news NBN Co misled the Australian public about its treatment of Peter Ferris, it has emerged, with the company having made the highly experienced and respected network engineer who was responsible for the design of the company’s previous Fibre to the Premises network redundant rather than merely having demoted him, as it stated in April.
Ferris (pictured), whose formal title was executive general manager of planning and design at NBN Co, was one of the company’s early employees, joining it in October 2009 six months after it was established by NBN Co founding chief executive Mike Quigley. He has previously held several high-level technical engineering roles focused around Australian telecommunications networks, at companies including Telstra, Optus and 3 Mobile.
Ferris is widely regarded as being one of the key figures behind the design of the Fibre to the Premises network which NBN Co was established under the Rudd Labor administration to build. It is believed that much of the design of the network is based directly on principles laid down by Ferris, and that the executive was involved in all aspects of the network planning process.
Although Quigley was the primary public face of NBN Co during Labor’s time administering the company, Ferris also appeared in public on occasion to give details about the project. In August 2011, for example, the engineer gave a highly regarded speech to engineers at Macquarie University that attempted to “myth-bust” some of the popular misconceptions surrounding the project. The video of Ferris’presentation is available online.
The speech became popular viewing material in Australia’s technology sector partially because it directly rebuffed some of the statements being made by the Opposition and other NBN critics, going into areas such as the claim that the investment in the NBN would be better spent on other areas, future bandwidth demands, wireless bandwidth versus fibre bandwidth, the idea that the Coalition’s preferred Fibre to the Node rollout style will be adequate for future needs, and the lifespan of fibre infrastructure. Ferris’ speech was often based on technical evidence accumulated during the executive’s long career.
NBN Co’s construction model — which involves the extensive use of third-party construction firms — has been acknowledged by both sides of politics to have largely failed. However, very little criticism has been levelled at the network rollout model architected by Ferris, with most technical commentators believing it to be a strong model for a FTTP rollout.
In mid-April, as NBN Co made a number of other senior executives redundant or accepted their resignations — including NBN Co head of corporate and commercial Kevin Brown, chief financial officer Robin Payne and chief technology officer Gary McLaren — rumours swirled about Ferris’ fate at the company.
At the time, a NBN Co spokesperson claimed that Ferris “remains a highly respected employee of NBN Co” and was “currently providing input to the organisational review within the Chief Operating Officer’s area”. The spokesperson also noted, regarding Ferris: “His former responsibilities have been subsumed across a number of areas, but principally into a new role, EGM Design Authority & Deployment Standards, reporting to the COO. Grant Bowden has been confirmed in this position today. Mr Bowden has widespread experience in planning and strategy for large scale network infrastructure developments.”
However, Delimiter now believes that much of this statement is inaccurate.
Delimiter has received information to the effect that Ferris had been on leave relating to a health condition since a little before the Christmas break in 2013, with the engineer expected to return in April.
In the meantime, however, NBN Co had undergone an internal restructure under its new Coalition-appointed executive chairman Ziggy Switkowski, with Bowden being appointed in Ferris’ place and a range of other senior executives set to leave the company.
It is believed that Ferris was informed in March that his position had been split into three and that he could apply for one or more of those roles. It is believed Ferris did so; however he was unsuccessful in his application and was subsequently made redundant. There is no suggestion that Ferris was unfit for his original role; on the contrary, it is believed the executive was widely respected within NBN Co for his work.
Independent confirmation of Ferris’ departure from NBN Co can be seen on his LinkedIn account, where the executive has written that he is currently an independent consultant with his own business. The LinkedIn profile lists Ferris as having left NBN Co in April this year. “Peter Ferris was formerly part of the Chief Operating Officers team at NBN Co, responsible for the planning & design of the fibre, wireless and satellite networks,” it states.
NBN Co has been invited repeatedly over the past week to issue a statement correcting its initial statement regarding Ferris, but has not done so.
The news comes as the integrity of NBN Co’s corporate approach in other areas has also recently come into question.
Last week, for example, it was revealed that NBN Co had issued a product specification document in which it openly considered the possibility of allowing customers on its planned Fibre to the Node or Basement (FTTN/B) infrastructure to order speeds between 50Mbps and 100Mbps which their connections could not actually deliver. “NBN Co does not intend to prevent end users and/or providers from ordering the ‘Up to 100Mbps’ speed tier for a service that would typically experience speeds of less than 50Mbps,” the document stated.
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has also made statements which the Liberal MP is aware are false several times over the past month.
In mid-April, for example, Turnbull made several statements on the ABC’s Triple J radio station regarding financial projections for Labor’s version of the NBN project which the Communications Minister is aware are false, with the former investment banker inaccurately conflating investment capital and government expenses for the project as well as exaggerating financial figures. Turnbull subsequently repeated some of the same statements on Alan Jones’ 2GB radio show.
Update: NBN Co has issued the following statement in relation to this article. Delimiter stands by its article but wishes to include NBN Co’s views.
“At the time we spoke last month there had been an organisational review of roles in the Chief Operations Operating Officer’s area.
One of the outcomes of that review was that there were various changes including to the planning function. Mr Ferris’s former responsibilities were subsumed across a number of areas, but principally into a new role, EGM Design Authority & Deployment Standards, reporting to the COO.
After an open and transparent process in which Mr Ferris participated, Grant Bowden was confirmed in the new, expanded role. Mr Bowden, as I pointed out, has widespread experience in planning and strategy for large scale network infrastructure developments.
At the time of this decision, Mr Ferris was still a highly respected member of staff at NBN Co and was providing input to the organisational review. Indeed, an offer was made to craft a role suited to Mr. Ferris’s skillset but ultimately he made the decision to leave early this month.
Mr Ferris remains a highly respected individual among all at NBN Co. While disappointed, we respect his decision. We have nothing but praise for his contribution to the company and wish him well in his future endeavours.”
opinion/analysis
I have a few things to say about what has happened here. Surprised? I didn’t think so :)
Firstly, NBN Co’s treatment of Peter Ferris has been disgraceful. We are talking here about a senior engineer and highly respected telecommunications architect who has held high-level roles with Australia’s major telcos. An engineer who did a stellar job getting NBN Co’s network off the ground from scratch and who passionately worked for the benefit of all Australians during the process.
And yet NBN Co, while Ferris was away on sick leave, gave his position to another executive and then invited him to apply for one of three roles for which he was probably overqualified. He was then coldly made redundant.
Let there be no bones about it: This is Ferris’ reward from the Coalition for having successfully designed a quality, Fibre to the Premises National Broadband Network for the previous Labor Government, and for having spoken out publicly about the benefits of that network and the facts relating to its technical architecture.
When you realise that over the past few months, Turnbull and NBN Co have also turfed or accepted the resignations of most of the company’s board, its CTO, CFO, COO and head of corporate and commercial, a bigger picture starts to emerge.
As I wrote in November last year (Delimiter 2.0 article), NBN Co’s hiring process has now become completely politicised. If you are a senior employee of NBN Co, it clearly no longer matters whether you are good at your job or whether you are respected in your industry or by your peers. What appears to matter now, and what will determine how you are treated, is to what extent you have high-level support from NBN Co’s top ranks, many of whom have direct links to Turnbull personally. Don’t expect to be able to discuss the project in public without considering this issue. People are watching and will take steps in future if you say the ‘wrong’ thing.
The second thing is that we’re now seeing the lack of integrity, transparency and honesty which Turnbull and other senior figures in the new Coalition Government have been recently displaying spreading down the ranks to government-owned companies such as NBN Co.
I can say categorically that NBN Co would not have treated its staff in this manner under its previous chief executive Mike Quigley, who was a man of stalwart integrity. And it certainly would not have misled the public about the status of those staff, whether this was intentional or not. This dishonesty on NBN Co’s part — which we also saw recently with respect to its FTTN/FTTB product specification — is a new thing, which has only crept into its approach under the Coalition.
I personally view NBN Co’s new chief executive Bill Morrow as a man of honour, and I have always found him honest and up-front in his time leading Vodafone Australia. I wish him well and good luck in his role.
However, I will also leave Morrow and other members of NBN Co’s senior executive team with a warning at the end of this article: Do not think you can get away with misleading the Australian public in this way further. If NBN Co makes statements in public which are inaccurate, the media will find that out and we will publish the truth. Your own reputation will suffer as a result.
Australia still has a relatively free press — at least, for the moment. My role in that free press is to hold powerful interests to account and represent the interests of Australian technologists. Technologists such as Peter Ferris, who should be being accorded the respect he so clearly deserves, but was instead handed his marching orders. Mr Morrow, you must not allow this kind of situation to happen again.
Image credit: Screenshot of Macquarie University YouTube video
“Australia still has a relatively free press — at least, for the moment.”
The ‘free press’ (as in voice, not as in beer – you have to subscribe for that) has long since moved on.
It’s rather busy cooing “me too” to pretty much every government lobbyist’s statement on the history of everything, to date. The only other diversion has been mileage from all the
ratsparticipants try to out-distance each other from the ICAC hearings.Mr Morrow will do whatever he feels is in the best interests of the major shareholder — the Federal Australian Government — thus to not expect the Game Of Thrones approach to management restructuring (given the rather considerable degree of change to the deployment model, and the current governments flair for the overly dramatic) would be naive.
Doesn’t really excuse any religious ousting (if true) but that is now the nature of the beast.
Sadly what won’t happen in the best interests of the major shareholder in the government (i.e. the tax payer) any-time-soon – is to expedite building of the network.
People are still arguing, when really we need to have a concerted effort to push the government to actually start delivering outcomes. The ongoing argument (which is now all but redundant) serves to feed the rhetoric wagon, rather than push Turnbull.
If both sides of that debate simply redirected their concerns to the Minister, he’d have nowhere to hide.
“Nuclear Energy is perfectly safe”. Need I say more?
Ummm…besides being quite OT, nuclear energy IS quite safe (unless you live on the Ring of Fire).
Nuclear energy is indeed quite safe, and far cleaner than most other forms of energy. This is especially true in countries with relatively stable tectonic movements and large barren areas with which to store waste. Now back to topic and suggest researching things more.
As Renai is always keen to see evidence-based arguments, I’ll supplement this little off-topic expedition with this gem:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3051197?source=cen
Choice quote from the abstract:
“Using historical production data, we calculate that global nuclear power has prevented an average of 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent (GtCO2-eq) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning. On the basis of global projection data that take into account the effects of the Fukushima accident, we find that nuclear power could additionally prevent an average of 420 000–7.04 million deaths and 80–240 GtCO2-eq emissions due to fossil fuels by midcentury, depending on which fuel it replaces.”
How did this topic come about?
Regardless, while the cheaper uranium-based reactors have the potential to become major environmental hazards, thorium-based reactors might prove to be the cleanest alternative:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ9Ll5EX1jc
Worth a watch.
“It is believed that Ferris was informed in March that his position had been split into three”
It will take three people to replace him? Does Malcolm still have three friends looking for work?
Perhaps that’s unfair, but there does seem to be a correlation between knowing Malcolm and getting a Job at NBN Co.
I like your last paragraph.
Unfortunately with the way this government appears to be they will ignore any and all you report.
When you ignore a petition of almost 300k people you know your dealing with a dictatorship instead if a democracy…
It is hard to find an area of the NBN situation where the Coalition haven’t gone above and beyond what they were accusing Labor of.
I don’t think that is confined to the NBN issue.
“The speech became popular viewing material in Australia’s technology sector partially because it directly rebuffed some of the statements being made by the Opposition and other NBN critics”
I’d suggest this is probably the point at which Tony and Malcolm added Mr Ferris to their hit list, if he wasn’t already on it.
I agree.
Why do you think he was treated disgracefully? I’m sorry that he lost his job but I’m sure a man of his experience can easily get another one.
With regards to management of NBN Co there were lots of reports about staff demoralisation under Labor’s watch:
“But insiders said resignations among senior staff with years of construction experience have increased in recent months as dissatisfaction grows with the way the company is being run. “It’s a bad situation that is just getting worse. It’s not a very fun place to work and there are tonnes of people who are pretty dissatisfied in there,” said one former executive who wished to remain anonymous.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/liberals-puts-nbn-chief-mike-quigley-on-notice/story-fn59niix-1226654872623
“former employees of the company have pointed to a growing sense of unease from staff unhappy with the way the company is being run. “It’s all become very defensive,” said one source. “Unfortunately, the people that are leaving are the really experienced ones. “That in itself raises some questions about why are these people leaving, and what does it do to an organisation when it’s left with a significant reduction of talent and experience.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/key-nbn-manager-joins-project-exodus/story-e6frgaif-1226661482340
““This is not a place where you question management” a number of current and former NBN Co staff have told this writer. One said: “I have before never worked in an organisation where I cannot trust any of my managers to do the right thing by me.” … Undoing NBN Co’s internal culture of mistrust and secrecy will probably prove one of the trickiest challenges facing the incoming CEO.”
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/7/11/technology/what-awaits-mike-quigley%E2%80%99s-successor
On the issue of top management leaving or being made redundant:
“The Australian has learned that senior managers from NBN Co’s operations division have either resigned or been made redundant in more than four internal organisational restructures that have occurred over the past 18 months. …
Key departures in recent months include the NBN Co’s executive general manager of construction strategy, quality and efficiency Paul Takac and its manager of construction, health and safety Paul Donker. Executive general manager of construction program management Stephen Butler left in January, ”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/liberals-puts-nbn-chief-mike-quigley-on-notice/story-fn59niix-1226654872623
Can’t help but notice that all of the articles you have quoted there are from News Ltd …
… and The dates on the articles, only a few months before the election.
The moral in the office would have been faaaantastic.
I believe the “disgraceful” part was along the lines of “Being on sick leave and having his position made redundant and then asked for one of the 3 ‘split’ positions he was asked to apply for and then turned down”…
while at the same time releasing a company statement that he was “still a valued member of the team”
But hey if kicking someone out while they were sick and then claiming to the rest of the world he’s still an employee is “ok” by your standards who am I to judge?
With the Labor government fighting a hostile press and small prospect of being returned to office, it is not surprising there was tension at the NBN. Tony Abbott’s neanderthal approach to technology was (and is) hardly a secret. “I’m no Bill Gates”…and somewhat proud of it.
Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people’s ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise. A nation more concerned with styles of life than with achievement has managed to achieve what may be the most evenly prosperous society in the world. It has done this in a social climate largely inimical to originality and the desire for excellence (except in sport) and in which there is less and less acclamation of hard work. According to the rules Australia has not deserved its good fortune.
If anything, that’s truer now than when it was published 50 years ago.
Plus add
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/5/12/technology/fat-lazy-executives-are-holding-australia-back?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=752013&utm_campaign=ts_daily&modapt=
I don’t think it’s surprising the new government appointed a new board with a new chairman, or that the new board and new CEO have made significant changes to the executive team at the NBNCo. It’s the sort of thing that happens all the time. What’s the problem here?
“What’s the problem here?”
The usual Coalition window dressing is the problem. They spin a situation so it’s anything but the actual truth.
A MalCo “spokesman” said “(He) remains a highly respected employee of NBN Co”, this is even though they already know he had been made redundant and replaced by Grant Bowden.
What would have been wrong with them admitting they just wanted to head in a different direction and figured they’d get a fresh perspective? Nothing! That’s what normal people expect, instead they defaulted to their usual “spin it so we look good” position…
“MalCo”
rofl
Is the accusation that the NBNCo said Mr Ferris was still an employee after they had made him redundant?
Is there any evidence to support this accusation? I can’t find anything on the NBNCo statement Renai refers to in his previous article (linked in this one).
> What’s the problem here?
The problem is they lied about it.
If the people now running NBNCo honestly believed they were doing the right thing, they would have had no issue saying “Thank you for your services Peter, but we’ve decided to go in a different direction.”
Unfortunately for Mr Ferris’ his public comments to date are even more credible than they are inconvenient.
The fact that NBNCo cannot find a use for someone of his undoubted skills speaks volumes for what they anticipate “achieving”.
And the Fraud continues…..
Good job exposing it Renai.
300,000 people say they want FTTP and Malcolm all but ignores them.
Malcolm claims his NBN will be technology agnostic and will conduct a cost benefit analysis unlike the ALP, yet before the CBA is even finished, has already decided on what technology mix they will use, even before a supposedly independent Strategic Review is completed.
The new NBN Co. also dismisses the chief FTTP architect and makes his position redundant, all while holding on to the pretense they are technology agnostic.
The Australian public are the biggest bunch of stupid idiots who will believe anything we tell them, says the Liberal party when no-one else is listening.
Can we just stop wasting money, fire half the board at NBN and let Malcolm Turnbull run it. Clearly all his predictions and claims have miraculously come true, so he must indeed be some intellectual genius who has all the right answers.
Let’s face it, before the strategic review, he told us all that a mix of FTTN, FTTP, FTTB, HFC, Wireless, and Satellite was the way to go. Lo and behold, the Strategic Review comes up with 6 ways to build the NBN and settles on exactly the same model Malcolm discussed during the election. Despite a radically redesigned FTTP roll-out offering an attractive alternative, the NBN has committed to the MTM model, despite the CBA not even being completed yet. How does ANY of this make sense?
Hi all I just found this site yesterday and I have been amazed by the articles here they really are top notch. As with this story I totally agree the coalition government has been really screwing around with everything with the changes to the nbn from the fttp network which was going to be world class to the new fttn network it is really bad and something needs to be done
Welcome, make the most of it
The NBN under Malcolm Turnbull has turned into the farce he claimed it to be under Labor.
He must think that this “makes him right”…
Hey don’t worry guys…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/finally-some-good-news-on-the-nbn/story-e6frg8zx-1226915156373#
Finally, some good news on the NBN
SLOWLY but surely the news on the NBN is changing for the better, with company chairman Ziggy Switkowski declaring light at the end of the tunnel and signs that the project is getting back on the rails
Hahaha.. haha.. haa.. ahh *cries in corner*
Omfg you have to read this.
Thankfully that link you posted is paywalled. Otherwise I may have read it and had my afternoon ruined.
Honestly this is a must read (god don’t pay for it get it through Google).
Literally every line is so good!
“He is still aghast at the need for government to be involved at all, blaming the previous administration for pressing ahead with the project against all the evidence and without any sort of public cost-benefit analysis.”
“NBN Co is also updating rollout schedules on a weekly basis as part of the Turnbull plan to at least tell punters what is happening with the project.”
“Telstra already stands to collect about $100 billion in payments committed to by the previous government and the Coalition has said the NBN will take control of any last-mile copper links”
“This will give Turnbull the chance to air the dirty linen before the NBN becomes his project.”
When was the election? Is John Durie a real person that exists in the physical space?
After Alan Kohler, Durie is one of the next 2-3 best known Australian business commentators.
Incidentally, even though I am not a subscriber, I respect Alan. His article’s on the NBN were always excellent for a MSM Commentator and he has had his bunfights with dear little Malcom over the NBN.
Plus his Technology Spectators and NBN site and Climate Spectators are also excellent.
i.e Relevant for today (Budget Day)
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/5/12/policy-politics/australia-does-have-budget-emergency-%E2%80%93-it-all-about-carbon
An interesting read, pointing out how the Multibillion shortfall to the Budget by retaining the compensation Package paid for by that tax, is being made up for by all theses other cuts, increases in tertiary education costs, cuts to ABC and CSIRO etc
“Telstra already stands to collect about $100 billion in payments committed to by the previous government and the Coalition has said the NBN will take control of any last-mile copper links.”
That’s from the Australian article you linked. SMH has also repeated the $100 billion claim, but at least they state it’s over a possible 55 year period.
This is exactly the vague ‘half-truth’ outrageous claims the Coalition were making during the election period. John Durie has about as much integrity as Pycelle in Game of Thrones.
Oh dear. I think I feel a rant coming on.
Good old sexy fingers doing his real job
If, as you suggest, there was deliberate obfuscation and misleading of the public regarding Mr Ferris’ position with NBNCo then I can only re-assert that MP Malcolm Turnbull and his political appointees at NBNCo are inflicting a complete and unmitigated disaster on the future of Australia’s telecommunications.
It’s a full on cock up wherein the industry and public must endure years of uncertainty while Turnbull imposes his and the Liberal Party’s ideology on the telco sector, at the expense of efficiency and future long term benefit. And Mr Ferris’ treatment is but another example of the disdain and disregard that Turnbull is treating the responsibilities of his position.
Meanwhile we are fed BS articles such as ….
“Finally, some good news on the NBN
SLOWLY but surely the news on the NBN is changing for the better, with company chairman Ziggy Switkowski declaring light at the end of the tunnel and signs that the project is getting back on the rails.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/finally-some-good-news-on-the-nbn/story-e6frg8zx-1226915156373#
This relating to a speech which the telecommunications media roundly derided as double speak and hypocrisy.
The media, the political parties, and the public/voters are realizing just what a farce the entire Turnbull/Liberal Govt policy is. They see the hypocrisy and hidden agenda – to destroy the NBN.
Get real Mr Turnbull. It doesn’t matter how many contrived reviews and expert panels you put together. Everyone knows you are stuffing it up in your pursuit of a political agenda that has nothing to do with the best interests of voters, consumers or the nation.
Get back to the original FTTP policy of the preceding Labor Govt.
(End rant!) :)
(Edit: Is that the rant you felt coming on Renai? :)
Oh I think I can rant a little better than that :D
Go on then! ;)
Renai is going to tear it to pieces! Can’t wait :)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/12/nbn_co_has_no_plan_to_prioritise_blackspot_builds/
“Turnbull’s emphasis since taking government has been to direct broadband coverage to those in outlying areas who get minimal access now”
Oh and one more thing.
Turnbull is engaging in a massive political exercise and waste of taxpayers funds for purely political purposes by holding a review into what was wrong with previous Govt’s policy and how it could have been done better.
Is Turnbull serious? He’s still trying to use panels etc, to lay blame on a previous govt and provide him with excuses and distractions.
Malcolm Turnbull has turned the NBN and his dept into a dog’s breakfast. He should be honest, upfront, realistic, and stop trying to BS the voters, industry, and the public.
Rip into the fud.. ! The nbn is now a dud. Time for Malco to go.. Rip.
Thank you for this investigation.
An email sent to my Federal member a few minutes ago.
Hullo Minister MacFarlane
This, to one who has worked in telecoms and IT, is both incredibly stupid and short-sighted. And why Lie?
http://delimiter.com.au/2014/05/13/nbn-co-made-fttp-architect-ferris-redundant/
“news NBN Co misled the Australian public about its treatment of Peter Ferris, it has emerged, with the company having made the highly experienced and respected network engineer who was responsible for the design of the company’s previous Fibre to the Premises network redundant rather than merely having demoted him, as it stated in April.”
Graham …
There are lots of people inside NBNCo im sure is happy to see the back of him. Not just the opposition.
Seriously it makes me mad when you hear someone like Peter lecture about what the NBN technologies can deliver in a non politicised environment, in a please where knowledge and truth must be adhered to and yet what Australian public are fed the exact opposite. It really makes be believe we’re a nation of fools.
Did Peter Ferris’s mother write this article? Anyone who knows network engineering appreciates that Ferris (more than any other individual in NBNCo) is responsible for the demise of what was a grand vision by an expensively over-engineered approach that was completely out-of-line with global best practice. As AC said, there will be many people pleased to see the back of him!
I had originally typed almost exactly that. It was more Rolls Royce, gold plated network. I have seen first hand Opticomm deliver to over 200 houses FTTH with a 24 core fibre trunk. Not 288, 576 or larger core cables. Over engineered by a long way
Let’s wait 20 years and see what’s “over-engineered”.
24 Fibre core, single fibre service, 1:16 splitter per fibre.
Therefore in a brand new estate with 300-500 sqm blocks they have a capability of servicing 384 houses from a single headend (as well as RF over fibre is included). When I was out there 170 houses were active with another 50 to be built. 220 total for the servicable area. Leaves plently of spares.
Needless to say I’m a huge fan of FTTH. It was gold plated however and had its share of technological issues (look at fibres 5-9 of a ribbon splice for those in the know).
What is the cost difference of the 2 options?
I am willing to bet that the fibre is not the main cost and the difference is negligible between the 2 options especially if you have to re run fibre due it insufficient backhaul!
It is similar to the difference between cat5 and cat6 I may not need cat 6 now but the cost is not much more so why not get the better option and be future proofed.
Well no one is going to give you those comercially sensitive figures however i know its significant. The biggest thing NBNCo were aiming for was that there wasnt 200-400 houses to connect but 10-12 million houses. Efficiencies in quantity buying, advanced methods of deployment and other on the job processes were to drop the ‘per house’ figure.
THe same efficiences are also workable on greenfield deployments.
We (the country, nbn) never got that far.
LOL just trust you hey
I am sure the cost of fibre is available for each type if you looked hard enough and the Labour required would also be able to be approximated.
You have stated something as fact and provided no evidence why should I trust you?
??? Do whatever you want. Never asked for trust. Sheez.
Actually I used to think the same about CAT5/6, then I discovered the cost is often as much as 50% higher. Then I actually learnt about the standards – CAT6 is unnecessary for gigabit to 100m, while incapable of 10gbit over more than about 26m. CAT8 will be a ratified standard before nearly anyone outside of data centers is even considering 10gbit. At $20k entry level for a 24 port gigabit switch you’ve got to have a serious need to be pushing pretty huge data around your network for 10gbit to make sense.
So given the cost of installing cable, the likely time frame before 10gigabase will be required, the additional cost of CAT6 today and the fact that it is inferior to CAT8 which will cost about the same when you actually need it, I would install Cat5e except where there is some compelling argument against it – the potential upgradability doesn’t cut it in 99% of scenarios.
Fibre infrastructure is quite a different argument though – the difference in cost of the fibre cables is negligible in context with installation, potential upgrade costs and overall project delivery costs. This is precisely a situation where you should install the best upgrade path technology because the cost and difficulty of upgrading it later are prohibitive.
Nobody even uses Cat7, data centres use Cat6 for up to 1 Gigabit links and for any faster links they usually use OM3 fibre and whatever speed SFC they need (10Gbps+).
Cat7 is not a TIA standard and it’s never going to be, so hardly anyone uses it. Data centres use fibre for all 10gb comms because the cables are significantly thinner and they cut electricity usage massively. Copper will only gain traction for 10gb when it is both commonly necessary and affordable to business LANs. It doesn’t make sense in most data centres.
/OT chatter
The power use is irrelevant*, Cat7 isnt used for two practical reasons (I spent several years managing a Tier3 DC so this is 1st hand):
1/ Cat7 essentially needs to be factory made, it’s not possible for even trained data cablers to terminate on site due to the incredibly stiff nature of the cable as a result of all the shielding (individual pairs are shielded from each other) – it’s a nightmare!
2/ it’s limited to 10Gbps and cat8 hasnt even made it out of the labs – the beauty of the OM3 fibre system is it’s now quite cheap (by DC standards) and if you find 10Gbps is too slow, you just swap out the 2 SFP’s at each end with 40Gbps SFP’s and later 100Gbps SFP’s when they become economical all without having to replace your cabling.
Frankly in the Data Centre setting, no one is going to use copper past Cat6a for speeds above 10Gbps (which Cat6a already does at distances of 50 meters). When the DC I managed was built in 2009, it was fully fitted out with a dedicated optical cabling management system and the take up of this was extremely high. In fact the OM3 patch cables became so cheap we stopped charging customers for OM3 patch leads.
*FWIW, the Tier3 DC I managed had a PUE of 1.6 for most of the period I ran it and that was without any specific “green” technologies installed like FreeAir Cooling etc.
You should try fttp my home is connected and I cant be happier.Further Telstra is turning of the copper network in Armidale in May.
You say world best practice but where do you get world best practice for a undertaking this large. Has anybody actually asked Mr Ferris what his idea for NBN co was and how both governments stuffed around , you might be surprised.
Unfortunately, due to the increasing inflation in the market the purchasing power of the customers has fallen. At the very
least, I didn’t spend too much cash on those eyelashes. The procedure can take an average of two hours for a full set of extensions of roughly 30-80 lashes per eye.
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