NBN Co kicks off FTTB, FTTN trials

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fibre

news The National Broadband Network Company has revealed plans to commence trials of the Fibre to the Basement and Fibre to the Node network infrastructure models, including use of the vectoring standard, as the Coalition’s plan to reshape Labor’s previously Fibre to the Premises-based NBN vision kicks into gear.

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 was to have been served by a combination of satellite and wireless broadband, delivering speeds of up to 25Mbps.

Originally, the Coalition’s policy was to have seen 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 was 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.

However, the possibility of a different style of rollout has been raised by Turnbull in the several weeks since the Liberal MP became Communications Minister. In late September, Turnbull appeared to have drastically modified the Coalition’s policy stance on the NBN just weeks after the Federal Election, declaring the Coalition was not wedded to its fibre to the node model and was “thoroughly open-minded” about the technology to be used in the network. NBN Co is currently conducting a strategic review into its operations and model that will inform Turnbull’s decisions regarding the project’s future.

Speaking this afternoon, a NBN Co spokesperson confirmed NBN Co had recently conducted a laboratory trial of Fibre to the Basement broadband, including use of the high-speed vectoring standard, to see how the model functioned. “We’re now taking that trial out of the lab and into the field,” the spokesperson added. The laboratory trial used equipment from French vendor Alcatel-Lucent, with whom NBN Co has an existing contract to supply networking equipment.

Some ten premises will be chosen for the trial, although NBN Co doesn’t know where the premises will be yet. The trial will see both aerial fibre and underground fibre cables tested, and the premises will be either blocks of flats or shopping centres — representing typical multi-dwelling unit structures which have proven difficult for NBN Co to target with its FTTP rollout in the past. The company’s fibre currently covers some 70,000 “service class zero” premises — premises where fibre has been deployed in a building’s street, but where it has proven difficult to get the fibre into a building’s individual units.

NBN Co is planning to use its existing product development forum to engage retail Internet service providers to participate in the trial.

The company is also in the “very early stage” of scoping out a similar Fibre to the Node trials, although those are less advanced than the Fibre to the Basement trials, the spokesperson said. NBN Co will obviously need to get access to Telstra’s copper network.

The news comes just a month after Telstra itself reportedly kicked off a trial of the Coalition’s preferred fibre to the node, VDSL and vectoring technologies in an effort to show what they are capable of on its copper network. Alcatel-Lucent is also supplying equipment for that trial.

opinion/analysis
I’ve seen some comments today to the effect that these trials are pre-empting the results of NBN Co’s Strategic Review into how the NBN should be delivered in future. However this isn’t how I view the trials. The fact is that NBN Co needs to know more about how FTTB and FTTN works, if it is to be able to make recommendations in its Strategic Review. And let’s not forget — the company only has 60 days to deliver that review.

In addition, I think it’s clear at this point that FTTB and FTTN will be some part of the NBN. NBN Co needs to know as much as possible about these technologies, as that knowledge will help inform the future of its project. It’s not enough to merely rely on results achieved by vendors or other telcos — NBN Co needs some hard data on this itself. I’ve also asked the company if it can release the results of its FTTB laboratory trial. Hopefully that will tell us a little about how FTTB could work in Australia, if that data does eventually come out.

Image credit: Clix, royalty free

112 COMMENTS

  1. Wow. Massive pat on the back for Malcolm. Only 1 month after the election, and things are kicking up 5 gears. LNP governments always get things done fast and efficient.

          • NBN Co have been working on FTTB for the last 18 months, Mike Quigley stated some time ago they were having problems with voice over FTTB which was holding them up.

          • That surprises me. VOIP was developed during dialup days, and specifically to work alongside other data sources like online gaming. The data compression for VOIP made it so small to be negligible when online gaming, you’d think the speeds available today would make integration trivial.

            Of course, those early tests will have been somewhat basic compared to the needs of today, but for simple voice transmission any differences should effectively be able to be ignored.

            We use VOIP here at work with no problems (20k+ staff across the country), outside of occasional network problems that cause far wider issues, and out connections are certainly not a high standard.

          • Thanks MikeK. Never clicked that there might still be a need for the old phone jack, and hence analog phones. I was only thinking VOIP, which will have no problems at all with whatever model someone ends up with. As I said, it was designed in dialup days to work with other programs sharing a connection, so the data transmission is incredibly small.

            A copper loop for the last mile of a FttN/FttB/FttC build doesnt change that, and I expect pretty much everyone to basically be VOIP in NBN world. Have it as part of your net package, or for those wanting phone services only, a basic VOIP only package for a few dollars a month will do the same thing.

          • It is one of the issues with the NBN roll-out trying to maintain legacy support.

            Running fiber without service interruptions while ensuring existing Plain Old Telephone Systems(POTS) is still supported, and is one of the significant sources of added cost to the NBN build. Interruption of existing services was actually one of the lies Turnbull told about FTTN with their initially released policy pamphlet and the service interruption issues as well as support for legacy services applies to FTTB also.

          • Yeah, you may have noticed that legacy support is not one of my favorite subjects. As far as I’m concerned, one of the most unheralded, yet biggest benefits of a FttH build is to remove that exact issue.

            You remove the need to support pretty much every level of fixed line technology up to the FttH lines. No support needed for dialup, ADSL, or ADSL2, and everyone gets to start again, only this time with everyone having the same quality of line to work with.

            No need to play Telstra Tetris with the various states of decay with the copper (another legacy support), or the daleks. No future legacy support for the FttN nodes either.

            Clean the slate, and get rid of the lot. Do it right and start again. In the long run you save a hell of a lot of money.

            If anyone disagrees, why is dialup still an offered product in this day and age? It should have been wiped from existance years ago.

    • They are really getting on with business! Let’s hope they also kick off trials of overland telegraph and the steam engine as soon as they can!

      A sad, sad day for Australia.

    • NBNCo is already in place and work crews are in the field, so…

      MT to NBN Co: “I want you to start trialling FttN”…

      NBNCo: “ok Malcolm”…

      And that took 6 weeks?

      • Labor wins election in November 2007, trial FTTP build starts in July 2009 in Tasmania with first customers connected 12 months later, and six weeks for the FTTN trial is too long?

        lol

        • Lol indeed…

          All the prelim work has been done, regardless of the fact that the shameless ideologies have childishly whinged and incessantly nitpicked about every aspect…

          But now that a mere direction has been given, the same shameless ideologues are crowing…?

          *rolls eyes*

          • What prelim work has been done, and when should the FTTN trial have been started to meet your exacting standards that 6 weeks is too long, and what effect is this going to have on the overall rollout that the trial took six weeks to start and not 2 weeks ago for example?

          • Just for a second fibroid, imagine that Turnbull did a review, and found that FttH was still able to be rolled out, but with a tweak here and there. Just for a second, you can go back to your blinkered view after that.

            Now, a “tweak here and there” means whatever rollout has been planned needs to be changed in some way, right?

            Do you think those changes would mean starting totally from scratch, or do you think the groundwork already done would be used to speed up the process?

            There are plans that have been worked on for years to show a rollout map, and how to be as efficient as possible, so simply leveraging off that alone means they can just look at somewhere that has already been mapped out and use that to work from.

            Or, and here’s an amazing idea, why wouldnt they use an area that has a FttH footprint already? FttB just needs the trial for that last mile, so if 95% of the work has already been done, dont you think its a simple step to just find a good location where a MDU is orphaned in an FttH build, and trial there?

            For FttN, there are plenty of areas (read: most exchanges) where FttH has been rolled out in one area, but other areas havent started. While I personally think its a bad idea, why wouldnt they consider putting FttN in those suburbs that havent started, meaning they dont have to roll out fiber to X percentage of the distance?

            Point being, its not hard to see how they can use the planning and building thats already been done, so unless you’re simply grinding a political axe again, shouldnt be hard to see how they can go from that to trial relatively fast. Along with the Telstra negotiations, such planning was why it took so long to start in the first place. A lot of it couldnt start until they knew exactly what Telstra ducts they had to work with.

          • There are plans that have been worked on for years to show a rollout map, and how to be as efficient as possible, so simply leveraging off that alone means they can just look at somewhere that has already been mapped out and use that to work from.”

            To be fair, the previous FTTP NBN plan was anything but efficient – due to the need to deliver FTTP to greenfield estates as a priority and (as a result of negotiations with regional independent MPs) also a certain amount of prioritisation for regional towns, very substantial time has been taken delivering transit network backhaul out to those areas.

            Don’t get me wrong, I understand the reasons for it. But it is not an efficient policy, even if it is ‘fairer’.

          • Yeah, was a little worried about that bit :) Didnt quite reflect what I was trying to say. Basically, they played a giant game of tetris, to work out an efficient way of having a starting point and building out as fast as possible. It took a lot of work, but to most means nothing.

            But that work was done, and the point was more that they wouldnt just ignore that work. They would take advantage of it as best they can, even if it meant some replanning. I wouldnt expect them to throw everything out and start again, regardless of what some people think.

          • We have millions of users around the world using FttN and FttB we don’t need a trial we already know what it offers.

          • Actually, if you seriously intend to deploy FTTN in Australia, you do need trials. Particularly on the lower/lowest grade copper available, so you can determine feasibility in worst case scenarios.

            But you’re right insofar that we know what is possible over FTTN in the best case, we know how much the LNP have estimated it to cost, and we know that for $1bn less than it would cost for FTTP it is a truly ridiculous, idiotic idea, so from that perspective a trial won’t tell you anything you don’t already know ;-)

          • But you get it in 2016! Or is it 2019? Teh fasta interwebz tehy didnt needs must be had soona!

        • There wasn’t even a company to DO so in 2007.
          Now there’s a large corporation.

          Apples, oranges.

          • I was comparing the time it took for the Labor FTTP trial to take place with the time it will take for the Coalition FTTN trial to take place after each Party won Government, I am not sure if you consider six weeks ‘unacceptable’ after winning government but even factoring the formation of the NBN Co as being an acceptable excuse for trial delays, it is still not going to get us anywhere near to six weeks is it?

          • You seem quite content trivialising the complexity of setting up a company like NBN Co, and designing the network in the first place. Why is that?

          • I am not trivialising it, we are talking about a TRIAL here, not designing the network for a build timeline to 93% of residences by 2021.

          • You seem awfully exited that they’ve done a lab test, were you worried they wouldn’t be able to work out how to implement a decades old tech?

          • No the trials will work, the nice thing is the speed of deployment after then with all that copper to the residence lying in ducts just waiting to be simply connected to a FTTN cabinet.

          • Hopefully it’s a proper technical trial in a variety of environments that would be common here in Australia, and not just some sort of marketing exercise to “prove” FTTN works.

          • Your concern is misplaced, even if the trial is under the best conditions ever on the basis of a media stunt with a big orange button and nice Liberal blue shiny FTTN cabinet it still has to work to meet the speed standards in the Coalition policy across Australia.

          • Gotta love those fact-proof FttN/Coalition rose coloured glasses…

            There will be no hiccups, just plug into the copper and go…

            http://www.zdnet.com/telstra-must-fix-dilapidated-copper-for-libs-fttn-nbn-iinet-7000021893/

            Good luck with that and good luck to Australia trying to compete globally with obsolete copper based FttN technology. Technology which the very same people who opposed it 6 years ago and referred to it as fraudband now wish to lump upon us all at almost the same governmental cost as FttP (which some subservient pawns blindly ignore)…

          • Your concern is misplaced, even if the trial is under the best conditions ever on the basis of a media stunt with a big orange button and nice Liberal blue shiny FTTN cabinet it still has to work to meet the speed standards in the Coalition policy across Australia.

            My real concern is it’s a colossal waste of money, much like the “review” they are doing, it’s all just expensive marketing.

          • Yes Alex.

            Straight out of Malcolm’s text book, no pair, bad copper, whatever…we will just replace. The cost? Not a worry, there is next to no real problem with the network. Speed? Not a worry, look at what they’re doing in the UK. Look at all the new technology that is coming up. The age of copper, Not a worry. As David (Do I have a network for you) Thodey said it won’t disintegrate. It will last another 100 years. No worries, the Coalition is finally in charge.

            As Tony, the new miracle man, said during the election: There’s nothing wrong with Australia that can’t be fixed if you elect a Coalition government.

            I think the time as come to realise that Tony and the Coalition (this could be a good name for a band) are one of our best asset. We could export them to the world. All it would require is a slight change of motto ” There’s nothing wrong with the world that Tony and the Coalition can’t fix.

          • ‘I was comparing the time it took for the Labor FTTP trial to take place with the time it will take for the Coalition FTTN trial to take place after each Party won Government”
            Well the Coalition hasn’t even done a trial, they have just said they would. Who knows how long it will take. I remember the carbon tax was going to be removed immediately, still there, will still be there next year. I don’t care if they take their time with the trials, better to have a good grasp on it than rush it through and end of with FTTN, err I mean, something that will be a disaster, same difference, whatever.

          • And remember the Coalition saying they would eliminate government debt in the first 12 months of government and now its going up to haft a billion. Heavens knows what our comms system will end up looking like

          • Well it is certainly not as bad if Labor was left to build their ‘stuff the cost’ FTTP extravaganza, the last NBN Corporate plan required more funding of $45.6b up from the 2012 plan of $44.1b, the 2012 plan increased the funding from the 2010 plan.

            So every release of the NBN Corporate plan required more debt funding, but apparently it’s the Coalition we will need to be ‘worried about’ when it comes to finances the NBN and future debt.

          • So every release of the NBN Corporate plan required more debt funding, but apparently it’s the Coalition we will need to be ‘worried about’ when it comes to finances the NBN and future debt.

            The Coalition aren’t worried about it, they will borrow the same amount as Labor was going to, and hey, they’ve increased the debit ceiling to $500b, so they have room to move now!

          • ‘they will borrow the same amount as Labor was going to,’

            Really – is that you Joe?

            :)

          • @ Fibroid, your missed by point its got nothing to do with the money, its the Coalition saying one thing and doing a 360 degree turn-a-round and doing the opposite. How is this sort of leadership inspire confidence in the direction of our comms system and those companies affiliated to it.

          • @ Fibroid

            “Well it is certainly not as bad if Labor was left to build their ‘stuff the cost’ FTTP extravaganza, the last NBN Corporate plan required more funding of $45.6b up from the 2012 plan of $44.1b, the 2012 plan increased the funding from the 2010 plan.”

            Conjecture (and we all know how you hate conjecture don’t we)

            :)

          • That’s not conjecture, it was in black and white in the NBN Corporate plans, unless you are insinuating the plans were all conjecture.

          • @ Fibroid…

            What an ironic turnaround (contradiction)…

            You are of course referring to the NBN Corporate Plan that upon release you totally dismissed as speculation, estimation and wait for it… conjecture?

            Gold…

    • thisis a joke right ?

      without labor new network infrastructure , the coalition would have been doing what it did in 2004 -2007 nothing

      and ha ha at those poor suckers getting the inferior nbn version

  2. The original stories said the trials start next year for FTTB so probably wont be much use for the review. However an AL rep did comment a few weeks ago that they had a FTTB product prepared and tested for NBNco earlier this year.

    • Yes NBNCo under Labor was looking at FttB due to the difficult nature of FttH in some areas Mike Quigley said as much in senate estimates Unfortunately Politics got in the way.

      Malcolm and his anti FttH Zealotry AND Labor and their ALL FttH Zealotry

      We do not need a trial of FttB as it has been deployed thousands of times in other countries and a few in this country.

      We don’t need a trial we need a decision on which is better in cost terms the only reason you would “trial” this is because you already know the outcome of the “Review” as you have stacked the review board with your mates and have told them what to do!

  3. I am glad they are going to trial them. I don’t think there will be a FTTB problem, but I’d like all the details on the FTTN trial. a real world trial I hope, and not one of cherry picked copper. Let’s hope they can get enough people on there to really test for crosstalk interference.
    I agree trials don’t preempt a result (though we can see by the stacking what result Turnbull wants). It’d be good to have the data for decission making. Let’s hope it’s not another state secret.
    Now if they adjust the agreement with Telstra to buy the copper… that’s a different matter. It’s sounds more and more like Telstra want to gain for the deal, be it money or tweaks that provide benefit to them.

  4. For the FTTN trial, i do hope they choose a range of places with a variety of different copper. Hell, i vote my town (Capel) here in Western Australia, where the backhaul from the exchange makes it seem like dialup once everyone gets home from school and work in the town.

    My connection alone sucks at the best of times, just the other day, for some unexplained reason, my DSL port decided to lock up, thankfully my ISP was able to use their fancy software to send a reset command to it.

    • I am just up the road from you (near Busselton), and my whole estate shares a TOTAL of 6.5 Mbps backhaul to an ADSL1 CMUX. I have been fighting with Telstra for 6 years since I moved here to upgrade the backhaul, still nothing.

      • Am I correct in stating that your main issue is the under provisioning of backhaul by Telstra not the speed or stability of your connection?

        • With Telstra only provisioning 6.5 Mbps total backhaul shared between a whole estate, how could I be happy with my speeds? I pay for 24 Mbps, I sync at 8 Mbps, and I get 0.11 Mbps.

          • > With Telstra only provisioning 6.5 Mbps total backhaul shared between a whole estate, how could I be happy with my speeds? I pay for 24 Mbps, I sync at 8 Mbps, and I get 0.11 Mbps.

            You are not paying for a guaranteed connection speed. You are paying for a connection the speed of which may be influenced by a variety of factors. The NBN will be exactly the same and also impacted by backhaul.

            Syncing at 8Mbps means that if Telstra upgraded the backhaul then your connection would most likely run at 8/1Mbps. Upgrading the copper between your house and the DSLAM to fibre would provide zero benefit unless the backhaul was also upgraded.

          • Who said anything about upgrading the copper?

            I was responding to Ray Herring, who lives in the same region as me, and is being neglected by Telstra in the same manner that I am – even though there is fibre to the CMUX in my estate, in 6 years, Telstra have done NOTHING to upgrade the pitiful backhaul they provisioned, of 6.5 Mbps for ALL residents of the estate to share.

            The Telstra Country Wide General Manager here told me verbally 18 months ago (after I lodged a fault, which resulted in the CMUX being recorded as congested) “you are such an insignificant population to Telstra that we will never do anything to upgrade you”.

          • Sounds about right, Telstra couldn’t care less, my mother has a friend living in Provence (Satterley Estate just south of Busselton), she can’t get any landline connection at all, builders installed the sidegate/fence where the workman need to work, plus there’s nothing in the ground to begin with for her.

            She asked her ISP, she asked Bigpond, etc… and not one of them could care less.

          • Maybe one of the wireless mobs could help her? Has she tried applying for NBNCo wireless?

          • There is no NBN in the South-West of WA yet. Only other thing there is is 3G, which she has i believe, but that sucks so much in the South-West it isn’t even funny.

        • I have stability issues in my instance, port locked up the other week, few months before that it was rain that killed my connection for the entire weekend (down friday arvo, back monday night).

          It’s not an uncommon issue here in the south-west of WA.

    • If your RSP can reset the port that suggests it is their own DSLAM which means that the backhaul issue is one for the RSP to solve. The same issue with under provisioning of CVC and backhaul are going to exist on the NBN.

      • Except my ISP has zero hardware in the exchange, i am on a Telstra ADSL port, the entire town only has access to Telstra ports and iiNet/Westnet ports.

        The only reason iiNet has hardware in the exchange (and have only had it there for the past 3yrs) is because there is obviously enough people in the town who are with iiNet/Westnet.

  5. I’m curious as to why FTTB is so much easier than FTTP. Is it simply that fibre doesn’t need to be run within the building and instead the existing copper can be used or are there more complex issues at work?

    • There is that, I think it is also complicated by the fact that, once inside the building, the copper/infrastructure belongs to the building owners, and permission to access and use the facilities needs to be gained for each building individually. Logistical nightmare. But yes, as I understand it the technical challenges can be immense, particularly as every building is unique.

      I actually think FTTB could be a good way to save money on a FTTP build (after all, FTTB technically is FTTP), if they can come up with a way to effectively manage MDUs and stand-alones having different end point tech. I imagine most copper runs in an apartment block would be under 100m.

      • Also, the copper inside an apartment building is far more likely to be weatherproofed than the average Telstra shopping bag example outdoors.

    • Yes, that’s basically it, although that dramatically affects time frame, impact on residents and subsequent strata approval. Strata bodies are like NIMBYs, except an order of magnitude more negative to change.

    • Is it simply that fibre doesn’t need to be run within the building and instead the existing copper can be used or are there more complex issues at work?

      Yep, that’s pretty well it exactly. They hook up a node in the basement that they connect all the copper to, and then give each unit a modem. Done.

      That’s why I’ve been backing FTTB for MDU’s for a while now.

      • Why it would fail, is it one those thousands of FTTN cabinets installed the world over that when put on a unique Australian street connected to our special unique Australian copper connected to a unique Australian residence will just refuse to work?

        • Why would it fail? Oh it won’t fail, it will work we all know that.
          But will it get the minimum speeds that Turnbull is promising? Depends on a lot of factors.

          • That wont be Liberal NBN’s fault, dont you know that? It will be Telstras problem, because it will be due to bad copper, and it’ll be their responsibility to replace it or upgrade it to FttH.

            Pennies to pounds that most of the fixes will be more copper. Then they justify doing butkiss because that new copper has a lifespan of 30 years, so why waste it! And yes fibroid, I know how cynical that sounds.

            But remember that the upgrade to FttH will be “where its cost effective to do so”, and in a situation where problems are fixed one complaint at a time Telstras focus on profit before service means it will never be cost effective to roll out FttH “for one problem”.

          • Even the sections replaced in the last 5-10 years are worn out, must all those darn wombats and the unique Australian copper termite.

          • It is amazing what the Coalition win has done for you, beside being increasingly cocky. It has also given you the illusion that you are witty.

          • It’s not the copper it’s self that the termites eat, it’s the paper insulation used on the older installations. Heck, they even eat some of the plastic insulation!

          • @ Fibroid.

            So what you are saying is that your twin haha yeah is wrong, there is good/bad copper after all…

            Thank you…

          • So I take it you didnt bother to read what I wrote. Good to know.

            Wasnt good copper/bad copper, it was what could happen where there IS bad copper. You know as well as anyone that there’s enough bad copper that its going to be an issue in a FttN build.

            So what do you think will happen when the issue inevitably arises? Do you think that every circumstance will mean a FttH extension, or do you think its more likely that they will try to fix the copper, or take the cheapest option available and simply replace it?

            I dont care about the good/bad copper argument, seriously. Its either as bad as people say and a FttN build will be a debacle for the first 5 years, or its not, and people will get used to it. I tend to think that as it works now, so its more likely to be the second option, but I also expect the complaints of bad connection to increase. Whether its people who are basically on the cusp of acceptable now, but slip into unacceptable, or from people wanting FttH and trying any trick to get it.

            And that gets to my post. What happens then? Telstra either builds out the FttH, or puts brand new copper in. Build out the FttH, either NBN Co funds it and its absorbed into their network, or Telstra becomes a wholesale competitor. Put brand new copper in, they’re going to be wanting some sort of guarantee that its not wasted.

            They ARE running a business after all.

            Dont just fob this off with a “good copper / bad copper….. what a tired old routine and gimmick”. Try and engage in the debate for a change. You might actually add something for once. If you disagree with the “good/bad copper” line, explain why. Dont just mimic Abbott’s Mr Negative routine.

        • “Why it would fail, is it one those thousands of FTTN cabinets installed the world over that when put on a unique Australian street connected to our special unique Australian copper connected to a unique Australian residence will just refuse to work?”

          Or it does work, but is unable to deliver as promised by Turnbull.

          Remember Turnbull hasn’t promised FTTN. He’s promised FTTN that faster to roll-out, cheaper to install and delivers good speeds. That’s not the end of it though, he also has other considerations – for example his popularity will not be particularly high if he increases user costs.

    • Why would it fail?

      The technology is sound. There is no reason it wouldn’t work. Whether it works or not has never been the issue. The issue is which is better long term.

      And other than the time it takes to do, the winner is clearly an FTTP heavy solution.

  6. this test lab should have been carried out before the election. this is part of the reason i dont accept Malcolms ‘you had democracy at the election’. when you dont have all the information and some is hidden away/locked off until after the poll then the idea there was a mandate given via that poll is a bit rich.

    as an aside, again it was a throw the bums out election – policy didnt matter as much as simply whether you were a Lab or LNP representative. so there are at least a couple of areas where i dispute Malcolms claim to a strong mandate.

    so yes, it might be a great idea to know/find out as much about these techs as possible – its a bit late tho. should have been done earlier, and if they were genuinely successful in showing FTTN utility it would have been a plus point to sell the policy on. if the test was a failure and utility wasnt shown in the test he could have at least had an out, throw his hands up and say ok looks like we have to after all, see i was right to be tech agnostic… now, it just looks like it got left off so any negatives could be hidden. with the boat arrivals announcements thing and this, among others, it already seems a government with a policy of information drought. not impressed.

    • ‘this test lab should have been carried out before the election.

      It’s not a test lab it is in the the field trial, perhaps you would like to explain how the Coalition when in opposition could direct the Labor NBN Co that reported to Conroy’s’ department to do field trials of FTTN on the basis they might get elected?

      ‘as an aside, again it was a throw the bums out election – policy didnt matter as much as simply whether you were a Lab or LNP representative. so there are at least a couple of areas where i dispute Malcolms claim to a strong mandate.’

      Dispute it all you like the facts show otherwise, the Coalition won with a 90 seat vs 55 seat majority, it is even better than the 2007 Labor result of 83 vs 65 and I suppose you don’t have a problem saying Labor had a mandate for their NBN at the 2010 election despite it being a hung Parliament outcome,

      • Yes, the electorate kicked out Labor, as was expected in 2010. In 2013, Labor was expected to have as few as 30 seats, including most of Queensland and western Sydney. But a sufficient minority of coalition voters in those electorates rejected the coalition (as they had done in 2010), because Turnbull had repeatedly promised to hand the project reins and profits back to Telstra, while failing to supply fibre to regional and outer urban Australians.

        If the present post-election NBN reviews are apolitical, and are based on technology and socio-economic cost-benefit, then they will certainly find in favour of delivering fibre to the building in all urban areas, but with a subset of buildings where internal fibre is frustrated to get alternative solutions, potentially including on-premises switches that will be the maintenance responsibility of the body corporate.

        One thing we do know is that Telstra does not see itself as having any future responsibility for cabling on private premises, as David Thodey has repeated in recent weeks. It was removal of this operational cost burden from Telstra’s bottom line which convinced 99.25% of Telstra shareholders to accept just $11 billion of value for the infrastructure, and even to wear duct and pit remediation costs before the handover. Telstra wants to be a retail provider and let the government maintain the infrastructure. This is the excellent deal NBNCo has right now, and all is on the table if renegotiated, including another round of shareholder approval.

        • But you said many times in the 2 years leading up to the election that LNP would lose an “unloseable” election because of their NBN policy. Yet, the LNP achieved enough swing to guarantee at least two terms of government. If your predictions were so far off the mark, how can we take what you say now seriously?

  7. Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote this current idiots.

    Don’t come back to us – expecting fair non-biased reviews and trials of FTTN/FTTB builds.

    Because that’s what BT in UK did, got rid of it’s competitor for building parts of the network.

    Tony Gratis: It won’t fail because they will use more than average better copper in the trial area’s.

    Copper is an upto service, not a maximum bandwidth service.

    • @Daniel

      ‘Because that’s what BT in UK did, got rid of it’s competitor for building parts of the network.’

      Would you like to expand on the detail on how this happened in the UK, don’t scrimp on the detail, then explain how this will apply in Australia to the Coalition version of the NBN.

  8. Ten premises? So he’s going to get NBNCo to put a cabinet down somewhere. Well, at least Malcolm is starting small and is minimising the vandalism of our telecommunications infrastructure. Hands up those who think that the location of the cabinet is going to be cherry-picked for political purposes and will NOT provide a realistic representation of what the typical FTTN user experience will be in Australia.

    So, we’ve got a strategic review that’s ultimately being undertaken by ex-Telstra hacks and Malcolm’s mates, and a trial that in all likelihood is going to provide unreliable information. It saddens me to say this, but I think we need to start writing an obituary for NBNCo.

    • ‘and will NOT provide a realistic representation of what the typical FTTN user experience will be in Australia.

      What’s a typical FTTN user experience scenario?

      • “What’s a typical FTTN user experience scenario?”

        One that uses typical condition and typical guage copper at typical distances, as opposed to one that uses an area chosen for good condition heavy gaudge copper and short distances from the node to residence.
        I think they should also try it in an area that has known old copper, inner city for example, to see if the amount of remediation needed could be justified.

        • That’s the problem, Lionel – there are many variables in that equation. A comprehensive audit is needed just to figure out what state the copper network is in, and considering the ridiculous goals Turnbull has set himself, I doubt one will happen before a full-scale rollout commences. Of course, this could be the plan all along – by charging in head-first with FTTN, Turnbull, and by extension NBNCo, will be setting themselves up to fail. At which point the government will probably wash its hands of the whole debacle and sell off NBNCo. And a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix our telecommunications sector will have been completely squandered.

      • Well if they were being serious about it, and not just political. They would pick several areas of excellent condition, very poor condition and of “typical” condition.
        (By typical, I mean the Median type of area, ie the most common, not the average)

        They would also select them in very geographic diverse locations.

        Then compare the results.

  9. No matter what the trials show and how fairly selected the sites are, the truth and potential problems will emerge when the full on deployment begins .

    Let’s no forget, however, the small matter of the cost of the copper network. Thodey has already flagged that they do not want indirect payment in the form of deregulation or NBN construction. They want cash and lots of it. How much, therefore, will determine whether FTTN is still the cheaper option.

    Still a lot to be done. I can’t wait to see how it will all unfold. One thing is sure Malcolm would make it a lot easier for himself if he just kept FTTP and concentrated in sorting all the issues. After all, he doesn’t have to accommodate any independents.

    • @Observer

      Don’t worry about it too much, there are minimum speed milestones in the Coalition policy, if the copper is not up to supplying those speeds in a particular area it will require remediation, if remediation is not cost effective the area will get FTTP.

      • I am not worried. Malcolm should be.

        “if remediation is not cost effective the area will get FTTP.”

        It doesn’t seem to occur to you that the more occasions when remediation is not cost effective and the area get FTTP, the smaller the cost differential become and the less smart it is to use FTTN. Don’t forget, your idol MT did recognise that FTTP was the best solution but too expensive. The more expensive FTTN becomes, the more FTTP become the self evident solution.

        Ps. That’s not even taking into account the real cost of MT’s free cooper network.

        • ‘It doesn’t seem to occur to you that the more occasions when remediation is not cost effective and the area get FTTP, the smaller the cost differential become and the less smart it is to use FTTN.’

          Once again don’t worry about it, I think the NBN Co can work that out if and when that conjecture point is reached.

          • don’t worry about it

            I’ll jot that down in my “Famous last words” blackbook ;o)

  10. Once again I don’t worry. Also, this is not a conjecture, it is a possibility. Your only answer to the quality of the network is, as usual, a carbon copy of Malcolm’s answer. Don’t worry, if it is faulty we will use fibre. Well, if it is the case then, it is not conjecture to suggest that the more this happens, the case for fibre disappears.

    So far, Malcolm the only evidence Malcolm has offered, to support his cheaper NBN version, has come by artificially nearly tripling the cost of FTTP. He is in charge now. BS is going to be more difficult. By the time, you add the cost of the network to the $29.5b and then you start to have more FTTP than planned, the cost of his “cheaper'” could actually become more than Labor’s version. Then, answer this question:

    If the cost of FTTN, after cost of copper and unplanned replacing with fibre, was equal or higher than FTTP would it still be worth doing?

    If you answer, don’t use your beloved “conjecture” excuse. It is really simple. If A + (a+ b) => B, would you still go for B?

    • Observer its pointless trying to have an intelligent conversation with Fibroid, his mind is so clouded and muddled by ideology.

      • The point of it is to show that when simple but inconvenient questions are asked, Fibroid, known for his frantic, constant nitpicking, usually in the form or rhetorical question, suddenly becomes silent.

        Let’s be fair, though. He does help greatly in increasing the number of comments on this site.

  11. I live in Brisbane and currently have 14 year old non congested 100Mbps HFC cable that actually runs at 4x faster the “up to” 25Mbps NBN. A few years ago when I lived in New Zealand I had FTTN ADSL (pretty much new Australia NBN).

    All I can say is, this new version of Fiber to a DSLAM (NBN) is a horrific waste of tax payer money as it will deliver a fraction of the benefit of Fiber to the Door.

    NZ is still deploying Fiber to the door. When NZ is in the top 10 countries in the world for broadband and Australia is still languishes near the bottom of developed countries even after this roll-out, lets see If Tony Abbott will feel that saving $20-30Bn was worth it when a small county with a weaker economy was able to do a lot better.

    If you are not going to do a job right, don’t bother doing it at all!

Comments are closed.