‘Bold & visionary’: UK MP loves Australia’s NBN

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chi-onwurah

news One of the UK Government’s up and coming technology-focused politicians, Chi Onwurah, has declared Australia’s National Broadband Network to be bold and visionary following a visit Down Under and asked her own country’s administration why it doesn’t have similar ambitions in its own, much more limited broadband policy.

Onwurah is a member of the British Labour Party, roughly analogous to Australia’s own Labor Party, and was elected as a member of the country’s parliament in the May 2010 elections for the seat of Newcastle Upon Tyne Central. However, the MP isn’t the normal run of the mill politician. Before winning her seat, Onwurah was head of Telecoms Technology at the country’s telecommunications regulator Ofcom, where she focused on the broadband market.

Onwurah also has a highly technical background, boasting a degree in Electrical Engineering from London’s Imperial College. According to her LinkedIn profile, the politician spent six years at Ofcom. Prior to that she worked in a variety of senior and project management roles for technology-related companies such as Teligent, Cable and Wireless and Nortel, as well as a stint at telecommunications and financial advisory firm Hammatan. In her new parliamentary role Onwurah has been active in a variety of areas, but especially in the business, innovation and skills portfolio. Onwurah was recently asked to take up a shadow ministerial role in Labour’s Cabinet Office team.

In an opinionated article published by the UK branch of technology publication Computerworld last week (we recommend you click here for the full article), Onwurah noted that she had taken the opportunity of a social visit to Australia over Christmas to also meet with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley, to get an update on the progress of Australia’s NBN project, which the MP is familiar with courtesy of her time at Ofcom and an earlier visit to Australia in early 2009 – just before the current NBN project was announced in April that year.

In her article, Onwurah noted that the NBN was delivering on its aims and questioned why the UK could not deliver a similarly ambitious agenda of improving fundamental broadband service delivery. “Clearly the UK is not in a position to make the kind of investment NBN Co represents. Autralia’s banks did not require a massive bailout and their economy has not suffered a double dip recession … But what the UK should be able to deliver is a vision of our communications future,” Onwurah wrote.

Unlike in Australia, in the UK the country’s Labour party is in opposition, with the country currently being governed by a coalition of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.

Currently, the UK Government does have a target of providing superfast broadband, defined as 24Mbps, to at least 90 percent of premises in the country by 2015, and to provide universal access to “standard” broadband with a speed of at least 2Mbps by 2015. However, unlike in Australia, which is constructing its own Government-owned National Broadband Network, the UK model is progressing via a subsidy approach which is seeing the Government fund specific areas of infrastructure rollout in coalition with the private sector.

Although there are other projects, the telecommunications rollout which most of the country’s residents are pinning their hopes on is the deployment by UK incumbent telco BT of fibre to the node technology, which is slated to bring 80Mbps speeds to most of the country.

Most of the UK will receive BT’s FTTN rollout, which has so far reached ten million premises across the country and is slated to pass approximately two thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014. However, the telco has also deployed FTTP in 15 telephone exchange areas to date and is also exploring the option of deploying the service to multi-dwelling units such as apartment blocks, where the fibre can support multiple connections. The upgraded FTTP service will speeds of up to 330Mbps.

In Australia, Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has cited BT’s FTTN rollout as an example of how upgraded broadband could be deployed in Australia.

However, as in Australia, the UK also has an ongoing debate about how broadband technology should be deployed in the country. In a report produced by the House of Lord’s Select Committee on Communications (PDF here) in August 2012, the House of Lords called for the country to implement a model technically more like Australia’s, with fibre extended as far as possible everywhere and open access networks.

“Government policy has become preoccupied with the delivery of certain speeds to consumers,” the report notes. “This, in our view, has had a detrimental effect on policy-making and the long term national interest. In this report, we propose an alternative vision for UK broadband policy, which, rather than being target-driven, makes the case for a national broadband network which should be regarded as a fundamental strategic asset, to which different people can connect in different ways according to their needs and demands.”

“Fundamentally, the Government’s strategy has fundamentally focused on the wrong part of the network—broadly speaking the outer edge and the margins, not the centre. We argue that the Government should be focusing on delivering a high spec infrastructure which is future proof and built to last; fibre-optic cable, the most future proof technology, must be driven out as close as possible to the eventual user. Then, as well as mandating open access to this optical fibre from the cabinet to the exchange, we need to ensure that there is open access to links between the exchanges that feed the cabinets, and to the higher level links into national and global networks.”

opinion/analysis
Firstly: Wow. It would be simply awesome if Australia had someone in the communications portfolio who had examined telecommunications regulation in a regulator such as ACMA or the ACCC. Should the Labour Party win government in the UK at some point, it would be well-advised to keep Onwurah focused on the technology and telecommunications portfolios; clearly she is an expert in them.

As for a wider analysis of her opinion piece; well, it’s fairly obvious what her motivations here are. The ruling UK Tory/Lib Democrat coalition is taking a very minimalist approach to broadband policy in the country; something which has not failed to attract the attention of the at-times rambunctious and quite independent House of Lords. If you don’t know much about the UK parliamentary system, by the way, don’t think that the House of Lords is like Australia’s Senate. It’s not – members are not popularly elected, and the House of Lords doesn’t have quite the power that the Senate does in Australia, although it still acts as a very important and often quite apolitical house of review in the UK.

In commenting on the minimalist broadband policy of the current ruling coalition, Onwurah is not only on her home ground; she’s playing the populist card. She’s right: Australia’s NBN policy is visionary by international standards and most indications show that it is on the way to delivering on its aims. It represents a very useful card for Onwurah to inject into the domestic political debate on broadband in the UK, and I’m sure her fellow labor movement compatriot, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, was more than happy to facilitate Onwurah’s move to do so.

I only wonder why Onwurah isn’t pushing her argument more strongly. Her overall opinion piece last week was quite moderate and sensible; she didn’t really attack the UK Government’s current broadband policy too strongly. If she had been an Australian politician, she would have brought out the fire and brimstone and damned the ruling Tory/Lib Democrat coalition to hell. Perhaps the UK’s political debate is more polite on the broadband scene than it is in Australia? Let’s hope that 2013 will see some of that more gentle argument make its way down under.

Image credit: Office of Chi Onwurah

64 COMMENTS

    • The UK uses Australia as an example as what we should be doing, and The LNP uses the UK as an example of what we should be doing…

  1. Australian politics is like a bunch of immature school children compared to the rest of the developed world. It really does show sometimes.

    • Yes its disgusting the way they act these days and well the Libs are the best at it nothing more the a bunch of lying hypocrites and bullies, you only have to look at the headless chickens that are running the show in QLD to see what will happen if the Libs get in.

      • “you only have to look at the headless chickens that are running the show in QLD to see what will happen if the Libs get in.”

        We have our own headless chickens here in VIC, I’d like to think this has no impact on the NBN debate but unfortunately it does. Premier clown Baillieu is the reason why we have the opt-in model here so they’ve already proved they like to do things in the least efficient manner possible so “if the Libs get in” I’m sure we can expect more of the same especially since they’ve indicated they will rollout a FttN patchwork… hmm, I wonder if FttN will be opt-in, surely they wouldn’t force customers who are happy with ADSL2+???

      • And? I didn’t say British politics was mature, I just said that Australian was less so.

        Are you purposely always argumentative? Cause frankly you can be a little bit abrasive at times.

        • Agree NK.

          The strawman argument aimed at you was totally incorrect and unnecessary.

          A comment seemingly designed to flame you and little else… the sort of comment Delimiter can do without.

        • @NK

          ‘And? I didn’t say British politics was mature, I just said that Australian was less so’

          After viewing many British Parliament debates over the years I do not agree.

  2. “However, the MP isn’t the normal run of the mill politician. Before winning her seat, Onwurah was head of Telecoms Technology at the country’s telecommunications regulator Ofcom, where she focused on the broadband market.”

    This rather salient point, is why we (or rather our politicians) fail.

    Most of those whom are speaking the loudest, apparently know the least possible. Turnbull is still living in the Nineties, where Copper is still king, and Fibre is impossibly expensive (hint, it’s note 1991 anymore); Abbott and Hockey are firmly entrenched in the 1880’s, when steam was still in vogue.

    And, sadly, some of the Labor poli’s aren’t much better; hardly much more progressive on the technology front.

    There is a distinct lack of global understanding, of what our neighbours are doing — Turnbull seems oblivious to the inevitability of FttH, for example — and Conroy has been fighting the good fight for a Chinese inspired firewall to protect the little ones.

    Not really a fine example there, then. ;)

    Australia doesn’t always have to follow others; we have a strong economy (carbon tax? please, go ask Greece what financial problems look like) and in the enviable position to make hay, whilst the sun shines.

    Kinda think our politicians need to get over the sound-bite name calling and just get on with the job they were elected to do.

  3. You’ve got to remember that the UK is completely skint. They are running all kinds of Austerity measures and cannot pay for or borrow the money to make an NBN like ours.

    • Agree…

      …but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a vision for what they want to achieve at such time as they are able to enact it. Sounds like they don’t even want to formulate the vision.

      To quote her own article:

      Chi Onwurah: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans she has for Broadband Delivery UK after 2015. [131540]

      Mr Vaizey: There are currently no plans for Broadband Delivery UK beyond the current spending review commitment.“

    • One of our NBNCo’s aims is for the network to, not only pay for it’s self, but to return some money back.

      The BT NBN (much like Malcolm Turnbulls) is a money sink for the UK people, their government is using grants and subsidies to get BT to build it, which is money that won’t be repaid.

      I know the last thing I want to see happen to my taxes, is Malcolm Turnbull gifting it to Telstra and Optus to “encourage” them to do what they should have done all along…

      • +1

        “.. gifting it to Telstra and Optus to “encourage” them to do what they should have done all along…”

        And once again, dictating what we can and can’t have as well as those every trusty “premium pricings for premium products” :/

  4. “Chi Onwurah, has declared Australia’s National Broadband Network to be bold and visionary”

    Well der. You’d have to be a Luddite not to see that, obviously that lady is thinking of her country and it’s future :)

    It’s a terrible shame that OUR opposition doesn’t have a bit more vision for Australia’s future, preferring to keep her half mired in the past…

    • Not only is she thinking of her country and its future, she clearly has the intelligence and experience to know that it could be achieved.

      It will be much harder to do in Britain than it is in Australia, because we have been surfing the mineral export boom, but if anyone is silly enough to think that the boom means we won’t need world-class comms, then the rocks involved are all in their head.

      Booms don’t last, which is why it is vital that we build NBN before exports start to shut down, so when that happens we will have the fibre network in place to enable other GDP-boosting replacement activities.

  5. “Perhaps the UK’s political debate is more polite on the broadband scene than it is in Australia?”

    Spot on. When I moved here from the UK I was shocked at how aggressive and argumentative Australian politics is. It seems opposition can’t just question why the government has done something they don’t agree with and suggest what they’d do differently, they have to claim it’s the worst possible decision ever and the whole government is incompetent, corrupt and is betraying the hard-working Australian families. Sigh.

      • The difference is that that was worthy of reporting, therefore far worse than normal. Have you even watch or listened to Parliment since Labor won in 2010? Any sort of discussion on any topic by the opposition is just not there. It’s smear, smear and more smear.

        • I am not condoning the quality of debate in the Australian Parliament and that is from both sides of the house but please don’t hold up the quality of UK Parliamentry debate as an example of how it should be done.

          • Not sure what any of that has to do with the NBN, and the views of people towards it?

            Turnbull frequently holds up the UK as a source of guidance on what we should be doing. Or are you suggesting we shouldn’t listen to, or seek guidance from, the people Turnbull apparently listens to?

          • I think that’s the point…

            All NBN good news stories are to be diverted away from the positiveness or talked down… sad really.

          • As a long time watcher and listener to parliment I’d have to say their is some good debate. In the senate. The house of reps may as well be scrapped.

          • The main difference I think is in the senate the cross bench hold a bit more influence. I’m hoping the KAP win a few seats in both houses next election, as the large cross bench can moderate the agenda of the Government.

          • “I am not condoning the quality of debate in the Australian Parliament”

            There is very little “debate” (A discussion in which reasons are advanced for and against some proposition or proposal) in our parliament, but there is a lot of “argument” (A contentious speech act; a dispute where there is strong disagreement).

            Our “two party” politicians do Australia a great disservice by just thinking of themselves and their petty little parties, and not the country as a whole. This is why debate in the house usually descends into argument, point scoring and pointless accusations.

  6. Has anyone else noticed how frazzled Turnbull looks these days? He really must be suffering from quite a good deal of frustration, and possibly even ‘black-dog’ depression. Every move he makes; every pronouncement he makes about the NBN is almost immediately denounced – and not just by politicians from the other side, but by industry or technical experts, both from Australia and overseas.

    You could almost feel sorry for him – it must be one of the most thankless tasks in politics having to peddle lies and garbage to keep a paranoid leader happy, and knowing in the deepest confines of your mind that it is crap. And now, that bastion of everything he alludes to – the British broadband experience – is dumped on from a great height by one of the clearest thinking proponents on the UK political scene.

    Oh dear, I suppose it is no small surprise he’s looking depressed. But there is some sunshine for him on the horizon. The Perth ‘Sunday Times’ suggested yesterday he was one of the five people in politics to be gone within six months. Perhaps that will bring a smile back to his face…….

    • “Has anyone else noticed how frazzled Turnbull looks these days? He really must be suffering from quite a good deal of frustration”

      Yes, I’ve noticed. It must be quite demoralising to realise when you don’t have the best broadband plan and have to try and convince everyone that you do, when people inevitability are not fooled it or the lies that would certainly take it’s toll. That’s probably where most of Turnbulls energy is used; coming up a new line and then thinking “I hope they buy this one, I hope they buy this one!”.

    • Probably the definitive issue to be gleaned from this report was the following paragraph:

      “The U.S. needs a critical mass of gigabit communities nationwide so that innovators can develop next-generation applications and services that will drive economic growth and global competitiveness,” Genachowski said, according to an FCC press release. He cited Google’s new network in Kansas City and a fiber network built by a local utility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he said Amazon.com and other companies have created more than 3,700 new jobs over the past three years.

      http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/451265/fcc_chief_calls_gigabit_internet_all_50_us_states_by_2015/

      If we are unlucky enough in Australia to be shafted at the hands of a LNP Government, I’m afraid we will never – at least in a generation – get that “critical mass”. It is probably one of the MOST important outcomes of continuing to build the current FTTP based NBN. The fact that developers and ‘innovators’ can be assured that 93% of the population have the capacity to purchase speeds well in excess of 100Mb/s – something that will NEVER, EVER happen with a mish-mash Coalition network.

      • I don’t mind Google installing at 100% their cost broadband in my area then I can decide if I want to use it or not.

        • So why do you mind NBNCo installing 100% their cost broadband in your area then you can decide if you use it or not?

          I think the word you’re looking for this statement is “risk”, Google Fibre is an investment that Google are risking, whereas NBNCo is a project that the government are risking.

          It’s only if NBNCo doesn’t manage to achieve critical ARPU levels that the government will have to consider a debt bailout. And for the record, such a bailout will probably not be the entire principle.

          • “So why do you mind NBNCo installing 100% their cost broadband in your area then you can decide if you use it or not?”

            Psst. It’s a Labor NBN. Tony and Co could do far worse and to alain it’d be the best thing since sliced bread. In fact if they get in they are going to do far worse so he should be happy.

          • ‘So why do you mind NBNCo installing 100% their cost broadband in your area then you can decide if you use it or not? ‘

            Of course that glib statement omits to mention that the NBN is a ‘like it or lump it no choice’ product because alternative fixed line choice has been shut down.

            If I don’t like Google in the USA I can still choose Verizon or others depending on the area, Australia is the only country shutting down existing fixed line infrastructure to ensure maximum uptake of a BB product we all ‘desperately need’.

            The NBN needs a massive cost supported safety net of payments to existing infrastructure owners to shut down because of the high probability we don’t all need that high speed fixed line goodness.

          • Tell me alain, if they abandoned a one lane bridge on a road on a country road and replaced it with a two lane bridge, would you complain that the TA was “forcing users” to use the two lane bridge?

            Because that is the most apt analogy I can think of to describe what NBNCo is doing.

            The fibre network will fulfil all the functions of the copper one, at an equivalent cost to consumers.

        • So you’re okay with a giant retail corporate building a fibre network past your door, and not charging you to connect, indeed giving you a choice if you want to connect or not.

          But not a fibre network built past your door, by a giant wholesaler, that doesn’t charge you to connect, indeed gives you a choice if you want to connect or not.

          There you have it; perfectly sound, logical reasoning. Thanks alain, that really puts it all into perspective.

          • Oh I see, so Telstra and Optus would have shut down their infrastructure anyway voluntarily, those massive payments to them was a waste then eh?

          • Do you even know what the word redundant actually means?

            “In engineering, redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system.”

            The function of the HFC and TP networks provided by Optus and Telstra are redundant of the functions provided by the fibre network by NBNCo.

            So please don’t engage in strawman arguments. However, I’ll answer your question anyway: Telstra and Optus were welcome to negotiate a deal with NBNCo that didn’t involve the forced migration of their HFC networks, but they didn’t. They were not legislatively required to make the deal, it was a commercial agreement.

            This means that the bofins at both companies saw that running a redundant network to NBNCo is less profitable for them than running a competing network.

            Because if they seriously thought their networks were a threat to NBNCo, they wouldn’t be shutting them down. In other words they voluntary signed the migration contracts.

            So please get off the grass.

          • Indeed NK…

            One may even go as far as to say that because they did so “Telsta and Optus are forcing me onto the NBN”…LOL.

          • ‘Do you even know what the word redundant actually means? ‘

            Stop skirting around the issue, you know the NBN depends on Telstra and Optus networks being shut down so that residences who don’t know what’s good for them are forced to use the NBN, and that without the billion dollar payments both infrastructure owners would have been reluctant to shut down anything.

            So Optus and Telstra had CAPEX plans in place to replace that awful ‘redundant’ HCF running since 1994 with FTTH did they?

            If HCF is so ‘redundant’ you wonder why Telstra and Optus decided to upgrade it to handle 100Mbps in targeted areas in 2009, surely after nearly 20 years it must be all falling apart by now?

          • “Telstra and Optus networks being shut down so that residences who don’t know what’s good for them are forced to use the NBN, and that without the billion dollar payments both infrastructure owners would have been reluctant to shut down anything.”

            And so an obsolete network doesn’t have to maintained at a huge cost because people are slow moving or don’t care. Same happened with analog TV. What’s your point exactly? Removing choice? Bad luck. Ability to watch analog TV has been removed, telegraph services have been removed. Copper will be removed, it’s REDUNDANT.

          • * I have never heard of any business negotiating to buy out other businesses assets?

            * I have never heard of any business buying the goodwill (customer database) to make their business more readily revenue positive?

            * I have never heard of any business closing an obsolete product down and renewing it with a newer better product?

            Not until the big, evil, socialist NBN came along and forced me.

            Oh wait :/

          • Stop skirting around the issue

            I didn’t.

            you know the NBN depends on Telstra and Optus networks being shut down

            Depend? No. Benefit? Yes. I’m arguing semantics here for a reason.

            so that residences who don’t know what’s good for them are forced to use the NBN

            If Australian’s were really that stupid they wouldn’t have upgraded from Broadband. You do understand how new technology adoption works right?

            and that without the billion dollar payments both infrastructure owners would have been reluctant to shut down anything.

            Optus and Telstra still thought that they stand to make more money on the NBN. They were not forced to sign it, no one held a gun to anyone’s head. All it means that, in the case of Optus, they thought they could make around $800m by delaying migration. If they thought that they could compete long term no amount of money would be enough.

            So Optus and Telstra had CAPEX plans in place to replace that awful ‘redundant’ HCF running since 1994 with FTTH did they?

            Once again you aren’t using the word redundant correctly.

  7. There are two sorts of people. Those who shout down and abuse anyone who even suggests they might be wrong, and loudly applaud anyone who tells them they’re right, and say that proves they’re right. And those who actually listen to those who who suggest they might be wrong to see if there’s anything in what they say. We all know which ones usually end up getting it right in the end.

    • And which are you Gordon?

      Most NBN supporters will admit, the NBN is not perfect but simply believe it’s the best all round option (and can give clear examples as to why).

      We also accept there is risk (even possible failure) but in everything we build or do, there is risk, the trick is to analyse whether the end product is worth the risk and if so, manage the risk… Which I believe NBNCo are doing and it’s all clearly laid out in the Corporate Plan and Business Case, where why and when.

      Are these projections set in stone? Of course not, but they are analysed projections which clearly explain, as mentioned, a measured approximation of where, why and when.

      So on the flip-side, are you willing to accept, just maybe the NBN will actually succeed and be a fantastic build for Australia?

      If so, why the incessant negativity?

    • “We all know which ones usually end up getting it right in the end.”

      Ummm, that’d be the ones who are right wouldn’t it? Whether they abused people as you claim or shut them down or not. I’d say the ones looking good and hard at it without political bias would have the best bet of being correct. Refering to people as “NBN fanbois” or repeatedly posting comments claiming reporters who think any aspect is good as biased or a mouth piece for the Labor party, saying they are printing propaganda would probably indicate someone who is likely to be wrong. Not actually making points in the discussion but attacking others as you are saying here (by attacking others I might add) would be bad right? So why is that what you do on all the tech forums, ABC, etc. Hypocrite.

    • “There are two sorts of people.”

      There is a third sort. People like you Gordom. Hypocrites that run for the hills whenever anyone dares to question their position on a subject, in this case the NBN.

    • “There are two sorts of people.”

      Yes; those whom can engage in reasoned debate, and those whom resort to the ad hominem.

Comments are closed.