to nodes which will be required for FTTH in phase 2 anyway. Phase 1 gets suburban areas much higher speeds in a very short time – months instead of years and the fiber rollout is reused when phase 2 happens – very little waste.
>9. Anything less than FTTP “would possibly be ok for now”. But as outlined
>in #8, what will happen if the copper fails? By utilising anything less
>than FTTP, further costly ongoing upgrades will be required. And in the
>end, we will still have an old, worn out network with a few new parts and
>over paid for it.
Given that you can later extend an FTTN rollout to FTTP like the Swiss did it’s a no brainer.
>10. Affordability… the naysayers continually say, we can’t afford it. Yes
>it is expensive. But… doing the job properly rather than cutting corners
>and doing it half-**sed, is always more expensive – but worthwhile in the
>log run! Regardless, obviously, we can afford it, because it “will pay for
>itself”(I’ll say it again… pay for itself). Also, as the funds are both
>Capex (via debt) but more importantly Opex, other budgetary requirements
>are NOT affected.
We can’t even afford to rebuild Queensland without the gubmint imposing an extra tax (levy) and that will only cost $6B!
If only the gubmint had put levies in place before the flood there would have been no damage! (flood levy banks that is … boom tish!)
@ Golfman, I was going to shake my head and just pass this… But…
All you have done here is simply presented Lib policy, which most learned people (sans association with the Coalition) scoff at! So whilst I appreciate the time and effort you made in trying to discredit my points, (which is ok) but in doing so, you have in no way offered a “viable and actual” alternative, imo!
A blind belief that the copper is and will continue to be operational – proof being… well it’s been ok at the olds for yonks, really doesn’t cut the mustard. Then using that as your entire basis to suggest patching fibre to copper instead of doing it properly, then ignoring that a large part of this process is to eliminate Aust’s comms inequality/dominance/dependence upon Telstra… is reckless and hardly a vision for our future!
No they don’t build roads in one go from Sydney to Brisbane, they build them in segments (much like the NBN is doing segments – suburb by suburb) BUT with roads.. they “complete” each segment of tarred road each time. What they don’t do, as you suggest with the FTTN, is only build each segment 90% tarred and leave the remaining 10% dirt, because it’s too expensive and “MAYBE” do each 5% segment later! And could you imagine a government building all these 90% tarred segments but having a private company own the remaining 10% dirt and then dictating to the government and the customers? This is your proposition for our comms?
1. Please don’t be childish… not every copper line will go down together, but critical conditions as I outlined, may occur and if they do…then what? It’s known as being proactive instead of reactive and planning, using risk management techniques. If copper failure occurs, all of a sudden you’re nice new FTTN means SFA. The copper will not last forever and will need replacing… if it’s been ok for 40 years at your parents, well think “how much longer can it possibly last” and again research “patina”.
2. Please supply facts to prove FTTN is “successfully rolled out in MOST countries” and also consider their financials compared to ours.
3. Ok so with your plan the government will still need the ducts but also “need” the last mile (the deal was to decommission not utilise the copper). So Telstra will simply say, ok here it’s yours? Sure…Telstra will have so much pulling power, one would assume they would want much more for the last mile to each home than the current $11B for the ducts etc. So all of a sudden FTTN is becoming as expensive as FTTP and we still need and you suggest more costly upgrades to FTTP later?
4. I know rural won’t be getting fibre, I never said they were and have in fact posted the URL to the NBN announcement correcting others who have claimed this. So since you wish to pedantically place words I never said into the correspondence… NO it’s not wireless all the way for rural folk, it is wireless or satellite. But, you conveniently didn’t cover the crux of the point, “private companies” will not invest in unprofitable areas (this is common sense) and history proves it. So…
5. Dear oh dear… now understand… if private enterprise were to upgrade our comms, they would ignore the unprofitable areas (refer #4) and fight over the city areas. So to entice them to rural areas, we’d need to give them $bs, which equates to both “huge outlay but with no ROI for the taxpayer”. This is why the NBN needs to be nationwide and government built/run, because unlike private enterprise, the government will accept a smaller return by channelling funds from the profitable cities into the unprofitable bush! By letting private companies scrape the cream in the profitable areas and the poor old taxpayer foot the bill in the bush, again we pay but have no ROI (and remember the naysayers entire argument revolves around cost/ROI)! The current nationwide FTTP is the best ROI for taxpayers and fairest system for the all Australians.
6. Yes it is a natural monopoly and Telstra has shown that unless the monopoly process is correctly governed, i.e. putting the people ahead of shares, it will never be right. FTTN will just continue the shareholders first mentality, whereas FTTP as it stands promotes fairness and puts Aussies before $, by eliminating the monopoly last mile…
7. Australia will continue to have 3rd world comms UNTIL THE NBN COMES to town! Your approach is some Australians will continue to have 3rd world comms period. Don’t forget, the NBN offers speed certainty too! You pay for 20Mbps plan and you get 20Mbps. Unlike my current plan where I pay for (up to in illegible print) 20Mbps and get under 7. So the NBN is an improvement all round, not just rurally.
8. Refer paragraph 3 and also point 3
9. As outlined above… to do it half **sed (90% tar/10% dirt). To remain at Telstra’s mercy and to pay them exorbitant $ for the last mile “later”, equating to greater cost in the long run. Or to expect private companies to invest in unprofitable areas or to gift them $bs and not own the network and therefore also receive no ROI. Or to let private enterprise scrape the city cream and the taxpayer foot the bill for the unprofitable areas, etc.. is “brainless”!!!
10. Have you ever seen such tragedy Australia wide, all come at once? I certainly haven’t. Some of the worst floods and the biggest cyclone in history in Qld, flooding in NSW, Vic and Tas, houses burnt in WA and now another cyclone in Darwin? Governments proactively plan for such occurrences. But I’d guess no Government in history has had to deal with anything of this magnitude, simultaneously. In saying that, the Howard government (although ignoring infrastructure) banked a heap of cash (primarily through the $40B sale of Telstra, implementation of the GST and the flow-on of the mining boom) and the Rudd government acted appropriately (according to the economists etc) in reacting to the GFC. Because of these two factors we are in a better financial situation than almost any other country. I believe for me, the levy will equate to about $10 per week, which is pittance, to help rebuild and also keep all other government programs, especially the NBN running!
Funny, you suggest the government should have introduced levies to avoid the flood impact (proactive) but take a completely opposite (reactive) view in relation to comms. She’ll be right mate, copper’s cool! Woot!
I guess with some, rather than wanting visionary infrastructure to help future generations as I do, it is all dependent upon biases, agendas and political leaning. As such, we will never agree and have therefore exhausted our correspondences. So please feel free to ignore my points and take a typical, parting shot.
@RS
“All you have done here is simply presented Lib policy, which most learned people (sans association with the Coalition) scoff at!”
Good on you for revealing that you pleasure seeing yourself as an elite, champagne drinking socialist :) How’s that Paul Keating styled Armani suit coming along oh most learned one? (Just jokes!)
I have an honours degree in Electrical Engineering and have spent 6 years working in the telco industry. Is that not learned enough for you?
You incorrectly accuse me of presenting Liberal party policy. Lib policy mainly promotes the use of wireless yet my focus is on FTTN in suburbs and a combo of FTTC/FTTP in highly dense areas like in the cities where fiber rollout is easy, fast and cheaper.
What you have done is repeat spin from Spinister Conroy i.e. ALP policy.
“and again research “patina”.”
Did you read my last response where I said “copper’s oxidization process (rusting) is self protecting”. If you researched patina on wiki you would have read something very similar:
About copper as it ages (to quote my learned friends at Wikipedia):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patina
“Copper does not react with water, but it slowly reacts with atmospheric oxygen forming a layer of brown-black copper oxide. In contrast to the oxidation of iron by wet air, this oxide layer stops the further, bulk corrosion.”
– so as it gets old the oxidation it builds up protects it from further oxidization. Good thing that otherwise we’d have to replace both our phone lines and just about every power cable – underground and overhead – in the country. The reason they don’t have to do that is because they chose to use … well copper!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patina –
“is that its patina protects or passivates it against further corrosion.”
Not sure where you got the idea from the patina is a bad thing for copper – it protects the copper from further corrosion!
You say patina and I say potato… ;)
Neeway, in regards to FTTNs massive success overseas:
**WARNING: do not read these wikipedia page if you are an NBN/Conroy fan boy as it might make a bit of vomit come into your mouth when you realize how you blindly believed everything you’ve been told about FTTN and why the NBN has to be FTTH**
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-high-bitrate_digital_subscriber_line
“Funny, you suggest the government should have introduced levies to avoid the flood impact (proactive) but take a completely opposite (reactive) view in relation to comms. She’ll be right mate, copper’s cool! Woot!”
I wasn’t suggesting that – it was a jovial play on the word ‘levy’. Us non learned folk have been known to partake in this activity which you can research on wikipedia as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour#Humour_formula
Anyway, I don’t have time to refute the rest of your “points” as they reflect 100% classic ALP/NBN spin and misinformation just like your ‘patina’ FUD. RS you are the one who needs to do some research and get informed – unless of course you’re just another Labor troll – in which case you getting informed is not good for your job preservation prospects..
Golfman, firstly my apologies…
I did say for you to have the parting shot, but I expected more of a fight, not a fact less, politically motivated spiel of nothingness but “wiki, LOL”… So I feel it’s my civic duty to help one so, needy…!
Umm, I didn’t ever bother with your URLs as they are all wiki links..OMG. Speaking of humour and naivety (ooh we weren’t speaking of naivety – well if the boot fits)!
If you aren’t even intelligent enough to realise that “wiki” is at best questionable, as people such as you can get on there and write their own biased citations… well, no you aren’t learned enough. So what hope have you got of understanding that big complicated NBN thingy…
Let me explain a scenario which occurred about 4 years ago, a wiki citation about Sol Trujillo (he was the former CEO of Telstra – see you are learning already). It was considered by both he and Telstra, so libellous, that it almost (typically) became a legal issue.
Wiki is not normally even considered an acceptable reference source in educational facilities…! So please…!
Glad I taught you a new word too “patina”. Now for your next task, try verdigris and/or aerugo… (at wiki…LOL) or better still from a more reputable source and you will find that they all can/do “DISSOLVE COPPER, brass etc)”! Ooh it’s like Pantene! But you keep dreaming ’cause the copper at old mumsies is ok’…sigh!
Couldn’t argue the old 90% tar/dirt you even admitted to. Nor private enterprise not investing rurally. Nor natural monopoly. Nor the NBN repaying itself…because you have no time…? But you have time to search wiki night and day to find, someone’s interpretation, which suit you…LOL!!!!
And funny you should ask, my Armani suit is fine thanks… doesn’t mean I have to forget those who struggle, which is why I support an NBN for all, rich, average and particularly, the not so fortunate…
So to avoid you further embarrassing yourself, it may be prudent for you to stick to golf…as your comms knowledge and all round posting is somewhat infantile…! But thanks coming and for at least giving it a go Tiger!
@golfman
“I have an honours degree in Electrical Engineering and have spent 6 years working in the telco industry. Is that not learned enough for you?”
yeah but you dont seem to have much experience with live, not everything that makes sense in theory works 100% when put to practice
take my place for example, my telstra pit is on the lowest point of a courtyard, you can imagine what happens everytime it rains, whos going to pay for it all to be replaced for your FTTN to work properly? & im sure my place isnt a rare exception
@RS
Well at first I thought I could have an open, light hearted discussion with an intellectual equal but now you’re just demonstrating how irrational and frustrated you get when you don’t wish to or can’t understand something your biased perceptions don’t allow you to comprehend.
And to suggest that pages such as these wikipedia pages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-high-bitrate_digital_subscriber_line
and here’s the newer VDSL2 page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_high_speed_digital_subscriber_line_2
I linked to on the details of FTTN roll out in most of the world’s developed countries is somehow conspired by “people like me” sounds IMHO quite paranoid. Good luck with that. I guess you think the FBI staged 911 too.
If you’re not prepared to validate/invalidate the information on wikipedia then you have no right to fire a cheap shot asserting some “intellectually snoborious” claim that information on that wikipedia page has no integrity. I guess you don’t understand how wikipedia works. They have processes for managing author contentions.
Given that wikipedia allows for anyone to contribute then you, as a thoroughly learned fellow with a strong opinion on this stuff, should validate the claims made on that page and make corrections for any of the 36 countries you find listed there that don’t really have FTTN and therefore have a falsified FTTN entry that was just put there by some ‘anti NBN’ conspirator.
If you’re not prepared to do that then you’re just another politically biased, ignorant, invalid, clueless labor party troll and I’ve got nothing more to add to this conversation. Back up your claims about the integrity of that wikipage and I might be interested in wasting some more of my time trying pry open your closed mind.
BTW – there’s nothing more I’d rather than fiber to every home in the country but I live in the real world and know that its going to take years and $billions that we can’t afford at this stage. FTTN is a perfect incremental step – getting fiber out to nodes is what has to be done for a FTTH rollout in any case so that investment is not wasted and it gets many of us faster speeds in 6 -18 months not in 5-8 years. The rest of the world will be laughing at us in a few years when with the current FTTH approach most of us still won’t have fiber. Most sites probably won’t work very well on crappy 2-6mpbs ADSL connections whereas VDSL2 connections of 20-100Mbps should be just fine.
End of conversation from this end at least.
Golfman. Just one point:
The rollout of FTTN may only take 6-24 months depending on design for Australia, however it will be at least 3 years (probably 5) before we even start. Meaning we’ll be 5 to 7 years to get FTTN built anyway. This is because ALP won’t budge on the NBN, so it’ll take the Opposition, assuming they get into power, winning the election, and finish the tender process (like they did with OPEL networks), before construction will even start.
Welcome to politics, it’s a bitch.
@ Golfman… said –
“Well at first I thought I could have an open, light hearted discussion with an intellectual equal but now you’re just demonstrating how irrational and frustrated you get when you don’t wish to or can’t understand something your biased perceptions don’t allow you to comprehend”…
How ironic, I was thinking the EXACT same thing, go figure…
Unfortunately, it stopped being light hearted when YOU said things such as –
“Good on you for revealing that you pleasure seeing yourself as an elite, champagne drinking socialist :) How’s that Paul Keating styled Armani suit coming along oh most learned one?”
Of course you then said just jokes, but what do they say about horses and gates?
And…
“**WARNING: do not read these wikipedia page if you are an NBN/Conroy fan boy as it might make a bit of vomit come into your mouth when you realize how you blindly believed everything you’ve been told about FTTN and why the NBN has to be FTTH**”
And…
“Anyway, I don’t have time to refute the rest of your “points” as they reflect 100% classic ALP/NBN spin and misinformation just like your ‘patina’ FUD. RS you are the one who needs to do some research and get informed – unless of course you’re just another Labor troll – in which case you getting informed is not good for your job preservation prospects..” {END}
So, YOU start the smart***ed comments, you say you do not have time to address my points (yes that’s it…time, even though you are still here spending lots of time NOT addressing my points and being a smart **se), you have one source of reference only, Wiki and then when I simply “return fire”, you sob and blame me? Dear oh dear!
Remember all I wrote to trigger that hot headed, mouth frothing, nonsense re-quoted above was, “I was going to shake my head and ignore you”. I brought up the fact that your entire copper argument revolved around “my parents copper has been faultless for 40 years” and my belief that you were simply “promoting Lib policy” (which really seemed to hit a nerve, as I was seemingly, right on the money)…! Anyway…
When you get to the 19th, here’s a URL link for you check out, which describes you perfectly –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy
Tata… enjoy the NBN!
Yes, I agree that the problem with this whole debacle has been 90% politics/ 10% technical issues. In 2007 Telstra had done the planning and was ready to roll out FTTN…. if only that had occurred most of us would have been enjoying, for the last 3 years, fiber most of the way from the exchange to our homes and the massive speed improvements that brings.
NZ had the same issue we have with Telstra owning the last mile – solution: – forced slice up to make the last mile available to competitors… why is something so hard for Australia to fathom so damn easy and quick for NZ to get their head around. Australia also forces Telstra split up… why? to take advantage of the billions already invested in the last mile? No, so that the government can junk that infrastructure worth billions so that its precious NBN is guaranteed no competition. The government has lost its marbles and is not acting in the best interests of the nation – I propose an Egyptian style revolt against this draconian, power hungry, nut bag government :)
Ummm – Telstra did the planning and were ready to roll out FTTN (in urban areas only) before 2007, but THEY THEM SELF, withdrew from negotiations, when these negotiations with the ACCC were all but signed sealed and delivered.
They did so because they not only wanted to further their stranglehold on Australia”s comms and to strengthen the last mile dependency (again in urban areas only) but unlike the fair and reasonable return for such an investment, they wanted a H U G E ROI… and the ACCC said be reasonable, but Telstra said no…!
This then forced governments from both sides – yes your perfectly more perfect than perfection coalition, who never did or do anything wrong [sic] and the nut bags [sic] (nice unbiased description there) to both reassess.
As I have said before (apart from decisions which have caused bankruptcy) Trujillo’s to withdraw decision, will go down in Australia’s “business” history as one of the worst ever, imo!
The problem was that our gubmints (both sides!) let Telstra make such a decisions about vital infrastructure that we’ve all funded over the years. The NZ gov didn’t wear that crap from their Telstra equivalent and said, hey buckos, that copper network and the cable ducts/poles that carry them is now ours and here’s what we’re paying you for it. The gov could then enter into deals with private companies where FTTN, FTTC, FTTP, FTTH (what ever technology is appropriate to any given area) is profitable.
It’s not too late for us to do that. The plans were all drawn up for FTTN. We can recommence from where Telstra was at in 2007 starting next Monday except do a global Search/Replace of VDSL with VDSL2 throughout the design documents.
We’ll just pretend the last 4 years didn’t happen ;)
“Tata… enjoy the NBN!”
I’d love nothing more to be honest but I’m a realist and this gubmint has about a 5% chance of making this happen in the next decade. I’d like to set this “ability to deliver on promises” challenged gubmint a more easily achievable task.
Running a company that sells cloud based/SaaS solutions the current ADSL is a real drag on cloud take up in Australia. At least FTTN would make us competitive sooner.
I bet if you ran a survey on individual suburbs and ask them if they’d prefer a few FTTN nodes to be built within 6 months and have 20-100Mbps via VDSL2 for $50/month or wait 5-8 years for FTTP 100Mbps at $80/month I know which one would win.
The broadband landscape at the last election was not presented as such because the coalition’s communications minister *should* have been Turnbill instead of the apparent technophobe that ‘had a go’ (don’t even remember his name!). All he kept mentioning was hi speed wireless – a fatal flaw in their election campaign. Don’t think I didn’t try to warn them against such a stupid strategy ;)
Yes Golfman, I will enjoy every last FTMP (fibre to MY premises) strand…LOL!
“Yes Golfman, I will enjoy every last FTMP (fibre to MY premises) strand…LOL!”
I hope it comes true for you before Australia becomes “internet irrelevant” with our 1990s ADSL speeds. Here’s the planned roll out as I see it ever since the independents handed Julia the gig:
Fiber will be rolled out in the following order:
1. Electorates belonging to Oakshott and Windsor
2. Marginal electorates (especially around election times)
3. Safe labor seats
15. Safe liberal seats
With probably 3 elections to be held before the 8 year rollout is complete the priority might change. If at the next election Julia doesn’t require the independents to form government then you can slide Number 1 down to number 15 and slide all the others up one.
Pretty simple really :) We should all move to Port Macquarie!
LOL… what a load of BS.
FYI , the current roll out region Kiama, is in the Gilmore electorate and is one of the safest Liberal seats in Australia, held by Joanna Gash.
In fact at the last election, Gilmore was the very first seat of any to be claimed in a landslide to the Liberal’s, soon after poll closing!
So, you don’t have time (LOL) to go through my points (and still promote 90% tar/10% dirt roads…) but have time for this nonsense… those true colours are showing through with each comment eh?
Just let it go, tiger… you are talking FUD and seriously have nowhere left to turn…!
Pretty simple really ;-)
Once again I let out a big sigh……
I haven’t had time to read every single reply so this may have already been said.
What the hell do you think your wireless base stations are plugged into in order to let all you wireless users use your mobile devices? It doesn’t work off thin air you know, They are plugged into a wired network!
Some people need to go back to school seriously, There is no one or the other, Fibre Network which the NBN promises will absloutely complement wireless networks and in fact most likely speed them up as well, This is possibly the best future infrastructure Australia has done in ages, It will benefit all areas from home use to business’s. As we continue pushing the content and high definiton moves into next resolutions, Fibre networks will be critical to handle all the HD traffic wether it’s a home movie or full teleconferencing from a work meeting. Being infrastructure the price should not even be an issue as it will more than be worth it in the long run, Government is happy to spend around 4.3billion in foreign aid for 2010-2011 yet worries about NBN that will truly benefit it’s own nation. I say WHAT A JOKE!
Yes indeed Shane…
And the biggest joke imo, regardless of the cost, the NBN in time, “will pay for itself”!
So not only will we gain from the points you mentioned, but in the end (unlike nearly all other government expenditure – where are the naysayers there…) it will have cost us nothing… in fact, once revenue has repaid or is repaying expenditure… when/IF sold, we (taxpayers) stand to make a handsome profit…
Some seem to forget too, that the copper “will not” last forever…and keep harping on about FTTN! Anyway…
Sad some cannot see past today, their own wallets or their traditional political partiality to support such a (imo) visionary project!
Addendum:-
Even sadder… there are those out there who not only, do not support the NBN (which is of course, ones own prerogative to do so) but there are some who will disgracefully (and for what rational reasoning?) even, lie, FUDge figures, contradict their own previous comments to suit the varying threads and “without any foundation what-so-ever”, try to discredit the Corporate plan/Quigley/Conroy/positive reports etc, just to desperately try to convince others that the NBN is no good!
In fact, I feel a visit from them coming, about…………….now!
Yes I agree Shane, sigh.
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