Evidence: Rural Australia is demanding the NBN

1. “Consequently, my question to the Coalition is: Why do you continue to oppose this project and slam it at every opportunity, when the evidence is consistently showing that Australians far and wide, in the bush and in the city, have read the arguments and want it to go ahead?”

   Agree! The Coalition are so far ahead in the polls I don’t understand why they don’t just say “yep, we have decided to keep the NBN in it’s current form”. There are people out there who will vote Labor for no other reason than they support the NBN. It’s an off balance sheet item so doesn’t impact their surplus pledge. It enjoys popular support, it won’t be a backflip they can say “we have listened to the people and they are in favour”. It really goes against his whole “polls show the people don’t want the Carbon Tax” theme – you can’t pick and chose what polls you use otherwise on that logic he should be in favour of the NBN.

   The only reason I can think of, and it’s pure speculation, is that the companies most negatively affected by an NBN, the media, have told Abbott they will give him favourable coverage if he continues to oppose. Honestly call it conspiracy or whatever, but I cannot for the life of me see why the Coalition continue to oppose this project.

   We know Turnbull reads this website. A response perhaps My Turnbil? I have tried emailing him on many occasions and only received the one reply.

   • The independants want the NBN. Coaltion decides to change to having the NBN in its current form?

     Labor out – LNP in.

     It’d happen in a week… Really. Abbott either is a complete idiot, or he doesnt want to be PM that badly – because this policy alone would change the government.

     • The former, abbot is a complete idiot!

     • The independents won’t do a deal with Abbott regardless, as the first thing he would do on forming government would be to drive to Government House and ask the GG to call an election. Abbott isn’t interested in minority government, why should he be when he’s guaranteed of a landslide?

       • It has never been feasible to build to rural regions, especially given the size and sparse population of Australia, building fibre is even more ludicrus, but because government hangs on pleasing a few who represent regional and rural areas, the country and labor is held hostage. in reality, putting fibre in regional and rural areas is so unprofitable that such a thing would not even be considered, hence why NBN is flawed from the start.

         • So would you say the same about copper then DUDE? What if you lived back in the 50’s when there were even LESS people in rural and regional areas- was it “unprofitable” and”infeasible” to roll out copper to them?

           DUDE, look, you are right to a certain extent. ALL essential services are unprofitable/economically infeasible in rural/some regional areas….THIS IS WHY WE HAVE GOVERNMENT! These areas would be using lamp oil and going to their local telegraph station on horses on a dirt road if government didn’t subsidise their services! And you CANNOT tell me Australia would be where it is today without these regions having access to these services.

           “because government hangs on pleasing a few who represent regional and rural areas, the country and labor is held hostage”

           The Independents decided to side with Labor because Labor gave them (at the time) what they wanted for their constituencies. 4 of them wanted the NBN (among other things), so Labor got 4, which gave them a majority. This is called stable governance and it was that, or go back to the polls. Many countries run on minority governments such as we have now- the difference is our politics is so bad, we can’t get past the name calling to run the country. This could have as easily happened the other way and the Coalition would be in, and maybe instead of the NBN, we could have the pokies reform, or no carbon tax or lower company tax or WHATEVER, that people would always, in this circumstance, complain is because the Independents are “holding the country and government hostage.” DUDE, the fact of the matter is, in the Coalitions own Blue Book on party mistakes a major (not the only one, but a major one) reason for them losing the last election was their stance on a Broadband policy….or should I say lack of stance, because they didn’t have one. The fact also is, current polls put the Australian people, as a majority, in favour of the NBN. Not only that but almost as many people don’t know what they want as compared to those who are against it. You can argue all you want that it’s “only 57%” of Australia- 57% is a majority and in politics, a strong majority- any government would be HAPPY to get that sort of support and larger decisions than the NBN have been made on less support.

           To simple state we are being held hostage by 4 people who have their own agenda for their small part of Australia is insulting them, it’s insulting democratic government in general and, most assuredly, it’s insulting the Australian people and the Australian way of like. It is OUR CHOICE as Australian’s to live outside of cities- many MILLIONS of people do. We have a form of governance who is, in general, committed to providing services very close to that of those in the cities, wherever practicable, even if not economical, so the country as a whole can thrive.

           Australia would not be where it was today without rural and regional Australia and we would be the worse for it. Stop complaining about what amounts to no extra money or effort on your part to let the NBN go ahead, to give a much needed boost to regional and rural communications, along with a welcome productivity and speed boost to cities, when you seem to care very little enough anyway to argue the politics rather than the actual pros/cons of the NBN. Focus instead on what we need to do about our ageing population or our crumbling Health system.

         • Maybe we should not bring fruit, veg and meat into the cities. Just think of all the cost and polution trucking it all in. Us city folks should learn to eat ADSL and fibre when it arrives ;)

         • I think a previous poster (Mark iirc) summed people such as you who will gladly continue to wring the copper sponge until completely dry and dismiss FTTP because of cost (cost borne by investors not income taxes anyway) up perfectly DiT, with a line that said something like…

           “The irony of arguing for short-term solutions using a network that only exists because of a long-term thinking…”

         • +1 I like the quote :)

   • “The Coalition are so far ahead in the polls I don’t understand why they don’t just say “yep, we have decided to keep the NBN in it’s current form”.”

     Unfortunately it’s not that simple. The coalition are not interested in what is best for Australia they are more interested in their pride and egos. The NBN was the main reason why they lost the last election so it’s important to “destroy” and punish those in favor of it and if that includes people in rural areas that will benefit the most from the NBN then so be it.

     • Yep, HC, and that includes punishing all the country voters who thought the Nationals would be their voice in the coalition. Tony Abbott has proved a great disappointment to many. Malcolm Turnbull is a serial liar and seems concerned only to ensure himself a comfortable life after politics. So, who’s next in line?

       On my estimation, upwards of eight erstwhile coalition regional seats will be more likely to fall to independents if the coalition’s constipation on the NBN isn’t medicated soon. If this happens, we will see another election with minorities to the majors, and a sizeable cross-bench that gets to dictate the government. And we all know how awful that is since it happened in 2010.

       • Get over it. The Minority Government is working very well thank you. Where do people get this idea that Independents rule the Government from absolutely mystifies me! Maybe they need to expand their reading material beyond the rule of “I know everything I need to know, because Rupert tells me so!” Your reading here is hopefully a step in remedying that issue for you. There is hope.

         No Independent can get anything through the Parliament without the assistance of either of the major Parties. It’s that, or negotiating with the Parliamentarians to vote with them in contravention to the aligned dogma of the day. That happens rarely. All minority Government does is force nearly any changes that happen into open debate to find the merits and downfalls of the policy in question and then voted on. If it hasn’t impressed the elected majority of Representatives, it doesn’t get the breath of life but dies the death it deservedly requires. True Democracy and not Oligarchic Plutocracy which is what we had before this current Parliament. NOTE! I didn’t say Government, but Parliament.

         Are you saying Democracy is a bad thing? I say it is healthy and if you say it isn’t, then totalitarianism may be your flavor. Good for you! We need EVERYONE’S different opinion to govern ourselves together, successfully, into the future and not just your demanded outcomes.

         The NBN is a project to level competition and service topography for as many as possible in telecommunications. No longer does a business have to be in a city where access to cheaper affordable bandwidth is available because it is more profitable for some Private Enterprise. But now the business people can take their families out to enjoy our big land and the benefits that are all of ours to enjoy if they wish to. What a boon for regional Australia that helped so much to drag the Australia we currently enjoy out of the 19th Century into the 21st with the richness that a majority share. Egalitarianism is what made our land great, and now we advocate shoving a pillow over it’s head to kill it quick by suffocation. WOW! Be proud!

         The big thing the NBN is a threat to is the current Business status quo. Media will be turned upside down by it. They know it all to well. Their power to influence us directly will reduce as we start looking beyond what is immediately around us and look wider for solutions to our issues. That translates to less direct control on how to best manipulate the successful completion of their financial investments. That is what this debate is about and nothing to do with the use Australian people’s money, but the successful garrotting of their competitors coming onto their turf and effecting their financial goals and desired outcomes.

         Gullible people fall for it hook, line and sinker every time. I call them Sheeple. Baaaaaaaa! Follow anything that moves and looks alike.

         • BTW, this is not an attack on HC or FY. It is a generalization of the vitriol that floats around the whole NBN debate and some people’s misunderstanding of what politics is and has mutated into.

         • +10 TechinBris. We, as a nation, have become so selfish, particularly towards the millions of people that have chosen a life outside the cities. Get some perspective people. You are NOT the only ones in existence, nor is your existence more important than anyone else’s.

           Australian politics has descended into petty name calling and slander because these people know no other way to gain popularity- and the media pedal the same wares, as it sells them more papers.

           The NBN let’s us begin to dispel these problems with true, open, unlimited access to information for ALL.

         • Well I doubt it is “Free” access to information, unless someone is offering it at their expense. :{D
           But I am a advocate for the GovernmentNet2 (or whatever you wish to call it) where the services of Government are provided in full via the Net to it’s Citizens. Those we are paying should be under the same scrutiny we are in our workplaces. Polly’s are doing a job we pay them to do. Their only power is their representation of us. Not Media Moguls, unless we are too lazy to do something about it which currently is the case.
           The NBN makes this very possible for anyone who is an Aussie Citizen to discern how they are being represented, which obviously some Polly’s will hate. People will be able to see what Media is saying and check other sources to match up the data and find out if it truth, conjecture or someone Else’s propaganda. Which is what obviously Rupert will hate.
           The big thing the NBN hate cycle is about is all about Foxtel. Our Nation is to be dictated to by a Pay TV channel and it’s Stakeholders? Puleease! Who ever lets and condones it to happen is a fool.

   • @Steve, you ask: ‘Why do you continue to oppose this project… when the evidence is consistently showing that Australians… have read the arguments and want it to go ahead?”

     Since non-urban areas have the worst QOS and the most to gain from NBN, a further explanation for Liberal intransigence could be that their mission to ‘destroy NBN’ will stir up all the affected electorates. Many of these are held by the Nats, and some of the more urbane Libs (looking at you, Malcolm) seem to regard people in these areas with thinly-veiled contempt.

     As for some of the independents, they seem to be solely motivated by whatever will line their pockets until the next election, so anything is possible there.

     • I suspect most posters here are the homebody geeks from whirlpool, the usual suspects i presume.. but lets consider things rationally for a second and look back at how this ensued.

       In 2007 there was no talk of NBN or fibre, it was a matter of upgrading metro networks with FTTN and regional rural with broadband connect schemes eg. OPEL.

       THat this stayed the same until NBN V1.0 and put forward by K. Rudd. This was still the original FTTN plan, which took many forms but mainly it was a gov’t outlay of about 4-5Bn, and what they expected to get, was basically a network that brought us into current OECD stardards and ahead of many currently doing the same upgrade.

       THEN, something happened, a brain snap perhaps, Rudd decides to throw out all tender proposals in NBN V1.0 for FTTN builds and decides hes going to do what no one in the western world will do, hes going to up the initial $4Bn , by ten times, yes TEN TIMES, and make it $43Bn … now, any rational business minded person would say, you cant go from estimating a $4bn expenditure and business case in V1.0 and jump by ten folds to $43Bn and then try to make a ‘improved business case’ and basically claim .. ” oh wait, forget that previous business case, its going to be inadquate, yeah I know we were selling you guys that first one, but suddenly (almost overnight) we decided we are going to need 10 times that…”

       who in their right mind does this, and who in their right mind believes this.

       • I’ve used Whirlpool twice. And why is that relevant anyway? Whirlpool is Australia’s number 1 forum for Broadband….the NBN is the national BROADBAND network…..kind of fits don’t you think?

         I’m not going to go into explanations or defences of K. Rudd or his politics. I think he COULD’VE been a good PM, but he $^#ked up and he was stabbed for his mistakes. The fact that he decided to switch to a FFTH? Um, I don’t know where you got this idea that he had a brain snap was, but the fact was that the implementation study was done after the tender for the FTTN failed. Why? Because Telstra came back with a tender that wasn’t within the financial or implementation guidelines, so they were disqualified. ie if we didn’t want a Telstra monopoly (the reason they were rejected) it was FTTH or go home!

         “hes going to up the initial $4Bn , by ten times, yes TEN TIMES, and make it $43Bn”

         No, he’s going to scrap the idea of $4bn of SPENDING and make a decision to, instead go with up to $43bn in EXPENDITURE- They are different. Very- here’s my blog if you want an explanation nbninfo.blogspot.com.au
         And $43bn is a reasonable chunk of money for national infrastructure. Not to mention, the FTTN would cost $3-4bn and earn no money and the $1bn a year Telstra paid in maintenance would continue (because the maintenance is on the copper, not the fibre) and make ZERO money for the government. While FTTN would REDUCE maintenance costs of the whole network AND make the government money…..

         Some brain snap. Wish I could have one like that sometimes….

       • DiT

         “I suspect most posters here are the homebody geeks from whirlpool, the usual suspects i presume…”

         Maybe most are? But since you brought it up, do you know what I also suspect?

         I suspect most posters here who blindly bag the NBN are electioneering ultra conservative puppets.

         Although I am neither, I know who has the more balanced and common sense views on the NBN and it certainly isn’t the latter.

       • “blah blah blah Rudd decides to throw out all tender proposals in NBN V1.0 for FTTN builds blah blah blah”

         They did the right thing.

         “any rational business minded person would say, you cant go from estimating a $4bn expenditure and business case in V1.0 and jump by ten folds to $43Bn and then try to make a ‘improved business case’ and basically claim more blah blah blah”

         You can. Do you understand the concept of “value for money”? It’s pretty simple to understand, a FTTN patchwork is pretty much worthless, a $43 billion FTTH network covering 93% of Australia is worth exactly that and much more more. Hope that helps.

         • Yes well it was the same Kevin 07 who put the challenge to ISPs and carriers local and overseas to submit a proposal on how the Telstra monopoly would be broken and how they would propose to build a FTTN network ie. NBN V1.0.

           There were ideas thrown about in proposals, one being mid-point pillar injection. I at the time thought all this was more manuevering by the government and the solution put foward by the gov. would not work, and just like todays plan with NBNCo, I thought the plan to be quite unbelievable when put under scrutiny.

           Its the same K Rudd and now Gillard who are pushing phoney prank broadband policies that dont work and cannot in reality work. I think ISPs got burnt hard the first time with NBN 1, they are once bitten twice shy, and most are just towing the line with NBNCo. It will be fed as long as Labor has a need for it, but when it no longer has political value, it will be scrapped, something else put in its place NBN 3.

         • Err regardless of who put the challenge to ISP’s, the ISP’s didn’t measure up…period! This was evaluated by a panel of comms experts, who adjudicated so, not politicians.

           There’s no blame game here except that the ISP’s were inadequate (Telstra’s bid even failed to qualify). You can try to fluff it up to suit your crusade, but that’s what occurred.

           Thing is, had Telstra submitted a compliant bid, the obvious and easiest thing would have been for the government to simply accept Telstra’s FTTN bid, wouldn’t it? Easy, done and dusted.

           But Sol/Telstra wanted to show who was boss and the government instead showed Telstra, by coming up with a comprehensive network proposal, that not only gives to all Aussies, but also lessens Telstra’s complete stranglehold.

           The very option the opposition have finally progressed to, leaving them “now only 5 – 10 years behind”.

         • That is…

           FTTN – The very option the opposition have finally progressed to, leaving them “now only 5 – 10 years behind”.

2. And why would they need to listen? They are so far ahead in the polls that they could get into government pretty much whatever they said. I’m just hoping that something happens in the leadup to the next election that gives a chance of the NBN surviving. The only thing I can see at the moment is if the Gillard government lifts its game to the point where people see it as a credible alternative.

   • “And why would they need to listen? They are so far ahead in the polls that they could get into government pretty much whatever they said”

     I hope they say that in an interview. Jeff Kennet said something similar in an interview and he was voted out quick smart.

     I can actually see Abbott saying something that stupid in an interview. He has almost the arogance of Kennet.

   • “And why would they need to listen? They are so far ahead in the polls that they could get into government pretty much whatever they said. ”

     Sorry, I couldn’t stop laughing at that! So will the rest of the world laugh at us if we do do it on such silly drivel the media has presented as *cough* fact (bullsh!it is a better word) and vote a Government in on the dogs breakfast they dished up to us to feast on.
     I always say, at every election, Australia will always get the Government it truly deserves. And believe me, we’ve had some dreadful ones. Just what we we deserve?

3. Rural people also:
   -Don’t want to lose water allocations to the Murray Darling
   -Don’t want CSG exploration/mining under their land

   The ALP aren’t listening to them on the above issues, and canned the OPEL project that would have gotten them faster broadband by now. Please, no flaming about OPEL being wireless, 7% (ie rural) are getting wireless under the NBN as well.

   Just sayin’

   • OPEL was WiMAX…we’d be spending money replacing it again already.

     • OPEL was going to be a mix of fibre, DSLAMs and WIMAX. You should know that.

       Since you are so concerned about rural Australia, I propose you go to them with a survey asking if they could have had OPEL operational today, or wait another 10 years for fixed wireless/satellite from the NBN, which would they prefer?

       I dare you. I double dare you.

       • I was referring to the wireless component, as was the previous poster.

       • Fixed wireless and the satellites are scheduled to be completed by 2015, not 2022… Thats not 10 years

       • Whatever it is wireless technology NBNCo is building int he bush, it faces the same obselesence as any …

         I thought OPEL was a good plan, i recall the tendering was a bit bizzare, it was handed to Optus on a platter $1Bn each way for the build… and Telstra was left out in the lurch.

         NBNco should have followed this plan which is to leverage copper in regional areas and add wireless (whatever flavor it is today), however their business case for fibre to areas that have low population density is plainly a poor one, it will make no returns, but incur ongoing maintenace costs.

         Such an obligation would make it as a business quite derelict, which is why I dont believe NBN will ever be built for a number of unfeasible targets.

         • “however their business case for fibre to areas that have low population density is plainly a poor one, it will make no returns, but incur ongoing maintenace costs. Such an obligation would make it as a business quite derelict, which is why I dont believe NBN will ever be built for a number of unfeasible targets.”

           DUDE, have you read the NBN Corporate plan? That’s a business plan, not from the government, from NBNCo. the business. The FTTN was dropped because Telstra wanted to try and strengthen its’ monopoly, so it was disqualified from being involved which made it a useless business case because enterprise competition is non-existent as a result of Telstra’s MASSIVE market share.

           The Corporate plan clearly shows how NBN will make money. Will it cost more than it originally budgeted? Probably. Infrastructure usually does. Will it therefore make no return? No. NBNCo. will make money, it may just take a few months or a year or 2 more to do so. The business case is sound- experts have looked at it and said, obviously there is still risk, but because the majority of Australian’s will be on it (70% or more) by 2021, it is a viable business case, where, if it was to be rolled out by enterprise, because of competition it wouldn’t be. And before you say it, there doesn’t NEED to be competition in infrastructure when it is standardised (which is what the NBN is), only in the companies that USE that infrastructure to provide a service.

   • Killing OPEL was a great idea. We often hear people whine about “labor waste” and here they do the right thing and stop the waste of 600 million taxpayer dollars and people still complain about it? Amazing.

     • I totally support the NBN, and the coalitions position on the NBN frustrates me massively.

       However, people need to acknowledge that OPEL would have improved the broadband situation some time ago for a small part of the Australian rural population.

       OPEL was not just wireless, it was also an ADSL2 upgrade program for some regional areas. I was scheduled to get ADSL2 upgrade under OPEL, however, many years later still no sign of ADSL2 for me. Telstra tell me where I live is “insignifcant to Telstra” – that is a quote directly from my areas General Manager of Telstra Country Wide to me last week.

       • This reminds me of the time I rang Telstra about a malfunctioning mobile phone, and they insisted I take it to my local Telstra Shop, despite the fact that back then there wasn’t one in the whole region (“Yes there is, I can see it on the computer”… *facepalm*).

         I live in the Riverland of SA (irrigated horticulture, dryland agriculture: you name it, we grow it) and don’t know if OPEL would have helped us. Similarly despised by Telstra, my national-highway town only got ADSL thanks to Internode. However, that’s only for lucky sections of this town. Step over a road, and you’re still stuck on dialup. One town in our region will get the NBN within the next three years: it’s probably fair, as it currently has even worse coverage than the rest of us. However, we all really need the NBN. I can’t think of a rural region which doesn’t need it badly.

         • I do feel sorry for a lot of the regional and rural folk who are deceived by this NBN charade. It is easy to make a promise, perhaps its for political ends, but to claim something and to deliver it is another thing.

           First we just have to look at NBNCo’s progress so far, they’ve spent over $1Bn over a year, and connected a mere 5,000 services. Alarm bells anyone?

           Granted that costs are associated with building a new company ground up, but in reality a greenfield site of say 300 homes should cost no more than $5million. To make matters worse, connecting homes in regional and rural australia where distances are 2-3 times greater only increases the cost of building each service.

           I fail to see how such a plan could work, and unfortunately, I think the government has lied to the people in a massive way, we need only look at what happened after the last election, that NBN was going to fade into obscurity because Labor in their heart of hearts knew they had played their last card by upping the ante to $43Bn and adding lunacy upon lunacy (ie. if NBN V1.0 RFP was no idiotic enough), but salvation came in the hung election and broadband came from last in policy to win because some people in the sticks wanted fast broadband.

           Suddenly the trucks started rolling and the pen pushers started drawing up contracts, believe it or not, but that $43Bn plan, its happening!

         • @ DiT

           You fail to see how such a plan (NBN) could work…?

           Yet another bunch of NBN critics keep telling us we will ALL be forced onto the NBN monopoly. Gee if we are ALL forced, how can it possibly fail.

           Nothing like an each way bet though!

         • “First we just have to look at NBNCo’s progress so far, they’ve spent over $1Bn over a year, and connected a mere 5,000 services. Alarm bells anyone?”

           Ah, no, no alarm bells. NBN’s own plan says they don’t enter full stage operations till June. Have they been optimistic about their trial sites and first foray into commercial rollout? Most probably. Usually businesses are- they learn, adjust funding, tighten schedules and often make up the time. If we’ve past 10000 homes by the end of December, THEN the alarm bells would start ringing as that is 6 months after commercial operations officially. Glad to see you’ve been reading the Daily Telegraph and the Australian (or equivalent News Ltd.) though- because they’re ALWAYS quality and un-biased sources of news about the NBN:

           http://delimiter.com.au/2012/03/27/oops/
           http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2011/12/23/3397389.htm

4. Evidence: Rural Australia is demanding the NBN

   Reality: Rural Australia still voting for LNP!!!

   It just makes you wanna rip your hair out.

   Wake up Australia…and smell the b/s the Noalition is peddling.

   Dont be taken for fools….again.

   • The nationals are pretty much gone now – their representation is minimal at best within parliament, outside of Senator Joyce, who lets face it; has no f^&%ing clue.

     At a time like this, where the nation is looking for an alternative to both parties – but will someone else stand up? not likely. Would they get voted for if they did? probably not – purely because the public is so entrenched within the media’s consistent labor bashing, they automatically think that the LNP is the underdog. Who do Aussies always vote for? The underdog.

     Maybe we should make a political party. We could call it Delimiter and have Renai as the party’s leader.

     Either way the NBN should have bipartisan support.

5. There is a benefit for urban dwellers also.
   Cities are very congested.
   Many people could move out and work from home with the NBN. Also, rural healthcare is provably second class. Education can be poor too.
   Everyone wins if rural infrastructure is improved.
   I live rurally and can’t really work properly. Therefore I’m paying less taxes.
   I can move back to the city, or move to a location served by the NBN.
   Both sides of Aussie politics are focused on the 3 year election cycle. Hence the NBN is a welcome investment in the decades to come. Look at Labor’s position in the polls compared to the coalition though.

   • It isn’t just about people work from home. If the communication infrastructure was everywhere small and medium business could more easily locate where their employees live instead of being forced to locate in the the inner city where the communication infrastructure is.

6. Kudos to you Michael, good research.

   • Thanks.

     Interestingly though, it only took about 30 minutes to find those dozen or so links. There were many other examples I could have used, but I think the point had been made.

7. The 3 year plan shows only Grafton getting the POI built on the NSW North Coast, some time in the future. From Coffs Harbour to the Queensland border, nothing else is on the radar for NBN. The suburb around me barely works on fixed mobile and satellite comms, in one of the faster growing towns in rural Australia. We have booted out the Nationals for a few elections now, so it is assumed our electorates will revert, so no NBN for us. (Sorry Mike Q, but that is how it feels.)

   • It’s a 10 year plan.

     What do you expect?

     EVERY SINGLE AREA think’s it’s uniquely disadvantaged in some way and therefore absolutely must be prioritised.

     The reality is everyone’s still shitscared that it will be cancelled by Prince Charles’ bogan cousin and therefore they will miss out forever. So they complain and deride it so they can feel less disappointed if that day comes.

8. Funny, I’m from rural Australia and nobody I know is demanding the NBN, most people I know want the Govt to stop wasting money and would have gladly settled for the OPEL network several years ago rather than the NBN in 5 or more years..

   • Oh I would love to see the IP address of this post to match it up with some other posts….

   • Its not really wasted money if its a capital investment now is it? :D

     Realistically, most people cant tell between whats ‘waste’ and whats not.

     The pink batts scheme was heralded when it was begun, but considered waste when those 3 trades people died. It wasnt waste then, because it saved the average homeowner money. Not only that, but in my opinion the government shouldnt have been blamed for shoddy tradespeople’s work. Seriously – when ever is it a smart idea to have a staple gun near a power cable? ><

     From a financial standpoint, widening a road would be considered 'waste' because it has no effective return on the investment. Take a look at the Clem 7 tunnel in Brisbane. Good road, nice tunnel – saves time. Total waste of money – why? Because it wasnt needed. People were fine without it, they still dont use it.

     At least at its most basic form (FTTN) the NBN would still be a profitable asset.

   • For the last two years I have been posting at forums as a city dweller who basically has plenty of choice, for equality or at least a much fairer go for our country friends, who have been ignored by private companies and previous governments.

     I have argued fervently with greedy, selfish city people who say, I’m ok, fuck the rural people, they choose to live there so, they can live with substandard comms or move.

     But yet, here we have one who claims to be from the bush who says stick your NBN…

     Seriously, WTF do we bother…you deserve OPEL Harry?

     • I am not sure he is really from the bush, and his name is not likely to be Harry.

       “harry buttle” is a character from the movie Brazil. Pretty arty sort of movie for someone from the bush with no interest in broadband.

     • It’s one of the most bizarre arguments I hear. They say if we want better communications we should move, so if everyone moved into the capital cities that would just make their life style more crowded and unpleasant. Better to spread things out imo and that brings up the issue and the one that is the WHOLE DAMN point of communications is so that we can actually live further apart. It’s one of those things that really shouldn’t be an issue. Practically any where I decide to live I can be guaranteed of three things, electricity, gas and water and all the same and standard wherever I go. Why is it that they want communications to be treated as a special magical case that we shouldn’t strive to make standard everywhere as well. Do they even realise this would make life easier for those living in cities too.

       • +1 Hubert

         Except….where we live, about 25 mins from my house, you can’t get gas at all (they have it trucked in) OR water connected without paying an absolute mozza! It’s semi-rural farm area though. They’ll be getting Fixed Wireless out there.

         • So your gas is fixed pipeless :-)

         • LOL +1

         • Now we just need a WiFi-type icon to stick on our LPG bottles.

           (Piped gas was one infrastructure project not extended to rural areas. Bottled gas is much more expensive.)

   • The NBN is going to turn a profit, making it the polar opposite of a waste of money.

     You really shouldn’t comment on things you don’t understand.

   • Chances are you will probably get neither NBN or OPEL.

     They’ve wasted a lot of time and money on this, lets do the maths, from 2007 to present, about 5 years. Cost of NBNCo till when it will be cancelled, lets say $1.5-2Bn.

     In all reality, it would just be time and money wasted, with nothing to show. The bush would have to go back to petitioning for the next subsided broadband to the bush scheme.

     There would still be people who would claim that NBN was always going to happen, and blame Julia for losing the election such that the Libs came in and canned the project, but as it goes, some people will continue believe and delusion and will never look at the cold hard facts.

     • They wasted time, maybe!

       Either that or they did the evaluation and found FTTN unviable and moved on… BTW the previous government also wasted many years too, before coming up with a last minute alternative – conveniently overlooked.

       So do we now just throw our hands in the air and say would, could, should and start the blame game or do something positive?

     • “They’ve wasted a lot of time and money on this, lets do the maths, from 2007 to present, about 5 years. Cost of NBNCo till when it will be cancelled, lets say $1.5-2Bn.”

       That’s the cost to cancel the contracts DUDE. It doesn’t take into account that if the NBN, in its’ current form, as the (eventual) sole provider of national telecommunications infrastructure, is cancelled, all monies expended by NBN, now become un-returnable to the government (as NBNCo. will no longer exist and therefore make a profit). That means, this expenditure now has to be factored into the budget for payment of the loans- ie it becomes spending, rather than investment expenditure and the taxpayer is directly liable for it, through the government. And how much is that? Hmmm, let’s see, NBN will spend $5.8bn this year. Plus whatever it spent 2 years before that (I don’t have the information and I don’t have time to look it up, but it is around $3bn). Plus whatever they spend until the Coalition gains control of the senate to stop it. So that’s another $3-5bn. So total cost to stop the NBN is $5bn +$3bn+say $4bn+ the $2bn for penalty payouts to Telstra/contractors…..That looks an awful lot like nearly $15bn….and oh look http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17532784/NBN_CoalitionPolicy_Nov11.pdf

       Looks like somebody in the know agrees with me, considering Citigroup have estimated the actual COST to a Coalition government to stop the NBN would be $16.4bn….then the $7bn to do the Coalition’s plan….$23.4bn….yes, cause this is SUBSTANTIALLY less than the $27.8bn estimated NBN will need from the government at peak debt….

       THESE are your “cold hard facts”

       • My view is that FTTP is never really viable, if you look at the places and scenarios it has been deployed ie. the GPON technology, its mainly for greenfields and high rise residential buildings in patches around the country.

         I think when the inital NBN V1 plan failed, ie. by Rudd, which as I said back then was never a viable solution anyway because there were big holes in the plan when they thought they could bring in a consortium of telcos local and overseas that replace Telstra’s network with their own third party broadband nodes via FTTN, by a mid-point injection method. It sounded like a hack plan, and it was no surprise to me that Labor quickly rejected all proposals, inc. the one submitted by Telstra.

         And as quickly as they did, they upped it to $43Bn and decided to fibre up the entire country, which was more outrageous and poorly conceived than the predecessor.

         So this to me would just be another chapter in the NBN fiction. I still think the original and only serious solution was back in 2006 when Sol Trujillo was negotiating with the ACCC for Telstra to build it for around $4Bn, although Telstra came to the table with unrealistic regulatory terms. Failing that, we would simply be presented with bluff and fluff ideas that are never feasible and broadband be a continuing thorn in the side of politicians.

     • “They’ve wasted a lot of time and money on this”

       False. Wasting time and money would be rolling out a FTTN network. The NBN project is mostly comprised of a fibre thus no time or money is wasted.

       “In all reality, it would just be time and money wasted, with nothing to show.”

       False. You seem to be confused again.

       • If in 2006 Telstra made realistic demands on the regulatory regime of its proposed FTTN network which it was going to build with its own money for $4Bn, it would have been finished about 2 years ago.

         In the meantime, the government would have been able to pour money into regional and rural services via subsidy schemes, lets say $2Bn over 2 yrs, via joint ventures eg. OPEL. This would have solved a lot of the current problems, inc. that of mobile & wireless coverage. This could have been done and dusted in 2010. And if you want to dispute this, you can chart a system on where we woudl stand on the OECD scale, we would be right up there. And despite the false claims that Australias network is falling behind or falling apart based on OECD standards, which is untrue as incumbent networks in the western developed world are about on par with ours, and I dont believe they have a plan to fibre up their entire country either, they would be looking to a FTTN solution as the most practical and one that meets their needs.

         • “If in 2006 Telstra made realistic demands on the regulatory regime of its proposed FTTN network which it was going to build with its own money for $4Bn, it would have been finished about 2 years ago.”

           DUDE, Telstra DIDN’T make realistic demands. They wouldn’t have EVER made realistic demands under Trujillo. He saw the biggest profit increase and largest drop in customer satisfaction since Telstra became Telstra. So WHY are you using this as a scenario? It didn’t happen- move on. We’re talking about the here and now and what we have to work with.

           “In the meantime, the government would have been able to pour money into regional and rural services via subsidy schemes, lets say $2Bn over 2 yrs, via joint ventures eg. OPEL.”

           $2bn over 2 years…..?? Really? It’s going to cost NBNCo. more than that to cover the wireless areas, just with wireless, let alone satellites for those who are very remote. Hell, it’s going to cost Telstra $1bn just to upgrade alot of their current hardware to 4G across the country and do you REALLY think it would’ve just handed this over to the government for their use? No, they would’ve insisted on regulation so they still controlled it…..just like FTTN WHICH WAS REJECTED because of their anti-competitive proposal.

           DUDE, you’re looking into something that may or may not have been plausible 7 YEARS AGO. The fact of the matter is, whether you agree with it or not, whether you like it or not, currently, the NBN is forging ahead. So we have 2 options- cancel it where it lies when the Coalition get in or continue it. It’s great reminiscing over what MIGHT have been, but that actually doesn’t help the NBN debate whatsoever.

         • “If in 2006 Telstra made realistic demands on the regulatory regime of its proposed FTTN network which it was going to build with its own money for $4Bn, it would have been finished about 2 years ago. ”

           Time to face facts. They didn’t, and we are in a better position becasue off Telstra’s idiocy. I guess we should thank them?

           “In the meantime, the government would have been able to pour money into regional and rural services via subsidy schemes, lets say $2Bn over 2 yrs, via joint ventures eg. OPEL.”

           ooooooooh, sounds like you’ve got it ALL figured out, please tell me more “DUD in Telco”…

           “This would have solved a lot of the current problems, inc. that of mobile & wireless coverage. ”

           And that’s about it, once you’ve done that then what? It doesn’t solve the growing demand for faster speeds everywhere else.

           “blah blah blah and I dont believe they have a plan to fibre up their entire country either, they would be looking to a FTTN solution as the most practical and one that meets their needs.”

           So other countries make a really dumb move with FTTN and you believe Australia should follow suit? Please explain your rationalization for this?

         • If Telstra started building FTTN in 2006, it would have been finished in 2010 (4 year build time). That means we would have move up to OECD ranking to where current leaders are and have this technology deployed. Forcing Telstra to play ball would mean it would have been done with $4-$5 Bn paid for by Telstra.

           But because Rudd decided he’d make a total mess of it with his NBNV1. He hasnt learnt, Rudd dug himself deeper and made NBNCo. More waste of time and money – as we are seeing today. It will go along the same fate as NBNV1.

         • “If Telstra started building FTTN in 2006, it would have been finished in 2010 (4 year build time). That means we would have move up to OECD ranking to where current leaders are and have this technology deployed.”

           1) Telstra DIDN’T start building the FTTN network in 2006. It’s happened, move on

           2) The ranking that we received in 2010 is based on number of people. Obviously, with a FTTN system, with more people in cities being in close proximity to the nodes, they would have received slightly higher speeds (still less than 25Mbps). But this makes VERY little difference to those in rural and regional areas. Ah, you say, that’s where wireless comes in. Wireless is great for those day to day internet requirements. Have you tried to use it for anything serious? Teleconferencing? Gaming? VOD? Cloud storage of large files? It’s just not there. Apart from anything, the contention issue means that depending on the time of day, you’d have VASTLY different speeds (similar to those who chose to stay on ADSL would have) and if it rains? Gets windy? Thunderstorm? Really hot day? Halve your speed.

           All the “wireless solution” would’ve done is stretch the gap even more between regional/rural and metropolitan Australia. If that’s what you want, great. It’s not what the 7 million of us who live there want. And I daresay a good proportion of people from teh cities won’t share your view either.

         • @DUDE, since you like to reminisce and do so with such tainted colouration…

           http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8261520/telstra-broadband-plan-an-illusion-accc

           http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/cornered/18432-telstras-15b-fttn-estimate-qscaremongeringq

           http://www.zdnet.com.au/telstra-denies-fttn-15-pc-broadband-price-hike-339289621.htm

           And this one just for fun…

           http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/fibretokerb-nbn-could-cost-more-20111025-1mhr7.html

9. Nice job Michael. And Renai for highlighting it.

   I live in regional NSW, not Rural, so bit of a difference- Wingecarribee Shire. But The Australian ran an article on our supposed “Opposition to the NBN” based on the fact that it would “destroy our simple and quiet life, bringing the big city where we don’t want it” (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/highland-folk-battle-cable-guys/story-e6frgaif-1226005386854)

   Renai did a story on it already (http://delimiter.com.au/2011/02/14/the-nbn-will-not-kill-your-%E2%80%9Cway-of-life%E2%80%9D/)

   THIS!! THIS RIGHT HERE! THIS is why the Coalition do not HAVE to debate properly on the NBN. Millions of people have the same attitudes that are contained in this short, completely farcical article. Look at the comments “People move into this area because it’s got a particular lifestyle. They just take poorly to it when people want to stuff that lifestyle up”….how will the NBN change that??? Tell me!?

   Sorry, I get pretty fired up over this article. I know of the lady who was first quoted in this article through my old church. She’s over 80 and her son helps her with her phone bills. I know our Mayor, Larry Whipper, personally- he’s a numbskull on par with Barnaby Joyce, particularly when it comes to anything vaguely technological. Our area has a higher than proportionate amount of Elderly people, we’re often referred to as the “Cemetery of Sydney” because of all our retirement villages. But our total population is nearly 80 000 and more than 60% of them are under 50. WHY should we be considered “against the NBN” just because a large proportion of our population doesn’t understand the Internet?

   I’m currently in the process of looking to startup an email round, pointing people in our district to a website I’m setting up that asks their opinion of the NBN, if they’d like to sign a petition AGAINST cancelling it and giving them links to my personal blog on the NBN and other stories, such as those on Delimiter, Crikey and the like, that ACTUALLY represent what the NBN will achieve.

   There is not enough easily accessible, factual, UN-biased information out there for people who only have a modest interest in the NBN. People will read what is in front of them, particularly in rural and regional areas, from newspapers and accept it as fact.

   On the demand note- EVERY rural and most regional communities want the NBN now. It’s a great job putting those articles together to show the REAL demand NBNCo. is getting rather than the Coalitions “numbers”, but I’d go out on a limb and say the vast majority of communities would expect to see the NBN come to them first, because the vast majority of communities have poor broadband….this isn’t NBNCo.’s fault, it’s the current state of our copper network, namely Telstra’s fault.

   The media love to skew the idea that these communities are desperate for decent broadband with the fact that obviously, then, NBNCo. haven’t really properly analysed where the most support is needed the soonest- therefore it’s a waste of money. If NBN DID roll it out to all communities who “really need it” as part of their plan….we wouldn’t have any people rolling it out in the cities at all, because NBN would be rolling out most of the rest of the country!

   • The UnAustralian has become notorious for their technique of promoting opponents of NBN.

     They go through their selected area until they find a nice old pensioner couple who are ‘very concerned that this NBN thing will cost them thousands to rewire their house and hundreds of dollars per month, and on top of that will dig up their rose garden and kill their cat.’

     Now where do you suppose they might have got those ideas from?

10. Harry, if you talk to your local chamber of commerce you will get a larger sample size of views on the NBN, and few who understand both OPEL and the NBN will be negative about it.

    OPEL had far more problems than those articulated here, and would not have even delivered its target 6 Mbps to most of the promised footprint for the estimated cost, but it is now ancient history, since the coalition is not advocating OPEL now.

    Consider this. Apart from the business-zoned parts of town, in any given residential suburb or small town, a random smattering of premises are also conducting businesses from home. Cherrypicking one-off premises to target with fibre “because only they need it” is both expensive and futile.

    By efficiently delivering century-proof fibre to every premises in both the metropolitan and regional urban footprint, critical infrastructure is made available to any current or future occupant of those premises.

    We have seen that households with basic needs (phone, maybe a bit of web), get it cheaper than with today’s line rental and ADSL, including many who were unable to get ADSL at all.

    Someone wrote yesterday (I haven’t verified this, so it may be wrong) that 37% of those connecting to NBN fibre are alreadyy opting for 100/40 Mbps services. This will usually be in order to secure fast upstream speeds for offsite backups. Telstra’s symmetrical 2 Mbps DDE service costs about $800 per month, so the savings and flexibility from the higher speed of fibre are quite phenomenal.

    The fact is that all levels of communications need, from phone calls to offsite backup and recovery to entertainment, everything, are served reliably and at lower cost to the household, and without ever touching the infrastructure, and this is a compelling reason for laying the fibre to towns and cities, and for completing it this decade.

    • That figure you were quoting Francis, is actually on page 7 of the NBN Product Roadmap, as stated yesterday by HC.

      • Thanks, Apollo. I’ve been too busy lately to get involved much in commenting, and forgot where I glimpsed it. While I expect it will probably be reasonably accurate, it is too soon to know for sure.

    • NBN is by no means future proof, nor is it risk free from becoming technologically obselete or irrelevant.

      • “NBN is by no means future proof, nor is it risk free from becoming technologically obselete or irrelevant.”

        And the Earth is round. 2 very obvious statements. No one is saying the NBN will never have to be upgraded. If they have been, please, point me there and I’ll happily disabuse them of that notion. But it is MORE future-proof than copper. We are already reaching the limits of copper in research and that research shows that the speeds available to the majority of people on copper (ie those MORE than 2km from the exchange) are not significantly faster than they are now. Yes, we may see twice the current speed of ADSL2+. That’s it. WHY would we go with a technology that is reaching the end of its’ life rather than one which will, obviously, eventually reach end of life, but we have yet to find it yet??

11. <<<<< In January 2011, NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley said one of his company’s greatest problems at that point had been fighting would-be suitors off. “So far, what we’ve seen from most of the states is a keenness to get on and do the job. In fact, we’re lobbied very heavily by different shires all over the place, who want us to come there first. That’s the biggest issue we’ve got at the moment — people want us to get there sooner,” he said.

    Is this any surprise? Anyone handing out free candy at a kids' playground is bound to be swamped. Free fibre internet anyone?

    This just reflects complete incompetence on Turnbull's part. Given the strong demand for FTTP nationwide, the decision to build the NBN was a complete no brainer from day one. Everyone knows CBAs are only for projects that the population has no desire for which the Government is trying to force onto the country.

    Projects like Labor's NBN which are universally popular are automatically attempt from cost benefit analysis requirements. Cost is no longer a relevant issue and should be ignored. Michael Wyres's groundbreaking and eye-opening research on community demand for the NBN is effectively a "cost benefit" evaluation of whether the project should go ahead or not.

    The kind of real world evidence that can be gleaned from randomly scanning community newspaper headlines is 1000 times more robust than any conclusions silly economists at the Productivity Commission could ever produce with their theoretical conjecture and speculations.

    It is high time infrastructure is built by the people for the people without interference from political ideologues.

    • “Projects like Labor’s NBN which are universally popular are automatically attempt from cost benefit analysis requirements. Cost is no longer a relevant issue and should be ignored.”

      I agree with the sentiment of your remarks true believer, but this sort of thing doesn’t actually help the pro-NBN cause. Money, especially Government spending and debt should NEVER EVER be “ignored”. In this case, it has been proved time and time again, people want the NBN, most are willing to pay, even if they believe it is a large cost. And yes, indeed a CBA here would not be relevant as that only states the current MONETARY value of the project and it’s LIKELY present economic benefit. It doesn’t take into account how much our world will change digitally nor how much impact it will have on the lives of everyday Australians.

      But a Government always needs economic oversight, even a Liberal one. To simply ignore the cost of infrastructure to the country would be a HUGE and VERY costly mistake.

      • But it’s not “debt”. It’s investment. It returns.

        Do the maths.

        If only 50% of premises take an NBN service – (and some trial areas are already above 50%) – and everyone only gets the slowest speed – (12mbps) – the return in revenue to NBN Co per year is almost $2b, and that ONLY counts the AVC price.

        Once you add in CVC costs – (harder to predicts, because every ISP will do that side differently) – I’m quite sure it will comfortably pass the $2b mark.

        Why do you think Telstra makes massive profits now? It’s because they get $16.00 (at least) per access to a copper loop per month.

        You don’t hear the opposition pointing this out, because then it doesn’t look as bad as they would want people to believe.

        • NBNo’s business case is water-tight.

          Mike Quigley can provide free fibre installation all the way from the exchange to the house, charge low ADSL fees and still turn a healthy 7% profit (with zero cost to the taxpayer). Nobody can “compete” against that.

          Nothing short of remarkable.

          Word on the street is if the Liberals scrap the NBN, other countries will be poaching Quigley and his proprietary “NBN profit model” to deploy free universal fibre installation elsewhere.

          • Serves us right it would.

            Talking like Yoda I am.

      • The NBN doesn’t cost anything. There’s a big difference between spending and cost. For example, spending $10bn on FTTN would cost taxpayers close to that amount. On the other hand, spending $43 or 50bn on FTTP will cost taxpayers zilch. With infrastructure projects, there is a point at which if you keep ramping up the scale and total spend of the project, the cost to taxpayers ultimately falls to zero. Conroy knows that, so does Quigley.

        l don’t know whether Malcolm understands this or not, but he is a twit. Instead of cavorting around the world talking to overseas telcos about foreign demand for FTTP and how much revenue they get, he should have been scanning community newspaper headlines just like Michael Wyres to gauge local demand for FTTP and making a policy decision on that basis. That’s called evidence-based policy making.

        Malcolm’s call for CBA is just a political point-scoring game. Yes, it’s true that the NBN would struggle to pass a simple cost benefits analysis. Even Conroy admits that the indirect economic benefits of the NBN are hard to quantify. But, more importantly, Quigley has already proven in the over-scrutinised Corporate Plan that the direct economic benefits (internet revenue) are substantial. In fact, the direct revenues are so substantial that even under the worst case scenario, the NBN is still guaranteed to make billions in profit for taxpayers from money invested.

        The NBN is one of those rare projects that would struggle in a CBA evaluation (as the Government happily admits) but is guaranteed to make back every dollar put into it plus healthy 7% return. Most infrastructure projects that fail CBAs are cash drains.

        • Sorry to get anal true (who am I kidding, no I’m not, that’s what the internet is for! :D) but you’ve got your terms mixed up. The NBN will NOT be a part of Government SPENDING. Spending is linked to the Budget and the Budget is linked to tax income as its’ primary revenue.

          It WILL cost the Government money. The Government is funded by the Australian taxpayer, for SPENDING, but for Infrastructure such as this, it raises capital by Government debt, chiefly issuing bonds, in this case.

          Actually, this is partly how the Coalition can (almost) get away with what they’ve been saying. They keep saying it will “Cost Australian Taxpayers $50 Billion” for the NBN. It will not COST the taxpayers a cent- because the money ISN’T COMING from the taxpayer, but it will cost the GOVERNMENT $27 Billion. :D

          Not that I think this is right- it’s total bollocks, the idea AND the amount they keep saying and frankly the Coalition should be hauled over the coals for it. But, such is Australia’s media….

          Oh and infrastructure doesn’t always end up costing “zilch”. Look at your average transport system or highway upgrade…..it costs the Government HUGE amounts of money and most of it they don’t get back. All government transport systems in this country run at a loss. As do most roads, except for tolls roads. The money to build them comes from debt financing (like the NBN) usually, or infrastructure savings, if we have any left, but their maintenance comes from Government spending.

          In THIS case though of course, THIS infrastructure will actually MAKE the government money….but the Coalition choses to ignore this….”blah blah blah $50 Billion waste, taxpayers money blah blah blah wireless is better…..”

12. Sorry Michael, I think you misunderstand my position. I wholeheartedly agree with this analysis that NBN will cost Australia nothing in the long term and we will in fact benefit greatly.

    I was simply replying to the specific quote “Projects like Labor’s NBN which are universally popular are automatically attempt from cost benefit analysis requirements. Cost is no longer a relevant issue and should be ignored.”

    Costings of Government financial policy should NEVER be ignored EVEN if the cost should wind up 0 to the taxpayers. I believe the Corporate Plan accurately reflects the sort of business conditions and returns NBNCo. is likely to achieve. It has been looked at by people ALOT smarter than me and with much more experience in the industry and worldwide and they agree with me.

    However, it SHOULD still be scrutinised. As the saying goes “All it takes for Evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing” In this case “ignoring” the financial policy would be doing nothing.

    Just out of curiosity Michael though, how is it not debt? Yes, it will be paid back, but the Government has to fund its’ construction from SOMEWHERE while NBNCo. has little revenue and once the BA Fund is depleted, it will begin issuing Infrastructure bonds to the market to raise capital…..any way you look at it, that IS debt. Yes, it is reasonable debt and yes it has a sensible and risk managed approach to its’ payback…..but if I have a $2.5 million house and borrow $250 000 against it…..it’s still debt :)

13. “such as the ACCC’s decision to set the number of points of interconnect with the NBN’s infrastructure quite high, when many organisations wanted a smaller number”

    I think this is the worst stuff up, well not NBN Co, the ACCC/government interfering. If is what has made it harder for small ISPs to startup on other than a regional basis as they need backhaul and CVC for their smaller number of customers. That is in part offset for a little while with the 150Mb CVC “starter kit”.

    I know there is existing infrastructure in place, but surely a better way would have been to compensate them and use their links as they are with Telstras. Networks like pipe networks would still get plenty of use for their interstate links. It was only the intra state and exchange backhaul that was made redundant. Even then there was probably a market for some of those links for private links for large companies.

    • Spot on, Noddy. Two redundant POIs in each capital city was the technically optimal solution developed by NBNCo network engineers. Then four bully incumbent owners of long haul fibre – the very ones who have stifled the free market until now – convinced the ACCC to recommend 81 urban and 40 regional POIs. At a stroke, they excluded smaller retail providers from regional Australia. As Phil Dobbie put it this week, Telstra will now achieve economies of scale sooner and smaller operators will be operating off a higher cost base. They will be unable to compete on price. It beats me which “C” in ACCC is being served by this stupid decision, because it is neither Consumers nor Competition.

      • Just in case that wasn’t a very well worded inference…

        It’s the C for commission ;)

    • There won’t be any small rural ISPs. If any of them survive systematic obfuscation and suffocation by the big ISPs, they’ll sink under the financial burden of the ASIO Tax (doing the government’s massive data surveillance and data storage/management for free).

14. Agreed Francis. The more I read into the story behind the POI’s and also the changes in CVC, the more I see the industries hand forcing the small players out.

    The ACCC has never been all that good at playing hard ball. Mainly for the fact that usually when the industry starts jumping up and down (and what industry WOULDN’T when the government changes the rules that have made their margins 20%?) the Government usually abandons the ACCC or overrules them.

15. The article raises a good poitn to just how syupid Tony Abbott is and why they call hime the Liberal Parties Village Idiot.

    The independents did not go with him due to his lack of support for the NBN, Rural Australia is screaming out for the NBN, others within the liberal party want the NBN. But yet despite all this he has failed to learn about the technology, he has failed to understand future benefits that can be delivered. Australia still thinks that this man wcould be next prime minister.

    A man with a lack of vision for the future, lack of understanding regarding technology or ability to use good people to grasp the concepts, failure to learn from his past mistakes that he missed out on the prime ministership because he failed to support the NBN, failure to recognise rural Australai wants and needs the end NBN, and yet Australia still think this man is fit to lead Australia into the future.

    A “leader with a lack of vision or inability to learn from past mistakes is not what Australia needs (We have already got that with Julia, and we had it for 11 years with oh Howard) Wake up Australia.

16. It could well be true that many rural communities don’t want the NBN.
    Where I live, the vast majority are earning a lot of money in the mines. Their only requirement of the internet is email, facebook and online shopping.
    However, both the health system and education are under par here. Once people start to look beyond the next couple of years I think the value of the NBN can be more easily demonstrated. Especially when healthy adults start to see the entertainment possibilities; online tv and gaming.
    And yes, it would benefit everyone, rural communities and clogged urban areas, if business could move out of the CBD and into technology served regions.

17. Something wrong with this sentance:
    “decision to include Eaglehawk from the”

18. Can someone please tell me how the NBN will create jobs?

    Will an Alice Springs shop now be able to sell surfboards to someone in Bondi cheaper and quicker than a Sydney shop because they now have faster internet?

    How will the REAL THINGS in life be handled by the NBN? “I’d like a litre of milk please”. “Certainly sir, I’ll send that to your webpage now”! What a load of crap!

    Oh and notice all the government ads spruking the NBN feature place that can only get the 12000 satellite plans!!! Con-job central!

    And please stop comparing Australia to countries that have faster internet! In those places, people two towns over can hear you fart!

    NBN sure, would be great but we can’t afford it! That’s the real bottom line!

    • Well apart from the obvious labour/construction and direct flow-ons (such as work crews needing accommodation, food etc in the areas of construction, fibre manufacturers and such) here’s an actual, which I saw on TV…

      A piano making business here in Australia was losing business to overseas manufacturers (who had an online presence) and the Oz business was looking like going under. So as a last resort they opened an online service, whereby clients would contact the overseas maker, get exact specs (the timber grade, sizings, finish etc to use etc) and of course the price of the piano they wanted manufactured and then contact the Aussie company with the specs, to see if they could offer a competitive build/delivery.

      Since then they have recaptured a large percentage of clientele which was spending Oz dollars abroad, saving the business and creating Oz jobs.

      Yes, yes, they are doing that now, with current comms (the obvious reply from doubters).

      But compare dial-up to ADSL, then ADSL to fibre… obviously with better, more constant connections, it makes it easier and more professional, not just for piano makers but all businesses to use such techniques and expand upon such techniques.

      I’m sure many sectors would be echoing similar experiences, maybe even surfboard makers in Alice Springs.

    • @ kentlfc

      Can’t afford the NBN? Please show us actual data and figures to demonstrate we can’t afford it?

      In the meantime, here’s my reasoning why we easily, can afford it…

      With one of the most robust economies anywhere, for the $36B build, $27B is being sourced via the government through bonds, securities, BAF etc (not income taxes) over 10 years/$2.7B p.a. In the same time the budget will be approximately $3.55T – $355B p.a. or round just 0.75% of revenue.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Australia

      http://www.budget.gov.au/2010-11/content/overview/html/overview_37.htm

      http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/aust-can-afford-nbn-risks-industry-expert-says-20120224-1ttnj.html

      http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904140604576493831749969702.html

      http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview201112/NBN

      http://www.smh.com.au/business/government-goes-global-to-raise-3b-needed-for-national-network-20110710-1h91o.html

      http://nbnmyths.wordpress.com/how-are-we-paying-for-it/

      :-0

      • It’s far simpler than that.

        Things on the budget that cost more than 40bn over 10 years:

        Roads ~120bn http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/rsc/road_funding/hearings/VicRoads_presentation.pdf
        Foreign aid ~50bn http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-08/foreign-aid-delays/3998968
        Negative gearing ~50bn http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/04/tax-stats-unmask-negative-gearing/

        If we can afford to spend 220bn on that over 10 years, most of which is considered operational expenditure rather than capital expenditure, then clearly, we are wealthy enough as a nation to support a one-off build of a national communications network.

        Unlike roads, fibre is quite resilient to wear and tear. The operational and maintenance costs are likely to be significantly lower than any other form of network.

    • @ kentlfc

      Firstly: “Will an Alice Springs shop now be able to sell surfboards to someone in Bondi cheaper and quicker than a Sydney shop because they now have faster internet?”

      Really? REALLY? I’m sorry but if you can’t keep hyperbole out of your rational argument, you’ve already failed to produce a convincing argument.

      Secondly: TELL you how NBN will create more jobs? I’m sure NBN can, but instead, I’ll just show you:

      http://www.leadingcompany.com.au/news/400-new-jobs-in-victoria-from-nbn/201205111043
      http://www.broadbandexpert.com.au/broadband-news/broadband-news/nbn-to-create-jobs-on-gold-coast_774604
      http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2012/064
      http://www.itnews.com.au/News/300371,photos-cornings-nbn-cable-manufacturing-facility.aspx

      Particularly look at the last one- 16000- 18000 DIRECT jobs over from NBN construction. That’s JUST for construction, manufacturing and and running of NBNCo.

      Quiet rightly, as Alex said, that doesn’t include all the people and businesses affected BY the rollout of the NBN- ISP’s, manufacturing facilities, IT providers, accommodation providers, caterers (for rural jobs), rural diesel sales, electricians, plumbers, power utilities, council workers, road workers…….would you like me to continue?

      Next: “Oh and notice all the government ads spruking the NBN feature place that can only get the 12000 satellite plans!!! Con-job central!”

      ….What?…..I think there’s a grammatical and/or spelling mistake in there so I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking. But if you’re asking about the small amount of people connecting to NBNCo.’s current satellite plans? NBNCo. hasn’t launched its’ own satellites, it’s using current available COMMERCIAL bandwidth. That’s no different to any OTHER satellite internet company right now, so why would people change unless they’re moving or NBNCo. provides better value (which is difficult using the SAME SATELLITES). Once NBNCo. launch their own satellites in 2014/2015, they’ll have their own bandwidth and own infrastructure…..so I’m not entirely sure how you can compare anything there??

      “And please stop comparing Australia to countries that have faster internet! In those places, people two towns over can hear you fart!” Do you LIVE in Sydney??? I stay there twice a week in Erskineville….let me tell you, I can hear them more than just fart….Yes, we have many rural and regional areas….umm, that’s kind of who the NBN is for, so they can have the same quality of service of those in the city- that’s how Australia works, it’s how we;ve ALWAYS worked. Our Government has ALWAYS has a mandate to provide services to the rural and regional areas up to similar standards are the city.Don’t like it? Move, or vote for the Democrats….

      And finally: “NBN sure, would be great but we can’t afford it! That’s the real bottom line!” I don’t think I really need to go into this, Alex has done it quite well. But if you’d like a more in depth analysis, I have my own piece in my blog http://nbninfo.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/and-another-question.html

      Needless to say, Australia is in the best position of almost any Western country right now. We have the lowest debt and some of the best growth. Even IF our economy was to take a downturn (which seems likely) what’s one of the best ways to stimulate an economy…..INFRASTRUCTURE BUILDING!!

      And apart from ANY of this, the NBN will not end up costing the government a single cent. Read the Corporate Plan. And ask an Economist.

      • < < < <Yes, we have many rural and regional areas….umm, that’s kind of who the NBN is for, so they can have the same quality of service of those in the city- that’s how Australia works, it’s how we;ve ALWAYS worked. Our Government has ALWAYS has a mandate to provide services to the rural and regional areas up to similar standards are the city.

        l admire your passion, but this bit is not true. The telephone network was first built out in the metropolitan cities. Many decades after telephone first arrived in the capital cities many regional areas were still reliant on short wave radio for communications. This was because PMG had to fund the regional infrastructure rollout over many many decades from profits derived in serving capital cities.

        < < < <And apart from ANY of this, the NBN will not end up costing the government a single cent. Read the Corporate Plan. And ask an Economist.

        What people don't realise here is that the NBN is essentially a private infrastructure project being run by a top private sector executive. NBNco sits at arms-length from DBCDE, developed its own business plan, designed the network from top to bottom and hired all the contractors. No different from any other private company with shareholders and borrows money to invest.

        The Government is barely involved with the project. Other than the cosmetic feature that the Government is the 100% shareholder and guarantees all of NBNco's borrowings, NBNco is, for all intents and purposes, a private telco company with zero risk to the taxpayer, with the NBN not costing the public a single cent.

        • Very true, true believer, about PMG. But we’ve come a long way since then. And that’s half the point. The Government funnelled the profits PMG made from the cities to rolling out infrastructure for the regional areas.

          I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that Australians have always had long had a sense of entitlement about services, no matter whether country or city. In the country, we complain about bad infrastructure and poor communications. In the cities….well, we complain about them too, but more we complain how we aren’t getting at ALL what other countries are getting- services AND products (just look at the consumer electronics market).

          We always need to be careful of this sense of entitlement; we’re a much larger country than most, with a much smaller population, so we could waste an awful lot of money making EVERYTHING as good as the rest of the world. But there are some vital things, like rail, roads, ports and telecommunications where we SHOULD be up with the rest of the world, because they GROW a country. And in this case particularly telecommunications, in a country with vast distances between populace centres.

          “What people don’t realise here is that the NBN is essentially a private infrastructure project being run by a top private sector executive”
          Damn right it is. I can’t think of a much better way to do it. A privately run enterprise, will ensure good productivity balanced against revenues and customer service. While being Government owned means they are much more strictly controlled and monitored because they provide essential services. This is actually the beauty behind the NBN. If it were government run….ugh, can you imagine? The NBN in the hands of the the same people who oversee the Health system? Centrelink and welfare? Education? Yuck. It’d be a disaster, both economically and politically and Labor knew this. That’s why they setup NBNCo.

          You get the best of both worlds- The experience and productivity of those who know and work in the industry in Australia and worldwide, with the productivity of the private sector. And the Government oversight of funding to ensure they continually meet goals for the Australian Public. There are obviously caveats to this, but in my eyes, I can’t see how it could’ve worked better pushing it entirely private (as the Coalition want) or entirely Government run.

    • “12000 satellite plans!!!”

      ???

      “And please stop comparing Australia to countries that have faster internet! In those places, people two towns over can hear you fart!”

      So in other words we need faster communications infrastructure here because of longer distances, “in those places” they live so close they can just copy files onto a USB stick and get a courier to take it to it’s destination. They dont need faster speeds at all. We do.

      “NBN sure, would be great but we can’t afford it! That’s the real bottom line!”

      The real bottom line is nothing about this is exciting and you dont know what you are talking about, please go do a bit of research and end your dull sentences with periods.

    • The only jobs it will create is the ongoing massive labour cost of maintaining a rolls royce network out to the farm. The NBN is by no means future proof, it will need to be maintained and completely overhauled every 20-30yrs. This is why providing fibre to places where there are few people or to be use just for broadband is from a business and economic point of view, suicide – add political to that list too.

      • “The only jobs it will create is the ongoing massive labour cost of maintaining a rolls royce network out to the farm. The NBN is by no means future proof, it will need to be maintained and completely overhauled every 20-30yrs. This is why providing fibre to places where there are few people or to be use just for broadband is from a business and economic point of view, suicide – add political to that list too.”

        This is turning into a broken record argument. DUDE are you REALLY in the industry? The NBN will create 16000-18000 jobs during it’s construction- this is obvious, it’s a large network. That’s DIRECT jobs, not as a result of the rollout. Then you have the fact that large regional centres have better and more reliable access to communications, so businesses offering services requiring IT services, even just those that have their own servers, can compete equally with those in the cities.

        No the NBN is NOT future-proof, it is MORE future-proof than copper. But I have to say, where on EARTH did you get the idea it will have to be overhauled every 20-30 years??? REALLY?? So all that 40 year old optic fibre that is running between Australia and the US will need to be ripped up 10 years ago, even though the people who made it, Corning, and those who look after is actually say it can take FAR more than they can currently pump down it?? I’m sorry, did I miss the part that Telstra ripped up the ENTIRE copper CAN and replaced it TWICE in the last 50 years?? Cause copper has a shorter lifetime than fibre- fact. Copper can corrode and easily breakdown from water and heat- optic fibre is immune to both.

        Where are you getting these ideas from DUDE?

      • “more ill-informed blah blah blah This is why providing fibre to places where there are few people or to be use just for broadband is from a business and economic point of view, suicide”

        Do you even know what you are talking about? Those “few people” you talk of will be covered with fixed wireless or satellite not fibre.

19. Where does it say in Coalition policy that regional and rural communities will be left out?

    Just a reminder of what the Coalition Party is, it’s a combination of the Liberal and National Parties, the National Party represents rural and regional Australia, that’s why they hold rural and regional seats, Coalition Policy would be all about giving rural and regional Australia priority in bringing high speed BB to those areas either not serviced or under serviced under the Labor NBN .

    All Wyres has done is highlight the inadequacies in the Labor NBN rollout for regional and rural Australia, probably not the intent, but well done anyway!

    • Where does Wyres highlight the inadequacies in the Labor NBN rollout for regional and rural Australia and inadequacy according to whose/which criteria?

      Where does the Coalition policy say that they will be bringing superior (to the current NBN) high speed BB to regional and rural communities and superior according to whose/which criteria?

      Sounds like baseless conjecture?

      • @ alain +1 for what Alex said.

        HOW will the Coalition produce better, cheaper, faster and more reliable BB to regional and rural areas? Forget better than the NBN for a minute Alex, how would they do it fullstop??

        FTTN replaces copper with fibre, to the exchange, what the Coalition have decided to follow. But as any amount of evidence, real world experience, technical knowledge and just plain common sense will tell you the exchange is NOT the problem. It is the last-mile copper that is and that WILL NOT BE replaced under the Coalition’s FTTN. Therefore, a small bump in speed, thanks to reducing congestion will come of the FTTN network, but the main limiting factor for reliability and speed, the distance form the exchange and the quality of the copper line running to your house, WILL NOT CHANGE!!

        alain, you’ve been told this at least a half dozen times in JUST the posts I’ve seen. If you cannot come up with a more fundamental and evidence based argument, you will simply be relegated to troll status in my eyes.

        • I never mentioned FTTN as being the sole solution for regional and rural Australia and neither has the Coalition, I am sure rural and regional communities that want BB are not that fussed either they just want a SOLUTION, to infer that the ONLY solution for them has to be FTTH because that’s what Labor is rolling out is rubbish.

          The fastest solution for many rural and regional communities crying out for high speed BB might well be FTTN because it quicker to get up and running,

          ‘you’ve been told this at least a half dozen times in JUST the posts I’ve seen. If you cannot come up with a more fundamental and evidence based argument,’

          Well neither do you, but apparently that’s ok.

          • Um, alain, this article is about a collection of newspaper articles that are stating the rural and regional areas want the NBN faster….so they do care about the solution. They want the NBN and they want it now, granted, because they’ve had to put up with %#@t BB before now. But if the Coalition gets in and does indeed stop the NBN and do FTTN…..how will they get it faster than now?

            The NBN will be rolled out by 2021. It will be rolled out to over 50% of us by 2016. 2016 has be cited, BY THE COALITION THEMSELVES that is the earliest they could have the FTTN network rolled out, and most political analysts agree this is unlikely. Apart from anything, the Coalition will almost certainly want to change the legislation around Telstra’s separation, which has to be done before the Coalition begins their subsidising, as it will be Telstra they’re subsidising to do most of the rollout. That will delay it by at least another year, plus there’s the CBA they want to do, that’s another year (6 months to do it, 6 months to analyse it and come up with a solution). So we’re talking 2018 before the FTTN network can be rolled out at the earliest. By which time 75% of us will be covered by the NBN. I don’t really see how the Coalition’s plan is any faster than the NBN.

            The communities have said they want the NBN and faster…..so how is it a faster solution to stop it and go FTTN??

            “You’ve been told this at least a half dozen times in JUST the posts I’ve seen. If you cannot come up with a more fundamental and evidence based argument,’

            Well neither do you, but apparently that’s ok.”

            How is my analysis NOT evidence based? Here is an article stating the Coalition will use the “last-mile copper” http://technologyspectator.com.au/nbn-buzz/coalition-will-speed-payments-telstra-turnbull
            They even go so far as to say they would either buy or lease it from Telstra. This is the Telstra that WE payed to BUILD the network and now the government is having to buy its’ use back off them under the Coalition.

            Have a look at page 34 of the Corporate Plan:
            http://www.nbnco.com.au/assets/documents/nbn-co-3-year-gbe-corporate-plan-final-17-dec-10.pdf
            The graphic shows, quite alot better than I could, how much of Australia is on copper. 90% by eye.

            Page 40- Graph shows how copper degrades in speed over distance. Paragraph states “Approximately 63% of premises served by ADSL2+ are more than 2 kilometres from the exchange” with reference. That means 63% of people on copper ADSL2+ services can’t get more than 10Mbps. And that’s ADSL2+, which most rural and many regional populations can’t access. ADSL1 more than 2km from the exchange (more likely in regional and rural) can barely get 6Mbps.

            All this EVIDENCE shows, the Coalition will use the existing copper, it will takes at LEAST until 2018 before FTTN is rolled out to the majority of rural and regional areas and even then, more than 70% of those in those areas are likely to not be able to get more than 6-10Mbps due to the copper limitation.

            Stop pontificating and come up with some evidence of your own.

          • ‘Um, alain, this article is about a collection of newspaper articles that are stating the rural and regional areas want the NBN faster….so they do care about the solution.’

            No this article is about some individuals expressing OPINION that rural and regional areas want the NBN faster, they are non-elected spokespersons of interest groups, nothing more nothing less.

            ‘ But if the Coalition gets in and does indeed stop the NBN and do FTTN…..how will they get it faster than now?’

            The Coalition won’t stop the NBN they said any fibre already laid will remain, it will be a different style of rollout with different ownership strategies played out, but stop insinuating they will halt it and everyone has to put up with what they have post 2013 election.

            ‘The NBN will be rolled out by 2021.’

            There are two elections before then, good luck on that one.

            ‘Apart from anything, the Coalition will almost certainly want to change the legislation around Telstra’s separation,’

            They have said this where? – last I read Turnbull supported the separation of Telstra.

            ‘which has to be done before the Coalition begins their subsidising, as it will be Telstra they’re subsidising to do most of the rollout.’

            They Coalition have stated this where?

            ‘The communities have said they want the NBN and faster…..so how is it a faster solution to stop it and go FTTN??’

            Who is going to stop it, where is this stated in Coalition policy?

            ‘All this EVIDENCE shows, the Coalition will use the existing copper, it will takes at LEAST until 2018 before FTTN is rolled out to the majority of rural and regional areas and even then, more than 70% of those in those areas are likely to not be able to get more than 6-10Mbps due to the copper limitation.’

            I think you are just rolling dice and inserting the numbers to suit your agenda and inserting the word ‘evidence’ in front of it all in a vain attempt to make it look legitimate.

          • http://delimiter.com.au/2012/05/18/evidence-rural-australia-is-demanding-the-nbn/#comment-419005

          • “No this article is about some individuals expressing OPINION that rural and regional areas want the NBN faster, they are non-elected spokespersons of interest groups, nothing more nothing less.”

            I’m glad to see you have no interest in what the average Australian wants, the crux of which is usually found in the community newspapers of small regional centres.

            But if you would indeed like some statements from “important people” here you go (and this first one are Liberal MP’s by the way):

            http://www.broadbandexpert.com.au/broadband-news/broadband-news/liberal-mps-pushing-for-nbn_773680
            http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/indigenous-plea-for-nbn-in-remote-areas/story-e6frgaif-1226246796902
            http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/05/04/3495616.htm

            That’s just 3 after a 5 minute look. Please, DON’T ever join a council or go for election- The Australian people ALREADY have enough politicians that ignore the people and look at only what their colleagues are interested in.

            “The Coalition won’t stop the NBN they said any fibre already laid will remain, it will be a different style of rollout with different ownership strategies played out, but stop insinuating they will halt it and everyone has to put up with what they have post 2013 election.”

            True, they have, recently, changed their tune on this. Up until Malcolm’s recent speech about “setting the NBN free” Tony has stated he will “destroy” the NBN and Malcolm, while sensibly less dramatic, has agreed. I won’t speculate on why, mainly because you will simply use it as “You’re all about Labor” but it seems relatively obvious. However, the NBN is a complex and highly web dependant network. If some part of it is not completed on time (like POI’s or Fibre Serving Area nodes) large portions of the netowrk will not be able to function. If the Coalition come in and indeed, as is likely, simply halt the NBN where it is- where will it be up to? How many POI’s will be connected compared to how many are required? Obviously it would be stupid to not build and complete the POI before rolling an area out, but due to the nature of the rollout, one area may have the NBN, while the suburb next door has its’ fibre, but no POI until the next stage of rollout.

            What will be left will be tangled and half-completed. The CBA will determine what sections need upgrading, supposedly, to full FTTH, which are likely to be many within the area NBN has already started. Is this REALLY the most cost effective and fast way to rollout a network to provide and I quote from Turnbull “very superfast broadband”?

            “They have said this where? – last I read Turnbull supported the separation of Telstra.”

            Did I SAY in that sentence they wouldn’t? No. I said they will “almost certainly want to change the legislation around Telstra’s separation”. READ what I write, not what you think I’m writing. Changing it takes time, they have indicated they will change it- therefore more delay.

            “They Coalition have stated this where?” (Rollout of their policy being subsidised to Telstra)

            alain, the rollout will be the subsidising of the private industry to “build competitive backhaul.” Obviously this is designed to “break” Telstra’s monopoly over backhaul. But hangon- what about the ACTUAL premises wiring, the “last-mile” copper this FTTN plan will run to premises on….

            http://www.afr.com/p/technology/unwinding_nbn_no_problem_turnbull_2CuQ4yAFiB3xqDJepa5yiN

            3rd Paragraph- ““The copper network belongs to Telstra so you would have to reach an agreement to either buy it or have access to it, but I think it would be in Telstra’s interests to do that,” Mr Turnbull told The Australian Financial Review.”

            So in other words, yes, the construction work may very well be done by other companies (Optus, Alcatel and the like) to bring the fibre to the node- but TELSTRA still own the last-mile copper under the Coalition plan….and they have to pay or SUBSIDISE Telstra to buy or lease that network? Get it now?

            “Who is going to stop it, where is this stated in Coalition policy?”

            alain, you can’t have it both ways. The Coalition are either going to halt the NBN wherever it’s up to, and subsequently those rural and regional areas without NBN won’t get ANYTHING until the Coalition rollout their plan, several years later, OR the NBN goes ahead and they get it at some point, depending on their rollout. This will, for all intents and purposes STOP RURAL COMMUNITIES GETTING UPGRADED BROADBAND for some period of time if they were to be included in the rollout at the time. Why is this even a question?

            “I think you are just rolling dice and inserting the numbers to suit your agenda and inserting the word ‘evidence’ in front of it all in a vain attempt to make it look legitimate.”

            alain, I have provided written articles, statements from the Opposition, Labor AND NBNco. as well as independent revues and you’re STILL crying no evidence. If you can’t provide any of your own, why should I believe you have any other agenda other than spreading FUD?

          • The fastest solution for many rural and regional communities crying out for high speed BB might well be FTTN because it quicker to get up and running,

            You may be right, if we’d been starting from ground zero then it may very well be that FTTN would be faster to deploy than FTTH. But we’re not starting from ground zero. There will come a point where it’s faster to just continue with the NBN than it is to cancel all the existing contracts, renegotiate the deal with Telstra for access to their copper, renegotiate contracts with suppliers to get the actual node cabinets and contracts with construction companies to build it.

            Even if you don’t think that day has come yet, it’s surely coming. Will we have passed it by the time the next election rolls around? Or by the time the Coalition controls enough of the Senate to actually be able to start dismantling NBN legislation?

            Every day that passes, that point is coming closer and closer.

          • Jeez, we’d better not plan anything based on using the “last mile” of copper wiring. A while back, our landline phone went out, and a Telstra tech came out and fixed it. He told me in a very embarrassed tone that copper was degrading everywhere, and all they could do was try to patch it. Our housing area is only 25 years old. Evidently copper does not age well.

            FTTP is what we need. FTTN is like funneling traffic from a major highway into a single lane plagued by potholes and roadworks.

          • Sounds about the age for the dreaded ‘gel joints’.

            3M successfully marketed a gel that repels water to Telstra. What they didn’t realise at the time was that the gel absorbed small amounts of water over time, effectively trapping it next to the copper. Electricity and water will rapidly corrode almost any metal.

            Apparently techs at the time warned against it, but it was shot down. Same thing with their extensive use of direct buried cable. Galvinised iron and ceramic pipe was expensive back then, so they just dug a hole and threw it in. Still, at least it’s not a potential health hazard like the millions of Asbestos pit and pipe they installed too.

            Short term cost cutting is often more expensive in the long term.

20. Interesting conundrum for the Libs/Nats, some rural areas will have FTTH and wireless and will experience the advantages , especially economic of that. Those after the Coalition downgrade them to FTTN and some el cheapo wireless for just a year or two earlier Broadband will be rather peeved at being disadvantaged. All the spin and PR in the world mean nothing compared to the practical realities. Why they may even start to distrust the Lib/Nat political parties and the rabid right media, the blind trust will be tempered by the realities especially as the costs will rise under the private sector and other services cut to pay for the taxpayer funded dogs breakfast. Those Lib/Nat pollies and their advisors will find the Worlds astute will be laughing at them behind their backs as fools, they are already chuckling

    • What will regional and rural areas that are on FTTH be able to do that regional and rural areas that are on FTTN cannot?

      Is that the same stark differences that are present TODAY between areas that are on HFC cable and those that have to struggle with ADSL2+? – perhaps you can point them out, I am not aware of any.

      • See my comment above about the remaining quality of the “last mile” of copper wiring. (Hint: it sucks.)

      • The major difference between cable and adsl, and fibre is the upload speed.

        At face value, you’d think cable is on par with fibre, until you realise the upload speed is comparable to DSL. You cannot videoconference on cable. You cannot run a content based business on cable.

        That’s the reality.

        Tasmania is going to be the real proving ground. If Tasmania suddenly becomes the IT capital of Australia and their permanantly languishing economy improves rapidly, we’ll see the first real evidence of fibres benefits.

        I suspect that might be part of the game plan. Create an environment of envy, where everyone simply must have fibre because the two headed Tasweigians have it. What government can stand up to that sense of entitlement?

        • +1 myne. I tried to host my own website from home, just for family photos as we’re spread out across the country- forget it. I don’t have $300 a month to pay for 5Mbps upload.

        • “I suspect that might be part of the game plan. Create an environment of envy, where everyone simply must have fibre because the two headed Tasweigians have it. What government can stand up to that sense of entitlement?”

          Great minds think alike:

          http://delimiter.com.au/forum/national-broadband-network/351-new-nbn-proposal.html#post4505

          :-)

      • http://www.zdnet.com.au/nbn-fud-will-abbott-ever-learn-339337810.htm
        Alain, check out Benevit’s comment re the boon to his clients of FTTH, in Townsville. Replaced a hopeless network in one client using FIVE ADSL2+ modems, inadequate, unreliable, unstable. major part of the problem was rubbish upload capability. Ecstatic. Word spreads.
        Also post by sydboy007 . His 80 year old dad is on NBN , near enough halved his phone/internet bill and thrilled with the reliability and ease.

21. I’ve said this before – the problem with the NBN is lack or forward planning and poor implementation. There was NO transition phase considered, NO timelined plan so existing providers could fill the gaps.

    So after 3 years businesses – like mine – are finding that the NBN is still not even on the projected 3 year implementation schedule. How many more years are required? That’s 6+ years and counting. We were assured the local exchanges were due for upgrade by the previous providers and then the NBN was announced. That was it – down tools – it was no longer commercially viable to implement when the NBN would assume it at some random point in the future. WHY COULDN’T THIS HAVE BEEN THE SUBJECT OF TRANSITION PLANNING.

    Reality: The most likely scenario is a coalition government next election. The NBN is NOT at the top of the punters check list. Latest poll has ALP with 0 winnable seats in QLD next election. Independents are gone. The best I could think for the NBN concept is that we will be looking at a shell NBN after the election (with similar long-term direction/role) with the Coalition moving more dollars to transitioning technologies and also focussing on minimising debt ( and I do know it isn’t government debt directly but it is guaranteed by the government so is a federal liability).

    • < < <WHY COULDN’T THIS HAVE BEEN THE SUBJECT OF TRANSITION PLANNING.

      There has been extensive forward planning and competent prioritisation of infrastructure builds vs immediate needs. For example, right now, NBNco is busy transitioning Transact's customers in Crace, ACT off Transact's corroding, old FTTP network onto NBNco's new FTTP network.

      Once you're used to 100mbit speeds, you'll never be able to put up shitty ADSL speeds again. So, Crace is an immediate priority. Everyone else can wait — they don't know what they're missing out on anyway.

22. The more I read Delimiter comments, the more I believe there is no one against the NBN as it is being implemented for practical or technical reasons.

    There are two sides, but one of them isn’t anti NBN as such, they are anti Labor, pro liberal.

    Where are the anti NBN arguments that aren’t just rah rah for their beloved Liberal party?

    Pro NBN arguments are put foward by Labor, Liberal and swinging voters. Anti NBN arguments seem only come attached to rabid Labor bashing and Liberal smooching.

    • You are totally right Noddy. The results speak for themsleves too, most people are in favor of the NBN and no matter how to try to cut it that means those in favor of it are not just Labor voters. Most of the irrationally does come unfortunately from coalition voters who still refuse to come up with a valid reason why the NBN shouldn’t go ahead.

      • And we are back to the Science vs Religion cartoon you posted last week.

    • Absolutely agree Noddy.

      I have even asked previously, if there are any anti-NBN people who aren’t pro-Coallition to speak up? So far I have received zero responses?

      • I agree to a point. We’ve not seen them here certainly, but we have to be careful. There ARE genuine concerns over certain areas of the NBN and they need debate. We nee to be careful not to just seem like fanatical zealots for the cause.

        I’ve not come across any technical reason for the NBN not to go ahead, either from pro-Labor, pro-Liberal OR agnostics. That doesn’t mean there aren’t practical or economic factors to discuss and debate. We always need to keep an open mind while still maintaining our stance to ensure this network gets built right, completely, first time.

        • Oh, sor sure. I would like to see some of those points too. It seems the aim is to “demolish” the NBN however and dicusion on points where it could be bettered don’t seem to cut it.

          I have several concerns.

          1. POI. Huge mistake to increase them like that. Makes it impossible for smaller/start up ISPs to efficiently start a business. I would like to see that reversed. It would need to be sooner rather than latter or there would be even more investment by companies in backhaul from the POI. Maybe one of them will offer smaller companies backhaul at a resonable rate, but there seems to little incentive to.

          2. Future sale of the NBN. What will happen? Regulation? Does it need to be sold? I seems a political ideal rather than a necessity. Why sell something that is earning an income. Surely any income to the government reduces the budget deficit.

          3. Now the benchmark price of broadband in Australia is ADSL2+ plans. What will be that benchmark once it’s gone? I am sure there will be continued lobbying from ISPs to keep access costs down, but what will be the target price? I guess some sort of benchmark based on overseas prices? (Mathew, this in not an invitation to post the CVC post you post several times a thread, everyone has seen it)

          4. Once the NBN is rolled out, what to do with the “rollers”. Some plan for workers made whose employment ends when the rollout is complete. They may be contractors but they still would have worked many years on the job and help getting in to other positions would be good.

          5. How to attract companies to offer services independantly of the ISPs. The ISP/TV lock in isn’t the ideal. Best ISPs are ISPs and TV/movie providers are seperate (in my view). That would mean TV to the extra ports with providers paying CVC, etc. Will a package/plan for these providers be put together? Incidentally this a big miss of FTTN, only one carriers VDSLAM per node due to vectoring limitations and unless the TV provider makes a deal with each ISP, no independant TV provider.

          • Yeah I have said all along the NBN isn’t perfect but it’s the best option we have, by far.

            And me saying all NBN critics are Coalition supporters may have been an exaggeration.

            So to make it clearer, the vast majority of those vocally opposed, seem to be Coalition supporters (vice versa applies re: NBN supporters too of course, but to a much lesser degree, imo). But I believe of those who are opposed who aren’t vocal Coalition supporters, most will vote Coalition at the next election and have formed their negative NBN opinions, entirely from mis-information spread by the Coalition and their media mates.

          • I think the biggest “upsell” is NBN. For what it claims to do, you could have done with FTTN. That is, all the so called “productivity gains” could be done quite adequately with FTTN, there is no need to spend $43Bn+ on this, nor is there the need to take on the technological risk.

            In fact, left to the private sector, it should cost the Australian taxpayer zero dollars to build in the cities, and significantly less if left to private telcos, which was estimated at $4Bn. The Gov’t could then direct money to regional and rural services.

            My view is that in time when reality hits, just like NBNCo’s number of houses connecting falling dismally short of its projection, this would be shown for what it is.

          • “I think the biggest “upsell” is NBN. For what it claims to do, you could have done with FTTN. That is, all the so called “productivity gains” could be done quite adequately with FTTN, there is no need to spend $43Bn+ on this, nor is there the need to take on the technological risk.”

            The productivity gains that come from faster and more reliable broadband are still being discovered. There is no question that some of the things we do with broadband don’t NEED the NBN- email, Facebook, web search, weather, news. All these, as many people have pointed out, run happily on broadband (that is if you happen to be able to get it- many hundreds of thousands can’t) But some of the things that are up and coming now, do- VOD, “cloud” storage and computing, large scale business virtualisation, real-time teleconferencing and presentations (ie automated machinery at one end allowing demonstration of products). And these are the things that we can see NOW. What about the things we can’t see?

            Facebook, Twitter and social media have changed the world, the Arab Spring, Chinese dissidents etc. Who’s to say what will be next and what sort of bandwidth it will require? Do you build a bridge with 2 lanes in a growing city as the current one lane one isn’t big enough but 3 lanes is too much for current traffic flows? No! Or the Harbour Bridge would have 2 lanes each way, instead of 4 and room for trains and pedestrians, even though in the 30’s NONE of that was needed. Why why WHY can people only see to the end of their nose?? This network is not a 10 year construction costing $40bn, it is not a 30 year business plan from NBNCo. This network is a 50+ year piece of foundational infrastructure, just like the Copper network 75 years ago.

            How did they carry messages before copper? Horses? Pigeons? Couriers in cars and planes? When the telegraph came out on copper lines, its’ ONLY use was for carrying information faster than present methods. It evolved from carrying small amounts of information in text form, to small amounts in voice form, then to large amounts, then to small amounts in data form (early faxes and modems), then to large amounts in broadband. NONE of that was foreseen when the first copper was used. It wasn’t even foreseen when it was being laid for telephone lines. WHY should we do anything different now??

            Fibre is NOT future-proof; NOTHING in technology is future-proof. That’s the definition of technology, it’s always striving to improve and evolve beyond current thinking. But it is ALOT more future-proof than copper AND gives the service reliably and uniformly wherever it’s laid, unlike copper.

            FTTN simply doesn’t do anything significant. Please, tell me what it does? It runs fibre to the nodes. And then the rest of the network is still copper. What does running fibre to the actual node do? Allow for more bandwidth….WHICH CAN’T BE USED ON COPPER. I cannot understand, especially if you ARE in the industry, how you see this as an upgrade? It is not. It is the first part of the upgrade, the upgrade being full FTTH. Why go 1/4 way there now and extend by ANOTHER 10 years the wait for true access to the bandwidth Australian’s will DEMAND by 2020 (NBN Corporate plan, page 38). It will be 1Gbps by then, a speed research has shown copper is not capable of in any form over a single cable (the VAST majority of Australian’s have a single pair of copper).

            So then we have a choice- rollout more copper, or roll out a single fibre cable. Considering the price of copper these days (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copper_Price_History_USD.png) WHY would we want to rollout more of it when a single fibre can ALREADY handle 1.7TERAbps and that’s not including recent research into quantum dots which could up that by 10 times??(http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/25/quantum-dots-could-increase-fiber-optic-bandwidth-up-to-10-times/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fengadget+%28Engadget%29)

            Please DUDE, can you ACTUALLY give a reason we SHOULDN’T continue with the NBN? Not a reason we shouldn’t have started, not a reason Telstra or the private market could’ve done it cheaper. They are no longer relevant- it’ll be nearly halfway through by the time the Coalition can stop it (if/when they do). Is here a reason we SHOULDN’T rollout FTTH rather than FTTH that doesn’t come down to cost? (which isn’t really a large factor, considering it is borrowed and then paid back)

          • “In fact, left to the private sector, it should cost the Australian taxpayer zero dollars to build (FTTN) in the cities, and significantly less if left to private telcos, which was estimated at $4Bn. The Gov’t could then direct money to regional and rural services.”

            Ok, you’ve got this fixation on money I can see- What part about “the FTTH NBN will make money” don’t you understand? I can’t NOT make money. Hell, people have been complaining that there will BE little to no competition on infrastructure and the NBN will have more than 70% of Australian premises on it. It’s practically impossible for it to NOT make money unless it is stopped or otherwise modified. Why do you think the Rudd/Gillard government LIKES the idea so much? Cause it will ultimately cost the government and subsequently the taxpayer absolutely nothing. That’s political GOLD!

            If the private sector built FTTN, it would cost the taxpayer because there would be an increase in price to cover the expenditure- but hang on, they CAN’T recover the cost, because FTTN won’t ACTUALLY give them any substantial increase in bandwidth. Sure, there will be a percentage of their customers, mainly in the cities who get a mild increase in reliability of speed, but not reliability of service (they’re still running on copper from their home to the node). That’s it. Customers EXPECT an increase in the reliability of speed- it can bounce from full boar 24+mbps (near the exchange) at 12pm to less than 10Mbps at 6pm just because of traffic, so they’d like to see the full 24Mbps available in the first place that they’re paying for (which is NOT available to anyone past 2km). How could they make any money from it? They can’t. That’s why it hasn’t been done and that’s why Telstra’s original proposal for the FTTN was thrown out because it was all about regulating access to it so they COULD make money from it.

          • @DUDE – “I think the biggest “upsell” is NBN. For what it claims to do, you could have done with FTTN”.

            Invalid argument because using that rationale, whatever you can do on FTTN you can do on ADSL and whatever you can do on ADSL you can do on dial up.

            Do you use dial-up DUDE?

            You’re not (like) my mate over at ABC are you? Who says the NBN is a waste because “we” only need between 2-10mbps for “our requirements”. Then typically hypocritically later, trying to make another point (that he believes 100mbps isn’t that fast anyway) he lets slip that he knows this, because he currently uses (READ “pays more for”) 100mbps Telstra cable himself.

            *rolls eyes*!

          • Dont mean to boast, but when Rudd released the NBN1 FTTN plan with the consortium G9, which was later Terria, Acacia, Axia etc. etc., I knew from day one when the government issued its specs. on what it wanted to do, that it had little chance of achieve what it wanted. And while it surprised a lot of people when Rudd canned all the submission in the RFP, it surprise me not one bit, if I was a trader i would have short sold it any day, and the ISPs and Telcos knew this but submitted their proposals -based- on government specs and conditions for the NBN1 network proposal and tender.

            The consortiums saw it was a great PR and political campaign for them against Telstra, if not to win political favor, they could shore up future funding to improve their ADSL networks by subsidies, so of course they supported Rudds idea, it was a comfortable alliance, all had to gain, with the Telstra being neutral, and it surprised me not, that they submitted a null and void non-conforming proposal, which of course need to fall under the inital specs/conditions of the RFP, a hand that Telstra could not play. So in a way it was quite clever, but of course the general public did not understand this, but technically what Rudd wanted in NBN1 was a technical impossibility.

            With NBN2 ie. NBNCo, Rudd and now Gillard is up to the same old trick, it worked a miracle for them in the last election which surprised everyone, even Gillard and Rudd, as much as a hung election would. But when Rudd put forth the $43Bn network proposal, it was even more outrageous than NBN1, but nonetheless it was enough to cover up the failure of NBN1 , which in actual fact was not a failure for ISPs or Labor. But NBN2 offered a necessary distraction and to write another chapter in the Telco saga. But nonetheless a piece of fiction, as I keep reporting, as it is just as unfeasible as the previous plan, and as usual the public buy into this hook line sinker.

            The Independents giving the support behind labor meant Gillard was willing to throw a lazy $1Bn behind this winner so long as they can keep the perception of better broadband going everyone would be led along, its a small price to pay for the policy that gave them government even if it was a fluke. And why not keep it going? All the more reason to.

            Again all the more reason to keep everyone believing that NBN will actually go ahead leading tothe next election, and if that means setting up a company hiring staff, creating contracts and pumping more money into it etc. etc. But as an analyst, I would again be short selling this one, as I believe there are not fundaments behind it, its built on straw. But because it is not based on reality but rather its business case rests upon a paid consultant report and virtually no technical viability done, reality will catch up with it, so NBNCo is really on borrowed time. This is also the same reason why the Libs are so godsmacked by it, first they understand what I am saying in this post, second they were shocked that such poorly formed broadband plan would end up costing them the government, and no surprise that Abbott so sure of NBNCo lack of credibility he is confident enough to set Turnbull to demolish what is essentially a political strategy.

            But in the unlikely event that Labor wins the next election, the numbers in the governments projection will come back to bite them as their projections continually fall short in real delivered services. The only way out of this would be devise yet another plan.

            Simply put there has been no change whatsoever from 2006, to dismantle Telstra or fix the telcoms framework of incumbent infrastructure is pretty much impossible, the only solution is for the government to buy back telstra, thats if they want to…

          • Dude, Don’t tell my you were one of the suckers conned into paying $7 for the T2 shares, just trying to get back some of the money the fraudsters ripped off you. Either fraudsters or economic incompetents, I would prefer the think incompetents, after all they did bugger all for the Nation

          • Well that post left a big skid mark

          • Wow….just….wow.

            That’s an EPIC post, which has absolutely no evidence backing it up, on an article that is about evidence Australians want the NBN in their rural/regional towns.

            Ok, let’s start with this idea about K Rudd essentially manufacturing NBN V1 as you call it. You know what? I could believe that. KR was all about the PR machine and it served him well, right up until his own party stabbed him. I could see him masterminding a strategy like that KNOWING Telstra would fail, so it being no real threat to the Australian public or the telecommunications industry. You’ve no proof WHATSOEVER (this idea of boasting is interesting- were you the Minister for Broadband or one of his Advisors at the time?….didn’t think so) but it is still plausible and can in fact be easily inferred from news reports at the time; it’s not rocket science- Telstra was(is) the lumbering, monopolistic incumbent, of COURSE they wouldn’t actually produce a decent rival, why bother?

            However, when it came to NBNV2 as you, again, call it, the status-Quo changed- at the time in early 2007, Australia’s economy was looking healthy and the GFC was still only just brewing, starting to raise its’ head at the end of that year. KR was looking for a way to extend his PR again and still achieve Labor’s goal of a Broadband Policy for the whole nation. He comes up with this hairbrained, totally off the ball idea to go FTTH.

            Does he know if it’s viable? No. Hence the implementation study (of COURSE it was paid- how do you think government DO independent studies??) Was it good for Australia? Yes, VASTLY superior to ANY FTTN network, particularly one built by Telstra. Was it cheap? No, but then, we’re essentially replacing the entire country’s network, it was never going to be. But at this stage in Australia’s financial times, it wasn’t an issue- off the back of a run of huge surpluses the Howard Government had failed to find anything to invest them in, why not put a chunk of it towards a network that was sure to rival, if not beat the rest of the world?

            And, most importantly here, Telstra COULD NOT DO A THING. Sol Trujillo, about the worst thing to happen to this country’s essential services since…ever, was still CEO. He was bullying the government into trying to get more subsidies to “improve broadband to the nation and catch up with the times”- or rather increase his profits by another 15% thanks to the government. What a way to silence Sol, produce a substantial, forward looking telecommunications network that would provide the Australian people what they need in their digital world for the coming decades AND run a great PR campaign. It worked….right up until l the GFC. Oh and the Coalition were “gobsmacked” as you say, because they were terrified what it would do to them in government and Telstra. Even then they still maintained there was no need to vertically separate Telstra (the worst mistake in their history) and they KNEW what it would lead to- government run, cheap, ubiquitous infrastructure, which they usually sell off because they prefer enterprise to deal with it, cause they don’t know how.

            ” Again all the more reason to keep everyone believing that NBN will actually go ahead leading to the next election, and if that means setting up a company hiring staff, creating contracts and pumping more money into it etc. etc. But as an analyst, I would again be short selling this one, as I believe there are not fundaments behind it, its built on straw. But because it is not based on reality but rather its business case rests upon a paid consultant report and virtually no technical viability done, reality will catch up with it, so NBNCo is really on borrowed time.”

            Um, where is your evidence for this “straw man” NBN? It is a fully functioning company. It has overcome numerous and complex hurdles, including the Telstra Heads of Finances agreement and a tender process that was flawed because of artificially inflated prices. It has completed all trials, successfully, and a small number of commercial operations with a 44% take up- in enterprise, this would be ASTOUNDING, but apparently because it’s NBNCo. it’s hopeless. It is behind schedule; that’s not surprising seeing as the first 150 000 homes it was meant to connect by now were by majority Greenfields and because the Telstra agreement was delayed and thereby the USO they still maintained for Greenfields, NBN COULDN’T fulfil its’ development applications. Was this avoidable? Possibly, I think NBNCo. could’ve handled it better. Will they get connected? Yes, no question, NBNCo. have said that themselves.

            NBNCo. has already received almost $2 billion in capital. By election time, it will be closer to $5 billion. This is not borrowed time, or a straw man project with no legs- it is real, tangible on the ground construction, giving real benefits to a lucky few already. Industry analysts THEMSELVES have said NBNCo. will need to work hard to maintain their pace, but if they can do it, it’s most certainly achievable and the business case is reasonable.

            “Simply put there has been no change whatsoever from 2006….”

            No change? No plan in 2006-2008 got any further than “here’s a proposal, we’ve no idea if it’s feasible” This one is….substantially further than that, but and here we come to it at last-

            “…to dismantle Telstra or fix the telcoms framework of incumbent infrastructure is pretty much impossible, the only solution is for the government to buy back telstra, thats if they want to…”

            Here it is- you do not WANT Telstra out of the game, for some reason. Otherwise you would never have made this statement. It is “impossible” to remove an incumbent?? How many times around the world has it happened?? Not JUST in telecommunications! The ONLY solution is for the government to buy back Telstra????? This is not a solution, this is rank, unadulterated, sadistic stupidity! WHY would ANY government buy back a company’s network as old, run down and near end of life as Telstra’s? They wouldn’t! NO government in its’ right mind would! THAT is why the NBN works, it REPLACES that infrastructure with newer, faster, cheaper, better infrastructure for LESS than buying Telstra.

            BUY TELSTRA!?!?!?!? You really either don’t understand the industry or have a large vested interest in it. Or both.

          • Maybe the rest of his name would clear things up:
            DUDE “heavily invested” in Telco “stocks”

          • DUDE, you could have just said “white elephant” and we wouldn’t have thought any less of you.

            But to come up with the mother of all conspiracies…?

            Oh dear!

          • ….ah ha ha….. buyback Telstra…..he he he….that’s brilliant. I really did actually LOL at that, I got tears in my eyes….

            ah ha ha ha…..That’s great…..

          • in a nutshell , what i have said is that if you understand telecoms, and if you put on an analyst cap, it is quite clear that none of this that the governement has put forth since OPEL, could really in reality work, and even OPEL was quite dodgy, but at least it was only 900mil.

          • Good thing the analyst hat is made of tin foil.

          • Oh please, where is there any indication that the plan isn’t a valid one and though a tough slog to get all the houses done, impossible to achieve? Do you just say these things because it’s what you want to believe?

            As for analysts, I assume you mean those business analysts that study a company, give buy and sell recomendations? The guys that have been shown to give lower returns than a monkey with a dart board or a 4 year old child? BTW, got any links to analysts saying that the business is bogus?

          • POI’s- Definately Noddy. I want to know how much influence Telstra had over the change for 4 to 121. THEY have the most to gain over this as they have the largest market share. The ACCC really can be a useless numpty sometimes…

            Future sale- I think it should be discussed but I honestly see it becoming a lumbering Telstra-type wholesale provider if it is sold off. (although not the same as, because SURELY no-one will be stupid enough to not vertically separate it again….maybe….hopefully??!) I think there is a decent argument to be made for telecommunications infrastructure in Australia to be government controlled mainly for the state of our industry regulation and current attitudes that will be slow to change- I mean, why SHOULD Optus try and compete healthily when Telstra sits on its’ laurels and offers the bare essentials to most people. It’ll just cost them and they’re unlikely to gain much. It’s only companies like iinet/Internode (or as we now know them ii-nternode) that did compete and with iinet gobbling up the rest, even they’ve backed off a bit from innovation.

            Benchmarked price- Interesting question. Our ADSL prices here currently are considerably more expensive than overseas because of the need for such vast infrastructure for so few people. The NBN alleviates this to a certain extent, but we’re ALWAYS going to have more expensive BB than overseas because of our geography (that’s right Matthew, come at us with your CVC…). We certainly need heavy regulation over this with the NBN or prices will start to rise unfairly. This is a tough one that calls for real leadership around the issue- looks like we’re screwed then. The ACCC certainly can’t in its’ usual neutered state and our 2 main political parties remind me of 2 dogs fighting over a bone that’s been picked clean while there’s a pile of T-bones next to them…..

            NBN employment- This is always a factor in infrastructure rollouts. It happened with pink batts too- almost destroyed the industry (let’s leave the parallels there for fear of Coalition loyalists screaming NBN/pink batts wastage likelihoods). Again, it calls for innovative thinking of ways to stimulate the telecommunications maintenance and construction industry- so again, probably they’ll just go back to their part time jobs as taxi drivers once their finished thanks to the Government ignoring their potential.

            IPTV- Mmmm, we could be a world leader of IPTV here if the right structure was put in place by NBN. A cheap, effective, easy way to provide broadcast TV over IP would VASTLY decrease broadcaster costs and lead to rapid growth in data usage and bandwidth, thereby increasing the relevance of the NBN business model (part of their goal). Whether that happens or not I think will be down to, as usual, licensing of the content. Whether the ISP’s provide that content well is probably, again, down to licensing. This is still the biggest factor in IPTV- it’s content variety can’t HOPE to match that of broadcast TV until the broadcast giants stop whinging and treating the Internet as “a disruptive technology” and start looking at innovative and cost saving ways of producing and distributing improved and interactive content.

23. So, we have a blanket. Over time, the blanket gets holes in it. No matter, we’ll patch those holes, and we can still use the blanket. Oh, we only have a bit of denim to patch the hole, or cotton, or nothing at the time. No matter, the blanket is still good enough.

    The patches keep coming, some of the holes not patched get bigger, and still nothing to fix them. Still, the blanket is good enough. Someone can patch it tomorrow…

    Yet it seems time after time that only the cousins get the new blankets. Every time there’s a new stash of blankets, they get them, and the best we can do is hand-me-downs. The ones with holes, and patches, etc etc.

    “There will be some for you next time”, we get told.

    The rural areas have been asking for that new blanket for years. Amongst other new blankets, of course

    At some point you need to buy a new blanket.

    Why is this so hard to understand?

    • +1 and that blanket may as well be fibre because it’s cheaper to buy, build, lay AND maintain.

24. if you want the NBN or faster internet in the rural area.. then you should vote for Abbot. At-least he not going to waste time tearing up perfectly good infrastructure and rebuilding them in the metropolitan areas, he can spend all the effort day 1 in the bush.

    • “….At-least he not going to waste time tearing up perfectly good infrastructure and rebuilding them in the metropolitan areas”

      not same…..? I don’t understand. Have you read NBN’s plan? The vast majority of the copper “infrastructure” is not being pulled up. There will be some areas where, if the conduit is too full and aerial deployment is not ideal, they will probably decommission and remove SOME of the copper. But the vast majority of it will remain. They’re replacing it with new infrastructure. It would be, as you say, a waste of time to rip it up and replace it as it is.

      Rebuilding in Metro areas? They’re not rebuilding the copper, they’re laying fibre because it has higher throughput, longer life, cheaper maintenance and ubiquity in technology…..that’s hardly rebuilding. That’s upgrading.

      Perhaps you can read a few of the articles here at Delimiter and the subsequent comments to understand what the NBN actually is. My blog has, I think a decent explanation too- nbninfo.blogspot.com.au

      “he can spend all the effort day 1 in the bush.”

      If you really think Abbott is going to spend “all” BB policy money in the bush, you need to have a look at Coalition policy and attitude. They don’t LIKE the bush, that’s why they’re allied with the Nationals. They look after the bush, but they have to push hard to do it. Why would Tony look after 3 Million in the bush, when the majority that got him in power, the other 14 million (voters, not people) in the cities?

    • No…

      He is going to gift YOUR tax dollars to private companies to the build and own YOUR network, leaving YOU zero ROI and the private companies the ability to gouge YOU financially to use YOUR network…the shareholders thank you with a big smug grin.

      Be careful what you wish for.

      • Addendum… unless you are a shareholder or coalition member, then that would explain it ;-)

25. @ seven_tech

    Firstly: “Will an Alice Springs shop now be able to sell surfboards to someone in Bondi cheaper and quicker than a Sydney shop because they now have faster internet?”

    Really? REALLY? I’m sorry but if you can’t keep hyperbole out of your rational argument, you’ve already failed to produce a convincing argument.

    I wasn’t an arguement, it was a question. We keep hearing that the NBN will create jobs and businesses will grow etc… I’d like to know what jobs? Foregoing the construction, what are all these jobs going to be?
    Maintenance of the NBN…that’ll be former Telstra & Optus techs who move over won’t it? One job replacing another is not creating.
    How will say, a transport operator benifit from the NBN? Can’t get actual items via the internet, they still have to be physically taken to the destination!
    Can’t get groceries any faster via the NBN.

    I’m not trying to be a turd here, I’d just like some “real world benifits” explained to me.
    FYI, I’m in a rural town but am lucky enough to get adsl2+ but only via Telstra. No cheapo plans for me!

    P.S. Not including medical benifits. I’m all for hospitals to have the fastest possible connections!

    • “I wasn’t an arguement, it was a question. We keep hearing that the NBN will create jobs and businesses will grow etc… I’d like to know what jobs? Foregoing the construction, what are all these jobs going to be?
      Maintenance of the NBN…that’ll be former Telstra & Optus techs who move over won’t it? One job replacing another is not creating.”

      kentlfc, don’t forget, while many of us aren’t in the telecommunications sector, many thousands are- 214 000 people according to Skills Australia in fact. That’s just telecommunications, Information and Media, I don’t think that includes IT, which I believe is in the vicinity of 50 000 (someone correct me, please) So that’s going on 300 000 jobs that will be DIRECTLY affected by the NBN.

      In terms of jobs affected because of the productivity increase? Here’s an example- A woman in Port Douglas I met was selling high resolution photos of the reef, but they weren’t just normal ones, they were artistic; light blurring, B&W all that sort of thing. She was doing it in a shop in a side street, she had them printed so people could see them up close, and then they’d order them, as a print or framed or whatever. If the NBN was rolled out, she could put high resolution files on her own computer and display them on an interactive website, which she can’t do right now because of the prohibitive expense of hosting large amounts of information on websites, rather than doing it yourself.

      This is a single, isolated, very specific example. But, going further out, anyone in professional photography, video or film will get a boost from the increase across Australia in both down AND upload speeds. It will be easier and importantly, significantly cheaper to host high data applications such as high res photo and video. The Australian film industry will benefit greatly as everyday Australians can now shoot video and upload direct, HD video after editing themselves, rather than having to get it done and saved, at their expense, elsewhere.

      Going further afield, while it’s very true we certainly don’t need the NBN to shop online, many millions of Australians don’t have ADSL and would find it frustrating and time consuming with the increased size of your average website these days, to shop via ISDN, dial-up or even wireless broadband in many areas. The NBN will allow these people to be on a similar playing field to the rest of Australians, allowing fast and efficient loading of pages, so they’re more likely to be willing to shop online. Now, there’s no guarantee they’ll shop in Australia online, but more people shopping online in Australia, means more likely they WILL buy from Australian online retailers and therefore those retailers grow and expand, creating jobs.

      It also allows start up businesses to more easily and cheaply access online tools and host their site and boosts their prospective audience in Australia if the entirety of Australians have access to fast, reliable broadband. Remember, ABS statistics (http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbytitle/950EC94DB899312ECA2573B00017B8F4?OpenDocument) shows Australia had almost 2.2 Million businesses in 2011, and 2.1 Million of them were small businesses, the large proportion of which would rely on the Internet to do business or advertise and rely on the internet being available to the largest possible number of people to ensure these things.

      “How will say, a transport operator benifit from the NBN? Can’t get actual items via the internet, they still have to be physically taken to the destination!
      Can’t get groceries any faster via the NBN.”

      There will, of course, be areas of business that do not benefit as much from the NBN. NO infrastructure project affects all business to a similar degree. But in terms of transport- no, the NBN CAN’T get you there any faster. But imagine if you will (forget Sydney, we can’t even get the trains on time) a transport system that has webcams on the front of trains, allowing you to instantly see if they’re running on time in real life, rather than just what the transport update says. No, no transport system has this yet in Australia, but it doesn’t mean it can’t and the NBN would dramatically increase its’ prospects if there was. It would improve customer complaints and service, ensuring commuters are happier. It would also likely decrease or at least spread out congestion as people could choose a different time slot depending on how things are looking. This would obviously be in tandem with faster mobile wireless networks such as 4G, which are already slowly rolling out- the NBN and wireless are competitors, but not on high volumes and they aren’t mutually exclusive. One compliments the other. It seems far fetched, but you should see the ideas some countries come up with on their transport systems around the world.

      And no, your groceries CAN’T come over the internet, but I’ve already gone into how the NBN could allow MORE Australians to shop online, including elderly, disabled or less mobile Australians in regional and rural Australia, to whom delivered groceries would be a boon. Obviously this requires more than just the NBN; the logistical side of it would need improvement too. But without the orders, the logistics means nothing and the orders would come over the net.

      You’ve just got to think about the possibilities a vastly faster and reliably connected Australia could benefit, economically, in productivity and in the work/life balance. Jobs will be created for things we can’t think of yet. They always are when new infrastructure is produced.

    • Firstly: “Will an Alice Springs shop now be able to sell surfboards to someone in Bondi cheaper and quicker than a Sydney shop because they now have faster internet?”

      A surf shop should already be able to compete. Look at the way online business operate. You wouldn’t be sending the surfboard from Alice Springs. You net shop would be an online presence without location. It doesn’t matter where you live. Your online store could be the hub of Australian surfing yet the business could operate froma tin shed. It’s attracting customers that is the key. You sell boards and they are delivered from a supplier local to your customer. if you make custom boards at your shop, obviously it will take longer to deliver, but people wait for custom and with an online presence you attract more people. As for speed, you may need it if you upload video and pictures of your products. More than likely you would host your web store on a server, but having a fast connection means you can host it local if you like and make huge savings.

26. @kentlfc,

    I answered your employment/surfboard question, with my thoughts and gave a similar example? Here…

    http://delimiter.com.au/2012/05/18/evidence-rural-australia-is-demanding-the-nbn/#comment-419015

    You speak of hyperbole, but from my experience those who ask the questions you do, don’t want to hear or “accept” our answers (making all answers hyperbole in their minds) and then wish to argue. You even mentioned a convincing argument?

    Benefits for YOU – you live in a rural town and only have Telstra – hmmm can you think of a glaring NBN advantage there, I can?

    As for hospitals, it’s no good the hospital having Fibre and the rest of us cans and string. The weakest link renders the strongest inoperable.

    http://www.zdnet.com.au/nbn-key-for-royal-childrens-hospital-339334344.htm

    There are plenty of articles based around global studies answering all of your queries. The big question is, are you equipped to simply understand them, let alone accept them?

27. @alex

    Thanks for the insult! I was only asking questions!

    • And I was only answering them in the same manner you asked them.

28. @Alex

    ??????

    http://www.leadingcompany.com.au/news/400-new-jobs-in-victoria-from-nbn/201205111043

    Construction jobs. Not post NBN construction jobs.

    http://www.broadbandexpert.com.au/broadband-news/broadband-news/nbn-to-create-jobs-on-gold-coast_774604

    Fair enough, some jobs. Thought the source IS from NBN Head Mike Kaiser a REAL trustworthy guy! Dodgy as they come that guy. Labor Branch stacking anyone?

    • Hi kentlfc.

      What’s the ????? for? You asked how jobs would be created and I even mentioned fibre manufacture here…

      http://delimiter.com.au/2012/05/18/evidence-rural-australia-is-demanding-the-nbn/#comment-419015

      You obviously actually found URL’s proving this, so nice job, thanks.

      But sadly, imo, your parting sentence clearly demonstrates your commentary intentions!

29. Ok, simple question then.

    The NBN is built and up and running everywhere in a few years, so what are the are all the jobs post construction that Conroy and Gillard are raving on about? “Jobs for the future, the Asian century, etc”.

    I’m yet to receive a answer to this?

    Sorry about the Kaiser remark if you’re a Labor stoolie! There, there’s my insult to you.

    • Sadly, as you have done since commenting here kentlfc, you start of reasonable asking questions, but then go all odd. Also, seems you are most adept at asking but not quite so adept at accepting the answers given?

      I think seven_tech answered you perfectly here –

      http://delimiter.com.au/2012/05/18/evidence-rural-australia-is-demanding-the-nbn/#comment-425711

      Labor stoolie…lol.

      Please call any politician you want, whatever you want, but remember it is YOU who will be judged accordingly for such comments … But please, don’t try to blame others for simply pointing out such obvious political, rather than NBN, bias.

30. I’m not a “Labor Stoolie”. I, in general don’t vote Labor. But this opportunity is too important to have the Coalition destroy it.

    kentlfc, I have already don’t quite a large post about the effects of the NBN on SMB’s, online economy and flow on to retail, the growth in IT and telecommunications and how it COULD (not will, but could) effect sectors such as transport. I’m not entirely sure what you want of us?

    Do you require written employment contracts of all the people who will get jobs after the NBN is built? Or perhaps a forecast from the Government about the jobs rateafter the NB. You wouldn’t believe the second, because you are quite obviously partisan and a Coalition voter and the first is not possible.

    http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2012/05/01/3493131.htm

    Here’s an article comparing our NBN to Sweden’s. It shows, in all likelihood, we’re getting good value for money for this NBN and that in Sweden it was worth “0.2% increase in employment per 10% of fibre penetration”. It notes our unemployment is lower than Sweden’s, so any effect would have lesser impact, but those are still numbers that translate into tend of thousands of jobs.

    I don’t want to paint you a s a Coalition lackey, but it is hard to see, when we’ve prevent decent arguments and given realistic examples of future jobs, how you could still be saying it’s not worth it?

31. Sorry for my spelling. My hands are FREEZING!

32. Yes, I am a coalition voter just as you are obviously a Labor voter despite your protest.

    Thanks for that last link though, there were some nice savings in there as per government telecommunication costings.

    • That is actually one area I hadn’t really thought about, but it makes sense when you go through the reasoning- if business can make savings, why not the government.

      And just to be a pain, I’m NOT a Labor supporter (actually I despise politics and this is one of the reasons I get so angry over the NBN because politics is pulling apart such a forward moving project)- but you could call me an avid NBN supporter, meaning, if the Coalition refuse to continue with the NBN as it stands, I would be considered a de facto Labor supporter :D

    • So all of your questions weren’t actual, you were just trolling Kentlfc? No ;-)

      Whatever, we are starting to get into comments policy territory, going around in circles and getting nowhere, so let me ask you in finality here, as I did another previously (and received 0… sigh)…

      Since the NBN is obviously a white elephant (sarcasm) and every possible thing that could be wrong is (extra sarcasm) as a Coalition voter who would know exactly why he supports their broadband plan, please enlighten us to the Coaltion’s NBN alternative.

      Perhaps you could start by supplying their CBA and Business plans (all needed prior to commencement according to them)

      Especially the benefits regarding employment

      ROI

      Funding/ costs – on budget or off/investment or taxpayer dollars and the total costs

      The break up of different technologies to be used

      Estimated take up rates

      Estimated completion date

      The Telstra factor

      And whatever else you deem necessary

      Please feel free to board a flight and jot it all down on an envelope if that helps ;-)

      Thank you, because only once we have this info will be able to weigh the two plans against each other and see which is actually, the best overall outcome for Australia.

      Until then, the NBN is that network!

33. I don’t care for either sides plan. I’ve no doubt that the coalition’s plan was a kneejerk reaction to show that “they were as hip with technology” as the ALP.

    I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that by the time this is all rolled out, we’ll be up to 5 or 6G wireless which may well run at equal speeds. And since the percentage of users are now buying mobile devices is now higher than desktop gear why have all this “hardwire” laid?

    But to be partisan (sorry), given the history of the Rudd/Gillard spending sprees (waste, lets not beat around the bush here), I don’t trust their figures.

34. Come on guys, let’s not fight about it. Debate, yes, but fighting is the exact opposite of what the discussion on broadband needs.

    Alex- Give kentlfc some credit, he’s looking for ways o accept the NBN as reasonable. It’s just in his view, he can’t see them. Maybe that’s partisan support, maybe it’s misinformation or maybe lack of knowledge. But he is strying.

    kentlfc

    Ok, here we go:

    “I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that by the time this is all rolled out, we’ll be up to 5 or 6G wireless which may well run at equal speeds.”

    No, you’re certainly not alone. But here’s the problem- this is a point the Coalition have been pushing and, to give them credit, it’s working. But there’s majors flaw which they conveniently overlook which moots the point.

    1) Look at the timeframe of wireless- It has been almost exactly 9 years since 3G was first introduced (3 Australia, 2003). 4G is JUST being introduced now, but that timeframe is a little unfair, as most companies have only had a full 3G network for 4-5 years and both Optus and Telstra are now launching 4G. But, it will be AT LEAST 2015 before we see nation wide coverage. On current 4G, which has practical world speeds of 20-30 Mbps on average:

    http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/05/4g-can-be-fast-but-theres-no-way-it-eclipses-the-nbn/
    http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/02/verizon-branded-galaxy-nexus-runs-impressive-4g-lte-speed-test-i/

    First one is from Australia- remembering there are only 100 000 users on 4G as yet, but that is set to change rapidly in the next 2 years. Telstra are churning out the 4G handsets as they are getting desperately close to over-capacity in CBD’s on 3G- I had my 3rd call drop out in 3 months yesterday (still better than Optus). The more people on 4G, the slower it goes (please, if you need an explanation for this, I can give one, don’t just dismiss it, it is fact, but I’m not going into details here to save time). Estimates have put real-world speeds likely at 15-20Mbps in regional areas and 7-12 Mbps in cities, which is still a significant set up from 3G, running about 8-12 in regional (HSPA-DC) and 3-7 in the cities (max).

    The second is from the US- their 4G is….difficult to compare as AT&T actually considers HSPA-DC as 4G (the iPhone 4S is therefore technically 4G) but this is talking about LTE- same technology Telstra and Optus use on their 4G networks. These speeds are much slower (partly cause of poor signal) but that makes sense- there are many more people on 4G cells as there are many more people in the US. This is cell fade or cell contention (system level spectral efficiency if you want to get technical). It is a problem bounded ultimately by the laws of physics, not technology (again, I can provide explanation and references if needed).

    Now, the next iteration or 5G as we’ll call it, well, here’s what Wikipedia says (look at reference 2 for the timeframe suggestions, not 1- 1’s link appear to be broken):

    “Were a 5G family of ITU standards to be implemented, it would likely be around the year 2020, according to some sources (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G)”

    2020- about the time the NBN is to be completed (give or take 2 years or so). Ah, you say, but what about the speeds? Again, here’s what wikipedia says: (no wikipedia is not the be-all and end-all of information, but much of 5G is still in research, as can be seen from the wiki page- this is a good overview, not gospel)

    “However, no source suggests 5G peak download and upload rates of more than the 1 Gbps to be offered by ITU-R’s definition of 4G systems.[2] If 5G appears, and reflects these prognoses, the major difference from a user point of view between 4G and 5G techniques must be something else than increased maximum throughput; for example lower battery consumption, lower outage probability (better coverage), high bit rates in larger portions of the coverage area, cheaper or no traffic fees due to low infrastructure deployment costs, or higher aggregate capacity for many simultaneous users (i.e. higher system level spectral efficiency). Those are the objectives in several of the research papers below.”

    So, 4G will have, eventual (not in current iterations, because 1Gbps is only achievable using LTE-advanced, which is NOT what Telstra or Optus are using) But 5G? Not much more- it will be concentrating on better average throughput (lowering cell contention), better battery life and wider coverage. So no great increase in speed- meanwhile by 2025, 10Gbps NBN plans will begin to appear for high end users.

    Cell contention is still the main issue though. So while 4G LTE-advanced may be TECHNICALLY capable of 1Gbps stationary downloads (that is not in a car or train etc.), in real-world terms, we’ll be stuck with most likely less than 100Mbps. Estimates are saying 70-80Mbps in low contention areas (regional) and 40-50 Mbps in high contention areas (cities) after upgrades to LTE-advanced. Still less than NBN speeds. Oh, and don’t forget ALL these towers are connected to what?….fibre. They have to be. Microwave links will be used to some remote towers, but without fibre, these towers cannot carry the load back to the wired Internet.

    2) “And since the percentage of users are now buying mobile devices is now higher than desktop gear why have all this “hardwire” laid?”

    Again kentlfc, I’m repeating here what has been argued for years about the NBN and wireless and dozens of times it has be debunked. Yes, it is VERY true many more people are buying wireless than fixed- of COURSE they are. 70% of Australia has fixed line broadband, but only 55% have wireless. And you can double up on wireless- Phone, tablet, wifi hotspot, depending on personal and business needs. Most people, however, only need 1 broadband connection. However and this is a BIG however, the DATA downloaded over wireless is DECREASING (http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/convergence_review/convergence_review_background_paper.html – have a look at figure 3)

    So, while the number of wireless subscriptions continues to boom, the data downloaded actually decreased in 09-10. It has since increased again, but NOT at anywhere NEAR the rate of fixed line broadband. Fixed broadband data grew by almost 30% in 2009-2010, while wireless decreased by 8%. Why you ask? Price and real-world speeds.

    Alot of Australians can happily watch catchup TV on their reasonably modest broadband speeds of say 10Mbps and quota of 50-75Gb. But most average 3G speeds in Sydney are about 6Mbps (HSPA-DC) and quotas of 3-5Gb and that fluctuates massively depending on load. You could be happily watching something on your iView app on the train and then move through a heavy contention cell area and all of a sudden you get the rolling ring of death (buffering) for 5 mins. But this is kind of superfluous as most people prefer to watch TV at home….so why wouldn’t you use your landline?? Also quotas, as I’ve said, are much lower on wireless for the same price. Currently, wireless broadband quotas are somewhere in the vicinity of 5-10Gb for about $60. That’s more than fine for email, lots of interactive and rich web browsing, the occasional youTube video and maybe a catchup TV once or twice. But then you hit your quota and you get charged HUGE amounts for more until you roll over to the next month. Compared to landline where $60 a month will get you higher speeds AND 50-75Gb MINIMUM quota (TPG, Internode and iinet have much better deals). So you’re unlikely to run out of quota when you watch some more catchup TV and maybe even stream a movie or 2 and if you do? You’re shaped, not charged more (lower to 256Kbps for most plans). Yes, that makes it useless for much more than email checking and reading smh.com.au, but at least you’ve still got a connection not costing you money each time you use it, unlike wireless.

    And once again, your comment about why is all this “hardwire” gear being laid? Because what connects all those towers to all the landlines and all the rest of the Internet? Fibre. We wil never EVER do away with “hardwire” as it can simply carry VAST amounts of data further, cheaper and faster than ANY wireless technology ever can. Again, this is physics and if you require an explanation, I can provide it. Suffice to say, wireless runs on wireless spectrum and you have 1 spectrum for all the world. In fibre, you have as many spectrums as their are cables.

    kentlfc, you need to ask questions about this plan the Coalition has and around wireless as a replacement technology before you state things like this. These answers are not made up, they are not even specific to the NBN- Barrack Obama signed a deal to VASTLY increase wireless broadband access in the US, but it is only 10% in total spending of the overarching broadband plan for the US. The other 90%? Fibre. To the Home, not the node.

    Please, put aside party preferences and LOOK at the technology and viability of the various plans. Don’t blindly follow the information pedalled by our media. Alot of it is incorrect or vastly exaggerated. Don’t take my word for it, go and look. Read some research papers, look at independent analyses. The information is out there.

    • Also, read my blog http://nbninfo.blogspot.com.au/ . I’ve tried to be politically neutral, but that’s difficult when the NBN is a Labor policy. However I’ve backup as many of my assertions as I can. This information is provided so people can make an informed opinion NOT to increase support of Labor.

      Sorry, shameless plug there Renai. :D

    • Oh and by the way, in case you think I’m against wireless as a technology- hell no! I’m impatiently waiting for the new HTC One XL from Telstra with 4G. I don’t live in a 4G area, but I work in one. And, I’m bound to get it here eventually or move to where it is.

      Wireless use in Australia will continue to grow- we want connected devices on the go. They’re great for productivity AND leisure. We will NEVER not want them.

      But, last night I was watching the DragonX spacecraft dock with the ISS on NASA’s live stream on my home connection. This is nerdy, but it was actually an historic moment. This was the first commercial spacecraft outside of the satellite sphere, contributing to the exploration and research in space; it is the beginning of a new chapter in space exploration. It’s no moon landing, but it is a solid Sputnik. And I could watch it live! At HOME! THAT’s technological progress. But wait, literally 1 minute before the event, my connection started dropping. I quickly fired up speed test. Normally this brings me back a result of between 6 and 9Mbps (9.8 is the highest I’ve ever gotten). Now? 1.2Mbps….highest. The average was actually 780KILObps. WTF I thought. It was windy down here last night- gusts up to 107Km/h, but , I thought that can’t be it….oh…it’s a Friday night. People will be home watching movies and and kids surfing youTube in great quantities, even this late because of no work/school tomorrow (for some anyway). Copper contention- it is a MASSIVE issue where I live.

      So, I thought, what now, I’m about to miss an historic moment (for me anyway) because of our shitty state of telecommunications….ah! My mobile! Sure enough, as I was installing the streaming app on my Desire, i fired up speedtest- Average, 2.7 Mbps. I got it buffered and LITERALLY 10 seconds after it started, I saw, in real-time, the first commercial spacecraft docking with the ISS on my mobile phone….and right after, my home connection came back online. I would’ve missed it had I vainly hoped for some decent connectivity on my home line.

      What is my point in all of this, you might say, you seem to be advocating wireless is better? Down here, it can be. That’s a pretty sorry state of affairs if you’re wireless connection beats your landline broadband. And why is this? Limitation of the COPPER network that would not exist on fibre.

      Wireless is here to stay and will continue to get better. But without vastly increased wired networks, when we want to watch some TV (in 25 years, we’re likely to see most broadcasters move to an IPTV solution for ease and expense) we may as well all get out our mobiles and hope there aren’t too many people streaming youTube at the pub tonight…

    • l wholeheartedly agree — building FTTN will solve the vast majority of the gripes over our communications infrastructure.

      And, unlike FTTP, it’s actually affordable.

      • Auditor, may I ask HOW FTTN will solve our gripes over telecommunications infrastructure?

      • Considering potential FTTN from the opposition was quoted by CitiGroup as being for only 40% of the nation, I find the words “vast majority” to be totally incorrect.

        As for gripes, the panel of comms experts said FTTN would be unviable and unlike the current NBN/Telstra deal (which keeps Telstra largely in the background) another deal would need to be struck with Telstra to use their copper, equating toTelstra again having a HUGE say in Australia’s comms. So I find any suggestion that gripes will be settled, even more incorrect than the first incorrect claim.

        Affordable. Considering CitiGroup estimated $17B (and iirc that didn’t include any subsequent copper deals with Telstra) and doesn’t include having to eventually replace FTTN/copper/HFC with FTTP, doesn’t include any ROI and no asset ownership for the government. I find this claim the most outlandishly incorrect of them all.

Comments are closed.