Your NBN argument is invalid

50

blog Over at the Sydney Morning Herald, apparently veteran journalist Stuart Washington has made an *extremely complex* argument for why the National Broadband Network is a silly policy. He writes:

“I wait, say, a couple of years, and get a service that is broadly the same price as I am paying now. The new service allows me to do more of what I am already doing and to do it faster, although my existing service offers me enough for what I am doing right now. That doesn’t sound particularly compelling to me, yet it’s the basis for $36 billion in spending.”

Thank you for your commentary, Stuart. It brightened my day. However, I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that the National Broadband Network project is broadly intended to resolve, as I understand it, the following policy aims:

  • Increased competition in the telecommunications sector
  • Faster (bandwith and latency) broadband speeds over the next 50 years
  • Eliminating broadband blackspots
  • Increasing the ability of telcos to compete in regional areas where monopoly backhaul conditions exist
  • The structural separation of Telstra
  • Investment in Australia’s digital economy
  • Boosting national productivity and efficiency

In your article, you appear to have addressed none of these. Your argument to the effect that I don’t need it personally, therefore the entire NBN policy is a waste of space is therefore invalid. In addition, we recommend you do some more research before writing your next commentary. We’ve just had half a decade of debate about the NBN policy. You don’t appear to have read a single jot of it.

Next!

Image credit: Amphetamine Dreams

50 COMMENTS

  1. +1 on this.

    It constantly amazes me that so many of the people against the project almost never address their concerns against the stated aims of the project – and not just this guy.

    • It’s getting to be a bad joke. Seriously … if this guy is a senior journalist, then shouldn’t he have at least some awareness of the policy debate, its current state, and maybe some way he could inject his opinion into it? Instead of simply rubbishing the entire policy, three years after it was launched, with no context or background to his argument?

      This is why news articles and commentary pieces need to be threaded.

    • @MichealWyres

      “It constantly amazes me that so many of the people against the project almost never address their concerns against the stated aims of the project”

      Well they do quite regularly and articulately, you and others prefer to ignore it or when it gets too hard end it off with the fallback exit strategy of – *facepalm* .

  2. Many commentators are still playing catchup on the fundamental issues around the NBN. Unfortunately, their tardiness is made even worse by a complete lack of understanding of the underlying structural problems in the telecoms industry.

    Which is understandable. But it does beg the question of whether someone should mandate a certain level of industry knowledge before anyone is allowed to comment on the NBN. It would certainly shut up most of the pollies. And that couldn’t be all bad.

    • @David Braue

      “But it does beg the question of whether someone should mandate a certain level of industry knowledge before anyone is allowed to comment on the NBN. It would certainly shut up most of the pollies. And that couldn’t be all bad.”

      Indeed, the problem is finding someone who is totally independent and oversees what a certain level of industry knowledge is, and is totally objective and is not on a pro or anti NBN driven agenda.

      Not only would such a mandate of ‘industry knowledge’ shut up pollies it would also shut up a lot of journos as well.

  3. To put that one paragraph in context, as a good journalist always would, he also stated:

    “I have nothing against broadband as a nation-building experiment. As a business case, I’m having trouble seeing how it stacks up.”

    • You can cut that down to just two simple words, “business case”, which are the two take-home words that Renai completely ignored when reading Stuart’s article.

      You can have all the policy objectives you like, and then some: “save the babies”, “pat the dogs”, “cure the sick”, “help the needy”. You can have a thesaurus page of meaningless wank words: progressive, investment, 21st century, productivity, efficiency, oh yeah and um, “digital economy”, gimme an “e”, gimme an “i”, gimme an “eSomething” and an “iWhatever”, rah rah go team!

      You can have all that, but you go nowhere without a business case, it runs out of money, the balloon deflates and the pile of junk falls down in a useless heap. How do I get this through to you guys? The NBN is being set up as a corporate entity, not a charity, not a government department milking the taxpayer dollars but a corporate, for-profit, business. If it can’t make 7% profit on input investment then it will officially have failed, and it will be sawn up and sold for scrap (or the corporate equivalent thereof, which is liquidation).

      That means I wait, say, a couple of years, and get a service that is broadly the same price as I am paying now. The new service allows me to do more of what I am already doing and to do it faster, although my existing service offers me enough for what I am doing right now.

      Doesn’t it occur to any of you that what doesn’t sound particularly compelling to Stuart Washington, probably also doesn’t sound particularly compelling to a large number of other potential customers for exactly the same reasons? Low uptake is the primary risk of NBN business failure.

      • “Low uptake is the primary risk of NBN business failure.”

        True enough, but I would consider that a very low risk. A bet against the NBN is a bet against all fixed-line telephony (including VOIP), pay TV (including emerging IPTV and VOD services) and high-speed internet. Given recent trends in those areas I would not be taking that bet.

          • Because it’s an infrastructure monopoly you moron. All copper will be gone, and it’s physically impossible to do TV for everyone on wireless.

          • You manage to pack a lot of bufoonery into very few words so I commend your efficiency. However, you didn’t answer the question, “How is this going to happen?” You claim that NBN has an existing infrastructure monopoly, but can you point that out for everbody? Where is this existing infrastructure monopoly that you speak of?

            physically impossible to do TV for everyone on wireless

            Oh that’s a keeper. I mean TV is delivered via wireless right now, and has been ever since TV started. Do you require study to achieve such extreme levels of ignorance?

            What’s more, Big Air are advertising 1 gigabit fixed infrastructure wireless, which could easily support a IPTV stream (or several) with present day technology. I’m sure that if one company is doing it today, several more will come along pretty soon.

            Anyhow, even if the copper does go away, and we ignore wireless, there’s still plenty of fiber in the ground, what do you think is going to happen to all that existing fiber?

            As for calling people morons, I’d show you a mirror but then you would no doubt start searching for the little room on the other side of it.

          • You manage to pack a lot of bufoonery into very few words so I commend your efficiency. However, you didn’t answer the question, “How is this going to happen?” You claim that NBN has an existing infrastructure monopoly, but can you point that out for everbody? Where is this existing infrastructure monopoly that you speak of?

            One: he never said “exisiting” monopoly.

            Two: the monopoly will be created for NBN Co in that the current fixed lines from Telstra will in fact be replaced by NBN Co Fibre and as such the NBN will be the dominate provider of fixed line Broadband and Telephony, with an economics of scale such that delivering an alternative service to the residential sector will have a prohibitive ROI that a competing entity is very unlikely to purse (i.e. what Telstra has now in with the CAN), and even if it does purse it will purse via a very limied footprint.

            Oh that’s a keeper. I mean TV is delivered via wireless right now, and has been ever since TV started. Do you require study to achieve such extreme levels of ignorance?

            I agree with you on this point, however it is important to note that TV can only be delivered over wireless via some form of multi-casting.

            As for calling people morons, I’d show you a mirror but then you would no doubt start searching for the little room on the other side of it.

            Responding to an insult with further insults will not help you, as tempting as it may be.

          • One: he never said “exisiting” monopoly.

            He said, “it is an infrastructure monopoly” where “it” could only be in reference to the NBN and “is” implies present tense (check a dictionary).

            … as such the NBN will be the dominate provider of fixed line …

            This is a step down from, “all fixed line”, and this is a future tense statement (these things have not happened yet) thus it is entirely reasonable to ask, “How will these things come to pass?” That is to say, what mechanism and process will be followed to achieve the outcome you are expecting?

            I’m glad to hear that you agree with me that, “all fixed line” is simply not going to happen, and that everything being proposed here is simply just that: a proposal.

            … with an economics of scale such that delivering an alternative service to the residential sector will have a prohibitive ROI …

            Sure, I agree that economy of scale can help, but I think we disagree as to how much difference it makes. Having excellent fiber layout Sydney doesn’t really put you in any particularly great position for fiber layout in Melbourne or Perth. Sure, the first layout might gain you a bit of experience, but gluing optic fibers together is not rocket science (i.e. the valuable IP content is miniscule) it’s all been done before. It’s not like the NBN are going to be inventing any new technology — they just buy off-the-shelf products and drag them down ducts. The only economy of scale we are likely to see is the billing system, and maybe a bulk discount on the layer-2 switch and GPON equipment.

            What’s more, you say “service to the residential sector” now I’d argue that if NBN can’t make substantial inroads into the business sector then they are sunk (and we are drifting even further from the “all fixed line” mantra).

            Ask any ISP how easy it is to upsell resedential plans, vs business plans. Residential Internet is savagely cost sensitive. There simply isn’t enough Internet spend dollars floating around in the residential market to pay for the NBN capital outlay. As government spends more, they drive up interest rates, which further tightens the residential spending (rising mortgages and rents consume the spare dollars). The free lunch sits just out of reach, like it always does.

            … it is important to note that TV can only be delivered over wireless via some form of multi-casting.

            And indeed the NBN intends to also deliver TV by some form of multi-casting, for that matter existing Foxtel and Optus deliver TV by some form of multi-casting. If you check the CVC prices, you will soon see that there is no financially viable way for the NBN to deliver 4 or 5 hours of evening peak-time TV viewing via an on-demand unicast stream (even at SD resolution).

            Using the Big Air style microwave layout, could physically deliver TV over unicast (at a very prohibitive cost if all you want to do with it is watch TV), there’s no actual barrier imposed by physics, and perhaps microwave equipment could come down drastically in value (not saying that’s likely, but it could happen).

          • He said, “it is an infrastructure monopoly” where “it” could only be in reference to the NBN and “is” implies present tense (check a dictionary).

            So he got his tense wrong. No need to berate someone with a several hundred word reply over bad English.

            This is a step down from, “all fixed line”, and this is a future tense statement (these things have not happened yet) thus it is entirely reasonable to ask, “How will these things come to pass?” That is to say, what mechanism and process will be followed to achieve the outcome you are expecting?

            This question is well documented in the public record with both the NBN Business and various commentary on the NBN. So much so I am not going to reiterate it again, instead ask you to provide a counter-point to invalidate the premise, that is, if the NBN replaces the CAN for 93% of the population, how will it not become the dominate fixed line provider?

            Also yes, once again, he shouldn’t have said all, but instead the majority. I cannot apologise enough for his oversight. Clearly he should be executed for such improper use of the English language. *rolls eyes*

            Ask any ISP how easy it is to upsell resedential plans, vs business plans. Residential Internet is savagely cost sensitive. There simply isn’t enough Internet spend dollars floating around in the residential market to pay for the NBN capital outlay.

            Which is why I disagree with the current pricing and funding model. But that will take to long to get into and is getting away from the original point. You seem to have a habit of needlessly expanding on someone’s point, and I have to ask, why is that?

            The was no need to answer my point on multi-casting either, that was just to indicate agreement, also, it managed to reduce your original assertion from about two paragraphs to one sentence. If you had instead pointed out the you can deliver TV over wireless if you multicast you would have saved yourself a lot of typing.

          • The question is well documented in the public record, but the answer changes from week to week. Did we start at 97% fiber coverage? Now the plan is 93% but that’s looking too expensive, so by next month it will just as likely be down to 90% fiber coverage. They were sitting up all night scribbling out new legislation to whack it through as quick as they can — hardly a process for prudent and well considered legislature. The deal with Telstra goes back and forth, but then Telstra can afford to take as much time as they like on this one… and then it may or may not get past the Telstra shareholders. The talks with Optus over their HFC are on again off again, who knows where that will end up?

            There is a large amount of existing fiber in the ground, for example AAPT’s fiber investment. The NBN are attempting to orphan AAPT’s fiber investment and (as you might guess) AAPT are openly hostile to that. At least in principle, the Aus govt needs to pay compensation for such things (I’m no legal expert, I’m sure AAPT are chatting to several of those right now).

            … you would have saved yourself a lot of typing …

            Thank you for your energy-saving suggestion but I’m at the stage where I don’t have to search around for the keys anymore. I do however, need to stop and think about the words I use and how to get my meaning across as accurately as possible, so I’d prefer to be verbose and correct, rather than brief and wrong.

            My “take home” point about TV over multicast is that the NBN changes nothing in this regard.

          • The question is well documented in the public record, but the answer changes from week to week.

            The decided implementation in terms of the original question asked, i.e. how will the NBN take a majority of fixed line connections, has not changed since the Telstra deal was proposed, which has been in discussion for months and the repercussions of which have been hashed out by various media outlets and blogs, including Delimter here.

            Did we start at 97% fiber coverage? Now the plan is 93% but that’s looking too expensive, so by next month it will just as likely be down to 90% fiber coverage.

            Actually no, the fibre coverage started at 90% and increased to 93% with the KPMG report and has stayed stable since. This was a year ago.

            The deal with Telstra goes back and forth, but then Telstra can afford to take as much time as they like on this one… and then it may or may not get past the Telstra shareholders.

            Which brings us back to the original position back in May we were where the government intended to roll it out without Telstra, which reduces overall cost, but increases risk because it leaves Telstra in a position to compete with their ADSL2+ and fixed line services without legislative changes. This situation has also been discussed at length.

            The talks with Optus over their HFC are on again off again, who knows where that will end up?

            Regardless, if NBN Co gets the Optus deal or not, they will still gain a majority of fixed line connections, or have you forgotten how limited the their HFC footprint is.

            So the point is, in terms of the question that was asked, i.e. how will the NBN get a fixed line monopoly, yes, it has been answered.

            There is a large amount of existing fiber in the ground, for example AAPT’s fiber investment. The NBN are attempting to orphan AAPT’s fiber investment and (as you might guess) AAPT are openly hostile to that. At least in principle, the Aus govt needs to pay compensation for such things (I’m no legal expert, I’m sure AAPT are chatting to several of those right now).

            AAPT, as well as other fibre providers, like PIPE, are generally only for business customers, and as such are not ‘orphaned’ by the NBN. In fact the ACCCs recommendation of 122 POIs made sure of this by making most of the dark fibre in the ground is able to be utilised for transit fibre.

            So how is this relevant to your original question? NBN Co will still get the majority of fixed line connections, most of which are residential.

            I do however, need to stop and think about the words I use and how to get my meaning across as accurately as possible, so I’d prefer to be verbose and correct, rather than brief and wrong.

            There is being verbose, and there is bringing in irrelevant information out of context. Which is what you are doing. In fact you did it in the post I replying to with AAPT.

          • Oh that’s a keeper. I mean TV is delivered via wireless right now, and has been ever since TV started. Do you require study to achieve such extreme levels of ignorance?

            There are a number of drawbacks of the way TV is delivered today. It’s multi-cast (i.e. TV-on-demand is impossible) and it uses up a lot of spectrum. That spectrum could easily be used for other things.

            What’s more, Big Air are advertising 1 gigabit fixed infrastructure wireless, which could easily support a IPTV stream (or several) with present day technology. I’m sure that if one company is doing it today, several more will come along pretty soon.

            That’s a point-to-point connection which does not scale. You couldn’t have 1,000 people all geographically close to each other using the same service.

          • That’s a point-to-point connection which does not scale. You couldn’t have 1,000 people all geographically close to each other using the same service.

            Well that’s a very brave statement against a decidedly meaty question, I would argue that there’s nothing in physics that says it can’t be done (if equipment cost is no issue). I’ll agree that with existing microwave equipment there probably is a limit but we could keep going for quite a while before we hit a problem. So from my knowledge of physics, these are the basic limits:

            [1] how much spectrum you can get access to
            [2] how much power you can thump it with
            [3] how tight you can make your link focus
            [4] how many hops you are willing to tolerate before latency accumulates

            Now [1] is a matter of regulatory control and money spent, so we can take that as fixed (but with newer technology the ceiling goes up), [2] is partly regulatory and partly antenna design which brings us to [3].

            When it comes to [3] there are no limits imposed by physics (that I know of).
            When it comes to [4] the limits are imposed by your choice of equipment and the time to transmit one header.

            Let’s suppose you want a cellular wireless network, with no hops and only omni-directional radiation. You always end up with a hexagonal grid, splitting your spectrum into three parts, and using the “inverse square” law of radiation but the grid size can be anything you like, depending on how much equipment you feel like paying for. Admittedly, in the extreme case you get a situation where your network is an 802.11 base station in every house and you still have the problem of backhaul.

            On the other hand, if you are willing to tolarate a few mesh hops (each adding maybe 5 milliseconds latency) then you can build a network like the “Tropos” metro wireless networks that have seen some success, and your backhaul requirements are much more reasonable (note that the “Tropos” design is not full mesh, it is a self-organising multi-hop cellular network but that’s an implementation detail, there’s no reason in principle that full wireless mesh can’t be done).

            If you want to go down the path of a star topology and putting a phased array at the the center of the star, then you get something like iBurst which performed very well until they found themselves beaten on price by DSL and 3G. The focus of a phased array depends on the size of that array and in principle you could spread the array across multiple buildings (you would need fiber between buildings to maintain coherence, but our over-the-horizon radar can achieve this, so it has already been done). Sadly, iBurst never got this far.

            Using elements of [4] results in shorter hops, shorter hops allow you to put more effective power into each hop if you focus one dish point-blank at the other dish, so you improve [2] without breaking regulatory limits (but that depends on your regulator). Same applies for [3] if you can tighten your focus. Thus all of [2] and [3] and [4] work together (improvements in any one, helps all the others).

            I’m sure we are nowhere close to the theoretical limit, but right now equiment cost cranks up pretty fast.

          • So basically we can do it under physics, but the cost will be extreme. Now given that primary argument against the NBN design is cost, do you seriously think they will upgrade the design from the proposed 12Mbps model.

            No, didn’t think so. It’s great that you’re correcting people’s understanding of physics, but please, think about proper context. No point babbling on about technical ability if the cost is such that no one would seriously consider it.

          • Most of the cost is actually equipment cost, and this is guaranteed to fall (always does in the tech game). With incremental upgrades you don’t need to buy the very best gear right on day 1.

          • So they can upgrade the fixed line network in the future, well weren’t they going to do that anyway? The point is, I don’t see them offering 100Mbps or even 1Gbps connections to everyone on the outset via fixed wireless.

  4. Maybe he should jump on the R18+ bandwagon as well… I got the same feeling reading his piece as I did the Victorian AG’s statement…

  5. I wondered if stuart even read what he was writing.
    He starts his artical out talking about the things he currently does with his internet connection and how most of this activities “simply did not exist 10 years ago.” Yet makes the assumption that fibre isn’t going to change his use of the internet. Just like ADSL which when first availalbe wasn’t the huge amount faster than dial up as it is now, fibre will take 10 years for you to be engaged in activies that do not exist now. Anyone who can predict what those activities are should be looking foward to living off the profits of the next facebook/youtube/ebay/paypal/insert .com success story here in 10years time.

  6. Interesting points made supposedly as a counter to the article by that journo as to why we need the NBN.

    ‘Increased competition in the telecommunications sector’

    Not withstanding the comments by two prominent ISP’s last week that it has the potential to do the exact opposite of that – but never mind.

    ‘Faster (bandwith and latency) broadband speeds over the next 50 years’

    True, but a technical specification of FTTH does equate to a broad community need for it and you need to spend $43b to get it, I am sure the technical specifications of HFC looked great way back in 1994 also.

    “Eliminating broadband blackspots”

    The NBN is not required to do that.

    “Increasing the ability of telcos to compete in regional areas where monopoly backhaul conditions exist”

    Ahh the old furphy of monopoly backhaul is trotted out again I see, don’t forget to mention that where there is only one backhaul supplier in the absence of others (and it may not just be Telstra) it comes under the jurisdiction of access and price control by the ACCC.

    ‘The structural separation of Telstra’

    You don’t need to rollout FTTH to accomplish that, it’s a political decision, and it could have happened anytime since Telstra privatisation by any Government in power at the time, remember Telstra was operationally separated by the Howard/Coonan Government.
    We are now structurally separating Telstra in the face of the NBN Co wholesale monopoly of fixed line infrastructure, so its actual effect will be 2/5 of sweet FA.

    ‘Investment in Australia’s digital economy
    Boosting national productivity and efficiency’

    Well yes trotting out the standard flag waving generics is always good for a conclusion, but doesn’t offer much else in the way of specifics of course.

  7. Shorter version: The internet? It’ll never catch on

    Whenever I hear someone say “but I don’t NEED the NBN to send emails/play farmville/fap” I prefer to remind myself that the NBN is replacing the copper network, and when that was built no-one had any idea that the ENTIRE INTERNET ITSELF would one day be its leading application. History suggests 2 things: (1) the NBN speeds will one day allow radical new applications that will be extremely important and (2) we have no idea what they are.

    You’re welcome

  8. A further dot point could have been asdded thus: The existing copper customer access network needs extensive investment. Most is in poor condition and due to a lack of investment it has been loaded up with pair gain systems. It makes no sense to install more copper when for about the same investment you can have fibre.

  9. I live in Melbourne CBD. It will probably be 5 – 8 years before I see fttp. In the meantime, I will be able to get adsl2+ with 200 Gig for about $50 per month.

    Once fibre comes along and kills adsl2+ I will have to pay more for what will be a faster connection with a smaller download.

    And most likely I will be only be able to do it through half a dozen telco’s as all the rest will have been drummed out of business by the NBN Co’s business model.

    Yes, in 5 – 8 years there may be a business case (or even a social case) for such a network, but then again, might a better business case be made for more exchanges ADSL2 equiped, better back haul and more wireless options?

    I can’t help but look at the NBN and feel that just like the Carbon tax, flood tax and mining tax we are being sold a lemon with a sweet outer coating. I fully expect that in hindsight, our kids will be laughing at us for our gulibility to accept that such a network is needed. Why not a much cheaper fttn, with those needing fttp to pay for it?

    You are giving everyone a rolls royce to drive when half the population are happy to walk.

    • “I will be able to get adsl2+ with 200 Gig for about $50 per month…. Once fibre comes along and kills adsl2+ I will have to pay more for what will be a faster connection with a smaller download. ”

      Your numbers do not make any sense. You’re currently paying $50 + line rental, $30 say. That’s $80 per month you’re currently paying. With currently available NBN plans e.g. iinet, for the *same* download and equivalent speed you’d be paying $50 or $70 (depending on how you count off-peak). Either way it’s cheaper than your current $80.

      • The basic iiNet ADSL2+ with 50G quota is $70 per month, no additional line rental. I also comes with VoIP included so you get a home phone (and generally cheaper call rates as well). This is probably the most comparable offering to the NBN entry level 12M/1M plan which probably will also have a quota around the 50G mark (ignoring off-peak and ignoring “free zone” ).

        At least with iiNet, as you pay more for your plan, you don’t get any extra line speed, you just get bigger quota, from this we can estimate what proportion of the retail price is paying for upstream Internet data.

        50G ~ $70
        200G ~ $90
        300G ~ $120

        In round figures then, you are paying approx $55 for access (i.e. line, VoIP number, billing overhead, support, etc) and then 20 cents per gig of data on top of that.

        Comparing with Dodo naked plans, no line rental, (also ignoring off peak) you get:

        1G ~ $40
        5G ~ $50
        10G ~ $60
        20G ~ $70
        35G ~ $80
        50G ~ $100

        So Dodo basically fills in the low-end of the market that iiNet does not cover, and the effective result is that access costs you about $45 (no VoIP I believe) with data costing about $1.10 per gig. For lite users, Dodo is better value, but the NBN basically presumes that there will be no more lite users (or probably they will all jump onto wireless instead).

        • ADSL2+ eh…?

          FYI, I am on ADSL2+ (*up to!) 20Mbps…

          Firstly, over the past few weeks my speeds have been slow (much less than my normal, just under 7Mbps) and I have been forever losing signal.

          So, as I already mentioned over at ZD following my woeful speed test “yesterday” (to prove this isn’t just hearsay today, to suit my current debate – as some do), my connection was completely down Sunday arvo/ night, which I think we all realise and accept, will happen from time to time. However, my provider, Telstra, was good and attentive, but here’s the latest.

          Monday, my connection was re-established, but the speeds again, very slow. So again I rang Telstra, who wanted me to download “their speed test”! But due to the fact this 19.8MB program was going to take 9 mins to download the support person concluded that my download speeds were/are indeed, problematic (downloading at under 60kbps).

          The thing that shocked (yes shocked) me was… the reason he wanted me to do their test… and I quote “Telstra deem anything above 110Kbps as acceptable”! So had my speed registered over 110 (which it did at ZD, but was well under whilst downloading the Telstra test) then bad luck…!

          They are contunuing to assist.

          But again, I am on an (*up to) 20Mbps, so close enough to 20 000 kbps plan, but my provider (and perhaps the industry generally) deem 110Kbps or just above 0.5% of that “theoretical maximum” acceptable…?

          So it’s unanimous [sic] 110Kbps is good enough for us all then!

          • Are you sure that’s “110Kbps” or “110KBps”? Though I guess even 880Kbps is still very slow…

          • Ah yes… very good point Dean…never even crossed my mind!

            The reference was verbal (from a call centre) so whether he said bits or bytes?

            But as you say, either way it is still pedestrian…but good enough [sic] apparently!

  10. Has anyone done any real surveying of the general public to see what they think of the NBN at the moment?The article mentioned above is a joke and very unprofessional. I look at what I did on the net 2 years ago to what I do today and the change is significant. Speed is a key concern for anyone.

    We are an impatient society, so once you have the speed you will never want to go backwards.

  11. Complete madness to lay fibre optic cable to every private citizen in every city in Australia.
    Lunacy. ADSL2+ already delivers more than enough speed so that we can all stream a movie in real time, watch whatever porn we’d like or download any software apple cares to sell us in mere minutes. The private sector is giving us ever increasing speeds naturally without the need for government regulation or interference, and for the last 14 years, the increase in download speed has far outstripped the ability of any host in the world to even come close to streaming rates!

    Fibre optic needs to be laid to no more than 10 CBD hubs around each city in Australia. This was the original NBN plan. Costing was estimated at around $5 Billion. Absolutely no reason not to stick with it. Make the business districts competitive and provide businesses with the tools they need to stay competitive, but why oh why do we need 200 mb/s at every door step within 3 years?!?!. Not to mention the fact that Tasmania as a great show case has already demonstrated that the public has no need for faster internet for private users than is already available. Even when offered free installation in their homes of fibre optic cable (at a cost to the public of $3000 per residence, a luxury i very much doubt will be afforded to the rest of us plebs) uptake in Tasmania is shockingly low!

    If Gillard wants to be re-elected, all she has to do is sit on her big fat arse and do nothing, instead she implements every retarded policy thought up by a team of what must be mentally impaired advisors we all like to call public servants. You know the ones, no where near good or clever enough to cut it in the private sector so now they dictate policy for the rest of us from safe cushy jobs we aren’t allowed to fire them from.

    I see nothing ahead but a road to ruin, paved in fibre optic cable and lined with squandered tax dollars.

    • “ADSL2+ already delivers more than enough speed so that we can all stream a movie in real time, watch whatever porn we’d like or download any software apple cares to sell us in mere minutes”

      Grats. You have awesome internets! The majority of us, however, do not.

      I would pay money for the NBN to come past my door today. I run a business here that is information-based and internet intensive. I am as far from the exchange as I can get and still be ‘viable’. Then, you get home from school/work and start streaming your films and d’loading your pron and my access slows to a trickle.

      Thanks.

      Give me internet for the 21st century!

      And btw, nate, your figures are made up, your numbers are incorrect and you are wrong, wrong, wrong

      • Then, you get home from school/work and start streaming your films and d’loading your pron and my access slows to a trickle.

        What you are talking about is network congestion… when many users attempt to access the same common infrastructure they slow each other down. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the copper pairs between you and the exchange. Copper pairs are not shared infrastructure, they are completely uncontended. Your copper pair is used only by you and no one else from one end to the other end.

        If you find that your network slows down during peak periods of the day, this is a problem entirely at the ISP level. Why do people believe that replacing the copper will fix contention ratios at their ISP?

        • @Tel

          “Why do people believe that replacing the copper will fix contention ratios at their ISP?”

          Because pro-NBN argument is noted for what it conveniently leaves out, rather than what it leaves in.

        • Uh, GPON has absolutely no contention issues. You’re dividing 2.4 gbps among 32 people. With upcoming XGPON you divide 10 gbps among 32 people. Fiber will solve all contention issues.

          • GPON doesn’t have an issue with contention, but the NBN sells CVC in increments of 1Mbps, so depending on how much your ISP is willing to spend on CVC, you could have contention of anywhere between 20:1 and 50:1 (or more if you’re a really cheap ISP)

            But that’s not really the point either. Not matter how much contention (or not) there is on the actual line, there is always going to be contention once you get inside the ISP’s data centre. That’s the contention that Tel is talking about – the copper wire that runs from the exchange to your modem is your line, in a similar manner to how the fibre that runs from the POI to your termination box is your line (GPON not withstanding).

            Just swapping copper for fibre isn’t going to change the congestion that exists in the ISP’s data centre.

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