The FTTP dream is over: Coalition victory kills Labor’s NBN

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abbottturnbull

news The long-held vision dreamt up by senior Labor politicians Stephen Conroy and Kevin Rudd in 2009 of a universal fibre broadband network covering Australia is officially dead, with a solid election victory set to sweep the Coalition into power and a technically inferior fibre to the node plan into Australia’s streets.

Although the return of Kevin Rudd to the Prime Ministership several months ago gave the Australian Labor Party a significant boost in national polling at that stage, exit polling throughout Australia today has shown a clear and decisive victory for the Coalition. Respected ABC election analyst Antony Green called the Federal Election for the Coalition earlier tonight, and other major media outlets have followed.

At this stage it appears as though the Coalition will enjoy a sizable majority of close to 40 seats in the House of Representatives which, historical results suggest would mean it would be likely to maintain two terms in power. The situation is much less clearer in the Senate as Senate results take significantly longer to tabulate than results in the lower house.

Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s seat of Wentworth — one of the safest Liberal seats in the country — is also seeing a minor swing towards Turnbull, meaning it is likely that Turnbull will be appointed Communications Minister in a new administration led by Tony Abbott, as the Opposition Leader has publicly intimated several times.

The news will have immediate and drastic consequences for Labor’s NBN project, which the Rudd and Gillard administrations have pursued as one of the Federal Government’s major projects in its current form since mid-2009.

Turnbull has consistently stated that the Coalition plans to “complete” Labor’s NBN vision more rapidly and more cheaply than Labor itself could. However, the Coalition’s NBN alternative is largely based on radically different technology than Labor’s vision, and will deliver vastly reduced broadband service delivery outcomes to many Australians.

Under Labor’s NBN policy, some 93 percent of Australian premises were to have received fibre directly to the premise, delivering maximum download speeds of up to 1Gbps and maximum upload speeds of 400Mbps. 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 Coalition has not specified certain upload speeds for its network.

Labor has costed its policy at about $44.5 billion, while the Coalition has costed its policy at $29.5 billion. However, both have stated that their policies will eventually pay for themselves, with NBN Co slated to make a return on investment on either. Additionally, the Coalition has claimed that Labor’s policy will actually cost significantly more than $44 billion.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott this week described the Coalition’s NBN policy as “absolutely bulletproof”, despite the fact that the Coalition has refused to formally cost the plan, and despite it containing a number of controversial assumptions which have been significantly questioned.

Telecommunications industry experts have consistently stated that they believe Labor’s NBN policy to be highly technically superior to the Coalition’s more modest vision, and having the potential to deliver Australia superior long-term outcomes in terms of service delivery and boosting Australia’s economy through productivity gains.

In addition, questions have been raised about the extent to whether it’s possible to deploy the FTTN technology the Coalition is focused on in Australia. The technology is being widely used internationally in countries such as the UK, France, Germany and the US, but several of those countries have more modern copper networks and a much higher population density than Australia.

There are also questions as to whether Telstra, which owns the copper network which would need to be used as part of the FTTN rollout, will consent to modify its existing $11 billion arrangement with the Labor Federal Government and NBN Co. Turnbull has stated that he does not believe a Coalition Government would need to pay Telstra any extra to get access to its network, but some industry commentators have signalled their belief that Telstra will seek extra blllions of dollars in recompense for its network.

Turnbull has stated that current contracts which NBN Co has already signed with construction firms and equipment vendors will be honoured, but it is believed that a number of the contracts include modification or exit clauses that would allow a Coalition Government to modify them along the lines of a FTTN rollout.

What this means for Australians is that those areas where the all-fibre NBN is currently being rolled out are likely to still receive FTTP broadband, in many cases, but in some cases those areas will have their rollout modified so that they receive FTTN instead. The Coalition supports the use of wireless and satellite technology for the same proportion of rural and regional areas, meaning that construction in those areas will proceed along the same lines as it would under Labor.

For further analysis of Turnbull’s likely first steps in office, see Delimiter’s (subscription-only) analysis of the moves the new Communications Minister will need to take in his first 100 days in office.

opinion/analysis
Well. It finally happened. After three years of argy bargy between Labor and the Coalition on the issue of broadband, the long-held dream of a universal fibre network in Australia is now officially dead.

From the perspective of technologists such as myself, who have consistently highlighted the fact that Labor’s all-fibre NBN vision was superior on every count, as well as the majority of the Australian population which consistently supported the NBN throughout its lifetime, the situation is nothing short of a tragedy. It’s absurd that the Coalition is seeking to radically alter Australia’s largest-ever infrastructure project mid-way, and the move will be immensely destructive to the project.

As Shadow Minister, Turnbull was able to raise many valid points about the rollout of the NBN, and the Member for Wentworth has been very correct in his claims that Labor has mismanaged the rollout. The NBN should have been much further ahead at this point than it is now; after all, Labor has had two terms in Government to make its broadband vision irrevocable. The fact that it has not been able to do so is an indictment of Labor.

However, none of this changes the fact that the rollout of an all-fibre NBN was the best telecommunications policy Australia has ever seen. This was a real game-changer for the Australian economy, for every industry, for consumer broadband service delivery and more. The Coalition’s FTTN-based vision will be inferior in every respect; and there is absolutely no doubt that debate will begin about how it will be upgraded to FTTP, even before it gets across the line to completion in 2019.

From my point of view, what this situation represents is a failure of Australia’s political system in general. The NBN is a policy which has always been enormously popular with the electorate at large, and globally and in Australia, telecommunications experts have been strongly in agreement that the FTTP model which Labor proposed was the right one. Even though the project has so far failed to deliver on its goals, I think the population was willing to wait for NBN Co to get its rollout up to speed.

In the pantheon of Labor policy, the NBN has always been a bright spot. But due to generally separate factors, the Coalition has won power from Labor, and the all-fibre NBN will die along with it, even though it’s what most of Australia wants.

Well, it is what it is. It’s time for Australia’s technologists to get used to the situation. We now have a new Federal Government and a new NBN policy. We’re not getting FTTP any more, and we won’t be leading the world in telecommunications infrastructure. We’re getting FTTN and we will generally be behind other similar countries such as the UK. Plus, suddenly Telstra’s role in Australia’s future telecommunications industry is going to become much more central.

Plus, we have a new Communications Minister. Whether you love Malcolm Turnbull or hate him, it is inevitable now. Turnbull will very likely be sworn in with the rest of Abbott’s new administration in the next few days ahead. It’ll be very interesting to see what wider ripples come from this giant stone thrown in the pond of Australia’s technology sector, and fascinating to see whether Turnbull can actually deliver on the Coalition’s policy.

In the Communications portfolio, the debate now turns squarely to the performance of Turnbull himself in getting the Coalition’s FTTN-based NBN done. Turnbull has been heavily, incessantly, even offensively critical of Labor’s performance delivering the NBN. Well, now the shoe is squarely on the other foot. As Minister, Turnbull will need all of his capabilities to get the NBN back on track and the Coalition’s vision delivered.

Anything less will see those critics of the Coalition’s inferior NBN policy roast Turnbull personally over a slow BBQ for his failures and then feed the Earl of Wentworth to the sharks off Bondi Beach in his electorate. I’ll be first in line to do so if Turnbull puts a foot wrong. If you are going to heap bile upon Australia’s largest ever infrastructure project for three years, you had better be able to prove that you can do a better job.

314 COMMENTS

  1. All Hail Rupert and Foxtel, subscribe now peasants!
    Sigh.. watch them closely, there will be more spin than a turbo prop on this topic

  2. I honestly don’t know why we west-aussies even bother voting at the federal elections, the results are always known long before our polls close, it’s the eastern states that pretty much decide the fate of an election.

    • What garbage. Western Australia consistently votes LNP, it’s a well known fact.

      This would be a better statement: “I honestly don’t know why AUSTRALIANS even bother voting at the federal elections, the results are always known long before our polls close,”

      • Except that by the time the counting started here in Western Australia, the liberals had already pretty much defeated labor, which is what my originally statement was based around.

        Had not a single west aussie voted, it would have made sfu difference.

        • WA has 15 seats and 12 of them are Coalition seats. If everyone in WA had gone very strongly against the Libs, which we didn’t, then you could have had maybe upto 7 seats change hands to Labor. In theory.

          In this election that, 14 seat difference, wouldn’t have made a difference to the end result given the swings elsewhere. The Coalition in the end is probably going to be ahead of Labor by a good 30 seats. In the end though WA didn’t move, almost gave another Liberal seat to the Nats and gave the Feds Allanah MacTiernan. So all things considered we did a “better job” than some of the other states.

          • But that would never happen anyway :(

            Take the seat for Forrest (which is the electorate that i’m in), extremely, EXTREMELY safe liberal seat. Geoff Prosser held it from the 80’s right up to 2007 when he decided to retire, and Nola Marino won it.

            Though, the fiasco that Barnett is currently causing, especially with electricity charge increases, and what he tried to do to solar power people, i would be surprised if he got in at the next election.

            But yes, for some stupid reason, our state is very heavy towards liberal. Take my grandmother for instance, she’s always voted liberal, the only reason she votes liberal is because she doesn’t have to think about it, she just rocks up without looking at policies and votes that way, why she can’t just choose labor, well, she’s always voted liberal.

          • Well, IMHO, no results should be announced until polls close. Yesterday the result was announced before polls had even closed in WA, this could influence voters if nothing else.
            (Especially for senate seats).

            In any case its a catastrophe, I’m no Labor lover, but looking at Australia from China and Mongolia the country has become a mean spirited political basket case.

            Writing from Ulaanbaatar.

          • I have to agree, the counting of the votes started at 4pm our time, i don’t know about other polling places in WA, but our one here in Capel opened at 7am and closed at 5pm, but that’s still an entire hour where a persons vote could be influenced.

          • @Simon Shaw

            I’m sorry, I don’t get this. The results of the election were not announced before polls closed in WA. Rudd conceded at about 8.50 AEST, which is 6.50 WA time. 1 hour 50 mins to 50 mins after the polls closed everywhere in WA.

            If you’re talking about any results being announced…..why??? Why on earth should people vote based on how other people vote??? If you’re saying results influence your vote, I’m sorry, but you are voting for the wrong reason.

            I really don’t get the whole thing. People in other countries vote in Australia’s election and their vote doesn’t even leave that country before they find out the result. Does that make it any less worthwhile??? No. It’s a democracy and you have a right to vote. As I said if anyone is basing their vote off what another person is voting, they’re not doing what they should be.

            Can we stop with the WA vs the rest of Australia thing???

          • Exit polling and early results feedback could influence you. Particular policy agenda could be pushed one way or another. (Especially in cases where the party you want is losing badly, so why bother voting for them, instead you vote for another party which has a particular policy you like.

            In the case of voting in other countries, at least it is a ‘blind’ vote, ie you don’t know the results, so the vote is an honest representation of preference rather than one POSSIBLY swayed by how you see results coming in.

            I actually voted early due to being overseas.

            A lot of things about being in WA can suck for this time zone difference. Some comments sections on news articles for instance are closed off before we’re even able to read them for instance.

            Anyhow, I just think results should be kept quiet till all polling stations in Australia close. Seems fairer.
            It’s possible it doesn’t influence results at all, but I think there is the possibility or possibility of manipulation.

          • Something like 1 million votes were already cast weeks ago, but if people want to vote based on some sort of “herd mentality”, why shouldn’t they?

            it’s not something I’d do, but I don’t hold it against those that do.

          • I looked at the results on the ABC’s live election thing, when i looked, at about 4.30pm, 5% of votes had been counted, and at that stage, the coalition was already at 30seats i believe with the labor party at 10seats.

            That’s 1.5hrs before a lot of polling places here in WA would have closed. By the time polls closed here in WA, they had already counted around 20% of the votes, by that time, coalition had already pretty much won.

          • So us peeps in WA can wait till the end of the day and then decide its not worth even bothering to go to a polling booth.

            Oh yeah we get fined though otherwise.

    • In a democracy all votes carry the same value, your vote isnt less important because it was counted second. That you know how other people voted before your voted should not change your voting intention if you have any principles or place any value in democracy.

      WA = Wingeing Australian

      • It’s not about how people here might vote, it is the implication it could have for the vast majority of voters who don’t vote on policies or facts but might be swayed by popular trends.

        • Democracy shouldnt be about being trendy, its about choosign the best person to represent your electorate and your state.

    • After shifting from WA to the eastern seaboard – it amazes me how many people over here dont even think of WA – it certainly is a ME generation – especially when it comes to the NBN.
      As long as I have my super duper fast internet so I can download GoT in 3 secs flat bugger everyone else – and then justify it by saying it will be good for businesses.
      Well Australia now has an extra $15bn to be spent on real infrastructure!

      Look what happened in the last several months – big mining co’s up north WA closed up shop (Due to Labors abysmal management) & small industries and businesses suffered all along the western seaboard due to it!
      But you don’t hear about that in the news why? because Eastern states populace don’t care!

      • Um, excuse me, I work in the WA mining industry and the slowdown in mining was NOT because of Labor policies. The mining downturn is global. True, Labor policies didn’t help but the main causes are finance and slower growth in China. Just been to Beijing and now in Ulaanbaatar.

        • +1

          Opinions like those from concerned are the results of someone that only reads The Australian.

      • I’m really puzzled by your comments because the election is now over.

        Look, re-read the Coalition’s Broadband Policy and you’ll see they are funding their FttN the same way Labor was funding FttP; it’s called loans. So there will be no ‘saving’ available to spend on schools and hospitals etc.
        In fact, the FttN will have higher maintenance costs, which probably will come out of taxes, so we’ll actually be worse off with MT’s FttN plan.

        And I know this is not on topic, but spare me the tears over the mining industry. Miners these days are total opportunists. They quite quickly stop projects and put them in ‘mothballs’ if the commodity price drops, then restart them when it goes up. Most staff are casual or contracted, and the company disposes of them whenever it wants. Like so many industries these days, they are rent-seekers; always asking for some special concession from the government, or looking for advantage. Murdoch’s Foxtel is another one, and it got its wish, to be spared from competition, last Saturday.

        I can only think you must be very young, and haven’t witnessed past mining booms and busts. Nor, it seems, do you understand the principle of ‘rent-seeking’.

        • Indeed Maude…

          Not forgetting too, when speaking of government funding, the gov spend for FttP was $30.4B, whereas the gov spend for FttN is $29.5B.

      • “Well Australia now has an extra $15bn to be spent on real infrastructure!”

        Actually, it’s only $900m the government saves, but why bother with facts, yeah?

          • Straight from the August 2012-15 NBN Corporate Plan:

            “Estimate of $30.4 billion of peak Government equity.
             Estimate of $13.7 billion of peak debt funding.
            Together, a total forecast peak funding requirement of $44.1 billion (including funding costs).”

            $30.4 billion Government equity, no argument there.

            $13.7 billion of debt funding. Debt funding. It’s literally a loan. You have to pay it back over time (usually with some form of interest, but that may be in this figure already).

            Any light you could shed on how this debt would not need to be paid down would be very interesting.

          • The modelling of the long term funding profile assumes that NBN Co will seek external funding from banks and financial markets without explicit guarantees from the Shareholder Ministers, as early as possible.

            Page 80. As I said, not all funding was from the government, only $30.4b was…

          • Interesting. So they haven’t secured the loans yet, and the government doesn’t want to underwrite them. That sounds even worse to me.

            But, NBN Co. is still government owned. So even if the government doesn’t underwrite NBN Co.’s loans, NBN Co. still has to pay them back – and not giving a government investment guarantee does not make you exempt from paying this money back.

            I’m sure one could argue that they’d make potential future profit and that would pay it down, but even then you’re still paying back debt until you’re in the black.

          • I’m sure one could argue that they’d make potential future profit and that would pay it down,

            Thats the plan, under both NBN’s (to pay the money back).

            It’s more likely to be achieved in a timely fashion under the Labor one though, as there is no competition to NBNCo under that plan.

          • “$30.4 billion Government equity, no argument there.”

            Indeed thank you Frank…

            Pity the new inferior, using old obsolete copper which belongs to Telstra, FttN network will only cost $900m less (at $29.5B) eh?

            Imo, in that light FttN is ridiculous… don’t you think so too?

          • The Labor government was only putting in $30.4b Frank, the rest was coming from private investors/companies.

        • Thats not true at all. They say they save $15b but that is only short term savings. Long term its going to cost a lot more. They are misleading everyone with these so called savings. Tony Abbott and his liberal idiots have no idea when it comes to this or a lot of other stuff for that matter. Australia is going to hit a dark place in the next few years and people will wonder why and the reason will be is because the liberals have no idea what they are doing.

      • $15bn? Available only if the people who use your suggested infrastructure are prepared to pay for it at the point of use. And they rarely are

      • I’m late here but just pointing out that you probably should have read the papers on Friday before you voted. Abbott did his whole infrastructure rant but when you actually compared promises he was intending to spend a good $3bn or so less on infrastructure in WA. The NBN? Well I don’t see how that’s a positive for WA, it just means they’re going to be spending EVEN LESS in WA. Most of that “roads” ranting was about securing votes in NSW and QLD. He doesn’t care about WA, sorry.

        As for the broader point about why WA votes the way it does it’s very simple. We have cash, people with cash tend to vote for the guys who don’t take your cash. Secondly WA has been having a fight with the Feds over its GST share, Abbott has said there will be a review, that would have gone down well. Thirdly Rudd was the dude who introduced the mining tax… which can’t have gone down well.

      • The reason for the Mining companies slowing output/halting production is simple. Copper lost 60% of it’s value in ONE MONTH. You don’t keep digging up and selling a product worth 60% less than it was before. You sit on it and wait for the prices to recover. That’s why the Olympic Dam expansion in South Australia was put on hold and anyone who says otherwise is an IDIOT. I should know since I know one of BHPs accountants who was working on the Olympic Dam expansion. Marius Kloppers even put the reason in his report. But moron Liberal voters figured they should blame the Carbon Tax which doesn’t even apply to Uranium and Copper mines.

        • Ah yes, I do remember that report. Was it not the one that Tony confessed, on ABC TV, he had not read before claiming the Olympic Dam expansion was not proceeding because of the Carbon Tax.
          How comforting to know that our PM opens his mouth before reading the report.
          I guess that was so he could later say that he did not know what he was talking about.

      • No we dont have 15bil in the bank because of it the Libs internet plan, it has upkeep aswell as the fact it WILL need to be replaced in 10-20 years which means ripping pretty much the whole thing up which is going to cost us more money then we “saved”.

  3. They don’t quite have the “landslide” the pundits were gloating they’d have.They are ~10 seats short of most projections. Don’t book a hearse just yet.

  4. Don’t write FTTH off just yet – Malcolm may find that turning the ship around is rather more difficult than he has been claiming.

    • lol..your kidding right..

      Don’t be surprised if him and Thodey get into bed and screw Australia altogether. You have NFI what you have done voting Liberal. Do NOT cry and whine when you don’t get any decent broadband.

  5. As it’s looking currently, Labor and Greens appear to be holding the power in the senate. Could they possibly block any moves to change NBN policy there so we can still retain FTTH? Is there a glimmer of hope yet?

  6. yep, looks like the worst case scenario for telecommunications infrastructure in Australia will happen after all.

    Coalition clowns one ring copper circus coming to a node near you “sooner”.

    25mbps minimum promised for all by late 2016. A merger network upgrade compared to the proper NBN for sure. They should have no problem delivering as they’ve told us they could and could do better. No excuses. No blaming Labor should they fail. They’ve accepted responsibility for the direction of NBNco. That direction is a substandard FttN patchwork direction. The one we advised against but accept regardless.

    They’ve dictated uploads don’t matter. They’ve dictated to us what they think we need. They’ve dictated that 25mbps download is more than enough. They should deliver what they think we need as advertised and on time. Given the uncompromising scrutiny over the last three years I expect it on time and I expect no less than 25mbps no later than the 31st of December 2016.

    I’ll rename “NBN Stuff” folder to “GimpCo Stuff”. Will be more accurate in 3 years :-)

    http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?iso=20161231T00&p0=57&msg=Coalition+Clown+25mbit+download+speed+for+%22every+household+and+business%22+in+Australia

    1210 days to go!

  7. Maybe.

    I hold Malcolm to his word (not Tony though, so he may be a spanner in the works). If he truly is “technology agnostic”, it will really come down to the decision of the experts that do his study/report/audit. A lot hinges on the Telstra factor from here on. Malcom could do a lot worse that consider Michael Berry’s ideas…

    Things may still be interesting around the NBN.

    • > it will really come down to the decision of the experts that do his study/report/audit.

      Ha ha ha. Whatever will happen, it will be an ideological decision more than anything in the long run.

    • /shrug

      I can only take him at his word. If his word isn’t good, then who really know where any of this will end up…

    • Like all political inquiries, the experts and the terms of reference of the inquiry will be carefully chosen to ensure only one conclusion can be reached. If the coalition want to kill FttP, then that’s what the review will recommend.

  8. “universal fibre broadband network covering Australia is officially dead”

    It was never alive, unless you consider 93% coverage means universal. The dictionary doesn’t.

    http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/universal?q=universal

    “existing everywhere or involving everyone”

    Labor’s NBN was far from perfect, because perfect would have been 100% fibre coverage. I’d agree with it then, even if it had cost $80B to do. But since there was already a 7% compromise on fibre to save costs, then it is better to be rational, shorter term and incremental, rather than an near, but actually not, perfect fibre NBN.

    • A cluebat: FttN is not an interim step toward FttH. It costs 90% of the price to deliver a network that runs at 1/10th the speed on downloads, & 1/80th the speed on uploads, that has massive potential problems with aged & malfunctioning copper, costs a fortune to run, has less than a decade of useful life before we expect it will need to be upgraded (some say it’ll need to be upgraded before it’s even finished), and cannot be upgraded to FttH without spending another 60% of the cost of FttH.
      That’s assuming Telstra doesn’t play hardball and demand another $10 billion or so for the copper…

    • “100% fibre coverage. I’d agree with it then,”

      If every penny of the $1.5 trillion of the Australian economy were diverted into building the NBN for the next 50 years, it would STILL be impossible to provide 100% FTTP coverage, or FTTN coverage or any other kind of fixed line connection.

    • “then it is better to be rational, shorter term and incremental, rather than an near, but actually not, perfect fibre NBN.”

      On that basis, it is better to do nothing at all, ever.

    • That is ridiculous.

      So someone offers you a $200,000 a year job, in the city, close to your home, free parking, working in the industry you’ve always wanted to work in, with job security until your retirement. Oh, but you wanted $210,000 a year… so you say, no thanks mate, I’ll stick with my dangerous, boring and unappreciated $40,000 a year job instead.

      That may be a silly analogy, but it is not even hyperbole, because that is exactly how ridiculous you are being.

      I thought that with the election over, and the NBN effectively now dead, the Liberal trolls would have crawled smugly back under their bridges, but what you’ve just said is possibly the most ridiculous troll in the NBN debate ever. Certainly the most ridiculous I’ve ever heard.

  9. The Liberal government & its personnel will be held fully accountable and responsible for everything from this point on, and for everything leading up to this point. You are about to witness one of the biggest lawsuits in Australia’s history. good night.

    • what crack are you smoking? who exactly do you think is going to sue who?
      personally, 25M for all in 3yrs, is better than no upgrade for 80% (?) during that time.

      FYI, I voted liberal.

      • @Guest

        Just FYI, NBNCo. was due to pass more than 20% of premises by 2016. Even at the delayed rate, it was still going to be close to 45%. So that claim is incorrect based on the info we have.

        Also the claim we’ll get 25Mbps by 2016 is still unproven- we’ve seen no design or business plan to show how.

      • It’s not like your vote made any difference to the outcome though, let’s be honest.

      • “personally, 25M for all in 3yrs, is better than no upgrade for 80% (?) during that time.”

        And in 2020 or 2030.. when you need 100Mbps or 1Gbps or 10Gbps… how ‘awesome’ will that copper based service be?

        Unless average demand drops dramatically, people are going to have to wait regardless of what path we choose – FTTN is not capable of even sustaining us for an ‘interm’ period IMO.

        And the cost for this delay of our delay? $30Bn+… with no guarantee it’ll even be done in a reasonable timeframe.

      • @Guest.
        I very much fear that “25Mb/s for all by 2016” you quote will, in many outer city, semi-rural areas likely translate into high latency satellite data capped at a couple of gigs/mth @ a lot more than we’re currently paying for our present sole options of ADSL1, (1Mb/s “100Gb/unlimited data” @ under $50/mth).
        In which case “no thanks Mal”, we’ll stick with our present erratic connection until it fails completely then drop our land-line & go mobile wireless instead.

    • Seriously?
      “..good night” (10:15pm) – I think you were up past your bedtime dude!

      Instead of having tanties – why haven’t we heard from small business communities / chamber of commerce groups etc if it is such a apocalypse if we don’t get the NBN?

  10. Well, I’m going to take a front row seat and watch the catastrophe unfold. 300,000 nodes, obsolete within five years, taking two years just to get started and putting us even further behind in upload speeds in global comparison.

    If anyone is reading this comment let’s say in 2020, I can honestly say my conscience is clear. I’ve made every single effort I could to warn about this. I spoke out.

    But why spend money on what is essentially just a video entertainment system, right?

  11. I’d be pretty happy if I had a house with fibre now. There is no doubt it will add value to a house in the future. It’s going to be very high on my list when I buy a house.

    • Just how much value do you think it will add? The Liberal plan is for fibre on demand to be available for ~$3000 installed. So at most a fibre connection for the less than 5% predicted by Labor to connect at 1Gbps in 2028 will add less than 1% to the value of the house.

      Furthermore, Optus discussed prior to election releasing plans which would provide free installation on a 2 year contract.

      • “Free installation”?

        According to some, there is no such thing and sematics were argued over relating to the NBN’s “free” installation, remember?

        But having seen such nitpicking, I’ll bet the same pedantics wont be applied by the same people to either the new Government’s plan or especially a private company.

        Regardless, you don’t think Optus would be giving free installation anyway do you? Surely as a profit first company, the fees for usage will be structured to offset installation charges?

        But it sounds good eh.

        • > Regardless, you don’t think Optus would be giving free installation anyway do you? Surely as a profit first company, the fees for usage will be structured to offset installation charges?

          Optus’ mobile phone plans provide a good guide where handsets are free or subsidised.

          The Coalition NBN plan means that rather than borrowing piles of money to install FTTP where 50% of connections were predicted to be 12Mbps, people will pay a reasonable installation charge up front for the faster speeds.

          • Yes subsidised… pay more for usage to cover installation costs… as I said.

            But… the new government are planning to utilise obsolete copper (fibre is now the new standard) which belongs to Telstra, is old, largely unkempt, vastly inferior and is estiimated to cost (governmnet cost comparison) only $900m less than the previous governments FttP plan.

            Sorry, IMO, when doing such a basic comparison and particularly since FttP is underway, going backwards to FttN is just dumb.

          • I can’t believe you’re still on this line of (un)reasoning. 50% of connections were predicted to be 12Mbps AT FIRST. The demand for higher value services would quickly rise. People are NOT going to STAY on 12Mbps connections FOREVER. And it turned out that it was a very, very, very conservative estimate anyway. We know this. Stop repeating this nonsense! Just stop!

          • Indeed Harimau…

            That’s why I ignored Mathew’s last paragraph, as it has been answered many times.

            But particularly, such (IMO) endlessly repetitive nonsense is completely irrelevant as FttN (including obsolete copper) is now the current plan…

            I guess like another still wanting to put the boot into the NBN, old habits eh?

          • > I can’t believe you’re still on this line of (un)reasoning. 50% of connections were predicted to be 12Mbps AT FIRST.

            WRONG. The NBNCo Corporate Plan was revised and the number of 100Mbps connections revised upwards, but the number of 12Mbps connections remained stable.

            it doesn’t change the fact that Labor supported 50% of fibre connections being 12Mbps. Remember this was all based on modelling driven by the parameters that Labor set. FTTP was Labor’s response to Telstra being unwilling to work with Labor on a FTTN plan. It was a great idea, but as with other Labor policies the implementation was poor.

          • A) the early adopters actuals proved those conservative estimations from the Corp Plan wrong and therefore your perpetual repeating of the estimations wrong.

            Again I say this to you, you accepted the NBN was behind scedule because err, it was. Why do you persist on overlooking the actuals here too…

            B) with the change of government it doesn’t matter anyway…they have said FttN will be their preference.

            Which I think was the gist of most replies *shrugs*

            Time to stop kicking the now defunct NBN Mathew and start to consider the pros and cons of FttN… IMO it won’t take long to find the limited pros, but it may take some time to amass the long list of obvious cons…

          • I think you will find that this is his (indirect ) way of gloating. How do we know that because, as usual and as Fibroid demonstrated, they have very little to contribute. Furthermore, they are a bit at a loss, like their fearless leader, having to now move from negative to positive.

            The next move I anticipate will a fierce defence of incoming problems with the coalition’s plan and the blaming of Labor for any future delays or cost blowout.

          • Sadly Observer, I think they have always had little input into the topic of comms, hence the fact that the same old disproven or at best questionable comments needed to be repeated verbatim, endlessly and they’d never take no for an answer…

            With TA now elected and thier bullseye NBN (bar a miracle) defunct, as you say, this is now a completely different kettle of fish for them and looking throughout most tech sites all of the usaul suspect 24/7 detractors seem at a loss as to what to say now and therefore seem to have decided the same old chestnuts are better than nothing… lol.

          • Just noticed on the business spectator site, Matthews repeating the same things about 50% bla bla bla, not once but twice. Hard to know why he did twice. Could be that he thinks people need to be told ad nauseaum (a la TA) or is it some sort of obsession with the idea? We will never know.

            Somehow, I don’t think you have heard the end of the 50% mantra.

          • Twice? Is that all? lol. We counted seven in one article last year. yeah, I know what you are thinking Observer… perhaps the NBN monies would be better off spent on health after all.

            ____________________
            1208 days to go!

          • He is awaiting instructions from HQ….there’s been a lot of victory parties and dinners to arrange/go to after all ;o)

          • “The NBNCo Corporate Plan was revised and the number of 100Mbps connections revised upwards, but the number of 12Mbps connections remained stable.”

            This statement highlights your lunacy.

            If a percentage changes, other percentages also need to change, otherwise you end up with one larger than 100% (which in the case of “number of premises in Australia, is impossible).

            You have been on about Labor “mandating” 12Mbps to 50%, and it is a lie. It was only ever an estimation of take-up, which was wrong anyway.

          • >> “The NBNCo Corporate Plan was revised and the number of 100Mbps connections revised upwards, but the number of 12Mbps connections remained stable.”

            > This statement highlights your lunacy.
            >
            > If a percentage changes, other percentages also need to change, otherwise you end up with one larger than 100% (which in the case of “number of premises in Australia, is impossible).

            Sorry, but it highlights your lack of knowledge. Labor’s NBN offered a range of speed tiers from 12/1Mbps to 1Gbps. The revision of the NBNCo Corporate Plan increased the percentage of 100Mbps by reducing the percentage of 25Mbps and 50Mbps connections. If you had actually read and comprehended Labor’s NBN plan then you might have understood the foolishness.

            What it does highlight is the digital divide that Labor’s NBN would have created, where 50% had 12Mbps, and the bulk of the remainder had 100Mbps with very few on 1Gbps plans.

            > You have been on about Labor “mandating” 12Mbps to 50%, and it is a lie. It was only ever an estimation of take-up, which was wrong anyway.

            It was a demonstration that Labor was full of spin and that there was a disconnect between what they were saying and the reality of the network being planned.

          • What it does highlight is the digital divide that Labor’s NBN would have created, where 50% had 12Mbps, and the bulk of the remainder had 100Mbps with very few on 1Gbps plans.

            That is what their conservative estimates say. Unfortunately the reality is going to be a little more complicated. For example, you are aware that under current pricing the prices differences between 12 and 100Mbps are practically negibale? This is intentional, it means that for the majority of househouses the decision to switch to higher speed plan will be based upon their needs and preferences, not economic considerations.

            As demand for higher speed increases the plan implies that they would have raised the “center” from it’s current sitting at around 25Mbps to a higher tier more reflective of average usage.

          • It was a demonstration that Labor was full of spin and that there was a disconnect between what they were saying and the reality of the network being planned.

            It seems you were more than happy to believe the Liberal spin though…

          • WRONG.

            You’ve misunderstood my use of the phrase “at first”.

            At first, the proportion of 12Mbps services will (allegedly) be as much as 50%.
            Later, the proportion of 12Mbps services will decrease (eventually to near 0%) as the same customers take up higher value services such as 25Mbps, 50Mbps, 100Mbps.

            Is that so difficult for you to understand? I’d hazard a guess that a 7 year old is capable of that understanding.

            “it doesn’t change the fact that Labor supported 50% of fibre connections being 12Mbps”
            It also doesn’t MATTER. What is your POINT?

            Here is mine. 12Mbps is not going to be what half of Australians require FOREVER. If you think it is, there’s something very, very wrong with your thought processes.

          • > At first, the proportion of 12Mbps services will (allegedly) be as much as 50%.
            Later, the proportion of 12Mbps services will decrease (eventually to near 0%) as the same customers take up higher value services such as 25Mbps, 50Mbps, 100Mbps.

            You might want to believe this, but Labor didn’t. The proportion of 12Mbps barely declined over the lifetime of the plan (2028). It is a shame you didn’t actually study what Labor were planning.

            > Here is mine. 12Mbps is not going to be what half of Australians require FOREVER. If you think it is, there’s something very, very wrong with your thought processes.

            i didn’t say that. Labor’s NBNCo Corporate Plan predicted that. If Labor had settled on a plan without speed tiers then I would have been more supportive, but they chose to punish the less fortunate and reward the rich (only ones who could afford the truly fast plans). I don’t see that as the Labor way.

          • Seriously, WTF does this ridiculous groundhog day spiel (we have heard from you and you alone – quite telling) have to do with the topic Mathew? I.e. Coalition winning the election and killing off FttP NBN?

          • For crying out loud, Matthew quit while you are behind.

            Seriously, you may not be aware of it but you are embarrassing yourself. Get some help. Honestly, you need it.

          • You might want to believe this, but Labor didn’t. The proportion of 12Mbps barely declined over the lifetime of the plan (2028). It is a shame you didn’t actually study what Labor were planning.

            You are conflating NBNCo, the orignasiation buidling the NBN, with Labor, the policy party that founded NBNCo. Please stop doing this.

            NBNCo were the ones predicting 50% at 12Mbps. They did this based upon a varienty of factors, some of which have proved to be unsound (namely, the percentage of people taking up the higher level tiers is higher than predicted), but mainly because they wanted to provide a conservative estimate. This is something large organisations do when they plan to spend a large amount of money, they be pessimistic in order to reduce risk. Even if they were more realistic, or optimisitc, with their estimates, they still wouldn’t have decided that everyone wants 1Gbps. In fact the only one who seems to want 1Gbps right now here is, well you Mathew.

            Now, this assumptions of take-up rate are widely agreed upon, in fact, the Coalition policy follows an almost identical take up model. This is implied throughout the policy where they define the most popular plan, etc. If you’re going to tell someone else that they haven’t studied a plan in detail it would help, Mathew, if you had actually also studied the plan, because based upon what you have been saying on this forum lately, I don’t think this is the case.

            I didn’t say that. Labor’s NBNCo Corporate Plan predicted that. If Labor had settled on a plan without speed tiers then I would have been more supportive, but they chose to punish the less fortunate and reward the rich (only ones who could afford the truly fast plans). I don’t see that as the Labor way.

            I hate to point this out, but unfortunately a government, even a socalistic one, cannot spend money willy nilly. It has to make informed decisions, it has to try and get the best possible outcome. It cannot waste countless billions, as you proposed, on building a network implemented in such a way that it is difficult or impossible to repay.

            You have often said you wished that NBNCo had deleivered 1Gbps services to all, like Google Fibre, and other plans. However you ignored the fact that these are small scale experimental networks, they are not a scable model to tens of millions of premises as vastly distributed as Australian residents.

            Chorus, another favouriate of yours to point out how FTTN can work (before they changed to FTTP), is actually doing 1Gbps. But again, to a select, experimental community, not the whole of New Zealand. As services demanding 1Gbps become more common programs designed like NZ’s UFB or the Labor NBN plan, can easily “switch up” the services as demand grows. Afterall their only objective is to be able to pay off the inital investment, not actually, as you seem to be implying, put arbitary limits of what can be done with a connection.

            The Corperate plan is not set in stone, as we have often told you.

          • However you ignored the fact that these are small scale experimental networks, they are not a scable model to tens of millions of premises as vastly distributed as Australian residents.

            They have branched out from the small scale trials (https://fiber.google.com/cities/#header=check) and have plans for 16 cities. They are even adding new cities when they identify areas that are viable.

            But it still isn’t a national roll out like ours.

          • > You are conflating NBNCo, the orignasiation buidling the NBN, with Labor, the policy party that founded NBNCo. Please stop doing this.

            The Labor ministers responsible for the NBN sent a “Letter of Expectations” to NBNCo, and the Labor ministers responsible for the NBN review the NBNCo Corporate Plan and request changes before it is released. If this wasn’t the case the Corporate Plan would have been released in May.

            The Labor ministers responsible are accountable for the actions of NBNCo. This is the way our government system works.

          • The Labor ministers responsible for the NBN sent a “Letter of Expectations” to NBNCo, and the Labor ministers responsible for the NBN review the NBNCo Corporate Plan and request changes before it is released. If this wasn’t the case the Corporate Plan would have been released in May.

            The Labor ministers responsible are accountable for the actions of NBNCo. This is the way our government system works.

            Yes, they are, but that isn’t why I accused you of conflating the two organisations.

            I accused you of conflating them because the assumptions of take-up rate are widely agreed upon. You are suggesting that NBNCo have been told by Labor to deliberately “estimate” that 12Mbps will be used by 50% of the population in 2028, or to fudge the prices until most people want, for economic reasons, 12Mbps in 2028.

            With the fact that both the Coalition plan, many industry commentators, etc, suggesting that the predicted uptake rates by NBNCo are reasonable, or coming up with similar figures, etc, compared to your suggested conspiracy, I would apply Occam’s razor.

            This means that you’re trying to place a political motivation and “conspiracy” behind something that clearly isn’t as such, and expecting us to suspend disbelief so that we can follow your points to conclusion, in essence suggesting Labor isn’t interested in bringing Broadband to as many people as possible and just wants to achieve some unstated, but probably malicious goal.

            I assume the end goal you are eluding to by an educated guess is that they want to, “get control of the nets” or some other such irrational possibility.

          • You might want to believe this, but Labor didn’t. The proportion of 12Mbps barely declined over the lifetime of the plan (2028). It is a shame you didn’t actually study what Labor were planning.

            Seriously’ you must be one of the most irrational people I’ve ever read. It wasn’t the ALP/NBN Co’s “plan” to have 50% on 12Mbps, it was their “guess” that that many would take up that speed.

            Do you understand the difference?

            The Liberal plan ALSO has speed tiers which is why they have “Plan chosen by most users = 12Mbps” on page 15.

          • That is nonsense.

            Those taking up the higher speed tiers actually subsidise those taking up the lower speed tiers! People paying less only pay less because there are people paying more!

            How do you calculate ARPU?
            ARPU = Total revenue / Number of users

            So let’s look at a very simple example. Target ARPU is, say, $50/mo. There are only two services: 1Gbps (X users; $150/mo) and 12Mbps (Y users; $25/mo). I’m aware these aren’t necessarily the correct charges, but this keeps the numbers nice and round.

            Total revenue = 150*X + 25*Y
            Number of users = X + Y
            ARPU = 50
            50 = (150*X + 25*Y) / (X + Y)
            50*X + 50*Y = 150*X + 25*Y
            25*Y = 100*X
            Let X = 1 (i.e. for every 1 user on 1Gbps…)
            25*Y = 100
            Y = 4

            In English, for every 1 user on 1Gbps (paying extra), there can be 4 users on 12Mbps (paying under) – to maintain an ARPU of $50/mo. The 1Gbps user subsidises the other four 12Mbps users.

            Let’s see what happens if you tighten it up, and the 1Gbps connection is now only $70/mo. How much would you have to charge ($A/mo) the basic 12Mbps users to maintain the same ARPU for the same combination of users?
            50 = (70*1 + A*4) / (1 + 4)
            5*50 = 70*1 + 4*A
            250-70 = 4*A
            A = 180/4
            A = 45

            So to allow people who want 1Gbps to pay less than half what they would ordinarily pay ($150 -> $70), you’d have to gouge the most basic users and have them pay almost twice as much as they are currently paying ($25 -> $45). I don’t see that as the Labor way.

            If everyone paid the same for the same service (let’s say it gets freely upgraded as they go, from 12Mbps eventually to 1Gbps), then in my example everyone would pay $50. But what happens to those users who really only need and want a basic internet connection and VoIP service? Too bad for them! Additionally, while the original plan increases ARPU through the gradual uptake of higher value services, under the one-size-fits-all approach that you propose, there would be no growth in ARPU, so you could only generate higher revenues by increasing the number of users, not at all an easy feat. How would you then return investment, especially if you needed a higher ARPU than that? Just increase charges to everyone?

            It seems, therefore, that your opposition to Labor’s NBN is premised on an ignorance of economic reality and a lack of mathematical understanding.

          • “It seems, therefore, that your opposition to Labor’s NBN is premised on an ignorance of economic reality and a lack of mathematical understanding.”

            Nailed it.

          • Here is a “roads” analogy for you. Imagine building a 4 lane freeway into the city, and charging a toll to travel in lanes with a higher speed limit. $50/month enables you to travel in the 3 slow lanes and $1000/month enables you to travel in the fast lane. Sounds fair … except the slow lanes aren’t that much faster than existing routes and the 5% who can afford the fast lane could never have constructed the freeway.

            Alternatively, everyone pays a fee to use the tollway and then another fee for every time they use it.

          • Except, Mathew, that is not how communications technologies work. Despite you trying to tell us otherwise, burst capacity bandwidth is expensive to maintain.

            We’ve been over this numerous times and you rarely, if ever, try to address our counter points.

            Why is it you think repeating the same points over and over again actually somehow give merit to your points? Because it doesn’t.

          • Mathew, your analogy makes no sense and completely misses the point. The mathematics is clear on this. You can’t deflect by using what is an absolute farce of an analogy. I will consider your lack of response to what I actually said in my post to be a silent concession of the point.

          • The Coalition is borrowing only $900m less for their NBN, not much of a saving for the result they are offering…

      • Actually the liberal plan is for Fibre on demand for approximately 4000 dollars. Or haven’t you done the maths on the OpenReach pricing?

  12. Goodbye Nbn.. It’s a dead loss now.. A $29b lemon..
    A Dreadful loss for Australia and the economy, as we shall soon see..

  13. Now we get to see how Malcolm manages to pull the rabbit out of the hat and get access to the copper for free.That at least is going to be a very worthy piece of magic on his part.

  14. Eventually I’ll be selling up so I’ll just buy a place that already has optical fibre, I’m not waiting around for these clowns.

  15. In his policy speech and again in his victory speech, Tony Abbott has renewed his “no excuses” pledge.

    Malcolm Turnbull has committed to purchase a copper network which the vendor has admitted is at 5 minutes to midnight. He has told us this network will be “free”. No excuses. He has promised his version of broadband will operate at the limits of his nominated technology. No excuses.

    The new government has gained the support of electorates desperate for improved public transport while refusing to fund it. Do these people also appreciate the compromises in the LCP plan both technically and the continued shadow of Telstra?

    At lest the technology media is currently outside of the Murdoch Empire and the lower barriers to entry should mean it stays that way.

  16. Such a tragedy. We were just beginning to catch up with the rest of the world, and now we’ll fall far behind yet again.

  17. There are a number of hurdles which have not been discussed

    1) Time taken to redesign the network (1-2 year
    s)
    2) Time taken to fight the failure to deliver contracts in courts – there will be massive penalties in not deploying the project as planned
    3) Telstra REFUSING to sell Copper network – as they wont get the NBN funding if they dont go with the NBN plan – they have not received all their money for their network that was part of the NBN deal – its offered in stages and Telstra wants that fat cash – I wonder if they will offer this to shareholders to vote the sale of the copper network – seeing that 65% of Australians want the NBN fibre to home – that could translate into a Telstra shareholder majority vote of NO to any sale of Copper to the Libs

    I predict you wont see a single FTTN cabinet deployed within the next 3 years – it wont happen and when we all go back to polls in 2016 – the NBN will be up for grabs again.

    Its going to be very interesting to see how the NBN goes from here – dont count the chickens yet – its not all over!!!

    • like every other govt plan, telstras nbn deal is subject to who is in power. that will have been taken into account already, by people much smarter in this game than you.

      • Not just to whom is in power, it depends on the courts as well. The government of Australia isn’t a dictatorship and can’t just run around breaking contracts with no penalty.

    • “Its going to be very interesting to see how the NBN goes from here – dont count the chickens yet – its not all over!!!”

      Nonsense. Accept it’s over and accept that the they will go ahead with their plan. Trust me, it’ll be much more entertaining if you nod and say “yes” for a while :-)

  18. I’ve got my stopwatch ready for the start of the 60 days…

    Well, it’s only fair. Turnbull has been very specific about his policy, apparently Tony thinks it’s ‘bulletproof’. I’m very much looking forward then to seeing the outcome of an independent & thorough audit of the NBN by (assuming they’re sworn in Monday after next) 15th of November.

  19. I, for one, welcome our new Telstra overlords.

    – Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Communications Minister, 2013

  20. Hello ladies and gentlemen,
    you may be wondering about what will happen to those of you who need NBN fibre.
    Well, I have a place, a magical, wondrous place to tell you about.

    Land is cheap, houses are plentiful and there is fibre for all.

    It is a shining little fibre optic light called Armidale NSW.

    You may have thought you had it all in the city, but I am here to tell you that you are wrong.

    Multiple fibre lead ins, including plenty of Aarnet dark fibre, a University and NBN through out the city. Technology central, located halfway between Brisbane and Sydney, inland from the coast.

    Come one, come all to the shining beacon of technology and development. Gigabit to the house? Sure, we can do that.

    Skilled IT workers? Got a TAFE AND a University in town.

    Not 1 but two Defence Barracks, a fully functioning airport and a bucket load of cheap land. Want to build a datacentere? OK! Developers? Welcome! Need some transport infrastructure – we got that covered.

    So… who wants to move here?

  21. Depressing times. Australia just got their equivalent of George W as leader, and the dream of a ubiquitous fibre network has been shattered in the process.

    All I can say is thanks for putting up a fair and logical fight against the Coalitions’s continuous flow of bullshit the last few years Renai! Thanks also to the vast majority of clever readers of this site that have helped me understand (and hence argue for) the technical nuances of the NBN.

    We all did our very best to state the facts to people and educate those around us in our lives I’m sure (I know I did!) but up against the propaganda being constantly spewed forward by Murdoch media, plus the technical complexities and vision required to properly comprehend the NBN often made it hard to convey to laymen (and this is all while Labor leadership imploded) – we never really stood a chance this election.

    I can’t even begin to to imagine how frustrating the next decade will be to watch as technology like VDSL is is slowly and inconsistently deployed, and how stupid its all going to look when we are desperately in need of 1gbps+ in a decade or less (forgetting uploads!) , and have this wasted opportunity to look back on and say “if only the NBN had gone ahead as planned”.. *sigh*

    At least we all get to say “I told you so” for at least 6 years..

    • “Depressing times. Australia just got their equivalent of George W as leader, and the dream of a ubiquitous fibre network has been shattered in the process. ”

      Indeed. Ending up with a gimped network is one thing but to have Abbott as prime minister is pretty repugnant. I’m trying to figure out whats worse.

      • Abbott, definitely abbott. I could put up with an FTTN, it might reduce to some extent the number of dropouts i receive, it should most definitely fix the congestion issue at the exchange itself.

        But Abbott, lord kill me now, anybody but him, hell, i’ll take Turnbull over him.

        • +1. I’m still in a state of shock that he is actually Prime Minister. As someone remarked on Twitter this is definitely Australia’s “George Bush moment”. Lets just hope he is so shit that an LNP government only last 3 years (I can dream ;) )

          • I’ve made the George Bush comparison myself over the years. It’s unfortunate that George Bush had two terms in office :-)

            ____________________
            1209 days to go!

          • I swear those that voted for Abbott were actually voting for the Australian Prime Muppet…

          • Just think about the amount of damage they can do in three years though! I will put money on the fact that they will go back to a John Howard Telstra absolute ballsup! Very sad indeed!

    • +1 here too. Mind you, Labor not that far behind in terms of right wing actions.

    • I actually feel sick in the stomach, and i really fear for the future.
      Something that helps is “La La La” By Naughty Boy, You can find it on iTunes!

  22. Deserves to fail… What a stupid idea where the priority is running fibre to residences rather then schools, hospitals and businesses..

    Look at the official NBN maps… I have seen single residences where fibre has to be run hundreds of metres to get to them covered by fibre, then in other areas houses getting satellite when across the road is fibre..

    When Australia is ready it will get fibre… It is not ready yet, it is not needed when the goal is to build a network solely to make a profit..

    • First of all Frank.

      The NBN plans to go everywhere within the 93% footprint. That means schools, hospitals and businesses do get it.

      Prioritizing it so you go to “places that need it first” is actually a logistical nightmare and would add to the cost significantly.

      Secondly: so you found a few isolated examples of what you consider bad decisions but instead of asking why this is happening (you can’t just “tap” a transit fibre line like you can a water pipe) you think you can do better.

      You got what you wanted, the Coalition are in power, the NBN as it stands is dead. Now don’t try and pretend that you know better than the thousands of telecommunications experts that endorsed the plan, just humbly accept your victory and move on.

    • Yes thanks Frank, we’ve heard all the rhetoric before. But the thing is, the election is over now and TA won (congratulations to him… I sincerely hope for Australia, he is a successful 28th PM).

      Being so it’s already time to move on Frank… we know… old habits ;) Because it seems obvious (barring a miracle from MT/TA) that the NBN even with it’s problems, but nonetheless a world leading build as I believe most universally recognised it was, is pretty much dead.

      IMO the visionless and anally conservative, got their way at the expense of Australia and Australians.

      As such, it’s now (well of course the Coalition need a grace period for transition etc) time to start gathering actual evidence in relation to MT’s broadband plan as government policy (as opposed to proposed opposition policy) and really scrutinising his FttN/broadband plan.

      So IMO, it will be interesting to see if those usual suspect NBN detractors (who IMO appeared exclusively politically motivated in their NBN opposition) will remain here and if so, are willing to grill MT’s plan to the same nth degree they did the NBN and visa versa with NBN supporters, whether they/we will be willing to read between the lines and give MT a little leeway. it will also be interesting to see, if those like myself who were willing to accept the NBN hold ups, due to a number of IMO obvious factors, are also willing to do so with MT’s plan and again visa versa with the NBN detractors, who certainly refused to accept anything but the bottom line… whether they will be here now giving MT the benefit of the doubt they steadfastly refused to give Conroy/Quigley…

      Interesting times…

      Ooh for those who sulk over at ZD and are unwilling to comment here as their baseless bullshit wouldn’t last 5 minutes at an evidence based forum/Delimiter and don’t understand ‘topical’ commenting, I am of course speaking exclusively in relation to the NBN topic here, nothing else… Gotta spell it out each and every time to some… *sigh*

      • “As such, it’s now (well of course the Coalition need a grace period for transition etc) time to start gathering actual evidence in relation to MT’s broadband plan as government policy (as opposed to proposed opposition policy) and really scrutinising his FttN/broadband plan.”

        Exactly, though the CBA/report/audit on the NBN should be interesting to see, especially if it’s done honestly and not as an ideological smoke screen with biased outcomes built in.

        I also agree 100% with your “usual suspects” comment ;o)

    • @Frank – as has been mentioned here by myself and others, FTTP was reviewed by a panel of experts who made the decision of FTTP and not FTTN.

      You’ve got your wish, a Coalition government.

      Don’t piss and moan when the reality of this doesn’t live up the the hype and bullshit that was sold do you.

      I told you so.

    • I don’t think it deserves to fail, it’s a great plan. I’d love to have fibre. Whether I’d prioritise it over other infrastructure investments, I don’t know.

      Note: there are two Franks posting here. I made the comment on costings a little up.

  23. Renai has got a kind of a point now.

    While it is extremely disappointing that the much, much better FTTP policy will be killed for political reasons – the facts are we are now dealing with FTTN and that is our reality. We need to tear our focus away from the stupidity of the situation and try to make the best of this mess that we can.

    Although for me, personally, the lessons of how our political system has destroyed something so good will never be lost. Sadly the repercussions of this decision will be felt for decades – so I don’t think I will have difficulty in remembering the lesson learned.

    • Sadly the repercussions of this decision will be felt for decades

      Yep. Just look at how long the Telstra mess took to clean up…

  24. For it to be killed Abbot will probably need to provide a detailed business plan as well as costings to show it is unfeasible.

    Running well overtime. Running ever 5 years over-time would be good enough justification to move to a hybrid solution.

    Amongst other things cost. IF the NBN is on budget. They would need to charge 3X the amount currently paid per household.

    Some might say additional services such as PayTV over NBN will account for this profit. But not everyone will get these services so where will this additional revenue come from?

    If the NBN goes over budget. Its going to be even worse.

    And i can’t wait to see the shocking secrets behind the NBN.

  25. Remember when Whitlam introduced Medibank (FTTP) and Fraser changed it (FTTN); Hawke changed it back again (FTTP). The Liberals have form. Then Fraser swung to the left and resigned from the Liberal party.

    Is that the future for the NBN and Tony Abbott? I’d like to see that.

    • Possibly. It depends on how successful the LBN is as well as in how interested Australians are in seeing technological progress.

    • I am sure it will be, FTTP is inevitable. I just hope it will not be on the same timescale, because we will be mighty sick of FTTN in 2030.

  26. Judging from this and other tech comment sites it looks like the first of the LNP funding cuts has already happened.
    Our noisy FttN apologists and trolls seem to have disappeared. Maybe their contracts ceased yesterday.

    Anyway, our real work starts now.

    TA’s 3 year election campaign should serve as a model because it shows what can be achieved by staying on message, keeping it simple, and keeping it visible.

    I think the messages are:
    1. The world is moving to FttP and Australia will now be left behind.
    2. Our FttP rollout was on budget.
    3. Our FttP rollout was ‘on time’ because the delays were caused by factors outside NBN Co’s control.
    4. FttN, if it ever arrives, will be expensive and inferior.

    We’ll need to hammer the FttN plan. Accept no excuses. Forgive nothing.
    It will be slow to start so we keep pointing out it will not achieve its rollout timeline.
    Highlight all problems as they come up, and keep referring to them.

    Just a thought bubble – I’m sure others will have better ideas.
    The messages only need to be defensible. You can always argue over one-liners.

    • “Our noisy FttN apologists and trolls seem to have disappeared. Maybe their contracts ceased yesterday.”

      Either that Maude or they are simply plum tuckered out after a gruelling day handing out how to vote cards and celebrating until the wee hours ;)

    • “Our noisy FttN apologists and trolls seem to have disappeared”

      Give it a few days. Surely you don’t think you’ve seen the last of their illogical comments. I’m sure some of them will be keen to defend GimpCo over the coming years… Assuming their opposition to the proper NBN wasn’t political. We shall see…

      ____________________
      1209 days to go!

  27. Once again it is somewhat amusing to see comment along the lines of ‘you got what you deserved’ from the Coalition win, and the Labor FTTP was the ‘better policy’.

    First of all the pre election Labor NBN campaign was a disaster, having decided that selling their own policy was not going to be effective (which doesn’t say much about their own confidence in that policy) they decided the best approach was to attack the Coalition policy negatively.

    That didn’t work because they had to resort to making up Coalition policy for them, especially in the area of ‘let’s scare ’em with $5k FoD costing ‘ a wasted exercise, FoD and its costing is irrelevant to most voters.

    Then there was the ‘ decrepit copper’ theme, once again falling on deaf ears, especially those satisfied with reasonable ADSL2+ or Naked DSL connection speeds.

    Of course post election analysis by Labor NBN supporters in 2010 concluded because the NBN was in the list the Independents and the Greens liked about Labor and why they backed them in for Government, it therefore provided ringing endorsement that it was the correct policy and helped them to win Government.

    Well this time around the Coalition get to govern in their own right with a healthy Lower House seat majority, so this election is if you factor in NBN policy as a decider was even more about electorate rejection of Labor NBN policy and acceptance of Coalition NBN policy.

    But then many will say the NBN had nothing to do with the Coalition win, which is then interesting that NBN policy is a deciding factor only when it is the Labor FTTP policy.

    • First of all the pre election Labor NBN campaign was a disaster, having decided that selling their own policy was not going to be effective (which doesn’t say much about their own confidence in that policy) they decided the best approach was to attack the Coalition policy negatively.

      Hmm… not like we’ve seen that tactic before.

      Well this time around the Coalition get to govern in their own right with a healthy Lower House seat majority, so this election is if you factor in NBN policy as a decider was even more about electorate rejection of Labor NBN policy and acceptance of Coalition NBN policy.

      I’m not sure if you’re aware of the fact that there were other issues apart from the NBN in this election. As REnai has pointed out in this very article, the electorate is by in large of support for the Labor model.

      Obviously they didn’t consider it an important enough issue to sway their vote, but they still supported it.

      But then many will say the NBN had nothing to do with the Coalition win, which is then interesting that NBN policy is a deciding factor only when it is the Labor FTTP policy.

      Exactly, so why did you post the paragraph above this one?

      Fibroid, have you heard of the concept of being humble in victory?

    • Fibroid to wander of topic…

      I see a boat has just been intercepted in Oz waters…

      Didn’t Tony say he’d stop the boats?

      See, uncompromising, silly those pedantics that some practiced previously, work both ways…

      :)

    • Good to find it amusing. Let’s now look at what happens next. I am prepared to bet that no matter how much MT stuffs up, you will be here, trying to defend his honour and telling us, horrible lefties, how wrong we are on some minuscule point.

      Most pundits agree that winning the election was the easy part. Now, the hard part starts, the Coalition has to demonstrate that they are the geniuses that they have been telling us they were.

      Enjoy your gloating now. Hope you don’t disappear, or change you name, when things start to go pear shape. Remember that it is nice to be able to give it but you also have to be prepared to take it as well.

      Looking forward to a future of reality rather than one of conjectures (your favourite term, I know).

  28. Hello ladies and gentlemen,
    you may be wondering about what will happen to those of you who need NBN fibre.
    Well, I have a place, a magical, wondrous place to tell you about.

    Land is cheap, houses are plentiful and there is fibre for all.

    It is a shining little fibre optic light called Armidale NSW.

    You may have thought you had it all in the city, but I am here to tell you that you are wrong.

    Multiple fibre lead ins, including plenty of Aarnet dark fibre, a University and NBN through out the city. Technology central, located halfway between Brisbane and Sydney, inland from the coast.

    Come one, come all to the shining beacon of technology and development. Gigabit to the house? Sure, we can do that.

    Skilled IT workers? Got a TAFE AND a University in town.

    Not 1 but two Defence Barracks, a fully functioning airport and a bucket load of cheap land. Want to build a datacentere? OK! Developers? Welcome! Need some transport infrastructure – we got that covered.

    So… who wants to move here? :-)

      • Looks like there may be heightened interest, come Monday morning. :-)
        THE Armidale NBN Users Group expects that within about 6 months, a lot of people are going to be told “No” when they ask if they are getting fibre – scarcity plus demand = price rise.

        https://www.facebook.com/groups/ArmidaleNBNUsers/

        If I was an investor, I’d be making sure my property had NBN installed in Armidale. If I was a starting up business that needed cheap fibre, I’d move to Armidale.

        • > If I was an investor, I’d be making sure my property had NBN installed in Armidale. If I was a starting up business that needed cheap fibre, I’d move to Armidale.

          NBN fibre was never cheap, except at ADSL2 speeds and average quotas.

          It depends on what the plans look like. For many businesses that can gain access to or install dark fibre at a reasonable cost that will be much more cost effective than the current NBN plans with speed tiers and high data charges.

          • I could buy an NBN plan that was equivalent quota to what I am on now; but 100 megabits.

            Note: I don’t need phone rental, so I had an extra 30 dollars to apply to my NBN plan.

            (And I still get a phone line with the new plan)

          • When I looked into it, I could get double the speed for the same money I’m paying now. Or I could get the same speed for almost half what I’m currently paying, so I’m going to call you on your BS sir.

    • Coffs Harbour, a couple of hours drive East from Armidale, is in exactly the same situation.

      Land is relatively cheap, the NBN is connected (I’m using a 100MB connection right now) or in the final stages of being connected to most areas, it has a TAFE and university producing IT graduates, is half way between Sydney and Brisbane, is right on the Pacific Highway and has direct flights departing to Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

      Did I mention Coffs Harbour is also on the coast, boasting some of the best beaches and natural scenery on the East Coast.

      • Tassie is in a similar situation given fibre has been rolled out to much of the state, with contracts in place to roll out FTTP until the completion of Tas at the end of 2015 (providing Turnbull can’t alter those contracts to FTTN – and providing there aren’t any further delays that affect the rollout dates). If the contract for my area is honoured I may get FTTP next year. Its all very uncertain though so I’m trying to not get my hopes up.

  29. The FTTP NBN isn’t dead just yet. The wheels of Government not only turn slowly, but also have a lot of inertia, so the legislative, parliamentary, contractual and technical processes and reviews are likely to take a long time – perhaps even up until the next election.

  30. First of all, what’s all this nonsense about ‘holding the LNP to account’? You have as much ability to hold the LNP to account as you had to keep them out of office in the first place ie none. Two years of very solid and consistent technical arguments against LNP communications strategy have led to what, have resulted in what, of actual meaningful, tangible difference?

    People aren’t voting in facts, it doesn’t matter how many facts or how much evidence or expert opinion you place before them, people vote based on tradition, social and family values and prejudices, emotion and ideology. They will try to justify that position with ostensibly logical argument to a point, but if you logically deconstruct and demonstrate the flaws in their arguments until they have no logical basis in fact left to hide behind they will simply become emotional and defensive and demonstrate the illogical (and often quite fanatical) core of their political affiliation. You are about as much chance changing a person’s mind about religion with logical argument.

    As for the future, I actually don’t believe MT will have any difficulty getting the portion of the CAN that they need from Telstra without extra costs – the only hurdle they will face is if they need a shareholder vote (unlikely). Why? Because Telstra have so much to gain under cooperation with the LNP; not playing ball will simply cause them unnecessary damage. Why would they do that?

    Under FTTN Telstra are going to still be paid their $11bn, but they will be able to build their own FTTP in cherry picked high demand high profit areas over the top of FTTN, where they can offer ‘premium’ services at much higher rates than NBN Co were going to charge. They will be effectively guaranteed a monopoly position for decades. Because they will have already built their fibre networks in these areas, they will be able to undercut NBN Co on entry level FTTP plans as well (particularly as NBN Co are going to have to increase the connection prices for ‘entry level’ plans because premium rate, premium performance products simply won’t exist under FTTN). By taking premium customers Telstra makes tremendous amounts of money, by taking lower tier customers Telstra erodes NBN Co’s profitability.

    After a decade of hemorrhaging Government funds with no ability to arrest the outflow, a LNP Government will have no trouble convincing the electorate that ‘selling’ NBN Co’s assets to Telstra is the best move from everyone – after all, Telstra have a proven track record in successful commercial deployment and operation of next generation communications networks, as demonstrated by their own FTTP network. What NBN Co needs is management by ‘proper’, experienced private sector operators, and what better than Australia’s own incumbent telecommunications Corporation? Telstra will be sold NBN Co’s network assets for a song and will then own all the fibre backhaul, and can choose to upgrade last mile fibre where commercially expedient.

    The worst thing for us (and the best for Telstra) is that any incoming ALP Government will be powerless to change this situation once it’s been put in place. It will be a hell of a job convincing the electorate that any such plan requiring tens of billions and state acquisition of Telstra assets is in any way reasonable (but if you leave their FTTP network in place you won’t be able to achieve the economies that would make a future Government owned FTTP network commercially feasible).

    So don’t just forget about FTTP for the near term, forget about it permanently, unless you don’t mind paying Telstra a hell of a lot more for a great deal less.

    Not that you have any choice is the matter any more.

    If you want a breakdown on FTTN Economics (demonstrating how the competition works and why FTTN will fail as a result) see my blog post here:
    https://plus.google.com/app/basic/117364153071764012642/posts?cbp=62x7yltjedra&sview=1&spath=/app/basic/stream/z12iyljovzqnx3buv234itnyyuvwwheix04

    • In that time span, the vocal community managed to get the Liberal party to at least come up with an NBN even if it is FTTN.

      • But if FTTP—

        (a) is THE answer; and

        (b) is popular with the masses,

        what does it say about the way the party develops policy that not only it is not happening, but they have fought to prevent it at great long term cost to the nation while preaching the Cut The Waste Gospel?

    • “Under FTTN Telstra are going to still be paid their $11bn, but they will be able to build their own FTTP in cherry picked high demand high profit areas over the top of FTTN”

      Am I correct in my belief that this part of the NBN (wholesale competition) actually needs to go through the Senate to be changed? If so I’m glad that the Coalition look set to be a firm minority in the Upper House.

  31. *25mbps minimum promised for all by late 2016*

    not a Problem When do the Satellites become operational ?2016 isn’t it ?
    Aren’t they supposed to be able to supply this speed so in theory yes this statement is correct!

  32. Where was the NBN Party in this election, we now have a minuscule “motoring enthusiasts party” with a phone box of primary voters winning a senate seat in Victoria. There is something profoundly undemocratic happening with senate preferences, which started originally when Nick Xenophon became a preference harvester. He was then copied by the “better future for our children party” in NSW.

    • FactCheck: Nick doesn’t “harvest preferences”. He got more FIRST PREFERENCES than the Labor Party.

      • Nick started as a preference harvester, but he is one of the very few who have turned that into baseline support.

    • xenophon polled higher than Labor, it was everybody else harvesting his preferences.

      an NBN party would achieve little. Wikileaks and Pirates obtain minuscule voting numbers.

      Fact is for most Australians the difference between an x mb NBN and y mb NBN isn’t as important as the other issues. I spent a week on the campaign and all day on Saturday at booths and scrutineering, I went through thousands of conversations, NBN never came up directly once, was only mentioned once indirectly by one person as ‘a good thing Labor has done’.

    • Better late than never. If we start a party (call it ‘Better Broadband for our Children’, say) and register it in each state then we’ll be ready for the double dissolution which Abbott says he’ll call.
      With 12 seats up for grabs in each state we won’t need many votes to get a quota.

  33. If all the technologists/IT journos such as yourself Renai had united in your support for the FTTP project instead of sucking up to Malcolm and calling his aborted lemon of an NBN a “viable alternative” for the past few months, you could have saved the NBN by forcing Turnbull to accept that FTTN is a waste of time and money.

    So no crocodile tears now please.

    • I said it was viable (because it is), but that Labor’s plan is better (because it is). I also fact-checked Turnbull’s statements exhaustively. I also published expert opinion stating Labor’s plan was the best long-term alternative. Not sure what else I could have done, short of abandoning the truth.

        • I assume it means mixed fixed line infrastructure rollouts FTTN/FTTP/HFC are viable because they work overseas, otherwise they would not be rolling them out.

          FTTN infrastructure itself is viable because it is still being rolled out in 2013 and future plans are to keep rolling it out.

          Australia is not a unique isolated technology oasis where only FTTP will work.

          • @Fibroid

            FTTN is a viable technology. Doesn’t make it the best choice for Australia. Or even a reasonable choice, depending on many factors we still don’t know.

            However, I’d also like to bring to your attention, the fact that Turnbull’s FTTN system relies on Vectoring to provide its’ speeds (at least that’s what we’ve been led to believe). Vectoring VDSL2 equipment is not yet commercially available and won’t be until 2014. It will also be significantly more expensive than GPON equipment in general, because it is “bleeding edge” copper tech compared with last decades fibre tech.

          • FTTN is a viable technology. Doesn’t make it the best choice for Australia.

            Indeed. Much like igloos are a viable form of housing (in the right places).

            Hmm…Maybe that’s why there are actually so many failed undertakings/systems/telcos in Australia? Ideas that work elsewhere might not be that good a fit here? I’ll have to give that some thought I think…

          • @seven-tech

            ‘FTTN is a viable technology. Doesn’t make it the best choice for Australia. Or even a reasonable choice, depending on many factors we still don’t know.’

            What factors don’t we know about FTTN? – it is being rolled out in many countries, international manufacturers like Alcatel that supply FTTN cabinets all over the world know a hell of a lot about it, and are actively involved in researching higher speeds with Telco’s that have a substantial investment in FTTN.

            I am sure Telstra knows a lot about it as well when it was the preferred upgrade infrastructure to replace their exchange based PSTN and ADSL.

            I don’t know why you and others keep trying to push the line that it has to be the most expensive option of FTTP to 93% of residences or else don’t bother as if Australia is somehow singularly unique in the world when it comes to fixed line broadband infrastructure upgrade choice.

          • You don’t seem to understand our argument at all.

            We’re arguing that the costs savings and time savings associated with a FTTN rollout in Australia do not add up for a more favourable CBA.

            We’re arguing that we feel it is too late to start implementing a FTTN solution because we’ll forever be paying catch up.

            We’re arguing that the sunk cost of the backhaul network and already deployed FTTH infrastructure means that switching, mid rollout, to FTTN, will ultimately mean it will probably cost is more in the long term than if we had simply stuck with the FTTH implementation.

            We’re not arguing that Australia is singular unique and that FTTN couldn’t be viable here. So please, do not present that strawman again.

          • Seems Fibroid actually prefers seeing taxpayer money squandered than spent right ;o)

          • It’s taken a few days to reassess and find a new tack eh Fibroid…? And I note the tack is, more flip-flopping, as this is the second of the day…

            Remember you telling us that HFC here (yes here in Australia, not some hand-picked country from abroad you scoured your multiple monitors for and found which suits the agenda) was a flop?

            So which was it. HFC was/is great or HFC was a flop? Please clear the air once and for all (or at least for the next few hours until the next inevitable about face).

            BTW congratulations on your victory on Saturday, you must be very proud.

          • Okay. So, you mean, technically achievable, and (depending on certain factors) economically feasible. I’m certain that it’s technically achievable and economically feasible, at least overseas. Maybe or maybe not here in Australia. There are doubts that it’s technically achievable (due to the state of the copper, and its type), and, more recently, doubts that it’s economically feasible (how do you grow sufficient ARPU to repay investment without higher value products? how do you maintain sufficient ARPU to repay investment when other companies are overbuilding you with better, more attractive, technologies?).

          • ‘There are doubts that it’s technically achievable (due to the state of the copper, and its type),’

            That’s total conjecture that the ‘state of the copper and its type’ is a FTTN deal stopper in any way.

            ‘ and, more recently, doubts that it’s economically feasible’

            I have not seen any studies stating it’s economically not feasible.

            ‘ (how do you grow sufficient ARPU to repay investment without higher value products?’

            Because the initial investment is lower that you have to repay.

            ‘how do you maintain sufficient ARPU to repay investment when other companies are overbuilding you with better, more attractive, technologies?).’

            Why would companies overbuild Government funded NBN Co FTTN when they have to provide that infrastructure wholesale to all access seekers at ACCC set pricing , the outcome also for it to work economically is they have to take on the Government funded FTTN and poach all their wholesale customers?

          • ‘That’s total conjecture that the ‘state of the copper and its type’ is a FTTN deal stopper in any way”

            And that comment is just as much conjecture from the flip-side

    • I for one would prefer that the journalists maintained their journalistic integrity, that is, purist of the truth, rather than push an agenda.

      The Coalition policy did not come to allowed because of lack of criticism and scrutiny, it came to be because a select few on the other side of the fence, such as Alan Jones, abandoned their journalistic integrity giving legitimacy for some of Turnbull’s more “extreme claims” and, arguing far more importantly than the former point, because people voted for the Coalition.

      By placing the blame on people like Renai you are suggesting a course of action I wholeheartly don’t endorse. You are saying that they should have fought against “extreme claims” by making counter claims equally as extreme, rather than presenting the facts and a reasonable, well thought out position.

      It is not Renai’s fault, or others who have reported on the debate, that Australians voted for the Coalition. Nor that people find other issues, even if those issues prove to be irrelevant or not in the best interest, such as the budget deficit, more important than broadband.

      It is the price we pay for living in democracy. If anyone here voted for the Coalition under the mistaken impression that Turnbull would see the error in his ways soon after the election because of the overwhelming evidence against his plan, it is not the error of those presenting the evidence, but your own that should be concerned about.

      • I think most journalists would be seriously offended by you saying Allan Jones is a journalist.

        He’s actually a talk show host who doesn’t have a jouro bone in his body.

        • Actually i think the correct term is “Shock Jock” and that comes with absolutely no credibility at all! Sadly people listen to these idiots and then vote?

    • What happened in the IT journalism area was what happened in the motoring journalist area. The motoring journalists all endlessly pushed the “technical best”, a big car with a big powerful engine for a big country. And by doing so the motoring journalists didn’t help the Australian car manufacturing industry, they killed it by pushing something that was bigger and more powerful and more expensive than the public wanted. Its a problem all experts have. They think whatever it is that they are expert in is far more important, and far more worth paying for the “technical best” in, than the public does. Ask the public what they think about a fibre NBN and, sure, 60% though it was a good idea, in principle, but less than 20% thought it would benefit them. And it wouldn’t have. And as its cost went up year after year, as its business case said it needed to to pay for itself, more and more of them would have deserted it for what the actual real sales numbers show the majority of people do want, the portability of wireless. It is the same as the car industry where customers in increasing numbers are walking away from the technically very good big cars to small light cheap cars that are merely good enough.

      What happened on Saturday was the election of a government that in the broadband area will stop trying to force everyone to buy a V8 Commodore, albeit one that might have half or three quarters of the cylinders disabled, and instead offer them a Cruze, with the choice of a Commodore at a higher price if they want it. And that will definitely piss off the few who want to do the internet equivalent of towing a caravan or boat, or racing everyone to the next set of lights, but it’ll get more sales. It’ll get more people onto it more quickly. It’ll make it less the National HIGH SPEED Broadband Network, and more the NATIONAL Broadband Network, with the different benefits that will produce.

      • “Ask the public what they think about a fibre NBN and, sure, 60% though it was a good idea, in principle, but less than 20% thought it would benefit them.”

        You could say the same thing about tertiary education (with slightly different percentages). Or the North West Rail Link to people who live on the Epping to Chatswood link which exist already. Or on upgrades to the Pacific Highway to people who are only likely to fly that route.

      • Bullshit Gordon…

        We pushed the new and vastly improved instead of the obsolete… FFS

  34. Anyone keeping track of Telstra stock? I’m thinking it’s about to get a big boost.

    Question regarding myself that the good folk might know. I am building a new house in a new estate (169 houses). Am I going to get copper or fibre now.

    • Depends, how new is the estate, greenfield estates even under the coalition NBN i believe are required to do fibre, because for a new estate, the difference in cost is pretty much negligible. But, that does very much depend on how new the estate is.

      If it already has copper laid down for telephones, then chances are, you’ll get FTTN not FTTH.

    • @My 2c

      Assuming your entire Estate was given planning permission after Jan 2011 (over 100 lots) you will get fibre. That is in legislation and cannot easily be changed. Nor have the Coalition indicated they wish to change it. Or should I say now, nor have the Government indicated.

  35. Bold, fearless prediction: The NBN will be scrapped altogether by the LNP. The will be no FTTN. The remaining FTTP will stay put, but no new NBN infrastructure will be deployed. Phony Tony will use the money saved to plug the holes in his budget related to encouraging well-off women to stay home and breed, as well as giving money back to his mining company mates. The best we can hope for is for this stupidity to cease after 3 years, with a new Labor Government in 2016 picking up and running with the aborted FTTP rollout.

    • Since Labor’s NBN is off budget, does paring back the scope of a commercially viable project help the budget anyway.

      Perhaps the promised 100 day review of the project will yield the right answer if Paul Budde’s advice is considered objectively http://goo.gl/CXgZQA.

      Tony doesn’t need to destroy the NBN any more; he’s got what he wanted. Then again it could create a hero out of Malcolm Turnbull.

    • Phony tony can not save money by dropping NBN as it is not off the budget
      How many time we have to said IT ?!!!

      • This is one scenario for how it will play out: The independent consultants called into review NBNCo will make some minor changes to assumptions and reveal that the project is woefully over of budget and behind schedule. The effect of assumptions was demonstrated by Labor during the election campaign when they used different assumptions to Treasury and found an imaginary $10 billion dollar black hole.

        Once the NBN can be shown to incapable of delivering a return, then it will be brought on budget and become part of the Labor deficit that Coalition needs to make spending cuts to fix. If the trend of the budget position worsening by $10 billion / month has continued, then the deficit could be approaching $50 billion.

        • The independent consultants called into review NBNCo will make some minor changes to assumptions and reveal that the project is woefully over of budget and behind schedule.

          As changing the assumptions behind a business plan does not change money already spent and work done, you do realise that for this statement to make sense they must be two independent clauses right?

          So, with that in mind, what will the changes in assumptions reveal? You have not clarified that, but from your inference I’m guessing it’s bad, right?

          What evidence do you have to suggest that the NBN is “woefully over budget and behind schedule” when you take into account the revisions made? Need I remind you that revisions themselves won’t count as a “revelation” because we already knew this information.

          Once the NBN can be shown to incapable of delivering a return, then it will be brought on budget and become part of the Labor deficit that Coalition needs to make spending cuts to fix.

          Thus implying:

          1) The revisions proposed by Mr Turnbull will not in fact make a RoI

          2) Or (not “exclusive or” please note) The current spending of the NBN was so great that the current footprint and it’s user based cannot service the expense of building it.

          Only one of which, I might add, is Labor’s fault. And if Turnbull’s plan will make a decent RoI, it might even account for 2) if it happens to prove true.

          I therefore class your hypothetical situation as extremely unlikely because it is unsupported by evidence.

          • > What evidence do you have to suggest that the NBN is “woefully over budget and behind schedule” when you take into account the revisions made? Need I remind you that revisions themselves won’t count as a “revelation” because we already knew this information.

            We still don’t have the 2013 update to the NBNCo Corporate Plan. If it contained good news, I would expect we would have seen it published prior to the election campaign.

            > 1) The revisions proposed by Mr Turnbull will not in fact make a RoI

            I said nothing about proposed revisions. I was describing the current state where it has been reported recently that significant amounts of the work may need to redone.

            > 2) Or (not “exclusive or” please note) The current spending of the NBN was so great that the current footprint and it’s user based cannot service the expense of building it.

            Bingo! The last ARPU that I’m aware of being reported by NBNCo ~20/month. I’m not sure how the ARPU can be less than the cheapest plan, but this is only one of the questions I have over the NBNCo numbers

            > Only one of which, I might add, is Labor’s fault. And if Turnbull’s plan will make a decent RoI, it might even account for 2) if it happens to prove true.

            The concept of sunk cost is what could be used to bring the NBN back into the budget, but this is very much speculation.

          • Yes, yes…

            Mathew, do you think spending $29.5B gov. monies on FttN which utilises Telstra’s old copper and is vastly inferior in performance is money well spent in comparison to spending a little more $30.4B (gov monies) on FttP, which is (was) currently being rolled out anyway…?

          • The true and fair comparison which you are aware of which independent commentators use in comparing the two policies funding requirements is $44.1b vs $29.5b.

          • @Fibroid

            The true and fair comparison which you are aware of which independent commentators use in comparing the two policies funding requirements is $44.1b vs $29.5b.

            Why? The Coalition’s policy clearly states that is the amount of public funding. It does not say the amount of private debt beyond that amount, if needed.

            Also- it isn’t relevant. If both policies can show a business plan that has a return above the long term bond rate (which we are still waiting for from the new government), they stay off-budget, meaning the government does not pay out of the Budget for them and hence the only part that affects the Budget is the interest on the amount borrowed. Seeing as the amount planned to be borrowed for both was within $1 billion (or about 3%) of each other, the interest payments are negligible between the 2 amounts and therefore negligible in price difference.

          • Oh yet another flip-flop… so the government investment (or as you used to refer to it – taxpayer money) isn’t an issue after all… it’s the total that ‘now’ matters/

            Hmmm, what happened to the previous screams of gov. waste regarding broadband networks? Is that yet another of the long list of rules which only apply to the FttP NBN.

            Your goal post moving business seems to be booming.

          • he true and fair comparison which you are aware of which independent commentators use in comparing the two policies funding requirements is $44.1b vs $29.5b.

            And how much did those “commentators” say the ALP government was putting in to the NBN? Cause it sure wasn’t $44.1b….

          • Well the pre election funding comparisons are a wasted exercise now, the Labor NBN policy and all its funding is dead and buried, we will never know if they would have met their required funding predictions, 7.1% ROI, all finished by 2021 etc, the last vestige of that era will be the yet to published last NBN Co Business plan, where in reality it doesn’t matter what it says anymore.

          • LOL… you mean the pre-election government spends comparison you vainly tried to pretend never existed?

          • Actually, the Liberals are using the exact same funding from the exact same source (and basically the exact same figure with only a couple of hundred mill difference), so it’s more a redirection of funds…

          • If it contained good news, I would expect we would have seen it published prior to the election campaign.

            Bullshit. I have been over this false premise before. Further, by your logic the “Fully Costed Policy” of the Coalition NBN was withheld because it contained bad news. Are you seriously willing to argue this to the point you will actually hold the Coalition and Labor to a double standard?

            I said nothing about proposed revisions. I was describing the current state where it has been reported recently that significant amounts of the work may need to redone.

            Why would they go to the effort of reviewing the NBN if they aren’t going to evulate the proposed changes along with it? Your logic here doesn’t add up.

            Bingo! The last ARPU that I’m aware of being reported by NBNCo ~20/month. I’m not sure how the ARPU can be less than the cheapest plan, but this is only one of the questions I have over the NBNCo numbers

            This figure you quoted, of which you have supplied no evidence, cannot possible by reflected of the ARPU. Maybe APPU, but definately not ARPU, unless NBNCo are seriously giving services away for free. You are aware that the comment policy forbids being easily demonstratiable as false evidence into this forum right?

  36. Patience people, patience.

    I thought that today will mark the end of speculations. Why not wait and see what happen? It certainly will be very interesting to have many of the questions finally answered (cost of the copper, its suitability, the extent to which existing contracts are tight…..)

    One thing is sure, the Coalition by their relentless criticism of Labor’s performance in everything, have set the bar pretty high for themselves. After all, haven’t they repeatedly said they will do much better? Criticism, however, is always easier than performance.

    It will take an overall perception than they have let the public down, for the opposition to be effective in their criticism. Unfortunately, things like increased interest rates, lower unemployment and a greater deficit, are more likely to cost the Coalition future elections. Should they stuff up the NBN, it will add to that perception. The benefit of the NBN are too far in the distance for short-sighted, “what’s in it for me”, low information or comprehension, voters to punish the government on this issue alone.

  37. Yes, the “Butcher from Wentworth” is shapreninh his axe.
    I was so close… the roll out supposed to start on November this year in my area.
    Damn, hurts double :(

  38. R.I.P. Optic Fibre National Broadband Network. Whenever labor comes back in it won’t happen as Tony will roll back to the Fibre to the Node and by the time it will be done its too late (as $29 billion will be wasted).

    • I did that Michael but unfortunately Tony (all as all governments) won’t listen

    • Are you the same Michael we know and love?

      I don’t think a petition is going to do much (how often has it done much?). Malcolm is well-aware of the support for an FTTP NBN in Australia, he’s just ignoring it. Maybe you can talk to your local Liberal MP, and get others to talk to theirs. I still doubt it’ll do much. The problem with Liberal (or Labor) MPs is that they don’t represent you, they represent their party – and they have to, because they “owe their party”.

      • I signed it. (No great amount of time spent).
        But if millions marching against war in Iraq didn’t help a hundred thousand petition signers wont do diddly.

        Democracy- past its use by date.

      • I tried with mine, and he basically told me they know what they are doing and get stuffed (in the nicest possible way).

      • We may have more chance with Nationals MPs whose electorates contain some FttP already. Envy would work in our favour.
        If we could convince them that their voters would love them more, we may be able to get them to lobby MT to instruct NBN Co to do FttP rollouts to the remainder of their electorates.

        Keep in mind that the whole reason for this FttN farce was to allow the Coalition to placate the populace, who did not like the ‘tear it up’ philosophy, but stop any threat to Murdoch’s Foxtel profits machine.

        I doubt many, if any, Nats represent areas with cable broadband.

        Does someone know of maps with overlays of electorates, NBN rollouts and Foxtel cable? That information would be very helpful

        • Of course, they’d have to justify an amendment to their plan.
          Maybe call it the “Special country areas reduced maintenance” plan. I’m sure copper maintenance costs are high in country areas. Well, who cares if they are not, it’s still a plausible story (and who is going to stand in the way?), so FttP rollout in country areas could be justified somehow.

    • I note that Michaels petition has made it to ABC news and even some international news sites but is not mentioned on Murdoch sites yet.

      Something has to be done about media ownership.

  39. Well, I wasn’t going to get FTTP anyway, and I clearly remember politics promising they would rollout the NBN first where it was most needed ( where people don’t have ADSL ). They lied like they always do, so I’m not too unhappy about NBN getting dumped. In fact, maybe now I get cheaper internet faster, which is really all I wanted.

    • @Brisbanite: The only reason you wouldn’t get the “Fibre” NBN was would be if you were getting Wireless. And news to you… that plan doesn’t change under the Liberal plan.

      Unles you mean you weren’t getting NBN w/in the first batch of 3 years roll-outs. At which point your just being impatient since the plan was to have EVERYONE not on the wireless within 10-15 years. But hey at least you will get your theoretical “faster” speed 5 years earlier right?

  40. I suspect we could see some “Mission Creep” coming into the Coalition’s NBN rollout once practicalities assert themselves.

    Here’s hoping anyway.

  41. Could we do a class action against NBN Co for all those premises where rollout schedule has been announced if we don’t get it as promised?

    • I wouldn’t think so (IANAL) and wouldn’t want to. They are down the list of those who I would be blaming. Firstly ETSA for pricing themselves out of the equation; then Syntheo for lowballing and then failing to deliver on their contractual obligations. Then Telstra for their asbestos debacle.

      NBNco has been a political football.

      • How about blaming NBNCo for having an unrealistic expectation of costs and a bad relationship with contractors?

        • Ok lets blame them… because as opposed to the normal 12/50% rubbish we are normally bombarded with, you may actually have a point…

          But because of that, we should throw out an otherwise great idea?

          Riiiiggght…

  42. No. You don’t have and will never have a contract with NBNCo. It’s the wholesaler.

  43. Labor NBN = work from home.

    LCP NBN = save money on initial deployment (but not much, and certainly not in the long term); spend the savings on upgrading roads and public transport so everybody can – sorry, must travel to the office.

    Labor NBN = visionary, game-changing.

    LCP NPN = same-old, same-old, 19th century thinking.

    Sad; so sad.

  44. I really don’t know why everyone is upset.

    Turnbull has put himself in the corner with his promise of a mininium speed of 25mbps download and 4mbps.

    A very small fraction of customers today get these speeds via ADSLx. Check out iiNet’s sync speed map. Vast majority of people and the average shows no more then 10-12mbps sync speeds.

    With VDSL the frequency are even shorter then ADSL and thus way more sucsipetble to attenuation and noise.

    Unless the NBN’s plan will include xDSL bonding products there is no way that copper ULL’s will support the coalitions mininium speed.

    Though of course there are core and then there are non-core promises and considering that most Liberal voters cannot hold their leaders accountable for their promises, i see a possible future where they screw us like the teclo’s have with their “up to” speed caveats.

    That’s said if this is an honourable and just liberal government then what we’ll see is a massive amount of fibre rolled out.

    • 1984 – You’ve ignored the whdole point of Fibre to the NODE – shortening the line to obtain faster speeds. A node is built down the road from your house, within a few hundred metres. The copper is cut there, and terminated on DSLAMs/MSANs in the cabinet to provide DSL (and voice) from there rather than the exchange.

      That’s how VDSL2 supports faster speeds than ADSL2+.

      Now, just how short the average line is determines the speeds available. I think MT will discover that supporting an average of 50mbit to 90% of subscribers means shorter lines than he’d planned. Shorter lines means more nodes, means more expense…

  45. The last thing Ed Husic did for our electorate (Chifley) before his party was voted out was to ensure many of our internet congestion issues were fixed by forcing Telstra to fix our ADSL issues. So I now have full ADSL2+ via TopHat RIM conversion. 19Mbps down and 1Mbps up. Pretty happy with that as my “entertainment” downloads all complete within 15-30 mins and latency is 9-14ms.

    I feel sorry for everyone else still stuck on sub-par internet. NBN would have solved all your problems. Isn’t going to happen now. Maybe in another ten years time! ;)

    • How’s it do on the weekends, and after it rains?

      I’m in almost the same position, but dropouts remain common.

      • Our copper is mostly short runs (less than 300 metres to the cabinet) in a sub 20 year old estate so for now it is working quite well. In the long term I expect it to suffer the usual problems with neglect and weathering as others have experienced with their copper.

      • Indeed…

        And many (or perhaps some) people will be happy on FttN. Just like some would be happy with ADSL or those who hardly ever use the internet, even dial up.

        What we need is the best plan for the ‘majority’. A plan which has longevity and is cost efficient. And comparing a proposed $29.5B gov spend FttN (using obsolete copper and depending upon Telstra) to an already started and planned $30.4B gov spend FttP…

        The answer is simple to anyone who can put politics aside, IMO…

        But again all moot points as the Abbot gov have said FttN… go figure?

        • Hey, I’d MUCH prefer FTTP, it is a better solution.
          That said, I would be happy for FTTN too.

          Currently in suburban Perth I get HALF the download speeds I get in my hotel in Mongolia !

          (4-5mbit vs 8-9mbit)

          • PS: And I dont want to wait more years whilst they review the whole thing AND I dont want Telstra running the show.

            Did you see that Ziggy Switkowski might be running NBN Co? Seriously?!?

          • Unfortunately re: FttN, planning, Telstra etc Simon, seems you can’t have the proverbial cake and eat it too :(

  46. At the current rate of roll out if labor were still in power it would take 179 years to complete the NBN. Even then at the rate of bad splicing it would never be fully operational.

    • But they’re not anymore.

      So, your point?

      Better start focusing on the wonderful coalition’s plan.

    • Max, you are mistaken. Comment is also irrelevant as facts actually both refute your claim, and also the election results invalidate the entire concern.

      You can now be happy in the knowledge that Malcolm will spend a vast amount of time pulling the NBNco apart, with in many cases pointless reviews and audits, sacking lord knows how many people; and then handing the sorry mess over to Telstra, whom will happily accept market monopoly of infrastructure.

      Normality returns. Rejoice.

      • The Coalition could rightly say they have already had a petition, the election last Saturday.

        • @Fibroid

          The Coalition could rightly say they have already had a petition, the election last Saturday.

          Haha. Wait, after saying continuously the NBN won’t play a big part in the Election, you’re now saying the new government could use their elect status as reason to show the Australia people don’t want the NBN???

          A country elects a government based on thousands of individual variables. Saying therefore that the majority of Australians no longer was the NBN as FTTH because they were elected is the biggest strawman on the planet.

          FYI the Liberal party (the one the Prime Minister-elect belongs to) got less votes than the Labor party- 31.77% to 33.88%. The Liberal National Party (QLD) received 8.72% and The National received 4.57%. Add that up and you still don’t get 51% of the vote. And those are the parties that primarily supported the Liberal’s BB policy. So no, the Australian people did not vote to remove the NBN. They voted to remove a Labor government for many, many reasons.

          • The problem is seven_tech this election is vastly different to the 2010 election result where each of the major parties got the exact same number of seats, which led to a hung Parliament.

            This time around like it or not the Coalition have a hefty majority in the form of 83 seats with 89 predicted vs Labor 52 seats with 57 predicted by the end of counting.

            The Coalition went into the election with a number of policies their NBN policy being one of the earliest releases, and it has been discussed in detail in the press for months, so far as the electorate is concerned there was a awareness of the change the Coalition wanted to do to the Labor policy.

            So like it or not the Labor NBN policy is dead, just like Labor and Conroy killed off the Coalition OPEL policy when they gained power in 2007.

            Labor are not in power anymore, there is a new Coalition NBN policy for the revamped NBN Co to implement.

          • Fibroid

            “there is a new Coalition NBN policy for the revamped NBN Co to implement.”

            This is the part I am looking forward, the implementation. You know the cheaper, faster and sooner bits.

            What is the latest from HQ about not starting before the middle of next year?

            I think you will find MT is going to be a very busy boy and there will be time he’ll wish he had gone along with the existing plan.

            Anyway, looking forward to all your rationalisations when things start to go messy.

          • I think you should read this article before you try and claim the election results were “vastly different”.

            It highlights the problem quite well in point 6:

            “Australian democracy is the best in the world.” Yeah, a lower house that does not fairly represent the party vote, a compulsory voting/exhaustive preferential system/matched funding system that makes it easy for multimillionaires to get a seat and murder for anyone else, a Senate where the balance of power is held by five people with 4% primary vote between them, where the sheer size of the ballot paper sends the donkey vote skyrocketing towards a quota, where Tasmanians have five times the representation of New South Wales, two elections in 20 years with a majority vote not gaining government, and a prime minister-governor-general relationship that still hasn’t been clarified since it brought us to the brink of government collapse — and where blatant falsehoods in a near monopoly media is subject to no immediate sanction. Yeah, nothing needs to be looked at here, finest in the world. Nothing can possibly go wrong …

            You’d think this would be obvious considering a less than 5% swing resulted in a change of 16 seats, or 10.6%, in the lower house. But I guess Fibroid you’re not interested in facts like that. Which is exactly why they were talking about voting preference percentages, etc. This was not the landslide victory you claim it to be.

            Now one thing about democracy is that we don’t have to support the policies implemented by those in power! We can argue against them, we can present cases as to why they are bad or why they may fail. There is no requirement to be compliant with what might happen.

            Interesting that you try and talk us out of arguing against the incumbent’s policy because we don’t agree with it when that is exactly what you have been doing for the past few years.

          • That’s a good read. Thanks for the link. I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading on the Australian (and others’) democratic system(s) lately.

            I’m not sure what parts should be improved, but I think it has a lot to do with intent. Depending on, I guess, the premises of an Australian democracy, you’d make improvements in different ways, but different improvements

            For example, I’d be perfectly happy if we abolished and banned political parties in general. Our elected lower house representatives are supposed to represent us in their geographically-divided electorates. In this system, every MP is an independent. These independents would elect a prime minister among themselves, who would work to

            On the other hand, if we introduced into the House of Representatives a Senate-like voting system where parties must meet a quota to gain seats, then the lower house would be much more representative of the primary vote of all the parties, including the minors. (Still after some creative solutions for those remaining seats though). In this system, gaining a quota as an independent will be quite a feat; gaining a seat to represent local issues would be an even more impossible, as well as probably futile, effort.

            Both would, in my mind at least, be improvements to the current system, but their bases and outcomes are vastly different.

            There are other ideas I’ve had and have heard of, too, but /how/ we actually elect our government is only part of the problem. The quality of the candidates, how informed and educated voters are, and especially the quality of the media environment, are other major issues with our democracy.

            And ultimately, while the ideal democracy is the most moral and ethical and fair system of government, it’s still not necessarily the most effective.

          • I’m not sure what parts should be improved

            Me neither, but that is a topic for another dicussion. You’ve raised some interesting points about the problem with changing aspects of the political system as well as some interesting suggestions that would be worth considering.

            We can easily find that the system is badly implemented and unfair, unfortunately fixing it is usually considerably more difficult. In fact, it might turn out that the benefits of changing it outway the problems with changing it.

          • I agree with you about getting rid of political parties, but somehow I just don’t see political parties voting to get rid of political parties…

            Revolution? :)

          • Fibroid.
            The difference is the Opel policy was an absolute Turkey from inception.
            What Australia will be landed with will cost you and your children and Australia dearly, not only in Dollars but also lost opportunity, and the the final nail in the coffin of Democracy in Australia.

            Congratulations , enjoy your Pyrrhic victory

          • “Labor are not in power anymore, there is a new Coalition NBN policy for the revamped NBN Co to implement.”

            Yes we know, so why the continued irrelevant comments about 2007 and 2010…?

        • Actually the election shows a great deal of hatred against the Labor shinanigans.

          Liberal Party gained a lot of votes, because of electorates punishing Labor; indeed both Labor and the Coalition have commented to that.

          Of course, LNP will re-write this to they won a mandate, but “absolute slaughter of Labor” actually didn’t happen as predicted. This wasn’t an election you can state gives you a mandate.

          The senate alone, proves this point – people don’t care for either major party. You could argue the NBN really was a second runner consideration. Clearly the difference between parties NBN plans was lost on much of the electorate.

          • Actually the election shows a great deal of hatred against the Labor shinanigans.

            More the union shenanigans (and I say that as a union member). Most of the crap that happened with JG was from the union based ALP folks playing union faction games. Unions should butt the hell out of the ALP and give some control back to the grass roots if they want to see the ALP survive as a viable political force in Australia.

          • Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I actually read somewhere that the swing to the Coalition was under 2%, to others around 8%, against Labor like 4-5% and also against the Greens marginally…

            Wouldn’t this equate to disgruntled (for the want of a better word) lefties, who were disenchanted with their party(s) but couldn’t bring themselves to vote Liberal/TA and decided to vote for anyone else, some of whose preferences must have filtered through to the Coalition?

            Clive’s party for one, seem to have done pretty well first up.

        • The Coalition could rightly say they have already had a petition, the election last Saturday.

          No, elections are not petitions. Same as the LNP may have a “mandate” to get rid of the tax, but the people that put enough Labor/Greens back in gave them a “mandate” to fight it…

  47. I’d say that Labor lost seats primarily because of:

    1) Labor leadership debacle.
    2) Negative press from the Murdpire.
    3) Lies, half truths and scare mongering about a number of topics from global warming through to asylum seekers.
    4) Seems most Australians are uneducated, right wing rednecks.
    5) Labor, in fact, being kind of useless, but then there is so little between Labor and Liberal now.

    I don’t think the NBN was a negative at all, in fact it probably got them votes.

    • 5) Labor, in fact, being kind of useless, but then there is so little between Labor and Liberal now.

      Useless? How so?

      They managed to get some very important reform for education, disabilities and telecommunications through a hostile house, and in fact managed to pass 500+ pieces of legislation.

      • They seem useless at the political side of government. A change in leadership every 2 years for the last 10 years, leaders being voted out and voted back in, failing to capitalise on their success or the Liberals failings and playing into the hands of Abbott with the handling of the GFC, BER, Home Insulation, Green Loans and Immigration.

        To be fair they had an extremely hostile media who seemed intent to bring them down and in the end it appeared even the ABC joined the herd. Though bringing legislation to the floor which they couldn’t push through, such as pokies and media reforms did considerable damage to Labors image as well.

        I said it back in 2010, if it wasn’t for the NBN policy, I would have wished Abbott had to deal with the previous minority government, not Gillard.

  48. @tinman – Useless as in despite all the good things they did do, (and I don’t count the NDIS in this) they failed totally to sell this to the Australian people and failed to even keep their own party from sinking.

    There was a lot of fail going on. What education reform btw? Gonski looks like a mess from where I am sitting with different deals in different states.

    Also, it wasn’t really a hostile house, they had majority for all of these bills with support basically guaranteed from Greens and Independents apart from a few times.

    I don’t like Labor or Liberal so I tend to default to the Greens despite not agreeing with a lot of their stuff either, but at least they are honest and stick to their policy platforms and ethics.

    • Ah, gotya. They really were one of the worst communicating governments I think I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a few).

      • I mean even Liberal are doing a better job at communicating already, announcing how they are going to proceed with boat people and carbon tax dumping and even roughing out timetables.

        (Much as I disagree with the actual policies).

        Labor had a tendency to dump stuff on you as a done deal and then apologize and back track for days/weeks/months afterwards.

        It made them look conceited, overconfident, and in the end, rash.

        • Totally agree about Labor’s lack of communication skills, but I also think a lot of the failure in getting Labor’s policy benefits across also lies with the media. Obviously everything-Murdoch was biased as hell from the outset, but even the ABC, the most impartial broadcaster we have, usually failed to ask the right questions. I never felt like Turnbull was challenged enough about the inequality of the Liberal’s NBN and what it would truly mean for people in regional areas. The majority of the NBN debates came down to arguments over download speeds and cost. Both Labor and the mainstream media failed to communicate the long term implications for choosing one policy over another.

          • I think the Gonski review was a great example of where Labor messed up.

            Not from the policy, but in taking so long to get around to calling it the “Better Schools” policy. A lot of ordinary Australians wouldn’t have a clue who David Gonski is, or what the policy actually meant, but everyone (including the Libs) can get behind “Better Schools”.

            That’s just one example of many. Labor had some good/great policies, but were too inward focused to actually communicate them to the public. They basically just put a policy out there and said “There you go, ain’t that great!!”, and they needed to show folks what it actually meant to them (sell it in other words).

          • > Labor had some good/great policies, but were too inward focused to actually communicate them to the public. They basically just put a policy out there and said “There you go, ain’t that great!!”, and they needed to show folks what it actually meant to them (sell it in other words).

            Labor had some policies that sounded great, but in reality turned into a mess or had unintended consequences.
            * Mining tax – failed to raise revenue
            * School building fund – biggest boost to private schooling in decades while public system wasted money on bureaucrats
            * Home insulation – failed to heed government advice that installers were likely to be dodgy
            * Gonski – is unfairly impacting on low fee private schools (<$3000) which are delivering better value than the public system
            * NBN
            * etc.

          • Just on the home insulation thing.

            Was anyone surprised about this? That said I think the media blew it WAY out of proportion.

            Also, I was watching Better Homes and Gardens a few weeks back and they were showing people how to insulate their own homes. So, do all people need a degree to install home insulation?!

            Any large project like this was bound to have accidents.

          • Yep and what ever happened to “Never look a gift horse in the mouth”!

          • The accident rate was actually higher under Howard, but hey, why let facts get in the way of a political stance…

  49. I’m in favour of Labor’s NBN for numerous reasons even though I’m not tech savvy. I just feel that Australia should be moving forward and I have a wild imagination re better healthcare, education, etc. etc. I’ve always been worried about the LNP’s ‘alternative’ just by doing simple sums. I wouldn’t buy something expensive knowing full well that it would need upgrading before I’d paid for it.

    Anyway this article “The Greatest Threat to Your Business, Your Income & the Economy”
    https://plus.google.com/117364153071764012642/posts

    has got me really, really worried, especially with the election results … I’m innocent, don’t blame me even though I’m in WA!! The article seems to make good sense. Can someone please comment. Apologies if it’s already been discussed here. If it has I can’t find it. Thanks

  50. Great article. I just disagree with phrasing at the end “Turnbull will need all of his capabilities to get the NBN back on track and the Coalition’s vision delivered”. In fact, it’s not getting it back on track, Turnbull will seriously derail the NBN.

  51. I can only add one thing.

    If a true NBN (fibre to the premise) is important enough then people should fight for it.

    To lie down and accept that the dream is over is not good enough

    If that means running a campaign encouraging a lot of people to make Malcolm Turbull justify his own version then that might be a starting point. If we want true political engagement then more people need to engage.

  52. Tweet, call, mail, carrier pigeon!

    Malcolm knows it’s crap. Tony is the one who just thinks it’s an “Entertainment System” – words probably planted in his mouth by his pal Rupert.

    Give Malcolm Turnbull the the wind he needs in his sails to hammer this home to Tony.

    Educate the LNP what it means for business: Cloud based computing and infrastructure, eHealth, Video Communications, reduced costs for large and small businesses alike.

    Sign the petition and be heard:
    http://chn.ge/15OnCxS
    Over 100,000 signatures already!

    • > Give Malcolm Turnbull the the wind he needs in his sails to hammer this home to Tony.

      The only way FTTP can be saved is if the Coalition can cut the costs of the roll out. Simon Hackett is the only one I’ve seen who offered a reasonable plan for how to do this.

  53. TAbbot has been convinced, probably by the Treasury Mandarins rather than the sycophants he leads and who owe him seats on the government benches, that Labor’s economic management was on the right course after all.

    Is it beyond the wit of Turnbull to persuade him Labor’s NBN should proceed too? That should be a lot easier than trying to make fraudband work in the field.

    • Is it beyond the wit of Turnbull to persuade him Labor’s NBN should proceed too?

      I think we should wait and see what the Study/Audit/CBA brings, shouldn’t we? That will give us a good idea of if Malcolm is a true technology agnostic or not…

  54. i have the nbn half way thou completion (holes dug no cable ) will i still get firbe to house or will they just fill in the hoels thta are all over the palce

    • If you check the NBN co website you will find this little header “The caretaker conventions related to the Federal election apply to NBN Co. NBN Co will provide information as soon as possible as to the implications of new Government policy”.
      I guess you will have to wait and see?

  55. Mandate phooey. Not one voter agrees with 100% of any party’s policy. The only real mandate a government gets is to govern. They do not have a mandate to reverse a previous government’s commitments. After all the previous government was elected based on their policies. In fact all existing commitments should be honoured.
    As for the ABN if a referendum was carried out the majority would vote for it to stay as it is.
    The Libs will only create a have and have nots situation where properties with FTTH in place will add value to their homes. I can see it now in real estate ads. Home includes FTTH
    This could easily become a high court challenge by those who are going to miss out on it. It really can boil down to discrimination.
    Whoa there’s a tip for a class action.
    meanwhile I might as well get out my 70’s flares because that is where this country is headed

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