Nobody has connected to NBN at 100Mbps,
claims Christopher Pyne

126

news Federal Shadow Education Minister Christopher Pyne has inaccurately claimed on national radio that the National Broadband Network has not connected any customers at speeds of 100Mbps, despite the fact that in fact, 44 percent of NBN customers connected so far to the project’s fibre infrastructure have taken up such speeds.

In an interview this week broadcast on Triple J’s Hack program (the audio is available online in MP3 format; Pyne’s comments are around the six minute mark), Pyne was asked to respond to a recent suggestion by Prime Minister Julia Gillard that the delivery of the Labor Federal Government’s flagship National Broadband Network infrastructure would make it easier for teachers to deliver instruction in Asian languages to students through technologies such as videoconferencing.

Pyne responded: “The National Broadband Network is not up and running. They have connected six and a half thousand households in three years under the National Broadband Network, and not one household or school has been connected at 100 megabits per second, which was the promise.”

However, unfortunately Pyne’s claim regarding the lack of 100Mbps connections on the NBN is demonstratably false. NBN Co’s corporate plan published in December 2010 previously predicted that in the early years of its fibre rollout, the majority (52%) of customers who signed up for its fibre services would have picked the entry level speed tier it’s offering — a 12Mbps service which is slower even than current theoretical ADSL2+ speeds. The remainder were to be split largely between the next speed tranches of 25Mbps (17%) ad 50Mbps (23%), with only a small number (8%) taking the highest speed 100Mbps plans.

However, NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley told a Senate Committee several months ago that, when it came to the actual uptake experienced by NBN Co in the real world so far, this predicted trend had been somewhat inverted. “Overall, 38 percent of active services on our fibre network have been on the fastest speed tier, which is 100Mbps down,” he said. “Only 16 percent of the active services on our fibre network are for the entry-level speed tier of 12Mbps.”

In a new Senate Estimates hearing several weeks ago, NBN Co head of product development and industry relations Jim Hassell revealed that the proportion of NBN customers signing up for 100Mbps speeds had grown even higher over the past several months. “What we have seen is that the top tier – the 100Mbps service – has attracted 44 percent of services,” said Hassell. Delimiter has invited Pyne’s office to retract the inaccurate comment.

The truth of Pyne’s comment that only about 6,500 Australians had connected to the NBN in total so far is unclear, as NBN Co has not disclosed the break-up of connected customers on its fibre networks, as opposed to its wireless or satellite infrastructure. In NBN Co’s corporate plan released in August this year, the company said at that stage it had some 3,500 active services connected to its fibre networks, and a further 10,000 connected to its fixed wireless and satellite networks. However, as the company has entered its rapid rollout phase, NBN Co has started rapidly connecting more users.

For example, NBN Co’s head of Government, Communications and Stakeholder Relations Kieren Cooney told a Senate Estimates hearing on 16 October this year that NBN Co had bolstered the total number of active users on its network to 24,000 over just a three month period. Over the next nine months to mid-2013, that number of active users is expected to increase four-fold, to reach some 92,000 active connections. By mid-2013, NBN Co is planning to have covered some 661,000 premises in total with its network infrastructure, with about half that amount being fibre infrastructure and about half being satellite or wireless. Not all those premises will immediately start using the infrastructure, however.

Pyne’s comments come as a number of senior members of the Coalition continue to make demonstratably inaccurate claims with respect to the NBN in the media. For example, last week Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey repeated several times an inaccurate claim that the NBN’s funding could be treated as an expense in the Federal Budget, despite the fact that accounting standards require it to be treated as a capital investment.

Hockey’s comments come as the latest in a long line of inaccurate and misleading statements the Shadow Treasurer has made about the NBN project. Earlier this month, for example, Hockey claimed the National Broadband Network could cost as much as $100 billion to build, despite the company’s own estimates showing that it will require around $37 billion of capital injection from the Government and eventually make a return, paying back the investment with some profit on top. In June, in another example, Hockey inaccurately claimed that 4G mobile broadband had the potential to be “far superior” to the fibre technology of the NBN.

Similarly, several months ago, speaking on Channel Ten’s Meet the Press program, Nationals Leader Warren Truss made a number of major factually inaccurate statements about the project, as detailed in this article by Delimiter at the time. In addition, Truss had previously made a number of inaccurate statements about the NBN over the past several months.

In mid-May, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott misrepresented the cost of connecting to the NBN, in comments which the Government claimed represented a deliberate attempt to mislead the Australian public on the issue. Turnbull similarly made a number of factually incorrect statements on the NBN throughout March, and in January Abbott got quite a few facts about the NBN wrong in a radio interview.

opinion/analysis
Christopher Pyne should retract his comment that no users have connected to the NBN at speeds of 100Mbps. They are simply untrue; this is not an opinion, it is a fact. The fact that the Shadow Education Minister made this statement at all either illustrates that he does not understand the NBN rollout well; or that he is willing to grossly misrepresent the project in public. Either is not a great outcome for the Australian public.

Image credit: Office of Malcolm Turnbull

126 COMMENTS

  1. The Coalition will not retract any comments, let alone Christopher Pyne, he’s made comments today in Parliament and has mislead the Parliament a number of times….

    Latika Bourke ‏@latikambourke

    Manager of Oppn Biz Christopher Pyne – Julia Gillard can’t escape her connection to Michael Williamson (who is facing extra charges).
    Expand
    3m Latika Bourke Latika Bourke ‏@latikambourke

    Manager of Oppn Biz Christopher Pyne ‘Julia Gillard was elected on the back of Michael Williamson in the coup against Kevin Rudd.’
    Expand
    3m Latika Bourke Latika Bourke ‏@latikambourke

    Manager of Oppn Biz Christopher Pyne says Michael Williamson and Julia Gillard go together like fish and scales. Quotes Maxine’s book.
    Expand
    3m Latika Bourke Latika Bourke ‏@latikambourke

    Manager of Oppn Biz Christopher Pyne – Govt is clearing all this legislation through before its too late. Tips a March election.

    (Thanks to Crikey).

    • He is right though, when he says “not one household or school has been connected at 100 megabits per second” – because it’s many more than one!

      Not one. Many.

  2. Whiney Pyney at it again. He is the master of misinformation, followed closely by Abbot and Hockey all singing the same anti-NBN propaganda. I’m sorry if any Pyne fans (ha!) are offended, but every time that guy opens his mouth it sounds like fingers on a chalkboard to me.

    The chances of Pyne retracting a blatant lie, are about as high as Abbott supporting the NBN.

    • I think that tie around his neck is much too tight. No wonder he said something this stupid.

  3. Leave Christopher alone!

    He gives all of us small curly people with high manly voices (who were regularly beaten up in highschool for being the teachers pet), hope that one day we too can achieve something great with our lives.

    If he wasn’t a politician he’d be a proctologist for sure.

    • … or a suppository.

      Hockey’s remarks can only be claimed to be true if he can show where the NBNCo’s corporate plan does not stack up and thereby demonstrate it is not the investment claimed by the government. As far as I’m aware he has not done this.

      Pyne’s remarks are out and out lies. I agree he should retract them immediately. I’m sure Conroy will help.

  4. You know, with every single one of those statements, the illusion that Malcolm Turnbull may one day be Communications Minister is fading away more and more.

    This is going to be a show run by Hockey, Abbott, Pyne and an entirely fact-free crusade that will only focus on pawning off NBN Co to Telstra ASAP and maybe giving out subsidies whenever something comes up.

    • Maybe these three should be called the “New Brothers Grim”, because Australia’s future under these three will certainly be grim.

  5. The Greens or ALP should ask Payne to repeat that in the chamber, I’m sure the privileges committee would be interested if he did.

  6. And once again poor journalism means the Liberal Party get away with more lies. Good work ABC.

  7. Ah so its that time of the week where the Coalition say something stupid/incorrect about the NBN. They are getting very predictable.

  8. Moments like this make me wish Conroy was part of the house of reps because I’m sure these comments would be pounced on and attack and the LNP exposed for their pathetic antics.

    Is nice of you Renai to not call him a liar like he deserves. True non sensationalist journalism right there.

      • The problem I have with it is this can not simply be put down to technological ignorance e.g. wireless and FTTN debate (those poor Alan Jones listeners who believe the Liberal Party is going to be using a newer faster technology). I still don’t believe that you in these articles as a journalist should use stronger words however I feel he is definitely deserving of them.

        As seven_tech has highlighted, he does appear to have some knowledge about the NBN and when he attained that, he most likely was informed of other stats about the NBN. The other thing is he may have been given false information from members of his own party, e.g. Turnbull and his staff and others in charge of the related portfolios, as a means of attacking the Labor party (if you think this doesn’t happen, refer to the booklet that was leaked from the Liberal Party meeting a few months ago which was simply a guide on how to spin things, especially the NBN and create arguments in your favour/to attack Labor). If that is indeed true and this was from another of those documents, it once demonstrates either the continual incompetence of the staff and members of the Liberal party or the fact that they are liars.

      • In my opinion, if he is not lying it is just as bad. As a senior opposition spokesperson, if he is going to speak with authority on a topic he has an obligation to ensure what he is saying is not a complete mistruth. If not, shut the hell up and let his shadow minister talk on the topic instead.

        I suppose it is hard to expect that Pyne pay even the slightest attention to another shadow ministers portfolio, I can’t even remember the last time he paid attention to his own!

    • The problem is that the word ‘liar’ requires someone to have intentionally misled someone else.

      It is not outside the realm of possibility that Mr. Pyne is, instead of lying, merely either very ignorant of the circumstances or just plain stupid. There’s just no way to disprove the latter two.

      • @quink

        The problem is that the word ‘liar’ requires someone to have intentionally misled someone else.
        It is not outside the realm of possibility that Mr. Pyne is, instead of lying, merely either very ignorant of the circumstances or just plain stupid.

        Actually, this part of the sentence: They have connected six and a half thousand households in three years under the National Broadband Network…

        Suggests he KNEW they had connected 100Mbps customers. As ALL articles I have read stating 6500 fibre connections state the tier split.

        Mr Pyne appeared to be, in fact, outright lying.

      • In this case, Mr Pyne is either a lazy incompetent (as the NBN actually impacts on his portfolio, so he should be keeping current with it), or he is a bald-faced lair.

        I prefer to think he is a lazy incompetent (in the same vein as “Yes, Minister”), as the alternative would demonstrate a fairly corrupt character…

    • “Liar” is a libelous term unless one can prove it. One can say a person is lying as an act, but to call a person a Liar is to assign a label to a person’s character and diminish his public standing.

      I know, but I didn’t write the laws.

      • ““Liar” is a libelous term unless one can prove it.”

        In this instance we can prove it. However I think the purpose of using words such as “misinformed” rather than calling someone an outright liar is to be charitable and give the party in question (In this case Christopher Pyne) the opportunity to correct themselves. If not then we’ll have a better understanding about that persons character, can we continue to trust them? Should we expect more lies from them in the future? Was it more than just a lie, was it a lie indicating a greater deception? etc etc etc.

    • Don’t think Mr Conroy will pounced on anything. Isn’t he the dude who referred to the Internet as the “Portal”?

      • Firstly, Conroy has actually educated himself and is no longer the brainless dimwit that was assigned the portfolio.

        Secondly, he has released statements multiple times on the matter.

        Thirdly, if he was in the house of reps, the opposition would pose questions about the NBN during question time allowing him to rebut/refute them and in turn attack them. It open up the NBN for discussion in the house of reps.

  9. *puts on devils advocate hat*
    Maybe he got confused and actually meant to say 1Gbps. They did go to the last election saying that the network was capable of 1Gbps, which it is, but as of yet nobody is connected at that speed.
    *takes off hat*

    Of course that’s a pretty weak argument given that there was never a promise of 1Gbps ‘nets for households in the short term. Even if they were selling that service at this point I’m sceptical about how many would actually take it up. Worse still his party argues that even a guaranteed 100Mbps is overkill which the NBN has proven itself capable of delivering.

    More likely he’s arguing on partial information. The NBN moves fast and there was a point years ago when there was that article saying it was only doing 30Mbps. This was in Tasmania before the last election if I remember. Maybe he thought that was still an arguing point alongside the “thousands to rewire” and “wireless is the answer” all of which Turnbull dropped years ago.

    That shouldn’t be an excuse for an MP however, if he wants to use it as a bullet point he should have the facts on hand. If he did he might have just said that it was running behind schedule with the same effect. Same effect minus provoking an article on delimiter about it!

    • That’s a bit like saying “millions, billions, what’s the diff”?

      Misspeaking is one thing. Not caring about numbers, well, just because, is a whole different level of incompetence and recklessness.

      • People getting confused on these sort of numbers isn’t a new thing. Anyone who’s even remotely interested in tech knows that some confusion from the people who aren’t interested in it comes with the territory. I’m just saying that he might have got confused and was actually talking about the 1Gbps service. He might have been confused in any number of ways.

        Now having said that I don’t think that there is much of a difference between being deliberately misleading and talking about something you don’t understand. They both end up with the same thing. If he corrects it then there’s no harm done and I could see how he might have gotten confused. Either way he probably shouldn’t be talking about it.

  10. “Liar is a pretty big term to throw around; normally I prefer to believe that this sort of comment is merely misinformed”.

    How could it possibly be?

  11. Around the world there was the Coalition of the Willing …

    now in aus..

    Abbott… Hockey .. Turnbull …Jones…Bolt… Pyne

    The Coalition of the Uninformed…

    • I refuse to believe that all 6 of those names fall into the category of “Uninformed”… Misinformed maybe, but you better believe (and hope) that Abbott, Hockey, and Turnbull have had at least SOME information tossed in front of them, regardless of that information being right or wrong.

      • should i have used “misleading” instead ? :)

        porkies
        lies

        there were so many options

        how about the “Fiberal” party…

  12. There is absolutely no reason that the Coalition won’t continue to invent facts as they go along. They are obviously counting on an ignorant electorate, and the folks whose job it is to educate the people (the press) are obviously happy to oblige them in this.

    I blame the press of Australia in general (present company excepted) far more than the Coalition…

    • And that’s the crux of the matter.

      Modern mainstream media hardly does any fact-checking any more, only acting as a portal through which any claim can be made by anyone with enough political or financial influence. The more controversial and inflammatory, the better it is for attracting viewers or readership, irrespective of validity or verifiability. Which is understandable (but not excusable!) in case of commercial media; however, it is a mystery why ABC “journalists” are now behaving the same way.

      • For me, this is a very strong argument for why, as a society, we should stop employing generalist journalists, who often don’t know much about the issues they’re reporting on, and start employing specialist journalists in niches, who actually know the area they report on in detail, and can call politicians when they flat out attempt to mislead the public.

        • In a nutshell: fair minded scepticism > unbiased cynicism.

          The problem is people think they’re the same thing. Worse still you don’t need to have any idea what you’re talking about to do the latter and it doesn’t require intellectual honesty either. You just publish what everyone is saying in a way that allows the public to go on a rage fit.

        • That’s how it used to be in days gone by… but it costs money to have experts on different topics employed, and even if media houses were prepared to foot the bill, it wouldn’t be feasible to always have those “expert journalist” available to conduct interviews whenever a politicians is available and willing to be interviewed. That just wouldn’t work with today’s news cycle, unfortunately.

          The thing that can easily work, however, would be to have timely fact checking of the politicians’ claims as soon as possible; immediately after the interview, or even during… how long does it take to type this into Google and hit the search button: “NBN customers connected at 100mbps”? Couple of seconds, and you get a link to a Delimiter article about the number of customers having active 100Mbps connections. ;)

        • That’s pure horseshit Renai. These big media players have plenty of industry experts at their disposal it’s just that they don’t want to use them. There is a solid and damn easy to spot agenda from big media against the NBN because they have the most to lose.

          The Biggest Loser:
          News Ltd.

          Who?
          News Ltd. is a very, very large media conglomerate made up of several mass media outlets, film studios, TV producers, etc. and has a good chunk of ownership in a number of distribution networks. News Ltd. also owns 50% of Foxtel, Australia’s dominant nation-wide pay-TV service.

          And?
          Ubiquitous and inexpensive broadband will kill:
          – Pay TV monopolies
          – Distribution monopolies
          – Content/copyright distributors
          It will also take a fair, namely the most profitable chunk out of:
          – Newspapers
          – Magazines
          – Radio

          So?
          News Ltd. will lose, within the space of 5 years once the NBN is in half of Australian households, their entire monopoly over the distribution and content control of inbound media and entertainment from the USA.

          Don’t fool yourself, this is only about money for them. They don’t give a shit about journalistic ethics, the Australian public, or for that matter, the National Interests of our country

          • Yes but it requires change and the need for them to capitalise on new opportunities which they do not wish to do.

            If change in the form of the NBN does not occur, there is no need for radical change and they can rest easy. Thus it makes sense for them to oppose it.

          • If they get in to broadband in Australia, and that is a very big if, it will have to be at the mercy of Telstra because it could only be done though Foxtel and then it would directly compete with Telstra’s triple play service and T-box facilities. Can you see Telstra allowing a controlled subsidiary (JV) to erode their revenue/profit in the broadband market? I can’t .

            One other thing I’ll get you to do though is this… Download the Newscorp Annual Report, and lookup the forward liabilities for cable programming. Some $40bn in rights is already contracted over the next 5 years (worldwide I believe, not just Aus), and they need to extract every last dollar out of it though their own distribution methods to make the most profit, and then some.

            I can’t find the link right now but I read an article a while back that shows the Pay-TV ARPU in Australia is astronomical compared to worldwide averages. This UK report will have to do as evidence http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/market-data/communications-market-reports/cmr11/international/3.23
            If News Ltd. only agenda is to prolong their virtual monopoly on Pay-TV in Australia by delaying the NBN, they will damn well stick to it.

          • And…

            As I read today in the Fin Review, Telstra have ‘just’ released plans to do just that… sell proper triple-play services to households over IP networks using Foxtel, mirroring the exact model that BSkyB has done in the UK.

            Maybe News Ltd. won’t be the biggest loser after all

        • That’s why your are the person / delimiter is the publication I refer people to for informed reporting re the NBN. Thanks.

        • Just to add to that Renai (cause I agree 100% with what you said), news organisations also need to approach stories in a much more non-partisan way. Theres probably things the NBN could be doing better (nothing ever runs perfectly), but with how NI/AFR approach it, they (NBNCo) pretty well get a free pass as the “reporting” from them is basically off the Liberals talking points sheet.

          So instead of a discussion about “How could this be done better”, its more about “The whole things wrong, scrap it and start over”.

          it’s a very sad state of affairs, both for politics and “mainstream” journalism :(

  13. He is claiming that something is a fact, and either

    a) knows that it is a falsehood, or
    b) doesn’t care whether it is a falsehood or not, at least not strongly enough to bother checking first.

    Not sure that either of those two options is morally superior to other.

    • We do have a few — Greens Senator Scott Ludlam being a good example, and Labor backbencher Ed Husic. Both of these guys ‘get’ tech, and there’s a few young Liberal backbenchers who more or less do as well.

      • Greens are getting torn apart right now in the polls, not surprising though considering they seem to have put the young’in (pardon the pun) Sarah Hanson-Young as the public face of the party federally.

        • I think it has more to do with CM coming across as a grump old biatch with a teacher complex – I much preferred Bob, he also knew how to negotiate.

        • Most recent opinion polls have the Greens’ support around 10-11%. Their result at last election (2010) was 11.76. How is that “being torn apart at the polls”?

          • Indeed I am. At the federal level, opinion polls have been quite accurate in determining the actual election results in the last decade.

            How else do you judge a party’s support? By Murdoch press commentators’ opinion peaces? :)

            Overall, Greens have been hovering around 10% support for years now… locally, that support varies and goes up (e.g. in Melbourne, where just last week they doubled their representation in the city council) or down (ACT elections last week, where vote dropped from 16% to 11%) but at the national level it doesn’t appear to fluctuate that much.

          • It’s funny the things they say about the Green vote. Recently I heard one political commentator claim that the boost in the ALP primary has been from the Greens losing votes. This was despite the fact that when the ALP primary was polling at its lowest (27%) the Green primary was 11% and now it’s back up (36%) the Green vote is… 10%.

            It’s a bit like how LNP MPs will quote any poll that currently doesn’t have the TPP at 50:50. Two weeks ago they quoted newspoll and this week they quote essential. It’s all bullshit really.

        • I tend to think it’s because the Liberals, Nationals, major media outlets (looking at you, News Ltd), and even now the Labor party are trying to destroy them as a viable third major party in Australian politics.

          The two-party oligopoly suited them all just fine, thank you, they don’t need anyone coming in and rocking the (gravy) boat…

        • Well putting Sarah Hanson-Young as a face of anything was just stupid. I don’t understand how she got into Federal politics, she was useless in her roles in Student politics at Adelaide University.

      • Kate Lundy is good and probably should have been comms minister, but like all the other Labor reps, she suffers from having to do exactly what the Machine Wo/men have already decided.

  14. I think the argument is that no one has actually had throughput at 100mbps which isn’t the NBNs fault whatsoever seeing that they’re a layer 1 supplier and have nothing to do with the layer 2/layer 3 transmission that the RSP are buying.

    Anyway after taking out network overheads 5-10~ % the main reason is that apart from torrenting is that few servers will allow connects to download data at such a throughput.

    This is simply due to demand on the server side.

    For example I work on a corporate LAN with huge amounts of bandwidth available (seeing that its a major telco). We’re on gigabit switches and the interconnects with akamia and such are literally housed a few KM away from me on a 10gb fibre loop.

    Yet i’m simply not getting 1000gbps when i’m downloading the latest itunes or whatever from the peering. Tis cause of either congestion on the server or server side polices that limit the bandwidh to a connection.

    Notwithstanding the above I hate C Payne and hope the smug ass is voted out one of these days.

    • I think the argument is that no one has actually had throughput at 100mbps which isn’t the NBNs fault whatsoever seeing that they’re a layer 1 supplier and have nothing to do with the layer 2/layer 3 transmission that the RSP are buying.

      Not even that, when you’re talking that sort of speed it’s quite possible the RSP is providing enough to give you 100Mbps, but your network/computer/something else your side, isn’t capable of sustaining that speed on a single connection.

      It’s like if you copy a file on a direct cable do you get the full 100Mbps on your local LAN? Probably not, and for the same reasons a single test on the NBN won’t always show 100Mbps even though you’re being supplied it.

    • No one ever gets full speed on anything. There are overheads. Also the servers being accessed may not have the capacity or limit speeds. Why burst youtube at maximum speed if a reduced rate is more than enough for buffering?

      Gigabit ethernet will rarely get anywhere near 100MB/s if you get 70-80MB/s you are doing well. ADSL2+ sync, 16Mb will usually get you 1.3-1.4MB/s. I have seen people get 9.7MB/s on the NBN 100Mb so they seem to be doing better than most other technologies.

    • Run a network performance tester like iperf on a 100Mbps Ethernet connection and you’ll probably get 95Mbps. We still call it 100Mbps even though there are overheads. Do the same with 1Gbps and you’ll get something closer to 800Mbps and yet we call that 1Gbps. If they sell you a 100Mbps and you get 95Mbps that’s pretty damn good especially given the fact that in the past we’ve been sold “upto 24Mbps” when the average was ~8Mbps.

      I think you’re giving him too much credit. Remember that this same set of mouths have said that 4G is equivalent to a FTTH service. I doubt he’s looked up a list of speedtests people have done on 100Mbps NBN services and concluded that they weren’t “100Mbps” because they were getting 95Mbps. If he had he’d probably smugly point it out and get into a whole different sort of trouble.

    • @chugs

      and not one household or school has been connected at 100 megabits per second, which was the promise.

      If we want to get technical for him then “Connected” needs to be defined: Does it mean a constant throughput of 100Mbps? Or does it mean ON A PLAN of 100Mbps.

      I think you’ll find 95% of tech people would say “I’m connected on 100Mbps” meaning, they are connected to a 100Mbps plan.

      So he STILL loses out with technical definitions. There is no way to get around this- Pyne wilfully mislead in his statements. If not outright lied.

      • I got around to listening to the program and it isn’t about the NBN at all. The whole thing is about Asian languages and whether the government should push more kiddies to learn Mandarin, but then there’s this snippit of phone conversation in the middle of it where Pyne comes out with the comment about the NBN. There’s no real context behind that, other than I guess downloading learning material like language tapes and stuff like that.

        Well, ADSL is perfectly good to download a language tutorial, so the NBN doesn’t seem even relevant to the discussion.

        • @Tel

          Well, ADSL is perfectly good to download a language tutorial, so the NBN doesn’t seem even relevant to the discussion.

          Wow, nicely politically deflected. You should go into politics.

          You completely missed the point- it may be that the topic they were discussing was only vaguely related to the NBN, but it was PYNE that spread the FUD, when he could’ve simply said “The NBN isn’t needed for the speeds we are talking about for language learning, hence why the Coalition is against that policy”. Instead, he chose to, basically, outright lie about the NBN in an attempt to get some FUD in as a cheap, easy shot, because he knew he wouldn’t be questioned on it, as it was only vaguely related to what they were talking about.

          THAT is politicking at its’ best. And no one ever said Pyne wasn’t a good politician. Just that he was a lousy representative of the people.

    • “Anyway after taking out network overheads 5-10~ % the main reason is that apart from torrenting is that few servers will allow connects to download data at such a throughput.”
      Your argument is flawed. Just because you’re only interested in the 90% of data that is usable to you, doesn’t mean that the overheads aren’t there. They are data being carried down the connection just the same as the rest of it.

      • “Your argument is flawed. Just because you’re only interested in the 90% of data that is usable to you, doesn’t mean that the overheads aren’t there. They are data being carried down the connection just the same as the rest of it.”

        +1

        Overheads exist, Inefficient protocols exist, various this that and the other exists.

        None of that prevents you from getting the 100Mbps layer 2 service promised – it simply impacts your ability to efficiently consume it.

      • Technically the NBN starts at the ONT. If you can connect to the ONT at >100mbps then you’ve connected to the NBN at >100mbps. Y’all wanna argue pedantics? Let’s get pedantic!

  15. Given that the Coalition have been lying and lying and lying and lying and lying and lying some more for five years now, and we’re still waiting for even ONE journalist at even ONE of the mainstream media outlets to call them on even ONE lie, we can expect Pyne and his ilk to carry on lying, and to profit handsomely by doing so.

      • I believe it is also important to send a complaint to the ABC because the statement was made on their program and heard by their audience and thus their audience needs to hear it corrected as well as for Mr Pyne to correct however he wishes.

  16. Feb “2011”

    http://www.zdnet.com/100mbps-nbn-uptake-surprising-hackett-1339308997/

    I am a swinging voter, having voted for Howard, then Rudd, then Gillard. Over the years, I have simply tried to keep the bastards honest, as I found one superior (imo) at that time, not so much me having a disliking for any of them…

    But I am really getting a disliking for this dishonest and negative opposition, who are unlike any other I have ever seen …

    Plea to the Coalition… get rid of Abbott who is instilling FUD into his team and put an actual leader with vision in his place, if only to give us an alternative, we can actually vote for.

    Need further proof… check the latest polls!

  17. If your going to stand up in parliament and make a statement on any subject, you have thought it through .. Pyne is as cunning as a rat with a gold tooth, he would have know precisely what he was going to say, and that he would get away with it .. As per usual .,

  18. I encourage everyone to take up Tailgator’s point- write to Pyne and let him know, politely, but firmly, he has wilfully mislead the public and needs to retract his statements immediately.

    WE are the ones who can stop him getting away with this.

      • And that post was posted in April 2011, a full eighteen months ago! That’s right, someone was on a 100Mb/s NBN connection EIGHTEEN MONTHS ago.

        I know the Coalitions are behind the times, but arguing something that was disproven over a year ago is a bit rich.

      • Ooh, thats awesome.. So what apps or situations could you use at present, to utilise those speeds?

        • We video conference to our other offices all over the world, either as close as (from Perth) Sydney or all the way over in Dubai. We can remote link up with huge 3D Tekla / Revit / AutoCAD models with ease (tried doing it at home and it’s just to slow), and many many other things with these speeds, pretty much anything new the IT guys are willing to try out, we’ll give it a shot.

          • So, basically, just a faster way to download movies and games… :)

            I wish the high-tech business angle was used more often by Conroy and co to “sell” the NBN. We are in a (historically) unusual situation where Labor is implementing a project that will be of a huge benefit to small/medium businesses, while Liberals are presenting a bunch of unclear options, with minimal-to-none benefit to business.

          • The high-tech method won’t work because its not a current thing, its a future thing and most people don’t see that far so they don’t realise the benefits. The ones who need it today have it.

          • I would say we have an edge over others in our field in Australia if they don’t have these business speeds, and more likely to win the job because so. We can deliver preliminary models live directory to China or where ever the client may be. Impressive as it may be, we still are late to the game with Canada and other countries with these speeds have been doing it for years.
            The days of rendering models before leaving the office are gone now, or buying a super server for each office just for rendering (expensive). There are internet rendering companies or if the software has the capability remote rendering.
            Lucky for us we are in the city with Fibre when the old office did not and none of this was possible.

  19. Contacted Pyne online.

    This guy is one of the worst of the opposition though. I doubt we will see a retraction.

  20. What do expect from a guy that’s never paid or read an elecricity bill in his life, then hands it to another guy that’s never read or paid an electricity bill in his life telling him the carbon tax has doubled the bill.

  21. So he lied. Unsurprising in a politician, but the smarter ones at least try to avoid direct, outright lies. They prefer half-truth and misdirection.

    This fool can’t even manage to lie convincingly. How did he manage to get elected?

        • Sorry, I stand Corrected, need some sleep , too many hours at Hosp. Was thinking Truss. Duhh
          Pyne along with Abbot, Bishop, Hockey etc. were the team involved with the Pauline Hansen frame up if I remember right. Still holding true to form

  22. I wonder if any of these idiots that make inaccurate statements, continually, just realise how embarrasing they make them selves look to the public.

    • They don’t look silly to the public, they look silly to the readers of this website who are the only ones who actually report this.

      While I’m sure they don’t make as many inaccurate statements about policies other than the NBN (the carbon tax ones are more public but I think less numerous), it does make you wonder how much of what they say is actually true….????

      While all politicians make inaccurate statements at one point or another, for one issue or another, the frequency of the ones from the current members of the Liberal Party (and some National party member every now and then) is quite worrying.

      • “While I’m sure they don’t make as many inaccurate statements about policies other than the NBN (the carbon tax ones are more public but I think less numerous), it does make you wonder how much of what they say is actually true….????”

        Some perfect examples are the education revolution and pink batts disaster. Have a read up on them. Not on news limited et al. Look at other sources and see if they really did pay 2-3 times too much for buildings (actual figure they found that it was closer to 7%, what you gonna do, they always try and gouge these schemes) Pink batts, the percentage of problem install, which are due to shonky operators was really very small as a whole. Also we have had rather large power savings because of it. yes for the first year household power usage has drop like 10-20% rather than rising 5-10%

        • I’ve read all those

          I know all the lies about BER and Pink Batts because they’ve been well documented now that they’re well and truly over and all the facts have come out.

          I’m also aware of most of the Carbon Tax ones and of course Renai does a great job of trying to point out factual errors with regards to the NBN.

          Its the other policies that I’m not too sure of and I need to know them to convince people whose first question to me when I talk about the NBN is “what do you use the internet for?”, “how much internet do you actually use?”, etc. I know how to answer those but by answering by pointing out its not about today or tomorrow, but really the day after, it seems I’m changing the subject and avoiding the question.

          • Yes, it’s not about today. Would I like 100Mb, yes. Do I need it now, no. What would be enough for now? Probably a reliable 25Mb. What will I need in future? 100Mb I can see being handy for even for things I do now, but not 100% necessary. I use 1G in my home net work. Would I go back to 100M, no way, way too slow. As more of our lives become network enable having a decent speed outside the house (including) upload will become more important.
            But 10 years ago 1.5Mb was enough, before that 256Kb, before that 14.4Kb.
            RAM that was enough over the years. 1K, 2K, 16K, 64K, 512K, 1M, 4M, 16M, 64M, 256M, 1G, 2G, 4G, 8G

          • “Yes, it’s not about today. Would I like 100Mb, yes. Do I need it now, no. What would be enough for now? Probably a reliable 25Mb. What will I need in future? 100Mb I can see being handy for even for things I do now, but not 100% necessary.”

            Your requirements are disturbingly in line with mine….

            Thats why I’m so amazed we already have a 44% 100 Mbps take up rate and the projected figure in NBNco’s corporate report for the 25/5 and 25/10 plans was so low.

            By the time I get it (by the end of 2015 assuming nothing goes wrong), I’ll probably be preferring a 50 Mbps connection.

  23. Renai, thanks for calling Christopher out on this statement. Your voice is louder than mine (when I’m shouting back at the radio).

  24. I’m sorry, I’ve never seen any politician who is more willing to say anything or do anything, correct or not, to win the fight or discussion point he is in at that exact moment.

    I think his tactics are seriously sleazy, so sleazy I have begun a play on the *drink game. I hear/see Christopher Pyne; *shower!

  25. I never liked Christopher Pyne when he was my local MP in SA and I don’t like him now. A snake in the grass, can’t be trusted.

  26. Nobody is connected at 100Mbps? WTF! Why am I paying Internode $94.95 a month for then if it’s not the NBN Platinum – 100/40 Mbps plan then?

  27. Does the NBN have any 1Gb connections as yet, or is this still in the talk/design stage?

      • @mid space

        Still talk as yet. The NTDs are capable of it. But I think more transit network needs to be done before they can offer it reliably.

        We’re looking at a 2014 release, so I’d say trials mid next year. Hopefully before the election.

    • I understand it is due for limited release in 2014, maybe sooner. Obviously needs the backhaul and transits and support infrastructure to be built to that stage. One step at a time

  28. What do they mean NOBODY

    guess I am a nobody then

    I have an 100 : 100 Connection here at home

    tho its nothing compared to the 10gb connection my file server in France has …

  29. on another note I believe they gave some old Grandma techi a 100mbs connection as well … or was that gigabit …

Comments are closed.