Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull last night declared National Broadband Network enthusiasts needed to demonstrate what applications would actually need the fibre network’s massively enhanced speeds, telling futurist Mark Pesce he needed to “lay off the Kool-Aid” with respect to the technology.
Pesce is an Australian inventor and futurist best known for his work on the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) as well as his media appearances and commentary on technology matters. Last night the commentator said on the ABC’s The Drum show that the nation would need faster broadband for as yet undiscovered applications in the future, noting that currently mainstream technologies like BitTorrent hadn’t been invented until faster broadband came along.
“You’ve got to lay off the kool-aid,” Turnbull fired back. The Liberal MP said it was “nuts” that even a “notorious, self-proclaimed futurist” like Pesce wasn’t able to name the applications which the NBN would fuel in the future. “Speed in and of itself is an abstraction,” said Turnbull. “It doesn’t do anything for you, unless you have applications you can use.”
The comments came as Turnbull and a number of other Liberal parliamentarians have intensified the party’s attack on the NBN project over the past few days.
“If anything our criticisms of the NBN are more intense now than they were eight months ago,” Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said on Tamworth’s Radio 2TM late last week. Abbott said the recent collapse of NBN Co’s construction tender process demonstrated “there is no way on God’s Earth that they are going to be able to build this thing for the amount they are talking about.”
“This is school halls on steroids,” he added. “This is going to be an absolute rip off of the taxpayer. This is not going to work. We know that this mob can’t be trusted with money. We know they are incompetent when it comes to delivery and the collapse of the tender process is, I very much predict, a sign of things to come.”
In addition Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham – one of the chief Coalition Senators responsible for questioning the NBN in the Senate’s communications committee – last week issued a media release slamming the Federal Government for refusing to comply with a number of requests for further information on the NBN by a Senate Estimates Committee. Birmingham had received a letter from the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy stating it couldn’t meet agreed timelines to answer “hundreds of questions” about the NBN.
“Labor’s latest attempt to shield its NBN from public scrutiny is an outrageous attack on Australian taxpayers’ right to know how billions of dollars of their money is being spent,” Birmingham said in a statement. “Timelines for answering estimates questions were agreed to by all Senators, including Labor Senators. To describe the effort required to answer the questions as ‘unreasonable’ is an insult to the Parliament and taxpayers alike.
“Clearly the Government’s paranoia and secrecy are only increasing as the NBN descends further into chaos,” he said. “The Government is desperately trying to stop any level of scrutiny of its NBN. What else is it trying to hide? Is the NBN unravelling at the seams?”
Rejoindered…nice…LOL
Hmm I looked it up in the dictionary … turned out ‘rejoinder’ is a noun, not a verb ;) Changed.
I think it was fair…”rejoinder” is an answer to a reply…so I guess present tense verb would be “rejoindering”, and past tense “rejoindered”…
Your use of language is often impressive ;)
More FUD from Turnbull. He’s so good at spreading misinformation. Talk about lacking any vision whatsoever. According to Malcolm nothing is going to come along in the next years which will utilise 100mbps or more. Yet 4 Corners last night showed multiple real world applications in consumer’s homes that fail on the existing copper network today. Even if the technology sector sat still (which is a laughable idea) we can make use of that extra bandwidth in multiple ways that simply can’t be delivered over the existing copper infrastructure.
Given his lies about wireless being an adequate competitor to fibre (I love the way he gets out his iPad as proof every damn time) I’ve stopped taking Malcolm seriously at all. The man is simply full of shit.
I dunno.
I do understand some of Malcolm’s argument. It’s just that his argument is often so very narrowly focussed.
His addiction to the free market and his belief that the private sector can take of broadband are enough for him to lost credibility in my eyes. Let alone him crapping on about LTE as an adequate competitor (as he did yet again on 4 Corners last night) when he knows full well that spectrum is scarce, that it’s shared, and that it would require towers everywhere (connected by fibre) to work.
He also NEVER talks about upload speeds, which are key to a proper next generation network.
Occasionally he makes sense, but with his current agenda, that’s pretty rarely.
The 4 corners episode last night, showed, at most, speeds of around 20-30mbit to the house (not schools or hospitals). That is easily achieved by VDSL2 level speeds, and as shown in the example of Britain, the takeup rate of 50mbit (which covers half the country) is pathetic
yeah VDSL is a great idea, what was its range again? 2km or was it less than that before we start to see major drop off in speed…..
You know what FTTN is? Yeah its that thing that the government wanted to do, but couldn’t. As usual you take everything out of context to prove your point
Groan. VDSL (FTTN) where it has been deployed typically offers upload speed of 5mbit to 10mbit. ADSL2 is failing businesses I know now. FTTN buys them a few more years, but not something I want billions of tax payer money wasted on.
Turnbull still wants to throw billions of dollars of tax payers money on the coalition solution. A solution that relies on aging and failing last mile copper with limited headroom.
hmmmmmmm let’s see, $10 billion dollars of our money on a short term solution (FTTN isn’t a stepping stone to FTTP unless you spend near FTTP amounts) or a solution of $30-$40 billion with national pricing and decades of head room. Not that hard of a choice is it…….
I just left off the 2. I meant VDSL2 via FTTC (as offered in the UK and Europe).
30mbit upload is great if they are doing that in NZ. It still doesn’t get away from the copper upload limitation vs fibre overhead.
Another issue is that headline speeds of FTTN quite often fall far short of actual delivered speeds.
If the coalition are going to spend $10 billion of taxpayer’s money on FTTN, I’d like some longevity out of it (and a nation wide install).
There were some interesting theories going around that although FTTN was the preferable option, it was blocked by Telstra because you need access to be able to cut the copper wires and re-route them to a new node (i.e. the only way to make a wire shorter is to cut it somewhere). Telstra were holding out on compensation for any wire cuts and the potential compensation payout was going to be huge.
I would have thought, that’s what contract negotiations are all about… but oh well, looks like the whole FTTP concept was chosen purely as an end-run to avoid Telstra rather than out of any genuine merit (and in the end, they still have to negotiate with Telstra, but for a while they thought they could go it alone).
That’s just the rumor, I doubt either side would admit it.
Telstra honestly should have just been split, then the government could have just thrown money at the wholesale arm of Telstra and without a conflict of interest they would spend that money on upgrading their infrastructure (since they wouldn’t be allowed to spend it on anything else).
Put some laws in so they are forced to spend some of that money in rural areas, and its all good.
What surprises me is that Conroys legal team only found out that low with Telstra requiring compensation for the wires being cut after the tender process, not before. Its quite a significant thing to “gloss over”
Furthermore I haven’t heard of any evidence of Telstra specifically asking for compensation for their lines being cut, what I heard on Four Corners is that the government would have been forced to pay Telstra due to that law
But the wholesale arm of Telstra would have been a non government entity.
So you wanted the Government to throw money at shareholder owned TelstraWholesale?
I prefer a world in which we build the network, and actually own it. Instead of building the network and then maybe getting to lease it back at “competitive” rates for the next 50 years.
But the wholesale arm of Telstra would have been a non government entity.
And?
So you wanted the Government to throw money at shareholder owned TelstraWholesale?
Yup, and since the wholesale arm of Telstra would be strictly retail only, they would have been either forced to use the money to upgrade infrastructure, install infrastructure or invest the funds for future infrastructure builds. Since there is no conflict of interest, they can’t spend it anywhere else (unlike current Telstra)
I prefer a world in which we build the network, and actually own it. Instead of building the network and then maybe getting to lease it back at “competitive” rates for the next 50 years.
I prefer not having horrible governments running a telecommunications sector, they have a notoriously bad habit (and history) of doing so. If you think Telstra was bad, you haven’t seen PMG (Telstra pre selloff). Almost all of the issues with Telstra are due to it being vertically integrated monopoly that was once government owned. A government owned monopoly is even worse
“As usual you take everything out of context to prove your point”
Not only is that a golden case of “Pot. Kettle. Black.”, at least you were good enough to admit he proved his point… :o)
That comment coming from you should be used in Year 8 English classes as one of the best examples of hypocrisy you will find.
Meant for MW.
Umm, why?
But if you want me to spell it out so you can actually understand without simply attacking the comment because it’s attached to my name, all I said was that some of his points have some merit, but that the points he chooses to focus on are a very small subset of the overall picture that is this project.
“but that the points he chooses to focus on are a very small subset of the overall picture that is this project.”
Indeed, just like your pro-NBN point based agenda.
I disagree, but then again, you’ll disagree with that – I have no doubt.
I’ve written plenty in regards to the technical, financial, and societal aspects of the NBN. You and your mates hide behind monikers and get called out on inaccuracies at every turn.
If you feel so strongly about this, organise a protest rally instead of being a keyboard warrior
@Micheal Wyres
“You and your mates hide behind monikers and get called out on inaccuracies at every turn.”
Well you don’t have to have real names to avoid being called out on inaccuracies eh MW? – as YOU of all posters frequenting Delimiter well know.
BTW just saying the phrase ‘called out on inaccuracies at every turn, doesn’t mean it actually happens, like a lot of posts in here just merely stating it without any evidence whatever is sufficient it seems.
The difference is I have the balls to stand up for my statements. If in the fullness of time it turns out that I am wrong, I will have to stand up and be counted against my comments, as my name will be on them.
If you turn out to be wrong, you can slink away into the ether, never to be heard of or associated with your comments ever again.
That’s the difference between me and your “mates”. I have the conviction to put my hand up, instead of hiding shadows pretending.
The difference is I have the balls to stand up for my statements. If in the fullness of time it turns out that I am wrong, I will have to stand up and be counted against my comments, as my name will be on them.
That doesn’t make your arguments any more correct, or your statements any more valid. This makes you courages, it doesn’t make you smart. It frankly also makes you look like an idiot when you are wrong (although that wouldn’t be an issue if, as Malcolm Turnbull said, you weren’t drinking the Kool-Aid)
If you turn out to be wrong, you can slink away into the ether, never to be heard of or associated with your comments ever again.
Never been in such a position
That’s the difference between me and your “mates”. I have the conviction to put my hand up, instead of hiding shadows pretending.
Thats nice, exactly why is this relevant? You getting a tad bit pissed off that you happen to be wrong, and we aren’t? Is this what its about. You are acting like a kid in a playground, grow up
[Come on, RS …. at least let’s be civil here. Just mindlessly yelling abuse at people is not what Delimiter is about. I’ve censored this comment as a result — Renai]
And just because you hide behind a thin veil of bullshit, doesn’t make your comments any more “right” or “insightful”.
And just because you hide behind a thin veil of bullshit, doesn’t make your comments any more “right” or “insightful”.
Is that all you have?
I could have sworn that my so called “bullshit” was reiterated by other parties.
Nono, you are right. This is all bullshit, and we are all swimming in it. Thanks for the update Michael, just let me know when you will post something constructive that doesn’t suck up to NBNCo in any shape, way or form
Geez…defensive much Mathew?
It’s okay for you to say I’m full of crap, but not okay for me to say it about you? You’re hilarious!
@Micheal Wyres
“If in the fullness of time it turns out that I am wrong,”
Well don’t worry about any BS about ‘the fullness of time’, you have been proved wrong already on multiple occasions.
” I will have to stand up and be counted against my comments, as my name will be on them.”
WTF does that mean?, who are you the Shadow Minister for Communications? Conroy’s speech writer? – who cares if you are counted or not with your name on them, the statement is meaningless.
“If you turn out to be wrong, you can slink away into the ether, never to be heard of or associated with your comments ever again.”
Oh here we go that old furphy gets put out for a airing again, if you are asserting that any comment on any forum on any website is irrelevant unless it has a ‘real name’ against it you have eliminated 99.99% of all comments in one hit.
What you mean to say is the anonymous pro-NBN comment is ok it’s the anonymous anti-NBN comment you don’t like when you are desperate for some attempts at point scoring, you cannot have it both ways MW.
It is not I who is seeking points.
In fact, you hide behind multiple names of at least 2 (alain and advocate) such is your deviousness…OMG!
The question isn’t “can we use the extra bandwidth?” or “is fast broadband awesome?” Those questions are easily answerable. The question taxpayers need to be asking is, “is it worth the massive investment?”
In any case, if Turnbull is so easily dismissed, then it should be trivial to come up with answers to his question – what practical commercial applications are there for fibre that will benefit the Australian economy?
This should also be easy to answer given all the references made to Korea, the Netherlands, and Sweden – how have their economies benefited? What famous projects have they been able to do on their networks – aside from the Pirate Bay, which while famous, probably doesn’t count – that they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise?
I don’t know anything about this Mark Pesce dude, but BitTorrent wasn’t something that was only invented because of broadband. p2p protocols and applications have been around for years; BitTorrent technically isn’t substantially different other than it’s a more decentralised system.
And besides, holding up BitTorrent as the posterboy for broadband applications is probably not a great idea – the companies that WILL make money from an NBN-improved ‘digital economy’ don’t want to hear about how great a system used in the vast majority of copyright infringement is on a new shiny fibre network :)
Google has pointed out that S. Korea on the year, every year, since they deployed fast broadband a tech-based company which is now turning over $1b a year has sprung up. Some of them or game franchise (the fastest growing media type on the planet).
A UK study on fibre to the home in Britain found that the average UK family would reduce the amount of time in cars by hundreds of kms a year – that’s more disposable income (more GST dollars). That’s less road deaths (and the more than $1m per fatality the state pays). That’s less need for transport infrastructure. These infrastructure changes are not being quantified in the current debate.
How much tax revenue will come from new business or from greater discretionary spending? Ask Malcolm, he’s the banker.
I agree with trog.
@SimonReidy
“Yet 4 Corners last night showed multiple real world applications in consumer’s homes that fail on the existing copper network today.”
Well it showed a few selected examples that didn’t necessarily require FTTH to deliver the required result, it also showed interviews with Smithton Tasmania residents who could get it but didn’t want it.
It also showed that in Europe only 1 in 5 residences that could take high speed FTTH actually signed up for it, a pathetic 17.5% uptake figure.
“Given his lies about wireless being an adequate competitor to fibre (I love the way he gets out his iPad as proof every damn time)”
Well it is a adequate competitor to fibre, as shown by the increasing number of residences that are wireless only, you might like to put your ‘NBN all the way stuff the cost’ head in the sand and not want to hear about it, but that’s the reality.
Wireless is an adequate competitor? Oh come on now. You are just being outright pigheaded now.
Yes wireless is a strong competitor to fixed line BB, you missed or deliberately avoided the point that increasingly more households are wireless only.
It’s not about tech tyre kicker comparisons wireless vs fibre, it’s not that simple, although the pro NBN lobby wish it was, end users choose wireless because of its functionality, end users stop using their home fixed line for voice and data because they have a mobile capped plan which covers all their voice and BB needs.
Every change to a wireless ONLY household is a revenue loss to fixed line, the NBN is rolling out into that trend
Pulls out ABS stats again
Alain, as we have had this conversation multiple times by now you should remember them off by heart.
For those new to the debate the summary is that fixed line connections for Broadband is still undergoing growth for the 2010 FY and the 2011 FY appears to be similar due to the success of value ISPs like TPG.
This is despite the massive growth in wireless broadband customers. It means that if there are customers migrating to wireless only solution they are being offset by new fixed line customers because or they never had a fixed line broadband connection in the first place.
“alain, as we have had this conversation multiple times by now you should remember them off by heart.”
Indeed we have and you are going to do what you do every time we discuss this subject ignore what you don’t want to see.
‘For those new to the debate the summary is that fixed line connections for Broadband is still undergoing growth for the 2010 FY and the 2011 FY appears to be similar due to the success of value ISPs like TPG.’
Yes but tell the true story that growth is almost stagnant TPG or not, any user who wants fixed line BB has it already in 2011, movements are now all about ISP’s poaching fixed line customers from each other.
“This is despite the massive growth in wireless broadband customers.”
That’s right 162% in 2009-2010.
“‘It means that if there are customers migrating to wireless only solution they are being offset by new fixed line customers because or they never had a fixed line broadband connection in the first place.”
Wrong wrong wrong, almost stagnant growth in fixed line BB is NOT offset by wireless growth figures like 162%.
Telstra alone had 44,000 fixed line cancellations in their last reporting period, that’s fixed line of ALL types!
Wireless only households currently stands at 13% and rapidly rising NOT falling, the NBN Co in its business case makes the amazingly pessimistic forecast to justify its existence that this figure will only be 16.3% by 2025.
Wow only a 3% growth in 15 years!! – I bet that the only wireless hosuehold figure will be at least 15% by at least the middle of 2012 perhaps even by the end of this year.
You know that, stop pretending in the blind desperate rush to justify this NBN FTTH turkey now facing massive cost blow outs and deadline overuns that everything is all ok in fixed line BB world.
Where’s the part where houses are going wireless only?
If wired internet plans aren’t dropping.
What homes are turning to wireless only?
Oh you mean new homes are going wireless only?
Where is your evidence for this? The wireless plan uptake rates?
Let me ask you what is more likely. A house has wired internet, computers connected to it and a healthy appetite for technology and the internet, getting wireless internet to augment their already existent need for internet access (allowing them to go mobile).
OR
A house with no internet, buying wireless internet as their first internet connection.
I guess the third option:
Someone moves out, and because they are moving into a new apartment/house/estate where ADSL doesn’t work due to shoddy telecommunications infrastructure, purchases a wireless modem because it is better than Dialup.
(Given that home-internet connections aren’t dropping the other alternatives:
“House with wired internet gets rid of it to go wireless” is a rare case, or completely offset by new wired internet plans)
@PeterA
Just digest this staremnet from the highlights section of the latest ABS internet usage figures on their web site.
“Digital subscriber line (DSL) continued to be the major technology for connections, accounting for 43% of the total internet connections, followed closely by mobile wireless (40% of total internet connections). However, the DSL percentage share has decreased since June 2010 when DSL represented 44% of the total connections.
Mobile wireless (excluding mobile handset connections) was the fastest growing internet access technology in actual numbers, increasing from 2.8 million in December 2009 to 4.2 million in December 2010.”
I still assert as I have stated all along fixed line BB is losing customers to wireless BB, by next ABS reporting period wireless connections should have equalled DSL and will have started to pass it, where do you think the trend is heading?
But they get these figures from how many SUBSCRIBERS there are not how many USERS there are.
So of course there are going to be more subscribers on wireless than there is on fixed line….
You are ignoring the ‘decreased’ statement about DSL as well, come on read it digest it get out the dictionary look up ‘decreased’, absorb it, think about it a while and….?
Yep, best to ignore it.
Ok ok, it’s share of connections decreased by a whole 1% of course it’d go down when there is a larger pool of subscribers coming on board meaning more numbers to play with.
Do yourself a favour and read my explanation in this section regarding your use of FUD statistics.
In short > a Decrease in total percentage of connections is not a decrease in number of connections. This just reinforces the argument that fixed line and wireless are complimentary technologies.
It’s a very nice explanation Jasmcd but I think alain will ignore it like he does with anything that disproves his FUD on stats
@PointZeroOne and others….
I am not ignoring anything, the trend is for a continuing massive increase in wireless connections, the trend shows that is at the expense of fixed line connections.
If you think that new fixed line connections can keep up with rate of new wireless connections 1:1 you are dreaming.
At the moment it does not look as significant because it takes time for the wireless connection figures to eat into DSL connections, but DSL NEW connections is starting to level out, it has virtually reached its peak, I expect the trend differences of DSL % decreases to be even more marked against wireless connection increases in the next release of ABS figures.
Place your bets now in April 2011. :)
Alain, you jump to all sorts of conclusions when looking at data to support your cause but require proNBN arguments and data to be spelled out to you in all but the simplest of terms.
All the data you present shows is that there is a rise in mobile data. Nothing more. I doubt anyone here would seriously deny this. The logic jump you make is that it automatically means that the fixed line market is under threat. There is no evidence of this in the slightest.
The real world connection is the actual number of connections of fixed line services, relative to the “drop” in numbers that you keep talking about.
With the facts that you tout, you have also failed to take into consideration several major facts which distort the figures, in your favor obviously, otherwise you would be revealing them”
1. Ipad and tablet devices are a new market which are included in Telstra’s Mobile Broadband Category and therefore inflate the number of connections.
2. Mobile broadband plans are taking over many minor telemetry requirements for businesses with remote infrastructure sites. (my company could easily use over 50 of them)
3. Many companies will have one or two fixed connections for companies but have many wireless modems available for staff.
4. Similarly residences would only have one fixed connection per house but could easily have multiple wireless broadband devices.
All of this indicates that there is a great investment opportunity in wireless technologies in the future. So much so that a degree of competition has emerged and the government does not need to intervene in this sector…… yay free market. No one has been able to make the same statement for fixed line connections.
@Jasmcd
“Alain, you jump to all sorts of conclusions when looking at data to support your cause but require proNBN arguments and data to be spelled out to you in all but the simplest of terms.”
It’s not ‘all sorts of conclusions’, the conclusion is that wireless growth is eating into fixed line revenue, ask SingTel and Optus how their profits would look if they just had to rely on fixed line retail and wholesale revenue to survive.
You only have to look at the respective companies Financial Reports, look at ARPU’s Fixed vs Wireless, look at SIO’s Fixed vs Wireless as well..
“The logic jump you make is that it automatically means that the fixed line market is under threat. There is no evidence of this in the slightest.”
The fixed line market is under threat because wireless revenue is eating into its traditional’ like it or lump it’ fixed line revenue.
Once upon a time not so long ago fixed line was the only game in town, you wanted to make a telephone call you picked up a fixed line phone at home or work, portable meant a call box if you could find one that was not vandalised.
The mobile turned residences away from fixed line connections, the mobile capped plan accelerated that decline, why pay Telstra line rental if your capped plan handles all your voice requirements the same trend is happening with BB data, like the shift from fixed line voice telephony to mobile voice the shift takes time but it is happening.
“With the facts that you tout, you have also failed to take into consideration several major facts which distort the figures, in your favor obviously, otherwise you would be revealing them”
Well you might like to call it a distortion but it is telling it like it is, sure a residence can have multiple wireless connections, so what, it just proves that wireless connections are popular and on the rapid rise while fixed line are virtually static, relatively speaking.
Every wireless 3G connection for data is revenue fixed line loses out on.
“All of this indicates that there is a great investment opportunity in wireless technologies in the future.”
Yes it’s a pity the NBN is not Telstra NextG and LTE and beyond as well, but never mind it’s backing the loser ROI technology.
The NBN in it’s business case requires over 70% uptake to justify its existence, that’s 70% who use it on a ISP plan not 70% who get a ‘free’ connection because ‘hey why not it’s free’.
It will be interesting to see the cost analysis on that one (bet we don’t), how much did it cost the taxpayer to install ten’s of thousands of NBN boxes that are not being used?
oops – that should be ‘ask SingTel and Telstra ….’
It’s not ‘all sorts of conclusions’, the conclusion is that wireless growth is eating into fixed line revenue, ask SingTel and [Telstra] how their profits would look if they just had to rely on fixed line retail and wholesale revenue to survive.
You only have to look at the respective companies Financial Reports, look at ARPU’s Fixed vs Wireless, look at SIO’s Fixed vs Wireless as well..
A better ARPU for one technology over another does not mean that the technology with the lesser ARPU is under threat from the first. To establish your assertion that usage of fixed is under threat from wireless you need to establish the following:
Is the niche of wireless the same as the niche of fixed line?
No. Although there is some cross the niches of the two technologies are cross. Therefore the threat presented is only by users where their application fits into both niches. Until you present data on the increase of “wireless only households”, which you have yet to do, if this is happening is impossible to determine from the information we have.
And even then, the fixed line market still has the niche uses that require fixed line to fall back on for market share. Given the statistics we have it would seem this niche is actually quite high.
Also, investment in fixed line such that fixed line continues to be cheaper than wireless will mean that consumers are likely to chose fixed line connections for applications that exist in both niches.
Is the users of fixed line reducing in proportion to the users of wireless?
No. Users of fixed line is increasing, so this cannot be true.
The fixed line market is under threat because wireless revenue is eating into its traditional’ like it or lump it’ fixed line revenue.
Once upon a time not so long ago fixed line was the only game in town, you wanted to make a telephone call you picked up a fixed line phone at home or work, portable meant a call box if you could find one that was not vandalised.
The fact that you can make more money from wireless is exactly the reason why the NBN exists in the first place. Telcos are too busy investing in wireless technology because they can get better returns, neglecting a technology which is still important to our economy (hence why it a concern of the government, both governments, even the opposition acknowledge investment is needed even through they may disagree on the specifics of said investment).
The mobile turned residences away from fixed line connections, the mobile capped plan accelerated that decline, why pay Telstra line rental if your capped plan handles all your voice requirements the same trend is happening with BB data, like the shift from fixed line voice telephony to mobile voice the shift takes time but it is happening.
Okay, we’re talking about Broadband here. Everyone here has acknowledged that fixed line voice is on the decline.
Well you might like to call it a distortion but it is telling it like it is, sure a residence can have multiple wireless connections, so what, it just proves that wireless connections are popular and on the rapid rise while fixed line are virtually static, relatively speaking.
No, fixed line connections are not virtually static when you consider the constraints of the fixed line market. The fixed line market is constrained by households and businesses. You will only practically get one ADSL2+ or cable connection per household. When you consider this, growth of eighty thousand users is significant.
Every wireless 3G connection for data is revenue fixed line loses out on.
No. If I didn’t have my 3G wireless connection I use for my smart-phone and laptop I would not be paying more to Telstra for my fixed line Broadband.
Yes it’s a pity the NBN is not Telstra NextG and LTE and beyond as well, but never mind it’s backing the loser ROI technology.
The NBN in it’s business case requires over 70% uptake to justify its existence, that’s 70% who use it on a ISP plan not 70% who get a ‘free’ connection because ‘hey why not it’s free’.
Backing the loser ROI technology doesn’t mean you a backing the wrong technology. The market can make mistakes. The cheaper option is not always the best.
The NBN only requires 70% update to justify its existence under the current funding model which I personally disagree with. As I have always stated. However, this is only loosely related to your assertion that the fixed line market is losing to wireless that you’re trying to make, so I don’t know why you decided to bring it up.
@Nightkhaos
Let’s back up a bit in this discussion to the point about the massive PSTN line cancellations being offset by Naked DSL and ADSL connections, both transfers and new connections.
We can glean a bit more info from the Telstra results in the full Financial Year ending 2010.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/356730/telstra_pstn_continues_its_slide/
The pertinent comment is this:
“Line spectrum sharing (LSS) and unbundled local loop (ULL) uptake by competitors continues to be strong, but there has also been a significant increase in net line cancellations, with more than 200 thousand in the year,” the report reads.
“Although some of these cancellations are substitution to our mobile or IP Telephony products, the underlying trend is still negative. We believe that around 12 per cent of households are now mobile-only for voice, up from around 8 per cent a year ago.”
Note the the term ‘net line cancellations’ of more than 200,000 in the year.
Except, Alain, as pointed out, the number of fixed line connections for the FY2010 according to the ABS has a net increase of 80,000 connections This has been pointed out to you on multiple occasions.
So despite the fact that Telstra may have lost 200,000 net line customers, the net result is still positive 80,000 thousand. YOU CANNOT LOOK AT TELSTRA’S FIGURES IN ISOLATION so please, stop doing it.
That should be 80,000 connections not 80,000 thousand.
@Nightkhaos
“So despite the fact that Telstra may have lost 200,000 net line customers, the net result is still positive 80,000.”
Oh really ? – so 80,000 is > 200,000 since when?
“YOU CANNOT LOOK AT TELSTRA’S FIGURES IN ISOLATION so please, stop doing it.”
Well Telstra is the monopoly wholesale suppler of the exchange line links, PSTN, LSS and ULL which other ‘suppliers figures’ do you suggest I should be looking at?
Please look at this Whirlpool post where the FY2010 data from the ABS is broken down.
Note the following: Fixed line broadband rose from 4.17million in Jun ’09 to 4.25million in Jun ’10.
This data from the the ABS. The chances of them having an error, especially an error approaching 300,000 connections is so unlikely I consider it impossible.
So therefore you’re wrong here. Chances are that that 200,000 disconnections figure doesn’t mean what you think it means. It could:
1) Include dial-up services which has been on the decline for a while.
2) Not include ULL services as Telstra does not consider them to be a net connection under their reporting.
3) Not include LSS services as Telstra does not consider them to be a net connection under their reporting.
But whatever the reason, the fact still remains, in the FY2010, the number of fixed line broadband connections increased by approximately eighty thousands connections.
1. Explain how that ‘fixed line’ figure 4.17 to 4.25 million is obtained from the ABS figures?
2. In what form do the Telstra line cancellation (of all types) flow through to the ABS, perhaps they are not being counted properly or there is a lag between when ABS publish the stats and when Telstra actually provide them the info on net line cancellations.
There is not a separate statistic quoting line cancellations at all, that would be really helpful – then you can see them and subtract them from the connection figures arriving at a net positive or minus figure.
BTW I take this comment:
“Line spectrum sharing (LSS) and unbundled local loop (ULL) uptake by competitors continues to be strong, but there has also been a significant increase in net line cancellations, with more than 200 thousand in the year,” the report reads.”
as taking into account LSS and ULL connections giving you a NET line cancellation figure, especially when prefaced with the phrase ‘BUT there also has been significant increase in net line cancellations….’
Alain, trying to put it in a simple example for you.
You argument is on par with:
1. viewing the statistics that the number of Ford Falcons sold last year dropped and that the number of bicycle sales rose.
2. Drawing the conclusion that bicycles sales are the reason car sales fell and are a threat to the car industry.
3. Refusing to even adapt your argument after
it is pointed out to you that Holden actually had an increase in sales.
1. Explain how that ‘fixed line’ figure 4.17 to 4.25 million is obtained from the ABS figures?
READ THE LINK. The sources of information are clearly cited.
2. In what form do the Telstra line cancellation (of all types) flow through to the ABS, perhaps they are not being counted properly or there is a lag between when ABS publish the stats and when Telstra actually provide them the info on net line cancellations.
No. I’m sorry, no. There may be a lag, but a lag of 300,000 connections? Just no. That is not going to happen. Not from the ABS.
There is not a separate statistic quoting line cancellations at all, that would be really helpful – then you can see them and subtract them from the connection figures arriving at a net positive or minus figure.
There doesn’t need to be. These statistics are purely for Broadband and Internet. Line cancellations. You can work out the net number of cancellations simply by taking the the number of subscribes from Point A and the number of subscribers from Point B, and you get the net increase of decrease, i.e. new connections and disconnections. The net is 80,000 new connections from the stats.
As I said, that figure of 200,000 doesn’t represent what you are trying to make it represent. I am pretty sure that it simply represents fixed line telephony disconnections, a service which has been in steady decline, however despite this, the number of broadband connections still is increasing. (i.e. the meaning of net is not “Internet” but merely “the conclusive amount” or “overall”. But telephony isn’t Broadband.
“Line spectrum sharing (LSS) and unbundled local loop (ULL) uptake by competitors continues to be strong, but there has also been a significant increase in net line cancellations, with more than 200 thousand in the year,” the report reads.”
as taking into account LSS and ULL connections giving you a NET line cancellation figure, especially when prefaced with the phrase ‘BUT there also has been significant increase in net line cancellations….’
I said it doesn’t represent what you think it does. I might well take into account ULL or LSS, but something about that figure doesn’t add up, because in the same period, as I have mentioned, and verified by the ABS stats, there were 80,000 thousand new fixed line broadband connections.
How many times do I have to say it: The number of fixed line Broadband Connections for the period of FY2010 increased by approximately 80,000 connections.
Indeed we have and you are going to do what you do every time we discuss this subject ignore what you don’t want to see.
No I don’t. I use wireless technology all the time and can understand it’s appeal, better than most. But despite this I am still looking at general usage pattens, which are confirmed by the ABS statistics I just mentioned, and I see a trend of wireless expansion not at the expense of fixed line.
Yes but tell the true story that growth is almost stagnant TPG or not, any user who wants fixed line BB has it already in 2011, movements are now all about ISP’s poaching fixed line customers from each other.
Eighty thousand new fixed line broadband connections (net) in the 2010 FY. I hardly call that stagnation.
That’s right 162% in 2009-2010.
Wrong wrong wrong, almost stagnant growth in fixed line BB is NOT offset by wireless growth figures like 162%.
So you are reading the ABS stats or an analysis of them. Congratulations. Now please. Note the following: if the wireless market was eating into the fixed line broadband market there would be a net decrease in the number of fixed line connections of proportion to the number of new subscribers. This has not happened, there has been a net increase in the FY 2010.
Telstra alone had 44,000 fixed line cancellations in their last reporting period, that’s fixed line of ALL types!
That’s likely because Telstra are expensive, not because of a move towards Wireless. Did you not notice that TPG went up 27,000 in the same period? Did you not notice that iiNet went up in the same period? Actually now that we mention it why don’t we look at some analysis of the situation:
TPG in September were kind enough to anayslis the situation.
Wireless only households currently stands at 13% and rapidly rising NOT falling, the NBN Co in its business case makes the amazingly pessimistic forecast to justify its existence that this figure will only be 16.3% by 2025.
I have yet to find any statistics on the prevalence of the so called “wireless only household”. I would therefore like to see where this 13% figure comes from. Do you have this data?
Wow only a 3% growth in 15 years!! – I bet that the only wireless hosuehold figure will be at least 15% by at least the middle of 2012 perhaps even by the end of this year.
No offence, but I don’t hold stock in your predictions give the data I have read via ABS and TPG.
You know that, stop pretending in the blind desperate rush to justify this NBN FTTH turkey now facing massive cost blow outs and deadline overuns that everything is all ok in fixed line BB world.
Here I’m not trying to justify the NBN, I am trying to explain to you why fixed line broadband is important. I have concerns about the NBN like everyone else, the growth of wireless is not one of them.
@Alain,
Can you provide the source of your figures? I honestly also wonder what effect naked connections may have on any figures. Feel welcome to correct me if I am wrong, but it was my understanding that naked connections, offered by the likes of Internode, completely bypassed all Telstra beauracracy and as such would not be counted in the number of wired households. This of course would weaken your argument.
alain says “Telstra alone had 44,000 fixed line cancellations in their last reporting period, that’s fixed line of ALL types!”
I believe that NAKED wired connections count as a cancelled fixed line. In other words If I cancelled my ADSL2+ Internode fixed line connection and also my Telstra PSTN phone connection and then resigned up with Internode for a NAKED fixed wired connection. Telstra records it as a cancelled fixed line connection because they don’t support having “invented yet” NAKED fixed line broadband, even tho I still have a fixed broadband connection with Internode and voice phone capability transmitting over the same fixed copper wiring back to Telstra’s local telephone exchange.
That’s why Telstra’s “44,000 fixed line cancellations” is very misleading because a vast majority of those 44,000 are most likely converted NAKED wired fixed broadband connections.
“That’s why Telstra’s “44,000 fixed line cancellations” is very misleading because a vast majority of those 44,000 are most likely converted NAKED wired fixed broadband connections.”
Telstra distinguish between retail fixed line disconnections that is PSTN which was estimated at 109,000 (ouch) and all fixed line connections disconnections – 44,000.
ULL is a Telstra fixed line product, just like LSS and PSTN is, just because it doesn’t have a Telstra voice service on it doesn’t mean it is not a Telstra fixed line service resold by ISP’s as Naked DSL.
So how do you explain the ABS reporting that the overall number of fixed-line broadband connections are increasing?
BTW, do you have a link to this document where Telstra report these figures? I can’t find one online…
Telstra web site —> investor centre —> Financial Reports.
Ah yes, I found the document you’re referring to here:
http://www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/download/document/tls766-telstra-financial-results-for-the-half-year-ended-31-december-2010.pdf
I would just draw your attention to a couple of interesting quotes from there:
“As carriers continue to build their own networks, volumes and revenue growth in ULL continues to increase with ULL SIOs increasing by 83 thousand since June 2010.”
“Fixed retail broadband revenue (including hardware) increased by 0.4% to $794 million. There was strong growth in retail broadband customers with net customer growth increasing by 139,000 in the six months.”
I think you’re misunderstanding the 44,000 figure. The actual quote from that report is:
“There remains a structural shift away from PSTN driven by both lower usage and line loss. Usage continues to decline across all calling categories, with local calls falling 14% and national long distance declining 9.3% in the half. Line loss in the half was 1.5%, equivalent to 109,000 lines in the period. Line cancellations were 44,000 in the half as the number of mobile-only customers increases.”
This is talking about voice and PSTN only, and has nothing to do with broadband. As you see in the other quotes above, even Telstra’s own fixed-line broadband has seen an increase in customers.
@Dean
” Line loss in the half was 1.5%, equivalent to 109,000 lines in the period. Line cancellations were 44,000 in the half as the number of mobile-only customers increases.”
Well it depends how you interpret those two line loss figures, of 109,000 vs 44,000 – the first one is PSTN retail line losses, the second one I interpret as being line losses of ALL types – period.
Sure a lot of PSTN line losses would be to ULL uptake, but then a lot of ULL uptake is customers of a ISP moving off bog standard ADSL (LSS) with a line rental component either from Telstra or the ISP onto a Naked DSL product either with the same ISP or a total move to another Naked DSL ISP.
I would not have thought a line cancellation would be counted as such in a transfer of ‘line type’ from LSS to ULL for example, it is still a Telstra line, the Naked DSL ISP just leases it from Telstra.
Throwing up such numbers is actually almost completely pointless.
For a moment we’ll ignore the areas where there is a fixed line alternative – (ie: anywhere Telstra, Optus, or TransACT/NCable HFC exists).
Of course the numbers are going to be largely static for Telstra Wholsale ULL sales. What other option is available? Nothing. That’s why Telstra get compensation for moving their customers to the NBN – they are agreeing to forgo the massive revenues they get from ULL sales, either to Telstra Retail, and other providers for voice and/or internet services.
Now, add back the areas with HFC. You’re only going to get internet over HFC if you are with those ISPs, and in one of those areas. If you are with Optus in an HFC area, you’ll be put on HFC. If you’re with Telstra in an HFC area, you’ll be put on HFC. Etcetera.
If you go to any other ISP, even if your street has more than one HFC network running along it, you’re not getting HFC, which means your ultimately getting it via a Telstra Wholesale ULL. Which means over time, Telstra’s ULL numbers are barely going to change.
Because it’s the only option in many cases, and in cases where there is an option, the copper in the ground is cheaper anyway.
If anything, as new housing estates go in, and fibre doesn’t, their numbers increase.
The suggestion that Telstra and Optus are “closing down their HFC networks” is crap anyway. They’ll only be taking their internet services off them. They’ll run pay-TV over them for some time to come, long after the internet is removed from them. It’s not getting “shutdown”, as some would have you believe.
When the pay-TV gear is too expensive to maintain, or no longer meets capacity requirements, those services will come off the cable, and onto the NBN.
Say, in 2020 when the NBN is complete?
not entirely. i was one of those who went to 3g substitue line and i now regard it as trash. DSL is okay but i want NBN – either way i have moved back to a fixed line, but will keep a small 3g data plan for when i am out and about.
whats more important than the growth in the mobile market is the fact that fixed lines are not falling. if they were you would have more of an argument they are changing places, but with fixed lines staying the same it points instead to the fact people are taking wireless data as complementary to their fixed lines.
Yes wireless is a strong competitor to fixed line BB, you missed or deliberately avoided the point that increasingly more households are wireless only.
alain alias advocate alias? alias?, where is the link that says there is a massive uptake in WIRELESS ONLY (yes has to be wireless only households that REPLACED their fixed line broadband connection with a wireless only connection) households? I must know the wrong people as all/everyone/work associates I know that have a wireless connection (for mobility) ALSO have a wired ADSL connection at home for the more demanding/heavy lifting.
Yes wireless is a strong competitor to fixed line BB, you missed or deliberately avoided the point that increasingly more households are wireless only.
But are they going completely wireless because they don’t have access to adsl?
Are they users that travel allot and so are not actually home to use a fixed line?
When they did these stats/figures do they say “ok this house has no fixed line but 5 wireless/3g internet connections” or do they count it as one?
Are people going wireless because they can get a ‘faster’ speed than they can get on adsl?
As I’ve said many times before, purchase of wireless/3g internet connections would be on the rise because 5 people live in a house so 5 people could of bought these devices and still only have 1 adsl connection so the stats would be skewed.
You buy an iPad you also get a wireless/3g internet connection for it. So you can use it out and about.
You buy a laptop because you commute on the train to work, you buy a wireless/3g internet connection so you can work on the train.
You would still have a fixed line internet connection at home.
Looking on the ABS website they state this about how they actually get there stats.
“Active subscribers are defined as subscribers that have an internet connection with an ISP on the last day of the reference period. ABS subscriber statistics measure the number of ‘subscriber lines’ rather than the number of ‘users’ and therefore, counts of subscribers are not the same as counts of people/organisations with internet access. This is because some subscribers may have accounts with more than one ISP or multiple accounts with a single ISP. Conversely, there are single ISP subscriber accounts that provide internet access for multiple people/organisations (e.g. universities). ”
So they go by Active Subscribers. So each account that is active they count. So one house might have 1 active ADSL account so that counts as 1 connection for 1 house. But that 1 house might have 4 active wireless internet subscriptions so that would count as 4 active wireless subscriptions
So you can not say that Wireless/3G Internet is the preferred option over a fixed line for home use.
@PointZeroOne
“But are they going completely wireless because they don’t have access to adsl,”
Hello! they are disconnecting from fixed line at a accelerating rate, some of them would be households that cannot get ADSL, also some of them would be households that can get HFC cable and six choices of ADSL2+ ISP’s – your point is what?
“Are they users that travel allot and so are not actually home to use a fixed line?”
Err so? they live in their car? – your point is what?
“When they did these stats/figures do they say “ok this house has no fixed line but 5 wireless/3g internet connections” or do they count it as one?”
Note that figure is a Telstra figure, not a combined all wireless carrier figure, that is households that are Telstra wireless customers and do not have a fixed line connection.
“So you can not say that Wireless/3G Internet is the preferred option over a fixed line for home use.”
I did not say it was, 13% is not 100%, I was talking about the trend to wireless only households, and the phenomenal growth in wireless data customers by all the carriers but especially Telstra NextG because it has the best speed and coverage, the fixed line NBN is rolling out into that trend and upgrades to wireless capability like Telstra LTE.
“Hello!”
Hi!!! How you going?
“they are disconnecting from fixed line at a accelerating rate”
You talk about telstra figures below, so are these disconnection a Telstra thing as well? Maybe people are going to providers of fixed line services that have better pricing/no line rental/high quota plans/etc Rather than disconnecting from a fixed service entirely
“Note that figure is a Telstra figure, not a combined all wireless carrier figure, that is households that are Telstra wireless customers and do not have a fixed line connection.”
So the figures you are talking about are Telstra only? So the no fixed line connection is talking about no Telstra fixed line?
“I did not say it was, 13% is not 100%, I was talking about the trend to wireless only households, and the phenomenal growth in wireless data customers by all the carriers but especially Telstra NextG because it has the best speed and coverage, the fixed line NBN is rolling out into that trend and upgrades to wireless capability like Telstra LTE.
Ok so that ‘phenomenal” growth in wireless data customers aka subscribers if you are basing it off the ABS stats, just means 5 people have signed up for say every 1 fixed line connection.
Wireless has a bigger subscriber base because it can be a per user thing, where fixed line is a per house thing.
And your proof that there is less fixed line internet customers due to wireless is where?
Those ABS stats say the opposite.
They say there are more customers for both. Not less of either.
“Oh but those numbers mean they are basically stagnant oh my!”
Positive growth isn’t stagnant. And it certainly isn’t a reduction in customers.
To prove their is a trend for houses to go Wired -> Wireless Only, you need to show there is a reduction in Wired. There is no such evidence.
The lack of such evidence, is direct evidence instead that there is an increase in Wired AND wireless households. (and maybe the creation of some wireless only households from customers that couldn’t get fixed line in the past)
“And your proof that there is less fixed line internet customers due to wireless is where?”
That’s not what I said, read what I actually said and stop reading what you want to see, because that’s how you want to argue.
“Those ABS stats say the opposite.
They say there are more customers for both. Not less of either.”
Hello! there are massively more percentage growth in wireless customers than fixed line customers, relatively speaking by way of example saying that there were 100 new fixed line customers and at the same time there were 10,000 new wireless customers is not really the same thing is it?
“Oh but those numbers mean they are basically stagnant oh my!”
Telstra (BigPond) the biggest ISP in Australia had a growth rate in fixed retail BB of 0.4% in H1 2010 to H1 2011.
‘Positive growth isn’t stagnant.”
I call that stagnant, what do you call it, phenomenal growth?
“To prove their is a trend for houses to go Wired -> Wireless Only, you need to show there is a reduction in Wired. There is no such evidence.”
I didn’t say there was, there is increase in wireless only households which is not being offset by NEW fixed line connections.
So if Telstra has figures like 44,000 fixed line cancellations in six months what fixed line alternatives are they all flocking to?
Once again I point you to this article here at Delimiter and ask you to tell me what that tells you? To me that shows the top 4 ISPs have a net growth in the past 6 months and 12 months prior to that reporting period. This is despite the fact the Telstra, quite obviously, was losing customers left right and centre.
I note that I stuffed up the link first time linking it, I have asked Renai to fix.
The article tells me what I said above, ISP’s are poaching fixed line customers from each other, if you call iiNet buying out other ISP’s as proof of growth all that is doing is moving customers statistics across to the parent company.
First of all that growth is organic, i.e. does not include acquisitions. It says that clearly explained in the article, if you had read it instead of just glancing over it. This means the acquisitions of iiNet were not included in this analysis.
Second of all, despite the fact that customers are being pouched off each other there is still a net increase. As I have been saying the whole time and you plaintively ignore it. Just like you assert that I have been ignoring the huge explosion of wireless subscribers, except I haven’t. I mention it every-time. I consider it in my analysis. I note that despite this massive increase the number of fixed line subscribers still increases, which is contrary to your assertion that the wireless market is “eating into” the fixed line market.
@NightKhaos
“I note that despite this massive increase the number of fixed line subscribers still increases, which is contrary to your assertion that the wireless market is “eating into” the fixed line market.”
You are a great lover of ABS stats, in the light of your statement above what is your analysis of this ABS statement?
“However, the DSL percentage share has decreased since June 2010 when DSL represented 44% of the total connections.
Mobile wireless (excluding mobile handset connections) was the fastest growing internet access technology in actual numbers, increasing from 2.8 million in December 2009 to 4.2 million in December 2010.”
You are digesting that word ‘decreased’ I hope?
@ Alain
Either you are a genius of political spin or a failure at mathematics. I think the latter.
The decrease in total percentage of fixed line connections versus mobile connections is EXPECTED when the unsaturated complimentary wireless market is maturing.
So the basic math lesson:
If in 2006 Fixed Line = 2X connections; and
Wireless = 1X connections’
Percentage Share = Fixed Line = 66% share of total internet connections.
If in 2011 Fixed Line = 3X connections; and
Wireless = 3X connections
Percentage Share = Fixed Line = 50% share of total internet connections
Despite the decrease in the proportion of fixed line connections, there has been an INCREASE in real world connections.
Stop The FUD
@Jasmcd
“The decrease in total percentage of fixed line connections versus mobile connections is EXPECTED when the unsaturated complimentary wireless market is maturing.”
Yes I know why it’s happening, your point is what?
“Despite the decrease in the proportion of fixed line connections, there has been an INCREASE in real world connections.”
Ahh what? – a real world connection relative to a fixed line connection means what exactly?
“Stop The FUD”
Please do.
alain writes “So if Telstra has figures like 44,000 fixed line cancellations in six months what fixed line alternatives are they all flocking to?”
I’d say mostly to NAKED ADSL2+ fixed line alternative because Telstra DON’T count NAKED connections because according to them they “DON’T COUNT” and have not been “INVENTED YET”
@Avid Gamer
Naked DSL is just a brand name, the Telstra Wholesale product which is the basis of the product is the ULL, without Telstra it would be even more Naked. :)
BigPond don’t sell it, although they did trial it for a while with a limited voice service included which their Naked DSL competitors didn’t like one bit, I am sure they all breathed a sigh of relief BigPond didn’t make it a commercial product line (yet), it’s about the only ADSL based product differentiation they have left to take on BigPond.
alain…
AGAIN… are you one of the 100% wireless customers you are here claiming will take over?
YES OR NO? Please place “honest (LOL……!!) answer………here.
If not your entire argument reeks of.. hypocrisy and wait for it…FUD!
Sick and tired of everyone slamming HD YouTube as ‘entertainment’ purposes only – that place is full of educational videos that can teach you how to do just about everything. I guess we should be extremely thankful Turnbull is not our transportation minister or any new roads built would only have one land and it would be pointless even attempting to drive around.
Is the value of those videos in any way reduced if they’re streamed in standard definition? Is the value of those videos in any way reduced if they take two, or three, or ten times as long to download?
uhhh, yeah the value is reduced, just like the value would be reduced if we go back to black and white video.
Actually optometrists have determined that the average human eye starts to have difficulties in finding detail just past HD level video (in other words, we are starting to approach the limit of how much detail can be observed by the human eye in videos right now)
“Actually optometrists have determined that the average human eye starts to have difficulties in finding detail just past HD level video (in other words, we are starting to approach the limit of how much detail can be observed by the human eye in videos right now)”
That is such a bullshit generalisation it’s not funny. I’d like to hear from this optometrist, because he’s clearly going blind himself.
Respected scientist Roger Clark actually worked out that the average detail our eyes pick up equates to an astounding 324 megapixels. Read up on how he calculated this here. He also performed this interesting test with printed material:
“The 10600 pixels over 20 inches corresponds to 530 pixels per inch, which would indeed appear very sharp. Note in a recent printer test I showed a 600 ppi print had more detail than a 300 ppi print on an HP1220C printer (1200×2400 print dots). I’ve conducted some blind tests where a viewer had to sort 4 photos (150, 300, 600 and 600 ppi prints). The two 600 ppi were printed at 1200×1200 and 1200×2400 dpi. So far all have gotten the correct order of highest to lowest ppi (includes people up to age 50). See: http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/printer-ppi“
So Deteego, the resolution we perceive can’t be determined by it just being “HD level video”. There are so many other factors that determine image quality and detail, and even the very best HD we have today (let’s say a high bit-rate 1080p Blu-Ray which is well above the quality of typical over-compressed HD we get from the net) isn’t even close to providing the maximum amount of detail we can perceive. Unless of course you are standing across the other side of the room viewing it. 1080p video is fine for movies on 42″ displays when you’re sitting 4 metres away, but it looks pathetically low resolution when viewed up close on a 1080p computer monitor, and is next to useless for professional purposes such as medical imaging.
That’s why measuring resolution that the human eye can perceive is measured in ppi or dpi when printed, because pixel density is the most appropriate way to measure perception of detail. Even Apple’s 30″ cinema display with a resolution of 2560×1600 has a paltry dpi of 101. Apple’s iPhone 4 on the other hand, when held at a typical viewing distance, is close to providing the maximum amount of detail we can see, as with a resolution of 960×640 on a 3.5″ display it has a fantastic ppi of 326. Hence the term “retina display”. Anyone with an iPhone 4 will tell you if you’ve held it up next to your computer monitor can see a massive difference in the sharpness and detail. Apple is expected to start pushing retina quality displays out to their MacBook Pros and upcoming iPads over the next two years.
That’s why the movie industry and IT industry is also already making the move from 1080p to resolutions of 4k and beyond (even YouTube started accepting 4k uploads in July last year), and we’ll see a ton of these ultra high def monitors and TVs start to be released over the next few years. Both television and computer monitors will make jumps to resolutions of around 3840×2160 (4 x 1080p) and then all the way up to 4k.
And then there’s temporal resolution which is equally as important to perception of image quality, but is also pathetically low with today’s HD. Most HD originates from film which has been shot at 24fps since the 1920s, but over the last few weeks both James Cameron and Peter Jackson confirmed they are shooting Avatar 2 and The Hobbit at 48fps. They are also preparing cinemas to make sure they can project at 48fps (most digital cinemas are already capable, as current projectors display each frame twice @ 48hz to remove flicker). 48 or 60fps is the future of cinema. Of that, there is no doubt. The difference in detail under motion between 24fps and 48fps is astounding and IMHO the best thing to happen to film since the introduction of colour.
Then there’s the move to 120hz for computer monitors, which Anandtech clearly points out in this 120hz monitor review makes a massive difference to picture quality. Even for just general usage in Windows. Let alone the advantages for gaming which any FPS gamer will tell you is crucial to high performance.
So as an educated guess, any new video formats we see on the horizon after BluRay3D will likely be 2k@48fps in 3D. So that means they’ll need roughly 8x the bandwidth of existing video to be streamed over the net. Even a 100mbps link couldn’t cope with that, but by that time (guessing here, but I’d say about 10 years till such formats are mainstream) we’ll have the option of 1gbps anyway.
Compression techniques are of course improving all the time, but obviously the push into these “ultra high def” formats is going to require some serious bandwidth should we want to stream it over the net, and while it might seem extreme and unnecessary to you, this is exactly the type of detail that is required for medical professionals who require the very best resolution available to make out the incredibly fine detail of scans and such. The same goes with remote consultations where a doctor might want to examine a patient’s wounds with the best possible resolution. And as far entertainment goes, A/V enthusiasts like myself can’t wait for real HD. Not the over-compressed 1080i crap that our FTA networks have the cheek of labelling “HD”. Or the highly over-compressed 720p we get from YouTube today, which crushes all fine detail and softens the video to the point it often looks barely better than high bit-rate standard definition.
The only type of system that can deliver next generation HD over the net is fibre all the way to the premises. It’s as simple as that.
*snigger*
“The only type of system that can deliver next generation HD over the net is fibre all the way to the premises. It’s as simple as that.”
That is not true. You can deliver next generation HD over ANY network connection. Even an old 33.6 (or slower) modem can do it.
Lower bandwidth network connections deliver data slower. Higher bandwidth network connections deliver data faster.
I guess it wasn’t as simple as that after all :)
Good work on the rest of that information you put up. A lot of people have some misconceptions on this topic.
A little perspective. Super HD isn’t going to give us anything other than super HD. Higher resolution films doesn’t = better quality films. Citizen Kane is the same movie watched in SD or HD. You won’t come away with any difference in meaning watching either one (although adding colour may change that – since it’s b and w).
Also widescreen doesn’t give you anymore picture than 4:3 ratio pictures. In fact it gives you less picture. A lens projects a round image and a square sensor (where the vertices touch the perimeter) is the greatest size 4 vertex polygon achievable in that area. Widescreen came about with TV taking away cinema audience size, so “widescreen” was introduced to sucker people back in. Was their enjoyment enhanced? I doubt it.
Oh and for the record, I’m typing this on a 2560 x 1440 – 27″ monitor. Yes higher resolution is better but it has to be in the right context :)
(ps – I do like watching HD movies better – the picture gives me a true to life look that SD in general doesn’t. But I stand by my comments in regard to the meaning conveyed – it generally doesn’t change between SD and HD – unless you were to specifically design it to).
Come again? “We cant see more than what we get in HD” What about 3d? (sure I hate it, but …)
What about multiple viewing angles, or alternative video streams. Not useful for you maybe, but some industries use it.)
And at even more What if my HD video was on a 30″ screen. What about a 60″ screen. Could I see any more information then?
(Conversely what if my HD video was on a 2″ screen. It’d be a complete waste).
The difference between black and white versus colour and standard definition versus high definition are not really comparable. Black and white takes away a whole dimension of our senses (colour). Standard definition resolves the picture at a lower resolution.
I’ve watched videos in 240p, 360p, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p. The difference between standard definition (576i) and high definition (576p – in Aus, 720p elsewhere) has never been big enough to diminish the educational quality of anything I’ve ever watched. The biggest difference to viewers is ditching interlacing, not increasing the resolution.
Youtube in its current incarnation offers 720p (which is HD thank you very much) right now. Today. Its up to the content provider to film and release it at 720p.
Yes HD is nicer than SD. Education is about conveying knowledge and if you’ve only got SD to work with you can still convey the exact same knowledge.
“Sick and tired of everyone slamming HD YouTube as ‘entertainment’ purposes only – that place is full of educational videos that can teach you how to do just about everything.”
You need FTTH to watch HD YouTube why? – guess that means that all that HD content is wasted as it is being watched by only the minuscule minority of BB users in the world that have FTTH?
No, you don’t need FTTH, however you do need a decent an reliable Broadband connection. If you are too far from the exchange or you can’t get ADSL2+ in your area you can’t stream YouTube HD. And what if you want to watch more than one stream concurrently? Isn’t going to happen on current infrastructure for the majority of users.
I noticed the pro NBN crowd are a little timid this morning. At least the ones with just a little bit of sense.
But nobody ‘s mentioned anything about what supposedly is the headline point . . . at according to all the headlines this morning.
That is Conroy/Rudd came up with NBN2.0 so as to avoid buying Telstra’s copper network for $15 B -$20 B.
The stark stupidity of that assertion by Conroy and the acceptance of it by reporters is staggering.
A/ NBN 2.0 still requires it pays Telstra for the copper network. AS A LEASE !! (ie further payments to follow in 20 or 30 years. MORE THAN DOUBLE THE FIGURE CURRENTLY OFFERED !!
B/ NBN 2.0 is to pay $13.5 B ( as per NBNco business plan)
THAT IS PRE TAX. Post tax it is over the $15 B they were trying to avoid !!!!
C/ NBN 2.0 intends to buy off Telstra AND OPTUS HFC networks. Cost not yet known/disclosed !!
Also 1 of the big errors made in the report is that it stated NBN2.0 will provide 100Mb/s to households, something that is many times more that is available today. FALSE. 100Mb/s is available TODAY to 2.8 Million households.
These points I suggest will eventually become widely known. and when they begin to get noticed will become deadly against the Government.
Especially if wireless penetration and performance CONTINUE to grow and fixed wire subscriptions CONTINUE to decline. While NBNco costs grow and the subscription rate stays pitifully, UNVIABLY low.
p.s Turnbull’s getting traction . . . . . . and more voices are joining the dissent against the waste, from senior telco and economic quarters. Fibre is good, Wireless is good, Government is STUPID.
Less than 9 per cent of Australians can access anything more than 2mbps – it’s in the latest ABS review of bb in Australia.
And did you follow any of the argument re fibre and wireless? Wireless as Renai (and plenty of others) have written about is a complementary technology – it is not an alternative.
Ooops
@ JD
“Less than 9 per cent of Australians can access anything more than 2mbps – it’s in the latest ABS review of bb in Australia.”
Perhaps true, But perhaps the reason is MOST DONT WANT IT !
Perhaps all of them or some them use Wireless.
like the 2.8 Million households that have access to 100 Mb/s now, but only 0.000001% choose it !!
The rise in Wireless dongles were put down to the fact that many people in Australia can’t access ADSL because they are too far away from an exchange.
Most commentary coming from the industry is that people who are buy wireless dongles would switch to NBN if they had the chance.
We could use the electricity network as an example – it was built for lighting and no other electricity-powered devices came online for two decades.
If we stuck with Turnbull’s reasoning we could have rolled out a 12 volt network – that’s all the technology at the time needed. It would have been much cheaper too.
Where would we be now?
Ever heard of the Concord ! The Sydney Cross City Tunnel ! etc etc etc etc.
They didnt even have to speculate or even imagine on way way off future applications.
Demand was highly quantifiable, Highly transparent, The application Very Very BASIC and ROUTINE.
And is turns out, UNVIABLE !
People can choose to use the concord or a standard jumbo or even a leaky boat to travel to France.
People can choose to use the Sydney Cross City Tunnel, or take several different routes which take longer.
We wont have that problem here, there is no direct competition for the NBN. The other major factor attributed to both of those ventures was the associated cost, people were not willing to pay for the benifit they were receiving.
Guess what if the NBNCo estimates are right (page 118 of the NBNCo Corporate Plan) then 50% of Australians will be connecting at 12/1Mbps which means they aren’t prepared to pay for high speeds.
12/1 is still vastly faster than what the vast majority of Australians can access at the moment.
And that’s part of the estimates, so taken completely into account as part of the funding.
Next?
“like the 2.8 Million households that have access to 100 Mb/s now, but only 0.000001% choose it !!”
Right! So we never needed ADSL. Dial up is cool. The fact is that speed demand creeps up over time. FTH will be able to be upgraded to the limits of technology and physics – but hey you stick with dial up mate. I hope you enjoy your old 2800 baud modem too.
“Less than 9 per cent of Australians can access anything more than 2mbps – it’s in the latest ABS review of bb in Australia.”
This is figure is wrong. I just went to the ABS looking for your data and found their 8153.0 – Internet Activity, Australia, Dec 2010 – so this is only 4 months old.
As reported by Australian ISPs (the only real way to get this data since the vast majority of users don’t know what connection speed they get).
81% of Australians have connection speeds of 1.5mbit or over.
Breaking that down:
8.6% of Australians have connection speeds of over 24mbit.
33.8% of Australians have connection speeds of between 8mbit and 24mbit (making your 9 percent figure totally wrong).
38.9% of Australians have a connection speed of over 1.5mbit and less than 8mbit.
8.6 + 33.8 + 38.9 = 81.3%
18.6% have a connection speed of less than 1.5mbit
The report combines all types of internet connection available for the review – making this a very representative picture of speeds available to the Australian population.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8153.0
Note that those ABS statistics are “advertised download speeds”. So you might be getting the “advertised speed” of 24Mbps ADSL2+, but because you’re 3km from the exchange you only get 2-3Mbps in reality.
Of course, finding out the real data is very difficult. Sites like speedtest.net help, but that’s self-selective data (i.e. it would be technically-minded people using that site to test their speed, people more likely to have a higher-speed connection – the majority of people wouldn’t even know about it)
I disagree. You’re right in that you may not get the maximum speed advertised – but according to this chart there is also a minimum speed advertised. The chart is quite clear in the minimum and maximum speeds deliverable and the ISP is bound by law to deliver within its advertised speeds.
A breakdown of the speeds advertised shows:
Less than 256kbps; 256kbps to less than 512kbps; 512kbps to less than 1.5Mbps; 1.5Mbps to less than 8Mbps; 8Mbps to less than 24Mbps; 24Mbps or greater.
What I’m wondering is if this is instead actual connection speeds provided as statistics by ISPs or if they are in fact “advertised speeds”?
Checked back on older issues – definitely “advertised speeds”.
I’m inclined to now agree with you – the chart is probably meant to indicate a bracket of “maximum advertised speed”. I say this because I’ve never seen a minimum advertised speed. Even then the speeds advertised should be <=256; <=512; <=1.5mbit; <=8mbit (adsl1 max); <=12mbit (adsl2 max); =24mbit (cable/fibre/whatever). You’d need separate speed brackets for wireless.
…”That is Conroy/Rudd came up with NBN2.0 so as to avoid buying Telstra’s copper network for $15 B -$20 B”…
Ah yes, this is the point we should be taking notice of, yet you leave out the ACTUAL reasoning behind it?
The government didn’t want to build a $15B-$20B FttN network, having to compensate Telstra $15B-$20B to do so, and then to have Telstra use that $15B-$20B to build another network alongside theirs.
That would have halved the value of the government’s network, and given Telstra one, effectively for free.
Something that Phil Burgess – (Telstra’s Managing Director of Public Policy and Communications at the time) – said “would have been exactly what Telstra would have done with the money”.
You must have missed that.
@ MW
No I didnt miss it.
The problem is exactly the same now under NBN 2.0 !
Hence the new cherry picking laws being passed.
Perhaps you missed the point of it.
Telstra are agreeing to step out of the wholesale market – (pending final terms now that the final legislation has passed) – and not build an alongside network.
The cherry picking laws do not stop companies from building fibre networks – they state that any such network must be open-access, wholesale only, and comparatively priced to the NBN.
There is nothing wrong with levelling the playing field in the wholesale arena and tightly controlling it to deliver equitable consumer outcomes. It leaves the onus on the RSPs to do the right thing by the customer and deliver the best products.
Telstra, Optus, iiNet, Internode and all the other sizeable RSPs will still win in the consumer market. In fact, their current strengths make it far more likely that they will continue to succeed in a market levelled at the wholesale level.
@ MW
Your retorts are getting better.
Some of your points are worth evaluation.
You are now clearly into regulatory and economics arguments.
And are now out of your domain of experience.
Your points are wrong. Invalid. incorrect.
Please read previously suggested Economics material.
i.e Henry Hazlett.
The application of “common sense” doesn’t require knowledge of “economics material”.
(For the record, I have done some study of economics – enough to understand basic principles – however, I would never claim to be an economist).
@MW
“The application of “common sense” doesn’t require knowledge of “economics material”.
True.
Like paying for a network that provides 2.8 million homes with 100 mb/s Today only to Decommission it.
Like paying $50 + Billion for a network that will not come close to getting 70% subscription.
While the interest bill alone will crush the viability.
And Project will go BROKE.
That’s an opinion – not an economic principle.
@MW,
No its not an opinion, it is an economic principle, its called VALUE DESTRUCTION.
@Reality Check… we have heard all the economic grandstanding waffle before, but put simply enough (that hopefully, even “you” can understand) the NBN is NOT a monetary investment, it is an investment in our nations infrastructure.
After careful consideration of all the underlying principals of what you say, I have come up with an eloquent, adequate counter-argument that makes as much sense as your own.
LULWUT!!?!1
Actually Michael, I think the claim Telstra would have repeated the cable rollout scenario by building a parallel network is just FUD from both Conroy and Burgess. It’s unlikely TLS shareholders and the board would have tolerated that sort of capex just for an exercise of playing chicken with the Feds.
The far more likely solution would have been a negotiated purchase of the Telstra fixed line assets to complement the NBN rollout which is – surprise, surprise – exactly what’s happened.
I just keep seeing evidence this whole schmozzle is a poorly thought out exercise by a bunch of ministerial staffers who did the numbers on the back of a beer coaster and then ensured their consultants and the public service supplied the financial, legal and technical advice to support their assumptions.
The sad thing is if the Liberal Party had just said they support the principle of an NBN but they don’t trust the government’s numbers or the extent of fibre required, we’d be having an informed discussion on the issues rather than just fanbois displaying their own prejudices and ignorance while throwing insults at each other.
You might well be right there – I would never claim to be privy to Telstra boardroom discussions.
I do however believe that they would certainly have used the money to build up something like a FttH network in the “profitable” areas.
Actually Michael, I suspect given Telstra’s success with NextG they would have used the cash to invest in the 4G and subsequent mobile network rollouts and leave the Feds to deal with the expensive, high maintenance business of replacing and looking after the wired networks.
Which again – surprise, surprise – is exactly what they are going to do.
One of the things I ask the audiences when I do a talk on this topic is how many of them are TLS shareholders then I tell them the NBN is the first gift the Federal government’s given them since the T1 float.
Funny enough almost all of the NBN haters in the room are Telstra shareholders and that line alone wins half of them over.
Again, you might be right. However, if memory serves the NextG build was well underway at that stage, but I don’t mean to argue semantics.
For what it’s worth, I’m not meaning to disagree with on your points. There are many questions of protocol/procedure that the government has been less than “forthcoming” with some of mechanical aspects to the development of this policy, and need explaining.
I’ve gone over many different possible combinations of pricing, uptake, benefits to the economy, etc, etc; and despite some covert – (necessary or otherwise) – dealings by the government, I still feel overall that going ahead with the project is better than not.
@Paul Wallbank
“One of the things I ask the audiences when I do a talk on this topic is how many of them are TLS shareholders then I tell them the NBN is the first gift the Federal government’s given them since the T1 float.”
Do you also ask how many are SingTel shareholders as well? – and also if they are shareholders of any of the construction companies mooted to be involved in the rollout, there are many forms the NBN ‘gift’ can take.
“Funny enough almost all of the NBN haters in the room are Telstra shareholders and that line alone wins half of them over.”
Funnily enough they are also NBN Co shareholders as well, the key difference being as taxpayers they had no choice and there is no dividend, nor any ability to write it off as a tax loss.
It cost them 1 billion dollars to upgrade to NextG didn’t it?
What do you think they would do with 15 billion dollars, and intimate knowledge of where all the best customers across the country are. (and the right to service them, and them alone with fixed line services).
5 billion on a cherry-picked fibre network.
3 billion on some kind of 4g network
7 billion on bonuses.
There were some great examples on 4 Corners of where taxpayer funded broadband is desperately needed, and I have no quarrel with that.
But then asking an Internet advertising company (Google) what they thought about taxpayer funded broadband? This is akin to asking Coca-Cola if taxpayer funded vending machines should be installed on every street corner. I wonder if they’ll be enthusiastic?!?!
And to totally omit to mention the $11 Billion that is going to be paid to Telstra?
@ Me…
Interestingly the same type of accusations you make against Google were made against Simon Hackett earlier this year, when he said the take up of 100Mbps NBN product in Tassie, was greater than they had expected…
The FUDsters came out as usual to say… well of course the guy who is making money from the NBN would say that.
But yet, when Simon recently wasn’t nearly so glowing about the NBN, apparently that was plausible… curious!
Apparently it’s not ok for those “insiders” to laud the NBN but it’s quite acceptable (or even welcomed/encouraged) for them to bag it. Of course also, anyone from outside the business who laud, simply don’t understand ICT and those who bag are wise businessmen/pillars of society…sigh!
It’s a shame Mark had to do the job that NBNCo and the minister’s department are paid to do.
As far as Malcolm’s call for applications that need the NBN go, Dropbox is a good business example. Twice in the last week I’ve had to move 40Mb files to clients and even with ADSL 2+ the uploading process has been slow and flaky.
That sort of file movement is becoming common for businesses all over Australia and it’s one of the reasons we need investment in upgrading our technologies.
The shame with the Four Corners program was it showed kids playing games on Miniclip, it’s hard to argue for a [insert improbable number here] billion dollar investment when the perception is it’s just to help people get rid of their WoW lag.
Grrrr, Renai’s HTML ferret ate my “insert improbable number here” quip that sat between those brackets.
Fixed :)
This bandwidth debate always reminds me of the (apparently) misattributed Gates’ quote on PC memory, if 100 meg or a gig is not required than obviously NBN won’t sell it.
I’ll be ecstatic to get a consistent 20meg service instead of relying on the decaying copper network that currently struggles to provide me over 5meg living 2km’s from the Sydney CBD.
I wonder when we embarked on the Snowy Mountains scheme, was there a demand for all of the electricity it would produce?
That’s a serious question by the way, not cynical, I’m not familiar with the political climate of the day and whether the project was labelled as a white elephant by doubters.
The thing that I have noticed is that people are still focusing on a single user using a single connection, where I am sure that many people’s experience is far from this.
In my household alone there are four of us and often we are all fighting for bandwidth, not to mention the numerous other devices that are also fighting for bandwidth. This is one of the huge benefits of the NBN as it will allow multiple users and devices to share the one connection without much (or possibly none) noticeable hangups.
Given that more and more devices are being made to access the Internet it is becoming more and more noticeable how inadequate our broadband infrastructure is. TV’s, Blu-ray Players, Fridges, Air-conditioners, TiVo’s, PVR’s and the list goes on, all wanting to access the Internet and all sharing the one connection.
This is but another reason why we need the faster speeds offered by the NBN!
Am I an NBN believer? Of course I am. Should this rule out my comment why we need the NBN? Of course not. Just because I am a NBN believer doesn’t mean that I can’t see both sides of the argument and understand where the other side is coming from, it just means that I see more benefits of the NBN then I do against it.
Is $20+ billion a lot of money? Yes! In the long term is it going to cost that and more if we do small incremental upgrades as many NBN ney-sayers say we should? Quite a number of experts say Yes. This is the opportunity to do it once and do it right, rather then upgrade now, then again is five years, then again in another five years and so on.
FTTN had a number of flaws, of which most of the debate has been covered. The only logical step forward to future-proof the network was to go to FTTH, despite it’s initial monetary outlay. The natural progression from FTTN is FTTH, but to do this would require a massive injection of cash on top of what we had already spent in upgrading to FTTN, not to mention the bigger compensation payment to Telstra for decommissioning their last mile of copper.
*In the long term is it going to cost that and more if we do small incremental upgrades as many NBN ney-sayers say we should? This is the opportunity to do it once and do it right, rather then upgrade now, then again is five years, then again in another five years and so on… The only logical step forward to future-proof the network was to go to FTTH, despite it’s initial monetary outlay. The natural progression from FTTN is FTTH, but to do this would require a massive injection of cash on top of what we had already spent in upgrading to FTTN*
the economic benefits of “future-proofing” are mythical.
consider a simplified numerical example with the following parameters:
cost of FTTP (in 2011 dollars): A$36bln
cost of FTTN (in 2011 dollars): A$15bln
real opportunity cost: 5%
rate of inflation: 4%
Option A: build FTTN now and FTTP 15 years from now
total economic cost in 2026 dollars:
A$15bln x (1.09)^15 + A$36bln x (1.04)^15 = A$119bln.
Option B: build FTTP now
total economic cost in 2026 dollars:
A$36bln x (1.09)^15 = A$131bln.
Option A = A$119bln < A$131bln = Option B
given the parameters, spending A$15bln today for FTTN and then A$36bln for FTTP 15 years later is actually CHEAPER than spending A$36bln for FTTP today.
also, the analysis above doesn't factor in the value of optionality when you choose Option A – i.e. not locking yourself into a specified technological configuration today and compromising future flexibility as technology evolves.
there's a real opportunity cost in "over-reaching" or overbuilding beyond your "immediate" requirements. if the majority of the benefits from superfast broadband are "unforeseeable" and only realised over a longer time horizon of 30-40 years like some people are arguing, then it just doesn't make economic sense to give everyone 1Gbps pipes today.
"do it once and do it right" is just a cheap political slogan with no basis in economic reality.
I agree, yes, the NBN should be paid for by subsides. I do not like the idea of the government trying to make a profit off the back of it, because it adds extra cost to the cost of access for consumers.
However, that does not determinant from the benefits of FTTH now does it? Also, might I point out that the installing a FTTH network is a 10 year project. Hence why we should be thinking about upgrade path now. I’m not saying bugger the extra $20billion (assuming your figures are accurate, I don’t think they are because of the ever increasing cost of labour over time, even when we account for inflation), but the time-frame of the rollout is important. Under your incremental upgrade process you are talking about it taking 25 years to get FTTH to the majority of the population.
*I agree, yes, the NBN should be paid for by subsides.*
the fact that it has to be subsidised means its unviable.
*However, that does not determinant from the benefits of FTTH now does it?*
it implies that the economic cost of implementing FTTH far outweighs the economic benefits – that’s why you *subsidise* it.
roughly speaking, cost-wise, you’re going from ~A$13bln CAN to A$36bln NBN (ignoring Telstra payments) – that’s a factor of almost 3 (in terms of capital servicing burden).
do you really think that FTTH will produce economic benefits 3 times that of the CAN? if that was the case, the private sector would be hammering down Conroy’s door and offering to buy out the Government’s equity investment in NBN Co (at a premium) and reap the 200% growth in fixed revenue.
would a restaurant owner triple the value of capital invested in restaurant fittings, furniture, equipment, etc without expecting a proportionate increase in patronage / revenue?
*Also, might I point out that the installing a FTTH network is a 10 year project.*
the point of that numerical exercise is to demonstrate that: when you’re evaluating economic alternatives, you can’t just simply add up economic benefits and costs in raw dollar terms (“$FTTN + $FTTP > $FTTP”). you have to take into account real opportunity costs and discount accordingly.
the fact that it has to be subsidised means its unviable.
No it doesn’t. It will get a return. The problem with the current pricing model is that consumers will need to pay for the upgrade in terms of cost of access. Since it is a government project, don’t you think some or all the upgrade should be funded by the government?
If the economic benefits of Fibre are to be experienced, why are we hindering small businesses and homes from access by making the cost of access so high in order to recoup the debt? It doesn’t make sense.
it implies that the economic cost of implementing FTTH far outweighs the economic benefits – that’s why you *subsidise* it.
Which is true. Let us be realistic here, in terms of immediate economic benefits the benefits of FTTH are minimal. It is the long term benefits that a strong national network allows for that will give us economic returns. For example, cheap and easily affordable broadband will allow telecommuting to be viable for businesses where it is currently not which will in turn reduce the government investment needed in transport infrastructure because there will be less of the “daily commute”. Satellite offices will more easily be established for businesses who are not comfortable with the concept of ditching the office.
do you really think that FTTH will produce economic benefits 3 times that of the CAN? if that was the case, the private sector would be hammering down Conroy’s door and offering to buy out the Government’s equity investment in NBN Co (at a premium) and reap the 200% growth in fixed revenue.
If the economic benefits of telecommunications infrastructure investment were so direct we wouldn’t be in the situation of needing government intervention in the sector in the first place because Telstra would easily get a high return from any investment they make in infrastructure and thus would have made the investment. This is not the case as, as pointed out above, the benefits of telecommunications are indirect. Telecom companies do not stand to get a tangible benefit.
Is this not what the government exists for in the first place? Placing investment in areas of social concern that the market will not produce of their own initiative?
*Since it is a government project, don’t you think some or all the upgrade should be funded by the government?*
you mean funded from tax revenue with zero payback? tell that to Conroy & Gillard.
*If the economic benefits of Fibre are to be experienced, why are we hindering small businesses and homes from access by making the cost of access so high in order to recoup the debt? It doesn’t make sense.*
this is the crux of the whole A$20/Mbps CVC fiasco.
*For example, cheap and easily affordable broadband will allow telecommuting to be viable for businesses where it is currently not which will in turn reduce the government investment needed in transport infrastructure because there will be less of the “daily commute”.*
Tel has made a very perceptive point about the marginal substitution of private vehicles for public transport in response to an initial, transitory reduction in road congestion – so, the volume of “daily commute” in terms of individual vehicles may not reduce much in the long run (steady state).
*If the economic benefits of telecommunications infrastructure investment were so direct we wouldn’t be in the situation of needing government intervention in the sector in the first place because Telstra would easily get a high return from any investment they make in infrastructure and thus would have made the investment.*
i disagree with this. Telstra or any other telco can’t get the appropriate return or incentive to make the optimal investments because the technocrats at ACCC won’t allow it. i’ve discussed this in detail here: http://whrl.pl/RcAfrB. generally, i’m very reluctant to scream *market failure* without a thorough examination of the underlying issues re. incentive mechanisms, regulatory interference, etc.
*This is not the case as, as pointed out above, the benefits of telecommunications are indirect. Telecom companies do not stand to get a tangible benefit.*
telecoms is no different from any other industry. if i produce a graphics chip, it’s then used to manufacture a laptop, which is then used by an architect to design a commercial kitchen, which is then used to cook food for public consumption. there’s no issue with “under-investment” or “over-investment” in chip fabrication plants because the restaurant customer does not pay NVIDIA or ATI directly (in the value chain).
*Is this not what the government exists for in the first place? Placing investment in areas of social concern that the market will not produce of their own initiative?*
well, then you subsidise service provision in “neglected areas” – you don’t take over/ buy-out the competition & renationalise the entire fixed line industry/sector. that’s draconian, expensive and economically inefficient.
@toshP300
Interesting figures…Whilst I acknowledge you did say simplified…your figures don’t therefore take into account a few FTTP possible plusses!
Such as, does FTTP offers real term economic advantages over FTTN and will therefore assist in increasing Australia’s GDP/economic growth, etc over the interim 15 years?
Is it “possible” to consider the possibility of an increased ROI for FTTP over FTTN (if wholesalers/consumers) are willing to pay more for the superior technology, over the interim 15 year period.
What about rural areas with FTTN… like the original Telstra proposal is your FTTN hypothetical urban only? Meaning we also need another OPEL (adding additional $B’s)?
There are still a lot of unanswered questions (some rather unquantifiable) from what I can see.
But again, I think we are losing the whole concept here. The NBN is meant to be an investment in infrastructure, not simply a monetary investment/mathematical equation!
Sorry… retailers/consumers!
*Such as, does FTTP offers real term economic advantages over FTTN and will therefore assist in increasing Australia’s GDP/economic growth, etc over the interim 15 years?*
think about it.
it takes 8-10 years to roll-out FTTP.
FTTN takes 1-2 years.
with FTTN, the immediate, realisable benefits of fast broadband accrue much quicker for the average Australian over the timespan you’re talking about.
@ toshP300 – that simply equates to FTTN being completed quicker… a partially completed FTTP network may still be more economically advantageous… who knows? Think about it…!
Plus the Telstra factor (not really clear where that comes into the equation via your FTTN plan…)?
Also what about the possible difference in ROI for FTTN/FTTP? Do we need OPEL again? As I asked previously, etc…
Still too many unanswered “ifs”, in your hypothetical (as well as the dimished quality of FTTN vs. FTTP in the interim) which the current NBN plan covers both from an Engineering and financial viewpoint.
I still put it to you that reconstructing the PSTN to FTTN is like reconstructing many dirt roads (say each of 10kms) but only applying bitumen for 9kms and leaving the last 1km with the old worn out dirt… to save money…for now… we’ll do it later (maybe… dependent upon the government or the variables at the time)…
Absolute stupidity…imo!
*that simply equates to FTTN being completed quicker… a partially completed FTTP network may still be more economically advantageous… who knows? Think about it…!*
not if it’s being built in the low revenue/profitability areas first.
*Plus the Telstra factor (not really clear where that comes into the equation via your FTTN plan…)?*
the simple numerical example i provided doesn’t argue for FTTN or FTTP – i was just trying to explode the fallacy of “future-proofing” (cost issues). to decide between FTTN and FTTP, you also have to take into account relative benefits as well. and these benefits have to be discounted according to when they arise.
the Telstra factor can be obviated by the government buying back the CAN.
*Also what about the possible difference in ROI for FTTN/FTTP?*
obviously the ROI is higher for FTTN since we’ve had private expressions of interest in building FTTN but not FTTP.
*Absolute stupidity…imo!*
[man, come to think of it – your style of writing, word usage & punctuation is also reminiscent of Trollgator too.]
uh.. i respect your right to an opinion. you really shouldn’t post under multiple monikers. not cool. cheerio :)
Only one of us (and it isn’t me) is posting under multiple monikers, eh Mark?
so, i’m “Mark” and deteego is “Matthew”… just randomly picking these out from the Bible?.. whatever, you win.
Works both ways…(Mark)!
https://twitter.com/#!/deteego <- I'd say the first name for Deteego is being based off that
*https://twitter.com/#!/deteego Mark”, how? i’m really curious now…
it takes 8-10 years to roll-out FTTP.
FTTN takes 1-2 years.
toshP300, where is the link that says it would only take 1-2 years to build (maybe 80,000+ cabinets) FTTN to the whole of Australia ( where there is copper already running)? Now how many tens of thousands of workers would be needed to complete that huge monumental task in 1-2 years? WOW, that’s only 12 to 24 months. You would be looking to at LEAST 5 years and that’s being conservative plus how much power/refrigeration would be needed to power 80,000+ cabinets. I’m sure the planet (increased carbon pollution) would just love that!! NOT
*the whole of Australia*
1-2 yrs variant of FTTN plan was probably not “whole of Australia”.
*You would be looking to at LEAST 5 years and that’s being conservative*
i could also argue A$36bln will blow out to A$40bln and 8 yrs will end up being 10 yrs to be “conservative”.
Telstra’s own 2006 plan was for an 18month rollout and they added that a large section of the population would be connected within the first 6 months – which is pretty exciting since this NBN via FTTH thing looks dead before it’s even hatched – yeehah – we can all get much faster speed SOONER!
If anything thinks FTTN is closer to 5 year rollout than 18 months they are dreaming – by using existing copper over the last mile FTTN saves MILLIONS of man hours and $BILLIONS$ of dollars by avoiding the laying of fiber ‘tails’ from the *PON nodes. You are also saving the consumer about $800-$2k in connecting their house to the new fiber. They can continue to use their existing ADSL modem at increased speed or spend some bucks at their local Dick Smith and grab a VDSL2 modem to hit much higher speeds.
No they are not. 5 years is the end to end time it will take if we include the change of government, the tender process, and the actual build time.
If we started tomorrow, yes, it would take 18 months. But we won’t start tomorrow.
“No they are not. 5 years is the end to end time it will take if we include the change of government, the tender process, and the actual build time.”
You mention 3 dependencies here:
Tender process – the current NBN’s tender process has just been blown out of the water by shockingly expensive (even by labor standards) pricing
Actual build time – an FTTP rollout will always be much longer than an FTTN rollout that involves millions and millions fewer km of fiber rollout.
So all we are left with is:
Change of government –
Ok, so all that’s holding Australia back from high speed broadband is a change of government. What we really need to get this FTTN started is a quick change of government: Oakshott or Windsor – would one of you please get over your childish National Party revenge/spat and come to the nation’s rescue? Please!!
Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just telling it how it is.
You can blame Labor for throwing out the old tenders, but the fact remains a new tender process will have to be executed.
You can blame Labor for going after this expensive path that you find unjustifiably expensive and not willing to budge on this path, but the fact remains we’ll need to get them out of power before we can change the plan.
And I don’t know why you need to reiterate the actual build time differences of the two systems, do you think I just plaintively ignored it?
You may have misinterpreted my post but, probably in contravention of this site, by quoting you I wasn’t implicitly attacking you ;) I was just using your summary of the three dependencies as a starting point to show that, as we both agree, the main one holding us up on a fast rollout FTTN is the change of government.
Nope. I didn’t misunderstood. I was merely attacking your assumption (which you just verified quite eloquently for me) that I am in support of any oppositions “plan” by pointing out that I was merely pointing out the facts of a FTTN network roll out not taking your foolishly low time-frame of 18 months. If it only took 18 months, it would have been built by now, cause clearly any competent government can get an 18 month build done in a single term right?
Do not presume however that my luke-warm support for the NBN is in any way related to evangelical support of the plan without understanding all the facts. No my luke-warm support for the NBN exists for two reasons and two reasons only:
In terms of the technology utilised it is the best solution. It is “future proof”. Any such replacement plan requires that same level of forward planning, something which is undoubtedly obtainable by FTTN, but unfortunately those in charge of the Oppositions plan seem to lack the technological foresight required for this. (12Mbps enough for any application? That concerns me more than Conroy pushing the filter).
Second, throwing out the plan completely would be a waste of everyone’s time. We’ve already thrown out the plan twice before, and got no closer to the endgame. Meanwhile the market continues to slowly erode under what can only be classed as an environment of uncertainty and needlessly hostile counter forces (i.e. the issue that prompted this into a political issue in the first place is still left not addressed).
The problem is rewriting the plan mid process seems to complicated for many to fathom. But if Labor are serious about maintaining power, that is exactly what they should be doing, in an attempt to address the concerns presented by the opposition (the valid ones anyway, there have be a few questionable criticisms thrown into the ring at times) and the media, as well as delivering their “vision.”
Take the current Simon Hacket vs NBN Co debate: the government have refused to hear his concerns, instead they have attempted to smear, and failing that, justify their position without actually addressing the concerns Hackett has raised in the first place.
The problem with this is I have absolutely no doubt that if the opposition were in power right now, any valid criticisms against their plan would also be ignored. So the problem I think is not actually to do with the NBN, but governance of Australia. But I only follow a small subset of policy (Technology related) so it’s possible governance is more mature in other areas.
It’s hardly important through. Either way we have a long road ahead of us. It’s just interesting observing the storm. It is frustrating through? Why is it every-time a new piece of information is added to the mix it triggers endless debate? Are the sides so egotistical that they are unable to even, for a moment, fathom the opposition’s point of view? Surely if Conroy realised just how bad it is to risk tens of billions of tax dollars on this he would think twice about doing it? Surely if Turnbull realised just how important ensuring that any plan survives the increasing demands of users with ease he would think twice about suggesting a minimalist approach?
The point I am trying to get here is: no I don’t think a change in government is going to suddenly expedite a solution to this problem. It may help, but it isn’t going to be that simple.
this NBN train wreck is the direct result of the Federal Government imposing a political solution (93% FTTP) top-down (thereby forcing those who have to implement the dictated policy to ignore economic imperatives and adopt crazy business models), as opposed to building a rational, workable solution bottom-up, taking into account our local needs, cost parameters, geography, etc.
frankly, the NBN, in its present scope and reach, is quite simply the STUPIDEST government policy ever proposed in this country.
And as tosh here demonstrates, those who cannot even for a moment understand the benefits of their opposition’s policy are not limited to politicians.
it’s 66% of exchanges by year 3…. 5 years to reach 98% of population.
If only the gov could use their brains to conceive an idea that is “just so crazy it might just work”…
If we could somehow incentivize the many ISPs we have in this country to build the FTTN nodes and lay the fiber from the exchanges to the nodes we’d have a build time of about 2 months :)
It would obviously require Telstra cooperation but given this gov’s apparent will to spend $11b buying Telstra’s copper network and then proceeding to ‘junk’ it, I think they should be able to work something out.
If an ISP currently has to pay $13 per ADSL connection over a Telstra copper pair and this price is set by the gov then surely the gov could decrease that cost to say $8 if an ISP has built an FTTN node to supply a set of customers and only uses Telstra’s copper over the last mile. That way Telstra gets to keep their copper network, we all save $11bn (+ whatever the NBN via FTTP would have cost) and the private ISPs rollout FTTN faster than ever imagined.
The ISPs would need to be allowed to rollout fiber in Telstra trenches but then again the gov could legislate a fair price for the ‘trench rental’ just like they have for ‘copper rental’ and in many cases Telstra has already run fiber through many trenches in anticipation of … not sure what but it’s there – I’ve seen it in a number of open pits that aren’t going to any other exchanges!!
@toshP300
If the real opportunity cost for FTTP in Option B is the same as for FTTN in Option A, implying the networks are of equivalent value, what is the point of your calculation?
All you are saying is that you think the two options are equivalent. Why not just say that?
hi sjk:
*If the real opportunity cost for FTTP in Option B is the same as for FTTN in Option A, implying the networks are of equivalent value, what is the point of your calculation?*
the “real opportunity cost” of 5% is basically the “real cost of funds”.
regardless of whether you’re building FTTN, FTTP, desal plant, etc, you’re diverting scarce capital away from other productive uses. that scarce capital has a real opportunity cost.
in financial/project analysis, this “real cost of funds” is a “given” or “external market parameter”.
*All you are saying is that you think the two options are equivalent. Why not just say that?*
the two options are not “equivalent”. i’ll re-paste:
“the point of that numerical exercise is to demonstrate that: when you’re evaluating economic alternatives, you can’t just simply add up economic benefits and costs in raw dollar terms (“$FTTN + $FTTP > $FTTP”). you have to take into account real opportunity costs and discount accordingly.”
to put it in simple terms: if you could either pick
(i) five jellybeans in my right hand, or (ii) four jellybeans in my left hand,
most people will choose my right hand (5 jellybeans).
now if i say that i’ll give you the contents of my right hand (5 jellybeans) in 10 yrs time and the contents of my left hand (4 jellybeans) today, most people will choose my left hand though it has fewer jellybeans. this is because the marginal benefit of consuming that extra jellybean 10 yrs from now is “discounted”.
similarly, spending A$10 today isn’t the same as spending A$10 next year. benefits and costs have to be discounted according to the time periods in which they accrue. hope this helps.
@Tosh
Thank you for your valuable contribution.
Not one foolish NBN fanboi has seen the error of their way.
Clearly they are seriously mentally deficient. But why should they be any different to the politician’s who have been complicit in this disaster thats unfolding.
I trust impartial readers who are’nt making comments are learning something.
Labour lost a massive voter base, and only got through by 3 stupid and self interested voters.
(Who I think may come to realise they shot themselves in the head!)
Perhaps next time they will completely get crushed like labour in the very recent NSW election.
Gee what a intelligent [sic] specimen is the NBN FUDster…
We have one saying NBN supporters have Tourettes and now another making claims of mental deficiencies…
LOL at your complete lack of… well everything!
Roll on NBN (ooh I must be someone else, since I said that…)…sigh!
Thats some nice analysis, pity the NBN isn’t a $36bn pay now investment though.
Very valid and obvious point Tom!
*Thats some nice analysis, pity the NBN isn’t a $36bn pay now investment though.*
you could stagger the FTTN/FTTP investments across consecutive time periods to make the analysis more complex – underlying principle still holds.
cheerio.
“FTTN had flaws”
Try telling that to the Germans who have deployed FTTN and enjoy high speed broadband now. Even our NZ bro’s ‘across the dutch’ are enjoying higher speeds than us because of their FTTN rollouts.
Spain and Greece both HAD FTTP rollout plans. Both countries are in a financial tail spin and have had to abandon or significantly delay/limit their FTTP plans.
Government funded FTTP rollouts seem to be the sole domain of socialist tending, financially incompetent governments who are on the nose, making a last ditch, desperate attempt to attract votes. The GFC has just helped them cure their delusion a lot quicker than normal.
“across the dutch”…. lmao.
+1 for Paul’s example of file movement…
The simple act of uploading a large data/video/whatever file for distribution to another location is one that is becoming increasingly common not only in business and education but also among private users. I have been using fiber in Tokyo Japan for the past 2 years and when I come back home for brief periods my educational research work slows to a crawl (I use a lot of databases to access very large document files…for eg. MA and theses). In Tokyo this work is functional, in Australia is a pain in the butt unless I am logged in a the actual university….and even then it isn’t as good as my connection in Japan.
Anyway, this is only one tiny example….and who can predict all of the various uses there will be for fast/wide bandwidth connections in 20, 10, even 5 years time?
Malcolm, unfortunately, is doing his job and playing politics with our future,
Oh, and Malcolm, your iPad, it relies on a wired backbone and wifi hotspots to work with any real functionality 24/7. I have used the Telstra NextG 3G wireless here in Australia (the best Oz has available), and it is not bad during the morning and early afternoon, but after about 4pm…slows to a crawl…..AND is *very* expensive (data wise) ALL the time….that data cap is soon munched up in no time.
The really sad thing about Mr Turnbull is that he *does* know better…..must be hard for him I reckon.
Playing to Tony’s luddite tune and trying to fool himself in the process.
C’mon Malcolm, you know what you really think (not so) deep down.
Australia will never look back if we manage to see this through.
Roll on NBN…
hello Diachronic! (“Broadbandit” eh?)
*Roll on NBN…* <—- that was your *tell* ;)
*who can predict all of the various uses there will be for fast/wide bandwidth connections in 20, 10, even 5 years time?*
great argument for doing something (not) – do it because "nobody can predict what the outcome will be".
oh Lord,… do us a favour and promise us you won't enter politics…
*The really sad thing about Mr Turnbull is that he *does* know better….*
yea, a corporate lawyer/merchant banker/venture capitalist of his pedigree and wealth of experience knows that we don't need a white elephant, cost-burdensome communications infrastructure.
*Australia will never look back if we manage to see this through.*
not likely to happen judging by various delays (Tendergate, etc), resignations, political polls, Opposition broadband policy, etc… ;)
*The simple act of uploading a large data/video/whatever file for distribution to another location is one that is becoming increasingly common not only in business and education but also among private users. I have been using fiber in Tokyo Japan for the past 2 years and when I come back home for brief periods my educational research work slows to a crawl (I use a lot of databases to access very large document files…for eg. MA and theses). In Tokyo this work is functional, in Australia is a pain in the butt unless I am logged in a the actual university….and even then it isn’t as good as my connection in Japan… blah blah bleh bleh blah BLECH… *
sorry, your personal life story cum waffle essay is relevant to the average Australian… HOW?
because you need fast internet to do your uni homework, therefore there's economic justification for pushing fibre to every Tom, Dick, Harry, dog, goldfish, etc?
fallacy of self-extrapolation.
tosh,
Grow the hell up. People have a right to their opinion without you jumping down there throat. None of your arguments are any more worthy than the original poster.
*People have a right to their opinion without you jumping down there throat.*
and i’m entitled to rebut simple fallacies. cheerio Trollgator.
@toshP300
“because you need fast internet to do your uni homework, therefore there’s economic justification for pushing fibre to every Tom, Dick, Harry, dog, goldfish, etc?
fallacy of self-extrapolation.”
That underpins much of the NBN argument, one poster went on about how he needed the NBN for his “dropbox’ business, yeah great I am sure you do, as long as you don’t have to pay business rates for such a service and let the taxpayer bankroll it for you.
Fallacy of self-extrapolation and self-obsession.
um dropbox is a free service unless you want more storage than the 2Gb free provided….
Yes I know, and…?
and…you are talking about paying business rates and blah blah blah
Oh and blah blah blah and blah blah.
You know what is really good? blah blah blah blah
*waits for standard alain/deteego response*
Dear oh dear do you have no perception what-so-ever, elaine?
While FUDsters say NBN = 3D porn, others who aren’t sans all perception, are giving clear examples of usages they can recommend…and where the NBN will be further advantageous…!
Is it really that hard for you to understand? Or are you just playing dumb for the sympathy/pity vote? Surely it’s the latter!
Decentralisation is probably the biggest benefit most people would actively notice.
Not having to fight your way for an hour through traffic every day just to get to the lauded CBD.
I can see large companies opening satellite offices more and more as the data flows freely and the interactivity of applications improves.
Why make your staff all drive in to a half million dollar a year office when you can have 6 40k offices – all within 10 km of where people live?
You wouldn’t. The great centralisation will reverse. Communications is the only thing preventing this.
Fact is, networks are better in the CBD.
It astounds me that we’re happy as a nation to spend 150-200bn on asphalt in 10 years, but a quarter of that on communications to last a good chunk of our lives? Nah mate. Too expensive.
+1
I have worked in quite a few industries where my employers were very keen to see technology advance in hope of doing exactly what you are talking about myne.
When I was working in the banking industry (between 1995 – 2000) my branch manager went away to an industry event where IT professionals were spruiking the ability for staff to work from home, enabling branches to either downsize or even close. I remember my boss coming back saying how most of the branch staff will work from home, have a computer supplied by work and a webcam and that customers would dial-in from their homes and talk to us face-to-face as if they came into a branch. He did point out that this is completely reliant on technology and infrastructure advancing. As we all know, technology has and infrastructure hasn’t!
Then when I was working as a Loss Adjuster (2000 – 2006) my State Manager actually encouraged me to work from home, as he knew that staff would generally put in more hours when working from home rather then being in an office. However, the applications used were quite intensive in terms of bandwidth and most of that time I could only get 1.5Mbps DL and 256Kbps UL due to being stranded on a mini-mux.
The NBN will be great in terms of relieving housing pressures in many of the country’s CBDs. Look at Sydney and the housing crisis going on there. With decentralisation as myne suggests companies will be able to move their offices out of the CBD, lowering their costs such as rent and also reducing the amount of people travelling into the cities CBD. This will encourage people to move out of the hustle and bustle of city living and move further out of the suburbs and even as far as regional areas.
It appears that it is only NBN nay-sayers that find it hard to think up applications and uses for the higher bandwidth offered by the NBN. My old boss when I was working as a Loss Adjuster actually paid for my home ADSL connection and gave me a weekly allowance for electricity for using my home as an office.
Unfortunately the likes of Malcolm and the NBN nay-sayers don’t want to hear this type of information. They want a service that will keep up with technology demands and evolve as technology does, however they don’t want to spend the money to do so.
At the end of the day the NBN is going ahead and all we can do is make sure that the Government and NBNCo. get it right in terms of access and pricing (both the cost to build the network and the cost for RSPs to access the network). Which is why it baffles me when the NBN nay-sayers complain about NBNCo. cancelling the tender process when all of the tenders were unacceptable and were believed to be price gouging. The NBN nay-sayers don’t hold much credibility in my books when they sledge a company for doing the right thing and preventing a cost blow-out, after all it is public funds and they are showing that they are being responsible with those funds and to arrive on budget. In other words, stop being negative for being negative’s sake!
*The NBN will be great in terms of relieving housing pressures in many of the country’s CBDs. Look at Sydney and the housing crisis going on there. With decentralisation as myne suggests companies will be able to move their offices out of the CBD, lowering their costs such as rent and also reducing the amount of people travelling into the cities CBD. This will encourage people to move out of the hustle and bustle of city living and move further out of the suburbs and even as far as regional areas.*
the gradual formation of “satellite cities” such as Paramatta in relation to Sydney CBD, etc and EXISTING fibre connections for regional business hubs has NOTHING to do with the economic justifications for pushing fibre to (almost) every home (NBN). stop confounding unrelated issues.
the NBN will solve our “housing crisis”? roflmao.
*Which is why it baffles me when the NBN nay-sayers complain about NBNCo. cancelling the tender process when all of the tenders were unacceptable and were believed to be price gouging.*
NBN realists do not “complain” about NBN Co’s cancelled tender. we LAUGH at the sheer incompetence of the clowns running the show. we had an extensive, multiple-stage tender process with FOURTEEN independent, unrelated, competing companies and ALL the submissions were “double-digits” above NBN Co’s “worst case scenario”.
what a joke. do these clowns know what a “worst case scenario” is? the people who did the sloppy guestimates / benchmarking / crud analysis are clearly out of touch with market reality (no wonder they work for the government…).
*The NBN nay-sayers… stop being negative for being negative’s sake!
NBN fanboi’s = NBN Pollyanna’s
NBN critics = NBN Cassandra’s
and here’s this Cassandra’s predicton: if the NBN, in its present scope and reach, gets built, it’ll either go bankrupt or get bailed out by the Federal Government within 10 years.
*I can see large companies opening satellite offices more and more as the data flows freely and the interactivity of applications improves. Why make your staff all drive in to a half million dollar a year office when you can have 6 40k offices.*
businesses and office buildings already have fibre connections. if they don’t and they require it, they should pay for it themselves. none of this has any relevance whatsoever to pushing fibre to (almost) every home in Australia (NBN).
*Decentralisation is probably the biggest benefit most people would actively notice. The great centralisation will reverse. Communications is the only thing preventing this.*
REALLY? “the great centralisation will reverse….” right… BOLD CALL. so instead of congregating together to enjoy the economies of shared infrastructure, socio-cultural benefits of communal/physical proximity, etc, we’ll all disperse into the ether to get further and further away from each other… like a human BIG BANG… reversing centuries of geographical trends… just because we have faster internet…
ludicrous.
*It astounds me that we’re happy as a nation to spend 150-200bn on asphalt in 10 years, but a quarter of that on communications to last a good chunk of our lives? Nah mate. Too expensive.*
(comparing apples with chihuahua’s again.)
simple: roads are vital – 3D porn isn’t. ;)
toshP300 wrote “simple: roads are vital – 3D porn isn’t. ;)”
What is point of trying to have a rational debate with someone who reduces the argument for better Broadband, to a statement like the one above.
There isn’t any.
that was just a joking reference to John’s comment below re: 3D Porn.
sheesh.. just trying to inject some humour into tense analysis & discussion. lighten up.
cya later Tailgator ;)
I know.. these NBN/Conroy Fan Bois are very stressed at the moment and losing their sense of humour.
I guess the realization that the Tasmanian rollout cost the company that did it a $2million loss and the fact that they only have 15% take up (when 73% take up is necessary for the NBN to be a viable business) and the fact that the whole tender process has been put on hold as Conroy/NBN Co realize that $43b might be a conservative estimate – and the whole pile of irrational crap that is this draconian, one size fits all, government owned monopoly really could make a NBN Fan Boi nervous.
But you can’t say they weren’t warned by the rational, ‘outside the square’ thinkers among us who know there are much more cheaper, privately funded, economically viable ways of providing high speed broadband via a tailored, “area appropriate” solutions that range from FTTP, FTTC, FTTN, HFC and wireless (for farms etc., not town centres)…
The only government money that should be spent is on certain regional areas where private industry will not contribute because it’s financially not viable. To create a non financially viable gov owned, ego-opoly, NBN that dumps financial non viability across an entire nation while only a portion of the country would otherwise not be viable for privately built networks is just the most brain dead *solution* I’ve ever heard of.
+1 Myne. I spend upto 4 hours a day commuting into and out of the Brisbane CBD for a job where 95% of the work could be carried out from home or a remote, smaller office. That’s 4 hours a day extra my young family don’t see me. It saddens me these work/life balance benefits are never raised. Not only that, think of the impact taking those peoeple off the roads and public transport would have.
While I do work from home a lot after hours and weekends, I can only carry out a small subset of my usual tasks thanks to being on a congested ADSL 1 port, where my uploads are limited to 300kbps. God forbid my wife is also online using the Internet.
3D PORN. Need I say more?
can someone tell Turnbull i *need* 100MB/s to watch red tube? Pfft. No Applications. Sif.
“Speed in and of itself is an abstraction,”
yes Malcolm. in fact, it is a bonus. in fact it doesnt matter a whole lot if there are not immediately ‘nbn’ applications to use on the network.
on the other hand, cutting the USO cost and building a network for the next several decades to replace the failing network of the last several decades is an immediate application and asides from speed has another bonus of saving money. having telco outfits working on extending the network is far preferable to having those same people employed on a round robin of going from dodgy line to dodgy line, doing jumpers and other archaic work that will not be needed under the NBN.
If there is anything unviable, it is continuing to maintain the copper in that fashion, where it requires more and more work as it ages. if Malcolm seriously believes wireless will be anywhere near as reliable and comparable on the maintenance upkeep as the NBN – let alone the stake costs of towers, spectrum, backhaul and trhe rest – he needs his head read.
If there is anyone on the Kool-Aid it is you Malcolm, insistent upon a free market that will save us all when it has demonstrably sat on its hands for 15 years and steadfastly NOT produced anything much by way of new wired networks – and you suggest perpetuation of the same.
In any case over the projjected several decades of the NBN how long will it take for us to start soaking up 100mbits on a connection? in the near term, not necessarily with any one single application; i admit. but with many houses increasing their store of consumer electronics, many of which are ‘internet enabled’ a small menagerie of devices all accessing the net at once certainly can saturate the connection. and in the longer term, even if you halve the data usage trajectory of the internet so far, it wont take too long to reach that requirement at all. mandating a network “upgrade” such as FTTN or an LTE affair without any headroom at all is shortsighted and guarantees we will have the whole bunfight over again. and if Malcolm succeeds in wrecking this effort, it will be a travesty if we get to revisiting it again and the ‘free market’ STILL hasnt come to the party, which i fully expect to happen.
Boy oh boy did this topic go off :-)
I’ll contribute by saying I was sitting at home the other night thinking about how great the NBN will be at what I’ll be able to do with all the extra speed, at that point in time I was only running multiple torrents, live streaming 720p HD NHL (3000k stream), and playing online multiplayer Killzone 3 on the TV.
I mean if I can do all that now with my current connection, who knows what else I’ll be able to do in the future, maybe stream multiple games perhaps? Boy that’s worth $43B.
And the other 90% of the Australian population who can’t do that get what?
(someone mentioned earlier an ABS report said only 9% of homes can get > 2 megabits on their home connection). I dunno if this is true, but I’d be surprised if more than 50% have access to 6 megabits.
And I dunno about you, but I would hate being stuck on 6 megabits. (Im on 20 myself, and could do with more, and thats before I even mention my 1 megabit upload. I could actually work from home if I had 5+. Right now? not so much.)
Though I guess it lets me sit around and watch some TV at home when I try to do an update for work that takes 25 minutes just to transfer.
tezz , lucky you!
on my “adsl” connection i cant use voip nor stream low res video after 4pm
Lucky you Tezz…
I should clarify, that was around 4am or so, so really into the offpeak times when overall usage would be lower.
The point I was trying to make is that the last mile will sustain what most people would want to do with it now, the problem is with backhaul congestion. Maybe with the NBN rollout the concentration should be on getting FTTN done everywhere first, this could be done in a much shorter time period then the entire FTTH rollout. After FTTN is completed then the last mile copper could be migrated to fibre.
I am no expert or visionary, but I see a level, constant playing field of guaranteed bandwidth being essential to progressing, especially with business cutting costs to stay viable.
I see a benefit of the extra bandwidth the NBN could offer opening doors for working from home at LAN speeds. The ability to transfer files at LAN speeds to remote “cloud” servers as fast as I could at work. Being able to do all this while having VOIP calls being directed in and out, or a video conference going without degradation of performance.
This means no office space for the employer, and a potential better balance of life for the employee if they are up to being productive in this environment.
This can all be happening while other household members stream media, or also work from home.
Being that it is rolled out nearly everywhere, I can then move premises and still know I can have the same quality of service elsewhere. It cannot rely on wireless services offering speeds of up to 12mbps, but suffering congestion already, or inconsistent and problematic (every time it rains) copper access alternatives. It certainly does not work too well on a 1.5mbps connection on a rim I can tell you.
Some of the bandwidth going to every home or street could be diverted to local wireless access points that provide basic web traffic seamlessly along every street for mobile devices.
Ideas and opportunities will be created. You need to do it right in the first place – getting the foundations right are paramount.
This thread has jumped the shark.
I agree. I’ve just deleted a couple of pointlessly abusive comments and I will delete more until people re-focus on actual intelligent debate.
ATTENTION FEVERED EGOS!
This is your editor speaking. I have deleted several posts from this thread and censored several others. There are few rules of discussion on Delimiter as I really dislike actively moderating and wish to promote free debate.
The only one that really exists is that when a thread descends into people mindlessly screaming at each other, as this one apparently has, I will wade in and physically separate the various antagonists.
Pipe down, people and focus on playing the ball and not the man. You have been warned. I am watching.
Cheers,
Renai
Publisher, Delimiter
I have to agree Renai, If I wanted mindless ranting and swearing, I would follow @renailemay on twitter.
And I am supprised that no one has mentioned HD bacon as a bonus feature on NBN 2.0
Really, so why is it every major ISP I look at still only offers ADSL2+? Also, VDSL2 does not FTTN make. They are in the process of rolling it out, doesn’t mean they have it. They have VDSL2 via FTTN in the same way we have FTTH: limited footprint for select areas.
VDSL2 isn’t standardized in Telstra for use in Telstra’s exchanges. Thats why its not used
I apologise. That was in reply to your comment about NZ already have FTTN and 60Mbps VDSL2 services. I must have not clicked the reply button as I intended.
So what does Telstra have to do with New Zealand?
I have a feeling that the cost of high speed broadband is going to be ridiculously expensive if Labor’s NBN is built. My prediction is, because of the NBN, most people will probably end up paying more for the internet speeds that they already have now. I could be wrong, but until there is full transparency, then I’m against the NBN. If it can be proven that the expense is viable then I will support it. It is foolish though, to wishfully think that if you build it, the people will come. It’s been said 9 out of 10 businesses fail in the first two years. If the NBN fails, then we taxpayers will be continually propping it up in decades to come. And then when it’s viable and should remain in government hands, we’ll privatise it, then the new owner will strive to free itself from any ‘community service obligations’, the rural areas will be in uproar, then we’ll throw all our hate onto the network owner, when in reality the governments messed it all up… oh wait hasn’t that happened before?
I’m all for better technology, but I’m with Turnball, it’s ridiculously expensive what Labor wants to do and if it’s a financial flop then it’s going to place an unnecessary and preventable strain on our economy for years to come. Some of you nutters don’t really care how much the thing costs. Just pause for a moment and consider how much $36 billion dollars is!
“I’m all for better technology, but I’m with Turnball, it’s ridiculously expensive what Labor wants to do and if it’s a financial flop then it’s going to place an unnecessary and preventable strain on our economy for years to come. Some of you nutters don’t really care how much the thing costs. Just pause for a moment and consider how much $36 billion dollars is!”
You need to realise that $36billion is actually not that much? I’m not going to advocate whether the project will be well run, I believe it will, but obviously have no proof except for the calibre of people they’ve hired.
In any case, the $36billion will be over ten years, so let’s say there is a peak in construction and they spend $10billion in one year, now lets compare that to Federal budget spending in 07/08:
Health: $43billion
Defence: $19.9billion
General Government Services: $32.2billion
Welfare: $96.5billion
The list goes on, total Federal government expenses that year were $236billion, so even at those rates a $10billion investment in one year is 5% of total Federal government spending.
Add to this the funding is actually driven by debt derivitates and your argument doesn’t really hold water, yes, $36billion is a huge sum of money in isolation, you need to view it in totallity though.
“Add to this the funding is actually driven by debt derivitates and your argument doesn’t really hold water, yes, $36billion is a huge sum of money in isolation, you need to view it in totallity though.”
Totally agree.
There are many more advantages of having the NBN but the anti NBN camp choke on pretty much all of them making irrelevant comparisons as shown by exactly the comments in this thread.
The best analogy for the NBN is road building, this is the digital version. Funny enough that when we had enough cars we built roads, when we had enough people we built trains but when we have enough data, 50 year old copper will do just fine! However, here is the kicker….you all think “wireless”; bandwidth sharing over limited spectrum subject to weather and signal loss, is a viable alternative! Even when you know a wireless connection is not even in the *same ballpark* as a fixed line connection.You advocate a solution for everyone that is effectively worse than we have now!!!! 12MB/s on wireless, *if* you can even get that speed, will be a poor brother to the equivalent speed on any fixed line service. Then to top it off they roll out 4G and this is where it gets truly laughable. 4G is a *mobile phone* network data solution. This has even worse characteristics than normal wireless services. The highly amusing part is Malcom drops 100MB/s 4G like its mana from heaven when he knows you will only get that if you are 50m from the base station and the ONLY person using it. The hypocrisy is galling, the sad part is ALL of you fall for it, hook, line and sinker.
When you and your anti NBN mates can come up with an equivalent solution for this country that will stand the test of time over the next 10 years then start talking… otherwise, sit down and let people who know what they are doing, lay the foundations for our future.
*Totally agree.*
that just speaks volumes about your [lack of] understanding of the issues. [see my post below.]
*There are many more advantages of having the NBN but the anti NBN camp choke on pretty much all of them making irrelevant comparisons as shown by exactly the comments in this thread.*
lol. i also like the “all your arguments have been totally rebutted etc” (drive-by blanket claims made w/o reference to anything specific)… nice variation on that. however, you’re insulting the intelligence of the ppl who read delimiter.
*The best analogy for the NBN is road building, this is the digital version…*
blah blah blah… sorry, you lost me… couldn’t find any logical train of thought in that jumbled waffle. Opposition policy is only about wireless? plain wrong. the alternative being offered is a set of complementary, competing solutions as opposed to monolithic, market cornering NBN.
*otherwise, sit down and let people who know what they are doing, lay the foundations for our future.*
oh? what happened to…. “People have a right to their opinion… “? ;)
i’d swear you’re Tailgator ;)
cheerio.
LMAO
ToshP300,
“blah blah blah… sorry, you lost me… couldn’t find any logical train of thought in that jumbled waffle. Opposition policy is only about wireless? plain wrong. the alternative being offered is a set of complementary, competing solutions as opposed to monolithic, market cornering NBN.”
Is that the best you could do? Couldn’t argue your way out of facts now could you. Opposition offers wireless, then ADSL for the rest of us. Since you can’t comprehend… here is a dummy for you to suck on while you consider.
Oh and one more thing. I never said the opposition was only offering wireless. That was your assumption. However a great deal of their solution is FTTN + Wireless which means indicates they believe wireless is good enough for everyone… which CLEARLY it is not, never will be as good as fixed line solutions.
LOL… completely ignoring the whole point of the post…. its back to the dummy for you.
*its back to the dummy for you.*
quick, herring! (it’s pretty much a reflex action for you isn’t it?) oh, that’s right – this ain’t WP ;)
*In any case, the $36billion will be over ten years, so let’s say there is a peak in construction and they spend $10billion in one year, now lets compare that to Federal budget spending in 07/08:
Health: $43billion
Defence: $19.9billion
General Government Services: $32.2billion
Welfare: $96.5billion
The list goes on, total Federal government expenses that year were $236billion, so even at those rates a $10billion investment in one year is 5% of total Federal government spending.*
i’ve heard this argument regurgitated so many times – and it’s ABSOLUTE NONSENSE.
all the items of federal budget spending that you list are funded from general taxpayer revenue.
roads, schools, hospitals, bridges, etc are all funded on an ongoing basis via regular appropriations from tax receipts. all this is part of the federal/state budget planning process. moreover, infrastructure projects undertaken by the Federal Government are subject to cost-benefit analyses by various government agencies.
the NBN is OFF-BUDGET. the only government contribution to the NBN is “subsidised bridge financing” during the risky roll-out/construction phase of the project. NBN Co even projects that the initial equity contribution will be repaid soon after the NBN is built as NBN Co takes on private debt.
bottomline, all this means that the capital servicing burden for the $XXbln NBN political project falls entirely on the shoulders of broadband consumers. this is precisely why NBN Co is buying out Telstra’s copper network, and also attempting to shutdown the two HFC networks owned by the two biggest telcos – NBN Co has to corner the fixed line market in a desperate attempt to grab as much of the fixed revenue as possible.
you can shuffle the capital structure with different proportions of government debt, private equity or private debt however you like – it doesn’t change the fact that NBN Co will have a massive capital burden which will be serviced (with interest) ENTIRELY from access charges.
this is NOTHING like public roads or hospitals where public money spent does NOT have to be paid back. all of the $XXbln capital sunk into the NBN will have to be serviced and paid back.
again, stop comparing apples with donkeys.
*$36billion is a huge sum of money in isolation, you need to view it in totallity though.*
given that NBN Co will (supposedly) not be subsidised or receive any other form of government assistance (other than bridge financing), the magnitude of $XXbln spent on the NBN has to be viewed in the context of the revenue generation capability of the fibre network itself. the size of the federal budget is totally IRRELEVANT.
this is where the political deception on the part of the Labor pollies is truly OUTRAGEOUS – trying to sell what is meant [by pollies] to be a long-horizon “social project” (and therefore should appropriately be funded ON-BUDGET as social infrastructure spending) as a “commercially-viable” investment vehicle (NBN Co).
this is fraudulent politics at its worst.
and let’s face it, what should have been an “economic project” (i.e. a broadband plan that gives Australians infrastructure which is suitable to our local needs, geography, cost parameters, etc) has now totally morphed into a POLITICAL project of the worst sort.
The Coalition do not even have *a plan* in any real shape or form…
To suggest they are going to go with a FTTN proposal is simply a waste of time…
Until we see their plan it is all just conjecture…
And guess what? We will never see it because it is just a scribble on some paper at the moment, the details are just too hard.
And when they try to do details we end up with 11billion reasons why they wish they had not bothered!!!
Roll on NBN…
Tosh, you must be working from Tony’s office my friend…going on the level of argument you use. Also, lots of ppl use “Roll on NBN” on Whirlpool these days….it don’t belong to one dude…..although that Diachronic guy seems to have his stuff sorted.
Unlike some others…
*The Coalition do not even have *a plan* in any real shape or form…*
they will when they form government :)
they’re not in the driver’s seat at present – therefore it’s hard and silly to announce detailed policy when the situation is in flux. totally understandable. there’re just so many uncertainties at present with Telstra not having even passed the shareholder resolution, etc. try to be patient.
*And when they try to do details we end up with 11billion reasons why they wish they had not bothered!!!*
huh? don’t follow. where did you pull that one out from? (_!_)
*Tosh, you must be working from Tony’s office my friend…going on the level of argument you use.*
why not Malcolm’s office? and what level of argument is that? as opposed to mindless repetition of “FUD”, “roll on NBN” and “arguments” of that calibre? well, pardon my sorry a**.
*Also, lots of ppl use “Roll on NBN” on Whirlpool these days….it don’t belong to one dude…..although that Diachronic guy seems to have his stuff sorted.*
http://whrl.pl/RcGiBv – “I’ve just noticed that Diachnonic hasn’t posted for a while, I know he was in Tokyo”
GOTCHA! :P (that was my other *tell* that i omitted to mention) ;)
cheerio Diachronic ;)
toshP300
The Coalition do not even have *a plan* in any real shape or form…*
they will when they form government :)
Lets hope the Coalition reveal their “NEW” broadband plan sooner then just ONE WEEK before the last election voting day. It should be months before when Australians actually go to vote so people/and the media can really have a GOOD LOOK at it along with anything else they might want to bring up as policy. But sadly it probably/most likely won’t happen and we’ll all be left in the dark like mushrooms still just BEFORE voting day.
@Avid Gamer
“Lets hope the Coalition reveal their “NEW” broadband plan sooner then just ONE WEEK before the last election voting day. ”
Yes, but then again they could follow the example set by Rudd and Conroy in the lead up to the 2007 election, announce a policy based on a national private/public partnership FTTN tender, get elected cancel the FTTN tender and come up with the hasty construed face saver policy, a fully taxpayer funded national FTTH rollout.
So it doesn’t matter what policy you announce before the election you can change it at any time after being elected.
Here’s my reason for wanting the NBN:
Turnbull says that you’ve got ADSL and HFC and 3G, so why would you ever need the NBN?
What if you can’t get ADSL, HFC or 3G?
I’m using 3G as my home ‘net connection because that’s all I can get, and no way is it nearly as good as a decent ADSL/ADSL2 connection, let alone a dedicated fibre connection.
What you don’t need and what Australia can’t afford (obviously as the contractors’ tenders all got rejected by the gov/NBN Co) is an FTTH NBN that “proposes” to lay fiber to 97% of the premises in the nation. No other country in the world has had a government attempt such a brash, draconian, expensive, left-field stab at popularism – and lunatics eat it up like the proverbial.
To start with, the delivery record of this federal labor government is littered with spectacular failures. The delivery record of state labor governments is even worse albeit on projects of much smaller complexity but the same electoral “sensory appeal” theory remains: promise something sexy and overly ambitious and hope the people vote for you then down the track make up some excuse about how the new economic climate or technological changes means we can’t deliver it. It wins votes but in the end it saps any credibility you might have had (just ask NSW labor about that).
Even without a calculator FTTH is intuitively “nutbag” expensive and will take years and TRASHES an entire copper that is obviously working fine because otherwise 90% of the people contributing here on the ADSL would not be able to. I believe it might also propose to trash/compensate Optus to make their cable network redundant.
The Germans have their critics but most would agree they are pretty smart and they are about the only Western European nation that’s not in financial tailspin. They deployed the smart man’s fiber: Fiber to the Node – FTTN. It’s about 1/10th of the cost and at least gets fiber out from the exchanges to the suburbs which forms a great first step in ‘fiber enabling’ the country. It’s reduced cost means that it has a far greater return which means you can rely on much great private investment which leaves the gov more money to spend on roads and hospitals.
In 10-15 years when 97% of the nation *might* actually need fiber running to their premises then we can extend the fiber at that time from the nodes to the premises and probably on a user pays basis or some other scheme that doesn’t cost the tax payer $43b x 2, 3, 4 (take your pick cause nobody really knows for sure…)
Imagine being able to get speeds of 50-100mbps with sufficient FTTN nodes within 12-18 months instead of being stuck on 0.5-20mbps on ADSL for up to 9 years!!!!! Imagine not having to trash Telstra’s existing copper network that the government has now declared is worth about $11b … as far as labor waste goes that’s almost as much as the BER scheme and it has an uncanny resemblance to that program if you talk to many schools: “Trash something of value that was working fine and replace it with something new and shiny that we didn’t really need when what we asked for was something completely different for a fraction of the price of what ended up being built.”
Back in Johny’s day, when we had $40b in the bank and no debt you might have considered such an ambitious plan but now that this mob have blown our savings and rendered us into greater and greater debt, the thought of such an expensive, wasteful plan is just ludicrous.
Renai, can I suggest you introduce a policy of only posting comments from people prepared to give their real names like Business Spectator does?
These threads are starting to look like Whirlpool and if you don’t want to force the posters to verify their identities then at least follow Simon Wright’s example and set up a private Nuts Forum where the hard core maniacs can argue among themselves.
We have a serious need for intelligent discussions of Australia’s development with the technologies that are going to define the first half of the 21st Century and Delimiter is darned good forum for those issues to be explored, it would be a shame if the trolls and the idiot savants parroting party lines dragged it down.
hey Paul,
I just deleted three posts from RS because they were pointless and offensive, and I’ve deleted some others yesterday by others. I agree we need to maintain a standard of discussion here. However, I won’t ever setup a mandatory ID system — a lot of people are prohibited from posting under their own name by their job. It would kill debate instantly ;)
Dear Renai, admittedly my comments (like others deleted, interestingly unnamed by you) can be cutting!
So, to be singled out and unfairly named by “you”, when others doing likewise are not named and their comments remain, shows distinct credibility deficiencies on your part, imo!
——–
Apparently comments from others, like this from above, aren’t pointless or offensive –
*its back to the dummy for you.*
quick, herring! (it’s pretty much a reflex action for you isn’t it?) oh, that’s right – this ain’t WP ;) {END}
——–
Keep up the good work Renai!
I’ll permit small insults in comments, RS — but the whole comment can’t be an insult without any reasonable argument as well — as your last three posts were ;) You’ve been around for long enough — you know where the line is!
Well I guess there’s no point in arguing with you us is there Renai…when you are the one holding the big stick…!
Perhaps a CV to Conroy… he may have a place in his “filtering” department for you (joke…Renai)!
There definitely is no point in arguing with the moderator ;)
*Perhaps a CV to Conroy… he may have a place in his “filtering” department for you (joke…Renai)*
that’s not funny in the least. show some decency & respect to the site owner / publisher.
Just can’t let it go eh Mark…LOL!
There was a forum board setup, no one really used it as everyone preferred to comment on the articles themselves. Also got a serious spam bot issue on there and Renai closed the forum down for now.
@Paul Wallbank
“These threads are starting to look like Whirlpool and if you don’t want to force the posters to verify their identities then at least follow Simon Wright’s example and set up a private Nuts Forum where the hard core maniacs can argue among themselves.”
Well Whirlpool has a team of moderators in all forums overseen by Senior Moderators that actively respond to herring complaints placed by members about post content, most times this works other times the blatant bias of the moderators/s on decisions is apparent.
I am sure Renai has not got the time nor the inclination to moderate to that degree, the Off Topic rule alone would eliminate about 50% of posts in Delimiter, the Personal Attack rule would eliminate another 20%, the Trolling rule would take off another 20% which leaves you with a somewhat interesting discussion of the 10% left.
Having said that though about the overhead that moderating places on a individual/s a lot discussions in Delimiter drop rapidly into the above categories, something needs to be done otherwise readers and those wanting to post something relevant will look elsewhere for a rational discussion on the subject as the alternative to having their post jumped on with personal attacks and off topic agenda driven rants.
“Delimiter is darned good forum for those issues to be explored, it would be a shame if the trolls and the idiot savants parroting party lines dragged it down.”
Indeed it is, but let’s not kid ourselves that only anonymous posters troll and parrot party lines.
You forgot the no FUD rule… I wonder why…LOL!
*the blatant bias of the moderators/s on decisions is apparent.*
basically, when you browse from other parts of WP into the NBN threads, you enter a “twilight zone” with respect to forum moderation. the difference is “day” and “night” – and a real shock to the system. there’s one set of rules for your average punter and a different set of rules for well-known trolls who enjoy “special protection”.
i just noticed they even placed Bevan in the penalty box: http://whrl.pl/RcIrjp (he’s like one of the few posters who make that thread worth reading) …while noxious, debate-censoring trolls like Tailgator are “untouchable”… what a complete joke. and a real pity – ‘coz otherwise WP is a great forum for IT hardware/software discussion, etc.
delimiter is a breath :O of ~fresh air~.
Spoken like someone in the said “penalty box”…
Well…?
lol, RS/RobG/Kevin Davies/TG… given the biased moderation, if you’re an active NBN critic in the WP NBN forum and you haven’t been penalty boxed at least 3 times, you’re not worth your salt… ;)
cheerio.
So no then…!
Is it possible for a thread to jump the shark twice?
“Another issue is that headline speeds of FTTN quite often fall far short of actual delivered speeds.”
Another issue is that the headline claims of “build it and they will come” and “everyone will need 100mbps because it’s the vibe, the feel, it’s mabo” quite often fall short of reality.
They built it in Tasmania and only 15% have come… and that’s with FREE connection…. hmmm, what is wrong with this picture?
Those who say financially viability of the NBN is not important are forgetting that the only reason Labor didn’t have a gaping $43b hole in their election costings was because the NBN was “declared” as a financially viable commercial asset that had $43b in value and would give return to gov – so they didn’t have to account for it in their costings.
*the NBN was “declared” as a financially viable commercial asset that had $43b in value and would give return to gov – so they didn’t have to account for it in their costings.*
many people are misinterpreting the “7% return”.
Australian long-term government bonds are yielding in the 5-6% range. this cost of debt is “fixed”.
on the other hand, the artificial “7% return” that the government will supposedly earn on its equity stake in NBN Co is a projected “raw return” – it’s not risk-adjusted.
things could go well, or things could end very badly – in the latter case, the magical “7% return” may turn out to be “-7% loss”.
we already know that:
(i) on the cost side of the equation – the market feedback from “Tendergate” is telling us that there’s a substantial risk of cost blow-outs over the 8-10 year roll-out timeframe;
(ii) on the revenue side of the equation – the CVC fiasco is telling us that NBN Co’s revenue/pricing model is inherently contradictory in that it discourages the very take-up of high bandwidth usage apps that is required to drive NBN Co’s fixed revenue forecasts.
viewed in that context, the “risk-adjusted” (or “certainty equivalent”) return on the government’s equity stake is most probably no higher than the government’s cost of debt, possibly much lower.
hence, the Federal Government’s equity stake in NBN Co isn’t really worth much at all (relative to the cost of funding that position).
realistically, it should instead be viewed as a contingent liability on the government balance sheet.
Turnball is the one who needs to lay off the coolaid and the NBN laxatives :D
Health Education work from home, IPTV.
Will ALL benefit from the NBN for the consumer
Yeah you can do all of that in May 2011.
People didn’t dream of road trains when they were driving horses and carts…
The Syrian rebellion is being organized via a ‘syrian rebellion’ facebook page. It’s a pity that Syria didn’t build a single government own monopolized internet highway (like our NBN) because it would have been so much easier for the “peoples’ government” to apply a state wide filter or shut down the internet altogether to quell the rebellion.
Yes, big brother is so much easier to achieve when the government controls everything.
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