news “Destructive forces” at work in a “highly polarised political environment” are starting to “unravel” Labor’s National Broadband Network project, veteran analyst Paul Budde said yesterday, with the new Coalition Government having boxed itself into a corner on the issue and end users set to suffer from a nightmarish situation akin to a “Pandora’s Box” of problems.
Under Labor’s previous NBN policy, some 93 percent of Australian premises were to have received fibre directly to the premise and the remainder satellite or wireless, with a new government wholesale monopoly set up in the form of NBN Co to both deploy and operate the network. The model was directly aimed at delivering Australians the best possible national fixed telecommunications network, while also resolving long-term structural problems in the sector such as the vertical integration of former national telco monopolist Telstra.
However, NBN Co’s Strategic Review published in December last year changed the paradigm, with the company recommending (and the Coalition supporting) a vision in which up to a third of Australian premises will be served by the existing HFC cable networks of Telstra and Optus, with Fibre to the Node and Fibre to the Basement used in other areas not already covered by Labor’s FTTP approach. Satellite and wireless is to be used to cover some rural and regional areas as under Labor’s previous plan.
The Coalition’s plan, which has been dubbed the Coalition’s Broadband Network or CBN, is set to deliver improved broadband download speeds to most Australians. However, the so-called ‘Multi-Technology Mix’ approach also appears set to deliver a number of problems that were not inherent to Labor’s approach.
For example, it is currently unclear whether NBN Co would need to buy the HFC cable networks of Telstra and Optus, as well as Telstra’s copper network, or how much each would cost. It is not clear whether it is technically feasible for NBN Co to take on the running of those networks, including their complex operational and business support systems, and whether it is possible to open those networks to wholesale access. The re-use of the HFC and copper networks also leaves the long-term future of Australia’s broadband system unclear, with most other nations having flagged plans to deploy FTTP over the long-term.
In addition, although Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has stated he is in favour of infrastructure competition, the potential of rival telcos such as TPG to overbuild portions of the network could significantly undercut its economics. These moves would not have taken place under Labor’s vision.
In a blog post published yesterday (we recommend you click here for the full article), veteran telecommunications analyst Paul Budde wrote, following a visit to Canberra, that he was worried by the “destructive forces” at work around the project, taking place in “a highly polarised political environment”.
Firstly, Budde said that there were rumours that the new deals with Telstra and Optus could involve the pair continuing to maintain their existing networks and extremely complex supporting IT systems but be paid to do so by NBN. “The government has painted itself into a corner with its complex infrastructure model and it will most likely have to pay extra money to Telstra (and Optus) in order to maintain the ageing systems and infrastructure,” he wrote.
Secondly, Budde said that there were a plethora of other issues in the mix, ranging from the conflicting advice on infrastructure-based competition — which Budde said would “totally demolish the NBN model” if allowed to go ahead — to the fact that competition at the VDSL layer as envisaged by TPG and others would be “a technical nightmare”. Then there is the fact that Vodafone is agitating for the NBN project to be used to generate rural competition in the mobile space, with Telstra being willing to oppose all the way in court.
“I think that is what you can expect if you start to unravel the NBN model. As we have mentioned in our numerous analyses during 2012 and 2013, it could take years just to sort all of this out,” wrote Budde.
“With no clear direction on the horizon and many competing and contradictory messages coming from regulators and the industry it does not look as though the situation is becoming any easier for the government. With the government, the regulator and the industry all coming up with conflicting solution it will be the broadband users who are going to suffer from all of this.”
Budde had initially been broadly positive about the Coalition’s previous broadband policies, noting that they had included various common elements with Labor’s plan. However, since late in 2013, as the CBN model has drastically diverged from Labor’s, the analyst has become increasingly disturbed by the Coalition’s vision.
In February 2013, for instance, Budde argued that the HFC cable networks focused on by the Coalition in its rival NBN policy were akin to steam trains in the 1930′s through the 1960′s — they’ll still around for decades, but don’t represent the future of their industry. And in January, Budde heavily criticised the Coalition’s new preferred broadband deployment model, describing its “Multi-Technology Mix” approach as “a dog’s breakfast” of different technologies, which could turn out to be a “logistical nightmare” to deliver in practice.
opinion/analysis
I highly agree with Paul Budde’s analysis here. The beauty of Labor’s NBN policy, even if it proved hard to deliver in practice, was that it theoretically resolved many of the structural problems in the telecommunications industry, from the need to structurally separate Telstra to laying out in a very clear fashion where retail telcos could invest their money and where they couldn’t.
What we’re seeing with the Coalition’s new policy is that that model is being completely unravelled, and the attendant issues are coming home to roost. With the demise of the NBN policy, telcos such as TPG want to start investing in their own infrastructure again, because the logic of the NBN being an all-encompassing wholesale network is dead. Vodafone has started to insist on the government creating a fair and level playing field in the mobile market again, because it looks like Telstra will keep most of its inherent network advantages in a non-NBN world.
And of course, Budde also correctly highlights the huge elephant in the room — is it even possible for a completely separate telco to take on the OSS/BSS systems which Telstra and Optus operate for the HFC cable and copper networks, and how is that going to take place? My view is: It’s not possible, and the Government will need to (farcially) start paying Telstra and Optus to operate those systems … which they are already doing for nothing.
I cannot describe this situation as anything less than a gradually developing disaster which will set Australia’s telecommunications sphere back many years. Labor had a clear vision to resolve the sector’s structural issues, even if it didn’t deliver well on that vision. The Coalition’s vision, which seems to change on a day by day basis based on Turnbull’s thought bubbles, is poorly thought out and is resulting in continually growing chaos within the sector. That’s the opposite of regulatory certainty, and the opposite of what a government should be doing, to say nothing of the development of faster broadband as a consumer outcome.
If things continue to proceed as they are for the next several years, and much of this policy, as I expect it to, then Malcolm Turnbull may well go down as the worst Communications Minister in Australian history. For all their faults, previous Minister such as Richard Alston and Helen Coonan at least left the telco sector alone enough and provided sufficient regulatory certainty for better broadband outcomes (full ADSL1 speeds, ADSL2+ DSLAMs deployed widely, 3G and eventually 4G) to eventuate. In contrast, it appears as though Turnbull’s own tinkering with the sector could actively stop investment by private sector companies, while NBN Co’s own efforts go increasingly off the rails in the worst way possible.
I want to note that I don’t express my concerns on these issues lightly, and I suspect, neither does Budde. This goes beyond doing our basic job reporting on and analysing Australia’s telecommunications sector. We both actively care about Australia’s future and the future of development in the telco sector. Without development in this area, the whole of Australia’s future economy will be affected, as the uptake of new technology staunchly relies on continually upgraded telecommunications infrastructure.
What I am seeing right now, and what I suspect Budde is starting to project, is the worst case scenario: A situation where our national broadband development gradually goes horrifically off the rails in the worst way possible due to the problems of our political sphere, hurling Australia backwards for several decades and leaving us as a patchwork broadband backwater, while the rest of the world progresses forward continually. For experts like ourselves who have devoted much of our lives to this industry, that would be a tragedy indeed, and particularly so when we’ve been warning about these problems every step of the way.
When will the politicians start listening? What will it take to rein in this madness?
Photo credit: swayinglights via photopin cc
Our politicians don’t give a damn about Australians and their wants and needs. They don’t want fast internet speeds and will do anything to prevent it. At first, I thought this was due to the cost blowout, but now I see their agenda is to keep us on slow, outdated technologies.
There’s much speculation to be had about the whys.
This is the most closed-minded, arrogant governments we’ve ever had and their fingers and jammed far into their ears in regards to what the actual public wants.
*cough* Foxtel *cough*
I suspect the digits of some of them are jammed far up other orifices than their ears…
I’ll go one further Duke.
They’ve got assorted appendages jammed in various orifices.
By my reckoning, a head is an appendage.
And not necessarily orifices belonging to them.
It’s really difficult to remember a government so hell bent on doing what is worst for the country rather than what is best, Even Howard wasn’t so bloody mindedly intent on destroying the previous government’s achievements.
The reintroduction of Royal Honours is a clue, they have a Colonial Mentality and even see our economy as a Colonial one, and their role as administrators.
Can’t have the peasants building enterprises on this new fangled internet thingy. It’s purpose is to be part of the bread and circuses feeding Foxtel and Sky News to the adoring masses.
As an aside.
http://www.zdnet.com/verizon-accused-of-forcing-customers-off-copper-onto-fibre-7000027722/
It is purely ideological.
See the sell-off of Medibank private.
See the “rewarding” States to sell off assets.
It is all about “smaller government” and handing power and control to corporations. If it is profitable it will be built – if it isn’t, it doesn’t deserve to be built. Real “Tea Party” stuff. You are arguing against a political philosophy.
It is all about corporate profits, capital and ideology – not people or technology.
Oh, and if you really want to see these people go red in the face, mention the term “social capital” and you will find out where they are coming from.
Turnbull didn’t listen before the election I doubt he will start to listen now
Kinda makes you wonder if Turnbull owns a fiddle…
“NBN Co’s Strategic Review published in December last year changed the paradigm, with the company recommending (and the Coalition supporting) a vision….”
Shouldn’t that be the other way around? The Coalition recommended the patchwork approach, (it’s what it took to the election) and the Strategic review aligned to the governments view.
Not true the policy taken to the last election has NEVER been costed!
With good reason though it would have cost basically the same a a FttH NBN so was not costed to avoid embarrassment
Note: The following is a paraphrasing of an internal monologue-rant that went through my head while preparing a coffee just now. It is a work of fiction, and true only in as much as it indicates how my mind works when starved of caffeine.
INTERNAL MEMO: EYES ONLY
Dear Mr Abbott,
Congratulations are in order. Operation JUSTONEVOTE (intended to remove your ‘primary problem’) is nearing completion. With the Labor NBN plan effectively ‘demolished’ per your orders to MT, we are prepared to move to Stage Four. As Stage Four requires your personal attention, I have prepared the following Action Brief:
1) MT is now the focus of significant public ire, specifically from the Techies, having halted the original NBN and replaced it with the CBN.
2) The CBN has succeeded beyond our expectations. MT has presented a plan that is both sufficiently complex as to defy easy description, but also vague enough so that the key technology players in the industry are already scrambling to fit their own products into profitable loopholes.
3) The Coalition’s technical credentials (particularly with respect to telecommunications) are now widely considered laughable. In the majority of cases it is MT’s name that is being reported, although gaffes by other Members are also receiving media attention.
3) The stage is set for you to announce that the CBN was an act of overreach on the part of an overzealous Communications Minister (ego run rampant etc). You can now publicly agree with the Techies that the original NBN plan was a superior solution (and even a more cost-effective one). Focus groups are currently evaluating sample slogans tying MT to the CBN project (“Stop The Bytes”?)
4) At a stroke you can lay the blame for the failure of the CBN to deliver on the Communications Minister, while pointing out that the NBN rollout (under the original plan) is still actually occurring. The Labor Party should actually perform most of the required character assassination on our behalf, while you simultaneously steal and re-brand their original idea.
5) It is critical that the NBN plan be lauded, while its original rollout under Labor is criticised. (For examples of this, see the political handling of the New Zealand broadband rollout.) In this way we can take full advantage of Labor’s idiotic failure to explain the benefits of the project and capture the press for those benefits ourselves (possibly as part of the revised ‘Actual Cost Benefit Analysis’?)
6) Key segments of the technical and emergent business communities that were alienated by MT’s plan will come crawling back to the Coalition (specifically to you, sir) in pathetic and grovelling gratitude for reinstating their favoured solution. NB: While these techies are a small demographic, they have disproportionate influence with respect to technical issues, as they tend to be the go-to for everyone else at the barbeque for questions about computer things and stuff.
7) Optionally, consideration should be given to the rollout of an electronic voting system (citing recent electoral do-overs). This initiative should be timed so as to ensure that at the next Federal election every voter possible will be entering their vote via a system enabled by an NBN that was saved by the leader of the Coalition. Some targeted advertising in Wentworth in faux-Labor colours might be used to remind voters of the CBN at this point (there was excellent work done previously with horse-and-buggy graphics), implying that their current member was satisfied with the same paper systems that were open to failure and fraud.
8) With the credibility of MT with respect to technical expertise defeated, he will still have significant backing from the venture capital and M&A lobbies. Longer-term efforts to sabotage this relationship will hinge on leveraging the new NBN to drive business opportunities, publicly claiming credit for new startups turning into international success stories – at which point MT becomes the man who ‘had to be got out of the way’. Which should make it politically more palatable to get him out of the way.
In closing, we are currently arranging your press conference and sharpening your hatchet. Congratulations, sir!
I think you have nailed it with Abbott’s strategy to permanently remove a leadership rival. But with the re-introduction of knighthoods and pressure from Hockey to stop spending money beyond paid maternity leave does the PM have the vision, much less the will, to do ANYTHING about improving the nation’s communications?
As to the need for politicians to start listening, they won’t until the electorate does.
+1 Brilliant
Re: INTERNAL MEMO:
Still likely to require the demolition of the FTTP model in order to retain Rupert’s unqualified support come election time in order to protect Foxtel’s profit margins by deterring those pesky overseas competitors from setting up their cheaper, higher bandwidth 4K services here.
I for one will be absolutely outraged if Telstra and Optus end up getting paid billions of dollars both for the acquisition of their respective networks and their continued upkeep. The more you apply logic to the Mixed-Tech CBN, the more it starts to fall apart (not that there was much holding it together in the first place). Telstra and Optus have all the power here. They can just as easily turn around and say “You either pay us X Billion dollars for our networks, as well as an ongoing fee of X million/billion a year for continued maintenance, or you pay us out the amounts that the Labor party already agreed to and get nothing in return.”
How many years are going to be wasted on this farce? 3? 6? A decade? Thanks to Malcolm Turnbull’s short-sighted, Labor-hating arrogance the vast majority of us will most likely still be on ADSL2 speeds when our New Zealand cousins are all on 1Gbit.
Malcolm Turnbull….IS… the worst Communications Minister in Australian history
Oh come on, Coonan? Alston? The screwed up sale of Telstra. Memories are short.
Only slightly their fault, major blame to the PM , Treasurer and the Nats. The sale of total Telstra was to provide funds for Rural Oz and the Nats were all for it
“it theoretically resolved many of the structural problems in the telecommunications industry” — this alone justifies a full FttH rollout. Reset the clock on the tiring telco network, by retiring what has become the problem – the copper.
Does that cause other problems? Sure, some devices rely on the copper network to function, but thats going to happen at some point anyway. We’re at this point for a number of reasons, which the LNP seem determined to recreate.
Lack of vertical separate with Telstra, a reluctance to roll out infrastructure, cherry picking… The list goes on, and nothing the LNP is doing seems to stop it happening again. The extension of that is that those at the middle of the problems (Telstra and to a lessor extent Optus) are being rewarded for creating the problem in the first place.
“What I am seeing right now, and what I suspect Budde is starting to project, is the worst case scenario: A situation where our national broadband development gradually goes horrifically off the rails in the worst way possible due to the problems of our political sphere, hurling Australia backwards for several decades and leaving us as a patchwork broadband backwater, while the rest of the world progresses forward continually. For experts like ourselves who have devoted much of our lives to this industry, that would be a tragedy indeed, and particularly so when we’ve been warning about these problems every step of the way.”
Many of your readers (inc myself) have been warning this would happen and were ridiculed for it, now it is eventuating we have been proved (unhappily) correct.
I urge anyone who actually cares about the future health of this countries economy to get active, share stories like this on FaceBook and twitter and make sure your family and friends are aware that their children’s future prospects of living in a smart connected knowledge economy is being completely and utterly destroyed thanks to a PM who would rather hand out Knighthoods than do something constructive!
Renai, I really respect that you’re providing a lot of well thought out analysis in your articles lately and telling it like it is.
Keep on it and don’t let the NBN get swept into the backwater.
Nah, hes a shill, didnt you know?
Whether he’s a Liberal shill, Labor shill, or a Greens shill depends on the story…
I don’t think he’s a shill. I think he was way too trustworthy of Turnbull’s arguments last year and I don’t always agree with his perspective.
But respect where’s respect is due. He’s been reporting an accurate assessment on the state of the CBN – which takes guts.
In Renai we trust!
Sorry, forgot the smiley face… Depending on whether the story was for or against FttH, the fan boys for either side have accused him of being a shill for either Labor or Lib’s. Was even an accusation of being a Greens shill at one point, but dont ask me where. Plus I think it was tongue in cheek.
But some of the accusations have been genuine, and the fact that he’s accused of being a stooge for BOTH sides says something – he’s independant, and reports it as he sees it. Sometimes that means going against popular opinion, which just goes to show he’s not commited to one ideal or the other, but wanting the best outcome overall.
My comment was in jest, dont take it any other way.
The only mistake Renai made was to take Malcolm at his word, and at the time, he had no real reason to do otherwise. I don’t think he’ll make the same mistake in the future…once bitten and all that…
We’ve had ample reason to treat anything Turnbull says as nothing more than Liars spin since his appalling performance as LOTO during the utegate & emailgate fiascoes, followed by his eager abandonment of apparently dearly held “principles” and voluntary abasement before uber Philistine Abbott.
Any promise people imagined he had, has long since been sacrificed on the cynical bonfire of ambition, hubris, arrogance and opportunism.
He deserves to crash and burn along with the rest of this incompetent government.
At this stage we would be better off with the following.
Government pay Telstra to restructure into a non vertically integrated company, relaxes or removes foreign investment requirements, pays Telstra to deliver certain minimum speed outcomes by certain dates in the future. Develop new USO for broadband delivery and define which areas Telstra must offer these services to… ie 97% of population. The thing is none of this is as good as the original NBN and would result in massive on budget costs.
i cant dignify the liberals offer as ‘Vision’. unless possibly that vision is of the aussie telco landscape as a smoking wreck.
because thats what this looks like to me – already – the aftermath of a disaster.
and again what is particularly galling is it wouldn’t really have been that difficult to tweak the original policy towards something that would work, instead of away. Malcolm could have been lauded as the one to ‘save’ the NBN after the subcontractor kerfluffles and slower than expected rollouts. i might not have been 100% happy with the policy, but i could still say i could see the telco industry progressing, going somewhere.
it would at least have been in the spirit of better, faster, cheaper.
now, there is no carefully groomed, long trajectory laid out for the industry. there is absolutely NO certainty – in operation, in investment. as feared, some if not all of the worst aspects of the pre nbn world are being entrenched, guaranteeing all the inefficiencies and costs will still have to be paid – oh and more besides, since they want to shoulder the BSS/OSS systems as well. (on that score, do i think Telstra will charge wholesale for that? no i expect them to charge as a margined service, so govt funds will be going directly on Telstras profit).
it will not be efficient. with operators running about like veritable chooks lacking heads, it will not be faster. it wont be cheaper, as a national spend, and also i suspect at the consumer spend level as well. there is lots of work made for a future government but i cant really see any other achievements being made….oh except for leapfrogging to the top of worst comms minister table, in just over/under a half year of ascension no less.
it was bad enough watching the reasoning behind the tech to be used (ignoring all the technical limitations of retaining copper, primarily) but to now take that reasoning and turn it loose on the industry framework – well tony wanted a wrecking; it looks like it is now pretty much complete, except i fully expect they will find a way to make it worse.
it’s how this mob rolls.
No, its still vision. But its like a blind person with limited eyesight wanting to drive a car…
“i cant dignify the liberals offer as ‘Vision’. unless possibly that vision is of the aussie telco landscape as a smoking wreck.”
I don’t think that’s very accurate. I can see what Malcolm was trying to do, and “Faster, cheaper” could well be called a vision.
I think he meant well, but you know what they say: “hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works”.
“When will the politicians start listening? What will it take to rein in this madness?”
Electoral losses would be a good start. If the Libs lost one seat in the WA senate re-election to Palmer then they’d need support of either the Greens, the ALP or the entire cross bench to pass legislation. As opposed to the previous result where they could bypass two of them entirely if they wanted.
Could be enough to trigger a double dissolution if Abbott is arrogant enough. If he then lost that then maybe they’d start to listen. Maybe.
“Could be enough to trigger a double dissolution if Abbott is arrogant enough”.
While Abbott is certainly arrogant enough, as is the entire front bench, arrogance would not be in play for calling a double dissolution. Balls would be. But Abbott doesn’t have the balls to risk losing power (which is a real possibility), so he will never call a DD.
But I do agree that the best form of ‘direct action’ would be to send a resounding signal in the WA senate election.
Just to clarify this. The situation with the WA Senate is that its normally 3 Senators to the right and 3 Senators to the left. What happened last year was some extraordinary preference swap deals delivered a seat not to the Liberals but to either a Sports Party Senator or to a Palmer United Party Senator (depending on which count you prefer). And that came at the cost of Labor/Green.
In a normal WA Senate election, you’d get 3 Liberal, 2 Labor and 1 Green. With the current polls it looks like that’s what we’ll get. Now what that does is deliver an extra seat to the Labor+Green block and at the expense of that minor Party.
What would have been the case is that Labor and Green together would also have needed 3 extra Senators to vote with them to defeat legislation (A Senate tie vote 38 all is taken in the negative). What’s most likely now is that Labor and Green together only need two cross bench Senators to vote to block legislation.
With that comes the faint hope that on the NBN issue the Senate might frustrate the Liberals. It would be hard to imagine a deal being done with Telstra that doesn’t require fresh legislation/regulation. And a number of things that I can imagine Telstra wanting, would offend at least a couple of cross bench Senators.
With more delays this whole disaster at least has the hope of stalling out.
Abbott might well declare the NBN dead and attempt to fire sale NBNco. But that would require legislation and again it could be blocked in the Senate.
To what I wrote above, I also urge people to consider how important the Senate is, and to lobby the cross bench Senators every which way they know how, starting with the more reasonable ones, like Xenophon. Family First (because it actually supported the NBN in its policy web site). And so on. Even PUP might be convinced if someone can explain to Clive that the NBN is good for business.
3 key groups we need to reach out to. The public. They need to know that FTTN is temporary and bad value. Commentators and journalists. They need to stop pushing the falsehood that FTTN is a lesser “solution” but is cheaper. It isn’t. And then the Senators. They need to be reasoned with carefully.
The Liberals are frightened about this WA Senate re-run and this is why. It could really upset their plans, especially on issues like the NBN.
Oh and btw, in the extreme, if the Liberals suffered a poor result in their primary vote you might get 2 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 Green and one PUP. That might be immaterial to the NBN, but then again the PUP has the potential to cause the Liberals heartache here and there so why not.
So…. this government wants to cut red tape via the removal of financial advisors needing to act in their client’s interests. Yet it wants to add it in the form of this regulatory nightmare. That doesn’t make sense no matter how you reword it.
Apparently we are also open for business. Just ask TPG. Or are we? Or aren’t we not? I can’t see if we are or aren’t open because this regulatory mess is in th way.
“I highly agree with Paul Budde’s analysis here. The beauty of Labor’s NBN policy, even if it proved hard to deliver in practice, was that it theoretically resolved many of the structural problems in the telecommunications industry, from the need to structurally separate Telstra to laying out in a very clear fashion where retail telcos could invest their money and where they couldn’t.”
This. Entirely this.
Turnbull doesn’t see that there’s an issue to resolve. Just patch it up a bit. Zero regard for future hurdles.
T1 should have seen separation. Post T1, successive governments have screwed up and allowed T2 and T3 to happen without forcing separation.
And we’re right back where we began; industry working around an obstruction (Turnbull, rather than Telstra) both fracturing the market and widening the gap.
“Turnbull doesn’t see that there’s an issue to resolve. Just patch it up a bit. Zero regard for future hurdles.”
Yeah, it’s almost like he’s expecting them to be a one term government…
What a total debacle. Malcolm Turnbull, the man that practically invented the internet* one decade and destroyed it the next.
It just gets better, daily.
* Tony Abbott’s opinion, not what is known by the rest of the world.
Time to send the official Sir Malcolm of Vaucluse off to a retirement home, say, ambassador to Nauru (he’d be very compatible with spreading their national product) and appoint someone with tech cred on the coalition side to the ministry… oh, no, wait, the last part is as illusionary as the CBN…
When will the politicians start listening? I’m going to ask the following..
When will the ordinary public become aware of why this is a disaster?
When will industry journos stop portraying the CBN as “but cheaper” ?
When will we see a consensus develop amongst commentators that consistently refers to FTTN for what it is – temporary? When will the public be informed that the CBN is a recipe for spending more, not less money?
What we have here is general ignorance about the inevitability of fibre within the ordinary community. They don’t know that FTTN is temporary. They don’t know that building FTTN will result in more cost overall. The general ignorance is being exploited by the Liberals (as is their way with many other issues). And part of the answer has to be that journalists convey to the general public a simple message.
FTTN is temporary
FTTN will have to be replaced with fibre in a few years.
This will cost more than had we built with fibre in the first place.
And the inescapable conclusion most people will draw is that what the Liberals are doing is to waste billions of additional money and merely achieve delay of the inevitable.
I think that most ordinary people, given those simple facts, will be stunned and shocked the waste, incompetence and arrogance (lets face it, this has nothing to do with the good of the nation and it has everything to do with raw, nasty, ideology) and they will demand retribution at the ballot box.
That’s how to solve this problem. The Liberals made it political. Now its time to vote the bastards out.
The “ordinary public” are an apathetic lot who do not care in the least about details of most policies. Reading the slop served by MSM is just fine for them. The only time they peek up from their self absorbed lives is when they experience the consequences of their apathy in a direct way and only then will the shrills of “how did this happen?” will be sounded.
They only have themselves to blame for the situation we are going to be in for the near future, and cannot be expected to realise any mistakes until it is way too late. Unfortunately the “ordinary public” is representative of too much of the population in this country I am afraid :(
“The government has painted itself into a corner with its complex infrastructure model and it will most likely have to pay extra money to Telstra (and Optus) in order to maintain the ageing systems and infrastructure,”
So much for the Earls “Not a cent more!”…
it’s sad really, I sort of feel sorry for him. All Malcolm had to do to be everyone’s hero was take the FttP roll-out and fix it up cost and time wise. Instead, no one will be happy with it and instead of clearing up the original issues from the Howard era and having a clean telecoms slate, he’s creating a butt load more problems.
I gave up on the labour NBN ever being realised a long time ago.
Its a pointless endeavour, the liberals have already entirely destroyed the policy, and will continue to further walk us down the wrong path…and there is not a thing we can do about it.
Its not all that bad, look at the up side, Budde can now be Sir Budde and Renai can now be Dame LeMay.
Dame?? Dame? I am fully equipped with man-tools, I’ll have you know!
I’m sure Renai that you have an excellent tool and toolmanship to go with it but the Coalition ran out of Sirs and there was only a Dame left, look at it this way
We got sunlight on the sand,
We got moonlight on the sea,
We got mangoes and bananas
You can pick right off the tree,
We got volleyball and ping-pong
And a lot of dandy games!
What ain’t we got?
We ain’t got Dames!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/nbn-panel-split-on-flawed-review/story-e6frgaif-1226865873515#
http://www.afr.com/p/business/companies/coalition_labor_feud_over_nbn_reports_00YJtgL8F1YldZlz215FxL
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/380891,nbn-strategic-review-inaccurate-unreliable8217-says-senate-committee.aspx
Interesting differences
Disgusting writing from ANNABEL HEPWORTH.
What do you expect.?
Poor old AFR, finally starting to realise their NBN sources have been feeding them politically biased, distorted info from politically or ideologically driven saboteurs within the NBNCo
Do what is best for the country.
or
Do whatever you can to hand it over to the private sector.
Very simple. You know what MT is trying to do. No surprises here. A swingers club for big business.
It’s always a part of politics and business. It’s just that the current libs are the biggest & sleaziest whores we’ve seen for a while.
Sleazy as compared with Eddie Obeid, NSW Labor, Biran Burke, WA Labor; or Craig Thompson, Federal Labor?
“… particularly so when we’ve been warning about these problems every step of the way.”
Cough. You weren’t singing this tune until very recently. Your own readers were telling you from day one that MT was lying. You and Budde should be ashamed for failing in your duty as the fourth estate.
Labor’s NBN plan had numerous short comings. The clearest and most obvious was the return of telecommunications being run by a monopoly with an opaque cost structure that was not linked with the wholesale pricing model.
I think Turnbull should mandate that wholesale access is provided to networks at NBN prices and then step back. There are some other options like selling the rights to provide wholesale access in a geographical area that would work better, but with existing infrastructure and TPG’s actions we may be too late for that.
Well, there is one shining light in all of this mess.
At least we will have run a cost benefit analysis.
You spoke too soon.
When will the politicians start listening? What will it take to rein in this madness?
The only thing that will rein in this madness is the re-election of Labor at the next election
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