news Communications Minister Anthony Albanese appears to have issued a media release deliberately misleading Newcastle residents about how the Coalition’s rival NBN policy would affect the area, with the Labor MP falsely stating that the NSW city would “miss out” on upgraded broadband entirely under the Coalition’s plan.
Under Labor’s National Broadband Network policy, some 93 percent of Australian premises will receive fibre directly to the premise, delivering maximum download speeds of up to 1Gbps. The remainder of the population will be served by a combination of satellite and wireless broadband, delivering speeds of up to 25Mbps.
The Coalition’s policy will see fibre to the premises deployed to a significantly lesser proportion of the population — 22 percent — with 71 percent covered by fibre to the node technology, where fibre is extended to neighbourhood ‘nodes’ and the remainder of the distance to premises covered by Telstra’s existing copper network. The Coalition’s policy will also continue to use the HFC cable network operated by Telstra and will also target the remaining 7 percent of premises with satellite and wireless.
According to the Coalition’s media release issued in April upon the policy’s launch, the Coalition’s policy is based on the core pledge that the group will deliver download speeds of between 25Mbps and 100Mbps by the end of 2016 — effectively the end of its first term in power — and 50Mbps to 100Mbps by the end of 2019, effectively the end of its second term. According to the Coalition’s statement, the 25Mbps to 100Mbps pledge applies to “all premises”, while the higher pledge by 2019 applies to “90 percent of fixed line users”.
The FTTN-style rollout, although technically less capable than the FTTP style used by Labor, has been shown to be viable in a number of other first-world countries, including the UK, where incumbent telco BT recently announced it had passed some 16 million premises with FTTN since 2009, delivering speeds of up to 76Mbps, as well as France, Germany and the United States.
However, in a media release issued yesterday, Communications Minister Anthony Albanese appeared to make a deliberate attempt to deceive residents of Newcastle about the Coalition’s plan.
“Almost 75,000 homes and businesses in Newcastle and across the Hunter will miss out on superfast, affordable and reliable broadband if the Rudd Labor Government is not re-elected at next month’s Federal Election, according to new maps released today,” Albanese’s statement read. The Communications Minister also issued two maps of Newcastle (PDF) showing what the Minister said was a comparison between the two policies when it came to “fibre broadband”. The Coalition’s map has zero premises listed for construction, with the appendage that families and businesses would need to pay “as much as $5,000 for families and businesses to connect to fibre”.
“The maps graphically show the extent to which Tony Abbott and his sidekick Malcolm Turnbull would wreck Federal Labor’s National Broadband Network, denying most in the region access to the boundless educational, health, lifestyle and commercial opportunities this essential infrastructure delivers,” Albanese added.
“Right now, the NBN is rolling out fibre directly to more than 5,300 homes and businesses in and around the Newcastle area. But if there’s a change of government on 7 September that’s as far as the rollout will go. Everyone else will be left with one of two choices: battle on using last century’s copper technology or fork out as much as $5,000 to have fibre connected to their home or business – something people are currently getting for free.”
“For the region’s 10,400 businesses alone, that would be a total financial hit as high as $52 million. However, if the Rudd Labor Government is re-elected the roll out of fibre-to-the-premise will continue by mid-2016 to almost 80,000 homes and businesses in Newcastle, Maitland, Charlestown, Hamilton, Mayfield, Raymond Terrace, Tarro and New Lambton.”
Albanese said Labor’s NBN project was “an investment in our nation’s future prosperity”.
“It will transform the way we live our lives, do business, grow our regions and engage with the rest of world. That’s why access to it should not depend on how much money you have or where you happen to live or do business,” the Communications Minister said. “When it comes superfast, affordable and reliable broadband, only Federal Labor will do it once, do it right, and do it with fibre. Australians now face a clear choice: they can vote for the future and fibre under Labor or the past and copper under the Coalition.”
However, a significant portion of Albanese’s statements in the Labor MP’s media release can be shown to be untrue. For example, most telecommunications experts currently consider that both fibre to the premises and fibre to the node rollout styles deliver what can be described as “superfast” broadband. It is extremely common in the UK, for example, for politicians and commentators from all different points of view to describe BT’s FTTN rollout as “superfast”. This is the phrase used by BT itself to describe the rollout, as well as the UK Government. Likewise, the Coalition’s FTTN solution is expected to be as affordable in terms of its retail prices as Labor’s FTTP solution.
In addition, Australia’s own Telecommunications Act defines ‘superfast’ as matching the Coalition’s broadband infrastructure, due to the fact that it will offer minimum speeds of 25Mbps, and eventually, across the vast majority of Newcastle, speeds of 50Mbps or above. The Act defines a “superfast carriage service” as being a service where “the download transmission speed of the carriage service is normally more than 25 megabits per second”.
The copper component of the Coalition’s FTTN network is inherently less reliable than an all-fibre solution, but FTTN networks are widely considered to be sufficiently reliable and delivering sufficiently high speeds for “the boundless educational, health, lifestyle and commercial opportunities” which Albanese describes Labor’s FTTP NBN as delivering. High definition video links used in education and health, for example, can be delivered through either solution, and the latency offered on each is not significantly different as to affect service delivery.
Albanese’s statement regarding Newcastle residents being required to “battle on using last century’s copper technology” also does not reflect the substantial service delivery upgrades possible with FTTN. FTTN delivers dramatically faster speeds than the current ADSL broadband network over copper, and most of the copper network would be replaced under a FTTN rollout, as the majority of the copper network consists of the distance between telephones exchanges and nodes — slated to be replaced with fibre under the Coalition’s NBN vision.
The Communications Minister’s statement with regard to the “up to $5,000” cost of connecting to the Coalition’s version of the NBN refers to one additional feature of the policy will see the Coalition offer Australians the choice to upgrade their connection to fibre to the premises as under Labor’s existing NBN policy.
The Coalition believes it will be possible to offer this kind of service on a similar basis as it is offered in the UK, where wholesale telco BT Openreach is offering so-called ‘fibre on demand’ extension services at a price depending on how far premises are from their nearby node. According to OpenReach’s price list, costs for the fibre extension service include a £500 (AU$823) initial connection fee and ‘annual rental’ cost of £465 (AU$765), plus a specific charge ranging from £200 (AU$329) up to £3,500 (AU$5,762), depending on the distance premises are from local nodes.
It is likely that many Australians will wish to take advantage of this ‘FTTP on demand’ option. However, it is very unlikely, that Albanese’s claim that all 10,400 businesses in the Newcastle region would all require FTTP speeds to conduct their business, with many operating in fields which very high speed fibre broadband is not required for their work in the medium to long term.
Albanese’s statement is correct in the sense that the technical capabilities of the FTTN network which the Coalition would roll out in Newcastle following an election victory are significantly inferior than the capabilities of Labor’s FTTP infrastructure. However, the details of the Communications Minister’s statement do not accurate reflect the relative merits of the two technologies and their place in the two NBN policies.
It is believed that Albanese is aware of the key strengths and weaknesses of the Coalition’s NBN policy with regard to Labor’s own policy. Delimiter challenged a spokesperson from the Minister’s office with regard to the media release, but the spokesperson supported the veracity of Albanese’s statements in the Newcastle case.
The comments reflect only the latest occasion on which the Communications Minister has misrepresented a situation over the past several months since his appointment. In mid-July, for example, Albanese inaccurately claimed a firm hired by a law firm acting for NBN Co’s board of directors was a “public relations company”, despite the fact that the firm concerned, Bespoke Approach, is listed on the Federal Government’s register of lobbyists and employs former senior politicians for the purposes of providing political management services. Albanese was pushed on the issue by journalists and reiterated his claim.
Albanese has also previously strongly criticised the Coalition’s NBN policy as “bizarre” and “neanderthal”, despite the successful examples of the use of FTTN in several other major first-world countries having demonstrated that the rollout style delivers substantial service delivery benefits to residents and businesses.
Labor MPs in general are also engaging in misrepresentation when it comes to the Coalition’s NBN policy. A number of ALP election advertisements have inaccurately claimed, for example, that Liberal policy would see Australians forced to pay up to $5,000, or else they would be left “on the old, slow copper network”, while connection to Labor’s fibre-based NBN would be free.
However, the Coalition has also made a number of misleading statements about Labor’s NBN project over the past several years. In one of the more blatant examples of misleading commentary, Federal Shadow Education Minister Christopher Pyne inaccurately claimed on national radio in October that the National Broadband Network had not connected any customers at speeds of 100Mbps, despite the fact that in fact, 44 percent of NBN customers connected to the project’s fibre infrastructure at that point had taken up such speeds. There have been several dozen other similar examples over that period.
In a more recent example, several weeks ago Opposition Leader Tony Abbott inaccurately claimed that the rollout of Labor’s National Broadband Network in Tasmania will take “80 years” to complete, in what Labor’s Regional Communications Minister Sharon Bird immediately labelled a deliberate attempt to deceive residents and businesses in the state.
Similar to the misleading infographics distributed by Labor MPs over the past several months, an infographic currently published on the Facebook page of the Liberal Party of Australia misrepresents Labor’s policy. It conflates Labor’s initial, $4.7 billion policy outlined in 2007 with its reformed 2009 policy, falsely alleging a blowout from $4.7 billion to $90 billion in the project, and a decade-long project timetable extension.
The ongoing misleading comments has led academics to label the NBN debate as having been poisoned by a constant series of inaccurate and misleading statements.
opinion/analysis
Note: The word “lie” is very seldom used in an article on Delimiter, because it is quite hard to prove deliberate deception. However, in this case its use is clearly justified. I am aware that the office of Anthony Albanese is aware of the misleading election material distributed by some Labor MPs and of the concerns around its accuracy. In this context, and given Albanese’s extensive knowledge of both NBN policies, it is clear that his statements with regard to the Newcastle NBN rollout represent a deliberate attempt to mislead the electorate. And that is something no Australian should countenance, no matter which side of politics attempts it.
Image credit: Toby Hudson, Creative Commons
Until ‘superfast’ is a defined term then you don’t have a leg to stand on. Or perhaps you think Albo should be making up new words like ‘megafast’, ‘ultrafast’, ‘uberfast’ etc?
Poor article.
The UK Government clearly classifies the BT FTTN rollout as superfast. Quite a lot of documentation here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/britains-superfast-broadband-future
As far as I am concerned, FTTN meets the definition of superfast.
United States recently redefined broadband as requiring a download speed of 4 Megabits per second (Mbps) and an upload speed of 1 Mbps, minimum.
http://www.lightreading.com/fttx/fcc-broadband-starts-at-4-mbits/240120306
Broadband is defined in Australia as greater than 256 kbps.
I’d be very careful how you apply definitions from other countries.
Can I just clarify one thing.
WE ARE NOT THE U.K.
Can we please stop using this link between a country that has completely different economical/sociological and geological climate conditions. Our copper is not their copper their copper is not ours, our housing density is not the same.
I also don’t understand why we are holding up the UK as a template to follow.
The UK has a Debt to GDP ratio of 93.1%. Australia’s ratio is 27.1%. Should we follow the UK in that regard too?
Follow the UK for broadband but don’t follow the UK for economic policy. Got it.
Is this in the Liberal’s real solutions for real people travel brochure to fantasy land?
“WE ARE NOT THE U.K.”
This was my reaction as well…if FTTN were successful on Necker Island (Branson’s home), would that be a case to state as well? There is very little to compare between Aus and the UK vis a vis broadband success and requirements. For example population density is vastly different (they have 260/sqkm, we have 3/sqkm), and that is one of the most important factors required for success with FTTN.
if people just bothered to do a little research about the roll out and technology of major OCED / western economies they will realise the the NBNCo solution is unfeasible and all these politicians are just wasting y our time.
The countries who have gone for FTTN are basically
UK/England
USA
Germany
France
Canada
etc.
While there are pockets of FTTP often built by non-incumbent providers in these countries, they tend to cherrypick profitable areas and are in not really comparable with a ‘national’ network rollout, which the major OCED developed countries have opted for FTTN as the technology and speeds – going forward.
The only countries that are doing FTTP are the high dense and technology centric countries like Japan and sth korea and some parts of europe, where even there there is a technology mix, and the FTTP technology isnt particularly profitable either.
If we look at the equipment and fibre suppliers you will see that their country of origin are mainly the western developed ones, where even with their economies of scale, larger economies, population and density, and diversity in economic industries, they have opted not to go for a universal FTTP solution.
And to further clarify, Australia is primarily a resources and agricultural economy, with some aspects of manufacturing, but it is certainly not an economy and demographic where there is a need for FTTP. Certainly way less justified than technology leaders like Germany & USA both of which have opted for FTTN as the technology going forward.
I hope this is the nail on the coffin for this debate.
The UK government also allows BT to call their VDSL network “Fibre” and are therefore idiots. Further proof of this is their plan to do vectoring over mixed VDSL (from node) / ADSL (from exchange) bundles.
Let’s redefine “superfast” in our Telecommunications Act as “greater than 100mbits/sec” and then this won’t be an issue.
People will stop using the same terms to compare:
“50mbits or faster only guaranteed to 90% of subscribers, from 2016” (with a probably upstream speed of 3mbit)
to:
“1000/400mbit regardless of line length, available end-of-this-year.”
What I want to know is how the libs are going to guarantee 50mbps to 90% of people? How are they going to improve speeds from 25 to 50mbit? Vectoring, or shorter lines / new nodes? I reckon we’ll see their VDSL network become very expensive, or that speed or % guarantee slip.
Hi Renai, I thought I’d just weigh in on this topic with another view regarding “superfast”. IBM’s “A Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050” (p6 of Executive Summary) uses the following nomenclature:
Broadband : 2-25 Mbps
Fast broadband : 26-100 Mbps
Superfast broadband : 100+ Mbps
Giga-speed broadband : 1000+ Mbps (1+ Gbps)
High-speed broadband : Term to capture all above broadband speeds
While I like IBM’s definitions, the best that can be said about this debate is that it’s a pointless thing to debate when there are so many conflicting definitions, and in that sense Sven is right.
This is useful information, but IBM’s definition goes against what’s being used internationally. I mean … very few countries can provide any access to their citizens of broadband beyond 100Mbps. Pretty much everyone right now is defining superfast as including HFC, FTTN and FTTP. I don’t know how you get around that, especially when it’s also enshrined in Australia’s own Telecommunications Act. If Albanese is working on a different definition, he should have said that.
To be accurate, all he did have to say was that the Coalition wouldn’t be providing FTTP. I don’t know what’s so hard about that. Why does Labor assume that the Australian population is too dumb to understand the difference between ADSL, FTTN and FTTP? They’re not that complex concepts.
The report outlines projections for Australian industries to 2050. It is unsurprising that the context doesn’t match overseas markets today. While very few countries have greater than 100Mbps services, there are also some (Japan for example) that have as high as 2GBps services for 50 bucks a month, and everyone else in the world looking on in envy, so you can’t really call it from that.
This whole thing is about marketing to the uninformed. I don’t really know that I could say for sure that all these companies “describe” all those technologies as “superfast”, so much as they “market” those technologies as “superfast”. IBM, here, have at least taken a technical approach. IBM, also, may provide services over “superfast” (100+ Mbps) internet or otherwise benefit from it, but they do not offer “superfast” (HFC, FTTN, FTTP) internet services. Because of these two things, along with the simplicity and clarity of the nomenclature, I ‘trust’ IBM’s definitions, and if you were to ask me if we should adopt a standard nomenclature, I would nominate IBM’s.
(On the other hand, Broadband UK’s Superfast Broadband report simply defines superfast broadband as “faster than that achieved by ADSL: >24Mbps”, in which case, you’re already getting superfast broadband in your MDU.)
But my point is not that we should use IBM’s nomenclature (although I do like it) as the standard in this discussion, my point is very much the same as Sven’s: because there is no standard definition, we can only choose subjective definitions, and what may be your definition may not apply to Albanese. Can you really say that Albanese is even aware of the definition, AND that Albanese shares your definition; and therefore, can you truly say that Albanese is ‘lying’ with knowledge and intention, and not ‘making a gaffe’ like Abbott does, or ‘skirting around the truth’ like Turnbull does?
And I’m sorry, but Australians can be that dumb: http://media.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national-news/one-nation-candidate-describes-islam-as-a-country-4643213.html (These comments have gotten pretty heavy and serious, so have a few laughs before bed. :)
*2Gbps that is, not 2GBps…
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2034643/sony-isp-launches-worlds-fastest-home-internet-2gbps.html
Nothing is being used internationally. There is no internationally defined definition of these terms. Your bizarre support of the Liberals has resulted in a mockery of an article.
“Why does Labor assume that the Australian population is too dumb to understand the difference between ADSL, FTTN and FTTP? They’re not that complex concepts.”
Does Malcolm’s boss understand the concepts? He struggles with “peak speeds”. When I next see my 6 year old granddaughter I must ask her if she knows what “peak” means.
In the UK “The Definition of UK Superfast Next Generation Broadband [1] OFCOM have defined NGA as in “Ofcom’s March 2010 ‘Review of the wholesale local access market” “Super-fast broadband is generally taken to mean broadband products that provide a maximum download speed that is greater than 24 Mbit/s.”
So the LBN is “superfast”, but sits at the bottom of the scale (initially, and dependant on how the vectoring trials go here).
The EU standard within their Digital Agenda has “superfast” meaning speeds greater 30Mb minimum
So while the first stage rollout isn’t truely “superfast” the second stage is.
@Sven
Superfast Carriage Service is defined in the Telecommunications Act 1997 Section 141 as this definition is referred to in some of the ACCC and NBN legislation.
When you read the definition it becomes clear why the LNP policy only guarantees 25Mbps Download and does not mention upload. They have have chosen to on just meet that definition.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ta1997214/s141.html
Thanks for this info from the Telecommunications Act; I have added it into the article.
Superfast is a bullshit term anyway as over time the definition changes just look a the UK was minimum of 25Mbps and now is 30Mbps to bring it into line with europe and will be revised later no doubt as the term is always a relative term.
My preference would be a simple term based on actual speed eg
Mega-Speed ADSL VDSL ect
Giga-Speed FttH and maybe FttB(G-Fast,Cat6)
Tera-Speed Future FttH
Would work fine as it is a metric already in use in HDD which people are familiar with
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what the Australian Bureau of Statistics use at their top tier threshold.
Mind you, it’s arbitrary because in many cases a 4M/4M symmetric or a 10M/10M symmetric does a better job, depending on what you want to do. Flexibility is the key here.
Government of course requires something to be their standard, and so 25M download is the standard. *shrug*
Ummm… have you read the Telecommunications Act recently?
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2012C00584/Html/Text:
superfast carriage service means a carriage service, where:
(a) the carriage service enables end‑users to download communications; and
(b) the download transmission speed of the carriage service is normally more than 25 megabits per second; and
(c) the carriage service is supplied using a line to premises occupied or used by an end‑user.
Superfast is legally defined in Australia as a download speed of 25Mbps and there is no upload requirement.
Please note that the purpose of this definition in the act is to restrict “superfast” competition to the NBN so the Govenrment deliberately low-balled the speed used to define superfast to provide the maximum protection to the NBN.
Mind = blown.
Carry on.
If 25 Mbps is not superfast then how would you describe it?
Is it slow, glacial, moving at a snail’s pace?
… oh wait … I think I’ve described the pace of Labor’s NBN rollout.
To be fair, Labor isn’t the one rolling the NBN out, so it is a lie- sorry, it is inaccurate to say that “Labor’s NBN rollout” is slow as that is akin to saying “Labor’s rollout of the NBN” is slow. If you had instead said “the rollout of Labor’s NBN” is slow, that would have been accurate.
(Since we’re all into arguing semantics today.)
I liked your use of the word glacial, but I’d use the term snowball. While the size of the snowball is small to begin with, as it rolls it gets bigger and bigger, and that perfectly reflects the rate of the rollout. The snowball is still getting bigger, and I trust that you are capable of patience, just as I am.
would you site adsl 2+ as superfast?
No, especially considering many people on ADSL2+ don’t even get 10Mbps.
Which upload speeds would you classify as ‘superfast’?
I’m not the authority on this — it doesn’t matter what my personal definition is. Internationally, commentators are applying the term to FTTN, HFC and FTTP networks. Whether it can apply to 4G mobile networks is less clear, given the capacity constraints on such networks, although they do have high speeds.
FTTN so far appears to be able to offer speeds up to 76Mbps or thereabouts, HFC does 100Mbps in Australia, and I think it has done better overseas, and FTTP of course does up to 1Gbps under the NBN model, with future upgrades unlocking higher speeds. Most commentators are classifying all three as superfast, and there are also further roadmaps for emerging faster speeds under all three technologies.
And people on Malcolm’s Fibre to the Copper will actually GET 25 Meg not 10*25/24?
Apparently in 2009 Angel Merkel made promises similar to those being made now by Malcolm Turnbull but they aren’t working out.
Chrome translation “In international comparison, Germany is at most in the midfield. 90 percent of users have less than ten megabits per second. So about 40 Mbit /s, is less than Merkel had promised.” http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/schmalband-deutschland-warum-unser-internet-immer-noch-zu-langsam-ist-a-901508.html
When it comes to rolling your own fibre, does “up to $5,000” mean NO MORE than $5,000 and Malcolm will pick up any difference?
Joe Hockey is promising a surplus in every year AFTER reducing company tax. Are Malcolm’s promises more or less credible?
Renai fervently believes that turnbull will completely and utterly hold to his promises of providing the necessary speeds at the proposed costs. After all, why would turnbull lie? It’s not as if he’s lied before, right…?
No, especially considering many people on ADSL2+ don’t even get 10Mbps.
“ITU ITU G.992.5 (also referred to as ADSL2+) is an International Telecommunication Union standard for asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) broadband Internet access. The standard has a maximum theoretical download speed of 24 Mbit/s.”
People may not get the full 24Mbit/s, but that’s the “real world” for you.
And just like ADSL2+, FTTN/FTTC can have it’s own “issues” with not getting it’s theoretical maximum:
http://community.bt.com/t5/BB-Speed-Connection-Issues/bd-p/BBinHome
Back in the day, broadband was defined as anything faster than 56k dialup, so 128k adsl was (and as it still meets that definition, still is) considered broadband, but you wouldnt categorise it as that.
Liberals have guaranteed 25 Mbps, thats it. Even in 2019, they only guarantee 25 Mbps, or 1 Mbps faster than what ADSL2 can deliver. I hardly call that superfast.
Whats the minimum speed FttH guarantees?
No, the Libs are guaranteeing 50Mbps to most people:
“According to the Coalition’s media release issued in April upon the policy’s launch, the Coalition’s policy is based on the core pledge that the group will deliver download speeds of between 25Mbps and 100Mbps by the end of 2016 — effectively the end of its first term in power — and 50Mbps to 100Mbps by the end of 2019, effectively the end of its second term. According to the Coalition’s statement, the 25Mbps to 100Mbps pledge applies to “all premises”, while the higher pledge by 2019 applies to “90 percent of fixed line users”.”
‘to most people’ – which means some people miss out, in which case, they are only guaranteed 25 Mbps for the same technology level as everyone else.
To me, even if its just 10% of those on FttN, that means the guarantee is only 25 Mbps.
“…while the higher pledge by 2019 applies to “90 percent of fixed line users”.”
90% is not all.
All sourced from the LNP policy and background documents.
* The expected coverage by access type is 3% Satellite, 4% Fixed Wireless, 22% FTTP, 71% FTTN
* The LNP proposal is guaranteeing minimum of 50Mbps to 90% of fixed line services by the end of 2019, ie by 2020.
* The LNP proposal is composed of 93% fixed line services and %7 non-fixed line services
* Of the 93% fixed line services, 83.7% (0.9 x 93) will guaranteed 50Mbps minimum and 9.3% will only get 25Mbps minimum
* Any rational technical analysis of FTTP GPON would conclude that it will be able to deliver 50Mbps or greater
If you consider all of the above statements, taken and supported by the LNP policy, to be true you must arrive at the following conclusion.
The 10% of fixed line services that aren’t guaranteed 50Mbps minimum will come from FTTN access services only. The means there are two classes of FTTN users, 9.3% of total subscribers that will get 25Mbps and the 61.7% that will get 50Mbps minimum.
—-
Some people will say that is OK, I am prepared to gamble and not be in the 13.09% of FTTN subscribers unlucky enough to not get 50Mbps minimum.
But I would ask them this, what does the 90% “guarantee” mean? In reality IMHO it means that no single FTTN fixed line subscriber is guaranteed 50Mbps minimum, they are only guaranteed 25Mbps. That is the real guaranteed minimum.
Malcolm Turnbull has already pointed out why this might be the case, indirectly though. He has stated many times that the $29.5B is a hard funding cap, NBNco can not go over it as they will not receive any further funding.
MT has also indicated that laying copper is on par with laying fibre in terms of costs and it is avoiding the laying of new cables of either type to the customer is why their plan is cheaper.
From this I can only conclude that NBNco must avoid cost blowouts by keeping a tight control on remediation work, particularly that which involves new cables.
The 13.09% of FTTN that will not be guaranteed 50Mbps by 2020 (end of 2019) will include some subscribers that have a line condition that allows them to achieve the 25Mbps but not 50Mbps and may go unremediated.
What if you were previously obtaining 50Mbps+ but due to deterioration of the line it drops below 50Mbps but above 25Mbps? Is that considered a fault or will your service be shuffled from being of the 61.7% services to be one of the 9.3% column that lose out?
Hopefully that makes clear why I believe the 71% of subscribers on FTTN are only being offered an effective guaranteed minimum speed of 25Mbps until 2020.
A more accurate breakdown the LNP coverage would be:
3% Satellite
4% Fixed Wireless
9.3% FTTN (25Mbps)
22% FTTP
61.7% FTTN (50Mbps)
Where will that 9.3% of all premise served be located? They will be everywhere, in cities, suburbs and regional towns. You could be getting the full 100Mbps aggregate bandwidth Turnnbull speaks of (assuming you’re living in the node… does that make it FTTP?) and drop to 30Mbps after some “line work” is done and it would still be OK.
Oh, and someone needs to get Turnbull to fully account for the speeds he talks of. I believe it can only be treated as aggregate link capacity (ie Down + Up) otherwise an under funded NBNco might be tempted to fixed a line that is only getting 24/2 by reconfiguring it as 25/1. This would be very wrong.
This is a very simple analysis if you look at it from a real and practical point of view, and not the political / fabricated one.
Just forget the Lib / Lab NBN solutions for one minute.
Look at with the other major OECD’s have done, theyve completed their NBN, ie. a FTTN network, based on FTTN technology. These are countries like the USA, Germany, France, UK, who are technology leaders and have competitive advantage in being part of the EU, or in the case of USA being the largest world economy with a diverse mixture of technology, and in all cases a wealthy, educated, and advanced economy.
Now, Aust. always lags the OECD developed countries, it makes sense to adopt their technology as they simply have economies of scale that AU doesnt have.
For the above reason, if AU tries to forced through a project which by comparison the above developed nations have determined to be feasible , the result would be the one that we are seeing now ie.
– cost blow outs
– contractor defaulting
– slow rollout time and not meeting targets
– poor rate of investment return
finally leading to failure of the projects, thanks to politicians.
@Dude
I’d like to point out-
France- Doing FTTP to 90% by 2020
USA- Half FTTN, Half FTTH. Also Google fiber
Germany- Their FTTN is closer to FTTH than our FTTN would be; they have 330 000 nodes for 10 million premises….or approx. 10 times what Turnbull is suggesting….
– You also failed to list the other OECD countries like Japan, Korea, Honk Kong….but they didn’t suit your narrative because they are doing almost solely FTTH or at worst FTTB.
So, yes, in fact, Australia IS following the OECD counties. They’re all moving to FTTH.
First: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon
Second: No other country has made an NBN, they have all relied on some form of regulated public/private partnership. Australia is the only country so far that has decided to opt for a GBE to solve the Broadband issue.
it’s all about perception.
my current adsl2 connection gets about 9mb down, and for me, that’s not that fast, but to others (my parents and friends), that is really fast.
to quantify the terms really means nothing if the perception does not change…
Do not trust the coalition Broadband policy
Rememebr OPEL coalition were claiming it was rolling out
yet OPEL never ever existed as a company
“Opel” was a consortium of Optus and Elders, which did and do exist as companies. And I don’t think the Coalition ever claimed it was being rolled out — the 2007 election happened before they could get started.
OPEL never existed as a seperate company to Optus and Elders which is was meant to be
http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/deals/14991-opel-it-doesnt-exist-yet
When asked by iTWire if he could give a timeframe for Opel coming into being, Ferris replied: “I cannot. There are a number of conditions [to be met]. It has no staff and I am not officially allowed to refer to it in any way shape for form. But Optus and Elders are searching for a CEO for this hypothetical organisation and we are doing testing in WA and NSW to provide certified results. Once the Government is satisfied with those and signs the require bond document to fund this organisation called Opel [it will be formed].”
However, communications minister, Helen Coonan, announced on 9 September that “the funding agreement for a new national high speed broadband network has been signed with Opel Networks, a joint venture between rural group Elders and Optus.” She added: “Opel has already commenced work on establishing its new scalable, state-of-the-art WiMAX, ADSL2+ and fibre wholesale network that is targeted for completion by June 2009.”
As I said in a different post, OPEL was always really just Optus. Elders was tacked on in an effort to make the thing look like a consortium. But you’re also confusing OPEL the company with OPEL the project. Clearly the Government was working with Optus on a project called OPEL to roll out broadband infrastructure. Did they actually set up a company called OPEL? It looks like they didn’t get it across the line. But Optus was doing *stuff*, and so was the Government. Labor stopped that.
I can go over this seven year old history endless if you want me to ;)
Yes Renai
coonan did claim OPEL was rolling out that she enabled an OPEL exchange
whic was not true
Here the press release of coonan cliaming she rolled out somethign which was a lie
http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/coonan/media/media_releases/new_opel_project_underway
Turnbull has lied on a multitude of occasions over the last 3 years, but you have never ever so blatantly callied it a “lie” in the title of an article.
One brochure from Albo that says under Turnbull’s plan most people will stay on copper (technically true, not a LIE) and if you want fibre it will cost “up to” $5000 – not a LIE.
And you argue semantics on what is “SUPERFAST”, decide your statement is true, ignore uploads, and outright call the national communications minister a LIAR.
Poor, poor, form, Renai.
“Turnbull has lied on a multitude of occasions over the last 3 years”
Happy to publish those examples if you can send them to me. There are two conditions for defining a lie — the statement has to be demonstrably factually inaccurate and the person saying it has to be aware that that is the case when they said it.
Typically Turnbull exaggerates and skirts around the truth, to be sure, but it’s been very hard to catch him in a situation where he has said something demonstrably factually inaccurate. It’s been even harder to catch him in a situation where you can show he knew what he was saying was wrong.
In Albanese’s case, in this case, it’s different. He is very much aware of the specifics of the Coalition’s NBN policy, and he clearly misrepresented it. That leaves me very little wiggle room.
Where do we send them?
Theres an anonymous tip line on the website.
You could email it to the author
You could provide evidence to Renai via his twitter
you could post a link in a comment.
I dunno; or you could click here, and maybe find some help
http://delimiter.com.au/anonymous-tips/
If you are going to be strict about factual inaccuracy, you must change the title to “Albanese lies about PLANNED Coalition NBN coverage” because there is, as of now, no Coalition NBN coverage at all.
I know I sound like a broken record saying this all the time, but the future has not happened yet, so no statements about the future are factual statements, none at all. You can make predictions about the future, you can make observations about the past.
Just out of curiosity; what download speeds are you getting now?
Me?
I’m on Telstra HFC cable at 35Mbps.
Why not 100?
Because it costs quite a bit more per month and 35Mbps is more than sufficient for my needs for now. I was on 16Mbps ADSL2+ for many years. What I have now is double that.
I thought 100Mbps would have been chomp change Renai?
Sorry couldn’t help myself.
Huh?
Have you moved? A few months ago you were in an MDU.
Yup. Now I’m in a different MDU.
Thanks Renai but I meant Trev.
In any case, 30Mbps, not too bad.
I’m happy with it. Ping times of 5-8ms also, great for online gaming.
Renai, you’re obviously one of the haves. I’m a have not. It took over 10 months to get a fixed connection to my in excess of $500k house that I built. I get 6mb down and point nothing up.
I guess arguing 25mb FTTN connections seems to suit you quite well because it’s no real difference to you.
Springfield QLD is around the corner from me and most people can’t get ADSL. No doubt it was the Libs that stuffed it up for all of us.
No offense, but Delimiter seems to be going for a few more sound bites now that the election is coming up.
I’d like to see some in depth analysis on how Labor is going to ramp up after the election. How are they going to do apartment buildings? Is it going to be another 3 years of not-so-crash-hot deployment statistics.
Then cross over to the Libs. Reality is that Libs have a POOR track record in broadband. Why should we give them a chance to deliver FTTN? How are they going to do that in 3 years? Will it make a profit? Should they be aiming for a profit? Are they really committed to delivering FTTN or if they decide (like Campbell Newman) that it’s too expensive then will they simply shelve it. What upload speed will be on offer?
PS. Just checked out the NBN CO map, most of the south west of Brisbane is scheduled to have FTTP in the next 3 years. My small group of suburbs is going to miss out. That is probably going to affect my property price. 1gbs vs 25mbs will simply be 1 suburb to the east :(
Are you saying that if you had 25M download and let’s say 5M upload you would be happy then?
I mean, regardless of the technology required to deliver that?
He probably would be. But what about in 2025?
When an upgrade takes about a decade you need to consider the future, not current, demand.
I’m on ADSL2 (Optus), 3.5MBps down 0.2Mbps up.
I’m on Optus Mobile Bandband 3G,
somewhere between Shit and Shitty
So Shitt then?
:]
One question. How is the coalition going to deliver 50Mbps over the Australian copper network? There have been many articles written about the need to have larger gauge copper wiring in order to receive such speeds…something Australia does not have.
And also, the Tele Act of 1997??? Yes, 25Mb was fast back then…it is not these days.
My recommendation would be to use the term Giga-fast or Giga-Speed as referring to FttH and FttN as the same (Superfast) is very misleading when one is Much faster than the other.
Yes I am noticing the bias here as well Renai. I have no idea why but calling Albo out on inaccuracy when the front page of the Australian last election day was a bald faced lie from the Liberal camp is a bit rich don’t you think? Yes Newcastle will miss out on a fibre network no less. Semantics are just bullshit and so is this article. Your starting to become irritating when you choose an arbritary position based on the same level of oblique perceptions as the opposition who constantly rant about the failing NBN!! The only thing that is failing is its late. It is only reporters that breath life into bullshit by cross quoting another news source to boost your own position when they make exactly the same mistake. A house of cards and very poor form. The Coalition is bleating news bites hoping someone will pick them up and run with it which is exactly what you are doing. Well done for being a sheep.
Baaaa.
Reference Material: “Shocking”: Turnbull accuses Rudd of NBN “lies” – Paragraph 11. An entire article lambasting KR when he was right all along. Connecting to the NBN is free. You still pay for an ongoing Internet service but getting a fibre connection on the NBN is free. Not so on the Coalition solution for a fibre service.
Renai,
Thank you for the article. I am sick and tired of people on both sides publishing bullshit about the other side. Albo’s statement seem to be a lie to me as it states there would be no investment under a fttn system. It’s a lie. I think turnbull has gone pretty close to the line with some of the cost estimates but that does not detract from albo’s comments. It seems some people are so committed to either side of the debate they are unable to accept any valid criticism. Keep up the good work Renai.
I am sick and tired of people on both sides publishing bullshit about the other side. Albo’s statement seem to be a lie to me as it states there would be no investment under a fttn system. It’s a lie. I think turnbull has gone pretty close to the line with some of the cost estimates but that does not detract from albo’s comments. It seems some people are so committed to either side of the debate they are unable to accept any valid criticism. Keep up the good work Renai.
Your post took me 80 years to read, and cost me 90 billion dollars.
My post will be free to read, but you’ll have to sign up to an internet plan which costs money. It could cost you upto $5000 to connect to the internet if you choose to read my post, or you will be left on the old slow copper network.
Of course all of this is a waste of time, when wireless is the future. My iPad uses wireless. You wouldn’t plug your iPad into a fibre would you? All that would be good for is porn and games.
Luckily the other guys are going to rip up the fibre network when they get in, because they don’t like white elephants. Oh wait; do you live in new-castle? Yeah you don’t get any new networks under anyone.
” Yes Newcastle will miss out on a fibre network no less.”
Then why can’t Albanese just say that? It’s a lot more accurate and nobody in the media would pounce on him for being misleading.
I belong to the old school of thought that believes it’s the media’s job to keep politicians to account, so Delimiter is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing during an election campaign.
“Then why can’t Albanese just say that? It’s a lot more accurate and nobody in the media would pounce on him for being misleading.”
Precisely. All Albo needs to do here is modify his wording a little. You can’t conflate FTTN with ADSL. They aren’t the same thing. And you can’t claim people who will be getting FTTN will be getting nothing. That’s just not true. They will be getting a substantial benefit.
What Albo should be saying is that it won’t matter if people get FTTN, because FTTN will be obsolete in a few years anyway and that we should be going for FTTP instead, to stay ahead for the next 50 years. If he said that, I would be agreeing with him wholesale and putting pressure on Turnbull to respond.
Precisely. All Albo needs to do here is modify his wording a little. You can’t conflate FTTN with ADSL.
Not trying to be cute, but…
Unless the subscriber pays an installation (connection) fee of sorts under the LNP policy it IS ADSL.
ie If as Turnbull claims there is no disruption to the user and they keep using their ADSL modem they will be getting ADSL (which VDSL2 falls back too).
Otherwise they will need to fork out the $100-150 for a VDSL2 capable modem.
Sure, in that circumstance, with no modem upgrade, it would be using the ADSL technical standard, but the service provided would still be a FTTN service, meaning customers would still get substantial real-world service delivery benefits over the old copper network. It would likely mean that customers would get the full 24Mbps possible under the ADSL standard. And then more if they upgraded their modem.
This is clearly not “the old copper network” which we have today, in which many people only get speeds of less than 10Mbps on the copper. Most of the copper will be replaced in a FTTN world.
@Renai
As far as I’m aware, Vectoring VDSL with ADSL running on the copper bundle, would not work.
It is my understanding there will BE no ADSL in the Coalition’s policy as it isn’t possible to guarantee VDSL speeds then. That is what BT rollout has done- used various tiers of VDSL. ADSL comes from the exchange in UK.
Hmm interesting — to be honest I am not quite sure. Would love some more links on this.
@Renai
According to a few papers I’m reading at the moment, un-vectored lines (to which I’m assuming ADSL is a part) must be limited in speed and managed heavily to ensure the vectored lines stay high in bandwidth due to unvectored cross-talk. It never specifically mentions ADSL, but I assume that would be included.
Have you looked at zero point vectoring? It is meant to solve those problems. There is very little information on it. I read the documents you seem to be reading regarding the vectoring restrictions.
The only stuff I see on zero point is sales style info, no studies or white papers like the original vectoring.
I have no idea if zero point even really exist, it could be vapour ware for all I know.
That is an interesting point seven_tech, I guess the question is one of what is done today vs what can be done. I suspect it would be possible (theoretically) to run ADSL on the same ISAM backplane and for the ADSL aggressor “lines” to be accounted for in their FEXT on VDSL2 victim “lines”. I believe I read some discussion of this being investigated.
In this scheme though, the ADSL lines would see no benefit of the vectoring, maybe even see a performance decrease.
The real question I think is the one of vectoring a G.fast, if you have been looking into it you will know the huge datasets that are passed across the backplane in the ISAM when performing vectoring on VDSL2.
If you appreciate that then think about how it might work with G.fast, much wider freqs means substantially more data for vectoring calcs.
I can’t see a G.fast node with vectoring handling more than a few lines due to the vectoring data sets alone.
Vectoring in incompatible with local-loop unbundling (as used in Australia to allow other operators to compete). They’d need to kill that off to enable it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-high-bit-rate_digital_subscriber_line_2#Vectoring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-loop_unbundling
@Tinman_AU
Not technically. While Vectoring IS unable to vector unbundled lines, it CAN take those lines into account when vectoring all other lines on a bundle.
Unbundling of ADSL could still happen, but it would detrimentally affect the vectored lines by anywhere from a few % to over 20%.
Oh, and I agree. Why can’t politicians use precise language? I am sick to death of both sides playing loose with the language to get maximum impact.
The whole argument over whether it is free to connect being a classic example. Anyone with half a brain would have understood the context to be about installation/setup costs and not ongoing costs. So why not use the actual words installation or setup?
Surely they and their staff are not so stupid to see the possible attack they left open? Who loses out? The public, the whole discussion about setup/installation costs now seem poisoned. Who suffers most? Those that can least afford to pay $$ for setup/install.
‘Why can’t politicians use precise language?’
I think most people here are missing the point. Politicians distort, exaggerate, lie and tell half truth but if you have a brain, are interested, or know better, it is not aimed at people like you. It is meant for the politically disengaged, uninterested, the not to clever and those you get their political info from the 6 o’clock news.
Evidently, it is frustrating and annoying for those who know and care but they are not the ones who determine the ultimate results. When you think of it most elections are decided by a very small margins. There are enough of those who respond to slogans and headlines to encourage politicians to continue this sort of behaviour.
Looking at today’s statements by both sides what is worse: Telling people they may end up paying 52c more for vegemite or suggesting that somehow Rudd is responsible for the death of the pink batts installers?
There doesn’t need to be a definition of “superfast”. It’s all relative. We might think that the V8 Supercars are superfast compared to the cars we drive around town in – but compared to a Formula 1 car, V8 Supercars are actually slower.
Compare a Cessna to a Boeing 737… we’d rather take the jet as it’s superfast – but what if the Concorde was still around?
Let’s compare broadband policies. The Coalition is offering “25 to 100Mbps” in their first term – gradually going up to between 50 and 100Mbps. The NBN will offer 1Gbps by the end of this year (to connected premises).
Compared to the Coalition’s planned speeds, I’d say the NBN is superfast. (That’s not even comparing upload speeds.) And if the coalition gets in, many homes will miss out on this superfast (by comparison) connection.
People lie. Facts and figures don’t. The rest is up to interpretation (and obvious bias).
I think a long bow is being drawn here. I have read Albanese’s press release, and when you look at the whole thing in context, its pretty clear he is syaing the fibre rollout will be stopped, and thats waht Newcastle will miss out on. That is not wrong or a lie.
Increasingly Labor ministers are making announcements that are trying to match what the Libs are doign to their fibre rollout. This is what should be done. Compare apples to apples. Sadly, they arent explaining it well. They need to clarify this point and keep pushing it, as it is very valid. What you get under the current NBN vs what you get under the Liberals plan, for not a lot of difference in money, is very different infrastructure wise.
Albanese said:
“Almost 75,000 homes and businesses in Newcastle and across the Hunter will miss out on superfast, affordable and reliable broadband if the Rudd Labor Government is not re-elected at next month’s Federal Election, according to new maps released today.”
This statement is just not true. Those 75,000 homes and businesses will not miss out on superfast, affordable and reliable broadband under the Coalition. Sure, they won’t get as good a solution as they would under Labor, but that isn’t what Albanese said. He said they wouldn’t get it at all, which is just not true. It’s time people started calling these politicians — Labor or Liberal — on what they’re saying.
Well, maybe not reliable. If the plan is to use the existing copper and not remediate it, then I can’t see it being reliable. Even in my housing estate with all new copper installed 10 years ago, I can tell when we get more than 2mm of rain at once – my line drops and renegotiates at a slower speed. Also, when I first moved in I could get around 5-6mb, now I am down to 4-5mb. I can’t see the LNP plan fixing copper between me and the node.
Turnbull has said they will remediate the copper where it’s not reliable.
I’d ask where that is in the business plan bloke, because I suspect that’s a lie.
I believe he said it on day one of the release of the Coalition policy. It’s part of their policy. He’s been asked about it dozens of times.
And yet…. they haven’t put a cost on this at all.
I’d like to see the cost of remediation in there. Or does he expect Telstra to fix it up before they gift it to him?
I suspect it will be part of the contract with Telstra.
(Turnbull has said they will remediate the copper where it’s not reliable.)
If that’s the case, that would include my whole suburb.
I suspect it will be part of the contract with Telstra.
The currently unfunded, and not spoken about contract :o)
This will bite Malcolm of the bum I think, either he’s done a deal with Telstra behind the publics/Labor back (which would be pretty dodgy on Telstra’s behalf) or he’s telling porkies about Telstra giving him the full CAN.
Telstra has officially made a statement that there is nothing wrong with the copper. I mean David Thodey laid it on the line and said it himself. You may not believe him, Turnbull may not believe him, but that’s irrelevant.
All Turnbull needs to do is get a contract signed by Telstra that they will deliver copper up to some measurable specification… attenuation, SNR, bandwidth, or whatever. Every bit of copper that doesn’t meet the specification is Telstra’s problem because they made a statement that the stuff is good. In some areas it may be cheaper to rip the copper and replace with fiber (in SOME areas) and if that happens I imagine Turnbull won’t complain about it.
@Tel
Talking about factually inaccurate statements being technically correct, yours that Thodey has said Telstras copper is fine is incorrect. I challenge you to find in that statement he made where it says ‘Our copper is perfectly capable of VDSL at 25Mbps’ or even ‘Telstras copper…’ Etc. You’ll find he said nothing of the sort. He said look what copper has been capable of overseas and in labs and that he’s ‘looking forward to working with the government of the day’.
Oh and if you’re talking about his ‘our copper will last 100 years’….yeah, sure….it’ll be useless long before then but hey….
Hmmm, so next argument… Defining ‘reliable’ :/
Ultimately I agree with you Renai; but every time Turnbull says 90 billion dollars I care less and less about the debate and care less and less about the small things, and more and more about absolute mistruths.
Upto $5000 dollars is misleading, “old copper network” is misleading, but neither is categorically wrong, “Free to connect to the labor NBN” is misleading, they are just missing (critical!) detail.
90 billion dollars is totally fabricated.
80 years is totally fabricated.
(and yes) “Will cost $5000 dollars” is totally fabricated.
Neither side has won me over with their bullshit. But one of them has been kicking me in the balls and the other one calling me a jerk. I know which bastard I prefer in this 2 party system.
I agree with you about the $90 billion:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4622176.html
connecting to the house nbn cost nothing , you pay for th eservices you use on the nbn
coalition
if no there is no copper to the house , is that free ?
Actually… Have the Coalition released any information to indicate what likely retail pricing on the FttN network will be? We know that the FttP network results in retail prices about the same as ADSL2, because there are people on the service today.
If the ‘fibre on demand’ has similar cost structure to the UK experience, it’ll be $50 a month *before* you pay your ISP.
When Turnbull’s office was last asked about pricing, they told the asker to get fucked.
I wonder, Renai, as a journalist, could you perhaps ask Turnbull’s office for some of these important details? I think that while it’s important to call bullshit bullshit, it’s also unacceptable to just accept what’s possibly bullshit just because you’re not sure whether it might just be dog shit.
I saw what Steve asked. I don’t feel the need to ask the same. There was some bad shit going on from both sides on that one.
One last thing, Harimau. This is the third comment of yours I’ve replied to tonight. Insult me again and go on another rant about how I’m not doing the right kind of investigative journalism that you want, and I’ll ban you from Delimiter. This is not a forum for you to complain about how little work I am doing.
It is a lie.
But then Renai, Turnbull has lied before too. Your definition of lying has a very shady spot in the middle where Turnbull seems to get away with a fair bit because he “may not know”.
I’m not saying it’s bias- this is a lie. I’m saying I think you’ve been too soft on Turnbull. He’s now claiming Labor have ACTUALLY said “Australians will get free internet under Labor” They never have and never would do that, unless they were completely stupid.
As far as I can see, Turnbull hasn’t actually lied — he’s exaggerated, had dubious opinions, and extrapolated base facts too far (for example, the $90 billion claim).
If you can find an example where he’s lied, I’ll be happy to publish it.
There you go posted a link below of turnbull lies
nbn is not using wimax technology as he tried to cliam
@Renai
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUJKM-eOjWA
1:26:
MT “You’re out there telling people they’re going to get free internet….”
The ad Malcolm had read from his iPad only seconds before:
“Under Labor’s NBN, everyone is connected for free. Labor believe every Australian should have the NBN, at no cost, not just for those that can afford it”
Please tell me in there where it states Labor believe everyone should have INTERNET ACCESS for free?
We’re talking about technical wording here. Labor HAS worded the NBN ad correctly and Turnbull is DELIBERATELY lying and twisting that ad.
We’ve gone into this extensively here:
http://delimiter.com.au/2013/07/24/experts-agree-labors-nbn-ads-are-false/
The issue here that Turnbull is objecting to is that Labor is claiming that connection to its version of the NBN is free, which implies connecting to the Coalition’s version is not free.
The issue of course, is that to the consumer, connecting to both costs the same — a setup fee and a retail monthly broadband access fee. What differs is not the cost; it’s the technology.
Labor’s ads are misleading because they conflate any connection at all with Turnbull’s FTTP on demand plan. In this sense, Turnbull’s complaints are legitimate, although I agree with you that he may have extrapolated a bit far in that particular interview.
All Labor has to do to address this issue is to stop conflating “the NBN” with fibre to the premise. It should say: “You won’t get fibre to the home under the Coalition unless you pay up to $5,000. Instead, you’ll get a vastly inferior FTTN service partially reliant on copper.”
That statement would be factually correct, but it’s not what Labor’s saying. Thus Turnbull’s point.
If you can find an example where he’s lied, I’ll be happy to publish it.
What about Turnbull’s recent statements about G.fast being deployed commercially? The standard isn’t even ratified yet?
“There is an even more souped-up version of that called G.fast, which is just starting to be deployed commercially, which, over short copper runs, I mean 100 metres, can deliver over 1[Gbps]”
This is a significant deception in my view, not only is the standard not finalised but he is using lab results to make claims about future upgrades to FTTN.
It was a statement to increase confidence that the $29.5B investment in a FTTN build will not be wasted or written off in the future. But not only is G.fast not being commerically deployed (how can it be if it isn’t finalised) we have no idea how suitable it is in Australia.
“which is just starting to be deployed commercially”
Not sure about that one, but it would be bloody hard to disprove that statement. I am pretty sure that BT, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom would all be looking pretty seriously at G.Fast right now in terms of internal trials, and BT of course, has just started live commercial trials of vectoring. You’re right, Turnbull’s statement is a stretch, and he’s relying on lab results, but it’s not a lie per se — if G.Fast was clearly not viable in any scenario and no telco was playing with it, then it would be a lie, but I don’t think that’s the case.
@Renai
You’re right, Turnbull’s statement is a stretch, and he’s relying on lab results, but it’s not a lie per se — if G.Fast was clearly not viable in any scenario and no telco was playing with it, then it would be a lie, but I don’t think that’s the case.
I just feel you are giving Turnbull MOUNTAINS of leeway to stretch that he isn’t lying, while none whatsoever for Albanese. I’m not saying EITHER of them should get away with it. I’m saying I think Turnbull must be on chance 16 or 17 now, while this is Albanese’s, what, 2nd?
The issue is that Turnbull’s too smart to say things which are abjectly untrue in public. He hedges a lot, and flirts with the edges, but he rarely comes out and says something that is black versus white just not true. He usually has some form of evidence for what he’s saying.
I read all of his statements carefully. They’re usually much more well-referenced than those of most other politicians.
In other words, he bullshits better.
Well, lets say his Legal and journalistic background gives him a strong advantage in influencing perceptions and beliefs
Yes, but at what point do you say that enough is enough? He’s still insulting your intelligence, Renai, and that of everyone else he opens his mouth to.
hey Harimau,
make some specific complaint about a specific issue, something specific that Turnbull has said. Or get the hell off my thread. We do not deal in generalities here.
Renai
Actually there’s a great article about this here, backing Turnbull’s statement. Tony Brown is something of an expert in this area:
http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/is-gfast-an-nbn-saviour-or-just-a-sideshow-20130807-hv17y.html
The technology is causing a huge buzz in Europe with operators including Telekom Austria and Swisscom already committing to launching it, once chipsets are available from vendors in 2015 – with plenty of other operators planning trials.
What’s more, even telcos in the fibre-to-the-home heartlands of the Asia Pacific are eyeing up a launch of G.Fast to help them deliver fibre-like speeds in some areas. “I can quickly envisage G.Fast being part of the solution for us,” a CTO from a leading Asia Pacific telco, which is also deploying widespread FTTH, told me.
The problem I see with G.fast is the “100m from the node” issue. Germany used 330,000 nodes, so they are probably in good shape for it, but Malcolms only looking at 30-50k nodes which will mean the majority of Australians will be too far for G.fast (and even vectoring) to allow the proper benefit.
If he does consider proper node density, then so far that’s uncosted and will alter his “Total public funding” of $29.5b considerably (and as far as I can tell, it still doesn’t account for remediation and any extra he may, or may not, need to pay for the full CAN).
Turnbull agrees with Alan Jones: Wireless is NBN future:
““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”
http://delimiter.com.au/2013/04/04/turnbull-agrees-with-alan-jones-wireless-is-nbn-future/
You think I went too easy on him?
Yes Turnbull lied about opel being rolled out also
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/395910/opel_would_serving_bush_broadband_today_turnbull/
it never existed
If the media did its job , and asked turnbull how can he be trusted when the howard government oPEL policy never started
Re: this:
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/395910/opel_would_serving_bush_broadband_today_turnbull/
I’m not sure where the lie was here? There was indeed a contract between the Govt and Optus/Elders to deploy WiMax/ADSL. Turnbull’s right — it would have been deployed by now if Labor had lost the 2007 election.
The lie is opel was never rolled out
Coonan claimed it was http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/coonan/media/media_releases/labor_leaving_australia_stranded_without_broadband_until_2013
The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator the Hon Helen Coonan today launched an OPEL ADSL2+ exchange that will deliver speeds of up to 20 mbps in Woy Woy on the New South Wales Central Coast.
—–
Turnbull is lying when he claim labor dismantled it
A few OPEL exchanges were indeed rolled out, as Coonan stated. But then the project as a whole was shut down by Labor. Still not sure where Turnbull is lying? Labor did shut down the project.
wrong opel exchanges werent rolled out
, optus are not OPEL
Because OPEL as a company did not exist
Turnbull is lying because he claim rural would be served which they werent
it was the regional centrest being rolled out by the optus exchanges
Dude. OPEL was pretty much just Optus. Elders was tacked on to make it look like a consortium. Elders does not have any telco infrastructure or skills in that area ;)
It was always just Optus. I was there. I reported on it.
Ok
so you admit the coalition were not telling truth
Sorry to hijack this thread
we are now in 2013 :)
“so you admit the coalition were not telling truth”
argh *shakes hands in the sky*
Simplification much ;)
The Govt and Optus co-funded some shit together. They rolled a tiny amount of it out. Coonan claimed some credit in a media release. Optus never quite got across the line in terms of registering a company. Then the election came and Labor canned the deal.
What else is there to know? It was a pretty open and shut case.
http://delimiter.com.au/2013/08/09/albanese-lies-about-coalition-nbn-coverage/#comment-619620
that article was posted in october
exposes turnbull lies
What’s the link between OPEL and Turnbull exactly?
Turnbull had been arguing as late as 2011 that the country would have had good broadband if OPEL hadn’t been cancelled.
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/395910/opel_would_serving_bush_broadband_today_turnbull/
But that was in the context of getting BB to the bush faster as a rollout model.
OPEL was cancelled by Conroy after Labor won in 2007 so we will never know.
“. For example, most telecommunications experts currently consider that both fibre to the premises and fibre to the node rollout styles deliver what can be described as “superfast” broadband. ”
Notice the word *can*? The LNP policy is based on ‘could’… and based on a technical definition of ‘superfast’ rather than a descriptive one.
The question is *could* the LNP policy deliver what is recognised as fast broadband when it’s actually rolled out… not some time before then. 25Mbps is fast for today, extremely fast in the past… but I suspect standard to substandard in a few years.
typical blatant lie by labor and defended by labor fans as ‘you lied too so that makes it ok’ – no it doesn’t
tomorrows news: the same as above but swap libs for labor and vice versa.
over it.
Maybe he’d had a few too many down the pub with Craig Thomsom when he stated these untruths? lol
With all of the post election enquiries, contract re-negotiations, regulatory approvals, network planning and deployment, etc… there is no way the Coalition is ever going to be able to deliver on it’s commitment of a minimum speed of 25Mbps by the end of their first term.
Why isn’t Delimiter exposing the fallacy of this Coalition promise?
Happy to — send me the evidence on which your assertions are based.
http://delimiter.com.au/anonymous-tips/
As I understand it, a quality journalist, or at least an investigative journalist, searches for evidence him or herself, to confirm or bust a suspicion. The foundation of your proposition is simply wrong. You don’t first ask for evidence against someone’s promises from the person that doubts those promises, you first ask for evidence in support of someone’s promises from the person that made those promises. Otherwise it’s simply he-said-she-said ‘journalism’. If Sally promises the moon and Bob calls bullshit, do you first challenge Bob to defend his position or Sally to defend hers?
hey mate,
I agree entirely, but neither the original poster or you has actually said what your suspicion is. You can’t just say “the Coalition can’t deliver on its promises” … you need to be a lot more specific than that ;)
I get asked every day to debunk the Coalition’s 25Mbps policy. I’m currently investigating stuff like the copper gauge locally, because I was sent some actual evidence which caused me to question current wisdom on the issue. But you can’t just issue a blanket request to investigate the whole thing. I can’t work like that.
There’s also the fact that, unlike many other journalists, I actually have investigated whether it’s possible to deliver on the Coalition’s promises. I’ve looked at the UK. I’ve looked at the US. I’ve talked to vendors about FTTN. I’ve looked at what Telstra promised way back when. I’ve looked at what I can get about France and Germany. And the reality is that Turnbull is not an idiot. He’s right, as far as I can see — as a broad brushstroke, what the Coalition is promising is broadly possible. Quite difficult, especially with regard to the timeframes, but then Labor’s not precisely hitting goals with respect to its timeframes.
I know what many of you people want. You want me to publish some comprehensive thesis which says the Coalition’s policy is just overall impossible and it can’t be delivered for X reasons. But the truth is that while there are problems with the policy, and while I personally vastly prefer Labor’s policy and think it’s a much better policy, the Coalition’s policy does indeed appear to be possible to deliver.
If you have a new angle on that, by all means, fire away. I’ll listen. But don’t just demand that I disprove stuff, and then cry about it when I tell you I’ve spent years writing about this issue and that the evidence doesn’t support what people want to hear.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Journalism does not mean articles that you agree with. In fact, usually it will mean, in my experience, articles that you or someone else doesn’t want to read because they contradict your inherited fucking world view — a world view that you never questioned that much yourself.
Do I sound bitter? Yeah well, I am. I get shat on if I hold the Coalition to account for their false statements. I get shat on if I hold Labor to account for their false statements. Very few readers seem to want or care what the truth actually is — you just mainly want things which will reinforce your existing views. Well, reality check. If you want me to change my view, hand me some evidence and I’ll get cracking. Until then, don’t expect me to kick the whole investigative journalism machine into gear just because you have a “suspicion” that the Coalition’s NBN policy won’t work. You can do that on your own hours.
Renai
Okay, thank you, and I apologise. I do get cynical when it seems you hold Albanese/NBN Co to one standard and Turnbull to another, but that’s clearly because we don’t get to see the background work on Turnbull’s claims that’s currently in progress. I’ll be looking forward to that article.
Hi Renai,
In my original post I touched on several reasons why the coalition’s ability to deliver their 25Mbps solution to all Australians within their first term seemed highly unlikely. How are they going to be able to accomplish all of the following in their first 3 year term?
– Conduct a cost benefit analysis and other inquiries post election to determine the status and best direction
– Getting regulatory approval for their proposed changes (ACCC, other bodies?)
– Restructuring or replacing NBNco
– Pass any enabling legislation, if required. Possibly get approval from the Senate, State and local governments for their proposed changes.
– Renegotiate contracts with Telstra, especially around purchasing the copper.
– Negotiating new contracts with existing Telcos (Telstra/Optus/???) to access their HFC and other highspeed networks.
– Renegotiate contracts with the primary contracting companies building the network to perform both FTTP in Greenfields, and FTTN (and limited FTTN) in brownfields.
– Designing the network rollout.
– Inpecting and testing the copper infrastructure to determine whether it’s up to the task, or needs to be replaced.
– Training staff in the deployment of FTTN cabinets.
– Generate and implement the required regulatory framework to equal access to existing Telco networks.
– Ordering and being supplied with 50,000 – 70,000+ FTTN cabinets.
– Run fibre to selected brownfield areas such as Universites, Hospitals, Schools, Business districts.
– Roll out 50,000 – 70,000 or more FTTN cabinets and reroute the copper lines (will there be any asbestos delays, pit and pipe remediation, How will they get power and fibre to the cabinets)
– How many additional cabinets will be required due to attenuation?
– Replacing copper where necessary.
– Access/authority to install FTTN cabinets in the basements of highrise MDUs
– Completing Tasmania’s FTTP rollout, and the other brownfields that are currently under construction.
– Possible delays with satellite deployment. Complete fixed wireless rollout.
All of the above challenges and tasks (and I’m sure there’s plenty I haven’t thought of) are going to take time to complete, almost certainly more than 3 years. It’s a massive undertaking, and given the complexity and amount of work that needs to be done, it is extremely unlikely that they will be able to deliver on their promise of a minimum of 25Mbps for every household in Australia by the end of their first term. If they can’t, then it undermines their whole argument of being able to roll out the network faster and the promises they are taking to this election.
I know that politicians make a lot of promises, but in this case it’s almost certainly one the Coalition will be unable to keep. At the very least the Coalition’s promises need to be realistic, and they should be held to account by the media if they are not, especially when they are campaigning on these promises in an attempt to win the upcoming election.
BTW, I’m glad to see you still think the FTTP solution is better… although IMHO that hasn’t really come across in your recent reporting.
Regards,
Chris
“BTW, I’m glad to see you still think the FTTP solution is better… although IMHO that hasn’t really come across in your recent reporting.”
I think this a bit unfair. Renai has said it several times over a long period of time. Which should indicate that it was his view and remains his view. Should he say it at the beginning of every article to reassure people that he still feel this way. The fact that he gives the Coalition the benefit of the doubt about their promises shouldn’t be subject of attacks on his integrity. Our opinions can differ without automatically meaning that we are pro Labor or Liberal. We don’t live in a black and white world of “you’re with me or against me” or “one party’s good, the other’s useless”.
By the way, I still think that the points you raise about the deployment of FTTN are certainly worth investigating.
Who is going to investigate it and provide a independent authoritative report by September 7th?
Just to appease the self declared Coalition defender. It is worth considering, looking at, taking into account….Not everything has to be done independently. Something that practically never happen in politics.
The Coalition, if elected, will have to deal with all the issues they are now trying to minimise.
@Chris
‘…… it is extremely unlikely that they will be able to deliver on their promise of a minimum of 25Mbps for every household in Australia by the end of their first term. If they can’t, then it undermines their whole argument of being able to roll out the network faster and the promises they are taking to this election.’
We can conjecture all day and night about promises made in policy before an election and before the opposition party who has put forward that policy has access to Government Departments like Treasury and DBCDE and the ACCCC and also are in a position to start formal negotiations with Telstra to get the full costings and revenue, payback timelines etc, how much copper needs to be re-mediated etc, but that’s the way it has to be if you are not in Government.
It mirrors the same situation Labor was in where the first NBN Co Business plan came out four months after they were elected in 2010 and three years after they were elected in 2007.
You could have made predictions based on the 2010 Business plan that the rollout plans and the predicted CAPEX, OPEX and required funding were overly optimistic, and guess what they were as indicated by modification to all four items in the 2012-2015 Business plan, and guess what the rollout figures in that revised 2012 plan were still too optimistic so had to be modified again in April this year.
So your point about ‘If they can’t, then it undermines their whole argument of being able to roll out the network faster and the promises…’ is all relative , and the Coalition if they gain power have plenty of Labor precedent behind them to modify figures and rollout timelines if the need arises.
They also don’t really need to produce the equivalence of the first Labor NBN Co Business plan until the first half of 2014 at the earliest, which they can modify later if the need arises.
@Fibroid
So in other words, they can do whatever they like, whenever they like, regardless of how it effects actually achieving the goal of the NBN- the separation of Telstra and the provision of wholesale only, fast, reliable and ubiquitous broadband to all Australians.
So what you’re saying is, the policy they have now may look nothing like the policy they have a few months after the election, yes?
I am not sure what you are on about with any link with the structural separation of Telstra and possible changes to the Coalition rollout post election, the Coalition support the structural separation of Telstra, they passed legislation for the operational separation of Telstra back in June 2006 when Coonan was Communication Minister.
@Fibroid
Operational separation? Oh, you mean “Telstra Wholesale” who, it’s been shown empirically, charge more to other RSPs than Telstra Business and Retail?
The Coalition are the reason Telstra ISN’T structurally separated right now. And by structurally separated I mean have NO control over the infrastructure AND retail prices together. That is TRUE “operational” separation. Turnbull’s policy involves allowing Telstra to maintain their monopoly on the HFC (or pay them to open it up to Wholesale- something he’s said they won’t require) maintain their current market share by simply gifting them money to help consult , design and build an FTTN network that NBNCo. is perfectly capable of building. (yes, Turnbull has said Telstra are the most likely company for consultation for an FTTN network) AND allowed them to overbuild it whenever they feel like it with the money they’ve just been given (being the only Telco who could afford to do so now) and regain their monopoly in the fixed-line market once again.
If you believe the point of the NBN WASN’T to remove Telstra as the incumbent (ie structural separation), you need to go have a LONG hard look at the history of the NBN. That was the reason an FTTH NBN was proposed in the first place.
“That the Coalition is promising is broadly possible. Quite difficult, especially with regard to the timeframes, but then Labor’s not precisely hitting goals with respect to its timeframes.”
I don’t think it matter what Labor does . The Coalition’s timeframe is one of two reasons it gives for going FTTP.
“I’m currently investigating stuff like the copper gauge locally”
Now, these are the sort of issues that matter.
“You want me to publish some comprehensive thesis which says the Coalition’s policy is just overall impossible and it can’t be delivered for X reasons.”
I don’t think it is that black and white. The three major issues are
Can the Coalition really deliver it plan substantially faster than Labor’s?
Can it do it significantly cheaper, In the long or short term?
Can it really deliver the speed it ‘aims” for?
These are the legitimate points that people here have debated. Whether Labor or the Coalition distort the truth or lie, is of lesser importance and is part and parcel of the political game. Isolating and debunking the lies which directly impact the three questions above is what matters most to the debate.
Do I sound bitter? Yeah well, I am. I get shat on if I hold the Coalition to account for their false statements. I get shat on if I hold Labor to account for their false statements. Very few readers seem to want or care what the truth actually is
FWIW Reani, I agree with you entirely. As you pointed out in a post above, all Labor need to do is tighten their language up a bit and they’d be spot on.
And nailing Malcolm as a “liar” is next to impossible, his porkies are generally of omission, exaggeration and obfuscation (he may not be Mr Broadband, but he’s definitely Mr Obfuscation!).
What a cop out!
As Harimau said, a decent investigative journalist would challenge the Coalition to prove that they will be able to hit their target, instead of putting burden of proof upon someone who questions their ability to deliver, especially when history has shown us how long it took Labor to get all the ducks lined up and get the NBN off the ground.
IMHO, the impartiality of Delimiter has really gone down hill in recent months. It’s like you’ve become almost nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Coalition and their inferior policy… almost like you’re trying to cosy up to them so they’ll be nice to you if they win the election.
You’re right, I am nothing but a Liberal shill, I can’t believe people didn’t notice it earlier. Wait, it must have been because of all that fact-checking of Turnbull’s statements that I’ve done over the past year. That must have given people the wrong idea. Damn. I’ll have to avoid doing that again.
Labor lies, Liberals lies they both do it but the best one yet is that MT and TA have spoken to Rupert many times as pollies do but not once has the NBN been talked about. If you believe MT and TA on this can you please go to http://www.yesiamthatGullible.com and leave your names and credit card details and you will receive a Free scan of your bank account to see if there are any Chickens in it.
“superfast, affordable and reliable broadband”
As the coalitions plan will more then likely cost more, and defiantly be less reliable, I think his statement of superfast AND affordable AND reliable could be correct. If you don’t understand the AND qualifier, that’s your mistake.
I don’t believe that the thinking here was that sophisticated …
Is anyone else weary of the repeated use of “guaranteed” ?
It would be nice to see the use of related words to some of the various dictionary interpretations of “guarantee”
“Guarantor” -lets see something of substance to the “assurances” I’m sure we all have a firm opinion about the assurances of politicians.
“Security” or “Indemnity” would also be nice. Some actual substantive compensation if the assured results are not obtained.
Without that, the guarantees being bandied about have about as much weight as the light in an optic fibre.
Perhaps some pensions could be put on the line with the guaranties? lol
In my opinion a lie is only a lie if the person saying it doesn’t believe that it’s true themselves. It’s highly possible that Albo believes that labor’s FTTP is superfast and the coalition’s FTTN is not. Because of this point I don’t think there is any way you can claim Albo has lied.
An example of Albo lying would be something like “Under the coalition newcastle will be stuck on the same old broadband that they have now and nothing will change”.
Whether a politician told a lie is immaterial – if their lips are moving, there’s likely porkies coming out. Nobody should be surprised, especially during an election campaign.
The bigger issue for Newcastle is how will a change in govt and therefore a change in broadband policy impact on other initiatives, such as the Smart Grid Smart City project. I’ve not heard anything from any of the Liberal candidates in the area how the change in broadband planning and thus inevitable delays would affect the implementation of this $100 million project. There’s a lot of effort being put into diversifying away from the tradition of heavy industry towards technology based business, with govt and private enterprise acting cooperatively. Obstacles and delays are the last thing the city needs after too many years of govt neglect.
“Albanese lies about Coalition NBN coverage”
Easy question: how can he be lying about something he is not talking about? He’s talking about technology, not coverage. They will miss out on fibre and be stuck on copper. Simples?
Not a good idea to talk to Albo about technology after last weeks gaff about the NBN battery packs. “Forced battery packs….er um technology question? Guff…er…splutter!”
Well his recently departed predecessor had a handle on it all.
‘Oh dear: Conroy claims “nude DSL” is taking off’
http://delimiter.com.au/2010/10/20/oh-dear-conroy-claims-nude-dsl-is-taking-off/
… and more pertinent to the discussion of BB definitions above.
‘We’ll leave you with Conroy’s thoughts on the tricky question of just how to approach what is, after all, a highly technical problem. “There is no internationally agreed definition of broadband,” Conroy told the Committee at one point.’
Oh dear indeed.
There is no single definition of “broadband” as an international standard, in fact the definition varies from country to country, and over time as well. In the US it was anything over 1.5Mbps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband
The ITU doesn’t even really have a crack at defining it precisely, but terms it thus:
“Many people associate broadband with a particular speed of transmission or a certain set of services, such as digital subscriber loop (DSL) or wireless local area networks (wLANs). However, since broadband technologies are always changing, the definition of broadband also continues to evolve. Today, the term broadband typically describes recent Internet connections that range from 5 times to 2000 times faster than earlier Internet dial-up technologies. However, the term broadband does not refer to either a certain speed or a specific service. Broadband combines connection capacity (bandwidth) and speed. Recommendation I.113 of the ITU Standardization Sector defines broadband as a “transmission capacity that is faster than primary rate Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) at 1.5 or 2.0 Megabits per second (Mbits)”.”
So basically anything 5 to 2000 times faster than dialup…
‘Simples?’ is right, true to the Labor political line they are comfortable with and what they will take all the way into the election, never mention the Fibre part of FTTN and emphasise FoD (the minor part of Coalition policy) and put $5000 in the biggest font you can find just like they did here:
‘Experts agree: Labor’s NBN ads are false’
http://delimiter.com.au/2013/07/24/experts-agree-labors-nbn-ads-are-false/
On and on it goes, Labor must be getting really really desperate, look at the size of the big red cross plastered across the Google Earth image of the Newcastle area (classy), and just when you thought the font size of $5000 in the publication linked above was large have a look at the size of $5000 in this one.
Who designed that, was it a school year 7 exercise somewhere on the subject of political propaganda?
Labor want to avoid a proper debate on NBN technologies because unfortunately FTTN works and is being rolled out in 2013 and beyond overseas very quickly and cheaply relative to FTTP, they don’t want to go there, and wish to avoid any discussion in that area at any cost..
Best to stick to the old political fallback when you don’t have much else, try and scare the punters in voting for us, the expectation is the class act of the red cross across Google Earth maps and ‘$5000’ will get even bigger in size as we get even nearer to the election.
Turnbull reiterated that a coalition government would audit the entire project, including the company’s board, if elected to government.
Expect a complete close down of the NBN, for months and months on end
Well done to all the rabbits who will elect a party that does ‘NOTHING’ but give to the rich, cut down & destroy.
No a close down of the NBN is not going to happen if the Coalition win Government.
“Shadow communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has confirmed a Coalition government would honour existing contracts for the National Broadband Network (NBN).”
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/453867/turnbull_coalition_will_honour_existing_nbn_contracts/
@Fibroid
Ha! Yeah….cause the Coalition AND Labor have NEVER done a backflip before OR after an election before…
/sarcasm
I can write Turnbull’s press release for him now:
“Given the ongoing issues facing NBN Co and widespread mismanagement of the project, we have decided the only responsible course of action is to suspend rollout of the National Broadband Network until a thorough audit is complete and we can decide the most effective way forward for this important initiative.”
@Karl
“…. because the books are much worse than we were told and we must get back to surplus within each year of our term in office as Joe promised.”
Tony will owe Rupert big time and many folk will continue to be unable to get viable video feeds from anywhere apart from Foxtel.
No a close down of the NBN is not going to happen if the Coalition win Government.
Well….they do need to find $70b worth of cuts to pay for things they’ve promised, something will have to go. If Malcolm gets worried his version of the NBN wont pay it’s self off, I don’t doubt they’d give it serious consideration.
Paragraph 4 of the article refers to a Coalition media release in April where they make a “core pledge that the group will deliver download speeds of between 25Mbps and 100Mbps by the end of 2016”.
I have not seen their media release but I quite believe they would have used the term “core pledge”.
The problem is Page 8 of the Coalition policy calls this an ‘objective’ and an ‘expectation’, NOT a pledge.
The effect of this difference is obviously significant.
What about HFC areas?
On P8 of Coalition Policy they also clearly state they will be handing the problem of delivery into MDUs to private industry. P10 of their policy also refers to “very fast broadband” for residents in MDUs, not the “superfast broadband” which is legally defined as greater than 25Mbps by the government.
This plus the fact that the NBN Act allows NBNCo to acquire or obtain access to other telecoms’ assets to create the network (P9 of the Act) will allow (force?) the re-prioritised and financially restricted NBNCo to cut a deal with the owners of the Foxtel cable (Telstra & News ltd, I believe?) such that the residents in areas with Foxtel cable will get no further upgrade (ever). They already have their 100Mbps (or some portion of that if they live in an MDU).
So any areas in Newcastle that have cable TV (or anywhere else for that matter) can relax, knowing they have the best service and speeds they will ever get under our honest, upfront Coalition.
The difference in speeds between FTTN and FTTH is statistically very significant.
It would be unreasonable to label both as “superfast”, they are just too different.
Perhaps Superfast and ExtremelyFast would be better.
In anycase, they are just marketing terms and ultimately mean nothing…
Superfast is legally defined as >25Mbps in the Telecommunications Act. Ref Tallweirdo’s comment above
The Coalition NBN Policy guarantees 25Mbps Very Fast Broadband.
Mr Turnbull has stated that the split will be determined by NBN Co, but likely Async. 4:1 so 20/5 Mbps (Per his own website)
So, as in Australia this does not constitute Super Fast Broadband, Mr Albanese is correct.
On his statement re the $5000 to connect to fibre, he is incorrect as people are not likely to have that opportunity.
MT assure us that Tesltra will only be too happy to give the copper network away for free but what about the loss of possible return for Telstra on the sale of the copper, as scrap metal which has been estimated at several hundred million dollars? It is true that Telstra could still sell some of it, there is a lot of copper in the last mile.
‘MT assure us that Tesltra will only be too happy to give the copper network away for free’
I have never read anywhere where MT has said that, where did he say that?
He has said on many occasions that he expected that Telstra would not want any extra money for it. If you haven’t heard it that’s just too bad. Anyway, keep up holding the fort for the Coalition.
@Fibroid
MT has said numerous times he expects no further cost beyond NBNCo’s $11 billion deal. Considering $5 billion of that is for ducts (about 2/3 of which they still need) and $2 billion is government based guarantees, that leaves essentially $7.5 billion for “paying” for the copper. Not only that, but that is paying for the copper AND ensuring every SINGLE customer now has the option, in that 70%, to have a WHOLESALE SERVICE (or rather a retail service from any number of RSPs) at LESS cost than what they have now on ADSL- yes, that’s right, LESS than ADSL. Meaning Telstra could lose MILLIONS of customers potentially, just like on the NBN. So they are handing over an asset, most recently valued at over $12 billion + signing off on their own customer subscription numbers dropping for only $7.5 billion.
I wasn’t aware Telstra were in the “bargain bin” sort of business approach….
I notice his FAQ was updated on this, I don’t believe the previous statement was worded the same:
http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/coalition-broadband-policy-frequently-asked-questions#own
To his credit, he now recognises that “The Coalition will seek to renegotiate the definitive agreements to allow NBN Co to gain access to and control of Telstra’s copper”.
And even that Under the current definitive agreements between Telstra and the NBN Co, Telstra is paid to decommission its copper 18 months after each fibre to the premise connection is made (at which point the copper has minimal economic value).
Though he got that wrong, Telstra agreed to move it’s clients from “Copper Services” to fibre, the is nothing in the agreement that say Telstra has to decommission it’s “Copper Network” (which is a different thing to “Copper Services” as defined in the agreement). It’s up to Telstra what it does with the copper after folks are moved over (though NBN has to be notified prior to Telstra deciding what it does with it).
Under the current NBN it made sense for Telstra to sell the copper once folks were moved off it….under the LBN that wont be an option.
http://www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/download/document/Explanatory-Memorandum.pdf
“Happy to publish those examples if you can send them to me. There are two conditions for defining a lie — the statement has to be demonstrably factually inaccurate and the person saying it has to be aware that that is the case when they said it.”
This will test your “happiness” to publishing Turnbulls lies: MT has been lying about ownership of the copper network. In the oursay debate with Stephen Conroy (transcript is on MT’s own blog – http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/transcript-oursay-debate-6-may-2013#.UgHbU9LzRmB), Conroy pointed out in no uncertain terms that NBN does not own the copper network, they paid only for access to the ducts so MT is aware of the facts, however MT stated on ABC radio recently (Mornings Tim Holt audio – http://blogs.abc.net.au/nsw/2013/08/malcolm-turnbull-and-the-nbn.html) that Telstra “for all intents & purposes sold it [copper network] to NBN” – this is a shocking lie and MT should correct it.
Now let’s see if you have the conviction of your own words.
Hmmm.
“Conroy pointed out in no uncertain terms that NBN does not own the copper network, they paid only for access to the ducts”
Apologies, but I must humbly point out that your statement is not quite correct. NBN Co paid both for access to the ducts, as well as for Telstra to transfer its customers off the copper network and onto NBN Co’s fibre network.
Just to check — would that change the context of your question?
Totally correct. ” NBN Co paid both for access to the ducts, as well as for Telstra to transfer its customers off the copper network and onto NBN Co’s fibre network.”
The agreement terms are described here:
http://www.nbnco.com.au/assets/media-releases/2011/nbn-co-and-telstra-sign-binding-definitive-agreements-23-jun-11.pdf
The Subscriber Agreement states Telstra will: (P8):
“Disconnect standard copper-based Customer Access Network services and HFC cable broadband services on HFC cable network (but not Pay TV services)”; and
The ISA Purpose (Page 10) states:
“The ISA contains the detailed terms for the long-term provision of access to three types of infrastructure and related services by Telstra to NBN Co: dark fibre links, rack spaces in exchanges, ducts and associated duct infrastructure (pits and manholes). Telstra retains property in all the infrastructure except for those Lead in Conduits (“LICs”) used by NBN Co, which become NBN Co’s property once used.”
Which seems to say that Telstra retains the copper as its own, and Conroy is correct, too. NBNCo does not own the copper in any way.
Which must mean that Turnbull is wrong when he says that Telstra “for all intents & purposes sold it [copper network] to NBN”
Turnbull is a very clever man. He would know the terms of the agreement.
He’s right,
“for all intents & purposes sold it [copper network] to NBN”
For all intents and purposes except one. The one where Telstra get to (if they choose to) pull up the copper and sell it. Or offer services not restricted (perhaps they want to use the copper network to create a series of 80 trillion wireless nodes one at every telstra pit in the country).
There is still a copper network; and it is still owned by Telstra. There are still intents and purposes to which Telstra can make use of it.
I don’t agree that it is a whole-article worthy comment. But it is certainly a lie.
Also, the context of Turnbulls comment is very important. He is clearly making this point in response to the question of “how much money will the purchase of the copper network cost”. His answer is “for all intents and purposes they have sold it already”. Which is not true. They have sold them the customers, and access to the ducts, but have not sold the copper or the copper network.
“Which must mean that Turnbull is wrong when he says that Telstra “for all intents & purposes sold it [copper network] to NBN”
What he’s saying is that it is a virtual sale. Wrong on to aspects. The deal with Telstra is about access, not ownership. Since, Telstra still own the copper network, there must be a cost to access even portion of it.
Furthermore, even if the network is not used any longer, the value of it copper has been estimated in the hundred of million.
Renai this is primary school journalism, who told the bigger fib was it Johnny or Jilly.
How about looking into WHY Turnball isn’t doing a cost benefit analysis ?, he harped on about it for years because Labor didn’t do it. Maybe because he doesn’t what to explain the 2 or 3 extra power stations we will need to generate enough electricity to power the 60,000+ nodes, how is this comms system of his even going to work if there isn’t enough power at the present moment to run it. Has the cost of these extra power stations been calculated into the costings of deploying a FTTN system ?. How is this extra power going to be distributed, do we have at present the line capacity to deploy it ? How are these stations going to generate the electricity, coal, gas ??? regardless of what fossil fuel you use, what about the extra carbon pollution ? If there is about 60000 nodes that means about 8 backup batteries per node that’s 480000 batteries, we don’t have the capacity to manufacture that amount here in Australia does that mean we have to import them, nor do we have the capacity her in Australia to supply the internals of these nodes so do we import them as well. Sure, regardless of what comms system you use there we be imports but lets keep it to a minimum for the sake of our balance of payments.
A FTTP system avoids all this because its a passive system, a laser at the exchange can fire a beam up to 15 kilometers from the exchange.
How can the Coalition say they will be better managers of the economy, when there comms system wont run due to lack of power, increase imports, create more pollution, reduce our balance of payments all for a comms system that’s is 10 years too late and will be obsolete by the time its finished, if its even started.
One more point I’d like to add, node internals have about an 8 year life expediency, in other words the modems, air-con unit and batteries have to be replaced.
Renai – your “Apologies” are not required my statement that NBN do not own the copper network is correct. What is needed is a correction and retraction of your statement “but I must humbly point out that your statement is not quite correct” as Maude has provided further contractual reference clearly showing (as Conroy pointed out to Turnbull during the oursay debate) that NBN DO NOT OWN THE COPPER NETWORK, and as such will incur some cost (yet to be provisioned) as it’s an essential part of the Coalition’s FTTN proposal. An article titled “Turnbull lied about ownership of copper” would suffice in place of your apology.
First: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon
Second: No other country has made an NBN, they have all relied on some form of regulated public/private partnership. Australia is the only country so far that has decided to opt for a GBE to solve the Broadband issue.
Whoops, that was in reply to “Dude”, please ignore.
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