iTNews report “entirely untrue”, says NBN Co

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news The National Broadband Network Company has labelled claims by iTNews yesterday that it was deliberately manipulating its rollout figures in order to put a more positive light on them as “entirely untrue”, and argued that the publication’s claims are “not supported by the facts”.

Yesterday the publication published the results of what it said was a two-week investigation into NBN Co’s rollout figures. It stated: “NBN Co has continually promoted the impression of progress by announcing that its fibre rollout has expanded to new towns and cities. Today iTnews can reveal that NBN Co has resorted to connecting fewer premises within existing sites than originally promised to allow for this expansion.” The Australian Financial Review subsequently published a follow-up article stating that it had “verified” iTNews’ analysis. Delimiter has announced that it will over the next week publish a fact-checking analysis of the claims.

In a statement issued last night, NBN Co’s executive general manager of planning and design, Peter Ferris, said iTNews’ assertion that NBN Co was deliberately manipulating its figures was “entirely untrue”.

“A correct interpretation of the data published on NBN Co’s website confirms the following facts: No previously announced construction modules have been removed from the construction program; No areas are “losing previously-promised fibre connections”,” said Ferris. “Furthermore, ITNew’s claim that “towns and cities have disappeared” from the rollout is not supported by the facts. It looks to be based on an erroneous assumption that FSA boundaries are fixed over time.”

Ferris said that iTNews had given the specific example of the Townsville suburb of Gulliver being “one of the biggest losers from the redistribution”. “Yet Townville has not lost out at all,” he said. “NBN Co received details that the size of the telephone exchange at Gulliver wasn’t large enough to serve 12 [fibre serving area modules or FSAMs]. So we had to transfer 14,000 premises from the Gulliver FSA to the Townsville FSA bringing its total FSAM count to 12 and reducing Gulliver to 8 FSAMs.”

“To reiterate: In the original planning, Townville had 8 FSAMs and Gulliver had 12 containing approximately 50,000 premises. In the current plan, Townsville has 12 FSAMs and Gulliver has 8 – still containing 50,000 premises. This is merely one of many such errors in the report.”

“In fact,” added Ferris, “between the January and February Ready for Service releases there was also an update to our One Year Construction Rollout Plan. This plan included the movements of a number of FSAMS from one [fibre serving area] to another as we applied the network design rules. These rules take into account factors like the maximum length a fibre cable can run, or the availability of existing infrastructure, and they are applied when NBN Co moves from a “desktop (PC based) design” to a “physical design” – based on on-the-ground site inspection.”

“The effect of the changes were published in the February Ready for Service data and resulted in changes to the number of FSAMs in some FSAs, which affected the premises count in some areas.”

Furthermore, said Ferris, there had also been some fluctuations in the numbers of premises in different construction modules reflecting the fact that more detailed information about premises counts was uncovered as NBN Co moved from desktop design to detailed physical design following area-by-area walk-outs.

“However, these changes in premises in particular FSAMs do not alter the construction target,” he said. “NBN Co is still working to the target of passing 286,000 premises by the end of June this year – and the spreadsheets referred in the article actually indicate this.”

“NBN Co’s construction progress is monitored and managed on a daily basis and the company issues a monthly “Ready for Service” spreadsheet report to service providers with forecast dates of connection. Dates for FSAMs move backwards and forwards in this report depending on real construction progress, which can be affected by availability of connecting infrastructure, severe weather events such as floods or bushfires, or the readiness of underground conduits.”

“However, the forecast date for FSAMs to be ready for service can – and do – get pulled forward after having previously moved backward. What the figures show is how open and transparent NBN Co is about the rollout, even down to the expected ready for service date for individual FSAM or some even smaller Fibre Distribution Areas.”

With respect to the issue of new developments (greenfields areas), NBN Co head of business operations Kat Stapleton added the following statement:

“NBN Co has previously said that the Greenfield build is one of the most challenging aspects of the rollout, as it is based on demand from developers for works that are spread right across Australia. Connecting new developments is a particularly challenge in areas where NBN Co hasn’t got existing network to connect premises to, and the rollout relies on a number of critical factors such as access to pit and pipe infrastructure in which to install. We are extremely focussed on the need to provide services in areas where people have already moved in, and we are applying additional resources and effort to provide these services as soon as we can.”

iTNews has published a new story containing NBN Co’s response but stating that “our story holds true”. “NBN Co’s statement ignores the central theme of our analysis: that parts of the rollout are slipping or delayed,” wrote the article author Ry Crozier. “NBN Co’s statement does not address these delays. It evasively argues that the story is incorrect because we said these connections had ‘disappeared’. It’s a play at semantics that doesn’t hold any weight against our analysis.”

opinion/analysis
In its response to NBN Co’s statement, iTNews accuses the company of ignoring the central theme of its analysis, that parts of the NBN rollout are slipping and delayed. However to my mind, NBN Co has precisely addressed these issues.

It is obvious at this point that there are parts of NBN Co’s rollout that have been delayed compared to where they were originally planned to be at this stage. There are sites in Western Sydney where this has occurred, due to what appears to be difficulties between NBN Co, Telstra and local councils with respect to duct remediation. There are whole states suffering issues at the moment due to some issues with NBN contractors such as Syntheo. All of this is on the public record.

However, that wasn’t what iTNews alleged. It alleged that NBN Co had been deliberately manipulating its rollout figures in order to put a more positive light on the rollout.

I haven’t looked in detail yet (as part of our fact-checking exercise) at iTNews’ analysis in terms of the raw data. However, the statements made by Ferris last night with regard to these issues being a normal part of the cut and thrust of such a large national fibre rollout ring very true. Close observers of NBN Co’s work have known for a long time now that there is a significant difference between the way the rollout looks like on paper and what engineers and construction crews encounter when they’re actually out there in the field doing the work. NBN Co has given a series of extremely plausible replies to iTNews’ analysis — including examining specific examples.

In addition, consider the sorts of questions which iTNews sent NBN Co last week (at the end of the week). The publication lists one example on its site: “Why did the approx number premises for each FSA change across the board in February – often the shift per FSA is a matter of a couple of hundred premises between old and new e.g. Blacktown’s 28,300 becomes 28,600, but with three less premises per FDA for 2BLK coded builds (just as an example). Did NBN Co change its methodology (otherwise what reason would there be for such large scale shifting in those numbers)?”

These are detailed questions, but they don’t appear to go anywhere near directly accusing NBN Co of deliberately manipulating its rollout figures or alerting the company of the gravity of the article which NBN Co was considering at the time. Perhaps if the publication had taken a different approach, NBN Co would have been more timely in its response and filled in some of the blanks before iTNews published its article.

The work iTNews has done is admirable. It’s great that this kind of deep analysis is being conducted on NBN Co’s data. However, it appears as if the publication failed in two critical steps. Firstly, although it conducted two weeks of research on NBN Co’s data, it failed to speak in depth to the company to source context and insight from real human people into the cold data which it was analysing. This context — which Ferris went a long way to supplying last night — might have totally changed the character of the original iTNews story.

Secondly — and this is the part I personally consider unforgivable — the publication did not provide any direct evidence for its claim that NBN was deliberately fudging its numbers. This claim cannot be backed up by statistical analysis alone. It requires that iTNews had human sources that could verify human intent to deceive.

This is not a trivial issue. It’s why professional journalists are often willing to state that a politician, for example, appears to be misleading their audience, but are very seldom willing to state that a public figure is flat out “lying”. Making that statement requires a higher burden of information — direct knowledge of that person’s thoughts and motivations. In this case, iTNews appears to have relied almost solely on its statistical analysis and has discounted the human factor. I cannot approve of this approach.

A number of commentators on iTNews’ own articles on this subject have in fact made this precise point.

There is also a broader question as to what extent the analysis is actually relevant. NBN Co’s pledge to the electorate is not to have deployed fibre in a certain area by a certain date. It is to have finalised a certain number of premises by certain dates (for example, 286,000 by July 2013). NBN Co is free to prioritise its rollout within those boundaries as much as it likes; in fact, operations in the field will require this flexibility as certain conditions come up in certain areas, as Ferris discussed. There is currently no indication that NBN Co will not meet its July 2013 targets. In fact, indications are that the company is staunchly on track. I encourage those commenting on the situation to remember this fact.

In my view, with its response, NBN Co has left iTNews looking a little naive and even childish in this encounter. In my opinion, iTNews should have spoken to NBN Co in a great deal more detail about this issue before it went to print, and it should have realised that you cannot base a claim of deliberate manipulation on statistical analysis alone. But then, that’s not really the way Australian technology journalism is going these days.

25 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you Renai. Once again excellent reporting. I still want to hear if you have any more comments on iTnews’ findings when you’ve completed your fact checking exercise.

    • Yes, Renai, excellent reporting (as usual).

      It’s surprising that Malcolm Turnbull hasn’t been waving a copy of the iTNews ‘story’ all over the media.

      Perhaps the cunning old lawyer-politician learnt something from his Utegate moment after all. :)

  2. To my mind the most damaging part for iTNews is their response. It is clear to anybody that “parts of the rollout are slipping or delayed” was not the central theme of the article. They started off with with stupid accusations starved of professionalism, and backed it up with a lie.

  3. I’m starting to see more & more of these fabricated articles (most are independently verifiable as false) since the election was called. I guess we’ll see a lot more from the same media orgs who’ve brought us Ruddmentum & “government in chaos” every week for the past 3 years.

    As you know Renai I’ve been quite vocal about this of late, & I’m glad you’re picking them up too.

      • Sir, it has only just begun.

        If people thought the degree of emotive bullshit masquerading as ‘truth’ was at an all time high-level, just wait until both parties switch gears a few months before election.

        Facts will be absent. The Coalition has made this a political, emotive topic. Thanks to a steadfast dedication to having no policies ahead of the election, it will be sound-bites all the way.

        NBN is a ballsy thing to do, granted, but the rest of the world is growing the same pair; we’re simply leading the pack. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Australia taking a technical lead.

      • I know the feeling, just dose up on caffeine & plug away at it. Maybe there should be a template for refuting these articles, because they certainly have a template for writing them!

  4. Just another addition to the FUD v truth comparison that should be mass advertised some time in August. I’m not going to be surprised if this is the basis of The Turnbulls ‘shocking’ NBN truth by the way. Or at least a significant part of it.

  5. Renai you could rewrite the article from IT news using the same data and spin it the other way really easily.

    Where they have a table of -ve data have a table of positive where they list the -ve changes list the +ve changes the data is there albeit hidden and spun in a negative light.

  6. Anyone see The Project last night? Mr.MT was on it.
    Not much got explained, just the typical, cheaper, faster, etc…

  7. Renai, from my own analysis of the figures in the monthly plans the 309 FSAMs that had construction commenced before December 2012 had the number of premises expected to be covered reduced by 21,700 premises in the February monthly plan. You can check this yourself by summing up the entire “Approx premises for this Rollout Region” in the January plan and comparing it to the sum of all the FSAMs above the hard black line in the February Plan (all FSAMs with a start date before end Dec 2013).

    In their January 29 Press Release NBN Co claimed that “Construction was commenced or completed for 784,600 premises by end December 2012.” Would you be able to follow up with NBN Co if the downward revision of the number of premises expected to be covered by the FSAMs already started effects this claim?

    It is my belief that the downward revision should effect the number of premises where construction was commenced or completed by end December 2012 as the claim of 784,600 premises was consistent with 742,400 premises in construction as per the January plan and would be inconsistent with the 720,700 premises in construction as indicated by the February plan.

    Whilst the revised figure of 762,900 premises with construction commenced or completed would still exceed the year end target of 758,000 premises it further illustrates the uselessness of the “construction commenced or completed” metric as used by NBN Co as the number of premises with construction commenced is subject to downward revisions after the fact. In this particular case the downward revision appears to have happened within 2 days of NBN Co issuing a press release using the higher number.

    NBN Co have claimed that these changes are balanced out by increases elsewhere but the fact remains that the January plan said that 36,400 premises were under construction in the Northern Territory (Darwin FSA and Casuarina FSA) and the February plan said that only 25,900 premises were under construction in the Northern Territory. From all appearances 10,500 premises in the Northern Territory either stopped “construction” or never existed in the first place.

  8. When reading their article yesterday my thought was that the content did not match the headline. I’m not personally going to investigate the detail but my first reaction was that to take change in month figures that are influenced by the christmas period and revelations of issues with contractors in certain states was drawing a bit of a long bow. There may well be something there but I think the headline was more about getting eyeballs on their website.

    And that’s why I respect what you do here Renai. Your analysis was spot on – considered and reasonable. Just need to clone you and get you working in other areas of journalism.

    • The cloning process has commenced, and the extra Renais (Mark III, the Mark II models were defective and went rogue) will be deployed within the next two months, to devastating effect. The first target will be the ABC, where infiltration has already commenced.

  9. So what about the slippages in WA and how these are completely unaddressed in the response?

  10. So we’re all in agreement now?

    IT news is either retarded, themselves trying to deceive, or just wanted hits?

    • It’s funny that Tallweirdo’s response, where he went in to some depth elucidating points originally made by ITNews, has gone completely unaddressed…

      There is a discrepancy. Anyone who can read enough to post a fanboi post here is capable of getting that, although their critical thought process might be a tad too stunted to beat back their unqualified support…

      Hell, Renai went to the mat with NBNco over what he suspected were not entirely honest figures, and the fanbois gave him a shellacking for his temerity… Or did those articles conveniently slip everyone’s minds?

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