news Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has accused his opposite Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of openly “lying” to exaggerate the key differences between the two sides of politics’ National Broadband Network policies, using a number of concrete recent examples to demonstrate his point.
On Tuesday this week the Coalition published its long-awaited rival NBN policy. The policy promises Australians download speeds of between 25Mbps and 100Mbps by the end of 2016 and 50Mbps to 100Mbps by the end of 2019, at a projected reduced total cost of $29.5 billion. Unlike Labor’s NBN project, it will make extensive use of fibre to the node technology (where fibre is rolled out to neighbourhood ‘nodes’ and much of the existing copper network is maintained), but will also utilise fibre to the premise, satellite and fixed wireless solutions in some areas.
One of the key tenets of the Coalition’s statements over the past week has been the claim that Labor’s NBN project will cost dramatically more than Labor believes it will. Currrent projections place the cost of Labor’s NBN vision at around $40 billion. However, the Coalition has published a background briefing policy document (PDF) which claims the real cost could be up to $94 billion.
In the document, the $94 billion figure represents the worst possible case. The Coalition states that for the $94 billion figure to eventuate, a number of conditions must all be met simultaneously: NBN Co’s revenue must grow much slower than currently forecast, construction costs must be significantly higher than currently forecast, more households must pick wireless alternatives than is currently forecast, and the NBN must take 50 per cent longer to build (an extra five years) than currently forecast. In addition, the Coalition’s policy document also contains a range of other estimates for the cost of Labor’s NBN, starting at around $45 billion and ranging upwards.
However, despite the fact that the Coalition’s policy document contains a range of cases, over the past week senior Coalition figures such as Shadow Communications Minister Turnbull and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott have referred only to the $94 billion figure.
The Coalition has also pegged the long-term monthly cost of accessing Labor’s NBN for consumers at around $100 per month, and its own cost at about two thirds of that at around $66 per month, despite the fact that NBN plans are currently available starting at around $30 a month, and that NBN Co has given long-term price commitments to the competition regulator, the ACCC, to ensure broadband prices cannot balloon out.
A good example of the situation was contained in a fraught debate between Conroy and Turnbull on this morning’s Today Show on Channel 9. In the show (the full transcript and video is available here), a number of the Coalition claims mentioned above were made by Turnbull or the show’s host Lisa Wilkinson in her introduction as the program commenced.
In response, Conroy said: “Well there was a number of just outright lies Malcolm just told. Labor’s plan is not costing $90 billion … You have just decided to make some assumptions and add some numbers together … It’s just a lie, it’s false.”
Earlier in the program, Conroy said in response to the monthly pricing claim: “We also gave the NBN Company a directive – we said everybody in Australia no matter where they live should pay the same price no matter where you live, doesn’t matter how far away or how difficult, you’ve got to charge the same price, universal pricing. Prices start – despite even figures you had up on the screen Lisa, the cheapest NBN plan in the marketplace today is $29.95 and the ACCC have got commitments the NBN Co [gave].”
In another example, yesterday Turnbull and Abbott attended a launch at the Marcus Oldham College in Geelong. At the event, Abbott used Twitter to state: “With press + @TurnbullMalcolm at Marcus Oldham College Geelong. Under Labor they get no NBN. A priority under us.”
However, Conroy pointed out shortly afterwards, Marcus Oldham College is actually scheduled to receive fibre under Labor’s NBN plan.
“This is just the latest lie told by the Coalition as they attempt to promote their inadequate broadband plan, which doesn’t serve Australia’s needs now or into the future,” Senator Conroy said in a media release yesterday. “The facts are that the Marcus Oldham College will get NBN fibre under Labor. NBN Co is building fibre all the way to the premise, including schools, in every exchange area dedicated as Band 1 and Band 2 in Telstra’s classification of exchanges.”
And then, on the Today show this morning, Conroy added: “It’s the same sort of lie that Malcolm Turnbull did yesterday in Geelong, where he stood up at a school in Geelong and he said this school won’t get the NBN. Well it is just a lie. It is getting the NBN. And has Malcolm admitted that? No.”
Delimiter has attempted to contact Turnbull’s office this morning for a response to Conroy’s statements about the Coalition directly “lying” about the differences between the two sides’ broadband policies. We will commit, as normal, to publishing both sides’ complete views on the issue to ensure each side is able to state its case freely.
opinion/analysis
I haven’t weighed in yet on what I think about the Coalition’s rival NBN policy as a sum total yet; I’ll leave that to next week when all of the dust that is flying this week has settled down a little. I want to hear the opinions of the experts first.
However, I do want to address Senator Conroy’s specific claims yesterday and this morning that Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull and other senior Coalition figures such as Tony Abbott are “lying” about the NBN.
I think there is a very fine distinction to be made here. For example: If we examine the claim that Labor’s NBN will cost $94 billion, it quickly becomes clear (as I wrote in a piece for the ABC’s The Drum site yesterday) that the Coalition has not yet presented sufficient evidence to verify its claim that Labor’s NBN policy will cost $94 billion to construct. Any observer can easily look at the figures contained in the Coalition’s own background briefing document and verify that that $94 billion figure represents a “worst of the worst”-style scenario where everything possible goes wrong for NBN Co under Labor. And even then, the Coalition has not provided enough references to show that its figures in the “worst of the worst” case are correct. The evidence is just not there yet.
So is it “lying” when a senior figure such as Malcolm Turnbull claims that Labor’s NBN could cost up to $94 billion?
In my opinion, no. It is true that at least some of the Coalition’s figures could be in the right ballpark, and that Labor’s NBN could cost a significant amount more than Labor is planning for. We’ve already seen quite a few irregularities in NBN Co’s rollout process, and Turnbull personally has, of course, done extensive research on similar rollouts internationally.
However, this isn’t what Turnbull has been claiming.
If you look at Turnbull’s statements over the past several days, what the Liberal MP has repeatedly claimed is that Labor’s NBN “will” cost $94 billion — as though it’s an irrefutable fact. “We estimate it will cost $94billion to complete,” Turnbull said on the Today Show this morning. “It will be $94 billion to the taxpayer,” Turnbull told Leigh Sales in a separate interview on 7″30. “It’s going to cost taxpayers $94 billion,” he told Sky News. Etc.
What we’re left with is a situation where Turnbull is clearly aware (as one of the principle authors of the Coalition’s policy and background briefing) that the $94 billion figure is only one potential figure which the Coalition’s own estimates came up with, and that it represents the worst possible scenario — if every single thing goes wrong for Labor’s NBN project. A total disaster scenario.
In short, Turnbull is clearly aware that the statement he is making with respect to the claimed $94 billion cost of Labor’s NBN is false, and he is aware that he is misrepresenting the Coalition’s own research on this issue. Furthermore, the Liberal MP is aware that he is doing so for political gain. This is very much the definition of lying: There is intelligent awareness of an intent to deceive.
In my professional opinion as a journalist, Conroy is right: Turnbull is lying about the cost of Labor’s NBN.
Regular readers will know that I have always, in the past, avoided making this claim. I have always used the phrases “misleading”, “appeared to be mistaken” and so on, when discussing falsehoods on the part of politicians. I normally do this because it is normally very hard to prove intent and awareness that someone knows the truth but is stating the opposite. Most of the time, people are just expressing their opinion or are mistaken. However, in this case we have a clear example where Turnbull can be shown to know the truth as stated in the Coalition’s own background briefing document, but has chosen to state something different. The Coalition’s NBN estimates are varied; but Turnbull has distilled them down to the worst of the worst case, ignoring all of the complexity his own research has placed around its cost estimates.
This is a very serious and disturbing thing for someone as high-profile as Turnbull to do.
There are other examples here too. Yesterday, Abbott openly stated that Marcus Oldham College in Geelong would not receive the NBN. However, as Opposition Leader, Abbott is aware that both the Coalition and Labor have pledged to deploy some form of broadband universally throughout Australia. Whether it’s satellite, wireless or fibre, Abbott is aware that both policies feature a ‘universal’ component — nobody is going to be left out.
As with Turnbull’s claims about the cost of Labor’s NBN policy, in this case Abbott is intelligently aware of what he is saying, and consciously deceiving an audience for political gain. Again, Conroy’s right: We can objectively say that this is “lying”. Abbott is not “mistaken” in this case: He has demonstrated that he is aware of the nuances of each sides’ policies.
We’re also seeing a consistent pattern emerge from the Coalition, and Turnbull in particular, in this area. Last week Turnbull had a separate interview with radio shockjock Alan Jones, in which Jones made a number of highly contested statements about the Australian telecommunications landscape, such as the misconception that wireless represents the future of broadband service delivery, and that houses receiving the NBN would have their telephone lines switched off without the residents’ consent.
In response, Turnbull wholeheartedly backed Jones’ statements. “Well Alan I have to agree with everything you’ve said there. It is a very, very sorry – all you’ve done is state the facts,” said Turnbull. The Liberal MP did not correct or clarify any of the controversial statements which Jones made in his broadcast, but in general supported Jones’ sentiments in all of his responses to the shockjock’s questions. This isn’t “lying” per se; but it is very close to it. Turnbull is aware that a number of statements which Jones made are very highly contested or false; but he did not correct them — in fact, he supported them.
Personally, I find it very hard at the moment to stomach the amount of misinformation emanating from the Coalition with respect to the NBN at the moment. At the Tuesday policy launch this week (see the full videos here and here), Turnbull and Abbott stuck very closely to an obviously well-thought-out script with respect to their alternative NBN policy; I’ll have more to say about that later. The pair didn’t deviate too much into the kinds of issues which Conroy has highlighted in their statements over the past several days, and stuck to the straight and narrow path about comparing the two policies.
However, since that point, it appears that the message which Turnbull and Abbott are generating with respect to the NBN has deteriorated. Conroy has a very, very valid point. It can be conclusively shown that a number of statements being made by senior Coalition politicians at the moment do indeed constitute lying behaviour. And I don’t think that’s something we should tolerate in our national leaders.
Image credit: Office of Tony Abbott
The Abbott / Tunbull show in Geelong yesterday was one of the following:
* Lying…
* Misleading…
* Ignorance…
* Not bothering to check facts…
* All of the above…
Whichever it was, it was incorrect, and as we all know, the NBN should be about truths, not the FUD and dribble we get from most outlets…
Your sentiment, except expressed in the words of the very quotable Nationals senator Fiona Nash:
> If they think a FTTN will deliver high-speed broadband to rural and regional areas, or they are being deliberately deceitful and are trying to trick the public into supporting a plan they know is flawed. A plan they know is unfeasible, un-costed and whimsical at [best.] I don’t know which is worse, ignorance or deceit. Perhaps it’s a bit of both, but whatever the case the people of rural and regional Australia know a furphy when they see one. […] It’s widely understood in the telecommunications industry that FTTN will not deliver improved broadband speeds to rural and regional areas.
In any case, I left a few comments on the YouTube video:
> China isn’t doing FTTN. One province in China, Guangdong, is doing a comparatively small FTTN deployment. China, as a whole, is going from 94 million premises on FTTH by the end of 2012 to 129 million by the end of this year. FTTH is mandated for all new premises. All of them. The number of FTTH connections alone being built by China this year is more than what the total of FTTN connections world-wide will be by about 2015, according to iDATE.
> Also, more detail on the ACCC ruling, it’ll be no price rises until 2017, and CPI-1.5% until 2040. So, that $29.95 a month plan will actually reduce in price. For Malcolm to be correct in his claim that his plan will be $300 a year cheaper than that, he’s saying that his plan would cost users $5 a month.
> Also, the coalition sold Telstra and its copper network. Now they’re proposing to buy the copper network and thinks Telstra will give it to them for free. How many times did someone sell something and buy it back without getting screwed? And lastly, NBN Co, despite the massive costs not in connecting customers and doing everything else, including planning, is about $2400 much now, which is expected to decrease to $1200-$1500. Malcolm is saying that this will magically go up above $4000 instead.
> Yeah, labour costs involved in getting the fibre into the ground is insane here in Australia. That’s the one biggest problem with the Labor plan. But in the same stroke, one can also argue that because our labour costs are so high we need good upload speeds. And when netindex.com says when China Telecom can do 6.34 Mbps in Jiangsu on average (about what Turnbull’s plan might to on average by 2019) when Telstra does 1.46 Mbps upload on average, why would anyone pick Australia for business?
> That’s in contrast for a likely average of closer to 40 Mbps upload with the Labor plan by 2021, and growth potential up to 400 Mbps with no capital works and into the terabits by swapping out some equipment only. When the ABS says that download amounts (although not speeds, but they are coupled) have increased 35% in the past 6 months alone you know what the better way to go is.
A quick correction on the statement that the CPI-1.5% commitment in the NBN Co Undertaking (which is not yet approved) will ensure that prices paid by consumers will decrease. This is wrong. The CPI-1.5% commitment relates to wholesale product components. If you read the Telstra and Optus submissions, and NBN Co’s own statements in reply, if NBN Co were to price to the CPI-1.5% limit, prices paid by consumer would increase by more than 30% in real terms over the next 10 years.
This is in stark contrast to the current broadband price trend — where consumers are getting faster speeds and more download limits for lower nominal and real prices. Over the last five years prices have declined by 18% in real terms and speeds have more than doubled.
Yeah, I saw that, but didn’t think it was proper for me to correct it here… so something more accurate would be:
> For Malcolm to be correct in his claim that his plan will be $300 a year cheaper than that, he’s saying that his plan would cost users $5 a month if the RSP margin is kept static.
> If you read the Telstra and Optus submissions, and NBN Co’s own statements in reply, if NBN Co were to price to the CPI-1.5% limit, prices paid by consumer would increase by more than 30% in real terms over the next 10 years.
Optus’ ACCC submission is pathetic, so I’ll just talk about the Telstra one. Telstra’s ACCC submission is based on 30% CAGR. That’s alright, but it has a few major flaws. First of all, they don’t actually include 1 Gbps at all, only 100 Mbps. Second, they assume that since NBN Co has no legal commitment to reduce AVC or CVC charges with increasing usage they won’t. Which, while true, stands in direct conflict with their corporate plan. And thirdly, they assume that the network pricing remains static (apart from point two), except for the CPI-related increases.
This has the effect that if you actually go into the spreadsheet that Telstra has included in their submission, you get this if you plug in a 50% CAGR (which is quite a bit less than the 35% in downloads growth in the past 6 months according to the ABS, and Telstra have a 60% CAGR model in their submission too), and add the years they profess to forward project in their table, if not in the plot attached to the submission:
http://imgur.com/QRsMzgu.png
Pure exponential growth. You know that if you make a model more correct and you get this result out that your model sucks.
I mean, sure, you can regard Telstra’s ACCC submission as a reasonably good stupid simple model until about 2019 given that CAGR. But after that it just falls to pieces. Completely.
So, I’m not trusting anything Telstra says about NBN pricing. But that’s not to say that NBN Co shouldn’t have a legal commitment (instead of a commitment in their corporate plan only and to review it annually) to do exactly that, faster speeds, more download limits in lower nominal prices (real prices are already a commitment, contrary to your claim, but at a very slow pace). They have said they intend to do that, but it’s also quite hard to pin all this down. Not least of all since it’s both hard to predict and is the one lever on revenue NBN Co has.
@Luek
It would be entirely up to the RSPs what happens with price with NBNCo. committed to maintaining 1.5% -CPI. JUST like the Coalition policy. They CANNOT guarantee prices will be $66 in 2021 on average. There’s no way they could possibly guarantee that. And neither has NBNCo. They’ve guaranteed WHOLESALE prices. N one can guarantee retail prices. And the ONLY reason broadband prices have decreased in the last 5 years is because Telstra were artificially inflating prices and were brought into line by continued tightening of regulation by the ACCC. We’ve already bottomed out on the broadband prices (we’ve seen no decrease in prices, only increases in quotas, for the last year) and, just like electricity, the only way from here is up. REGARDLESS of the technology used.
If you believe the Coalition policy is better because its’ cheaper for consumers, you need to read their policy better. There is NO guarantee of wholesale prices. And therefore no guarantee at ALL of retail ones. At least NBNCo’s FTTH prices are guaranteed and retail prices will be regulated based on that.
“China isn’t doing FTTN. One province in China, Guangdong, is doing a comparatively small FTTN deployment. China, as a whole, is going from 94 million premises on FTTH by the end of 2012 to 129 million by the end of this year. FTTH is mandated for all new premises. All of them. The number of FTTH connections alone being built by China this year is more than what the total of FTTN connections world-wide will be by about 2015, according to iDATE.”
That’s very interesting info about China I wasn’t aware of. Cheers for educating me.
So much for staying competitive with our Asian neighbours. Sounds like our infrastructure will be at least ten year’s behind China with an LNP “NBN”. I refuse to type it without quotes, as its not worthy of being labelled a “national” network, when such a small percentage of people nationwide will actually benefit from it.
Renai as a long time reader I am very disappointed with your partisan stance on this debate.
I hope you do actually take the time to read the policy and write about it, as avoiding doing so and just reprinting opinions from strata organisations about broadband???? would be disappointing
If you read the policy, there is nothing “worst case” about the assumptions made by the coalition.
* $/premise – inline with the rest of the world when australia has the highest labour cost in the world
* takeup – people have been paying the same money for growing caps and speeds for the last decade, an assumption they will keep doing so is not “worst case”
* speed of rollout – NBNco will have a run rate of 600 this year insteasd of the 1200 they predicted. Around the world no one has ever achieved the run rate NBNco is predicting (the companies that came close were huge vertically integrated providers in america and japan with much higher population densities and aerial rollouts). Due to how vertical the ramp up rate has to be to get to the 6000/day it is trivial for the rollout to blow out 50%. It might sound like a worst case on paper but it would actually only require a very small change.
* mobile takeup – its only 4b, so you can leave that one out if you want. I think mobile broadband will always offer the absolute lowest cost option for internet/people who travel a lot. Its been growing beyond all predictions around the world australia would be unusual to not see substantial growth.
If conroy wants to disprove the coalitions costings he needs to publish $/premises passed. Rollouts around the world can manage this but NBNco keeps it a secret. In your experience with covering the NBN has it ever been a good sign that they arent publishing something? (ie end of year rollout statistics, updated forecasts)
Labor, for its sins, has had its NBN numbers checked several times now — by the Treasury, by Greenhill Caliburn and so on. The Coalition has not had its calculations checked, and if you read the background briefing you’ll find they are woefully un-referenced. I’m not partisan, but the evidence is currently not on the Coalition’s side on this one. I’m sorry.
I note you also didn’t address the issue about Marcus Oldham College.
No apology is necessary for the truth.
+1
Renai, as a long time reader I’m delighted in your article calling for honesty in politics…
The 2012 plan has not been checked by any of the above to my knowledge?
There are plenty of people below rushing to compare dense cities like Paris to Australia. Read the background documents they are heavily footnoted and most of the figures are from publicly listed companies so easy to source.
Sourcing low figures from companies that are actually using majority FTTB (you wont find many detached homes in Paris , or not including the cost of installing to the premise and then linking them to the NBNco model is pure BS. Regardless as im sure you noticed conroy firmly commited to 2400 being the current cost per premise of NBN, time to see who the real liar is come Senate Estimates.
As for the school, yep they were lying.
Except that France Telecom (with its shareholder Malcolm Turnbull) is doing 89% FTTH coverage in Ile de France and 100% in Paris proper.
http://www.fibre-optique-france.com/10042013/lile-de-france-premiere-region-fibree-deurope.html
Note that it really is FTTH – fibre jusqu’à l’abonné – means, literally, ‘fibre to the subscriber’.
And to just do a fair comparison,
France contains a population larger than Australia in an area smaller than NSW.
(Different to OP)
And the department of Ile de France has about a similar population density as Brisbane City Council.
1 person as a side note != many
* speed of rollout: The NBN Co rollout is predicting a peak of 1.7 million premises passed per year. If you would care to open the latest NBN Co corporate plan to page 38, you may notice that it shows that the HFC Network, Optus and Telstra, passed, wait for it… 1.7 million premises per year for a 10 month peak. So, you state “Around the world no one has ever achieved the run rate”. Fact is that in Australia this run rate has been achieved in a previous deployment of communications infrastructure.
* takeup: 43.4% paid for 100 Mbps as of December. But leaving that aside, real prices are falling under the NBN. Any increases in the average revenue are driven by higher usage. NBN Co is also going to lower prices the more it is being used. Not at the same rate as usage going up. Check out the graphs on page 67 of the corporate plan.
* $/premise: So what you’re saying is that $4000 is about right because of higher labour costs when (and this is quoting Malcolm Turnbull) France Telecom is doing FTTP for $237 per household, wrong as it may be. You do realise that $4000 a premise is actually higher than the current $2400 per premise quoted by Senator Conroy, right? On a side note, btw, France Telecom is now doing 100% FTTP in Paris. Yes, the same France Telecom that Malcolm Turnbull has invested in. How about that? In any case, looking overseas and even adding the higher labour costs, $1200 to $1500 is about right.
Tell you what, read the corporate plan. Front to back. I’ll wait here. Actually, you might also want to read the $25 million implementation study. It’s both interesting and quite accessible.
“Renai as a long time reader I am very disappointed with your partisan stance on this debate”
Regardless of all the reasons you are giving for the costs, Turnbull’s own analysis showed are great range of costs for the NBN in it’s current form. The figure he chose to say it WOULD costs is the absolute worst case with everything possible going wrong to the maximum extent that he modelled.
No matter what your reasoning, calling his own worst case “the cost” is a lie.
Michael, price per premises in the US is $1200-$2000.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-27/u-s-internet-users-pay-more-for-slower-service.html
It’s an interesting article, you should read it, here’s a snippet:
“It’s not free. Fiber connection costs $1,200 to $2,000 a house. It can take two to three years for revenue from any given customer to offset the upfront investment. But then the fiber lasts for decades. Municipal networks are seeing more than half of households adopt the service. And scores of communities are discovering that the networks bring new jobs. “
“Renai as a long time reader I am very disappointed with your partisan stance on this debate.”
Renai is biased towards the truth. That this makes him partisan is the Coalition’s fault, not his.
No Michael, it really isn’t possible to claim that Renai is partisan in this debate.
It has actually been a frustrating process watching him do mental gymnasitcs to try to give Turnbull credit or to attempt to interpret Turnbull’s nonsense with a positive spin.
For the non-partisans, it has been clear for a while that the Coalition has had every intent to be blatantly deceptive about the NBN. Shockingly and worryingly deceptive.
The fact that it has taken Renai so long to call a spade a spade with regards to Turnbull makes me suspect that he is actually inclined to vote along the Coalition line (and I think he has said that this is what he has historically done).
AT: “It has actually been a frustrating process watching him do mental gymnasitcs to try to give Turnbull credit or to attempt to interpret Turnbull’s nonsense with a positive spin”.
Absolutely spot on observation.
@Michael
* $/premise – inline with the rest of the world when australia has the highest labour cost in the world
Conroy is suggesting $2400/premises. That’s inline with many low density FTTH and HFC rollouts across the world. We’ll no doubt find out more in the coming months
* takeup – people have been paying the same money for growing caps and speeds for the last decade, an assumption they will keep doing so is not “worst case”
I’ve already posted this in another comment, but the reason people have been paying the same money for growing caps and speeds is because Telstra artificially inflated its’ wholesale costs. The ACCC have forced them down, but they are now about as low as they’ll go. The only way from here is up- regardless of tech used. And there is NO indication that rising quotas and speeds for the same price isn’t EXACTLY what will happen on the NBN- NBNCo. plan on reducing wholesale price of both speed AND data when the data and speeds reach threshold levels. Exactly what has happened with Telstra.
* speed of rollout – NBNco will have a run rate of 600 this year insteasd of the 1200 they predicted. Around the world no one has ever achieved the run rate NBNco is predicting
This is true, though with enough contractors it is possible. This is NBNCo’s major challenge right now. However, the Coalition want us to believe they can use the same contractors and rollout nodes 4 times faster than Telstra said they could do it in 2007 (at 7 100 a year). Where is your indignation about that?
Its been growing beyond all predictions around the world australia would be unusual to not see substantial growth.
And it can’t CONTINUE to grow at that rate without prices going up. We’re already seeing data being cut and phonecalls going up to pay for it. Soon, it WON’T be an option for the low cost market if demand keeps rising, but a luxury essential for the middle and high wealth classes. Physics is a harsh mistress.
If conroy wants to disprove the coalitions costings he needs to publish $/premises passed.
He has suggest $2400 per premises on that Today show interview. As I said earlier, we will no doubt find out how true that is in the coming months. It is, by the way, PRECISELY in line with what NBNCo. predicted if true.
Rollouts around the world can manage this but NBNco keeps it a secret.
They’ve done no such thing. Rollouts around the world, including NZ, have taken several years to come up with such a figure to be REPRESENTATIVE of the rollout as a whole. There’s no point in putting out a figure that is ludicrously high or low because it doesn’t factor in all cases. NBNCo. have been slow to get going, as such, it has taken longer before they could produce a representative figure for all likely scenarios of premises.
You’re right. The $90bn+ figure represents the central case scenario. It is arrived at by adjusting four parameters in NBNco’s modelling that the Coalition believes are jointly and independently unrealistic.
Calling the central case scenario a “worst case scenario” is totally wrong. A worst case scenario would be recalibrating the model using more pessimistic parameters than the four central case point estimates that the modelling actually uses. For example: $4000/premise, 35% wireless-only households, 1% real growth in ARPU, etc.
But the author is clearly desperate to find some angle to label Malcolm a liar. So just deliberately misinterpret what the modelling is actually about and go off on a fictitious tangent and draw false conclusions. Standard modus operandi for this blog. (Don’t be shocked.)
Let’s look at that $4000 figure, shall we? Constantly preaching about looking at overseas the case for that figure rests on two unpublished sources only. Equity research from Macquarie Bank not available to the public. And unconfirmed rumours that Telstra’s South Brisbane FTTH cost $3000 to $4000.
That’s just not good enough, especially considering the wealth of data out there. But data doesn’t matter, they’ve certainly made that clear.
Whether the Coalition’s central case point estimates are realistic or not in your opinion doesn’t change the fact that they form the central case scenario in that document. The document has not modelled a range of scenarios from best to worse using a range of point estimates, e.g. cost per premise ranging from $2000 to $5000. All it has modelled is a central case scenario. Calling that a worst case scenario is just plain bullsh-t… and then on that basis calling Malcolm a liar is nothing short of pathetic.
That’s just not good enough, especially considering the wealth of data out there. But data doesn’t matter, they’ve certainly made that clear.
Yes, NBNco has passed 80,000 premises generating a “wealth of data”… Malcolm has been calling for the release of the full historical cost data for those 80,000 premises, but the ALP Government won’t release it.
> Whether the Coalition’s central case point estimates are realistic or not in your opinion doesn’t change the fact that they form the central case scenario in that document.
When you make an assumption based on an anonymous unconfirmed rumour and a single piece of equities research not available to the public, and no other source could reasonably justify that assumption, then saying it’s the most likely outcome is truly intellectually dishonest. It doesn’t follow that it’s wrong, but it is ver6 very likely to be, certainly more so than NBN Co’s numbers, which can be verified and corroborated.
“Yes, NBNco has passed 80,000 premises generating a “wealth of data”… ”
If you conside 0.05% of the rollout “a wealth of data”.
It is like asking for definitive costs per floor from “historic data” building a skscraper after completing the pouring of the foundations in the third sub-basement.
“But the author is clearly desperate to find some angle to label Malcolm a liar”
No, you sir are desperate to defend Turnbull and in doing so lying yourself.
“The $90bn+ figure represents the central case scenario”
This is a lie. The $94B figure is the highest figure possible by combining all their worst case “up to” figures.
Up to 25% taking up wireless, up to 50% longer.
Turnbull has used the worst case scenario for Labor’s NBN to quote a figure of $94B. Now with regards to the Coalition’s cheaper $29.5B FTTN alternative, which scenario was used to arrive at this figure?
“Standard modus operandi for this blog. (Don’t be shocked.)”
What is more of a shock is Renai calling Malcolm Turnbull a liar. He normally defends him beyond what most think is reasonable.
“* $/premise – inline with the rest of the world when australia has the highest labour cost in the world”
Making it absolutely imperative to do it once, do it right. If, as Turnbull himself concedes, the end point WILL be FTTP then surely it makes more sense to build the end point rather than invest very expensive labour on stop-gap measures like FTTN
“* takeup – people have been paying the same money for growing caps and speeds for the last decade, an assumption they will keep doing so is not “worst case””
Clearly demonstrating that the speeds at least that FTTN can supply will be totally inadequate by the time an FTTN system could be completed. Why build it if their own modelling shows it will be overstressed and obsolete before it can even be completed.
” * speed of rollout – NBNco will have a run rate of 600 this year insteasd of the 1200 they predicted. Around the world no one has ever achieved the run rate NBNco is predicting (the companies that came close were huge vertically integrated providers in america and japan with much higher population densities and aerial rollouts). Due to how vertical the ramp up rate has to be to get to the 6000/day it is trivial for the rollout to blow out 50%. It might sound like a worst case on paper but it would actually only require a very small change.”
The coalition themselves have committed to a CBA. It would be madness to continue roll-out until the best model is confirmed. Either they are committing to a halt in roll-out of 6 months or they are committing to wasting money on a roll-out that will most likely fail the CBA.
They also ignore the time it will take to renegotiate contracts with the network builders for a different technology, the time to source and build the components for that system, like 60,000 nodes etc.
They also ignore the time it will take to retrain a technical workforce with the skills needed for teh new technology.
This will add up to a lot more than the propsed time savings from switching to FTTN
* mobile takeup – its only 4b, so you can leave that one out if you want. I think mobile broadband will always offer the absolute lowest cost option for internet/people who travel a lot. Its been growing beyond all predictions around the world australia would be unusual to not see substantial growth.
Mobile takeup doesn’t replace fixed line except in the absolutely lowest usage scenarios that RSPs are simply not interested in because they are loss making. Exclusive mobile use is likely to FALL rather than rise going intom teh future as the increasingly limited bandwidth becomes more and more expensive. All mobile operators increased their costs for mobile data over teh last 12 months because of teh pressures they are facing from exponential demands for usage driving exponential costs in providing base stations and abckhaul to cope.
“Renai as a long time reader I am very disappointed with your partisan stance on this debate.”
If you are truely a long time reader, you would have witnessed Renai’s slow conversion to the FTTP cause.
The worst he could be accused of is having an open mind.
His defence of Turnbull has been truely heroic. For him to face his “road to Damascus” moment and assert that Turnbull is engaged in unmitigated bald face lying would indicate that there is no wriggle room left. Each and every other possiblity must have been exhausted.
It should also be noted that after all his doom and gloom scenarios, in the very next section the paper discusses the FTTN plan but only compares it to the published NBN costings. Very different to their approach with the press.
I asked him last night what the net affect on his plan would be if the same 4 factors occurred for his FTTN plan.
His response was that while the revenue and wireless risks could affect FTTN, the cost blowout and build time blowout risks only apply to FTTN. I was stunned he could even pretend to claim that. You can see the exchange here
https://twitter.com/TurnbullMalcolm/status/322248406145839104
Dammit, last FTTN should have read FTTP.
I have no idea how they’ll be able to do 50 Mbps on all the copper network without a combination of replacing a non-trivial proportion of the copper (by which I mean 15%+) or decreasing the spectrum available for uploads and increasing the one for downloads.
Copper can handle 50 Mbps without too many issues, as long as the loop isnt too long – copper can handle 1 Gbps if the length is less than 20m or so, even more with shorter. With FttN, the loop length should be perfectly fine for the potential speeds suggested, but it wont go too much beyond that, so you’re spending $30b for a one step rollout, with no natural progression.
Thats one of my biggest issues. Its so short term that our needs will outdo the infrastructure before its even finished. Leapfrog this generation of the technology and put the next generation in while we can do it for a relatively small amount more.
Leapfrogging just that single generation actuall saves 10’s of billions, and lays a foundation for decades of the same logical improvement we’ve seen from the copper lines over the past couple of decades.
It astounds me that people debate the negatives of putting a roadblock in the way of that, when its going to need to be done anyway. Politics should never be a part of this.
If you go to ABC’s page http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-10/coalition-expects-telstra-to-hand-over-copper-network/4619594 you can find a table of comparisons of the two proposed plans.
I don’t know if that table is the work of MT or the ABC but in any case it reflects how poorly most observers apply rigorous analysis of what they see.
The line that jumped out at me was the one that showed the cost.
It shows the coalition’s estimate is $29.5bil. and Labor’s as $44bil.
Not comparing like with like.
The $29.5b is to complete the NBN FROM WHERE IT STANDS (after the election) according to the L&NP, whereas the $44b is the estimated TOTAL cost of the real NBN.
Actually, that’s not the cost, that’s the peak funding requirement.
The point is still valid. Its not comparing like for like with the costs. Whether the Liberals care to admit it or not, whatever’s been spent to date either has to be included in the overall cost of their final network, or removed from the Labors future costs.
Compare what it will take to FINISH the network, and you may just find there’s only a couple of billion difference between the two – Labor has already invested a fair chunk of the $37b/$44b overall cost they expect to spend.
that is an exceptionally good point.
+1
If they are so blatantly lying about this, what else are they lying about just to get power? One wonders what lengths politicians will go to, to get power!!
What are they lying about? Get away from the MSM media and you will find, just about everything.
Pink Batts, school halls, carbon tax, you name it, most of it is a lie peretuated by the MSM.
Almost all media outlets have already treated that the coalition has won and is in government. The coalition’s plan is to dumb down the issue and pretends that they have a solution. They are banking on the fact that people are not interested in knowing the details. Even some do, they are leading in the polls and cannot care anymore. This pattern has been developed since Abbott talked about “real” action plan for climate change.
Actually they are banking on NBN Co missing their July targets by a country mile and Conroy made to look like an incompetent fool(again).
And they’d be right. NBN Co will be lucky to pass 100,000 Fibred premises by July.
The spin will come thick and fast “we are only 6 months behind on a 10 year(SIC) project”
We are in year 3 of a 10 year project and jack sh!t has happened so far.
“NBN Co will be lucky to pass 100,000 Fibred premises by July.”
Source?
“We are in year 3 of a 10 year project and jack sh!t has happened so far.”
You mean the planning and testing and deals they’ve struck are nothing? The backhaul they’ve built? The million premises they have under construction, that’s jack shit?
Karl… http://delimiter.com.au/2013/03/18/leaked-numbers-show-nbn-fibre-rollout-lagging/
~70,000 Premises passed by mid-March this year so far.
Try not to act too surprised when you find out they only passed ~100,000 by the end of June.
Meanwhile NBN tells us it has nothing to do with a lack of contractors and has to do with “mobilisation” while simultaneously training up more cable layers: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/4/12/nbn-buzz/nbn-co-subsidise-training
Lots of mixed messages here and very little info coming out of NBN. Shouldn’t they have been training people up 3 years ago?
“Karl… http://delimiter.com.au/2013/03/18/leaked-numbers-show-nbn-fibre-rollout-lagging/
~70,000 Premises passed by mid-March this year so far.
Try not to act too surprised when you find out they only passed ~100,000 by the end of June.”
So it’s just your opinion. We shall see what happens.
“Lots of mixed messages here and very little info coming out of NBN. Shouldn’t they have been training people up 3 years ago?”
See, when you tone down the hyperbole you can ask significant questions! This is what the debate should be like all the time. Hell, why isn’t that question being asked by Liberal politicians? They’re supposed to hold the government to account after all, but they’re too busy manufacturing lies.
Karl Karl Karl….
You can’t do this, if you wanna pretend you have your finger on the pulse of whats happening you should put your name to some numbers.
Do you think NBN will hit their new-new-new-new-new prediction of 220,000 or don’t you?
Don’t dare criticise my very reasonable 100,000 premises passed number if you aren’t willing to put your own credibility on the line.
It’s taken them over 2 years to reach 70,000 premises passed by Mid-March… how many premises do you think they will manage to do in 3 1/2 Months?
There is way too much politics in this and not enough logical thought, people are putting their brains into sleep mode.
“There is way too much politics in this and not enough logical thought, people are putting their brains into sleep mode.”
When I read this from you I could not stop laughing. You are kidding, aren’t you?
And this is your logic:
“It’s taken them over 2 years to reach 70,000 premises passed by Mid-March”
The roll out proper started around 12 months ago and as NBNco states clearly on their roll out maps, expect connection to occur within 12 months. Your logic is based on false premises. As for your brain you obviously don’t put your brain into a sleep mode. You put it in bullshit mode.
“Do you think NBN will hit their new-new-new-new-new prediction of 220,000 or don’t you?”
I don’t know and I don’t pretend to, like you. I think they’ll be closer to their prediction than yours, though.
“It’s taken them over 2 years to reach 70,000 premises passed by Mid-March… how many premises do you think they will manage to do in 3 1/2 Months?”
You’re a funny one. You’re either being deliberately dense or you’re very forgetful if you think they’ve been building the NBN for 2 years.
1.. Premises pass is actual connected and not indicative of fibre installed in the street awaiting connection to a house.
2. NBN Co. training splicers is a very recent development. It has occured due to major contractors (Leightons, Visionstream, Syntheo etc) not being pro active in the creation and training of splicers.
Racy,
Premises passed means a premise is ready for NBN services.
Premises connected means a premise that is getting that service.
NBN is doing the easy bit of running fibre down streets but hardly anyone has their house connected for a service.
Running fibre down streets is the easy bit? :D Somebody should tell Malcs.
Of course it is.
The hard bit is connecting those houses to the fibre on the streets which is a logistical and labour nightmare.
Digging up peoples rose gardens, getting permission to connect it up to the side of the house and stringing cables across from power poles is very labour intensive.
I live in an area that had fibre ran down my street back in October last year and have heard jack all from NBN Co since. Seems the contractors aren’t interested in doing the hard part of hooking houses up and just went and did more street cable laying elsewhere.
If they are so blatantly lying about this, what else are they lying about just to get power? One wonders what lengths politicians will go to, to get power!!
Whats a lot more concerning for me is what will they lie about to stay in power…
It is good to see the liberal spin people out and about but ignoring the article and truth as usual!
Not just the Coalition pushing the boundaries of deception. Here’s one that brought me up short, from an apparent expert and published on the Drum here: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4625436.html
“In the first 10 weeks of this year, NBN Co, the company charged with the fibre rollout, passed only an additional 28 households a day. At that rate it would take 1,200 years to build the NBN.”
Note that this wasn’t a story comment – this was part of the article.
It’s just… surreal.
By Kevin Morgan, enuff said…
it’s amazing someone can spend 35 years in an industry and still be so misinformed…
I cannot believe people are still publishing Kevin Morgan’s stuff.
But Renai, don’t you know that Kevin Morgan is right? Note how his statement:
> The reality is FTTN is by far and away the most commonly used technology to take fibre close to the consumer
Is backed up by data?
http://blog.idate.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/web_FTTHB_vs_VDSL_subscribers_worldwide_2011_2016.png
See? The red bar is by far and away much larger than the orange one! You’re just not looking at the data in the same way he is, fool.
Whenever Kevin Morgan talks about the NBN or communications in general there is distinct air of desperation to his words. He’s the type of person that knows what he is says holds no or very little value but is hoping his audience will believe it “Eat this magic cupcake, it will cure your cancer!”
Almost all media outlets have already treated that the coalition has won and is in government. The coalition’s plan is to dumb down the issue and pretends that they have a solution. They are banking on the fact that people are not interested in knowing the details. Even some do, they are leading in the polls and cannot care anymore. This pattern has been developed since Abbott talked about “real” action plan for climate change.
I think we are all well aware that you cannot prove a negative.
As in “Prove that the Easter Bunny does not exist”
So I cannot prove that it never happens, but I cannot find <i/ ANY FTTN in progress of installation that is not being installed for a Telco.
I’m not surprised. The Telco owns the copper, knows its condition and will be the service provider post installation.
Can anyone show me evidence of an FTTN being installed where the installer is NOT a Telco expanding its footprint?
Here http://www.ntca.org/new-edge/data/rus-awards-254-6-million-to-22-new-stimulus-projects you can see the funded programs for some areas in the US where there was no (or limited) connectivity.
There was no mandated choice of technology. Have a look at how many Telcos were installing FTTP .
Well, that is what is wrong with the prefered Coalition model to get faster broadband. It’s what is wrong with any government offering stimulus to get the private sector to improve infrastructure.
They do whatever is cheapest and fastest to get the cash with little thought for the future.
Need to go from FTTN to FTTH, more stimulus please and we will do it, using the cheapest fastest method again.
Don’t stipulate how it’s to be done, the minimum and cheapest method will be used, bugger the consequences.
I think part of the problem is that most politicians are trained as lawyers. They are specifically trained to ignore facts that don’t meet their specific argument.
The way Law is practised is the opposite of evidence based – you really do get your own facts.
Which explains very accurately why the legal system is such an awful mess. And why politicians are actually incapable of realising when they’re wrong and admitting it.
“They are specifically trained to ignore facts that don’t meet their specific argument.”
Conroy was talking about this earlier this week. He said:
“Malcolm Turnbull is becoming the king of telling a lie using a fact. He reaches into the NBN Co report, he gets a graph called average revenue per user or ARPU and says look, it shows that prices are going up. ARPU’s not a price. NBN Co today in the marketplace has prices – well, not NBN Co, but retailers have prices of $29.95.”
Mind you, Conroy hasn’t been perfect at this either:
http://delimiter.com.au/2012/02/28/conroy-misleads-public-on-internet-filter/
At least Labor is willing to drop something when it’s pointed out what a pig it is, the Coalition just keep adding more lipstick to it :o)
Renai what do you think about Conroy using the word “lie” when he knows that politicians agreed not to use many years ago because the word because is considered uncouth?
This is a man that tried censoring the internet(failed), tried censoring the media(failed) and can’t even censor himself and his own language. This truly is the unhinging by Labor.
The definition set here for the word lie to be acceptable is simple. It’s when someone is intentionally telling untruths when there is no reasonable doubt at all left that they are aware of the truth. That is the agreement.
There is no doubt that MT is aware of the truth at this point. Pyne didn’t get called a liar when he said no one was on 100 Mbps. He got called a liar once it was clear that he knew the facts and refused to correct when asked to.
Quink did senator Conroy lie in from of Senates Estimates committee when he said NBN Co was ontrack to hit it’s July target of 320,000 Premises.
I just wanna know because Devoted NBN revealed numbers less than 2 weeks later showing NBN Co was miles off hitting their target.
Would you consider this to be a lie by Conroy? Or is he so far in the clouds he actually believed it?
@TruthHurts
Actually, no, by definition it isn’t a lie because we are not in possession of information that says he KNEW they wouldn’t reach that target when he said that. It’s feasible he was. In which case it would be a lie. But we don’t know. It’s also feasible he was told THAT afternoon they weren’t going to because NBNCo. realised it was doing more harm than good by trying to keep up appearances.
Fact remains, TURNBULL LIED. He has quoted a “fact” that has been shown he KNEW to be false. Therefore, he lied. There is no excuse for that. And I wish you’d stop with this rubbish about a “gentleman’s agreement” not to call the other a liar. What a load of dogs balls. If a politician clearly, undeniably lies, they should be called on it. End of story.
“This is a man that tried… censoring the media”
False. This is just one of countless examples of false statements you have made on Delimiter. You are either incapable of following and understanding facts (in which case your opinion is worthless) or you do understand the facts and simply wish to misinterpret them or simply mislead others (in which case your opinion is equally worthless). Either way, once we can establish that your opinion on one topic is so vastly diverged from reality, it follows that we can assume you either don’t take the time to get your facts straight, or the facts simply don’t matter if they disagree with your established position and you will say anything to mislead others in an attempt to justify your opinion. Thus your opinion is worthless and can safely be disregarded. I’m sure that won’t stop people from taking the time to dispute the intellectually dishonest rubbish you persist in posting, but it would be nice if there were some kind of rating system or tag that could be applied to everything you write to advise people who may not otherwise realise that anything you write is almost certainly inaccurate, misleading and dishonest.
the truly sad thing is … when political leaders can lie like this .. without proper checks and balances…
they can use this same process to go to war
That’s pretty well what happened with Iraq…
As we saw in Iraq, Afghanistan and even Viet Nam if you want to go back far enough.
The people who become politicians are attracted to power. In my experience that’s not ever a positive character trait.
(I was going to say rarely but then I couldn’t think of a single example)
There was an agreement between politicians quite a few years ago that the word “lie” or “liar” was not to be used to describe a fellow politician in the heat of debate.
Of course we can’t expect the Labor attack dog… who tried censoring the media after failing to censor the internet to stick to a gentlemans agreement, for this is no gentleman… this is a rabid, angry dog that gets angrier at every one of it’s own failings.
This is a man who when asked to explain NBN’s failings to rollout on time spends 10 minutes blaming Malcolm Turnbull and the rest of the time whinging about the Daily Telegraph. He lacks substance, decency or the ability to admit he got it wrong.
He is a disgrace to Australian politics and will go down in the historical annals as not a has-been, but a never-was. A loser in his own right who failed at everything he touched.
So, my main take away from this is… Malcolm Turnbull is a liar even in your estimation?
When will Conroy admit he’s missed the roll out targets without blaming the Daily Telegraph?
He looks like an incompetent fool, everyone can see that.
@TruthHurts
Someone seems to have a VERY large chip on his shoulder about Conroy….
He’s FAR from perfect. But at least on the NBN he hasn’t outright lied.
Oh and what “agreement” was this made several years ago? Was it published? Was it public? Or is it just some fanciful agreement you made up to make it seem like Turnbull’s ACTUAL lie isn’t that bad because it shouldn’t be allowed to be called a lie?
Hi Seven tech,
When Conroy said NBN was dead on target to reach the 320,000 premises passed by July.. just a week or 2 before devoted NBN leaked the rollout numbers… was he being truthful with the senate and the Australian public?
Is this what you consider telling the truth? And why has the NBN shut down Devoted from revealing roll out numbers anymore? And why hasn’t NBN released the March RFS report yet?
Conroy seems to enjoy censoring information, whether it’s the internet or the media or the NBN.. but yet he can’t censor himself or his language. Horses for courses I guess.
@TruthHurts
I’m not saying that NBNCo. doesn’t have issues. Or that they couldn’t have revealed those issues earlier than they have. As it is, we were informed about 2 months after they knew the possibility of not meeting that target. That’s a far cry from the YEARS normally seen between a project being considered on track and the “inevitable failure” that comes out the other end 3 times the cost, twice the time and inquiries galore.
Say what you like about Conroy politicising the NBN, I wouldn’t disagree. But Turnbull has constantly and consistently maintained mistruths, falsehoods AND NOW outright lies against the NBN and never admitted it. The NBNCo. may have problems, but at least they ARE admitting them.
Oh and by the way, the only thing NBNCo. have asked DevotedNBN to not produce is total premises passed number on their page- I’m not really surprised as NBNCo. want to confirm their premises passed numbers BEFORE reporting them as I’ve said before. ALL the other info is still on their site. VERY detailed information on each FSAM and FDA.
The problem with calling the Coalitions “worst case scenario” costing as a lie is that a lie must be proven as saying something that’s untrue when you know it’s untrue. I don’t know about you, but my crystal ball is broken and it’s all just guessing at the moment.
Personally I think revenues will be higher than initially forecast because users will be choosing higher speeds with the 25Mbit/s plan being the most common(early numbers are inaccurate due to early adopters).
But I agree with the extra expenses and the extra length of time required to rollout the network. People have to be kidding themselves if they think ~2500 premises passed per month rather than every 3 days is just a “mobilisation” issue… NBN doesn’t have enough workers to do the job. And if they can’t do the required rate now they have no chance of doing 6200 a day without hiring an extra 10,000 workers.
I would love to see the NBN contracts because from what I hear payment is based on premises passed without time penalties which means contractors get paid no matter how slow they go(slower is obviously cheaper as you need fewer sub-contractors). If that’s the case all the contracts will need to be torn up and rewritten again to put in time penalties. New contracts specifying required dates for completion will invariably increase the cost. Of course I’m completely guessing here as these contracts are all CiC… but this is the info if the leaked data if anyone cares to listen.
@TruthHurts
Turnbull has said the NBN WILL cost $94 billion. Not might. Not could, WILL. That is a lie, because there is no POSSIBLE way he could know it will. And there is direct evidence AGAINST that fact, especially on the revenue and uptake side.
You can deflect all you like from Turnbull lying, but the fact is he DID lie. And Abbott lied about the school (did Turnbull say it as well? I don’t remember). Conroy MAY have lied about the NBN progress. That’s the worst we can say about him.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, it will be cloudy tomorrow with a spot of rain. Not might, not could… but will!
Oh, these meteorologists are a bunch of liars! How could they possibly know? After all, they have a poor track record… once forecasting cloudy weather for three weekends in a row, but it turned out clear skies and sunny instead!
It is so laughable how desperate NBN cheerleaders are to find ways to tag the “liar” label on Malcolm Turnbull just because he has the intellect, courage and determination to expose ALP policy as a complete fraud.
Almost all evidence points towards it being cloudy.
A specific set of circumstances points towards the NBN costing $94b.
Do you see the difference?
Your analogy does not apply.
You obviously don’t live in Melbourne. There is no WILL when it comes to weather here.
BTW would you stop using that alias, I find it highly offensive.
Your comment is just another example of how badly misused the term “evidence” has been in this NBN debate (especially on this blog).
The Bureau of Meteorology does not issue forecasts based on “evidence”. They employ numerical models which attempt to simulate meteorological phenomena at a given level of complexity utilising various assumptions and extrapolating from a given set of data points.
In a similar vein, the Coalition employed a numerical model attempting to simulate NBNco’s P&L statement by extrapolating from a set of known data points (current wireless-only percentage, current ARPU, estimated per premise cost of South Brisbane, etc) and utilising various assumptions (likely trend growth in ARPU, likely growth in wireless-only households, etc).
Labor’s NBN forecasts are based on various assumptions; and so are the Coalition’s. The question is whose assumptions are more realistic?
@God’s Truth
The BOM use HISTORICAL DATA and SIMULATIONS to extrapolate the LIKELY weather.
And the fact that you had to use the BOM to try and get Turnbull and Abbott out of their hole is rather telling- I’m fairly sure if you asked anyone sane they would ALWAYS assume the weather was BEST GUESS. Once computing power is large enough, no doubt we will have micro-weather reports for an area the size of my house, but until then, it is best guess.
Politicians have THOUSANDS of possible sources for their varying portfolios. Being a TRUE politician means they choose the ones that suit their policy best and present them. However, taking what you WANT to be accurate (with no sources of consequence) and reporting that as truth is A LIE. If the BOM forecast what they WANTED to be true for the weather, no doubt it’d only be forecast to rain when anyone in the office wasn’t having a BBQ.
Fact- Turnbull and Abbott have BOTH lied this week. Trying to give excuses why it might not have been a lie, when they clearly did know what they were talking about and clearly did know it was untrue, is a lie in and of itself- a lie to keep yourself believing in what you want, rather than what is true.
@God’s Truth
Labor’s NBN forecasts are based on various assumptions; and so are the Coalition’s. The question is whose assumptions are more realistic?
I dunno, let’s see- one’s whose validity has been debated for over 3 YEARS? Or one’s whose assumptions are based on 3 false- premises:
1- Wireless only will continue to rise at the rate it has been- there is no evidence for that
2- ARPU= wholesale costs- they don’t
3- Cost per premises for ONE SINGLE EXCHANGE done over a period of almost 1/5th of the entire NBN by a company with grossly smaller scale of economy than NBNCo. (for that particular upgrade) and assuming that is the best possible scenario for cost
I’d let you decide, but you already have.
You’re right, you’re absolutely right, so let’s look at the evidence document:
It’s quite compelling, providing evidence of possible problems. All good so far, all reasonable.
However, where is the $94b figure determined from? Well, I’ve give you the title of the section where they bring the evidence they have presented together:
WHAT IF ALL FOUR ASSUMPTIONS TURN OUT TO BE CORRECT?
That’s very important. No weighing up of probabilities of different scenarios, no providing a cross section of different outcomes, just present 4 possible problems, and assume they all go wrong.
The $94b figure is one possible outcome based upon a set of assumptions, it being cloudy tomorrow is the outcome that is most statistically likely.
The difference, although subtle, is an important one.
If you look at the Corporate Plan they map various forecasts and pick the one that is most likely to be achieved. Granted the only show a small cross section (3) of the forecasts they have done, but it’s far to assume they have picked the 3 that they consider most statistically likely. The Coalition evidence picks one forecast and suggests it is the one that will happen.
Not only that but it isn’t a central case, as you keep saying, it’s the worst case. A central case would be assuming 2 or 3 of the assumptions are correct if they can’t get finite probability statistics on the assumptions, then showing the distribution of probable situations, and picking a few near the centre of the resulting bell curve.
They picked a situation, because it assumes all assumptions presented are correct, is near the edge of the bell curve, and (quite obviously) near the negative end of the spectrum. What is the very definition of a worst case.
Conversely, it can be argued that the NBN Corporate is optimistic and is also near the edge of the bell curve, on the positive end of the spectrum, i.e., a best case, and no one here is denying this. However, that still implies that most probable result lies somewhere in between the two estimates.
Is there actually any argument that completely wireless homes have increased in the last 10 years and the number of landline connections are falling?
The next generations of iPad may make the home WiFi router irrelevant.
And yes yes and I know the claim will be you can’t send any more data over mobile broadband… this was said when 3G was around… guess what? Now we have 4G.
We heard the same thing about copper landlines… 56K will be as fast as what you can get over a copper line. Then we got ADSL…then we got ADSL2… then we got ADSL2+.
We should be careful guessing the future without due diligence.
ABS Statistics on data transferred over different Broadband technologies and connection uptake figures. Please review them.
Because there is an argument, because people constantly confuse mobile phone substitution with mobile broadband substitution. As you just did.
@NightKhaos
We have a model which generates output Y that is a function of parameters w, x, y, z:
Y=f(w, x, y, z)
Both Labor and the Coalition agree on the function, f. They disagree on the parameters that feed into the model.
Let’s denote the input parameters chosen by NBNco as their central scenario as wl, xl, yl, zl.
wl = 9% growth in real ARPU (wc = 3.5%)
xl = $2,400 cost per premise (xc = $3,600)
yl = 16% of wireless-only households (yc = 25%)
zl = 2021 completion date (zc = 2025)
Assuming a Bell Curve, from the POV of NBNco, the above data points represent the mean of likely outcomes. What the Coalition is saying is the mean of the Bell Curve is actually characterised by a different set of numerical parameters (bracketed above). So, we actually have two different Bell Curves — not in terms of the shape of the distribution, but in terms of the position of the Curve along the horizontal axis.
The $94b figure is the mean output Y corresponding to the Coalition’s Bell Curve:
E(Y) = f(3.5%, $3,600, 25%, 2025) = $94b.
Assuming the Coalition’s Bell Curve is the “correct” distribution, we can then make statistical inferences about the probability of the actual outcome falling within given standard deviations of the mean. This is the central case scenario. The worst case scenario would be parameters that result in a numerical output, Y, that falls within the extreme tail on the RHS of the distribution (the larger the cost, the more adverse the outcome). Ditto for Labor’s Bell Curve.
The “worst case scenario” is relative to the “central case scenario”; and in this case, we have two different probability distributions in play because the Coalition and Labor cannot agree on what the mean of the distribution should be (or what constitutes realistic parameters). It is entirely wrong to arbitrarily say Labor’s chosen parameters are the actual mean of the distribution, and therefore, the Coalition’s view of what constitutes realistic mean parameters are extreme outliers on Labor’s Bell Curve.
We have a clash of views between Labor and the Coalition precisely because both parties are tussling over where the Bell Curve should sit on the horizontal axis, or what constitutes “the most likely outcome”.
Get it?
So you haven’t looked at the latest ABS stats. Not surprised.
They show that the share of mobile broadband has dropped.
In any case, NBN has control over the ARPU. The coalition guess for the capex per premise is based on an unconfirmed anonymous rumour and investor advice not available to the public, neither of which are corroborated by other sources. The percentage of wireless households is based on the percentage of households without a fixed line telephone, so says not much about either ADSL or HFC and is thus quite meaningless. And for the last variable, the cost is higher because the coalition just throws all figures on a pile after proclaiming that everything needs to be replaced.
So, yes, it’s a bell curve, but I know which is much much more probable and not based in wild guesstimates rumours and unsubstantiated projections.
Oh I get it, but you’re wrong if you think the Coalition figures placed are actually realistic figures, they’re all worst case. I didn’t want to have to digest the document entirely because that takes time, time which I would rather spend doing other things.
Let’s start with ARPU. The figure the coalition arrived at is assuming that there will be no growth in ARPU in real terms what-so-ever when compared to the growth of the economy. This is plaintively a worst case situation because the very fact they are investing in their own Broadband Network implies they expect to see growth in this market over the economy, otherwise they too will actually fail to make a ROI with their FTTN based infrastructure project. In other words, they are suggesting we need a more conservative assessment of growth (which is a fair cristism) and then assuming no growth what-so-ever (which is the worst case for this particular parameter).
For the capital cost per premises they have done even worse here, they have taken two reputable sources, and then assumed the higher of the two is the correct one. That one is so clearly biased that I don’t need to explain it further.
The wireless uptake is one notion that I agree with the analysis however it also appears to be, as indicated by the bottom of the report, the one with the least material impact.
And finally, the increase in rollout timeframe by 50% actually provides no evidence what-so-ever to back this assertion . In other words, of the four this one is purely hypothetical.
Therefore, with that in mind, as I said, what the Coalition have presented to arrive at the $94b is on the higher end of the bell curve, deliberately so as well.
@Truth Hurts
As NightKaos has said, ABS statistics disagree with you. This quarter, fixed line data grew at 34% over last quarter compared to 21% over the quarter before. Wireless? It grew slightly from growing 9.3% over the quarter before to growing 11% over last quarter. But it accounts for LESS overall traffic by almost a full %, 5% compared to last quarter’s 6%.
Fixed line subscription grew by 0.5%, down from 1.7% growth previous quarter. However, while wireless grew by 2.2%, that’s a HUGE drop in growth over the previous quarter where it grew by almost 7% and even more by the quarter before. Wireless growth has almost stopped. And fixed growth is plodding along. Wireless is NOT going to replace fixed line in the vast, VAST majority of cases. Believing otherwise is based on faith and nothing more.
Oh and that lovely 4G you tout as being so much better than 3G because of its’ speed….yeah, how’s the EXACT SAME QUOTA lasting you on that great high speed?….
Dogstruth,
Given your equation above and dubious use of “statistics”, one thing strikes me.
Given your methods you could also calculate a possible cost of the NBN as being $940 Billion and still call it the “central case scenario”.
Its a nice trick really, good at confusing the issue for those who don’t know better.
The worst case scenario is the variable used at arriving at the $94 Billion figure, not the technical deviation of those figures once they are adopted.
No critically thinking person would take the background paper supplied as Gospel. To my knowledge it is only available of Turnbulls personal page so it’s not even an official LNP document. They have had the better part of a decade to sharpen their knives for this moment and it still appears a rushed, last minute policy. Better than anything else they have released but a poor alternative to the current NBN.
Okay, let’s relate it back to the heinous accusation contained in the article:
So is it “lying” when a senior figure such as Malcolm Turnbull claims that Labor’s NBN could cost up to $94 billion? In my opinion, no. However, this isn’t what Turnbull has been claiming. If you look at Turnbull’s statements over the past several days, what the Liberal MP has repeatedly claimed is that Labor’s NBN “will” cost $94 billion.
Okay, the criteria outlined above is very straightforward:
a) claiming that Labor’s NBN could cost up to $94b is not lying;
b) claiming that Labor’s NBN will cost $94b is lying.
How does the author arrive at this conclusion? The reasoning is as follows:
What we’re left with is a situation where Turnbull is clearly aware (as one of the principle authors of the Coalition’s policy and background briefing) that the $94 billion figure is only one potential figure which the Coalition’s own estimates came up with, and that it represents the worst possible scenario — if every single thing goes wrong for Labor’s NBN project. A total disaster scenario.
Standing in the Coalition’s shoes, if you agree that Labor’s chosen parameters (wl, xl, yl, zl) reflect the “most likely (median) outcome”, then it’s true that the outcome, Y = $94b, corresponding to the Coalition’s modelled parameters (wc, xc, yc, zc) constitutes an outlier on Labor’s Bell Curve. It is a “disaster scenario” relative to the (mutually-agreed) expected outcome.
However, the whole crux of the Coalition’s objections to Labor’s NBN forecasts is that the most likely outcome is {wc, xc, yc, zc}. Hence, in the eyes of the Coalition, E(Y) = $94b is not a low probability outcome or “disaster scenario”, but the expected outcome in 2025.
If you believe that the expected cost of the NBN will total $94b, you will naturally go on Today Show and say, “Labor’s NBN will cost $94b”. (That’s no different to Senator Conroy proclaiming that the NBN will cost $36b because that is the expected cost in his view.) That is neither “lying”, nor “misrepresenting the Coalition’s own research”.
Insisting that the Coalition are somehow prevented from forming an independent view on the expected outcome is just silly. You could put the shoe on the other foot and insist that Labor must accept the Coalition’s view of “the most likely outcome”. Following this warped logic:
a) claiming that Labor’s NBN could cost as little as $36b is not lying;
b) claiming that Labor’s NBN will cost $36b is lying.
How ridiculous is that?
Hence, the heinous accusations laid against Malcolm are totally preposterous and maliciously contrived.
Nice try. But no dice.
The corporate plan has been revised in response to changes in circumstances which indicates intent to, under good faith, provide as accurate figures as possible. They are not being deliberately deceitful.
Turnbulls analysis on the other hand is deliberately manipulating the data, especially the part about the ARPU in order to portray the worst case situation.
Ergo, although they both mostly likely speak untruths, Turnbull is doing it deliberately with intent to deceive. Calling Turnbull a liar for this behaviour is perfectly justified.
Footnote.
Extracts from LNP Background Document:
Combining four reasonable, plausible assumptions (which better reflect consensus opinion about the competitive and commercial conditions NBN Co will face than the optimistic assumptions its Corporate Plan is built upon) turns out to be catastrophic for the network’s purported economic viability.
This is a simple model. It is subject to the normal uncertainties of any such analysis, but it is in the Coalition’s view a much more likely forecast than that contained in the NBN Co 2012‐2015 Corporate
Plan.
Note the language:
The Coalition’s chosen set of parameters and modelled scenario is described as:
a) “reasonable, plausible”;
b) “better reflect consensus opinion”;
c) “much more likely forecast”.
On the other hand, NBNco’s chosen parameters are described as “optimistic assumptions”.
The Coalition clearly views its modelled scenario (adopting all four modified parameters) as constituting the central case scenario or most likely outcome. The $94b estimate is not seen as an extreme outlier, but the central outcome.
And you were putting up such compelling arguments until then.
Tell me, would at all benefit the Coalition to admit that their assumptions are deliberately flawed?
In other words you just put forward a null point. The existence of that statement and language does not negate my theory.
Similarly Turnbull could genuinely believe the $94b figure is accurate. This, if we take into account his character, seems unlikely. Which Renai did, and came to this conclusion.
@NightKhaos
Read the article.
As I have explained in detail above, the “liar” accusations made in this article are not premised on how realistic the Coalition’s modelling assumptions are. The article does not discuss the realism of these assumptions at all. Instead, the author specifically claims that Malcolm has lied by “misrepresenting Coalition research”. This is not the case at all as I have shown above.
The LNP Background Document clearly regards the $94b estimate to be the central case (or “the most likely outcome”), and not some low probability disaster scenario outlier. You’re entitled to disagree with the Coalition on the modelling assumptions. But you’re not entitled to substitute your opinion as the Coalition’s own opinion. (You can tell someone their opinion is wrong — but you can’t tell someone what their opinion is.) That is just plain absurd.
I have read the article. And the attached documents. And other related reading.
And after all that reading I’ve come to realise one thing: You’re naive.
I concede that we can’t know with absolute certainty if he’s deliberately lieing.
But we don’t live in a world of absolutes. So good luck to you.
I’m fairly sure if you asked anyone sane they would ALWAYS assume the weather was BEST GUESS.
I’m doubly sure that applies to politicians and sales-folk of all colours and stripes.
i would love to see the new-new-new Corporate Plan.
In the December 2010 Corporate plan we were going to have:
– 316,000 Premises Passed by June 2012
– 1,286,000 Premises Passed by June 30th 2013
– 2,711,000 Premises Passed by June 30th 2014
When they realised they were going to get nowhere near that they changed the numbers on the new corporate plan… yet amazingly… by some act of god… the cost remained exactly the same at $43 Billion dollars… isn’t that interesting?
In the August 2012 Corporate plan we got told the following:
– 39,000 Premises ACTUALLY passed by June 2012 (for the kids playing at home that’s about 12% of what they said they would do)
– 341,000 Projected by June 30th 2013
– 1,307,000 Premises by June 30th 2014
I think the next NBN Corporate plan will be filled with so much BS assuming they actually release it before the election that it will be considered a comedy piece.
This is what the next NBN Corporate plan will claim:
1. Only around 100,000 Premises have been connected to the Fibre network, well short of the 341,000 Projection.
2. The price of the NBN will magically stay the same and has not changed, despite far fewer people currently paying for a service(meaning lower revenues) and having to pay staff and NBN maintenance costs as well as rollout costs.
2. 1,307,000 Premises will still be connected by June 30th 2014 despite all evidence that NBN is not capable on any of their past performance to get to that number in time.
It truly will be a work of fiction.
Twist the truth again. Can’t help yourself. Meteorologists do not that it will rain tomorrow. They say there is chance of rain tomorrow, they even give a percentage. Check with the Bureau of meteo.
You seem to be a great believer in logic. Logic, however, starts with true premises not half baked rationalisation. Don’t like people calling Turnbull a liar. Too bad. No amount of poor reasoning will change that.
“1. Only around 100,000 Premises have been connected to the Fibre network, well short of the 341,000 Projection.”
Everyone is in a hurry to get fibre asap so your complaint about those premises missing out on faster speeds that are impossible on FttN is understandable. With this much demand it’s safe to assume it will be a success if the proper NBN is rolled out as planned. Don’t you agree?
GT
A major problem with time frames on contracts is the dependance on Telstra Remediation – AFR had an article on this and NBN’s failure to lock time frames and penalties into the Telstra contracts, Telstra is going gangbusters with Transits etc, but failing on the remediation. The reason for partial rollout of fans and delays which leads to contractor and subcontractor inefficiences and delays and lowered incomes for subcontractors and splicers so lack of install staff. – A major reason Telstra. who also caused the initial delay due to contracts. Funny Coalition FTTN will need those transits, but maybe get away without having to pay for as much remediation work. ?
Another factor is the Electric Co’s power poles, agreements signed but plans not ticked off, apparently The Transmission companies are concerned their poles are in such a poor state that the extra load of the fibre cables could be a risk. Gee profit driven utilities excel at maintaing their infrastructure don’t they.?
Thanks for confirming that with your changing of topic. Even you know Malcolm Turnbull is a liar.
You know those three independent inquiries flagged in the LNP Background Paper…. almost like a Royal Commission…. examining in detail how NBNco was setup… all the ministerial policy directions given… why was this done this way… based on what evidence and advice… who determined the policy parameters… what are the actual outcomes…. can’t wait for the reports to come in… because for sure, every single person deeply involved with ALP’s NBN will come out of those inquiries covered in faeces, their reputations tarnished forever. And they’ll deserve history’s final judgment.
Personally, I can’t wait for a report on the state of the last mile of the copper network and its suitability for FTTN.
I also can’t wait to see how much Telstra will ask for the copper network and whether Malcolm will buy it sight unseen.
Finally, Malcolm said that upgrading to FTTP would be “very cheap”. I would love to know how much is very cheap.
Wow, did Conroy steal your lunch at school one day or something? So I guess your biggest issue with the NBN is that it’s Conroy doing it?
No my biggest problem with Conroy is that he can’t give an explanation on why the NBN is failing without breaking into a 1/2 hour rant on the Daily Telegraph.
He swore black and blue only a few weeks ago that it was dead on target for 320,000 premises passed by July when he knew it was complete horse poop.
Now he’s calling people liars? How did Devoted NBN know the NBN was miles behind but this class clown didn’t? Is he a liar or just grossly incompetent as Communications Minister thats what I wanna know.
The problem with that is that it’s possible Senator Conroy was not aware. Was he probably aware? Yep. Should he have been aware? Absolutely. Still not a liar as far as we can determine with any certainty.
Also, the reasons for NBN Co delays are fairly well documented, not least of all thanks to the Joint Committee sessions. They are the ones that matter for a Senator, and he’s obliged to tell the truth there. And considering The Daily Telegraph went Stalin on him, he’s only justified to ramble about them at any opportunity.
“NBN is failing”
NBN failing implies a problem and that needs a solution. That doesn’t mean FttN is the solution. That means fix the issue and continue rolling out FttP…
Getting a bit hot under the collar does the truth hurt?
Truth hurts
Telegraph/News Ltd and integrity.
An item currently high on google news most read, the headline is all many will read.
“Tony Windsor says his supporters are ‘rednecks’
by: Samantha Maiden
From: The Sunday Telegraph
April 14, 2013 9:14AM
TONY Windsor has launched a savage attack on his political opponent Barnaby Joyce’s “redneck” demographic.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/nsw-act/tony-windsor-says-his-supporters-are-rednecks/story-fndo4bst-1226620023241#ixzz2QOQN3TMO
Speaking of lying, sorry I don’t have a link as it was on ABC local radio and the website hasn’t been updated yet.
Anyway they had the local Liberal MP on talking about their policy. They said something meaning that all people in this area will get their broadband. He was implying that under the Labor NBN a lot of smaller places in the area would miss out.
Last time I checked the NBN is covering 100% of the population.
Seems to me that Turnbull and supporters of the Coalition’s broadband policy are bit like climate change deniers. When you think it through and look at all the available data, the evidence that bandwidth requirements will continue to rise (like the temperature) is overwhelming and it’s obvious we need to properly prepare for the future.
Similarly when Malcolm is asked on 7:30 what happens when we inevitably need more 50-100mbps, his response, (even after discussing existing broadband trends) is to go into a state of denial with comments like “bandwidth requirements may not continue to rise at that rate” (or words to that effect) and “25mbps is more than enough for your average household”. Or comments like “tell me what what applications need more than 100mbps?”
Like climate science the problem is that its hard to point to any single event or application now and say “look, this is why we need to act !”, as the problems are isolated, too technical, or off in the distant future, which means it’s impossible for some people to visualise and/or care about. Conservatives can just lie and pretend that existing bandwidth trends (or climate change related incidents) won’t continue and therefore aren’t prepared to properly invest in the future.
Just like climate change, it’s not until you get the the point when its too late, that the ignoramuses may finally understand that they’ve been oblivious to the facts.
My favourite was when MT was answering questions from caller from ABC, he was asked why did he invest in France Telecom which is running FTTP.
His answer was a classic : ” You can’t compare countries”.
And this is coming from a man who keep telling us about the UK and Germany’s experience.
My favourite comment was Tony’s “were going to get this thingy going” referring to the NBN.
Put your money where your mouth is. All the Labor politicians supporting the claim of Conroy that the NBN will only cost $40 billion – how about this. Let’s give you a generous 15% overrun on costs. That gives you an extra 6 billion for the NBN. If it goes above $46 billion, then you give back to Australia all your superannuation, pension, and benefits that you got from being a politician. The same goes for NBN backers – if you believe the government, why don’t you pledge the same? I’ll bet anyone my entire superfund that the NBN blows out in costs as the Coalition predicts. This is the government for god sakes, when have they ever been able to deliver anything on time, on budget? Ever?
As much as I love reading the technical arguments & then the follow up left & right biased criticism I can’t help but see this as a valiant but futile exercise
Labour has, even it’s most ardent supporters must admit, performed like a fickle child coming with ideas which it then doesn’t have the stomach to see through & folds at the economic power of the interested parties
There are few principled idealistic leaders left in the world, let alone Australia
It’s no longer reach for the stars, it’s more where can I get mine
Politics is negative, spineless, short sighted screw the other bloke manoeuvring designed to get people in power & support your backers
Face it, the games cooked
So without Labour doing the most incredible Lazarus performance ever seen, we will have a coalition government, its supporters will have a big party (tea anyone?) and we will all enjoy a copper dependant NBN
And if things go the way some say, copper from the node gives us half baked Internet after taking decades to install due to the fact we still don’t have enough construction staff in the country despite our new glorious leader, we can thank “Mr Broadband”
“THANK YOU MR BROADBAND!”
(Note to self, stop reading this stuff at 5am and getting fed up…)
Christ get over it. You Labor Party dooms dayers are exagerating how “terrible” the Coalitions NBN Plans are.
7% of the Australian population get exactly what they were getting under Labor(wireless/satellite)
22% of Australians(aka almost 1/4) are getting FTTH exactly the same as what Labor proposes.
71% of Australians will get FTTN… probably at least 5 years earlier than they would FTTH(because of lack of workers to do the job)
Those in bad copper areas will all get upgraded to FTTH.
People in new housing estates… probably one of NBN’s GREATEST FAILURES will get priority for FTTH unlike waiting 3 years for a landline connection under Labor because Labors NBN is too busy focusing on brownfields.
There are certainly advantages in the Coalitions FTTN *IF* you are willing to open your mind to anything other than “OMG FIBRE@!”
Alright then, we’ll get over it, only if you’ll get over the fact that under Labor’s NBN we’re not likely to actually end up creating $94b “white elephant”, that installing FTTN is a short sighted and ultimately, in the long term, and expensive interim solution under the vail of “fiscal responsibility”.
And where the hell are you getting that 3 year figure from?
‘Those in bad copper areas will all get upgraded to FTTH.’
And what percentage would that be? Oh wait, that might too hard for you tell. You’ll need to look up to see what Malcolm thinks is “reasonable, plausible”;“better reflect consensus opinion”; and a “much more likely forecast”.
Good luck!
“Christ get over it. You Labor Party dooms dayers..”
Get over the politics. Most NBN supporters seem to say they would normally vote Liberal, me included. It’s not about political alliances for most.
Thankyou Renai, finally a journalist, who is game enough to speak the truth. There are not enough journalists like yourself. Conroy is 100% correct that Turnbull is outright lying. What peeves me more than this are two other issues.
1. Media in its entirety should be absolutely be crucifying Turnbull about lying and taking him head on in interviews to show that he is lying. I fear for Australia’s long term future when good journalists allow outright blatant lies like this to continue when the media can do more to expose this and educate joe public and the more ignorant Alan Jones and Ray Hadley listeners.
The media so far have done a half ar$ed job of trying to expose Turnbulls lies. About time someone got some guts and just kept going until he is pushed to the absolute brink so that he is exposed beyond doubt.
2. The fact that the majority of Australian voters are not outraged by this deceit, and it appears inevitable that Australia’s future (possibly for the next two terms) is in the hands of outright liars such as Abbott and Turnbull.
The Australian public and Australian media should be ashamed of themselves allowing the liberals to get away with such dishonesty.
We take Labor to task for incompotence and lying (and rightly so) it should however apply to both parties equally. Such apathy from media and public will only damage Australia.
The NBN must happen in its current form regardless of which political party is in power. This is the only & best long term future for Australia’s infrastructure and long term future and economy.
I’m on the front lines of the industry when it comes to installing, connecting and fault finding copper lines. Anyone doing the real work will all say the same thing, the copper lines currently in service are all failing at an alarmingly high rate.
To roll out a FTTN project that will rely on the pre existing copper network is insane.
To have a network with a similarly segmented connection model as we have now is, insane. Look into MDF connections and the faults being caused by too many ‘cooks in the kitchen’.
… the copper lines currently in service are all failing at an alarmingly high rate.
For one reason only: because maintenance is appalling. I recently posted a photo of a plastic bag used to keep the rain out of a local pillar in my area. Other people mentioned they have seen the same in their area, or just no cover whatsoever keeping the rain out. Not rocket science that copper wiring doesn’t like to be openly exposed to the rain, just requires some to pull finger and do a proper job.
I recently had a two week outage on ADSL, not because the copper failed but because there has been a large new building go up in the area, and they had a lot of pits open and some bozo just happened to cut my line in the process. The two weeks was just twiddling thumbs waiting for someone to show up and fix a very simple problem. Their excuse was that all their guys were busy. How about that?
God’s whatever
“Following this warped logic:”
The only one here with a warped logic is you.
The coalition’s estimate based on worst case scenarii with you magically becomes a central scenario. Why? Wait for it. Because this is what Malcolm believes. Not only that, it also because the author believes (now, that makes all the difference) that the combined scenarii are “a) “reasonable, plausible”; b) “better reflect consensus opinion” ;c) “much more likely forecast”. On the other hand, NBNco’s chosen parameters are described as “optimistic assumptions”.”
In other words, the world according to the coalition is the truth. Any other explanation is wrong and misguided.
Well, let me try this logic on you. I think you are a moron because:
a) It is reasonable , plausible
b) better reflects consensus
c) much more likely to be the case
Other the other hand, anyone you thinks otherwise is overly kind to you.
The point here is. I don’t really know whether you are a moron (even though your posts find me toying with the possibility). Surely my saying so would hardly represent irrefutable evidence. If you understood scientific principles, you would already know that appeal to one’s belief or opinion is not one of them.
Furthermore, to say that Malcolm is not lying because he believes his estimate is reasonable, omits one little detail: He does not say so. What he says is “It will cost”, not it could cost. Likewise, with his agreeing with Alan Jones’ nonsense. Face up to it, your idol is a liar.
Cost and technology aside does anybody else think the timeframe they propose is BS?
Correct me if I get this wrong with any of the figures but they propose to have every household with connection by 2016 (70% FTTN; 20% FTTP; and a sat for the rest) at 25MB. So that would mean that approx 2 million homes would be connected to FTTP by 2016. Even under the present rollout which is soley focused on FTTP this is optimistic. Then you factor in connecting FTTN for the other 10 million households in less than three years so it all seems a little bit BS. In the press conference one journalist raised timeframes but due to his manner this was easily shut down and we were told it’s easily do-able. I think this just a sly attempt to make people believe that they might be one of the lucky ones to get FTTP if they roll the dice with the coalitions plan. Anyway I think they spent more time on this policy trying to deceive the public rather than coming up with a well thought out position.
Please comment if you think any of this is wrong as it has been stuck in my head for a couple of days.
If the nbn provide the FTTH service its apparently and technically kosher. If private enterprise provide the FTTH from a FTTN termination, that is technically identical.
The only difference is the cost. Those that wish a FTTH solution can pay the extra 3K. Its about the same as a bigger TV. Hopefully however, they will be able to connect a lot sooner.
The two policies are technically identical except for cost to the consumer and bureaucratic oversight.
I want the coalitions solution, it makes sense, for those that need FTTH and those that dont.
Good point. I paid about $400 for my last TV and it is plenty big enough… but at least some people are happy to spend a bit extra, and those people should be spending their own money.
The real problem is Telstra’s long held access control over the pits and ducts. That’s what government should have been addressing — open it up to competition and the cost sorts itself out. Having said that, Telstra still owns the pits and ducts under an NBN scenario (the contract is a leasing agreement, not sale of property).
“The two policies are technically identical except for cost to the consumer and bureaucratic oversight.”
You can’t be serious ?
Very serious. Which part of a simple statement are you having troubles with.
Do you realise there is no technical penalty from having the optical switching in the street “Dalek” Vs the exchange ?
There are other major advantages. The main one, simple but critical, is the possibility to retain a powered line to the home, rather then the subscriber having to maintain a battery for blackout issues.
If you want 100Mbps+ there is a pretty cheap pathway: Ring up some local contractors and get a quote to run fibre to your home from the local Dalek.
“Ring up some local contractors and get a quote to run fibre to your home from the local Dalek.”
I am a contractor with O and SC-FT endorsements and quite frankly I find it laughable one would consider FTTP and FTTH technically identical!
Well for fully detached premises they generally are…
(Note your typo).
Finally someone with some technical knowledge. Think it through. The node solution just moves the optical switching closer to the premises – if its done correctly, its actually a better solution.
My thoughts are being checked with my peers as we speak and we rarely agree on anything but their is a consensus on this one so far.
I have to go out but I genuinely welcome your input and will respond later.
Actually it isn’t. Switching in networks is the biggest overhead. You want to reduce it as much as possible. Adding in a kerbside node often adds in another “hop” that wouldn’t actually be required.
The only advantage of a close node is for local neighbourhood connections which is not what we generally use the connection for.
“Adding in a kerbside node often adds in another “hop” that wouldn’t actually be required”
It also adds requirements for power, battery backup, space on council land, another point of failure and increased db loss… to name a few :)
Power to the node is a positive. It allows legacy systems to continue to operate.
Optical attenuation isn’t an issue here.
A dalek will be needed, but miniaturisation can be accommodated.
On the plus sign, it’s realistic so it should meet its design time frames, which means you will see ftth in a realistic timeframe, It will just cost a bit from your pocket but it was going to anyway.
Power to the node is a positive. It allows legacy systems to continue to operate.
You mean those same legacy systems that can be powered off the RJ-11 port on the NTU?
On the plus sign, it’s realistic so it should meet its design time frames, which means you will see ftth in a realistic timeframe, It will just cost a bit from your pocket but it was going to anyway.
So basically you’re saying in a backhanded way you think the NBN timeframe isn’t realistic here?
“On the plus sign, it’s realistic so it should meet its design time frames”
Do you think the Coalition included being held to ransom by Telstra on renegotiating terms of the copper network as well as local councils approval to install cabinets ?
Wonder what the time frame will be like after those hurdles are crossed as well as a design period…. I think an extra 3 or so years need to be added to the Coalitions plan plus 5billion dollars :)
Agreed it can, but the distributed switching transit time (fttn) Vs centralised at the exchange (ftth) isnt so straight forward or universally predictable. You could probably have a bet each way here.
Umm, yes it is… predicting round trip time (latency) is one of the most fundamental parts of network design.
Additional transit time across the switch??
Like 15 microseconds worst case. Or perhaps negative 15 microseconds if it reduces the switch load in an exchange somewhere. Not that significant really is it?
I disagree that you can universally predict this, given that in Australia there are many streets with many different switching scenarios before the A and B ends are connected. It is very wrong of you to offer an unqualified answer to a very complex question which ultimately has miniscule ramifications.
So because there are some edge cases you cannot make a generalisations based upon the topology? Jeez, I’m glad you’re not in charge of a major network project, you’d rip someone’s head off for giving you statistics on typical performance to end user because “It is very wrong of you to offer an unqualified answer to a very complex question”.
Fact, FTTN will, on average, add another hop to the network compared to FTTH. Fact, in general adding more hops is detrimental to network performance. Ergo, another hop is a negative aspect when compared to FTTH, which moves, as you put it, the optical switching even closer to the premises. That is, into it.
And Fact .. If you ignore the relevance of distributed switching as opposed to centralised switching the effect of your extra hop would add an additional 0.075% to a typical australian route. Thats close to nothing.
If you take the case of distributed switching making a single switch in the exchange redundant, it balances the equation exactly. And so forth ..
You are right – If you offered that advise in a systems engineering meeting without the conclusions or caveats indicating the the effect at best would be trivial I would be very interested in sampling whatever you put in your coffee and questioning you as to why your hadn’t shared it around.
In this case I return to my original submission to guide the non-technical: Both solutions are technically identical. One will arrive in a realistic time frame, but cost you about $3k if you want the ftth solution.
Good night all and thanks
@ Mike Sc
Simple question please… Why is it ok for a government to build to the node.. but not to the premises?
Is there really a sound, logical rationale to this FttN is ok, but hey, pay for your own FttP? Or is it purely based on ones ideology?
Technically there just is no difference. Think about it.
You want ftth – go get it – (Or in some cases on this forum, ask your mother to get it for you.)
As to usage, I must admit when I hear Gillard, Conroy, Abbott and Turnbull open their mouths I just cringe. How on earth would they know what people want or need.
From a system viewpoint, build it to the Dalek (Actually the NBN already does this in a limited fashion – the five lines from the house are already terminated in the street.) and then let each householder adjust the last leg to their requirements at the time. This may cater for the legacy requirements which have been wrongly ignored so far.
The FTTN is going to happen. Labor thankfully is now about to leave us. The lucky ones left in the industry survived and we dont want the fttn solution diluted or sabotaged.
The latency of the project is about to disappear. Lets see it on time, and on budget. We need it.
Sorry I didnt actually answer your question – Governments don’t actually build anything – they just talk about it – Haven t you noticed ?
Yeeees… still no answer.
You back building FttN and “if you want FttP pay”…
So again I ask, why is it ok to build FttN and not FttP?
Ya know I reckon the Philosophical differences in NBN Solutions can be explained quite easily:
The Coalition are Like Ferengi’s, they want to maximise profits for themselves and their mates and dont care about other ppl’s futures
and
The ALP are like the Federation, they want to improve everyones lives and want to do the “right thing” for everyone’s future.
Yes, I’ve been watching a lot of Star Trek lately! :-D
“Those that wish a FTTH solution can pay the extra 3K”
Going on the Coalition’s costings it could not possibly be 3K. They have over 3K as their upgrade from FTTN to FTTH in a volume rollout. Single premises upgrade must be much more. Whether it’s double, triple or more I don’t know. It would be nice if he could specify a number. The fact he hasn’t could mean it’s very high.
Private enterprise efficiency here would definitely play a part. The NBN ground crews are paid peanuts, and they will grab any chance to eliminate conroy’s middle men. Your right about economies of scale. The householder becomes the project manager for his premise.
This is going to happen, and it will spawn an industry.
Private enterprise efficiency?
You mean the same private enterprise who wouldn’t build FttN or FttP? The same PP who decided no ADSL2 for you (think Seinfeld), the same PP who stopped competition by not allowing access to their exchanges, the same PP who kept prices high and competitors marginally undercut them to say, gee look at us, what great guys are we… but all prices were ridiculously high, the same PP who’s only concern is profits… etc, etc
Yes, that’s them…
If people want the faster speeds offered by FTTP they have to pay more under the current NBN in terms of monthly access costs, so you are still paying your own way.
Those that don’t need FTTP and would suffice with equivalent service they would get under FTTP can buy a slower plan, but be assured they get more reliable service not affected by factors like water ingress, and a cheap and easily obtainable upgrade path as their needs change over time.
They policies are not technically identical, and if you lived in a low income family you would know the prospect of paying a few thousand dollars to get an upgrade is a lot harder to manage that paying an extra few tens of dollars a month.
In other words you’re talking about placing an arbitrary financial hurdle for anyone who wants to get over (an average of) 40Mbps under the Coalition plan, where as under the NBN the pricing hurdles are more gradual and market driven.
You seem to be under the impression that if you don’t need FTTP speeds that the investment in FTTP is not required. This is incorrect, as in order to keep costs down, you rely on economies of scale. To connect each service independently is a very expensive proposition for the ISP, and would actually result in higher access prices for those on FTTP than it would otherwise.
Further, add to the extra expense of the FTTN equipment and the overall cost, in terms of impact to the consumers, not the amount the government has to borrow, will end up, in even the medium term, costing more.
This of course will not be immediately apparent as the cost of access to basic services (less than 100Mbps) may be less, but the cost of access to higher tier services (more than 100Mbps) will be artificially inflated significantly.
That side affect would be tolerable if demand patterns for speed increasing was slow or static, but all data we have indicates this is not the case.
It is true that the ability to vocalise why this is has been difficult, and that like the megapixel wars, we are likely to plateau in the future as the benefits of increased speed start to show diminishing returns, however it is clear this plateau is, from existing services available and demand for these services, in excess of 100Mbps, although arguably not as constantly suggested, in the range of 1Gbps or more (unless some new applications come along that require a heavier bandwidth share, which is likely, however not within the scope of the current political debate).
If the plateau point was around 50Mbps the Coalition plan would actually appear to be a reasonable compromise, because the vast majority of consumers would be able to receive this service without upgrading to FTTP and only SMEs run from home, and heavy users, would be willing to pay the extra.
The Coalition plan is a cautious approach that will need to be taken if the government continues to mandate the growth of this sector, but they’re apply the breaks of caution well and truly before we’re in danger.
Under the current scheme, the underprivileged household wont get it at all.
This provides an opportunity where none exists now –
Private sector independence meeting demand.
I do agree that $3K is lot out here, but its still only the cost of a bigger tv.
“Under the current scheme, the underprivileged household wont get it at all.”
Please explain?
Under the current scheme, the underprivileged household wont get it at all.
Under the current scheme the underprivileged household will have FTTH connected up to them home for free and pay equivalent to what they have been paying now for ADSL2+. Therefore this statement is completely false.
This provides an opportunity where none exists now –
Private sector independence meeting demand.
This statement also doesn’t make sense in the context of my post. I was comparing the two policies eventual outcomes, and both of them are effectively a monopoly entity in the form of GBE (NBNCo) taking over the lions share of the market from Telstra.
I do agree that $3K is lot out here, but its still only the cost of a bigger tv.
Actually, it isn’t. A large TV (50″) costs around $1000 in the current market. Maybe your family is well off, or more precisely, frankly retarded enough to think they need an 70-80″ and actually have somewhere to put the darn thing, but I can assure you that low income familiar would rather spend $2000 on food and lodging then get another 20″.
But hey, let’s live in a fantasy land with $3000 is a reasonable cost of a Television and low income families are going to be charged minimum $100/m to access the NBN. *facepalm*
However, despite the fact that the Coalition’s policy document contains a range of cases, over the past week senior Coalition figures such as Shadow Communications Minister Turnbull and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott have referred only to the $94 billion figure.
I agree this is not squeaky-clean honest. It is very much like ADSL2+ being up to 20M bit per second speed (when actually most people get around 10M).
However, in saying that, I’ll point out that the NBN also advertises up to 100M bit per second, even when they know GPON can’t deliver this speed simultaneously to all users (and there will inevitably be contention at the POP on top of the GPON contention). The ALP has consistently been using fairly favourable estimates of their rollout capabilities, even when the NBN had no track record of doing rollouts, and neither has Quigley got a track record of rollouts — so we could be fair to say that all of the estimates are back of the envelope and MAY BE TRUE but there’s no strong credibility to think they will be true.
Everyone’s doing it. Doesn’t make it right, but it does make it normal.
“However, in saying that, I’ll point out that the NBN also advertises up to 100M bit per second, even when they know GPON can’t deliver this speed simultaneously to all users (and there will inevitably be contention at the POP on top of the GPON contention)”
Oh come one. The situation where a 100Mb user can’t get 100Mb is almost statistically zero. The only way it can happen is if every household, ever, not the 70% that likely will, would have to take up 100Mb plans and download at the full speed at the same time, then they would drop to 70Mb.
There is no comparison between that scenario and the one Turnbull is basing his”if it can go wrong it will go wrong and badly” scenario.
lying, misleading, lying by omission or not correcting falsehoods when they have the opportunity. Turnbull and Abbott are coming of looking like a couple of used car salesmen
Is there anything that can be done from a legal point of view against MT for lying like this?
The LNP plan mentions that in areas where the copper is unsuitable for FTTN, FTTP will be used. It does not, however, allow a likely cost for such eventuality.
Given the numerous reports by technicians, working on the copper network, the amount of unsuitable copper may be quite considerable. Furthermore, the statement by Telstra many years ago that the network was at 5 minutes to midnight seem to validate these reports.
Now, taking into account the $2800 (quoted by NBNco and used by the LNP in their plan) to connect each premises, a 10% level of unsuitability (or 1.22 million premises) sees an additional cost of $3.4 billion. Admittedly, the cost of connecting from the node must deducted. ( Should anyone know, I would love to know what it is).
What could be the additional cost that needs to be added to the coalition costing? Well, no one really knows (not even Turnbull). The coalition’s plan becomes more expansive, the greater the percentage of premises needing to be connected to the premises.
If this is the case, taking into account that the coalition’s policy does not take into account the work already undertaken by and the establishment costs of NBNco, the 17 billion cost difference between the two policies is likely to substantially diminish.
“10% level of unsuitability”
I personally believe it’s a lot higher than 10%. Quite often I get jacked around due to dodgy copper pairs and have to explain to a customer why I must now charge them extra to resolve the issue.
I was just saying that for each 10%, the cost goes up to $3.4billion minus the cost that would have been incurred if it was to the node. So for instance if it is 20%, the cost, before that deduction. would go up to $6.8 billion and so on..
Hey everyone, it’s gotten a little feral on here over the weekend, so I’m closing the NBN threads for now. I’ll re-open new NBN threads on Monday after everyone’s had a bit of a chance to calm down. If you want to continue to debate this stuff right now, there’s always the forums.
Cheers,
Renai
Editor + Publisher, Delimiter
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