news Communications Minister and Deputy PM Anthony Albanese and Finance Minister Penny Wong have called for the Coalition to submit its alternative NBN policy to the Treasury and the Department of Finance and Deregulation for costing, in the wake of news that the Parliamentary Budget Office found the policy too complex to cost.
The Parliamentary Budget Office yesterday confirmed it had decided the Coalition’s National Broadband Network policy was too complex to formally cost without significant and expensive outside assistance, leaving the veracity of the policy unclear, in the absence of government or private sector examination of it. However, this morning, Albanese and Wong issued a media release stating that there were alternative costing options which the Coalition could look at.
The release, sensationally entitled “Malcolm Turnbull and Coalition hide broadband policy from scrutiny”, sees the pair claim that the Coalition is hiding “a multi-billion-dollar time bomb” in its NBN policy.
“Mr Turnbull claims the Parliamentary Budget Office doesn’t have the expertise to look at his broadband plan, but that doesn’t stop him submitting it to the Treasury and the Department of Finance and Deregulation for costing under the Charter of Budget Honesty,” wrote Albanese and Wong. “This is just another Coalition excuse to conceal their real plans from Australians. If Mr Turnbull has nothing to hide, he should provide his policy for independent scrutiny.
“Clearly, Mr Turnbull shares the view expressed by Tony Abbott following the 2010 election: ‘… it is very difficult for the public service to understand Coalition policy …’.” Albanese and Wong said Abbott had made the statement at a press conference in August 2010.
“The Liberals are hiding their plan,” the pair added, “because they know full well that detailed scrutiny will reveal that: Their plan does not factor in the cost to acquire and maintain the copper network – something Mr Turnbull said in May 2011 could be “billions of dollars”; The cost differential between fibre to the premise and fibre to the node is less than claimed; and the Coalition fraudband network will be obsolete by the time it is completed and will need to be immediately upgraded, potentially costing billions of dollars.”
“It is time for Mr Turnbull to put his policy where his mouth is and submit his broadband plan to Treasury and the Department of Finance and Deregulation.”
A spokesperson for Turnbull was not immediately able to confirm this morning whether the Coalition would submit its policy to the Treasury for evaluation, but Turnbull has previously expressed his view that the financial underpinnings of the policy have not been substantially challenged, despite it having been released in April.
“Our plan has been out for more than 4 months. Nobody has published analysis faulting our assumptions or conclusions,” responded Turnbull.
In an effort to provide transparency around the Coalition’s policies, in November 2012 Shadow Treasurer stated that the Coalition would submit all of its policies to the PBO for consideration, with final costings to be released in the last week of the election.
opinion/analysis
Should Turnbull submit the Coalition’s policy to Treasury? Clearly there’s not a lot of incentive for him to do so, and clearly Labor’s demand that he do so is a political move designed to highlight the key differences between the two policies. I don’t think the general population will really shift its view on the two policies based on the issue of whether one is properly “costed”, whatever that really means in the context of the NBN debate, and one isn’t.
However, personally I think he should. If the Coalition is firm behind the numbers and details in its policy, as I think they are, then it really has nothing to hide here. In addition, it’s unlikely that the Treasury will be able to form a coherent view on the Coalition’s policy before the election. For a policy of this complexity, it’ll likely take longer than three weeks for the Treasury to be able to evaluate it in an independent fashion.
Image credit: Clix, royalty free
I think this is just a reaction from Albanese. I don’t think it represents reality.
I agree they should submit it, definitely. But they won’t. Why would they?
They should’ve done a basic top level study of their own assumptions with their policy. They apparently spent months and a substantial amount of money on their own policy. Why not include a basic test of assumptions??
Not good enough Turnbull. And unfortunately this is a pretty easy request to decline from Albanese and Wong.
I was saying this yesterday. But unfortunately based on comments from Abbott and Hockey, the LNP don’t think Treasury is credible with numbers, and do not believe anything Treasury says.
Even Malcolm is on record yesterday as saying that they are sending their policies to the PBO, not Treasury. I can only imagine this is because the PBO is likely to have a much higher workload and be less thorough as a result.
Either way, it tends to show a lack of faith in your own policy.
But unfortunately based on comments from Abbott and Hockey, the LNP don’t think Treasury is credible with numbers
Which is of course, ludicrous. Treasury is Treasury- they’d produce the same numbers of LNP were in Government. Unless they suggest changing public servants every time we change government….
Agree, it shows a certain….resistance for having policy assumptions measured to do and say this.
“unlikely that the Treasury will be able to form a coherent view on the Coalition’s policy before the election”.
Spot on, it is too late now. This should have been done months ago. Turnbull has been touting a fully costed policy for going on 12 Months. They themselves are lucky to even have desktop level plans in place, yet alone a high level design. The costing is dependent on too many little factors which are yet to be finalised.
“unlikely that the Treasury will be able to form a coherent view on the Coalition’s policy before the election”.
Spot on, it is too late now. This should have been done months ago. Turnbull has been touting a fully costed policy for going on 12 Months. They themselves are lucky to even have desktop level plans in place, yet alone a high level design. The costing is dependent on too many little factors which are yet to be finalised.
“Clearly, Mr Turnbull shares the view expressed by Tony Abbott following the 2010 election: ‘… it is very difficult for the public service to understand Coalition policy …’.”
It’s really hard for anybody to understand the coalition’s policy!
sigh.
The coalition have committed to a 29.5 billion dollar network using a mix of technologies and a range of MacGuffins. How could we possibly fault that?
Maybe you should try and get in contact with Treasury and ask them if they think its a good idea Renai? Worked wonders at putting out the spin last time.
PBO basically *is* Treasury, and the Dep of Finance works with them often in costing policies.
What “time bomb” do they intend to find in a policy that is extremely contingent on commercial deals in the future?
Treasury dont cost the current NBN plan either, they just add up the current liabilities which is the only real effect on the financial cycle of the government.
Treasury would just say they are happy to look at the policy etc.
What to do now?
I guess if Malcolm is so confident of his costings, revenue projections and assumptions it is time he releases his modelling. I don’t mean a couple of cropped screenshots of Excel worksheets but the entire workbook.
If Turnbull thinks he has outgunned BPO and Treasury then it should withstand scrutiny.
What Renai really should be asking for is the post FY 2019 cash flow figures that should have been shown on page 31 of the background material.
This figures, which have been referenced to further elsewhere in the policy, shows the amount of cash flow being generated by the FTTN network.
This number is crucial as it needs to be at least the amount of interest on the $29.5billion of commonwealth money invested, about $1billion/year.
If the cash flow number doesn’t cover the interest cost in the plan, then it definitely means that the FTTN network will be impaired, and have that impairment loss be shown on the budget figures.
That asking MT to release these figures isn’t the first and last thing MT is asked every press conference just shows how flaky the legacy media is. I don’t expect Renai to get any further though.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/353616,turnbulls-nbn-policy-detailed-enough-to-escape-costing.aspx
OK, if it’s that detailed then why not hand it over to be costed. It would silence those that believe the figures are unrealistic.
In August 2012, Turnbull said he had a fully costed broadband policy and would release it in coming weeks.
In April he announced his policy, but has never us a breakdown of its costing.
All four of the assumptions he based his fantastic $90 billion claims upon for FTTP also need to be tested against his FTTN policy.
Furthermore, as one example, he has repeatedly claimed that Telstra has already been paid for its copper, and that he considers it would be a token amount to acquire it for 71% of households. Yet in 2008 Telstra wanted $20 billion before giving the copper back to the Rudd government for FTTN in NBN Mark I.
If the coalition’s $29 billion costing includes nothing for copper, then it should be increased by $15-20 billion to allow for this omission.
As Greenhill Caliburn warned in their 2011 audit of the all-fibre NBN, ROI is based on high takeup and high ARPU. Yet ARPU for FTTN is expected to be only $16. We already see higher-than-forecast takeup and ARPU of $38 for NBN fibre in regional Australia.
FTTN costs the same to build as FTTP, but returns lower revenues. How on earth does this make economic sense? It fails Australia, and it fails Economics 101.
+1
@Francis Young
‘Furthermore, as one example, he has repeatedly claimed that Telstra has already been paid for its copper,’
No he hasn’t, where did he say Telstra has been paid for its copper ‘?
‘ and that he considers it would be a token amount to acquire it for 71% of households’
Where did MT say that?
‘. Yet in 2008 Telstra wanted $20 billion before giving the copper back to the Rudd government for FTTN in NBN Mark I.’
umm what? a link would be really good here.
‘If the coalition’s $29 billion costing includes nothing for copper, then it should be increased by $15-20 billion to allow for this omission.’
Telstra are already contracted to receive $11b in the NBN Co agreement which is compensation to shut down the copper, shutdown HFC for BB, use of their ducts for NBN Co FTTP fibre pull through and the use of their exchanges to house NBN Co FTTP equipment where the NBN Co Fibre Access Nodes are usually located.
If the copper is used for FTTN and not turned off, and the HFC is not shut down for BB and the requirement for the use of Telstra ducts for fibre pull through is not as high than it is for FTTP, then there are real offsets in any negotiated agreement for the use of copper for FTTN and it may well be contained within the $11b Telstra will get under a Labor government anyway.
‘As Greenhill Caliburn warned in their 2011 audit of the all-fibre NBN, ROI is based on high takeup and high ARPU. Yet ARPU for FTTN is expected to be only $16. We already see higher-than-forecast takeup and ARPU of $38 for NBN fibre in regional Australia.’
First of all where did you get that expected to be $16 ARPU figure from, and let me give you the facts about Labor NBN Co ARPU figures and their revenue projections from 2010.
1. In the NBN Co 2010 Plan of which those consultants based their report ARPU was predicted to be $33, it was reduced to $20 in the 2012 Plan.
2.At the end of June 2012 gross revenue was $1.9m it was predicted to be $42m in the 2010 plan.
3.Premised passed at the end of June 2012 was 212,000, it was predicted to be 495,000 premises in the 2010 plan.
‘FTTN costs the same to build as FTTP,’
No it is not, just repeating the opposite of the facts over and over doesn’t make it fact, even after the 100th repetition.
‘ but returns lower revenues.’
What figures from overseas Telco’s that have both infrastructures available to their customers are you looking at that proves this is the case?
‘How on earth does this make economic sense?’
It doesn’t because your question is based on incorrect assumptions with a hefty injection of conjecture.
‘just repeating the opposite of the facts over and over doesn’t make it fact, even after the 100th repetition.’
A classical case of projection.
Hypocrite! You crucified us for using information and assumptions from the 2010 plan and named it of “redundant” and because we pointed out some of it is still useful you think that gives you a free pass to quote it without first adjusting it to account for changes?
So adjusting it is to ‘account for changes’ is it, here we are talking about the Coalition policy and their costings or lack of and having a grand old time Coalition bashing for their lack of accountability for the figures quoted, or not having any external analysis done before the election, but when a quite valid response is posted about Labor NBN Co figures and their moving targets by substantial amounts in their real world rollout it’s deemed out of bounds and hypocritical.
Any rollout of this magnitude Labor or Coalition will have its problems with figure predicting and getting the costing right, even while it is under way and even if you are in your second term of Government let alone before you are even in Government and your are the opposition.
But let’s not hold the Coalition to a special set of (Coalition bashing) boundaries on predicting costs whilst turning a blind eye to what did and is still happening to the Labor rollout in this area after six years of them trying to get it right.
No. Just no.
This isn’t about double standards. This is about comparing the data we have on one policy with the data we have on another.
If you want to bring obsolete data into this plan, how about we talk about how much the Coalition plan has changed in the last 3 years?
That’s not fair you say? Well stop being hypocritical and compare the two policies as they stand, here and now.
So let’s see what we can make of it seemingly devastating logic.
Labor has changed their estimation so the coalition shouldn’t have any costing because they may have to change it. Wrong.
Why? Because Labor had a detailed costing to begin with, which could be changed’ but if the opposition doesn’t have one. Why doesn’t it, it because more of the Coalition policies are more about aims and motherhood statements than about detailed policies. The real policies will have to wait for the many reviews and audits (hello Peter Costello) and you can be sure that all the revised policies will all begin with “Because of Labor….(insert bad news)”
I reckon the Coalitian should have there costings done by a catering firm, “O” I forgot they have already done that.
We may as well get the 30 billion and flush it down the toilet and then build ftth in 10 years anyway.
What a farce.
In response to the Parliamentary Budget Office’s being unable to cost the Coalition’s Broadband, Malcolm Turnbull has suggested the Coalition had provided enough detail in its policy documentation that third parties, such as the media, could analyse it for themselves.
As his promises about speed become more lavish, has he disclosed the number of nodes he has in mind so I can fill in the figure on the back of my envelope? If one assumes 400m to the node, there is a street full of houses in the next suburb set well back from the railway line that will mean there will have to be many nodes in that street to deliver on his ambitious promises. There are quite a lot of battle-axe blocks too.
In that Lateline debate, I’m fairly certain he said or implied that we’d get speeds of 100Mbps at 400m from the node (using technologies such as vectoring).
The Coalition policy is for a minimum of 25Mbps for all by 2016, and a minimum of 50Mbps for 90% of the footprint by 2019.
Voters are not going to be to concerned about vectoring issues and distances from Nodes to achieve a minimum of 100Mbps if 25Mbps or 50 Mbps is more than what they need anyway, and they determine getting off ADSL will be quicker under a Coalition.
I love the underlying assumption here that voters are capable of rational analysis in one factor (time to be moved off copper) but somehow are completely irrational in all other aspects of the policy.
You’re making unfounded assumptions of voter rationality. It would be better therefore to actually respond to the technical issues raised.
Actually I was partly basing that on a UK report where BT is really concerned that the takeup rate of their FTTP and FTTN products both at the BT retail and Openreach wholesale levels are quite low at around 10%.
Apparently too many UK residences are quite happy with ADSL2+ and are not moving, even at similar price points, they need to to look to Australia for a Labor Government ‘incentive program’, the program where you shut down the working ADSL system so they are forced onto FTTP because apparently ‘everyone needs it’.
That actually negates your argument! Majority of people are perfectly happy with the service they getting, so why should which product they can get “sooner” be a factor!
Yes I understand all of that, but it does provide an example of what could happen when you don’t shut the ADSL2+ choice, it was quite savvy for Labor to get Telstra and Optus to sign off on their working BB infrastructure shut down, but of course a few billions/millions being transferred into their bank accounts helped, they wouldn’t be doing it voluntarily.
.
Non sequitur.
Please explain how this relates to the topic were discussing, especially considering forced migration from DSL is part of BOTH plans?
fibroid said…
Yes I understand all of that, but it does provide an example of what could happen when you don’t shut the ADSL2+ choice, it was quite savvy for Labor to get Telstra and Optus to sign off on their working BB infrastructure shut down, but of course a few billions/millions being transferred into their bank accounts helped, they wouldn’t be doing it voluntarily.
Yes, it was a rather complex but well structured deal for both parties I believe.
NBNco wouldn’t have paid for the migration of existing Optus or Telstra Telstra if it wasn’t in their best interest. And that deal definitely was a good one for NBNco, it is revenue positive for NBNco. ie They are more from it than it cost them.
Telstra and Optus also get paid for customers they would have lost eventually, either through mortality or when they woke up to the advantages of the NBN.
Naturally Optus and Telstra wouldn’t have signed off on the deal if it wasn’t in the best interests of their shareholders as those responsible could have been jailed.
It looks like a cliched Win/Win deal to me.
Well if you follow the flow line back it was all about voters perception, if the UK experience can be translated to here residences and therefore voters in the main won’t care if they get Coalition FTTN or Labor FTTP (or even stay on ADSL2+).
Labor know this that’s why they keep emphasising ‘the decrepit copper’ and never mentioning the full correct term Fibre to the Node in any discussion of the Coalition policy infrastructure alternative, and if they can get away with the insinuation you have to pay $5000 to get off that decrepit copper under a Coalition government all the better.
So, in your opinion it doesn’t really matter about the policies, but what the common voter believes. Thanks, that’s what I have thought of the FTTN policy all along and confirms what I thought was your motivation.
Well it does matter what the common voter thinks because like it or not the NBN rollouts are political policy, the history of NBN voting is mixed, the first election in 2007 Labor had FTTN as their policy and won outright with a seat majority , Labor changed it to FTTP after they won, the second election in 2010 the Australian vote was split 50-50 straight down the line the result of which was a hung Parliament and interestingly in terms of actual NBN policy the Coalition had abysmally little, relative to what they have in 2013.
I’m not sure in that 2010 election what Coalition voters thought they were going to get re a NBN, perhaps they didn’t care? :)
So the result next month assuming Labor or Coalition get to govern in their own right with an outright seat majority without any help from the Greens or Independents to back them into Government will be the first time there will be a ‘voter endorsement’ as such of the two alternative NBN policies.
Fibroid please…
You have been given the information on many times relating to the Liberal Party’s own Peter Reith and Julian Leeser’s (iirc) post mortem of the 2010 election, where they spelled out the NBN cost seats, especially in Tasmania and had the Coalition had a viable broadband alternative to the NBN, this may not have been so.
Also, the Coalition had there worst outcome in Tassie in 40 years (iirc – again I don’t have all those screens open)
The Reith report said, people could see the positive reaction stemming from the NBN in Tasmania… (or similar words)
The Coalition admit the NBN was a factor (and have done something about it).. why can’t you accept it?
@Alex
I will help you out with your guessing, I have Delimiters archive articles continually scrolling on my third screen 24/7, here is the conclusion Reith reached about the NBN effect.
“Reith’s report stated that had the Coalition performed better on the broadband issue, it might have won the seat of Bass in Tasmania. “The post-election polling confirmed that the NBN was a major reinforcement for people to vote Labor in Bass. If we had negated NBN and offered, in a timely way, a decent Tasmanian package, Bass might have been a win instead of a loss,” the report states.”
http://delimiter.com.au/2011/07/19/nbn-helped-coalition-lose-2010-election/
So if the Coalition had offered a better package for Tasmania it MIGHT have been a win in a small rural seat instead of a loss, then again it might not.
Seriously… you are now going to childishly and nit-pickingly argue over the word MIGHT (also please don’t shout)?
…and ignore the rest of the review, by basically rejecting the Liberal Party’s own finding of the Liberal Party’s broadband electoral problems in 2010?
And others are warned for commenting irrationally…????
Anyway, perhaps you need another screen which shows the full transcript including the first part of the paragraph you copy/pasted, but intentionally omitted,…
1) As an aside, a number of commentators and others have said we might have won the election if we had won Lindsay in New South Wales (NSW). Maybe. But it could also be said about Bass.
*** there’s that word might again. might have won “the election”. There’s also a maybe in there too, if you need two words to argue over***
And what about this you omitted too…
2) “The failure to properly explain the Liberal Party’s broadband policy and the Labor Party’s effective scare campaign was a major cause of the Party’s failure to win seats in Tasmania.This was the nearly universal view of people making submissions to the review and is borne out by research undertaken by the Liberal Party.
***Note failure to win ‘seats’ – plural… (since you want to argue over one word)…
3) “The NBN provided jobs for Tasmanian contractors and it brought people to Tasmania from the mainland having flow on effects for Tasmania’s tourism, hospitality and service industries.”
*** Gee jobs, flow-ons in tourism etc, you never mentioned those did you? ***
Lastly…
4) “This Review was commissioned in the context of the Liberal Party’s worst federal electoral result in Tasmania in forty years. The swing away from the Party of 4.62% was the largest suffered in any State and the ensuing two Party preferred result of 61:39 reflects a want of confidence in the Party. The loss of a Senator and the inability to regain lower house seats, despite a national trend towards the Coalition, makes the identifying and remedying factors acting against electoral success in Tasmania an urgent priority.”
*** Is all of this coincidence Fibroid????
*unbelievable*
” if the UK experience can be translated to here”
But you have no evidence that it can.
” if the UK experience can be translated to here”
But you have no evidence that it can.
Hi there,
there is plenty of evidence that FTTN can be deployed in Australia along similar lines as the UK, starting with the fact that Telstra, which owns the copper network, has proposed it quite a few times over the years. I will tolerate no further discussion about whether it’s possible to deploy FTTN in Australia, as Telstra, and every telecommunications analyst and expert I have spoken to in a decade of technology journalism, agrees it is possible.
Can that network deliver to the speeds which the Coalition has promised? How many nodes will be required? Now those are matters for discussion. But not the possibility of the whole thing.
Rational discussion only, please.
Renai
“will be the first time there will be a ‘voter endorsement’ as such of the two alternative NBN policies.”
Going by the reasoning there was a ‘voter endorsement” last time for the current NBN. So, I see we change the nature of the beast in the middle of it. And what happen if next time Labor gets back, change it again and so on…?
In all seriousness, voters vote for a party and their overall policies, some they agree with and some they don’t. Whether you like it or not numerous studies (and please don’t ask me for references) have shown support for the current NBN.
When all you do is argue against, eventually you end up arguing against yourself…
Case in point: Fibroid.
Indeed Harimau…
Been there with a good ol’ boy, Libertarian over at ZD… seeing him bag the NBN 24/7 (never one good word about it or the government, ever). Then I note him saying one thing and in the next breath the complete opposite and when quizzed, firstly he disappears from the thread and reappears elsewhere. When again quizzed, he denies and by this time some weeks later, asks for copy/pastes (thinking they may not be found) and when they are supplied and clearly show very strange each-way bet? He cries personal attack, out of context, blah, blah… (sound familiar?)
I threw my hands in the air and said… what is the point of trying to rationally and meaningfully trying to correspond with this person, as did may others, when he isn’t interested in any POV other than his unmovable ideology…?
He is now doing exactly as you say over there and basically replying to his own comments.Which is sad for ZD, but hey, cest la vie…
Ooh and the best part, he probably believes he has won… *rolls eyes*
“the program where you shut down the working ADSL system so they are forced onto FTTP because apparently ‘everyone needs it’.”
It would obviously never occur to you that eventually the whole network needs to be replaced. Oh, I forgot, it should last another 100 years.
@ Fibroid…
…”the program where you shut down the working ADSL system so they are forced onto FTTP because apparently ‘everyone needs it’.”
Here we go ‘again’. So, I’ll ask once again…
If the Coalition win won’t they be shutting down (your words) the working ADSL and forcing people onto FttN?
Yes or no? It’s not a trick question…
…and yet again, no reply????
fibroid said…
“The Coalition policy is for a minimum of 25Mbps for all by 2016, and a minimum of 50Mbps for 90% of the footprint by 2019.”
That is an outright lie, plain and simple.
You claim to know what the LNP policy is and are correcting others that you believe misrepresent it, so you must know it yourself.
THe LNP policy is for a minimum of 25Mbps download by end of 2016, and for a minimum of 50Mbps download by end of 2019 for 90% of the fixed line footprint.
That is minimum of 50Mbps download for 83.7% (100 – 93*0.1 – 4.0 – 3.0) by 2020.
umm, I have looked at my statement on speeds and dates and I have looked at your statement on speeds and dates, the lie is what exactly?
Oh I see you bolded the lie, I usually do say’ fixed line’ and ‘end of’ because I usually have the Coalition policy on another screen or the NBN Co Corporate plan so I don’t misquote them, because I know many are zealously looking for the slightest error ‘to get me’ back on, even if it takes a week, I was on a tablet elsewhere so you got me, well done.
“I usually have the Coalition policy on another screen or the NBN Co Corporate plan…”
Seriously…?
*shrugs*
Read “I don’t have a life besides this”.
@fibroid…
If you usually quote it correctly then I apologise, but I was responding to your post here after reading you other posts chastising others of misinformation.
However I don’t think they are minor errors, the difference between “by 2016” and “by end of 2016” is twelve months.
Turnbull and the LNP are really emphasising the “built quicker” claim, so shaving 12 months off is a big deal and being challenged on it is not nit picking. Further more I see much (nearly all) of the media fail to recognise this issue relating to the timing.
Labor NBN completed by 2021 vs LNP NBN completed by 2020 (end of 2019) doesn’t look quite as fast does it?
If an incoming LNP was to switch to FTTN then that 12 months “advantage” could quickly evaporate if FTTN trials uncovered issues and/or the renegotiation of the Telstra agreement took longer.
My point was: I imagine installed nodes aren’t cheap. Malcolm keeps upgrading his network’s performance promises. Has he been upgrading his cost estimates? I remember Tony saying 10,000 to 20,000 nodes. Does he realise Malcolm’s promises are going to need a lot more? Will this be grounds for Tony saying: the deal off if it is going to take that many, we didn’t really need any of this stuff anyway?
I’m becoming increasingly convinced that Tony Abbott’s initial plan of “pausing” the NBN (allowing a future government to continue) is a better idea than Malcolm Turnbull’s current policy that will require a lot of retrofitting for the inevitable upgrade to FTTP and cost much more in consideration of that.
Just my opinion.
But honestly, Malcolm’s policy is built around planned obsolescence, while Labor’s (or rather, NBN Co’s) design is future-proof (not infinitely of course). Planned obsolescence is a stupid idea, and that’s not just my opinion.
I thought Malcolm had said it was “fully costed” already, so why not release it? I guess his idea of “fully costed” is different to everyone else’s?
So what fully costed and independent analysis was done on Labor policy when they were in opposition before the 2007election, you know the policy they changed anyway after they were voted in on that policy?
@ Fibroid,
“So what fully costed and independent analysis was done on Labor policy when they were in opposition before the 2007election…”
AFAIK none… (but I may be wrong as I don’t have other multiple screens open with all the info…lol)
Again you deflect from the now by saying, well if Labor did it way back when, then it’s ok for the Coalition now….
But you also keep telling us Labor are no good… so, what, it’s ok for the Coalition to, err, be no good too?
Of course, anyone can gloss over the actuals with childish… well he did it first logic…
But the obvious difference from the 2007 scenario and now being (apart from the Coalition now adopting FttN fraudband ;) the current opposition have criticised the NBN for not having performed, for example, a CBA and have indicated that unlike the current government and their mismanagement, they will be fully transparent.
However now just before an election, it seems these guarantees are all out the window, with MT already deciding his CBA which involves FttN with less benefits and almost the same government spend, is best and not to be so transparent after all…
But Labor did it in 2007, yes thank you :(
It’s probably too late to get a good accounting on it before the election, but it would still be nice to see a “Sanity check” on Malcolm’s numbers/assumptions regardless, might surprise everyone. Maybe Michael Berry’s idea might even get a look in :o)
Has the coalition applied the same assumptions to their policy that they applied to Labors policy when they came up with the 90 billion figure?That would be interesting to know.
The policy is not really costed. All MT has done is propose a cap just under Labor’s figure and trickily treble the cost of Labor’s policy and Bob’s your uncle. Didn’t he tell us that FTTN would be a third cheaper?
How could he possibly have costed his policy, he has no idea:
about the cost of the copper network.
about the number of nodes that will be required.
about the amount of remediation which will be needed.
how many premises with require FTTP.
whether Telstra will be prepared to open up access to HCF.
about which type technology will be used on the copper.
about the cost of powering the cabinets
about the cost of maintaining the copper.
There were a number of predictions made in the first NBN Co Business plan which I outlined here:
http://delimiter.com.au/2013/08/16/treasury-should-cost-coalition-nbn-policy-labor/#comment-620601
…. that proved to be incorrect, but you and others want the Coalition to be held to account before the election they might win while ignoring what is happening around you with the Labor rollout after a second term of Labor Government.
Please let your utter Labor hatred go Fibroid…
We (well i anyway) are NOT here to defend Labor and we accept the NBN has problems… do you understand?
We are here exclusively because spending $30.4B of government money on vastly superior FttP vs $29.4B for MT’s inferior, outdated, obsolete copper based FttN, means FttP is the obvious intelligent way to go.
By childishly repeating the same nonsense verbatim about us expecting more of the MT’s plan, when all we want are more details (details which aren’t forthcoming because they will simply prove FttN a stupid option) and referring constantly to Labor this and Labor that, to excuse the lack of actuals relating to an obvious inferior plan, does you no favours cred wise…IMO
Fibroid’s head office training is showing. I have noticed that every time Coalition’s MPs (and that includes their fearless leader) are asked a question, their reply always begins with “Well Labor…”. In fact, they spend more time talking about Labor’s policies than they do about their own. Not hard to wonder why?
There is no Head Office training, I have no association whatever with the Coalition party or Telstra, I just put a hopefully reasoned counter view to the avalanche of one sided Coalition policy criticism and the ‘all is good with the Labor FTTP rollout’ attitude that absolutely swamps any NBN discussions like this.
I know you would like my counters under the theme of let’s look at the Labor rollout in comparison relative to what you are saying about the Coalition to go away, but that’s not what a balanced discussion is all about, and that’s making a big call that my virtual solo effort is in any way construed as the ‘balance’.
“Balanced” discussion does not mean giving every point of view equal airtime. It means discussing things while being fair and rational.
You may not like the fact that the Coalition policy is full of holes, and is considered by the technical community to be the worse.
You may think that because we pick holes in the Coalition policy this implies we think the NBN is perfect.
But you would be wrong.
Why is it so difficult to understand that the “avalanche” of criticism may be justified? Countering this with one sided arguments does not redress the balance. Yes there are issues with NBNco and there will always be with a project of this magnitude but to constantly refer back to Labor’s policy to justify the Coalition’s shortcomings goes beyond balancing the debate, it is straight out of the Coalition’s textbook.
I have no doubt that should the Coalition be elected, they will begin to find out pretty quickly that doing is a lot harder than criticising. As for their plan, whether you like it or not, there will be many hurdles to be overcome and their claimed faster and cheaper solution will prove a great deal more difficult to achieve in practice.
I don’t have a problem with Coalition policy criticism being justified, but more often that not that is the problem, it is not justified, unless you take the sort of statement that their policy costing was done by a catering company for example as valid criticism.
But I take issue when the criticism is based on incorrect statements or assumptions about Coalition policy, incorrect statements or assumptions about what MT said, even incorrect statements about Labor NBN Co figures, and the head-in-the-sand attitude by many pro Labor NBN supporters about problems occurring nearly every month with the Labor rollout since the day it started and the continual adjustment to the costing and rollout figures in their dynamic Corporate plans, which seem to be becoming more frequent the further we get into the rollout.
You obviously don’t realise how biased your perception is. You don’t seem to be capable of discussing issues without being in terms of Labor/Coalition. There are many issues with the roll out that are independent of Labor. The fact, that you see yourself as the self appointed defender of the Coalition taints your perception and ironically you are guilty of the very things you criticise from those on this site who are strong Labor supporters. The point you repeatedly miss, however, is that many people, here, care about the policy, not which party introduced it. Just remember, however, that if it wasn’t for Labor, the Coalition would still not have the national broadband policy that it has. It would still be waiting for non structurally separated Testra to do something.
+100 from an ex Democrat Voter – Keep the Bastards Honest
Actions will always speak louder than words,
Which threads has Renai had to close down most often?
I strongly recommend you avoid the comparison of “Well Labor were allowed to do this last election!”
You seem to be making a huge assumption of readership here that we were happy with the tactics of delaying the business plan until after the election, and others made.
You seem to forget that at the 2010 election, and the 2007, we had to make a choice based upon the available information. We are doing the exact same thing in this election.
Turnbull has to fight off against an already underway policy here, not against what Labor did last election. So please, stop thinking that we’re being hypocritical and allowing one party liberties we aren’t allowing another, because you are greatly mistaken.
“Didn’t he tell us that FTTN would be a third cheaper?” That’s easy: you just multiply the cost of Fibre to the Copper by 3, make up a few assumptions and say that is what FTTP is going to cost.
And if NBNCo tries to dispute your figure, you twiddle your glasses and go into a huff.
“you and others want the Coalition to be held to account before the election”
Where do I say anything remotely close to that in my post? All I said was that the policy wasn’t and couldn’t be costed and gave many reasons why.
I understand your desire to be the proud defender of everything Coalition and of restoring what you perceive as balance to the debate but try to at least be relevant. If so, tell me why and where I am incorrect.
If anyone needs to cost the policy, it’s Telstra. They are the ones who know best how much cash the copper will take to remediate (including the asbestos) and they are the ones who know how much they will require to hand over their copper to the government.
They are in the best position to do so, yes. Why would they want to though? If the Coalition win then Telstra have a blank cheque.
Costing things now would only damage that for them – at least if they costed it correctly.
They cannot cost that until they get into Government, Telstra won’t want to hold formal contractual binding talks with a shadow Government that is in wannabe status, nor should they.
Huh? According to Turnbull the cost will cost nothing and the Telstra contract will not increase. Why can’t they cost and test this assumption?
First of all who is they here, the Coalition , PBO, Treasury or all of them?
Secondly where did MT say what you said he did?
“First of all who is they here, the Coalition , PBO, Treasury or all of them?”
The treasury, you know, what this article is about.
“Secondly where did MT say what you said he did?”
He has said the copper will cost him nothing over and over, don’t waste my time looking for a link. You know damn well he claims that.
Oh, there is no link, fair enough.
Fibroid, you and everyone else reading Delimiter knows of Turnbull’s claims that the copper will cost him nothing, that it’s already paid for, etc. I could go find one or two for you now, but I am not. It’s bad enough just wasting time replying to your trolling let alone wasting more time looking for a link to something that is common knowledge.
Here it is from Turnbull’s own lips. I’ll keep a link to this post for the next time you play dumb on the subject.
“LEIGH SALES: …I’m sure, but not everyone watching will read the background paper. I want to ask you how much of your funding are you allocating to buy or lease the copper network from Telstra?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: We’re not expecting to pay anything additional for Telstra’s copper.”
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3733411.htm
‘Fibroid, you and everyone else reading Delimiter knows of Turnbull’s claims that the copper will cost him nothing, that it’s already paid for, etc.’
But that’s not a statement that the copper ‘will cost him nothing’, he is saying the expectation is it won’t cost them anymore than the Labor Government are already paying Telstra for the copper (shutdown) in the $11b agreement, if the Coalition win next month there is still the contractual obligation that a Coalition Government will be stuck with to pay out the $11b, a substantial portion of that being for the shutdown of copper (and HFC BB) as the FTTP rollout progresses to the 90% footprint condition stipulated in the agreement.
Seriously, this is being nit-pickingly argumentative for no reason :(
Lionel initially said (copy/pasted below), as MT did…
“According to Turnbull the cost will cost nothing and the Telstra contract will not increase”
It could have been written more eloquently, but the gist is there… the Telstra contract will not increase (hence nothing ‘more’).
But please continue to argue that it’s 6 not half a dozen and then later, visa versa :/
“They cannot cost that until they get into Government”
That’s right. Therefore, they can’t and shouldn’t say they will do it cheaper. Nor can they cost the whole network because of all the unknowns I mentioned earlier.
So, their contention that they can do it cheaper and faster is based on the assumption that what has been done overseas can be done here. And that, in itself, opens up a whole new set of issues which need to evaluated.
+1
Indeed they can’t have it both ways…
“I will tolerate no further discussion about whether it’s possible to deploy FTTN in Australia”
That fine because I don’t recall ever suggesting that FTTN could not be deployed here. All I have ever pointed out is that there are many unknowns yet to be addressed. In this instance, my comment had nothing to do with the possibility of deploying FTTN. If you re-read the thread, you will find that I was mere replying to this point:
“Actually I was partly basing that on a UK report where BT is really concerned that the takeup rate of their FTTP and FTTN products both at the BT retail and Openreach wholesale levels are quite low at around 10%.
Apparently too many UK residences are quite happy with ADSL2+ and are not moving, even at similar price points”
And to this point which related to the previous point:
“if the UK experience can be translated to here”
So, I think my comment was quite legitimate given that the evidence so far points to a higher take up rate in Australia.
i loved the first two lines from the related itN story
“Turnbull’s NBN policy ‘detailed enough’ to escape costing”
“Sees no value-add from independent financial analysis.”
this from the man breathlessly rabbiting on for a CBA……. for various reasons but it seems among them the suggestion that FTTH is too complex and costs too much? and now he wants to say the PBO isnt equipped to do these – evidently no-value added – financial analyses anyway?
i think he should field it to Treasury too, but on the reading above i think hes more likely to say no. after all if theres no value to the PBO look, what difference if its Treasury? and the time Treasury would take would start to tweak that ‘faster’ part of their mantra like i mentioned last thread – and i get the distinct impression they are less likey to extend any look to get better data than they are to take a quick glance and run with it.
so i agree with Renais opinion; i just dont think it will happen.
The problem with the proposal for Treasury to cost anyones NBN policy is exactly the same as the problem with almost all the posters on this and every other site that discusses the NBN – the skillset required to analyze competing proposals is beyond all but a handful of Australians, and non-existent in Treasury. There are perhaps 1-200 of us with enough years of building and pricing FTTH and FTTN to even comment with authority on the relative merits of both. The comments on websites like this are about as qualified as those of an untrained observer watching brain surgery – you may have a logical view of whether is better to use a scalpel or a laser to cut but without real experience in surgery your logic is worthless. . The entire NBN debate on the internet is embarrassingly uninformed, yet full of posters with the righteous belief that they know enough about building Fibre and copper networks to make a valid comment. Astonishingly there are still posters here that believe in the idea of “Fibre good, copper bad!!!!” No professional in the field agrees with this stupidity. You should all be aware that people that work in the field think unqualified people with views on the NBN are a pathetic joke. AS IF you could really know what the relative merits of national FTTH Vs FTTN are! I designed and priced an ENTIRE CITY in both FTTH and FTTN and dont have the hubris to say I know
You think it wise to antagonise people on the Internet?
You have said nothing here except insult a large portion of the readership of this website and make an unfounded, and unverified, assertions that analysing the project is beyond everything except a “select few with enough years of building and pricing to comment with authority.”
Worse still, you think that we will take someone seriously who hides behind anonymity while simultaneously pretending to be someone in authority? If you want to your comment to be taken at all seriously, might I suggest you put something of a bit more substance than just an unfounded rant accusing us of trying to punch above our weight.
And at the very least, might I suggest investing in paragraphs?
+1
hey Fibre Builder,
keep it polite, as per Delimiter’s comments policy, or I will ban you from commenting.
http://delimiter.com.au/comments-policy/
Cheers,
Renai
If treasury costs the coalition version of the NBN and finds the costs are going to be higher, where does that leave the ALP NBN considering the significant higher manpower/labor required ? Its amusing for the the ALP and associated supporters of the ALP NBN to suggest that when considering the small difference in costs between it and the coalition version, then why not have the ALP version. The problem is that considering the difference in size of projects then either the coalition plan has been costed too high or the ALP project far too low. I agree that $90B sounds high but if anyone thinks it will come in anywhere near original budget then they are even more delusional than Turnbull.
Amongst many other factors…
Us supporters of the Labor NBN also consider the added (short term) costs of FttP are offset by the fact that Australia will be benefiting by replacing outmoded and obsolete (copper) technologies and becoming future ready. Something which seems to be lost on the Conservative Broadband Plan fans.
Rather than simply relying on what’s there, which belongs to a private company anyway, because it’s marginally (govt spend wise according to the actual figures we have in front of us… so, sans conjecture) cheaper in the short term…
“Something which seems to be lost on the Conservative Broadband Plan fans”
Why ? Essential services (ie government services), businesses and new housing estates will have same connection FTTH as with the ALP NBN. I have yet to hear of any evidence that wholescale residential FTTH is either cost effective or somehow provide economic benefits. I understand the reason why 100mbit is more tempting than 25 or 50mbit or even 1000mbit more tempting than 100mbit but for most residential properties the difference will be miniscule at best. Obviously this site draws a specific demographic where giving everyone mega speeds is necessary so that the much lower proportion of those that actually need it (or those that are very vocal about it) can justify it. My worry is that the whole FTTH vs FTTN argument has been hijacked by a vocal minority engaged in black and white rhetoric rather than the the legitimate discussion regarding a mix of technologies used in a cost effective fashion (rather than shooting a grape with a sawn-off shotgun).
Ultimately, the ALP NBN has failed many of its milestones (unless you think reaching a heavily revised revision of a revision is a win) and that WILL impact the costs of the project, the projected income from the project and the ultimate costs to the taxpayer (if the delays keep on eating away at revenue and low uptake limits income). The original business plan is as good as useless and it will be interesting to see what the updated plan will reveal but I doubt the ALP or NBN Corp have the guts to release before the election.
You haven’t been paying that much attention to the debate have you? The benefits are clear, the revised Coalition policy that came out at the start of this year proves this. Their plan costs Australia almost as much as the current NBN ($900m in taxpayer backed funding if you believe their estimates).
Interestingly enough if you obvious the majority of arguements that are undertaken in this forum alone you would note that almost everyone here agrees with you in this. Except, interestingly enough, the rhetotic isn’t, as you imply, one technology is better than the other, but is in fact: which one will be most cost effective to the country in the long term and relies on the least amount of assumptions.
The plan that, interestingly, fits the bill for this, from the current two offered, is actually the NBN.
It already has. Or haven’t you seen the differences between the 2010 and 2012 plan? There probably will be further changes between the 2012 and 2013 plan considering the whole contractor issue throwing off estimates.
What low update are you referring too?
Wrong, the orignal business plan is not “useless”, it merely has had some of it’s assumptions proved incorrect. If you are aware of what these assumptions are, you can account from them.
You don’t throw away the results of your first batch of scientific experiments just because you realised your testing method was flawed. You limit the usefulness of that data to account for the flawed testing method, but throwing it away will waste lots of time and ultimately money you had sunk into that experiment.
The same applies with business plans, feasibility studies, and all other documentation to the NBN. It’s usefulness is impaired, it is not however non existent.
“The benefits are clear”
Just saying that does not make it so. Please provide evidence that connecting 93% of residential properties by fibre is cost effective and will have the benefit economically that is being bandied around.
“What low update are you referring too?”
Low uptake. Part of the business plan is that the NBN is being built at a certain timeframe and that it will start paying for itself (I can’t remember if it was 6 years after the start). Continued delays and low user uptake will impact the project budget possibly meaning more $$$ tax dollars and a far longer time to be paid off.
I could have made it more clear, so please next time you don’t understand, ask for clarification, don’t respond to what you thought I said.
This is moving the goal posts. Instead of asking me to justify the differences ($900m) of government backed portion of the policy coupled with the viability of the business plan you have asked me to justify the plan to bring high speed Broadband to Australia as a whole.
If you want to have that debate you’re about 2 years late. High speed Broadband to the home has both major parties support. They just disagree on how to do it.
Once you acknowledge this we can continue with a rational debate on the cost differences or you can join one of the many on Delimiter.
Yes we all know the consequences of low uptake; but again: what low uptake? I find it interesting that while you were moving the goal posts above you asked me for evidence and here when you make an unfounded preposition… Well, the pot calling the kettle…
@Morpheus.
Yet another who demands evidence, really? Is your antiquated copper based broadband so average that you are unable to connect to Google and educate yourself on the benefits? ;)
And once again another, totally ignoring my comment about replacing outmoded technology…
Remember as that dreaded Labor guy mocked, those iron wires were good enough according to some, when the iron/copper debate was occurring about 100 years ago too. And the irony (pun intended)? If it wasn’t for those back when arguing with those like you that iron isn’t good enough, you wouldn’t even have the copper you now laud and depend upon now, would you?
Anyway, after ignoring the technological advancement/retiring of obsolete copper part of my comment, the standard anti-NBN spiel then ensued… But it’s a spiel we’ve all heard before from another mainstay naysayer here Morpheus, including the loaded questions almost word for word.
We both know that even though we could supply all the evidence under the sun, demonstrating analysis showing the benefits, none of it would ever be able to snuggly fit within your carefully worded criteria/question, would it?
Also, if like our other friend you appear to imitate, once the evidence was clear that there are estimated benefits, you would argue that they are only estimations anyway, not actuals (yes, although analysis can clearly show the probabilities of future benefits, no one can ‘categorically prove’ the actuals of something that doesn’t exist yet can they?).
But can you disprove the benefits… ? Denying there will be benefits, doesn’t mean they won’t exist. But the evidence certainly suggest there will be benefits… whether you wish to open the eyes and see them (or even just consider the possibility) is your prerogative.
So, provide evidence that connecting 93 % to FttP, is not cost effective and beneficial. Note beneficial does ‘not’ need to be purely financial…
BTW – no it wasn’t 6 years after the start, ‘so invalid comment’. The current FttP NBN we are all discussing, was announced in April 2009. Also our income taxes (which I guess is your inference) aren’t being used to fund the current FttP NBN… so one’s credibility and agenda are already very questionable, IMO :/
As such, “ultimately the ALP has failed”… I think rightly or wrongly, is really all you wanted to convey here, thank you.
Oops please let me rephrase my question Morpheus, by simply adding the word ‘not …’
So, provide evidence that connecting 93 % to FttP, is not cost effective and ‘not’ beneficial….
My apology for any ambiguity.
“You don’t throw away the results of your first batch of scientific experiments just because you realised your testing method was flawed”
The NBN is now a $44B experiment ?
That was an analogy. Please don’t engage in Strawmen.
A very bad analogy where you are trying to excuse the massive fails of the NBN as some minor infraction because they were testing the waters.
Massive fails? More of the same word for word rhetoric and scaremongering used by the naysayers.
Sure there are NBN problems, but surely even the most conservative of conservative naysayers can surely understand the biggest infrastructure build in our history ‘will’ encounter problems…
Nope, it was an analogy for something where you use old (obsolete) data while accounting for changes made, nothing more.
As I said: please don’t argue a Strawman.
Excellent. So no evidence whatsoever except lots of keyboard scrambling to justify something YOU think should happen. The coalition have rightly said that MANDATORY connection of essential connection of pretty much most residential homes is NOT cost effective hence the FTTN rather than home so don’t play the “but the coalition are doing the same”.
I am glad we had this discussion. Seems my suspicions were right about ideology driven policy support and the needs (or should I say wants) of the few. Still think only an absolute moron still believes that the difference in cost is what the government says and defends it feverishly without any possible though of anything else. But hey, we won’t know until 2021 when the ALP NBN is probably still waiting for the ducts to be free of asbestos.
If the ducts will be so full of asbestos they will significantly delay the rollout, that will delay 99% of the FTTN network as well. Because it will be based on the same fibre backhaul. The short copper runs to the last 500m (which, remember, will be the maximum length of copper runs – for some people they will have less than 10m of copper) reside in ducts that are quite frequently accessed, so if there was asbestos in those it would have been replaced years ago.
‘ reside in ducts that are quite frequently accessed, so if there was asbestos in those it would have been replaced years ago.’
Really? what evidence have you that the shortened copper run between the pillar and the residence is ‘quite frequently accessed’, so therefore the asbestos’ would have been replaced years ago’.
Line fault checking at the pillar back to the exchange and on the other side to the residence or in the nearest access pit to a residence (if that is required, it may not be) is not the same as a new fibre pull through in that ducting to the residents wall and in it certainly does not mean you can draw the fanciful conclusion ‘that will delay 99% of the FTTN network as well’.
No, it doesn’t. But when you consider the size of the copper network, the proportion of ‘last mile’ that will cover that maximum 500m run to a Node (the vast majority of which must necessarily be much shorter), the time period when asbestos use would have actually been used (which eliminates huge swathes of the network deployed both before and after that period) and the amount of lastmile that Turnbull has stated will be tested and repaired or replaced if found to be incapable of supporting the minimum performance guaranteed under his policy, I think 99% of ducting including asbestos will affect both network rollouts in equal measure will prove to be a generous estimate.
But testing of the network for FTTN support doesn’t require you to pull all the copper out of the ducting to the surface and look at the copper metre by metre with a magnifying glass, in the same way determining where a current PSTN/ADSL line fault occurs requires you to pull up the copper out on the footpath from the ducts between the residence and their pillar link to physically see where a break or weak joint is.
If you detect a fault and there are no spare lines it does however.
” Still think only an absolute moron still believes that the difference in cost is what the government says and defends it feverishly without any possible though of anything else.”
Renai
Surely, that would not qualify as polite discussion.
Oh, so because the “Coalition have said it” that makes it true now does it? Newsflash: politicans decieve their constituents. This doesn’t apply to just Labor, or just just the Coalition, it applies to all politcians.
From the published policy Coalition intend to make a mandatorly upgrade part of the FTTN the fixed line footprint. This upgrade, in order to be technically effective, requires all connections to be upgraded to the VDSL2 standard in order to allow a technology, called vectoring, to mitigate cross talk, and according to the plan this will be done by 2019. This will allow speeds of 50Mbps claims the policy document.
Further, if you had been paying attention to the debate you would know that FTTN is only most cost effective compared to FTTP when 1) the provider can leverage off their existing copper asset (which does not automatically apply to NBNCo since they need to acquire the copper from Telstra, when 2) the population density is high enough (which does not apply to everywhere the FTTN network is planning to be installed) and 3) when the network is of high enough quality (which is a major issue of contention and often discussed).
As the Coalition cannot be assured that all 3 of these conditions actually apply to their plan, this adds significant risk. Risks that when Turnbull is confronted with he has repeatively dimissed. That means either he knows something we don’t, and isn’t sharing (either because he has signed an NDA or because it isn’t favouralbe) or he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to be seen as not knowing.
We are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt through, and when we do, the economic cases for FTTN and FTTH end up being so similar that we, yes, based upon our bias as technologists, opt for the better plan, but not, as you claim, because we value that above all else.
The Coalition will also be adversely affected by any asbesto related delays, asbestos isn’t a NBN unique problem. It’s just the NBN will touch more of the ducting footprint than the alternative.
Add that to the fact that Telstra have a remederation plan underway and have been meeting their stated milestones for that and I don’t think this is going be that much of a signifcant problem as you are implying.
I too am glad we had this dicussion. Can I assume that you believe this discussion to be over? :)
That sentiment applies to the opposition’s assertions as well.
@NightKhaos
‘Further, if you had been paying attention to the debate you would know that FTTN is only most cost effective compared to FTTP when 1) the provider can leverage off their existing copper asset (which does not automatically apply to NBNCo since they need to acquire the copper from Telstra’
That’s the one sided pro Labor FTTP debate part of the debate, a balanced attention to the debate based on overseas evidence would say that FTTN is cheaper to rollout and faster, the anti-Coalition view is based on a somewhat desperate and often repeated conjecture that a Coalition NBN Co will have to pay a hell of lot more than the current $11b Telstra/NBN Co agreement part of which is for shutdown of copper and HFC BB.
As we are looking at comparative funding requirements of $44.1b vs $29.5b a hell of a lot more it certainly is.
‘, when 2) the population density is high enough (which does not apply to everywhere the FTTN network is planning to be installed) and 3) when the network is of high enough quality (which is a major issue of contention and often discussed).’
umm what? what has population density got to do with the FTTN choice as infrastructure vs FTTP?
‘As the Coalition cannot be assured that all 3 of these conditions actually apply to their plan, this adds significant risk.’
There are significant risks in the Labor rollout, some of those risks have come into reality like FTTP has taken longer to rollout, revenue projections have been cut back, ARPU projections have been cut back, plus all the Risks detailed in that category in the 2012-2015 Corporate plan.
‘ Risks that when Turnbull is confronted with he has repeatively dimissed’
Risks firmly placed under the heading of Conjecture Risks by pro Labor FTTP supporters can be dismissed easily.
‘ the economic cases for FTTN and FTTH end up being so similar that we’
The economic case is not similar, FTTN is cheaper to rollout than FTTP – fact.
‘ It’s just the NBN will touch more of the ducting footprint than the alternative’
Which delays construction, furthering the case for FTTN as being cheaper and faster.
The problem with the FttN argment is, you guys only factor the bits that fit your narrow argument… and ignore the big picture.
Yes $44B is more than $29B (shh don’t mention the government spends though)…
FttN is quicker to implement (just ignore we don’t own the copper and FttP will be needed ((according to the laws which have been right so far)) and shh don’t factor that FttP is already being rolled out).
There’s no benefits to FttP (shh I know they say there will be but they can’t prove it because they haven’t happened yet, brilliant)
Newsflash: Coppr is obsolete it has been superseded by fibre (shh the iron, oops copper is fine)… sure it can be used, but it is dumb to do so, especially at $30B ish…
Seriously I throw my hands in the air at either the selective pedantics and or political subservience, which would compel anyone to keep arguing 24/7, in such an irrational fashion :/
No it’s a legitimate concern that has yet to be refuted.
No, a balanced point of view considers all facts available from the debate like only incumbents are doing FTTN because they can leverage off their assets.
Says you, with no supoorting evidence. You’ll note my wording, the words “does not automatically apply” meaning “pending negotiations with Telstra”, and then further note it was 1 of 3 independent issues.
Your argument doesn’t have a leg to stand on here. So please, stop repeating it everytime someone brings up this elephant in the room you and Turnbull are happy to ignore.
It’s a legitimate unaddressed criticism of the plan. And complaining everytime someone brings it up does not negate this fact.
Except the RTF isn’t the significant bit here, the government backed contribution is, or have you forgotten that the NBN plans to self fund part of the project under the current plan?
Everything. The lower the population density the less existing copper you can leverage.
I would think someone as informed as you would know this.
The fact that they’re detailed is the important thing, this means NBNCo are aware of these risks.
Nope. They can’t. Not without proving they have no validity. Something neither you, nor Turnbull, has actually done.
1) I said similar, not identical. Learn the difference.
2) Only in certain circumstances, not always.
Not significantly enough to tip the balance into FTTNs favour through.
@NightKhaos
‘No, a balanced point of view considers all facts available from the debate like only incumbents are doing FTTN because they can leverage off their assets.’
So if the NBN Co owns or leases that asset it can also leverage off their asset also, more importantly can you quantify what leverage means here in $$$, or is it some nebulous figure that no one can really determine the value of at all, let alone determine if it has any significance whatever in a Coalition NBN Co FTTN rollout using Telstra copper.
‘Your argument doesn’t have a leg to stand on here. So please, stop repeating it everytime someone brings up this elephant in the room you and Turnbull are happy to ignore.’
Conjecture criticism is not the ‘elephant in the room’.
‘It’s a legitimate unaddressed criticism of the plan. And complaining everytime someone brings it up does not negate this fact.’
Conjecture criticism is easy to make but on the other hand it is also very easy to dismiss.
‘Except the RTF isn’t the significant bit here, the government backed contribution is, or have you forgotten that the NBN plans to self fund part of the project under the current plan?’
The RTF isn’t insignificant just because you NK don’t want it to be, independent analysts comparing both plans use those figures all the time.
‘Everything. The lower the population density the less existing copper you can leverage.’
So what figures have you got that show that FTTN costs more to rollout in low population density areas and that FTTP rollouts in low population areas are therefore more economic?
‘The fact that they’re detailed is the important thing, this means NBNCo are aware of these risks.’
Oh I see, the point is both types of rollouts have risks, to say FTTN has more risks than FTTP when in many cases the same sort of risks are shared, is total conjecture.
‘ Nope. They can’t. Not without proving they have no validity. Something neither you, nor Turnbull, has actually done.’
So you put forward FTTN risks in the category of conjecture and it is up to any counter argument to prove it’s not conjecture, and if they can’t it is therefore not conjecture I take it?
‘2) Only in certain circumstances, not always.’
In what evidenced based circumstances is FTTP cheaper (and faster) to rollout than FTTN?
‘Not significantly enough to tip the balance into FTTNs favour through.’
As we are not rolling out FTTN yet your ‘not significantly’ statement sits firmly in that increasing long NK conjecture list.
First of all Fibroid: I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Conjecture is making a claim without proving it.
That’s it. That’s all it means. It doesn’t invalidate the claim, it simply means that it isn’t, or can’t be, proven.
You can’t dismiss conjecture simply because it is conjecture, through that is often done when the claim is outlandish or deliriously stupid. Mathematics therefore has a striker definition: a conjecture is an unproven proposition that appears correct.
Therefore, a conjecture often has supporting evidence, but not enough to prove the proposition.
The way to deal with conjecture is to disprove it. You cannot counter conjecture with more conjecture, or dismiss the argument because it is conjecture, you have to invalidate the unsolved proof.
For example: All apples sold in Australia cost more than $1 each is a conjecture. To prove it, one would have to find all the apples being sold in Australia. To disprove it, however, is much easier, you need only find one apple that costs less than or exactly $1.
What isn’t a valid argument is “We can’t possibly know the cost of every Apple in Australia”. All you have done by saying that is prove that the proposition is unprovable, i.e. conjecture. You have not made the claim invalid, or wrong.
With that in mind:
Of course you can quantify it. I’m not going to do it here because it involves fiddly maths and some of the figures required are hard to source, or we don’t know yet, but in essence it’s the using the CAN which has a low book cost to decrease the required equity input into the project, for similar outcomes as doing a full FTTH rollout.
In other words, while the asset value of a completed FTTH and FTTN are equal (they’re not as FTTH is more flexible, but for the moment we’ll assume they are and leave comparing the different valued projects as an exercise for a CBA) the leverage here is simply the value of the completed network over the input equity.
In other words, in this simplified example, while the required total funding (yes, RTF) of the FTTN is less than the RTF of FTTH, it makes more sense to deploy FTTN.
However, as stated, a completed FTTH network’s value is higher than a completed FTTN network. This is because of a few factors like maintenance of a completed FTTN network being higher, reduced flexibility, impaired upgradablity, FTTN has a lower expected ARPU than FTTH, etc, etc. A full list of disadvantages has no doubt been posted at some point.
It is when it could possibly have a tangible impact on your assumptions if proven. Which, sadly, conjecture about the CAN network requiring additional funding to Telstra to utilise, does. See above explanation of what Conjecture actually means.
Yes, it is easy to dismiss! Provide a counter argument! Oh… wait… you can’t counter this particular conjecture because you don’t know either, i.e. you’re fighting conjecture with conjecture? Hmm… that is a pickle.
So, who’s more “right then”… well… neither of us. We have to make “conditional arguments”… which you’ll note I have been doing.
Actually, it entirely depends on how you’re comparing it. Most of the time when you’re comparing it, you should actually be comparing the government contributions. Why? Because you’re discussing the impact to the taxpayer, or more precisely, the risk the taxpayer has to undertake.
If you were doing a CBA between the two plans you would compare the RTF, but you’re not. You’ll see above when I was talking about leverage I did refer to the RTF. I do, therefore, consider the difference between RTFs significant, but only in context where comparing RTF is appropriate.
You see, the RTF of the NBN may be higher, but it also has a higher ARPU which means it has a higher capability to pay for itself. Of note: discussion of the ARPU is another appropriate place to look at RTF.
I hope that cleared that up for you. I wasn’t picking the government contributions because it sounded better, I was picking it because it was the appropriate figure to look at.
That’s a strawman, I didn’t say FTTP was more economic, I said you could leverage less. Meaning the investment you have to put in to bring the FTTN network up to a standard will be more in a rural area than in a higher population density area. Why? Because you’ll need more nodes per capita. This is a trivial assertion, and the basis behind “cherry picking”.
This is again a strawman. I specifically said, and gave specific examples, of unexplored risks to the Coalition Broadband Plan. I did not say that the Coalition has more risks than the NBN. As you have rightly pointed out, they have a lot of shared risks, and I would argue that the NBN has more exposure in some areas.
Okay, I’ll take the extreme example: no existing CAN to leverage.
“That’s a little unfair! That’s not what I meant!” you retort.
Okay, okay… the FTTN network is in such disrepair that it will require remediation of a significant portion of the lines in that area.
“You mean like Turnbull is planing to do in areas with bad copper?” you say.
Yes, exactly. So you see why saying the blanket statement “FTTN are is cheaper and faster” is bad? Good. :)
Here is some supporting evidence for FTTN in the FTTN vs FTTP debate as most anti-Coalition argument is based on conjecture and arguing in conjecture circles, let’s look at what is happening in the real world.
” But sources within the industry say that the catalysts that should tilt the seesaw toward FTTH have begun to spur interest in partially optical approaches such as fiber to the node (FTTN) and fiber to the cabinet (FTTC), thanks to recent and upcoming performance advances that improve copper’s ability to transmit high-speed services. As a result, all agree that FTTH is the future of fixed broadband access – but that future may not be as close as some would like.”
“A new network is expensive. If you take an existing ADSL2 network as a baseline, providing services via a new FTTH infrastructure entails a 15X cost increase, Vanhastel estimates.
An FTTH network rollout is also time consuming. That’s particularly true if you’re doing it on a national scale in response to a government-mandated broadband services initiative. “If you want to cover an entire country with fiber to the home, you’re easily looking at 10 to 20 years, depending upon how aggressive you are,” Vanhastel says. That puts carriers facing a deadline of 2020 – the target for the European Union’s Digital Agenda and the Federal Communications Commission’s national broadband plan – on a tight, if not impossible, deadline. ”
“Nevertheless, the appeal of a lower price tag – the 5X premium for vectored VDSL2 is a third of FTTH’s cost, Vanhastel points out – and simplified, speedier rollout has caught the attention of carriers worldwide. Nearly 70% of the broadbandtrends.com survey respondents report that they are in trial or actively deploying VDSL2 vectoring technology (see “Survey confirms operator demand for VDSL2 vectoring” on http://www.lightwaveonline.com for more info)
And it’s not just confirmed FTTN/FTTC proponents such as AT&T, Belgacom, and Deutsche Telekom that might embrace VDSL2 and vectoring. “We also see a lot of interest in vectoring and copper technologies from operators with a clear fiber to the home strategy. And that was a bit surprising for us,” Vanhastel says.”
“The killer app [for FTTH] kind of disappeared because copper caught up,” summarizes Rob Mertz, access business manager, Communication Markets Division, 3M, another company that has its fingers in both FTTH and FTTN.”
It’s a excellent and informative read.
http://www.lightwaveonline.com/articles/print/volume-30/issue-4/cover-story/will-fttn-advances-delay-ftth.html
.
@Fibroid
And here’s a counter one. That actually comes from an industry expert, here, in Australia:
http://simonhackett.com/2013/04/09/cd-syd-2013-problem-with-fttn/
:)
@Seven_tech
That’s a 100% counter to all the statements, technical and economic in that linked article from a number of sources involved for many years in rolling out FTTP and and FTTN infrastructures in many countries in the world is it?
Really?
I especially like this pertinent comment for here in Australia:
“An FTTH network rollout is also time consuming. That’s particularly true if you’re doing it on a national scale in response to a government-mandated broadband services initiative. “If you want to cover an entire country with fiber to the home, you’re easily looking at 10 to 20 years,”
Just as well there are no delays in the FTTH rollout here and it’s all going as per plan? (of course that depends which amended plan you are looking at) – because a FTTH rollout takes a hell of a long time and costs a shit load $$$ that adds to our increasing Budget deficit, you know that figure Labor predicted would be $18b in the May Budget and was already at $30b two months later.
@Fibroid
Where did I say it countered that article point-for-point? I said it was a counter. As in, a counter argument to yours. Not that it was a bullet point presentation that followed the article word-for-word.
Look Fibroid, NightKhaos has gone over and over the fact that you keep using the word “conjecture” and therefore assuming that you’re winning the “argument” because we can’t counter on the idea that it’s conjecture. Conjecture is, inherently easy to argue against. You only have to find one opposing point of view on your exact subject that shows categorically that you’re wrong and its’ dust. But guess what? Almost all the points people who oppose the Coalition’s policy put on here are inherently unable to be disproven, or proven, because it hasn’t happened here.
Is FTTN faster to deploy- yes. Is FTTN faster to deploy in Australia, under the conditions we have (including, but not limited to, the state of the copper, negotiations with Telstra, changes to NBNCo. and regulations…)- conjecture. Either way.
Is FTTN cheaper to deploy than FTTH and does it take less time to do so- yes. Is FTTN, the way the Coalition wants to deploy it (to 71%) cheaper and faster to deploy in Australia than FTTH, with our current conditions- conjecture. Either way.
Is FTTN able to provide a minimum of 25Mbps at 400m- yes. Is FTTN able to provide a minimum of 25Mbps in Australia, under our current conditions- conjecture. Either way.
I could go on and on. The point is, you are arguing against conjecture….with conjecture. In that stalemate, nobody wins.
What do we actually know?
Some portion of Telstra’s copper will have to be remediated to perform to the Coalition’s requirements. It is conjecture what portion that is. Anecdotal evidence suggests a minimum of 10%. Slightly higher than Turnbull has allowed for in his “conservative” estimates.
Negotiations between NBNCo. and Telstra, as well as the rest of the industry for the SAU, will have to take place. It is conjecture how long it will take. However, we have past precedence with this which suggests it will not be a short process.
FTTN is highly dependent on the length of the copper to provide for a minimum speed on a line. This will require line testing of every “last mile” before or during cutover (I’d suggest before, otherwise, you’ve wasted an appointment for cutover) which must be done on every line at the point of cutover. I am not up on the details of a speed test of a line. I’m not sure Telstra even know how to do that. They test for a minimum/maximum impedance and a return voltage test. That does not guarantee a speed on copper afaik. Especially with the “high” voltage test they do artificially inflating the coppers instantaneous capacity. All of this boils down to one thing- FTTN is distance dependent and will automatically limit possible revenue intake by its’ nature. That is fact. There will always be some portion on a lower speed that want a higher speed and cannot have it….and no, FoD doesn’t count. Without even getting into whether its’ feasible, which, I believe, even Renai doesn’t believe it is under a Coalition policy, FoD will be far beyond what most are willing to pay for faster internet.
FTTH is not dependent on distance for speed. Fullstop. If a connection works, it can receive 1000Mbps if required. If it does not, it does not and must be repaired. It has, therefore, no impediment to revenue uptake.
FTTH is between 4 and 5 times cheaper to run than FTTN- OPEX. The article here on Delimiter showed this to be the case the other day and it is an industry wide understanding fibre is cheaper, by several times, to maintain, because of its’ inherent inertness to environment and passive nature. Fibre networks are therefore cheaper in ongoing OPEX.
When you put these points together, what you get is a picture of FTTN that is nowhere near as rosy as Turnbull likes to paint. Is it possible? Certainly. And would it bring a substantial upgrade in speeds to many, if not most Australians? Without doubt. But will it be, with reasonable certainty, 2 years faster, more affordable to Australians, give greater choice in product, provide for speed requirements long enough to cover the cost of its’ capital and be $900 million cheaper to government? Nope. There’s no way to prove that. Certainly not with Turnbull’s numbers.
The fact is, we’re left with 2 choices- an NBN rollout which is, by own admission, behind schedule by 6 months, but on-budget and finish between 2021 and 2023 at this rate. Or a rollout which may or may not begin by the end of next year and may or may not cost less and may or may not finish by 2019.
Choice 1 has us waiting potentially 3-4 more years, at worst and paying $2-3 billion more, at worst (us as in the government…you know, the whole “We the people” thing) and 93% of it lasting an estimated minimum 30 years. Choice 2 has us seeing a 3-4 year possible faster rollout at best, for $1-2 billion less at best and lasting, perhaps, 10 years at best. Whereby it will need to be replaced, at a not insubstantial cost and well beyond any return it will have made, by FTTH.
Do you see the difference? “Worst”, “minimum” and “possib;e” “best”. One is conservative. One isn’t. And it isn’t the way you’d like to think.
Either way, this election we get an upgrade to our telecoms infrastructure that has been lacking for over a decade. Which one you think will be the most cost-effective in the long run and provide the greatest benefit to society is your choice to decide on. There is evidence for both. But there is more, evidence, in my eyes, for the NBN. Considerably more.
Err, no. FTTH doesn’t contribute to the budget deficit. If you have a problem with the budget deficit, the LNP FTTN network is what you should have a problem with, because that is the one that carries the most risk if being an on-budget expense that will increase the deficit, that is the one with lower revenue and higher operating expenses that will be lucky to have positive ROI at all, and without positive ROI you have no revenue generating investment and thus no off-budget treatment.
umm what? what has population density got to do with the FTTN choice as infrastructure vs FTTP?
wow, you’ve been on Delimiter for so long and you still don’t understand the basics….
Explain how the basics works in that argument.
Be as cute as you like about it, we’ve been over this many times ;o)
Nothing to do with being cute, I don’t recall being over this many times at all, if you don’t have anything else other than the meaningless throwaway line ‘you still don’t understand the basics’ , just say so.
Hi Fibroid, I am just going to answer this one point:
“umm what? what has population density got to do with the FTTN choice as infrastructure vs FTTP?”
A higher density area will have more houses within the speed targets of your FTTN deployment.
Therefore, a lower density area will require more FTTN nodes, to meet your speed targets.
More nodes, means a longer roll out time.
More nodes (per premises), means more cost (per premises).
Basically, a lower density population changes the relative benefits.
So; population density speaks directly to the relative cost difference between FTTN and FTTP.
Here are 2 examples.
Example A
Population Density: 1000 people within 500m radius circle.
Number of nodes per person: 0.001
Example B
Population Density: 1 person per 500m radius circle.
Number of nodes per person: 1
If the cost of a node exceeds the cost to lay a fibre 500 meters, then it is more cost effective to build FTTP in Example B, likewise; if the cost of a node does not exceed the cost to lay fibre 500m to 1000 premises, then it is more cost effective to build FTTN.
Obviously; this assumes the cost of a single node exceeds the cost of a single 500meter fibre run. (presumably ongoing costs should be included?) And in this scenario, somewhere between these 2 examples lies a density of homes that is equally cost effective.
All of this completely ignores the service difference between FTTP and FTTN. As a result even when you find the “equal cost” point, that does not mean you have necessarily found the FTTN-FTTP inflection point, since the absolute value of an FTTP connection is higher than an FTTN connection.
So; when considering FTTN and FTTP, population density matters. It also matters when comparing local rollouts to rollouts being run in other countries, since their population densities are different.
I recognise that the cost of a single node may never exceed the cost to run fibre, but you should also recognise that the stated minimum speed for a FTTN network will actually determine this.
If your minimum speed yields a maximum copper run of 50km, then it is likely your fibre cost will exceed a single-node-cost.
If your minimum speed requires a maximum copper run of 10 meters, then your single-node-cost will exceed the fibre-run-cost.
There are factors at play in all of these situations, cost, rollout speed, speed targets and population density are all critical to the convsersation when comparing the costs between FTTP and FTTN. Population density and speed targets are perhaps the only variables that must be accounted for when comparing costs with rollouts occuring elsewhere. Since they could have very different speed targets, and very different population densities – resolving to a different technology mix that is more “cost effective”.
I hope Fibroid that I have adequately explained why population density matters when comparing FTTN and FTTP deployments.
Thanks Peter, saves me the time :o)
+1 PeterA
Very nice example IMO.
Shame though… having seen your recipient in action daily, that such a succinct explanation will in all likelihood, be either bluntly ignored, or a word or two nit-picked (I did notice the word assumes – which I’m sure is a potential target) and/or it all simply labelled as Labor rhetoric/Coalition bashing and/or NBN zealotry :(
I’m not sure succinct could possibly apply to what I wrote, but it points out the ludicrous nature of the request.
“Please explain the basics of [difficult to clearly and without error explain idea] works exactly”.
A single line question; that almost requires 2 full paragraphs to fully explain. Not to mention given Fibroids typical response, you have to almost cover every possible assumption you make doing it, fully explaining and justifying it as you go.
I wish he didn’t nitpick for the sake of it, it isn’t like anything I said was particularly earth shattering. It was simply reasoning it out out-loud.
Having had a definitive answer, he’ll probably just ignore it anyway :(
Morpheus, consider this – the difference in government expenditure is just 0.9bn lower for the FTTN network. Variations in the NBN Co corporate plan have each accounted for time frame and cost variations on the final figures and adjusted accordingly. The LNP FTTN network will have increased competition, thus less market share. It will be an inferior product, this will result in lower uptake. It has far less control of available speeds, so will be incapable of offering the much higher revenue higher tier plans such as 100mbps (guaranteed) 250mbps, 500mbps and 1,000mbps. These will all drastically reduce income, which is even admitted by the LNP with their estimated ARPU of $16, versus real world ARPU from the actual NBN of $38 (and due to rise as higher tier plans become available later in the year).
The FTTN network includes ‘last mile’ copper that must be maintained. Telstra spent around 1bn in network maintenance in 2011 FY. While that figure can’t be directly transposed because only a small part of the CAN will be carried over to a FTTN network, the last mile is the worst part of the network requiring the most maintenance. Additionally Telstra only perform maintenance where absolutely necessary because it costs them less (thus higher profit) – the FTTN network will require remediation work until the whole network is of adequate quality to provide reliable 50mbps performance (as per the LNP’s own policy) and it will need to maintain that performance. So we can’t say we have an accurate dollar figure for the network maintenance required for the copper in the LNP FTTN network, but we can say that network maintenance will be a significant extra cost over FTTH and the 1bn Telstra currently spends may actually prove to be quite low.
Something else FTTN requires that is additional to FTTH is electricity to power the nodes. It has been (fairly conservatively) estimated that this cost could range from ~$200,000 to maybe $0.5bn. It is hard to know for certain as we don’t know how many nodes will actually be needed, but we do know those cabinets need power, there will be many 10’s of thousands of cabinets, and the cost to power them won’t be free, so it will be an additional operating expenditure.
So in summary, FTTN will cost $0.9bn less to deploy (ignoring costs to buy the CAN and extra nodes) but will have significantly lower revenue, significantly lower potential revenue, and greater operating costs. If revenue is insufficient to overcome operating expenditure plus interest on loans, it will have negative ROI. Without positive ROI, not only will the loans not be able to be paid and the NBN not generate a return to the government, the whole network must go back on the budget as a direct cost to the government. That means it won’t cost 0.9bn less in government investment expenditure, it will cost $30bn more in on-budget expenditure, a direct cost to tax payers. Plus interest costs in the loan. Plus annual operating costs. For a slower, technically inferior network. That will cost billions of dollars to upgrade to fibre when we find FTTN simply can’t do the required job for the vast majority (rather than the minority as it is today). But even if it is upgraded, that won’t return the $30bn+ to the government that was wasted because a FTTH network created later on won’t have the same regulatory environment, the same cost to build or the same loan arrangements, so it won’t be able to deliver the same profitable returns that it can under the current plan.
In short, FTTN will be an extremely costly exercise for the nation, while delivering far inferior outcomes in infrastructure. Can you honestly say you consider this to be a superior plan? Can you say you believe, in good conscience, that the Australian public should risk such a calamitous outcome when the evidence points to the likelihood of this outcome – the conjecture required for the LNP plan to deliver a positive ROI requires unreasonable dismissal of key uncertainties as outlined above. Happy for Fibroid and any other supporter of the LNP plan to justify FTTN on this basis, too :-)
“Still think only an absolute moron still believes that the difference in cost is what the government says and defends it feverishly without any possible though of anything else.”
hey Morpheus,
POLITENESS, my friend. Do it or you will be banned:
http://delimiter.com.au/comments-policy/
Renai
If treasury costs the coalition version of the NBN and finds the costs are going to be higher, where does that leave the ALP NBN considering the significant higher manpower/labor required?… …considering the difference in size of projects then either the coalition plan has been costed too high or the ALP project far too low.
This statement is a non sequitur. The cost of the LNP FTTN NBN has zero relationship to, or bearing on, the cost of the FTTH NBN – it is not the cost of the FTTN network + additional labour. How many node cabinets are needed in the FTTH network? Zero is a lot fewer than 50- to 80,000. How much do you think those cabinets and equipment are going to cost? How much labour do you think will take to install and connect them? How much do you think the LNP FTTN cost estimates are going to blow out when Tony Abbot said they’ve costed for 20,000 nodes, but their target speeds require nodes within 500m of endpoints, leading to industry estimates in the range of 70- to 80,000 nodes? Even Mr Turnbull isn’t talking about fewer than 50,000.
How much extra is NBN Co going to have to pay Telstra for the copper network under FTTH? The answer is nothing, because they’ve already negotiated their access costs for the pits and ducts that they need. How much extra will need to be added to the coalition plan? It could be nothing. But that assumes Telstra would be willing to value the CAN at $0 value. Given they’ve made a public statement that the network is good for 100 years of operation, it is ludicrous to think they would give away such an ‘asset’. In fact, under the law it would be illegal for Telstra to return $0 to their shareholders for divestment of a revenue generating asset that is in high demand from a potential buyer.
So the LNP FTTN NBN plan must necessarily have higher costs than have been included due to factors which are utterly irrelevant to the FTTH network.
Morpheus, one could almost surmise that a large number of you NBN detractors who comment here are one and the same person, because you certainly seem to be reading from the same script.
‘Prove 93% FttP beneficial, massive fails, won’t know until 2021 and of course ALP this and ALP that,’ my goodness…
I’m glad we had this discussion too, because IMO you have overwhelmingly reaffirmed once again, that to be opposed to the NBN you ‘must predominantly’ be politically or financially motivated… speaking of ideology driven. I note, which seems to have aluded you, while we have been discussing NBN/FttN you have been putting the boot into a political party (not NBNCo)…
Regardless, can you please answer one simple question.
Why is it ok for a future government to spend $29.5B on FttN but it’s not ok for the current government to spend $30.4B (government funding) on superior FttP?
@Alex
‘Why is it ok for a future government to spend $29.5B on FttN but it’s not ok for the current government to spend $30.4B (government funding) on superior FttP?’
Because it is $29.5b vs $44.1b which you have acknowledged as being the correct funding comparison before, which changes your question entirely, or makes it void.
Now answer the actual question…
The question was not to me, I corrected your figures in your question to Morpheus, I’ll let him/her answer (or not) based on the correction, which changes the assumptions made in your question.
Yes I’ve noticed how you strangely dodge (or dance around) most questions asked of you directly, but love to jump in boots ‘n all, everywhere else? Very odd…and quite rude may I add.
Anyway, we all know there are total costs for the two broadband plans and then there’s the governmental costs for each…And some of us (but not all) even accept this.
So I’ll ask you.
As such, “why is it ok for a future government to spend $29.5B on FttN but it’s not ok for the current government to spend $30.4B (government funding) on superior FttP?”
I look forward with bated breath to see if I get the dodge or the soft shoe shuffle ;)
The thing with people like Fibroid is to not guild the lily. Keep it short, concise and to the point, otherwise he’ll latch on to one of your supporting points to avoid answering the main point. It’s a school level debating “trick”, avoid the main point, but look like you’ve addressed the issue :o)
Indeed… good point Tinman.
I tend to find many of the NBN detractors seem to fit into your description, liking to grasp onto the extremities rather than adressing the gist of ones comments, especially when the gist puts them on the spot…
And you are absolutely right, if you keep it brief and to the point, they aren’t interested if they can’t deflect via the ancillaries…
Shame when it gets to this instead of actual, meaningful correspondences.
However I prophesise that if TA wins in a few weeks, most if not all of the ideologically motivated (mission accomplished) NBN detractors will no longer post here anyway, as it’s easier to point the finger…
We’ll see I suppose.
“However I prophesise that if TA wins in a few weeks, most if not all of the ideologically motivated (mission accomplished) NBN detractors will no longer post here anyway, as it’s easier to point the finger…”
Expect a lap of honour first though.
If TA wins it will be interesting to see how all of MT assumptions turn out. No doubt most bad news will start with “Labor did such a bad job …. “
Given the promises MT has been making, especially about speed of deployment, we should know well and truly before the election after the forthcoming one, how well he is delivering.
@RichardU
And that helps Australians vote to get better connectivity in the interim….how?
@seven_tech
That’s the point. It doesn’t help get better connectivity in the interim. Fear not, if I had the answer to the question: “why was the NBN an issue in previous elections but is not longer front of mind?” I would be
delighted to share it with you.
If the enough of the electorate has been persuaded that Malcolm has the answers, he has to be held to account hour by hour with the same rigour he has applied to NBNCo.
If TA wins it will be interesting to see how all of MT assumptions turn out. No doubt most bad news will start with “Labor did such a bad job …. “
If they are anything like LNP Qld, they’ll spend at least the first term blaming any and everything “bad” on Labor, but taking credit for anything “good” (even if it wasn’t theirs).
You mean like Labor did as well.
“TREASURER Wayne Swan blames John Howard for a horror budget tomorrow that’s expected to be the toughest in living memory”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/blowout-not-our-fault-swan/story-e6frf7jo-1225710715240
They all do it Tinman_au.
I’m sorry, what? Wayne sacked 15,000 nurses, doctors and police in Qld, did he?
Fibroid FFS…
Your complete and utter hatred for one political party and love for the other is continuing to cloud any rational comment from you, IMO.
Here’s both Swan and Abbott praising Howard/Costello – Hawke/Keating…
http://www.smh.com.au/business/swan-pays-tribute-to-costello-and-howard-for-economic-reforms-20100208-nnc7.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/11/rudd-v-abbott-the-debate-in-full-transcript
I look forward to the inevitable nit-pick *sigh*
“Why is it ok for a future government to spend $29.5B on FttN but it’s not ok for the current government to spend $30.4B (government funding) on superior FttP?”
You must be really joking right. You seriously still believe that the ALP NBN will come in on budget. Until you work that out your argument is seriously moot. Read my original post to understand that based on amount of work either one is ludicrously underpriced or one is ludicrously overpriced. Now go away and work out which one ..
Still not hear one logical argument why fibre to the home is cost effective or will turn the economy around. Come on people, you have had years to work out at least one plausible answer other than “I want it”.
Of course you haven’t, perhaps because you’re reading? Or perhaps because you’re ignoring the arguments you don’t like? Please go ahead and read some of my replies to your posts – you haven’t actually justified your reasoning for the NBN budget blowing out at all, merely applied very flawed logic that had no basis in fact. Beyond your own innate distrust of Labor and anything to do with them (such as the current NBN), what evidence do you have that demonstrates the forgone conclusion that the FTTH NBN will both significantly blow out its budget and be incapable of achieving ROI targets resulting in inability to repay the incurred debt? Because when you get right down to it, the differences in cost are actually immaterial if both are able to repay their debts and generate similar ongoing profits to the government. The problem is the evidence (and logic) suggests that this isn’t possible, because FTTN will have lower revenue and higher costs.
@TrevorX
‘The problem is the evidence (and logic) suggests that this isn’t possible, because FTTN will have lower revenue and higher costs.’
What evidence and logic are you referring to here, as the only evidence can be based on overseas rollouts where Telco’s have unequivocally stated that FTTN is cheaper to rollout and there is no evidence I have seen whatever to back your ‘lower revenue’ assertion, as such I would be very interested to see how you came to that conclusion?
Well you’re obviously not paying attention, or possibly ignoring comments and articles that don’t agree with your existing viewpoint? More competition means fewer customers resulting in lower revenue. A slower network incapable of guaranteeing minimum performance tiers means the highest profit, high performance products available under FTTH simply don’t exist, reducing revenue. With more limited products you have a lower quality offering, offering less incentive for customers to opt for higher priced ‘premium’ products, you have lower sales with less profit per customer, thus lower revenue. With lower quality, slower products there is less incentive for customers to opt for fixed line products at all in comparison with mobile products, so you will have lower uptake with those who don’t have download usage patterns that require fixed line limits – this lower take up again results in lower revenue.
And as I already wrote, the ARPU figure offered by Malcolm Turnbull of $16 versus the current ARPU advised by NBN Co of $38 suggests pretty significantly lower revenue…
‘or possibly ignoring comments and articles that don’t agree with your existing viewpoint?’
I asked you for that evidence and I’ll ask for it again, I am willing to be convinced, show me the articles you are referring to showing FTTN revenue is lower relative to FTTP.
‘And as I already wrote, the ARPU figure offered by Malcolm Turnbull of $16 versus the current ARPU advised by NBN Co of $38 suggests pretty significantly lower revenue…’
I have asked before where this Coalition $16 ARPU came from, it was previously met with a stoney silence, also the ARPU figures from the NBN Co are a gradual moving upwards graph, which point of time is that $38 from ? – just to help you out the ARPU graph is Item 8.2.10 on Page 69 of the NBN Co 2012-2015 Corporate plan.
Wow seriously? You ask me for further detail when you have selectively chosen to ignore the vast majority of my comment?
How about this – you explain to me (and everyone else) how FTTN revenue can be similar or greater than FTTH revenue with:
A) Smaller market share
B) None of the high profit high performance products available on FTTH resulting from an inability to guarantee performance tiers (or ability to offer performance in ranges above 100mbps)
C) Lower demand generally because the product is inferior (to FTTH) at similar pricing, and FTTN performance will be comparable to 4g mobile broadband performance (causing lower take up, when FTTH would have offered a compelling difference with significantly higher performance available).
You can call this ‘conjecture’ all you like, but then you would have to make the same argument for all forms of forward planning. Economic modelling is a normal, reasonable and expected part of planning. If you change the quality of the product without changing the price, that will usually have a commensurate effect on demand. If you reduce the market share, that will have a direct effect on revenue (because you will have less of it, unless you can somehow increase the price of your products without increasing costs of producing them or affecting demand).
The lack of preexisting reporting on this economic modelling doesn’t make it invalid, it just means the coalition aren’t going to talk about it publicly (or indeed about any factor that doesn’t show their policy in a favourable light).
Just as an addition so there is no ambiguity here, revenue is not just looking at ARPU figures in isolation, a simple example, 200 residences on FTTN paying a ARPU of $25 has the same revenue as 100 residences on FTTP paying a ARPU of $50.
I really do feel like I’m feeding the trolls here… Why can’t you answer a single question asked of you? You seem perfectly capable of demanding people answer yours…
As to your post, it is nice to see you can at least comprehend the basics. So, you know how revenue is a function of income from all areas, so something as simple as ARPU is only an average indicative of across the board revenue per connection (not meant to be multiplied by total number of connections to determine total revenue, although it will give a reasonable approximation)? If ARPU of X is lower than ARPU of Y and all other things remain equal, X will have lower revenue commensurate to ARPU multiplied by the number of connections, correct? If ARPU remains equal, but a competitor is introduced into X’s market but not Y’s (and all other things remain equal), then X will have fewer customers, lower sales and thus, while ARPU remains unchanged, their lower sales results in decreased revenue.
That’s what I’m talking about. Because NBN Co under the coalition’s FTTN network won’t be able to provide the high profit plans that are possible on FTTH, the ARPU of FTTN must necessarily be lower, because they don’t have the high margin plans available to drag the average up. So if ARPU is lower (all other things being equal) revenue must be lower.
Likewise for the number of customers and connections – by introducing competition, you must have a contraction in sales volume/number of connections to your network. Unless the competitor is unable to attract any customers. So if the number of customer connections is lower (which it must be under the LNP plan) then you have reduced revenue. Similarly, if your product is inferior, all other things remaining equal, you will have lower sales than the alternative, resulting in decreased revenue.
Still following along? I do hope so – I these aren’t difficult concepts.
So if you have decreased ARPU and decreased customer connections, they will have a cumulative effect on decreasing revenue.
Please can you show me how these simple and economically fundamental assumptions are incorrect? Because otherwise, it would be nice to hear you accept that FTTN revenue must subsequently be lower.
No, I am taking the evidence we have infront of us, from both political parties and using it all, to form a view…
Unkike you, I am not letting irrational, extreme bias against one side or the other, stand in the way of that view.
Now since you were unable to answer, I’ll dumb it down…
Why is it ok for any government to provide FttN but not FttP?
Ahh, the hypotheticals right. See, I have this rather unusual ability to think for myself and understand that projected costs (in light of delays etc) mean SFA. So yeah, if i could have a Ferrari for the cost of a Holden then yes, the world would be a wonderful place. But as I said, I am actually able to discern ideology driven policy, costs etc and realise that a Ferrari for a Holden price is not possible, no matter how much i clamp my hands together and wish.
Still not hearing about cost vs benefit and economic benefits from wide scale residential fibre to the home. How about you answer that.
Taking all of the evidence apolitically and weighing it up, ‘is’ thinking for oneself…
Making comment and having every thought manipulated by a political party, isn’t.
As for where you sit in this equation, it certainly isn’t #1, I’m afraid…
Renai,
As per the comments policy:
“Comments which display a lack of rationality or reasonableness. For example, a number of commenters on Delimiter over the past year have engaged in the debate, but consistently avoided acknowledging substantive issues raised by other commenters in relation to their argument. Instead, they have deliberately diverted the discussion down another path, annoying many other commenters.”
The poster calling himself Morpheus is clearly in breach of this requirement, completely ignoring outright comments that directly refute his assertions and assumptions but that he funds too challenging to acknowledge. The commenter using the handle Fibroid is similar of the same, except he selectively chooses individual points of (what he considers to be) technical ambiguity and focuses on those, utterly ignoring the theme of the argument or overall subject of a particular comment. Both are disingenuously refusing to engage in the actual debate, instead pursuing their own ideological agenda with no acknowledgement of facts disputing or even questioning their statements. Their ‘contribution’ cannot be said to be in good faith of the discussion or the time or intelligence of others, and I, for one, am finding their approach tedious and frustratingly illogical.
I humbly request you review their comments in line with the policy and restrict their ability to continue to undermine future discussions with insincere trolling of this nature.
Thanks ;-)
I’ll put him on the pre-approve list.
I don’t like the pre-approve list :( makes me sad :( – or does this only happen when I write an essay…
Huh?
My essay long comment above (~9:45am Tuesday) was marked with “Your comment is awaiting moderation”
I was just saying it makes me sad to see that message :) But I suspect it was just due to the massive length I wrote… I guess it could have been because it was a reply to Fibroid…
Not sure why it didn’t show up immediately, but I am being a lot tougher at the moment on moderation than I have been before, because of the rubbish quality of many comments.
I think there must be some sort of adaptive/random checker thing that kicks in sometimes, I’ve always gotten that on random posts since I’ve posted here.
Yup. It normally looks for key terms and number of links.
Still not hearing about cost vs benefit and economic benefits from wide scale residential fibre to the home. How about you answer that.
You could start here:
http://www.nbr.co.nz/sites/default/files/images/BellLabsWhitePaper.pdf
While it’s for New Zealand, as you “have this rather unusual ability to think for” yourself, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out what it could means in Australian terms ;o)
Yes, thank you but I have read that before. Have you ? The impacts they are talking about are Healthcare (hospitals)/Schools, businesses and specific rural situations (the ALP and Coalition NBN are not that different in that specifically). The cost of their plan is $1.2B. Very very big difference with different specific penetration.
There was nothing there addressing the wholescale installation of fibre to home as a cost/benefit or economic benefit.
http://www.zdnet.com/nbn-key-for-royal-childrens-hospital-1339334344/
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/04/11/copper-wire-technology-whose-time-has-passed/
http://www.zdnet.com/nbn-key-for-royal-childrens-hospital-1339334344/
Wonderful story but since health services will get fibre regardless and truly regional areas are going to be at the mercy of wireless/satellite then the difference between plans is again, NIL.
Still doesn’t explain why wholescale installation of fibre to residential properties is economically beneficial. Again, I am surprised that no one has any real evidence other than rhetoric about how dare I ask the question and I should know my place.
And don’t assume some evil conspiracy regarding the questions. I am sincerely interested in a proper answer not puff pieces on projects which will be covered by both plans.
“Still doesn’t explain why wholescale installation of fibre to residential properties is economically beneficial.”
Riiiight.
Plenty of studies done into this over the years, mate. Quit bitching about this on Delimiter and Google it. It’s not tough.
Ok. Thank you for the clarification.
I have researched and while there is plenty of information on business/essential service connections to high-speed internet, I have yet to see any unbiased evidence in regards to residential connections.
Anyhow, I figured that an IT site may actually have some answer but I guess not.
Again, thank you for your time.
Hey mate, thanks to your dismissive attitude to this issue and your insult directed at Delimiter, I am now banning you for a month.
Still doesn’t explain why wholescale installation of fibre to residential properties is economically beneficial.
At the end of the day, it probably doesn’t matter what anyone tells you here, as Renai pointed out, it’s not like there isn’t any information on it on the Internet. If you haven’t been interested enough to research it yourself by now, I don’t think anyone here is going to change your mind about it, no matter how many links they give you…
Unfortunately what’s sadder IMO Tinman are those who even having the info, bluntly refuse to consider it and will even find excuses to argue against it…
Like, we aren’t asking them to abandon their lifelong political allegiances, just consider these may be possibile without putting up roadblocks or hurdles, not because we say, but because people who are in the know… believe they will occur.
But no…
You know, like who would have thought you could send mass mails electronically worldwide from your own home or look up the equivalent of every encyclopaedia, for any topic, in seconds, only a generation ago? Well they certainly wouldn’t have.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/14/ibisworld_ibm_future_report/
that should be heard not hear
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