news The creation of a fast-growing petition and the publication of a landmark article by the ABC on the issue are among growing signs that a powerful level of dissent about the Coalition’s unpopular fibre to the node-based National Broadband Network policy will come to dog the incoming Abbott government on an ongoing basis.
The Coalition’s election victory on Saturday, and the likely imminent ascension of Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull to the position of Communications Minister, will have immediate and drastic consequences for Labor’s NBN project, which the Rudd and Gillard administrations have pursued as one of the Federal Government’s major projects in its current form since mid-2009, and which the Australian electorate has overwhelmingly supported since that time.
Turnbull has consistently stated that the Coalition plans to “complete” Labor’s NBN vision more rapidly and more cheaply than Labor itself could. However, the Coalition’s NBN alternative is largely based on radically different technology than Labor’s vision, and will deliver vastly reduced broadband service delivery outcomes to many Australians.
Under Labor’s NBN policy, some 93 percent of Australian premises were to have received fibre directly to the premise, delivering maximum download speeds of up to 1Gbps and maximum upload speeds of 400Mbps. The remainder of the population will be served by a combination of satellite and wireless broadband, delivering speeds of up to 25Mbps.
The Coalition’s policy will see fibre to the premises deployed to a significantly lesser proportion of the population — 22 percent — with 71 percent covered by fibre to the node technology, where fibre is extended to neighbourhood ‘nodes’ and the remainder of the distance to premises covered by Telstra’s existing copper network. The Coalition’s policy will also continue to use the HFC cable network operated by Telstra and will also target the remaining 7 percent of premises with satellite and wireless.
According to the Coalition’s media release issued in April upon the policy’s launch, the Coalition’s policy is based on the core pledge that the group will deliver download speeds of between 25Mbps and 100Mbps by the end of 2016 — effectively the end of its first term in power — and 50Mbps to 100Mbps by the end of 2019, effectively the end of its second term. According to the Coalition’s statement, the 25Mbps to 100Mbps pledge applies to “all premises”, while the higher pledge by 2019 applies to “90 percent of fixed line users”. The Coalition has not specified certain upload speeds for its network.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott this week described the Coalition’s NBN policy as “absolutely bulletproof”, despite the fact that the Coalition has refused to formally cost the plan, and despite it containing a number of controversial assumptions which have been significantly questioned.
Telecommunications industry experts have consistently stated that they believe Labor’s NBN policy to be highly technically superior to the Coalition’s more modest vision, and having the potential to deliver Australia superior long-term outcomes in terms of service delivery and boosting Australia’s economy through productivity gains.
In addition, questions have been raised about the extent to whether it’s possible to deploy the FTTN technology the Coalition is focused on in Australia. There are also questions as to whether Telstra, which owns the copper network which would need to be used as part of the FTTN rollout, will consent to modify its existing $11 billion arrangement with the Labor Federal Government and NBN Co.
In the wake of the Coalition’s election victory, there are already signs that the Australian population is not willing to meekly accept the dramatic watering down of Labor’s NBN vision.
A petition placed on popular website Change.org on the issue following the election, demanding the Coalition reconsider the FTTN technology and focus on the superior FTTP option, has already garnered in excess of 83,000 signatures, with tens of thousands more Australians putting their names to the issue every day.
“As currently proposed,” the petition states, “the Coalition’s FTTN solution relies on the existing copper lines to supply individual premises access to the National Broadband Network (NBN) over the last mile or so. However, copper wiring solutions are rapidly approaching a century of implementation, with its inception dating back to the 1920’s. As such, its technological limits as well as associated weaknesses are rapidly developing … I and many Australians urge you to reconsider your proposal of a FTTN NBN in favour of a superior FTTH NBN. As your policy currently stands it is merely patch-work; a short term solution to a long term problem.”
Dozens of comments have been placed on the Change.org petition supporting its argument. In addition, the petition is only one of many such petitions placed on the site over the past year which demand the Coalition support Labor’s NBN project. The petition’s author Nick Paine has pledged to forward the petition to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, as well as Turnbull.
Another indication of the likely ongoing strength of support which Labor’s NBN policy will continue to enjoy came on Monday in an extensive article published by Lateline presenter Emma Alberici, who hosted a debate on the NBN issue during the election between Turnbull and then-Communications Minister Anthony Albanese.
The widely respected journalist and commentator argued strongly that the Coalition was “brushing off” the need for faster broadband speeds with its technically inferior policy.
“The World Wide Web was all but ignored when it was unveiled by the British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. Those who did react were sceptical that the web would ever entangle more than a few academics across the world and few could imagine that anyone would ever read their news on a computer,” wrote Alberici.
“Mr Turnbull is adamant that it’s “very unlikely” Australians will need 1 gigabit of download speeds. That’s what they said about the World Wide Web.”
The article attracted 412 comments, the vast majority of which were hostile to the Coalition’s NBN plan and supported Labor’s, although many commenters also acknowledged Labor had done a poor job of implementing its policy.
The ongoing support for Labor’s NBN policy — despite the fact that Labor lost the election on Saturday — is consistent with the policy’s high levels of support in the electorate over time. For example, an informal online poll taken by the ABC after the Coalition’s rival policy was unveiled in April showed voters had quickly rejected the policy, with 78 percent of some 5,700 readers noting that they didn’t support it. A subsequent poll showed the Coalition’s NBN policy had boosted support amongst some Coalition voters, but confirmed that Australians en-masse still overwhelmingly supported Labor’s version of the policy.
opinion/analysis
Well, well. Looks like the Australian electorate isn’t going to just take this one lying down.
From here, it’s relatively clear what is going to happen. Given that the Australian electorate has always been staunchly behind the NBN, it is very likely that Turnbull, and the Coalition in general, are going to face an ongoing and high level of antagonism from the public as they attempt to radically modify Labor’s NBN project into a FTTN-based alternative. And the only thing which will dull this criticism is extremely fast delivery of the Coalition’s FTTN infrastructure. The more delayed the Coalition’s own rollout becomes, the more frustrated the Australian population will become with the situation.
Turnbull, in particular, has just one chance to get this right. If the incoming Communications Minister is not able to kick the Coalition’s FTTN project into gear and get it deliverying very quickly, he is rapidly going to become public enemy #1; the politician who not only tore down Labor’s NBN vision, but also proved incapable of delivering on his own vision. Because the public angst on this issue is just not going to go away.
There’s a certain fitness to this situation. What it illustrates is that the Australian public is not stupid. It understands that eventually, Telstra’s copper network needs to be wholly replaced, and what it wants to see is the Government fix that situation as soon as possible, with the best technology that money can buy. I think most Australians would have preferred to see the Coalition keep Labor’s FTTP model, but promise to speed up its delivery by better managing NBN Co, and potentially getting Telstra involved in constructing the NBN fibre. By taking the FTTN route, the Coalition has taken a risky and unpopular path. Now, it has no choice but to deliver on it.
The situation is also a little like what happened when Labor took its mandatory Internet filtering policy to the 2007 Federal Election. Like FTTN, the filter was based on a model which the majority of Australians disagreed with, and used technology which many suspected would not be adequate for its task. Eventually that unpopular policy was struck down. It will be interesting to see if Turnbull’s FTTN model can escape the same fate.
Image credit: Promotional shot for AMC’s The Walking Dead TV series
As much as I am strong supporter of the existing FTTP model, and would love to see it continue, Turnbull and the gang aren’t going to have spent the best part of four years bagging the model, then suddenly flip because an ABC article and a petition.
I would dearly love it to make a difference, but it won’t. It would be a thousand times more embarrassing than the “Thursday Filter Flip Flop” of last week.
Power to the people, but we’re stuck with this turkey for now.
+1
I see it making a differece, albeit just not a positive one.
As the pressure mounts for success in this portfolio, Tesltra will increasingly have the federal goverment over a barrel (don’t mentally visualise). With so much at stake, I believe Telstra will have all the cards when it comes to aquiring the copper infrastructure.
I do believe that there will be no additional upfront payment required, but the fine print will ensure that Telstra fully capitalises on the current situation and cements its future as the dominant player in both wired and wireless communications in Australia.
That was my thought as well.
Telstra will ‘gift’ the copper to the Coalition, then use the $11b in cash payments to overbuild the most lucrative areas with Telstra FTTP.
End result, (other than the ‘node lottery’ in outer suburbs and regional areas) is that the larger FTTN network (and wireless and satellite networks) fail to be cross-subsidised by the many heavy residential users and business users in cities (as Telstra will take that revenue), and the project does not return an investment and instead becomes a heavy cost to the taxpayer.
“Telstra will ‘gift’ the copper to the Coalition, then use the $11b in cash payments to overbuild the most lucrative areas with Telstra FTTP.”
Your comment is irrational. Telstra is prohibited from overbuilding the NBN, under the terms of their agreement. This won’t change under the Coalition.
Telstra is prohibited from overbuilding the NBN, under the terms of their agreement. This won’t change under the Coalition.
Possibly, but Malcolm does favour competition, and you might see a new clause show up in the agreement. Where the ALP wanted to give NBNCo the best chance possible by reducing immediate competition, Malcolm seems to actually revel in the idea:
This is what I was referring to.
Unless Telstra alone is prohibited, and not other companies?
Anyone can build a network and they can overbuild if they wish but they must only be a wholesale provider and provide their service at a benchmark cost – effectively making it crazy to overbuild because NBNCo would have done it anyway.
The interesting thing is this part of the NBN will have to go through the Senate if it is to be modified.
But those restrictions are just in recent legislation, and legislation can be repealed and modified.
The legislation is impractical in a FttN world anyway. Every time someone goes to upgrade to FttH, its an overbuild. If Telstra, for correct business reasons, decides to build out an entire area (ie, a node) to reduce costs, what happens?
I’d be hoping that would be their mentality, otherwise the redundancy costs of upgrading on a case by case basis makes it a prohibitively expensive exercise. And this is where they get their practical monopoly back. They have an $11b warchest (or more), all they’d be doing is giving the public what they want, and frankly because of that warchest are the only ones cashed up enough to do it.
Why would they overbuild? I can’t see a FTTN future that doesn’t have Telstra fingerprints all over it. If they’re getting paid hansomely to provide FTTN (albeit as say maintenance etc/ or even a significant stakeholder in a “new NBNCo” in return for the last mile copper), why would they kill the golden goose?
With the Liberal FttN plan, I have the option of upgrading to FttH, if I choose to pay for it. Who’s going to do the actual install?
And what is that install of FttH if it isnt overbuilding the FttN network? These are the parts I’m refering to, but if your Telstra, you take it a step further. Someone in an area wants FttH. Great, they’re willing to pay a premium for it. Why would Telstra run a single fiber line to that premise, without considering future requests for FttH?
At that point, they run fiber down the entire street, as it effectively costs no more. As everyone else in the street upgrades, its already there. If they take it a step further, it might not be too much more to roll out fiber to an entire node. At either of those points its an overbuild.
They have to provide the service to the person requesting it, and theres nothing to say they cant leverage off that. The argument is quite simple – if they roll it out to 1 person, its $5000. If that rollout potentially services 100 homes instead of 1, its $50.
if FttN gets completely rolled out, its fingerprints are in play for decades to come. Telstra still has their honeypot, still gets income off the copper network, AND because its a FttN build, they get control over what they build beyond it.
Win/win for them.
Because they are providing the option to upgrade, the overbuild rules are null and void. Cant have both.
If Telstra are allowed to overbuild, I expect they’d stick to their strength and use Mobile…
Is the term “overbuild” applicable to situations where they (non-NBN telcos) go in with their hardware and line. upgrades BEFORE the NBN even turn up? There are a number of recent news articles on this happening which would suggest they either aren’t thinking they will lose it or they are thinking the NBN will a long time in coming so they’ll have time to recoup their expenditure. This was happening pre-election so is probably unrelated to any change of government policy.
Could you point to some evidence for this?
I do not recall Turnbull talking about this specific topic at all. Certainly there was lot of talk about ‘infrastructure competition’ which would imply overbuilding the NBN.
“Your comment is irrational. Telstra is prohibited from overbuilding the NBN under the terms of their agreement. This won’t change under the Coalition.”
Sorry Renai? The Coalition have said the agreement will be renegotiated. We know it will be renegotiated because there are going to be significant changes to the terms under which the agreement was formed. What leads you to believe those particular clauses will reman intact when other components will be altered?
Then take into account the Liberal Party’s statement on the subject from their policy document:
“Infrastructure competition
Under our plan, regulatory impediments to the construction and operation of non-nBn access networks will be removed.”
Surely that is an unequivocal statement that such clauses will be explicitly removed?
Additionally, it is my new standing that Telstra (and anyone else) is allowed to build whatever network they like wherever they like, but if they wish to compete with the NBN under the existing NBN they must do so by providing access to all 121 points of interconnect and must stick to NBN Co pricing structures, making competition pointless and very costly. The LNP plan seeks to remove the pricing restrictions while also allowing competition against FTTN, not FTTP, so a competitor offering FTTP will have a superior product they can then charge whatever they like for access to.
So, with respect, it appears you may not be correct in your understanding of the competition ramifications.
When autocorrect goes wrong – new standing should have been understanding.
Dude. If Telstra is going to agree to transfer their customers onto the NBN, they are going to have to agree not to overbuild the NBN and transfer their customers off. That clause will remain.
I disagree – why can’t they get paid to transfer their customers and then steal them back with a superior FTTP offering a couple of years later, safe in the knowledge that they have nothing to fear from competing FTTN? Sounds like win-win from Telstra’s perspective.
Again, it is my understanding that there is no specific clause that says Telstra (or anyone else, for that matter) may not overbuild, merely that by doing so they must provide access through all 121 POIs and are limited to price matching NBN Co’s offerings, essentially offering no points for differentiation (and thus being both very expensive and pointless). That was advice I received however, not a personal reading of NBN legislation or documentation, so I will have to double check.
Dude, there is definitely a clause that says they cannot overbuild, and there is just no way I can see Turnbull risking the NBN’s revenue base by removing that clause.
There are also technical issues. NBN Co will be taking fibre from the exchange to the node. Do you really expect Telstra to take its own fibre from the exchange to the premises? Or do you expect NBN Co to sell Telstra fibre access from the exchange to the node, and then for Telstra to lay its own fibre from the node to the premises?
No. This will not happen … not even Telstra is that stupid. And Turnbull will not allow it.
Thanks for the clarification. I have also been corrected in my original (mis)understanding – it appears there was a pretty significant confusion of facts between what was in effect and what was being speculated, that actually significantly underpinned my understanding of (and position on) the FTTN plan in its entirety. I’m going to have to do some reading and work out what effect this change has, but for now I can only apologise for getting it wrong.
Sorry, Renai, and to anyone else I may have confused as a result. :-\
No worries!
But what about Mobile Broadband?
I really doubt Malcolm being so vocal about “infrastructure competition” means he will do nothing at all about it, and Mobile is, after all, Telstra’s current bread and butter. I can easily imagine them pushing for an advantage for their mobile network for them to solve, what is effectively, a political issue for Malcolm.
Renai, I’m curious and just want to understand what you think he is referring to. I’m perfectly willing to consider I may have it arse backwards :)
Who and what type of “infrastructure competition” do you think Malcolm is referring to in the policy doc?
If they have the guts to stand up and say Sorry over the Internet Filter Policy, then they have the guts to stand up and say Sorry over the FTTN choice.
The only real reason they said sorry and flipped over the Internet Filter policy that they tried to slip through unnoticed was that the Mainstream media instantly picked up on it and it was less than 48hrs before an election with a full advertising blackout in effect. They had to control what message the MSM et.al were sending to the electorate and have positive (or neutral) things only talked about. Though they probably still would of won seats, maybe not as many – they didn’t want to take the chance. Therefore bite the bullet and apoligize profusely that it was a slip up and not authorised by the party.
This in no way means they wont try to bring the filter to the forefront again in fact I highly suspect that they will place it on the agenda fully some time mid 2014. The senate then has a few interesting (read strange parties in it that would most likely allow passage of it. ie: Family First. Also the FUD they would spin “for the children” would also sway some Labor senators to maybe cross the floor.
Make no mistake the Coalitian will bring the filter back up again, it’s going to be pushed by their major supporters (*coughs* churches etc).
As for them flipping on the FTTN choice.. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Why would they? They are wrongfully stating they have a ‘mandate’ (nothing could be further from truth) on Carbon Tax etc , so what benefit is it to them to flip on the NBN choice? they’re in power for at least another 3 yrs (and maybe 6 if statistics are true) so basically there is no gain to flip.
Didn’t you know? It’s not part of the “Contract” with Australia” they signed… *Snorts* /sarc
They didn’t really say sorry, they just disowned it retrospectively, and basically pretended that it was a typo.
“An internet filter has NEVER been Coalition policy. That is Labor’s policy.” I recall they said something along those lines.
No, the “internet filter policy” was a “typo”.
They didn’t have the guts to even admit it was their policy.
There is a lot more to it than just a filter.
http://www.crikey.com.au/?p=397428
Sorry, that may be paywalled, but it’s an interesting read. The actual policy document is at http://lpaweb-static.s3.amazonaws.com/Coalition%202013%20Election%20Policy%20-%20Enhance%20Online%20Safety%20for%20Children.pdf
The policy includes legislation for social media sites to be forced to remove “harmful material”, telcos to be “encouraged” to install filters on mobile devices and PC’s as well as “cyber bullying”, offering the suggestion of 3 months in prison, a $2000 fine for anyone posting material “which is grossly indecent, obscene, menacing or knowingly false and intends the message to cause emotional distress to the recipient.” (Some folks here should take note of the “knowingly false” part there ;o))
They also fought the Gonski and NDIS reforms, but ended up on board….
“…for now” could be an elastic concept. What happens if the FTTN doomsayers are right at various levels and there are a few, but especially about the state of the copper, the shortcomings are publicised (and shock horror, exaggerated) frequently just as NBNCo, progress has suffered.
Will the new government carry on indefinitely with its original course? Kroger and Brandeis on Q and A last night suggested LCP has been in opposition so long it has not come to terms with what is involved in being the government.
Remember TAbbott started off being anti broadband, period. A selection of his past comments gathered together recently shows he really had no clue about what the internet is NOW, let alone what its potential is. Perhaps if some showed him how to do his banking on line, he might be persuaded that there are uses other than the frivolous
… and now Mal-evolent is going to bring back Ziggy to run the NBN… the nuke option? Or would that take an invite to Solly and the amigos?
…this is getting worse by the day…
-1 I’ve got to put my hand up here.
Please tell me what the end-user difference is between FTTN and FTTP to a home user – other than someone else is paying for the last k of fibre ?
Don’t dream for a minute that your premises fibre has an isolated path back to every ISP/telco/web server in the world… it is going to the exact same ‘node’ (N) as the FTTN infrastructure !
Yes – we all know copper is prone to galvanic and other corrosion and electromagnetic disturbances. The fibres are prone to ditch diggers and water intrusion… not much difference if the installation goes the same way it has been recently…
.
The fibre can carry vastly more data, faster than UTP copper (at the moment), but fibre to the node is no different, and despite what you’re being told – you’re not getting a clear 100Mbps / 10mS link from your premises to the Node – for $3K installed – despite the fact your data is muxed onto the shared (probably 10Gbps) node trunk back to your ISP (who typically shares their 1-10Gbps NBN backbone link with 10K other subscribers like you)… so the perceived performance from well implemented xDSL vs fibre may not be as great as you think. (Unless you file-share with others on your same ‘node’)
And if there’s a choice to the providers between installing $50K low-latency node switches in Toorak vs $20K switches in Lakemba – you know which one you street is going to get,,, !
However the upside of the FTTx infrastructure is for the police, fire, SES, hospitals and other infrastructure services – that same fibre is delivering them with much higher assigned performance – since you were good enough to pay for the national FTTN infrastructure, *and* their $10K+ fibre end-points.
Don’t get me wrong – xDSL is a dog outside a single campus – and should never have been rolled out from a residential perspective. HFC was a better choice at that time but nowadays fixed cable is a waste of $ vs functionality. I’d still push for pervasive spread-spectrum wireless to cover all comms over the ‘last half-mile’ – phone, mobile, vehicle, data, TV, everything – operating free of a residential contract anywhere in the country – pre- or post-paid infrastructure services.
@lastchancename
The difference between last mile FTTH and FTTN is very clear- any user, no matter where they are or how far from a “node”, if they have FTTH, they can receive any speed they wish within the bounds of the technology currently deployed (GPON, 10GPON etc.). FTTN is entirely dependent on the users distance from the node and the relative quality of their copper.
Nobody is or ever has saif that NBNCo. are building a PTP fibre system (dedicated link). It is GPON. But the hardware contention is significantly lower than FTTN. On average the contention on GPON will be approx. 1:1.5. On FTTN it will be closer to 1:17. That’s hardware contention not backhaul contention.
Copper is prone to oxidisation. And water ingress. And RF interference (particularly at the frequencies used for VDSL. It is also prone to diggers, as is copper. But that’s it. Fibre has no other weaknesses. Certainly not water ingress. Why would water affect fibre??
The trunk to the RSP is irrelevant- that’s not what the NBN is for. The NBN is a last mile network interlinked by backhaul to POIs. RSP backhaul is their domain and would not change significantly on FTTH or FTTN. Trying to use that as an excuse to therefore build FTTN is a big strawman. The NBN’s purpose was to improve last mile. As it does and the average speed increases, data prices drop and RSPs provide higher bandwidth backhaul throughout their network and IP transit to the net at large.
The “perceived performance” between VDSL and FTTH is not perceived at all- it is very real. VDSL2 can provide, maximum, 130Mbps down and approx. 40Mbps up (for a total of between 170 and 180Mbps total bandwidth). The only way to increase this is shorten the copper length. G.Fast doesn’t work over the same distance, but requires a shorter copper length. The only way to increase the speed provided by DSL technologies is shorten the copper. Contrary to fibre which is just swap the electronics. Distance is irrelevant (to a threshold which increases with every iteration). The speed achieved by the end-user is therefore, on FTTH, only a function of soft contention. And the ACCC has already said they will not tolerate poor contention from providers. VDSL however, is limited by both soft contention and distance from a node. There is no way to prevent this- it’s a physical limitation of the medium- copper. Therefore someone who lives a mere 500m from a node, who has, for example, a business of photography and wants a decent 40Mbps upload speed, instead is limited to a much smaller (likely) 10Mbps because they simply don’t live in the right spot. That is ridiculous. And unnecessary.
Node-switching is not where latency comes from. Switching account for only about 10% of latency. That’s another strawman.
FTTH provides emergency services, hospitals, schools, universities etc. with the same performance as FTTN + FTTH On Demand. The difference is, nobody in between will be limited.
And your argument about wireless is ludicrous. It shows you don’t understand telecommunications. There have been dozens of companies that have tried last-mile wireless. They have all failed. Wireless is not and cannot ever be a baseload system. Spectrum is limited 10000 times less in wireless than in fibre. If you truly believe this is a solution, I’m afraid you won’t get many ears listening to your points of view here- Renai has regularly denounced this theory.
Also, on your other post about having “5 more years” when you build FTTN first….FTTN is costing 97% as much as FTTH to the government. And as such, will need at least 97% the time to pay off (if not more because of higher OPEX). Therefore, it will be much, much much longer than 5 years before it is paid off and therefore having to upgrade to FTTH in the meantime means you’ve spent about 50-75% more than you needed to. How is that sensible management???
Cant imagine FttH criticism would have died had the result on Saturday been different either. In fact It’s still going too.
Those petitions are a waste of time. Cant reason with Luddites.
____________________
1207 days to go!
If they want a petition they should be using the official parliamentary petition system.
Yeah true. I mean it gives an idea of how much support there is for the NBN (which we knew already) but these online ones don’t mean diddley.
@ Thw12thMan
Why? I had this argument already on Whirlpool. The Parliamentary petition can be ignored, just like any petition. Sure, it must legally be tabled in Parliament. But it can simply be put aside.
A public petition like this however is:
1- Much easier to get big numbers on and
2- Much harder for a government (especially a new one) to ignore if it receives a high amount of media attention.
A petition with over 100 000 signatures (which by current numbers looks like by tomorrow) and possibly with 250 000 signatures is not easy to ignore for the media….and therefore the new government
Is there any reason why this petition can’t be tabled in parliament by Labor? I was thinking that there is a lot of time before parliament resumes now (probably November?) so plenty of time to get a lot more signatures on it, and I’m sure that the Labor opposition would be only too happy to put it to the new government in a way that they cannot brush off.
One issue may be that the FTTP NBN may not be Labor policy in a while — it is now, but they will doubtless have to revisit it depending on what Turnbull is able to achieve.
Having said that, I may be able to get Conroy to table the petition in the Senate if it gets large enough :)
Scott Ludlam would probably do it too (has he managed to hang on? I can’t seem to find results for him).
It’s still unclear re: Ludlam. *sigh*
Bugger…oh well, finger crossed.
Out of all the Greens, he’d be the biggest loss really.
!20,000 now according to an email received from them on Wed 11th @2PM.
” In just 3 days it has reached 120,000 signatures and is still growing very quickly”.
I’m hoping one day Malcolm will be standing on his toilet trying hang a wifi repeater to the wall, slip, fall and knock his head on the bowl. Upon waking, he’ll yell Eureka! and decide that FTTP makes heaps of sense for the Future, and not go back to the dark days of the Telstra copper monopoly.
FttP = Face to the Poopcatcher?
Yep! More realistic than a flux capacitor.
The Government (whichever party) loves to throw around the Mandate word a lot.
However they also tend to forget that the other 61 seats in the House of Representatives were also voted in by the public, and as such also have their own Mandate to see their own Electorates represented.
I would not expect any of those MPs to simply roll over and play dead whilst allowing the sitting party to do whatever they want.
Look, the Coalition will claim they have a mandate (which they don’t, despite the seat count the actual vote percentages and senate voting clearly illustrate votes being spread) and are likely to push on with FTTN.
Mr Abbott won’t back down, and Turnbull is all but committed to the path at this point. Telstra is ready to trade support in return for a massive chunk of NBN control. All the ducks are lined up.
I’d like to see sense-and-reason return and Turnbull exclaim “we’ll, it’s the will of the people” base don some petition; but by this time next week, LNP will aready be rewriting history and claiming they have a mandate.
Turnbull and Abbott are as recalcitrant as each other. The recent filter debacle comes down to both basically ignoring a policy they have little interest in.
We can have fibre, we just have to “qualify” and pay for it. Realistically, given the policies for the average joe seem to be the same, just with the “faster cheaper” option sounding more acceptable, I frankly just don’t see either politician backing down.
Actually, he still has a few “outs” up his sleeve.
The Audit/Study/CBA for three, and the negotiations with Telstra for another. Any of those could be used as a change of direction for Malcolm.
We may end up with something like Michael Berry’s idea which is a hybrid of the best of both plans, a lot of FTTP, but with more FTTN/FTTB in the mix (for MDU’s and other problematic areas)
.. and it’s worth noting that before this, Turnbull is going to induce lord-knows how many reviews, followed by slash-and-burn of NBNco.
He’s stated that whilst they’ll honour existing contracts, winter is coming. Okay I made the last bit up, but it’s a pretty accurate statement.
People have voted in change. We’ll get it, alright. Probably just not what’s needed.
If they are genuine, a CBA (which they are supposed to be doing) should show the same thing it did in 2008 – a FttN rollout isnt cost effective, and any perceived savings are offset by the increase to GDP a faster FttH rollout provides.
Thats their loophole – the CBA. A slight $30b increase in GDP over what FttN would deliver provides $10b in tax dollars, which covers any savings made by the cheaper FttN rollout. If that slight increase is realised year after year until we’re fully FttH, the real benefits are mutliplied.
A CBA finds that result, they can “reluctantly” improve on their plan and provide something akin to FttH without losing face. The argument would be that they were always relying on the CBA, and when it “showed no significant savings”, they “responsibly” changed their plan.
It could work.
The alternative is that they put blinkers on and royally screw things up. As an example, my suburb is meant to be completed this month. I live in a small MDU, what happens to me? Do I get a free fiber line in because the whole suburb is FttH? Do I pay through the nose for a FttN “upgrade”? Somewhere in the middle?
What about the next suburb over thats due to start at the end of the year? Do they get FttN? Will that mean the exchange is doubled up with both FttN and FttH DSLAMS? Why arent the savings realised by avoiding the extra cost of two sets of DSLAMS?
Theres a savings right there that they can realise, and show its more cost effective to roll out FttH – most of the exchanges are already FttH, why double up?
CBA is unlikely. It won’t align with the recommendations that various people have been feeding Turnbull.
Much like the bonkers Treasury audit (hockey is quite the comedian) it’ll be a “thorough review” by some external party (whom isn’t really legally responsible for recommendations, plausible deniability) and will have the thin veneer of legitimacy required to ensure Turnbull’s vision will be executed.
This isn’t anything new, they (LNP) seem to favour this approach as they can form the desired outcome, rather than letting fact and logic get in the way.
Break out the popcorn.
Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it to. Just putting it out there as a way that the Coalition can still deliver a real plan for the future, rather than a plan for the accountants.
But there are plenty of ways for them to screw it up, we should keep a running tally of what they get wrong, and wave it around for everyone to see every few months.
Sticky a post on Whirlpool when things start to go wrong. And no, that doesnt include the election result :/
Gav, there’s no way they will find a politically convenient reason to move away from their FTTN position – the FTTN commitment despite the claim of technical agnosticism, the changes to infrastructure competition pricing, it all adds up far too neatly to provide an ideal environment for Telstra to dominate the wholesale infrastructure environment and install themselves as the future incumbent yet again. Whatever you might say about them, these people are far too smart to ‘accidentally’ create such an ideal situation for Telstra without realising the ramifications for their decisions.
For those that find this scenario hard to follow, how much do you think a company the size of Telstra spends on lobbying every year? How many legal staff do you think they have? How manypeople do they have dedicated to understanding and advising them on legislation and political opportunities and threats? As soon as the ALP Government introduced the plan for the NBN, Telstra would have realised the potential long term erosion of one of its key profit centres and would have thrown whatever it could at the problem. If Telstra were spending $100m a year on this I wouldn’t be surprised.
So given that focus, don’t you think Telstra would have been courting the opposition to see if they could work out a new situation, one that reinstalled them as the monopoly supplier? In the USA it is commonplace for legislation to be written by major lobby groups that are then introduced unedited by senators. Why not policy over here, with a few choice legislative ammendments?Telstra might have offered the LNP certain funding indefinitely as an incentive – such obviously antidemocratic bribes are still perfectly legal for lobby groups in Australia, and Telstra are one of the biggest, richest lobbyists with the most to gain (or lose) from changes in legislation.
Argue all you like – Telstra lobbying to protect their interests is a fact, the changes the LNP have proposed to the NBN will massively benefit Telstra to the detriment of NBN Co and (by extension) all Australians is a fact. The extent to which Telstra have been able to persuade the LNP is up to speculation, but certainly their actions so far suggest that this whole play is in Telstra’s long term interests with no real benefits to anyone else, so it certainly seems that Telstra are calling the shots here. Leading to the conclusion that the LNP will doggedly pursue this no matter how much noise is made against it, no matter what any independent inquiry finds.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole double dissolution thing over the carbon tax was an excuse, a ruse so that they won’t need to do it over changing the competition clauses for the NBN.
> In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole double dissolution thing over the carbon tax was an excuse, a ruse so that they won’t need to do it over changing the competition clauses for the NBN.
I seriously doubt there will be a double dissolution simply because the quota for seats is lowered, meaning that more minor parties are likely to be elected. Post July 2014 the majority of senators will be conservative leaning.
http://www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/article/2013/sep/09/Abbott-o-meter-help-keep-track-promises/
Many have also deduced that Labor’s vision is not only highly technically superior but also highly economically superior – based on its superior cross-subsidisation, its superior revenues, its ability to return investment, its wholesale infrastructure monopoly, and so on.
That speaks to the crux of the problem with the LNP’s plan – you cannot separate the various elements and treat them individually as each component has a direct relationship with every other. I am happy to admit that FTTN is technically possible, but such an admission is laden with caveats and can only be taken within the context of the actual situation, which dictates that one cannot make such a statement about the LNP’s plan because it is not ‘FTTN all other things being equal’, it is FTTN that must be economically viable and at least on par with the FTTP NBN fiscally to be justifiable, it must not allow infrastructure competitors to cherry pick most profitable zones and/or set prices where suitable to extract maximum profit by exploiting those unable to use any other comparable competing service.
Renai, you’ve taken me and others to task for what you feel is a zealotry for one particular technology when the other is feasible, but the is not a debate about technical options, it is a debate about the planned package each side wishes to deliver. FTTN is fine if it doesn’t do more harm than good, if it can be upgraded without incurring unnecessarily large additional costs over what an initial FTTP rollout would attract, if it is economically viable, will pay off the debt and return profit to the government at a similar rate to the FTTP plan, if it isn’t fundamentally flawed and fails as a business proposition by allowing competitors to overbuild and offer the superior FTTP option where NBN Co will be artificially limited to FTTN. The FTTN_plan_ is not feasible because it cannot be successful within the economic, competitive and regulatory environment within which it must operate. That’s not technical zealotry, it is evaluating the whole picture and drawing the only logical conclusion.
The technical superiority I agree with, but the economic and social superiority is highly questionable.
The problem with Labor’s NBN is they created artificial scarcity in data with a pricing CVC at $20/Mbps. You need double the bandwidth if you have two customers to avoid congestion (2 * 20*1000 = $40,000). Speed tiers mean that very few (less than 1% until 2026 according to the Corporate Plan) would connect at 1Gbps. So an RSP has to jump for a single customer from $4000/month to $24,000. This is unrealistic, except during the start up phase.
Lets make a couple of crude assumptions:
* CVC is $20/Mbps
* 8 million connections
* 5 RSPs with an equal share of the market
* 1% on 1Gbps (optimistic until after 2026)
* 121 POIs (CVC needs to be purchased separately for each one)
* 8,000,000 / 121 / 5 * 1% = 132 customers on 1Gbps plans per RSP
So what does that mean in costs?
* 1:50 contention ratio (not good) = $52,892/month = $400 per customer in just CVC
* 1:20 contention ratio (more reasonable) = $132,231/month = $1,000 per customer in just CVC
Now if Labor didn’t have speed tiers, then the price of CVC could have fallen by close to a factor of 10 because ISPs would have need to buy 2000Mbps minimum instead of 200Mbps. Off peak quotas would have gone ballistic because there was so much surplus capacity
It doesn’t take much to realise that Labor’s 1Gbps promise was fanciful at best and as Quigley said 1Gbps was announced just prior to the 2010 election in response to potential criticism about Google fibre.
You’re ignoring the fact that the CVC price is designed to drop over time. So the amount that a provider will have to “jump” to introduce a 1Gbps service will fall over time.
Also yes, they created artifical scarcity, but not for scarcity sake. They created it, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed but they have over $40 billion in CAPEX to recover. To do that alone, without counting OPEX, interest on any browering, etc over a reasonable period of say $12 years, assuming we have say 8 million premises utilising the service will require them to make over $35 per user a month.
Also, we have attempted to discuss, on many occasions while 1Gbps to everyone is unrealistic and unneeded but you seem to always disappear from such debates midway through, so I’m just going to ask you Mathew: please refer to my previous posts on this point.
* CVC is $20/Mbps – Assumption is false, CVC will drop over time as per the business plan.
* 1% on 1Gbps (optimistic until after 2026) – This is based upon the business plan which may prove to be conservative if uses for 1Gbps services, from experimental networks like Google Fibre, are discusses that justify widescale rollouts.
Well, not only is the $20/Mbit CVC cost inaccurate as CVC plans to drop over time but these contentionr ratios are completely unrealistic. They represent just over 20Mbps per user, or 6.48 TB/connection/month.
Given how little services actually utilise 1Gbps at the moment, a far more reasonable average quota probably represent a contention ratio of 250:1. As you have rightly pointed out for burst reasons this actually requires you to get a minimum of say 2000Mbps a month, which is, $40000 at the inital CVC prices and be more than sufficent for 1Gbps users.,
Now, as that 2Gbps poll of bandwidth does not need to be exclusive to 1Gbps customers you can easily add users at lower tiers to that bandwidth pool further reducing the cost of 1Gbps plans.
Bullshit, if NBNCo didn’t implement shaping in the form of CVC/AVC, ISPs would have because they are adverse to spending money. In fact the Coalition plan actually assumes this, which is why they expect most people to be on 12Mbps despite the minimum line speed being 25Mbps.
Labor, nor NBNCo, never, ever promised that 1Gbps would be the standard plan, in fact, they specifically only released it, as you said, to prove that it was technically possible and that we weren’t getting gibbed by cheap technology.
It is only speed zealouts like you, and in fact you’re the only one I know have who continues to purse this line of reasoning amounting to 1Gbps to all or bust, who give a crap about 1Gbps. I am happy, and you should be, that it is technically possible and will be avaiable for a reasonable amount sometime in the future.
There is no conspricy here to “limit” speeds, there is no conspricy here to “limit” traffic. There is just an expensive project that has to find ways to pay for itself while remaining reflective of actual consumer demand habits.
> Also yes, they created artifical scarcity, but not for scarcity sake. They created it, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed but they have over $40 billion in CAPEX to recover. To do that alone, without counting OPEX, interest on any browering, etc over a reasonable period of say $12 years, assuming we have say 8 million premises utilising the service will require them to make over $35 per user a month.
$35 is today. As others have pointed out the ARPU rises steeply to over $100/month.
> Also, we have attempted to discuss, on many occasions while 1Gbps to everyone is unrealistic and unneeded but you seem to always disappear from such debates midway through, so I’m just going to ask you Mathew: please refer to my previous posts on this point.
Everybody talks about the NBN creating transformation and making us world leaders. 1Gbps is required for that, otherwise we are also runs.
> Well, not only is the $20/Mbit CVC cost inaccurate as CVC plans to drop over time but these contentionr ratios are completely unrealistic. They represent just over 20Mbps per user, or 6.48 TB/connection/month.
CVC only falls to $8/Mbps.
6TB quotas are unrealistic? I’m not aware of residential plans that offer that today (except unlimited plans).
> Bullshit, if NBNCo didn’t implement shaping in the form of CVC/AVC, ISPs would have because they are adverse to spending money. In fact the Coalition plan actually assumes this, which is why they expect most people to be on 12Mbps despite the minimum line speed being 25Mbps.
So let the ISPs have the freedom to make that choice. Even on ADSL2+ some ISPs run networks with congestion so they can offer cheaper prices. Remember back to Telstra ADSL1 wholesale plans? The ISPs asked for 8Mbps but were told no. Nothing changed until Internode installed ADSL2+ DSLAMs and it still took years for Telstra to change it’s plans.
> Labor, nor NBNCo, never, ever promised that 1Gbps would be the standard plan, in fact, they specifically only released it, as you said, to prove that it was technically possible and that we weren’t getting gibbed by cheap technology.
Every mention of the NBN by Labor talked about 1Gbps plans, but they didn’t mention that only 5% were predicted to connect at those speeds.
> It is only speed zealouts like you, and in fact you’re the only one I know have who continues to purse this line of reasoning amounting to 1Gbps to all or bust, who give a crap about 1Gbps. I am happy, and you should be, that it is technically possible and will be avaiable for a reasonable amount sometime in the future.
I have some serious doubts that if Labor’s disaster had been allowed to continue that 1Gbps woudl have ever been available for anyone except the very rich.
> There is no conspricy here to “limit” speeds, there is no conspricy here to “limit” traffic. There is just an expensive project that has to find ways to pay for itself while remaining reflective of actual consumer demand habits.
Something we agree on, Labor’s NBN is expensive. The issue is that Labor promoted 1Gbps connections and yet designed a financial model which means 95% of Australia will never see those speeds.
Your point being? Are you under the mistaken impression that ARPU rising means we must have a rise in prices? I think you need to educate yourself on averages, and how exactly NBNCo plans to get ARPU to $100/month. I’ll give you a clue: they’re not just offering consumer grade, Class 4 traffics, consumer services.
Actually it isn’t. You see, having a “world leading” telecommunications network doesn’t require us to have the fastest speeds, it depends on the metric.
One metric is penetration rates, who else had the vision to put FTTH to 93% of the country?
Demand permitting, under current projections, how else do I have to put it the plan is one conservative estimation of how things may occur. It doesn’t take into account future advances in technology beyond UHD television and media, it assumes demand for such services will be low, etc.
It is only prudent that a business plan err on the side of caution. Something you seem to fail to grasp everytime it is pointed out to you.
Exactly. There are no plans that offer it today, what makes you think consumers will need that much in the future?
You complain that they don’t have the choice, and yet they have a considerable cross section of available plans! The pricing plan isn’t perfect, but that is no reason to, as you have constantly asserted that we need to throw out the whole plan altogether.
My god man, and I am the one often called a zealot. It is you who are a zealot if you really have such high, and unreasonable standards, of your network. I hate to break it to you, but you’re going to be disappointed by the Coalition plan too.
Every mention of the Coalition Broadband plan by the Coalition has talked about 25Mbps plans, but they don’t mention that they predict the majority of people will actually be on the 12Mbps plan. You actually have to read their policy document to figure this one out.
You really expect a politician to be perfectly honest? They will take any advantage, any angle, they can. Everyone else learns to work around this and read supporting documentation to get a clearer picture of the policy, but you seem to think that Labor are deliberately deceiving everyone for some unstated conspiracy. It’s irrational, and you need to stop, or at the very least acknowledge your double standard with the Coalition policy, which you also misrepresent.
For example, you have constantly stated that the fixed costs of installing FoD is less than the running costs of 1Gbps on the NBN, forgetting to mention that you will have to pay subscription fees on FoD for your 1Gbps service as well. I have called you out on this multiple times, and not once have you corrected it, or tried to show a proper comparison of the TCO with real life pricing of 1Gbps services indicated.
So you support a plan that instead of having this possible problem with a digital divide locking out over 100Mbps plans to the masses due to high pricing, will actually definitely create a digital divide locking out over 100Mbps plans to masses by high FoD costs. Where is the logic in that?
There is that assumption then, “designed a model”, as if it was deliberate, intentional, and not just a natural reflection of demand characteristics in Australia. I don’t think you get it there is no conspiracy here. How many times can I say it?
> Your point being? Are you under the mistaken impression that ARPU rising means we must have a rise in prices? I think you need to educate yourself on averages, and how exactly NBNCo plans to get ARPU to $100/month. I’ll give you a clue: they’re not just offering consumer grade, Class 4 traffics, consumer services.
Read the NBNCo Corporate Plan … it relies on retail customers moving up the speed tiers and consuming more data. Big business and government will be avoiding the NBN (except as a backup provider) because in most cases dark fibre will be cheaper.
> Actually it isn’t. You see, having a “world leading” telecommunications network doesn’t require us to have the fastest speeds, it depends on the metric.
> One metric is penetration rates, who else had the vision to put FTTH to 93% of the country?
That would be typically defined as the “white elephant” metric. We built something massively over-specified for the actual use that it was put to. If you are not going to run greater than 100Mbps speeds then FTTN is a reasonable alternative.
> It is only prudent that a business plan err on the side of caution. Something you seem to fail to grasp everytime it is pointed out to you.
Is this a poor attempt at humour? Nobody but the most ardent NBN fanboi actually believes the NBN Corporate Plan was a conservative document. I am hoping Malcolm Turnbull releases the 2013 version so we can have a good laugh.
>> 6TB quotas are unrealistic? I’m not aware of residential plans that offer that today (except unlimited plans).
> Exactly. There are no plans that offer it today, what makes you think consumers will need that much in the future?
Hello? I thought the premise of the NBN was that demand was going to grow exponentially?
>> So let the ISPs have the freedom to make that choice. Even on ADSL2+ some ISPs run networks with congestion so they can offer cheaper prices. Remember back to Telstra ADSL1 wholesale plans? The ISPs asked for 8Mbps but were told no. Nothing changed until Internode installed ADSL2+ DSLAMs and it still took years for Telstra to change it’s plans.
> You complain that they don’t have the choice, and yet they have a considerable cross section of available plans!
We are returning to the early ADSL1 days when everyone resold Telstra wholesale and there was very little difference.
> The pricing plan isn’t perfect, but that is no reason to, as you have constantly asserted that we need to throw out the whole plan altogether.
I agree. I don’t have an issue with FTTP if the people in the bottom half of Australia were going to benefit. Under Labor they simply were going to miss out. The problem is that the NBN fanbois prevented a reasonable discussion of the facts. I suspect that this was because they were afraid that it was all smoke and mirrors.
> My god man, and I am the one often called a zealot. It is you who are a zealot if you really have such high, and unreasonable standards, of your network. I hate to break it to you, but you’re going to be disappointed by the Coalition plan too.
Probably, but compared with Labor’s predictions of network utilisation it is likely to be faster and cheaper.
> You really expect a politician to be perfectly honest? They will take any advantage, any angle, they can. Everyone else learns to work around this and read supporting documentation to get a clearer picture of the policy, but you seem to think that Labor are deliberately deceiving everyone for some unstated conspiracy. It’s irrational, and you need to stop, or at the very least acknowledge your double standard with the Coalition policy, which you also misrepresent.
The problem I have is that for 5 years very few have been prepared to criticise Labor’s failed plan. Some notable exceptions are Simon Hackett and Renai, but both have been insulted for daring to point out potential issues.
> For example, you have constantly stated that the fixed costs of installing FoD is less than the running costs of 1Gbps on the NBN, forgetting to mention that you will have to pay subscription fees on FoD for your 1Gbps service as well. I have called you out on this multiple times, and not once have you corrected it, or tried to show a proper comparison of the TCO with real life pricing of 1Gbps services indicated.
WRONG. I was only comparing the wholesale AVC charge for 1Gbps services. It is very reasonable to assume that since fibre maintenance is cheaper than copper that monthly fees should be less than copper ULL.
> There is that assumption then, “designed a model”, as if it was deliberate, intentional, and not just a natural reflection of demand characteristics in Australia. I don’t think you get it there is no conspiracy here. How many times can I say it?
I’ll agree that there probably wasn’t a conspiracy, as I don’t think Labor had that level of competence, however it demonstrates the lack of understanding that Labor and most people had of what was being offered.
They can only use dark fibre where dark fibre exists. That isn’t everywhere.
Except we are. Consumers are only part of the equation. Mobile phone towers, which require considerable back-haul, and require it to be run quickly to remote locations, are but one example of a high bandwidth application which would allow us to leverage off the NBN.
As I have said above, are you under the failed assumption at a raise in ARPU requires a raise in prices?
So instead of addressing my point with evidence, you insult me. You’re good at this “rational debate” thing aren’t you?
No actually, it isn’t. It bases it’s growth estimates on by an Analysys Mason report on access networks by Ofcom. They don’t just assume exponential growth.
You see, you’re presenting the idea that giving everyone users of 1Gbps plans will suddenly find a usage for all that bandwidth, instead of starting at a more reasonable contention ratio, of about 250:1 and gradually rising it as demand rises, which, by the way, reduces the CVC, thus bringing the cost per connection down.
In other words, your suggestion that CVC will cost $20/Mbit when people are demanding quotas of around 6TB isn’t in line with the stated plan, which says that CVC will cost as low as $8/Mbit when there is an average usage of 540GB/m.
So let me be clear what I meant by my question, I think people will want 6TB quotas eventually, but what applications are you aware of that justify that much quota that exist right now or are in development?
In other words, I was pointing out the logical inconsistency with suggesting on the one hand that there will be growth in usage big enough to justify 20:1 contented connections and that this somehow won’t result in a drop in CVC bringing prices down.
Maybe I need to be a little more clear next time I try to ask you to bring something to it’s logical conclusion, because you seem to be having a little trouble doing it on your own. Or maybe you just need to start using the organ between your ears.
I think you need to research a little more into why this actually happened. I’ll give you a clue: lack of granularity in TW back-haul charges. Simon Hackett wrote an interesting article on it.
First off: Ignroing the “fanboi” insult; We have done nothing of the sort, we have engaged you in rational debate multiple times, you either a) leave or b) repeat the same points thinking we don’t understand them or c) try and argue them but end up resorting to nitpicking arguments rather than actually addressing them.
Second: Althrough the plan is not perfect, and it may introduce an aspect of social inequality in Broadband, it will not be as pronounced as what will occur under the Coalition plan. Unfortunately while there is demand and limited supply of something, in this case bandwidth, the richer will always be able to afford more of it. You need to accept their will be some social inequality no matter what you do.
As I have been trying point out: this isn’t the case. 1Gbps plans TCO will probably be higher under the Coalition, thus average speed plan people are on will be lower.
Bullshit. Bullshit. BULLSHIT. You think that because we knock your arguments down repetitively that we haven’t criticised the NBN? You think the few extremists here that have caused Renai grief are representative of the community as a whole?
We knock your arguments down because they don’t make sense, because you are cherry picking facts, and because you, no matter how hard we try, never ever seem to address our criticisms of your point of view. Not because we have some undying love for the NBN and you are a threat to that with your “arguements”.
That still isn’t a proper TCO comparison.
Okay, finally, we’re getting somewhere. You still have irrational bias against Labor, but try as I might, I don’t think I can do anything about that.
You know what they say about saying “never”, don’t you Mat ;o)
Why would the CVC cost drop automatically by removing the speed tiers?
CVC will drop automatically because the amount of CVC that an RSP needs to purchase will rise dramatically to service peak demand. Instead of purchasing 200Mbps an RSP will need to purchase 2000Mbps.
Only if RSPs offer the full line speed by default to all customers, which I have suggested, is a unlikely. They will probably self-shape.
> Only if RSPs offer the full line speed by default to all customers, which I have suggested, is a unlikely. They will probably self-shape.
In which case they would need to reveal this in their advertising or enjoy discussions with the ACCC.
Having said that RSPs self shaping is a reasonable business model. Internode’s flatrate comes to mind.
Correct but it doesn’t follow to mention that in context:
If they self shape demand for CVC is lower, the CVC price will not drop
Keep it on topic Mathew.
I don’t get it, if they dropped speed tiers, wouldn’t they then be forced to charge everyone more? How/why would it be “cheaper” than if someone only wanted a 12 or 25Mbps service??
No. Umm… okay let me explain Mathew’s simplistic conceptual model so we’re on the same page. I’ve broken down a few of his key assumptions before, so understand I don’t endorse his model.
We replace the pricing of the NBN with a flat “line charge” and a form of “mid haul” bandwidth charging.
This means every user will have burst speeds of up to 2.488/1.244Gbps (assuming they’re on the G984 standard). We set the “line charge” at say, for argument sake, $25/m.
If we assume RSPs don’t self charge, and we assume RSPs average say a contention of 50:1 we need 74.64Mbps/connection, assuming they get over the initial 7.464 (100 users) they need for twice burst capacity.
This, to get an ARPU of $100, results in a cost per megabit of just shy of $1.01 per megabit. Thus, as this is the equivalent of the CVC, it is less than what NBNCo are currently CVC charging.
However it has some flaws in its get assumptions, namely all RSPs offer full line speed and can support these services on their backhaul, in order words, they won’t opt to self shape in order to reduce operational costs.
Something he just acknowledge above, but didn’t readjust his model to account for.
Also it creates a problem in that, as you have no doubt noticed, it means the wholesale cost to RSPs is $100 per user. They need to work out how to cross subsidise, which is difficult, and will actually, in all probability, result in a raise in consumer grade pricing, rather than a fall.
I could break down the assumptions further, but from what I know of you tinman, I think you can run with this.
That should be “if we assume RSPs don’t self shape”.
That all assumes that NBNco would charge less, for more capacity. Reducing it’s ROI.
Or, it assumes that everyone would choose to automatically pay more for their service, from the RSP, because now it’s just one speed. 1Gbps.
Neither seem like logical assumptions. So my original question stands. How does removing speed tiers magically make it cheaper?
It doesn’t, which was my point.
However Mathew is always welcome to try and explain it.
Also it creates a problem in that, as you have no doubt noticed, it means the wholesale cost to RSPs is $100 per user. They need to work out how to cross subsidise, which is difficult, and will actually, in all probability, result in a raise in consumer grade pricing, rather than a fall.
Yeah, no worries, I was right in assuming it would create raised cost to the end user, not less.
So Matthew effectively stands for a slower, more expensive broadband network…
Mathew, the ISP having to buy more, by default, unless it can then sell it, wouldn’t automatically make it cheaper.
Not for the ISP, and by proxy not by the consumer. It would potentially increase NBNco’s income, sure. But someone has to pay for the higher capacity.
Premises Renai. Premises.
Tsk tsk tsk…
“There’s a certain fitness to this situation. What it illustrates is that the Australian public is not stupid.”
Renai I’m afraid I feel that you are drawing assumptions without the benefit of evidence with this statement. To make it accurate you need the word ‘all’ in there, as in ‘… the Australian public is not all stupid’. While I won’t make my own assumptions about the total level of stupidity, just because a tiny proportion of the population can put their name to a petition, that doesn’t mean the majority neither understand nor seek to become better informed about a compelling issue that will affect the future of the nation.
Similarly, you are confusing voter priority with stupidity…
The NBN, while certainly a single issue for some, is not the only concern for the voting public. Presuming that the NBN is the most important issue objectively (rather than your own subjective preference) and then condemning people who don’t share your viewpoint is presumptuous and ignorant.
That’s really the wonder of democracy though. Whether you think Abbott won, or Rudd lost (there’s a distinction, remember the Australian ice skater coming in dead last at the Olympics who won when the entire field fell over?), the people have made their choices. Obviously, the NBN just wasn’t as important as either the LNP’s policies, or alternately punishing Labor. Otherwise Labor would have won…
Hell, I couldn’t be more disappointed in both major parties, but that doesn’t give me license to condemn people who don’t share my particular world view as stupid…
A bright ray of hope though for the NBN faithful (if you take a pollie at his/her word.. /lol)
http://www.zdnet.com/au/if-fibre-costs-are-lower-well-do-more-fibre-turnbull-7000014253/
I would say that it would be an easy policy victory for Turnbull (and ergo the Libs) if they find they can do FTTP as cheaply as FTTN to roll with it. It’s on record that they are willing to adapt (ergo it mitigates the accusations of a backflip that would inevitably follow). It really depends on whether or not NBNco’s costing estimates were accurate (and now the Libs are in the drivers seat, they have the access to work that out) and whether or not Turnbull is actually willing to base policy on evidence rather than entrenched partisan positions. A reverse would not be dissimilar to Labor deep sixing Opel only to nominate wireless (12Mbit no less) as the solution for regional/rural outside FTTN/FTTH footprints.
Indeed.
Malcolm can be very sensible when he wants to be, and a lot of “what happens next” will be known once the Study, Audit and CBA (SAC) are done.
As FTTP was a recommendation of the expert panel, and not actual a Labor idea, I suspect the SAC will actually make the situation even more murky for Malcolm (as long as they are actually done honestly). We may end up with more fibre than originally planned for FTTN. Or not. Time will tell.
“when he wants to be”
You mean when he can control his ego ;)
I was thinking more along the lines of “when Tony isn’t poking him with a stick”, but there is the ego angle to consider as well :o)
The LNP could poison the well too.
By part-selling, or suitable knobbling the NBN (such that we currently have) they could make it impossible to be able to ever provide a ubiquitous Fibre To The Premises solution to the proposed 93% of our population without triggering massive compensation claims from the owners of the “cherry picked” parts.
Who am I to say this? I’m nobody, but respected News Corp Journalist – Alan Kholer – proposed just such a scenario less than a year ago. Now, I can’t find it (his article), and I have weak Google powers, but maybe someone should just ask Kholer for a link – it’s quite though-provoking, and a little scary.
The way that Julie Bishop behaved with Steve Bracks this morning suggests that vindictiveness runs strong through the LNP veins right now – I wouldn’t put it past them to try and foul it up for all of us, just to spite future generations and calm Uncle Rupert’s nerves!
“…. potentially getting Telstra involved in constructing the NBN fibre.”
Given that NBNCo Contractors are most likely ex Tesltra contractors/employees because the Australian Comms Labour pool isn’t all that large, I cant really see how Telstra can get any more involved than what it currently is.
And TrevorX re your “… In the USA it is commonplace for legislation to be written by major lobby groups that are then introduced unedited by senators. Why not policy over here, with a few choice legislative ammendments?” I cant see that approach getting anywhere with the Parliamentary drafting mob.
I like to think if that path were followed, Andrew Wilkie’s speaking out about Howard’s lies would be relegated to that of a Sunday School recital.
Sorry Denis, you’ve misunderstood my intent – I meant if it is possible then why isn’t it likely that lobby groups are doing the same thing over here. I don’t mean why aren’t they allowed to – the fact is they are. And that’s part of the problem with our version of government.
Hold this thought.
The reason we spend hours debating this topic is because a man who does not know what “peak speed” is, said: My (considered) policy is kill the NBN.
Is this man fit to govern if this is his approach to policy formation?
Time for a reality check, your petitions and so called dissent is neither powerful nor mainstream. Whatever is built from today onwards will not be influenced by any of you at all.
If crackpot conservative types can question the likes of climate change, effects of smoking, immunisations and fluoridation of water, I would hope well informed technical minded people with a strong argument could at least have some effect on the debate. Why should influencing government be left to big business, religious organisations and extreme right wing individuals?
We as Australians will not tolerate a bunch of politicians to hold Australia’s economic and communication future at ransom simply because the LNP didn’t come up with the policy and don’t have the balls to say ” you know what, we are sorry, we got it wrong and we will continue with the FTTH network”
You’re right Mr Abbott the Australian people gave you your position and it’s the Australian people who will strip it away if you’re not careful or perhaps something more nasty is lurking. Now is the time to solidify your position, or the alternative is a backlash so severe you’ll be left in a total diabolical crap hole left pondering wtf just happened?
Choose common sense, choose wisely.
Doesn’t matter how much you pray or say you need the NBN for your business, or run petitions or organize rallies to march the streets of Canberra.
There is a thing called proper due process. Let Abbot properly cost the NBN based on merits, not people petty frustrations. If it ends up costing 2-3X as much as take 2-3 times as long as planned to roll out I’m all for scrapping it. I’m not going to pay 3X as much for the same connection speed. And Im sure 2.5million of other Australian customers on HFC would share the same sentiments.
Abbot backtracked on internet filtering policy yet has been steadfast when it comes to reevaluating the NBN roll-out. Obviously there is a lot more behind the scene that labor government has shared with the Australian people.
> There is a thing called proper due process. Let Abbot properly cost the NBN based on merits, not people petty frustrations.
Proper costings?
> I’m not going to pay 3X as much for the same connection speed. And Im sure 2.5million of other Australian customers on HFC would share the same sentiments.
If Labor had avoided overbuilding HFC areas and focused on suburbs built post 1970 then it would have been easier to suggest the roll out was designed to deliver faster speeds to those most in need.
> Abbot backtracked on internet filtering policy yet has been steadfast when it comes to reevaluating the NBN roll-out. Obviously there is a lot more behind the scene that labor government has shared with the Australian people.
NBNCo provided the 2013-2015 Corporate Plan to the Labor Government back in May. I suggest that if it contained positive news we would have seen Gillard / Rudd holding it at a media release. The fact it was never released suggests that it contained more bad news.
I suggest that if Malcolm Turnbull wants to encourage transparency he could start by releasing the draft plan.
You’ve never lived in an MDU in a cable area where cable services are not already installed in the MDU have you? Because if you had you would know the futitlity of this suggestion.
Also, before you suggest it, please, give me a convincing argue as to why Telstra or Optus would agree to changing their HFC to an OAN? It’s not an easy sell, and is why NBNCo decided to instead throw a few billion at the problem to overbuild and migrate users.
This is unfounded, and unsupported conjecture.
So it’s okay for Turnbull to wait until after the election to release their “fully costed policy” and you expect no ill will but if Labor do it this implies their must be bad news?
I said last time you brought it up I thought you were smarter than introducing an obvious double standard. It seems I was wrong; you are quite prepared to engage in this double standard.
@Matthew
You have said Labor received the 2013 CP in May. Do you have any evidence of this? I’m well aware of Quigley’s comments that it was on track to be delivered to government in May, he said in April. And that’s when it became obvious the labour shortages and remediation problems were going to affect the build. Which quite feasibly delayed its’ delivery due to reworking.
There is no current evidence either way the government has received the CP.
The Coalition has to be seen as being true to their election policy promises, upon which the electorate voted them into Government with a healthy majority.
The Coalition made much of Gillard and Labor’s change of mind election promise re the Carbon Tax, I cannot see them changing their mind on their NBN policy which would only give the Labor opposition especially Albanese some ammunition to keep hammering the Coalition with right up to 2016 as exact pay back to what happened to them.
I disagree. The carbon tax was a policy reversal by Gillard to obtain power (just like her knifing Rudd and deceit of Wilkie).
The Coalition has a policy to upgrade the network and it includes 21% FTTP. If the Coalition were able to remove the waste (gold plating and inefficiencies) then it is possible they could build FTTP for a reasonable price. Simon Hackett has explained how to save money on the NBN and at the same time improve performance.
The question is can the NBN fanbois actually move on from Labor’s failure and provide constructive advice?
“The Coalition has a policy to upgrade the network and it includes 21% FTTP. If the Coalition were able to remove the waste (gold plating and inefficiencies) then it is possible they could build FTTP for a reasonable price.”
However the intention isn’t, as per policy, to remove the waste and deploy FTTP. It is (supposedly) to remove “the waste” and deploy FTTN, reverting to Fibre only if required.
The “constructive advice” has been to suggest Turnbull avoid some of his own wasteful changes and take a tighter rein and budget for the current NBN.
However I don’t see how any constructive response, beyond “copper is okay”, will register as acceptable based on prior comment.
@Matthew
My “constructive advice” would be for Turnbull to do his audits. Transparently and independently. But then why would he listen to a “fanboi” like me, who wants to see Australia get the best option, as fast as possible, for the best cost over the lifetime of the network?
I agree, I suggest he starts by releasing the 2013-2015 NBNCo Corporate Plan.
I’m sure he will, as soon as the caretaker convention ends when the new government gets sworn in…
Constructive advice would be to acknowledge that the core of Labor’s plan was superior, and to find ways to make it work, at least in some manner or another.
That could be to build out FttH areas that are considerably advanced (my regular example is Wollongong), adapt the plan to roll out either FttN or FttH in the cherry pickable areas sooner rather than later, and consider FttN for rural clusters.
He needs to acknowledge that we’re going to be moving to a FttH model in the not too distant future, and make efforts to make that as cost effective to the consumer as possible, both medium and long term.
Its not about services tomorrow, its about services after 2020.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckcH0Wrmy74
.. apart from those whom voted LDP (presumably by mistake) right? So angry they couldn’t think/ see straight, apparently. :)
For once I agree. Mark the date. It’s unlikely to happen again.
Turnbull and Abbott didn’t so much as back down on the pre-election Filter, as realise they’d been down-trousered in public (over a policy both should bloody well have paid more attention to, after presumably signing it off).
The NBN is an entirely different situation. It would not be politically optimal for either to show weakness and back down now. Petition or no, the FTTH policy died on election day.
Telstra has already lined up to sweep back the very folks it’s been paid to hand over (convenient). Turnbull doesn’t have a lot of choice.
And now, neither do we.
Discrimination in this country will not be tolerated, how do you deliver FTTH to 1/20 of the community and FTTN to the rest. How do you provide fibre exclusively to the rich of society only. What the LNP are saying is if you now want it you must pay atleast $4000 if you are close to the service. that’s discrimination every day of the week. what about the disadvantage of society, the renters, the battlers….
You say your internet policy is bulletproof, i’m here to tell you there is a lawsuit being drawn up that’s bomb proof. Not only will cost your party greatly, it may cost you and your members everything.
Don’t swim against the current, for your sake, and your parties sake i’d go with the flow.
Justice,
Really? Even the current NBN model had different access standards based on where you lived. For example, if you live just outside the Fibre area in a wireless or satellite area (which is the bulk of the Australian land mass) and want fibre speeds you have to pay for a fibre extension from a GPON node. So the policy remains unchanged for fibre extensions.
And.. your point?
For what it’s worth, I’ve signed that petition here:
http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/the-liberal-party-of-australia-reconsider-your-plan-for-a-fttn-nbn-in-favour-of-a-superior-ftth-nbn
Because I truly believe that a FTTN is a mistake.
I see the petition has been reported by ABC and Computerworld:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-10/university-student-petition-to-scrap-nbn-takes-off-online/4949372
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/526022/91k_issue_plea_abbott_nbn/
Can I find a petition somewhere to complete roll-out of the FTTN – and only then look at the best way to deliver the ‘last mile’ when it’s complete??
That will shore up (and improve) the current xDSL and HFC services, add infrastructure capability to the police, emergency, medical and educational requirements. Then we have five more years to explore the requirements and performance metrics before digging in 10-million under-used FTTP endpoints.
lastchancename, You have your opinion and I have mine.
Another interesting article from ABC:
We asked readers what they thought should be Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott’s number one priority for his first 100 days in office.
There was a total of 4,166 responses. The bubble chart shows responses that were mentioned more than 10 times.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-11/your-say-tony-abbotts-priorities/4946024
Ninemsn also has article on petition. See:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/09/11/12/08/one-name-every-3-5-sec-on-nbn-petition
“…Comment has been sought from the incoming coalition government’s communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull.”
Be interested in what MT says in response. That is if is he does respond.
Reported response from a spokesman for Malcolm Turnbull with regard to petition as reported in this article “Pro-NBN petition ‘most popular’ but likely ineffective “here:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/it-pro/government-it/pronbn-petition-most-popular-but-likely-ineffective-20130911-hv1po.html
“..However, a spokesman for Malcolm Turnbull, who is expected to be appointed Communications Minister next week, said a cost-benefit analysis would show which network structure was most appropriate.
‘‘We will conduct a thorough cost-benefit analysis of this project so that the general public will finally be able to assess what this project is really going to cost in terms of time and dollars, and the relative trade-offs of differing approaches to delivering better broadband,’’ the spokesman said.
The wording Malcolms spokespeople are using now is interesting ;o)
I’d suggest that no matter what, with all of the new governments previous hullabaloo about FttP, they will not allow any CBA to show FttP to 93% superior to FttN/HFC to 93% and therefore the previous mob right and them wrong…
Conversely, their one get out of gaol card to allow FttP to proceed would be to suggest that FttP is of course (as they have always indicated by having FttP in greenfields and by promising to renew any sub-standard connections with FttP) superior… it’s just the Labor way of doing it was wasteful and that they would of course manage FttP much more fiscally responsibly…
I expect them to go ahead with Malcolms plan, only they’ll use more fibre than first thought, and older MDU’s will of course be FTTB/C
** FTTx – It’s the same fibre node & backbone! FFS **
Very little else than the monthly bill will be different for the end user – other than your tax $ are paying to (inefficiently) dig a fibre into every residential garden in Australia.
The big benefit is to emergency, education and other community services.
Their (better than yours) FTTP service is being connected up with your dollar. This is a good thing, but shouldn’t be hidden in your monthly internet bill.
FTTN is an honest infrastructure bid, based on economic sense.
(No I didn’t vote for LNP or ALP !)
@lastchancename
No, “FFS” it isn’t. The node backplane of a FTTN node is capable of between 5 and 10Gbps, depending on the equipment bought. If you assume they do a reasonable job and choose the 10Gbps, that’s between 150 Premises (on average- some more, some less). That’s 150Mbps per user. FTTH currently works on a 1:32 split of 2.5Gbps (plus PTP) but the average usage of that “node” is only around 14 premises because of spare fibres. So that’s 14 into 2.5Gbps….which is in fact 180Mbps.
All this, however, is irrelevant- regardless of teh technology used, it will NBNCo’sw job to ensure bandwidth usage doesn’t exceed around 70% (their current design rules). So contention on a hardware level is irrelevant ans will be upgraded when needed.
The cost of FTTH is not “hidden” in anything. It is clear from NBNCo’s actuals that FTTH cost around $2400/premises. That cost is spread out over 25 years, at around 5% interest on average (2/3 at 4.5%, 1/3 at 7%). That’s around $19/month for the roughly $5800 of total cost over time. Compare this to FTTN- current numbers suggest a cost of around $1700/premises, on average. This, however, won’t be able to be spread over 25 years- bandwidth will grow too quickly to allow this. The maximum likely is 10 years. At around 4.5% (assuming no private debt is needed, which we simply don’t know yet). That’s about $27/month over 10 years, an increase of nearly 60%.
Both solutions spread the cost of build over time- it’s called capital mamangement. If you believe this is a “hidden” cost, you should be opposed to both plans. The irony is, it actually costs the end user more over time under FTTN because they are paying more to start with and then more again to upgrade to FTTH when FTTN cannot handle the bandwidth anymore.
Don’t forget, Seven_tech, that the LNP’s plan involves at least 10, maybe as much as 25 years in totality and yet they have only accounted for the first five. They have no accounting for payback periods, no costings estimates, no modelling, no market research or focus group analysis. Try pitching that business plan to investors and see where that gets you…
“Very little else than the monthly bill will be different for the end user – other than your tax $ are paying to (inefficiently) dig a fibre into every residential garden in Australia.”
Gee even with FttP/NBN dead and buried and every NBN detractor’s (that I have ever encountered) party elected, then same disinformation about FttP and tax dollars is still being spread?
Really?
You are aware that this is an evidence based forum and this typical rubbish promoted in some sections of MSM and by those too afraid to comment here who hide over at ZD, is frowned upon?
*rolls eyes*
lastchance – so when is it “efficient” to dig up someone’s lawn?
When the last mile copper needs (short term) remediation to handle VDSL? When we eventually get to a point where the copper has to be replaced (mid/ long term) with fibre? A straw man argument to say the least.
Tax-payer dollars are going to be spent to plough FTTN cabinets in as well; so you’re really not making a lot of sense there, either. Be it Labor or Liberal, both are using government funding, both (at least, unless Turnbull changes his mind) would be considered investment from an accounting standpoint.
Accidental submit.
“Be it Labor or Liberal, both are using government funding, both (at least, unless Turnbull changes his mind) would be considered investment from an accounting standpoint, with a stated rate of return.”
Now the liberals are in power the australian taxpayer will have to pay up for TWO networks AN FTTN network and then in a few short years A FTTP network.
And all this after all the copper lines have been replaced instead of being ripped out as well.
The Liberal’s were right when they said its going to cost 100 billion.
FWIW the change.org petition was up to about 187k early this morning. Upgraded target of 300k.
“most Australians would have preferred to see the Coalition keep Labor’s FTTP model, but promise to speed up its delivery by better managing NBN Co, and potentially getting Telstra involved in constructing the NBN fibre”
This must be the best summary of what should happen with the NBN mess I have read…….
Regards
Alfred
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