news Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has rejected what he described as MyRepublic’s “confounding” comments on the Coalition’s Multi-Technology version of the NBN, among other arguments reminding the Singaporean company of cost differences when deploying fibre in Australia.
This morning MyRepublic CEO Malcolm Rodrigues — which is on the cusp of launching in Australia — reportedly told Fairfax Media that the FTTN component of the Coalition’s Multi-Technology Mix version of the NBN was “shit” and that the current Coalition Government had “completely stuffed it” in terms of its policy model for the NBN.
MyRepublic provides its services in Singapore and New Zealand primarily over the all-fibre networks that those countries are currently rolling out, based on the Fibre to the Premises architecture. This is the same architecture that Labor’s previous version of the NBN used. However, the Coalition has significantly modified this model to incorporate in some areas the technically inferior Fibre to the Node and HFC cable models — which do not deploy fibre broadband all the way to homes and business premises.
This afternoon, Minister Turnbull issued a statement in response to Rodrigues’s comments.
The Liberal MP welcomed MyRepublic’s plans to enter the Australian market, but said it was “worth putting some of his comments into perspective”.
Minister Turnbull rejected Rodrigues’ comment that the FTTN component of the Coalition’s version of the NBN was “shit” and that it would only deliver between 20Mbps and 30Mbps. “… the early FTTN trials from Umina show that the nbn is achieving speeds of 91Mbps download and 36Mbps upload over a variety of loop lengths, he said.
Minister Turnbull alleged the NBN company was “hardly” the only company in the world rolling out a multi-technology mix. “In Germany, Deutsche Telekom has recently announced an expansion of its fibre-to-the-node network, to cover 80 per cent of its fixed line footprint by 2018, while there have also been mass deployments by BT Openreach in the U.K., AT&T in the U.S. and many others,” he said.
In addition, Minister Turnbull noted that the cost of deploying fibre in a small country like Singapore was dramatically cheaper than it was in a large, geographically dispersed country like Australia.
Minister Turnbull also addressed Rodrigues’ statement that MyRepublic would lobby the Government to deliver free upgrades to Fibre to the Premises.
“It may be true from the [retail service provider’s or RSP’s] point of view. If they do not have to invest in the network, well then that investment is ‘free’ of any direct contribution from the RSPs,” Minister Turnbull said. “But it is certainly not true from a customer’s or taxpayer’s point of view. Either the customer will pay more and/or the taxpayer will have to shoulder the cost of an even larger subsidy.”
The Minister also addressed Rodrigues’ comments on the time frame to deliver full fibre to Australia. Rodrigues had reportedly said that Australia should have progressd to full fibre — even if it had taken 20 years rather than 10 years — and even if it required a FTTN step in the way.
“When the Government measured Australians’ access to broadband, and the quality of their connections, the report revealed there were up to 1.6 million premises which had either no broadband or very poor broadband connectivity, with peak median download speeds of less than 4.8mbps,” the Member for Wentworth said.
“The Vertigan study found that the MTM rollout had a net benefit of $17.9 billion compared to the net benefit of an all FTTP rollout of just $1.8 billion.”
“Just as importantly, were the Government to take his advice, it would mean that many Australians with no or very poor broadband will not get an upgrade to superfast speeds within the next few years but rather would have to wait, as he recommends, for another decade. When his company has spent a little more time in this market, he will find out how little appeal his twenty year timetable would have to Australians.”
opinion/analysis
I’d like to make a few small comments in response to the Minister’s statement.
Firstly, I’d like to point out that Minister Turnbull’s argument is not clear or succinct. It will be difficult for the average Australian to understand what he is talking about here. “Cost benefit”? “Vertigan study”? These kind of terms mean little to most Australians. This is industry jargon.
In comparison, the argument that Rodrigues is making is very clear and succinct. All he’s saying is that Australians are not getting a full fibre broadband network, so are missing out on higher speeds and performance. It’s pretty basic. The CEO is promising everyone better Internet.
Even if you do agree with the arguments that Minister Turnbull is making, and I don’t, he is communicating them very poorly. He is not responding to MyRepublic’s very clear position with a clear position of his own. It’s almost to the point where I do not believe the Minister is responding to Rodrigues’ overall point directly at all.
Sure, FTTN delivers high speeds, as the Minister said. But Rodrigues’ point is that they’re not the best speeds. His company already offers 1Gbps in Singapore. Sure, taxpayers are paying for this rollout, as Minister Turnbull said. But does anyone really think that Australian taxpayers would agree that deploying universal FTTP is a waste of money? I don’t think so.
Secondly, I’d like to make the point that Minister Turnbull’s argument that other countries globally are deploying a Multi-Technology Mix is not accurate. As far as I can tell, no other country in the world has a model like Australia’s — where the Government is buying HFC cable and copper networks and extending them with fibre. That’s unheard of. In pretty much every other country the Government is restructuring the telco industry to incentivise upgrades and foster infrastructure-based competition.
What’s happening in Australia is quite unprecedented globally.
In terms of FTTN generally, I have made this point before. This is my view on it:
I’m on TransACT’s FTTN network in Canberra, and the speeds here are very good by Australian standards. I’m getting 65Mbps and that is quite a good speed for our household’s needs. We watch a lot of Netflix, ABC iView and so on, and download more than 100GB of data per month. I’m quite happy at the moment.
Secondly, Singapore and New Zealand are much — much! — smaller countries than Australia. Deploying fibre around those geographies is a much easier task than doing the same in our fair land.
However, I will also note that the NBN is not being built for this decade or even for the next decade — it is being built for the next 50 to 100 years. FTTN is sufficient for my household’s bandwidth requirements now, but my and our bandwidth requirements have increased every year for the past two decades, and I don’t see that trend slowing down any time soon.
Eventually, there is no doubt that all fixed telecommunications networks will trend towards fibre. Australia can be dragged kicking and screaming towards that future, or it can get ahead and reap the rewards and competitive advantages that such a rollout would bring. Other countries such as Singapore and New Zealand are already doing so, and it would be foolhardy to pretend that they are not competing with Australian industry by doing so.
Image credit: Office of Malcolm Turnbull
“I’m getting 65Mbps and that is quite a good speed for our household’s needs”
TranACT is running on high quality copper cable run by them specifically for FTTN. Good luck on getting that on Australian voice grade copper. Maybe the magic trials that somehow get speeds higher than theoretical maximum will extend to the whole of Australia.
“The Vertigan study found that the MTM rollout had a net benefit of $17.9 billion compared to the net benefit of an all FTTP rollout of just $1.8 billion.”
That is only true if the network doesn’t need to be upgraded until 2040, fat chance.
“That is only true if the network doesn’t need to be upgraded until 2040, fat chance.”
That is likely a significant cost we as Taxpayers will have to bear in the near (ie as soon as MTM is completed) future as well. I mean 1 application has brought Australian Internet to its knee’s in the past couple of months and its a significant factor still after the ISP’s have all mostly recovered.
It wasn’t a new product its been around in the world for years already too. Try and imagine a competitive market with 100’s of unique and new applications across many different genre’s all vying for bandwidth!
“I’m getting 65Mbps and that is quite a good speed for our household’s needs”
For me I’d be adding ‘current’ to the quote. Oh and I’m jealous now too!
Malcolm you snake oil salesman, even your fraudulent SR says a full FTTP roll out will take only 2 years longer than your obsolete copper white elephant!
And let’s not forget your biased CBA which completely ignored all possible business benefits in order for it to justify your obsolete multi-billion dollar disaster
Nerve —> Struck
I wonder how it sits with MT that after he gets kicked out of government next year, his legacy and all he will be remembered for is the mess he helped create. Malcolm Turnbull, the man who wasted billions and set back Australia’s internet infrastructure a decade, if not more.
Not just a decade. Unless the ALP decide to pursue the changes to the NBN as national sabotage and aggressively retake the whole project and bring it back into line with the original plan (seriously never going to happen) the whole thing is doomed. Because when it fails to achieve positive ROI they will be forced to admit it will revert to a direct expense to the budget (which will be criticised by the LNP as Labor’s fault despite it being caused by Turnbull), pressure will be put on them to sell it off and either they will, with incentives, and Telstra will buy it, or they will hold out, with it eating away at the budget, making them look bad (because people are idiots) and then the LNP will sell it to Telstra on their watch.
So tell me how we can get to a position of improvement after an additional ten years if Telstra get to own the national fibre network? I think that means we’re #@&*ed indefinitely.
Sounds like a robotic, circular argument from Turnbull – ‘my argument is right because I have here these documents to back it up, written by people I employed to write documents that came to conclusions I dictated. As you can see, my evidence is profound and impressive, so you are wrong’.
Actually his explanations are rejected because, despite using clearly defined business language, the average Australia is ignorant of the meaning.
Much easier to sell “free fast gigabit fibre for everyone”.
Oh good, so Malcolm didn’t employ yes men to conveniently agree with his conclusions after all?
Well, we can all sleep better now…
Well apart from having to toss and turn because of this ludicrous, antiquated, not any faster not any cheaper dogs breakfast, BS MTM plan, that is.
Correct, the EVERYMAN who doesn’t understand the jargon, rejects it because of his explanations.
Those of us who know the jargon reject it because its Bullshit.
Meanwhile the real world moves on:
Verizon tests 10Gbps FiOS, says new fiber tech can go up to 80Gbps
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/verizon-test-10gbps-fios-says-new-fiber-tech-can-go-up-to-80gbps/
So not only can GPON easily meet today’s needs but it can affordably be upgraded to meet tomorrow’s needs while allowing existing services to co-exist on the same fibre!
Typical beancounter politician. No one believes his bulldust. Shame his actions in office aren’t held accountable after politics. I’d love to see him stripped of all his pension and entitlements when 5 years down the track, its proven his crusade to save $2b has ended up costing the country another $50b when his FTTN has to be ripped out and thrown away, and replaced with the FTTP he robbed Australia of in office.
I’d vote for any party who announced they would introduce ministerial accountability and accountability to pre-election promises.
+1
… the FTTN component of the Coalition’s Multi-Technology Mix version of the NBN was “shit” and that the current Coalition Government had “completely stuffed it” in terms of its policy model for the NBN.”
Obviously some Malcolm’s are not as clueless as others. Love your work Malcolm R.
The Minister should note that now that the Umina Trials finished at the start of the year, there are 0 consumers (to the best of my knowledge) on FTTN.
“early” results he said – not to mention that Telstra have pointed out that “we would not regard these as real world tests”. “late” trial results may well render M. Rodrigues’ viewpoint correct. i certainly think its far too early for MT to be crowing about the trial results given the deliverability rates on FTTN under BT (using better grade copper even!) or NZ (where some users are getting LESS than they will on ADSL).
theres also that little complication that Germany is using something in the order of 300K cabinets. i dont know what grade of copper they are using but there is no way with 1/5th the (planned) cabinets here (and likely better grade copper there also!), that the german experience is in any way relatable to aussie conditions.
“the report revealed there were up to 1.6 million premises which had either no broadband or very poor broadband connectivity, with peak median download speeds of less than 4.8mbps,”
and most of these STILL dont have an improvement despite the fasta betta cheapa(rse) network MT is rolling. it all very well to say what you WOULD do, but what HAVE you done? to date: leftovers of FTTH contracts, precious few FTTB connects and virtually none at all of FTTN.
I’m with M. Rodrigues here: the coalition have stuffed it. and while i do think its too early to say definitively it IS shit – as things stand it is highly likely to be shit.
C-, MT “Can Do Better”.
https://www.facebook.com/B4RNorth/timeline/story?ut=43&wstart=1420099200&wend=1451635199&hash=-19092587440158834&pagefilter=3
in short this says that BT(british telecom) come to the town of wrayton in the city of lancaster had Openreach brought into the town after they had already got b4rn fibre and no one wanted it as it was worse than they had built so why would we want any less
“Even if you do agree with the arguments that Minister Turnbull is making, and I don’t, he is communicating them very poorly. He is not responding to MyRepublic’s very clear position with a clear position of his own. It’s almost to the point where I do not believe the Minister is responding to Rodrigues’ overall point directly at all.”
Exactly what you would expect from a politician. He’s going to weasel his way out of answering questions he doesn’t want to answer any way he can. Mention a few big words here and there, throw some facts around that probably have no direct relevance etc.
Though i do agree getting broadband coverage is more important than speed/quality, i do not see why they can’t be both achieved at the same time.
Keep up the pressure on him Renai! He can’t keep avoiding these sorts of questions forever.
It seems that Malcolm is conveniently forgetting that even well after his party won government, over 70% of the public still preferred Labors full FTTP NBN. Funny that he hasnt put that question to the public again. No doubt he wont like the answer, especially seeing as almost 2 years on, he has no infrastructure that his policies have built to show for his efforts. He has wasted 2 years that could have been 2 years of ramped up FTTP rollout.
awww, poor Malcolm getting all butt-hurt because someone called his pet FttN patchwork plan shit. I’ve noticed parents often don’t like to hear the truth about their rotten kids too. Sorry Turnbull but Rodrigues is just saying what everyone was already thinking. And to think what it took was a foreign based ISP to light a fire under your ass because you sure as hell don’t have any respect for the providers and voters saying it here.
Hey Malcolm, only a few months left for you to deliver on that “cheaper & faster minimum 25Mb/s for all by end of 2016” Where are all those thousands of nodes installed in every suburb all over Australia by now? Missing in action or cloaked in invisibility paint?
I would suggest you add an extra 4 letters after your surname commencing with S & ending in T. Would fit in well with that CEO’s description of your ‘Network’.
Cheaper and Faster was Turnbull’s promise? ???
I already have 100Mb/s cable for $78 per month.
How does 25Mb/s equate to faster, and how much does 500MB a month cost on the NBN? Likely more than $78 I’m guessing
Peter:
“how much does 500MB a month cost on the NBN? Likely more than $78 I’m guessing”
Depends upon who you go with
We’re on Quigley’s Fixed Wireless NBN. None of Malcolm’s nodes involved :)
Getting 500GB/month for $59.99/month @ 25/5Mb/s from Exetel.
(fastest plan available at present but some ISPs are trialling 50/20Mb/s)
Try internet on 15GB a month Malcolm. That’s the only thing I can get on wireless, and it’s the same cost as someone who could get 500 GB a month on adsl.
Well I, and all of my neighbors, get 3.5MB/s peak speeds so let me assure you that I am dissatisfied with the current and future plans.
I have no HFC access and due to my distance from the exchange my speeds wont improve even if FTTN comes to my exchange (which is not even on the current schedule).
There are thousands of households like mine all over the country, who are on the fringe of the current exchanges and who will not receive any benefit from the “National” plan in any of its current forms. I am encouraged that I will at least still be paying the “subsidy” the “Honorable member” mentioned through my taxes.
No the solutions are not easy, but I see absolutely no solution for people in the same situation as I am. There is not fixed line upgrade coming. There is no FTTH planned. There is no wireless solution.
The government need to ensure access for households that come in under a national “minimum broadband access threshold”.
All I have to look forward to is higher taxes and no service and absolutely no plan to improve this, not even in 10 or 20 years.
Thanks Government you are really serving me well
I live in regional Victoria and I’m currently connected to a RIM, a device that Telstra uses to provision telephone services in areas where there is no existing copper, or the existing copper in the ground cannot support the demand for services in the area. After school times my internet connection is unusable, on weekends my internet connection is unusable and every time it rains, thanks to the crippled copper network, my internet is unusable. I pay $90 per month for a connection that can barely attach a word document to an email. Any future plans which rely on the existing copper network will mean that my internet connection remains unusable.
Minister Malcolm Turnbull needs a reality check. Australia is going to fall behind the rest of the world. We are already missing out on opportunities because of our poor infrastructure. As a songwriter and performer, I personally am already missing out on opportunities because I cannot collaborate on-line in real time.
I would argue that MyRepublic CEO Malcolm Rodrigues’ comment does not go far enough. Malcolm Turnbull’s cobbled together mess of a “plan” is a complete waste of taxpayers money. It will be ripped apart by future governments and exposed as a complete sham.
Just look at the people we’re electing. Really look at them. They do not act in the interest of the population. They are absorbed by share prices and personal gains. We can change this. We must demand better government.
I don’t disagree with anything you say, but do you think any government will do it right?
I really can’t see an answer here, government is only interested in saving costs and getting reelected, business is only interest in strip mining the populace for profit.
I’m at a loss, competitive competition is suppose to be the answer in a capitalistic economy like ours but with 23 million people and 7’692’000 km2 of land mass (that’s about 3 people or say 1 “average” house per square km) we got our self a market not suited to mass installation of a competitive network.
these numbers obviously ignore the population density in urban areas, but Australia more than the densely populated bits, as per your post
I need to better understand the restrictions of the wireless bandwidth as a mass solution for the “fringe”
What I can say is this is now my number 1 voting issue
Was the FTTP plan, not right?
So Malcolm Turnbull says rolling out fibre in Australia is sooooo much more expensive than anywhere else in the world and the net benefits of FTTN compared to FTTP was about 9 times better.
Perhaps he could explain why, in the above context, he chooses to invest his own money in fibre rollouts overseas instead of here in Australia with his own MTM!!! Perhaps while he is at it he could publish all the redacted financial details from his numerous reviews and thus prove what he says is true and have those finances independently reviewed. Perhaps at some stage in the near future we may actually see some real world results from FTTN to judge him by instead of staged and upgraded areas where previous trials have been held.
You mean real world test that weren’t carried out in locations the were chosen to ensure good results, no way…
I’d love to get those type of speeds, unfortunately i can barely get 1 Mbps on adsl2+. So you would believe i live out west or in the country, you would be wrong i live 30mins south of Sydney. Sydney of all places and my internet speed is shocking.
I have numerously called nbn.co. and emailed Malcolm for a more comprehensive rollout schedule and to my utter amazement they do not have any rollout plan that exceeds the one on their website.
We need to throw money at the nbn to deploy it faster. But we should also get internet that is Faster than other locations on earth. For we are Australians and we deserve the best, no second rate FTTN can compare to the FTTP. Why should we have to suffer for a short-sighted internet plan that we’ll be replacing in 10 years(or whenever they get around to it), how long did it take to get us off copper? Hmm, i hope this informs you to the plight of the Slow internet users where we cannot even get above 1 Mbps.
Thanks for your time.
Internet infrastructure is something where a half arse short sighted attempt will result in a very poor long term result. Any immediate short comings can only be greatly amplified by future improvements in technology. The NBN started as a plan to bring Australia necessary infrastructure. Under Liberal it became nothing more than a political tool and a cash cow for Telstra.
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/verizon-tests-broadband-10x-faster-google-fiber-n407996
“does anyone really think that Australian taxpayers would agree that deploying universal FTTP is a waste of money? I don’t think so.”
Isn’t that exactly what they said when they voted in this dogs breakfast?
We voted for a clear FTTP policy in 2010, the COALition didnt win power in 2013, the ALP lost power therefore imo the COALition have no mandate to destroy the FTTP NBN! Over 270,000 Australians signed a petition to that effect and is still the largest number of signatures in Australia petition history – iirc even GetUp with ~1 million members have never had more than about 90,000 signatures on a petition!
“the COALition have no mandate to destroy the FTTP NBN”
You mean that direct quote of ‘Destroy the NBN’ that Abbott barked at Turnbull means they actually support the NBN?
Hotcakes:
From what I recalled, the order was to “Demolish”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-09-14/abbott-orders-turnbull-to-demolish-nbn/2260320
Mission accomplished!
Ah, wrong d word. My bad. :)
I guess Malcolm doesn’t keep up with the times (much like his network).
Pretty well every “poster boy” country/company he used to evangelise his MTM is switching to full fibre deployments, not FttN…
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