‘Malcolm, you’re not listening’: Pro-fibre NBN ad unveiled

By
Renai LeMay
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143

malcolm-ad

news The group of pro-fibre National Broadband Network activists planning to publish advertisements in the local newspaper of Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull have revealed the creative they will use to target the Liberal MP, headlining their ads with the admonition: “Malcolm, perhaps you haven’t heard us clearly.”

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 was to have been served by a combination of satellite and wireless broadband, delivering speeds of up to 25Mbps.

Originally, the Coalition’s policy was to have seen 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 was 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.

However, the possibility of a different style of rollout has been raised by Turnbull in the several weeks since the Liberal MP became Communications Minister. In late September, Turnbull appeared to have drastically modified the Coalition’s policy stance on the NBN just weeks after the Federal Election, declaring the Coalition was not wedded to its fibre to the node model and was “thoroughly open-minded” about the technology to be used in the network. NBN Co is currently conducting a strategic review into its operations and model that will inform Turnbull’s decisions regarding the project’s future.

At the same time, evidence has grown of a groundswell of popular opinion supporting Labor’s FTTP-based NBN model. In early September, an online petition on the issue garnered more than 260,000 signatures. The petition in general was rejected by Turnbull, but it continues to be cited by commentators as a key indicator of the popularity of Labor’s NBN vision.

Several weeks ago, a group of activists who dubbed themselves the ‘Saving the NBN campaign’ posted a campaign on crowdfunding site indiegogo, calling for donations to place advertisements in the Wentworth Courier newspaper, which is distributed in Turnbull’s electorate in inner Sydney, supporting a FTTP model for the NBN.

Today, the activists released the creative which they intend to target Turnbull with (PDF). It states:

“Malcolm, perhaps you haven’t heard us clearly. In Wentworth, we want a nation with faster, better Internet. Not just for ourselves, but for all Australians. We’ve done the numbers and when it comes to investing in Australia’s future, fibre to the premises is the clear choice: It’s 20 times faster, costs just one third more than fibre to the node and is supported by a strong majority. It’s an investment for all Australians, not just a small handful. Malcolm, increase the share of FTTP for a more equal broadband network.”

The group’s original fundraising target was $15,000. However, the campaign quickly smashed the initial target and have now raised almost $60,000 for the campaign fund.

Telecommunications engineering student Alex Stewart has teamed up with petition starter Nick Paine and other campaigners to keep up the pressure on Turnbull. In a statement released today along with the ad creative, Stewart said the next phase of the campaign was asking Turnbull to stop ignoring the depth of feeling on this issue, and increase the share of FTTP in the NBN.

“Malcolm has said that he’s not interested in politics – neither are we – we simply want him to listen to Australian’s who are asking for the best technology solution in the NBN,” said Stewart. “We’re asking him to put the politics aside, and get this decision right.”

The campaigners have also started putting together a strategy to target the government’s most marginal seats and ask those MPs to represent their views to Mr Turnbull.

Nick Paine, the original petition starter said he was blown away by the success of the campaign. “I started this petition because I believe that a better NBN, with more fibre to the premises, will mean greater opportunities for Australia,” he said. “It’s amazing to see how much support has poured in and how enthusiastic people are about this campaign.”

Karen Skinner, Australian Country Director for change.org said the continuation of the campaign was a great step that had shown the power that comes from petitioning. “Every day, people are starting petitions on change.org, and watching them grow by sharing them with their family and friends,” she said. ““That’s building new communities who are organising for action using online tools.”

opinion/analysis
I can already tell you what Turnbull’s reaction to these ads will be: He will ignore them. As the Minister said in early September regarding the change.org petition:

“Last Saturday there was a general election at which the NBN was one of the most prominent issues. The Coalition’s NBN Policy – which can be read here had been published in April – five months ahead of the election. The Coalition won the election,” said Turnbull.

“The promoters of this petition apparently believe that we should ignore the lengthy public debate on the NBN that preceded the election and also ignore the election result. We should within days of the election walk away from one of our most well debated, well understood and prominent policies. Democracy? I don’t think so.”

Related posts:

  1. Oops: Pro-NBN ad campaign raises $40k
  2. Targeting Turnbull: $15k raised for pro-NBN ads
  3. Fibre on demand could cost $50k, claims Albo
  4. “Malcolm in a muddle”: Husic accuses Turnbull of FTTP “porkies”
  5. Turnbull approves 150k more FTTP premises

143 COMMENTS

  1. The only one that ignored the debate was MT/LNP/Murdoch. Just look at the comments on his site. Overwhelmingly against his plans and in favour of the the real NBN. That is FTTP.

    Oh can I post a copy of the ad on Facebook? This needs to get out to the greater population.

      • Look forward in great anticipation to Google rolling out fibre in Australia.

        Cheers.

        • It’ll happen pretty soon. Apparently a 5 ms delay in loading Google Maps reduces time spent on GM by 70%!!! What an absolute tragedy for Google, strike that, I mean.. Australia! It’ll set us back for decades and destroy the Australian economy, exports, competitiveness, cricketing prowess, chances of winning Miss Universe, hyperbole and yeaaah…

        • @ Fibroid (and friend), firstly that Alex wasn’t me… (NBN) Alex

          Secondly, instead of being rude and a sarcastic… why are you guys unable to actually take onboard or at least vaguely consider what is written?

          Regardless Fibroid, in future when you start on about FttN in the UK, should we just reply to your spiel with – “I look forward to BT rolling out a network here”…

          Seriously…

          • I don’t care which Alex it is ( why are you answering on his behalf anyway?), my response remains the same, it is a direct response to the Google promotion, as I said I look forward to Google rolling out fibre in Australia.

          • I answered because this is a public forum (with Renai’s blessing that is) which is why you, even with your unfounded political tripe, are able to reply too. I would have thought that bleedin’ obvious?

            But then I have seen you question the bleedin’ obvious over and over, so nothing you claim, regardless of how ridiculously biased it may be, comes as a surprise anymore.

            Anyway, I know you don’t like it when your unfounded NBN FUD and/or your FttN glossing and schlossing are highlighted for all to see… so thanks for verifying that.

            Rest assured while ever you are here telling porkies as you do, again with Renai’s ok, I will be here easily disputing them…

            But wow you look forward to Google rolling out fibre, really…??? Even though you opposed NBN fibre (ttP) out of hand previously?

            So glad you are finally starting to see the light, well done… So I guess that also just proves as you aren’t against fibre after all, you must have been (as we thought) exclusively against the party who were delivering it…

            Thanks for those frank but obvious admissions.

          • Google Fibre and Labor’s NBN are like chalk and cheese. Google fibre is direct 1/1Gbps Unlimited quota for $70/month. Labor’s plan was for shared GPON with 50% of connections at 12Mbps.

            Google fibre is taking communities forward. Labor’s fibre would have been slower than HFC, 4G, FTTN and approaching half of ADSL2+ connections for 50% of the users.

          • “Labor’s plan was for shared GPON with 50% of connections at 12Mbps.”

            Really?

            Was it?

            I hadn’t heard that… *rolls eyes in complete dismay at those reliving groundhog day*

          • >> “Labor’s plan was for shared GPON with 50% of connections at 12Mbps.”

            > Really? Was it?
            >
            > I hadn’t heard that… *rolls eyes in complete dismay at those reliving groundhog day*

            Clearly you haven’t read any of the NBNCo Corporate Plans or read about the actual take-up as reported in the 2013 draft of the Corporate Plan:

            “As at 30 April 2013, 26% of NBN Co’s FTTP End-Users were on the highest available wholesale speed tier (100/40 Mbps), whilst 47% were on the entry-level wholesale speed tier (12/1 Mbps). These compare with 18% and 49% respectively forecast for FY2013 in the 2012-15 Corporate Plan.”

          • hey Mathew,

            if you continue with this irrational line of reasoning, conflating user speed take-up with the technical capabilities of the network, then I will ban you from Delimiter for being deliberately obstructionist. This is your last and only warning.

            Renai

          • I think the NBN should be judged on the benefits it delivers not the technical capability. To paraphrase Simon Hackett, NBNCo have taken the abundance of fibre and turned it into a scarcity. A network equivalent to Google Fibre is what I think Australia should be aiming for.

            FTTP with a GPON architecture is technically the second best solution (direct fibre is one step better), and clearly technically superior to FTTN. I’ve never disputed this. What I question is for an end user how much difference will they see between a 50Mbps FTTN solution and FTTP if they are selecting a 12Mbps plan?

            Considering the fact that the network is capable of 1Gbps and that quotas effectively limit usage, what is stopping NBNCo from making the network 1Gbps for everyone?

          • Mate I don’t disagree with your argument, but you can’t just say that the NBN is limited to 12Mbps for 50 percent of users. You’re smart enough to know that statement is just not true. Make a smarter argument or go home, please.

          • Listen to what Renai is saying Mathew. Your line of argument is exactly why people disagree with you – it appears to delibrately misinterpret reality, just to get a point across.

            For every person that connects to 12 Mbps, its because they made a choice to limit their speed. Not that it was forced on to them like your statement appears to claim.

            Your summary line above (“Labor’s fibre would have been slower than HFC, 4G, FTTN and approaching half of ADSL2+ connections for 50% of the users.”) is clear evidence you have no intention of comparing the merits of each rollout. The reality is, the ~50% you’re refering to still have the option to connect to much faster speeds.

            If you argued that they dont need such speeds TODAY, then you would get much disagreement, but to misrepresent that their needs of today means a weakness in FttH capabilities is just wrong. Completely.

          • Try your argument with Google Fibre. What a waste of a network, they only give a portion for their users 5Mb download and 1Mb upload. Google fibre isn’t 1Gb for everyone, it depends on what the user choses to pay for.

          • > Mate I don’t disagree with your argument, but you can’t just say that the NBN is limited to 12Mbps for 50 percent of users. You’re smart enough to know that statement is just not true. Make a smarter argument or go home, please.

            I respectfully disagree. The newstart allowance is $501/fortnight for a single or $904.60 for a couple. For a pensioner it is $827.10 or $1,246.80 for a couple. I suggest people would find it very difficult to spend $75+ month on that income with their other expenses.

            The argument you are making is similar to suggesting that elite private schools are open to all, and ignoring the $20,000+ tuition fees.

          • > Try your argument with Google Fibre. What a waste of a network, they only give a portion for their users 5Mb download and 1Mb upload. Google fibre isn’t 1Gb for everyone, it depends on what the user choses to pay for.

            Do you know what Google charge for 5/1Mbps with no quota? $0.
            There is a construction fee of $300 or $25/month for 12 months and service is guaranteed for 7 years at the address.
            If you actually pay for a connection then 1/1Gbps costs $70/month.

            By raising this, are you suggesting that the internet should be treated as an essential service and everyone provided with a basic 5/1Mbps account at no cost in the same way that phone lines that accept only incoming calls are provided to qualifying people?

            source: https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/plans/

          • So, you aren’t against the NBN you are against our Capitalistic system…

            Strange for an ultra conservative?

          • > So, you aren’t against the NBN you are against our Capitalistic system…

            A true capitalist would suggest that the government should not be involved in infrastructure components. Have a look at cable companies in the USA for the implications of that approach. I believe that society has a responsibility to look after everyone and that individuals owe a debt to society for that care. The definition of how much support is open for debate, but on a world scale Australia doesn’t do that badly.

            > Strange for an ultra conservative?

            Your label not mine. The problem with politics for the last decade has been the highly partisan and divisive behaviour of many. Wrongly applying labels is unproductive as it reinforces division.

          • Um. What? Speed choice entirely up to users, dude, at pretty good rates, too. You obviously know this, so stop posting misleading crap on Delimiter.

          • What else would he post? 99% of his posts, all over the place have been on this very topic. For the last 3 years I know of he has posted this crap on every article that has anything even slightly to do with the NBN. He posts on every tech forum constantly, over and over with this stuff. I can’t see how he functions in real life, it’s like all he every does, post post post “50% at 12Mb…” over and over and over. It’s some form of OCD.

          • > Um. What? Speed choice entirely up to users, dude, at pretty good rates, too. You obviously know this, so stop posting misleading crap on Delimiter.

            People have the ability to choose only if they can afford to pay. I would consider the 100Mbps plans affordable, but many of the people I know would not agree. This is equivalent to saying that the car you drive is entirely your choice and adding special lanes on freeways for people who pay extra to travel faster.

            The 1Gbps plans look frightfully expensive and very risky for RSPs to offer especially when you consider the customers who take up those speeds will be very demanding. Perhaps NBNCo’s prediction that less than 5% will have 1Gbps connections in 2028 demonstrates their understanding. They’ve been very close with their 12Mbps connection prediction. I’d consider promoting the NBN as 1Gbps network as misleading crap when so few people will actually connect at those speeds.

            It would be interesting to survey the motivation behind the choice of 47% customers who were signed up for 12Mbps plans in April 2013.
            – Do they never have a need for more than 12/1Mbps?
            – Are they limited to the plan by financial constraints?
            – Are their connections regularly hitting the 12/1Mbps limit?

            The issue I have is much of the debate is being driven by people who want their 100Mbps connection without any consideration of the people who select the slower speeds. Twelve months ago the argument was that very few people would select 12Mbps so it wasn’t an issue. The reality is different.

          • Mate the difference between iiNet’s 12Mbps and 25Mbps plans is $5.

            $5.

            Per month.

            I think it’s safe to say affordability is not a huge factor here.

            I say again — if I see any more posts conflating the NBN’s technical capabilities with take-up, then I will ban you.

          • So if we assume that price isn’t the reason for people selecting 12Mbps then we have to consider the question of what performance level will ~47% of NBNCo’s current customer base consider acceptable?

            I’d consider it reasonable to guess that people on 12Mbps plans are not heavy downloaders because they would probably pay the extra $5 for double speed. Would a quota of 5Gbps be adequate for these people? If so, then would a 4G plan adequately meet their needs?

            Currently NBNCo are predicting that 16% will opt for wireless instead of connecting to NBN fibre. The 2010 plan suggested this was price sensitivity. If we follow your line of reasoning that it isn’t price sensitivity but that 12Mbps is adequate from a performance perspective then I suggest the mobile networks could be in a position to target that 47%, especially if they chose to offer a 30 day trial to lower risk or encouraged configuring phones as mobile hot spots.

            I do strongly argue that wireless is not and will almost certainly never be capable of providing a viable solution for most Australian households, but clearly it does meet the requirements of some and is impactiing on the uptake of the NBN.

          • 12 Mbps is roughly double what I enjoy right now on ADSL2+. Its an improvement. Better.

            Have you ever considered that right NOW, that is actually all people want or need? For most people, in a country where the average connection is 4.8 Mbps, 12 Mbps is going to look like gold.

            This isnt about current needs though. Its about the needs for the next 50 years, and there is no way FttN can deliver. By the time its rolled out, its a matter of only a couple of years before our needs increase beyond its capabilities. Is it worth $30b to provide for such a short length of time?

            Me personally, I dont know what I’ll connect to when my unit is wired up. Probably 50 Mbps, because I cant see my needs going beyond that for a few years. At which point I’ll be happy to have the option that doesnt cost me thousands.

          • I’m going to go and disagree with you there, Renai – $5 a month is a significant extra cost for plenty of people, particularly for something they can’t justify. Your personal opinion is irrelevant, particularly when you aren’t disabled or on a pension or a low income household of people who don’t actually require the Internet for their career or entertainment. You can justify it because you can afford it and because you can see benefits from it, but plenty of people can’t see a compelling reason for greater performance and that $5/month is important to them.

          • Trevor, his whole argument is that the network has plenty of capacity so why limit it. Without limits everyone would be paying the same no matter what they needed or wanted. With speed and data tiers people can pay for what they need or want. Those who are on low incomes get the benefit of this. Mathew’s argument that it is unfair because some people can’t pay more is BS. Without it everyone would pay more for what they needed and the ones who would have paid for high speed, high volume would be subsidised by those people.

          • > Trevor, his whole argument is that the network has plenty of capacity so why limit it. Without limits everyone would be paying the same no matter what they needed or wanted. With speed and data tiers people can pay for what they need or want.

            I support charging for data as the amount of data transferred is what places load on the system not the speed that it is transferred at. This assumes that people can afford to spend $75+ a month for an internet connection. Many of us wouldn’t notice that amount, but I talk with others who really want their kids to have piano lessons, but cannot afford $20/week.

            What I’m suggesting is a rebalancing of the pricing model so that more of the revenue is derived from data. If you read the NBNCo Corporate Plan their intention is to increase the proportion of revenue from data (CVC) while connection (AVC) will be a smaller component of revenue. NBNCo believe that as speeds increase people will download more and iiNet’s statement that NBNCo users download 60% more data supports this. I don’t see any evidence that data usage will slow down.

            What I’m suggesting is that NBNCo should take a slightly riskier approach by reducing the connection fees and increasing the data charges. The benefits are that more people should connect and they are likely to download more because instead of waiting for the HD movie to buffer it will just be there.

            People on a low budget can ration their data usage but the NBNCo product structure does not allow someone to say I want 1Gbps for an hour on Friday at 3pm. RSPs will have more room to innovate. Plans like flatrate could make a return. The spare capacity in off peak periods could see off-peak quotas rise to astronomical amounts, however I doubt we will see unlimited plans without congestion for a very long time – 324TB is a lot of data. RSPs may choose to offer discounts to customers who accept a lower quality of service during peak periods or alternatively charge a premium.

            > Those who are on low incomes get the benefit of this. Mathew’s argument that it is unfair because some people can’t pay more is BS. Without it everyone would pay more for what they needed and the ones who would have paid for high speed, high volume would be subsidised by those people.

            This is a false argument.

            Much of the increase in electricity pricing has been to build new high voltage transmission lines for people to run their gigantic air conditioners in poorly designed MacMansions. The cost of the infrastructure is added to the supply charge which everyone pays. The result is that the pensioners ration their electricity usage to save money. A cheaper supply charge and higher usage charge would actually benefit those who conserve electricity.

            The cost of desalination plants around Australia have again been added to the supply charge. This again impacts on everyone not the biggest users of water.

            I could afford to pay for a fibre connection from the exchange to my house. It would be time consuming and the benefit doesn’t out way cost. However when 1Gbps becomes available if I can satisfy myself that it will save more than half an hour a day over a 100Mbps connection then even at prices as high as $1000/month I can justify that cost. The point is that by running fibre down my street I can access the benefits but many of my neighbours won’t be able to afford those prices.

            So yes, I’ll be paying more for my connection, but it wouldn’t be possible without the money that everyone else is paying on the cheaper plans.

          • Let me explain with a personal story. 10 years ago we spent Christmas with my parents who at the time had dialup internet. Due to deadlines at work, I needed to spend time working. I made a choice to install 512/128Kbps ADSL at their house because I could recover the investment and it would enable us to spend more time together. They appreciated the speed and keeping the phone line free so kept the connection. However they didn’t upgrade the speed until Internode installed a DSLAM in their exchange. Even then it took a 30 minute conversation to reassure them that migrating to ADSL2+ was the wise decision and the cost was zero.

            I’m sure to almost everyone here the decision would have been a no-brainer. To help you understand , here is a pizza analogy for you. If all you’ve ever eaten is pizza hut, then spending $25 on a wood fired gourmet cafe pizza might seem absurd.

  2. Malcolm Turnbull “The promoters of this petition apparently believe that we should ignore the lengthy public debate on the NBN that preceded the election and also ignore the election result. We should within days of the election walk away from one of our most well debated, well understood and prominent policies. Democracy? I don’t think so.”
    Tell me Malcolm, did you quote something like this to John Howard when he took us to war in Iraq when 80% of the Australian population was against it? I think you’re a typical politician, Malcolm. Your plans have nothing to do with the common good or democratic principles in general. You are ideologically driven rather than working for the good of Australia. What a bunch of Phillistines we’ve elected. Democracy? I don’t think so.

    • I’m wondering what lengthy public debate he’s refering to. Would that be the debate that showed there was widespread preference for the FttH model?

      • I remember that debate. It was the one where he stuck his fingers in his ears and yelled “Zealots!” over and over so he couldn’t hear anything.

      • No it was the debate where all parties not just the Coalition and Labor put forward their policies and it was debated at length in the press in all forums, ABC televised debates, main stream press, tech sites like this Whirlpool etc, it was discussed over and over and over for eight long months in the longest election campaign I think ever, Gillard called the election for September on January 30th.

        So when does the petition get published to push the Labor FTTP? well after the debate has finished and the choice has been made and the Coalition win Government with a 90 seat majority – brilliant.

        Then all the FTTP supporters cry foul ‘what about democracy’ – err hello we just had it.

        • Incorrect…

          Not all of the NBN supporters are crying foul…

          Me for one… because IDGAF about the politics, as you clearly do.

          However part of our democracy allows for petitions – but, trying to convince the current government to admit the others actually had a good plan by ceding to such a petition, regardless of how democratic it is, is forlorn, IMO.

          Being so, as the coalition are in, I’m still awaiting even one of their minions here, to actually justify, with facts and figures, the Coalition’s FttN plan.

          So please stop the each way bet of telling us an election has been had the Coalition are in and in the next breath then harping on ‘again’ about the previous government and their NBN… and start polishing that FttN turd…

    • He wouldnt ignore it, he’d ask his buddy Ziggy to see if it needs to be there, and if not, find a way to get rid of it. Permanently.

  4. I’m sorry, that petition still seems a little bit naive and hypocritical considering that Nick said he voted for the coalition.

    Until a time when we can vote on policy only, then he got exactly what he asked for. Malcolm has no reason to change his position and I am certain he won’t. The last thing the libs will ever do is admit anything labor had planned was good policy. It amounts to ‘backing down’ and ‘showing weakness’ and it has never been anything the Abbott government did in opposition for just that reason.

    Just suck it up and accept that the coalition has sold our future prosperity for some short term election winning gain. In the future when we are forced to deal with the mess that is the FTTN-FTTH switch, and all of the issues the legacy node infrastructure will bring, then the people will condemn these decisions.

    But that’s a problem for future Malcolm and future Tony. Today Malcolm and today Tony can reap the benefits, along with all the other vested interests.

    • How does that work? If you vote for a party, why does it have to be an all or nothing proposition? You like their boat people policy, and you like their carbon tax policy, so by default you MUST like their comm’s policy as well?

      World doesnt work that way, and this guys scenario is a perfect example of how democracy should work. Want something changed, do something about it. Thats what people keep saying, and thats what he’s doing.

      If he prefers most Liberal policies, but disagrees with this specific part, then its a good exercise in seeing whether the Liberals listen to their voters or not. Their problem is the same – just because they won doesnt mean its an all or nothing position. No matter how many times they say it, there were still policies of theirs the public disagree with.

      Time and again its been shown that the NBN is one of those where Labor policy was the prefered one. It just wasnt enough to overturn the feelings on carbon tax or boat people.

      They still need to listen to the population, because if they dont listen they run the risk of putting the swing voters against them and losing the next election.

      • It works because you can’t vote for individual policies, so the only thing the party can do is assume a vote for them is tacit approval for all of their policies. What choice do they have?

        Memory in politics is such a short thing. No one remembered the GFC when the liberals were crying foul about a debt appearing since the Howard years. No one will remember the liberals ignoring the apparent public consensus on the NBN by the time of the next election.

        Besides, you’ve heard it from the horses mouth, check Malcolm’s facebook:

        “The promoters of this petition apparently believe that we should ignore the lengthy public debate on the NBN that preceded the election and also ignore the election result. We should within days of the election walk away from one of our most well debated, well understood and prominent policies. Democracy? I don’t think so.”

        They aren’t going to ignore the election result which they see as approving all of their policies (however poorly laid out and explained at the election)

        • There are also other public comments saying that the comment was misinterpreted, and direct communication from MT with the petition organiser asking him to wait for the review before passing judgement.

          Look, I’m not saying the Liberals dont have tacit approval to introduce their policies. They do. But where the public is so widely saying “no, we voted for you but disagree with something” then why arent they listening?

          Its such an incredibly stupid thing to do, even this early. Its the sort of thing the Liberals have been accusing Labor of for 3 years.

          Every survey done overwhelmingly supported FttH. Do you really think they just ignored that? Every bit of feedback since the election is simply endorsing that feeling with interest, something thats never happened straight after an election that I can recall.

          A 260,000 petition, well over twice the previous record. A $60,000 crowdsourced fund for advertising, 3 or 4 times the target. Even Renai’s FOI fundraiser completed in a ridiculous 5 hours tells a story – the community overwhelmingly things the Labor plan deserves to stay, and they will maintain pressure on Turnbull to at least give it a chance.

          This sort of public push is unprecedented in Australia, and that alone says something that they should be listening to. The pubblic might have agreed with most of their policies, but that doesnt mean they agreed with all of them.

          • So we ignore the election result and have a new method of what determines Government policy ,internet petitioning, does it represent all of Australia in the same way a compulsory election does, nope, petitioners invite themselves to vote, there is only one choice, you either support the FTTP or you don’t vote, if you support the Coalition policy you cannot show that support, you just don’t vote.

            Those that supported the Coalition and put them into Government and a key reason for that support was the Coalition NBN policy are ignored, we don’t know who you are or what percentage of the population you are and we don’t really want to find out either, we have decided you are irrelevant.

          • Start an anti FTTH petition if you want your voice heard or can’t you even be bothered taking 5 minutes to do that?

            You act as if there is nothing you can do you have every tool available to you as the Pro-FttH people have so either go and do something or stop whining!

          • What you don’t understand is that democracy doesn’t begin and end with an election. Just look at Egypt.

          • You are so witty Fibroid.

            Still waiting to your answer about what you got about Abbott ignoring Labor’s and his own party policy on ETS.

            I guess judging by your comments what you got is pretty obvious: Nothing.

          • An election is not a mandate to do whatever you like while giving the middle finger to the electorate!

            An election allows you to form a government where you can then put your policies to the parliament and the people.

            The Labor party had a “mandate” at the 2007 election to introduce an internet filter yet that ended up being dropped due to public and parliamentary pressure

          • No they didn’t, the internet filter legislation was introduced well after they were elected in 2007.

          • Of course they didn’t introduce legislation until after they were elected! They had a “mandate” because they went to the election with the policy.

            Here’s the document:
            http://www.cla.asn.au/Articles/labors_plan_for_cyber_safety.pdf

            “Mandatory ISP Filtering
            A Rudd Labor Government will require ISPs to offer a ‘clean feed’ internet service to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible by children, such as public libraries.
            Labor’s ISP policy will prevent Australian children from accessing any content that has been identified as prohibited by ACMA, including sites such as those containing child pornography and X-rated material.
            Labor will also ensure that the ACMA black list is more comprehensive. It will do so, for example, by liaising with international agencies such as Interpol, Europol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre and ISPs to ensure that adequate online protection is provided to Australian children and families.”

          • Not at all, but you can argue that the election showed that only 53% of the population supported the Coalition policies, so 47% must have disapproved. Not a big margin.

            Again, why should the election result be an all or nothing proposition? If I voted Labor, that doesnt mean I agreed with every one of their policies, only that I agreed with enough of them to get my vote. I can still disagree with some of them, and provide that feedback. Which I have by the way.

            If the Liberal party goes ahead with exactly the plan they laid out in February, I wont have any problems. Seriously. I believe it to be a mistake, but at the end of the day they DID win the election, and clearly presented their plan.

            The problem is, they ARENT simply going ahead with their original plan. They’ve gradually changed their public stance so more and more emphasis is put on the review, when previously there was exactly zero consideration for FttH beyond what was commited to.

            2 weeks before the election, the whole emphasis was on FttN build or bust. 2 weeks after the election, that appeared to have been put aside, pending the review. If they change their minds, as it appears they might be doing, then I’m happy to see people trying to influence that process. Which is also what it appears they are doing.

            Put it a different way. If they are simply wasting their time and money, why do you care?

          • I agree with you completely about the fact that they should listen, for sure. It should always have been a technological issue, not a political one. Technologically FttH makes the best sense in the long term.

            It has become a political issue now, and no matter how much the public speaks up about it the liberals will never allow themselves to back down. Especially where it appears that they have to admit labor had a better policy. Yes, I think they ignored all the FttH polls because they could never be seen to agree with labor.

            The reality is, like all other forms of protest in recent times, if the government ignores it long enough it will just die down. I am relatively young and I lost all hope in influencing the government by protest when all of the opposition to the Iraq war was ignored. I think the absolute worst of all politicians and haven’t found any to be inspired by in recent years. It’s always been a ‘least worst’ option.

            My mum is very surprised at how fast people become cynical towards politics now, she says she was very inspired when she was younger and genuinely felt that the peoples opposition to the Vietnam war had an effect on the government. I don’t feel like the government ever needs to listen anymore. It seems like it just needs to get the papers onside and the masses will follow. A bit off-topic but still relevant when it comes to what I believe Malcolm and Tony will do with respect to all this noise.

          • With all due respect this debate has been going for 4 years and has not slowed in that time and has only intensified more as time has gone on I have seen no evidence to support your Hypothesis that people will stop.

          • I don’t know, I think when they actually start rolling out the FttN nodes and irreversibly changing the nature of the system then we will never see a ubiquitous FttH system and there will be no point in pushing on.

            Once the nodes are in place it becomes a massive mess, even if they decide to take the fiber from the node to all houses, and we will never get the passive network connections that we should, as far as I understand (and I’m no expert at all).

          • I tend to think you’re right on that. Maybe not totally for those reasons, but the net effect to be the same.

            When nodes become widespread, the damage will have been done. The opportunity to clean the slate and start again afresh will have been missed, and the population will have no other choice but to accept the nodes being on their street corners for the next 50 years, and hence will be considered a usable option. We still see people using dialup, I can see the same thing happening with FttN decades from now.

            This is part of my disagreement with FttN – mid to long term, its clearly a mistake. Short term, there are definitely benefits, but we have the option of looking forward to what we will need in 2050, not what we will need in 2016, and plan accordingly. any additional costs or time are worth it.

            The advantages long term should be so plain they are inarguable, yet here we are. 4 years of debating the topic with no change to the status quo except a new Government that wants to go backwards. As someone else said a few weeks ago – this is the first time a country has backtracked from a predominantly FttH rollout to a FttN rollout.

    • The thing is they’ve already fallen back on a lot of their pre-election rhetoric. They said there was a budget emergency and so far they’ve just sat on their hands, they said they would stop the boats and so far they’ve changed nothing except the media exposure. More recently they increased the “debt ceiling” despite spending all of their time in opposition criticising the ALP for just that. They’ve already gone and adopted a large chunk of Labor’s policies. Even with the NBN they have moved a hell of a lot closer to the ALP’s plan since 2010.

      Why not push them to go even closer to one of ALP’s policies which was actually popular across the political spectrum? Or is that a bridge too far? If it is then Jebus help us if they manage to last more than one term.

  5. What Malcolm says is in tune with President Barack Obama’s recent quip: “If you don’t like our policies, go out and win an election”.

  6. @andyrob

    Why wasnt this campaign done BEFORE the election. Seriously, targeting marginal seats only months after the election is a complete waste of time.

    I was most disappointed by the inaction of most “geeks” and technology companies during the election campaign to such an important issue, that could have made us the best in the world for our kids future, that could have attracted business from all over the world to setup shop here in any small regional town in Australia.

    BTW the National Party are a disgrace for turning their backs on delivering a world class environment for businesses to setup in regional towns throughout australia.

    • I agree, it’s too late now, where was all this pro FTTP push before the election, when Labor and Albanese in particular needed help, all they could bang on about over and over was it will cost ya $5k to get off copper under the Coalition, they didn’t push their rollout at all.

    • Because the NBN is a marginal issue for 95% of voters and while people are in favor of FttH would not vote based on this as they see it as less important than everything else.

      • ‘Because the NBN is a marginal issue for 95% of voters’

        How do you know why people voted?

        • Polls on voting intention and issues that matter to voters which consistently placed education health and the economy well above the NBN

          • So that applies to both Labor and Coalition voters I take it, or are you going to apply some sort of special ‘AJ NBN weighting’ to the Labor vote.

            I still don’t know how that translates directly into the pro Coalition policy influence on the vote is irrelevant.

          • http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-09/vote-compass-data-results-important-issues/4872896

            Broadband rated 6th with 6.84% of ALL voters rating it as most important.

            according to the breakdown by party only 10% of that 6.84% were LIberal or National Voters
            that gives us a total swing vote assuming that LNP voters support the FttN NBN of 0.68%.

            So best case scenario with NBN advertising you could pick up 0.64% and if you generously weight it at 50% you are looking a less than 0.32% which in this election would have made no difference at all.

            Compare that to the economy where more than 90% of LNP voters rated it important.

    • > I was most disappointed by the inaction of most “geeks” and technology companies during the election campaign to such an important issue, that could have made us the best in the world for our kids future, that could have attracted business from all over the world to setup shop here in any small regional town in Australia.

      Except that it wouldn’t have, because what Labor was proposing was at best a poor imitation of Google Fibre or what is available in many other countries.

      • I really don’t understand you Mathew. You want much better than what Labor was offering (GPON FTTP), so you actively support something that takes about the same time and money and yet is much, much worse (FTTN). It’s just… it’s just spiteful. Is that what you are? Spiteful?

        It’s like being offered a brand-new BMW, but it’s not a Ferrari, so you settle for a 2007 Holden Commodore for the same price.

        I hate car analogies.

        • @Harimau

          ‘so you actively support something that takes about the same time and money”

          Probably because that is incorrect on both counts, FTTN takes less time and less money to rollout.

          • As per the LNP’s original policy document, FTTN will only take $1bn less than the ALP FTTP build in Government contribution. The LNP have never released figures for peak funding, so you can’t make a comparison against anything other than the total government commitment figure. Why is that so hard to understand? Why do you beligerantly insist on dishonestly misusing incorrect figures if your argument is so strong (as you seem to believe it is)?

            The LNP FTTN build is also slated for completion by the end of 2019, while the FTTP network was due for completion by mid 2021, around an 18 month difference over a ten year period. Yes, it will take less time (if the LNP figures are correct, but the fact that they have been demonstrated to be wrong on so many other counts suggests that their figures here are likely to be far from accurate), but I would say it’s a pretty fair call to call it a broadly or approximately similar time frame.

            Mr Turnbull keeps referring to international examples which he says were completed in a fifth the time for a quarter the cost that FTTP would have taken. If that’s the case, why doesn’t the LNP FTTN plan cost $10bn for completion by 2015? Oh that’s right, the transit network won’t even be finished before 2016 (and even then not 100%) – good luck having operational FTTN delivered before then.

          • Yes, “less time and less money”. You are correct.
            2019 vs 2021
            29.5 vs 30.4
            Yes, “about the same time and money”. I am correct.

          • No you are not correct, it is 2021 vs 2016.

            It is $29.5b vs $44.1b, sorry that’s the 2012 Corporate plan figure, they wanted more in the Final NBN Plan Albanese was sitting on before the election, at the end it was $29.5b vs $45.6b.

          • Fibroid, what does the $44.1bn and $45.6bn refer to? Total government debt contribution? No, that would be $30.4bn. $44.1bn refers to peak funding.

            So the $29.5bn also refers to peak funding then. Oh wait, no it doesn’t; that refers to total government debt contribution. OK, so we should be comparing $29.5bn vs $30.4bn, right? Oh, you want to use the peak funding figure? OK fine (although the total private debt isn’t particularly relevant because it is private debt with no material relevance to tax payers, but you should be allowed to compare those figures if you want to).

            So we have $45.6bn in peak funding for the FTTP build, vs… Oh wait, what is peak funding for FTTN? Fibroid? Sorry mate, I can’t seem to remember… Hang on, I’m sure it’s here somewhere… Let me Google it, one moment… Hmm. You know, I can’t seem to find that figure anywhere. Do you know where it might be? Oh, hang on, I’ve just remembered! *slaps head* I can’t find that figure because the LNP have never published it. Personally, I doubt they’ve even worked out what it would actually work out to, but I don’t know that. I do know that we don’t have that figure, though, which means we can’t directly compare the ALP FTTP NBN peak funding figure without the FTTN equivalent.

            I believe I have adequately explained this to you, in a way that is unambiguous. I warn you now, any and every time you try to use the FTTP peak funding figures without a directly comparable FTTN figure I will request that you are banned from Delimiter for deliberately injecting false information despite having your inaccuracies and falsehoods pointed out. I strongly encourage others to link back to this post whenever a FTTN apologist attempts to compare FTTP peak funding figures with anything but (an as yet undisclosed) FTTN peak funding. I am all for debate, but it is time the underhanded logical fallacies, misinformation and falsehoods were banished – your arguments should be adequate in their own standing without needing to rely on lies and deception; anyone would think you’re not actually that confident in your position…

          • Dont bother giving that sort of reply to fibroid, Trevor. He never responds.

            Its the easiest wasy to shut him up – focus on the cost to Government, rather than overall build cost, and he never addresses the issue. It doesnt make his plan look any good, so by not replying it means he can choose to ignore the inconvenient truth.

            Like the 2016 v 2021 debate. What is the cost to roll it out by 2016? The $29.5b cost is for the overall build through to 2019, not the halfway benchmark date of 2016, so if he wants to be cute he should be trying to get details on what the cost will be up to that point, and arguing with those figures.

            But he doesnt do any actual research, so thats not going to happen either.

            The inconvenient truth is that if they want to compare any part of the FttN build to FttH they need to compare the entire plan for each and compare apples to apples, not just some arbitrary checkpoint like 2016 or deceptive figure like $44b.

            As soon as you question that predictable comparison, they shut up.

          • Sorry. 2016 then. (Hell yeah, 1163 days to go! Then we can start on retrofitting all of the nodes with fibre to the premises as soon as Labor gets back in, in 2016… and it’ll be worse than the GPON network we were rolling out to begin with.)

            5 year difference in rollout speed for a 50+ year difference in shelf-life. I know what I’d choose (unless I knew I was dying in 5 years).

            30.4b government contribution vs 29.5b government contribution
            45.6b total peak funding vs ??? – can’t make a comparison, so we’ll have to exclude it.

            All told, my statement remains correct. About the same time and money, for vastly different outcomes.

          • @ Fibroid

            “Probably because that is incorrect on both counts, FTTN takes less time and less money to rollout.”

            This is only one part of the equation. David Thodey is waiting with glee at the prospect of how much he can extract from Malcolm. There is nothing more exciting for a seller than a buyer with limited options.

            Malcolm needs the copper. No copper, no FTTN. Anything over $900million for the network, will make FTTN not much cheaper than FTTP and that’s not even allowing for sites where copper needs to be replaced with fibre.

            This is but one of the few hurdles awaiting Malcom’s masterful plan to give us cheaper, faster and more affordable broadband.

          • > This is only one part of the equation. David Thodey is waiting with glee at the prospect of how much he can extract from Malcolm. There is nothing more exciting for a seller than a buyer with limited options.

            Which explains why Labor paid significantly more to both Telstra & Optus than was required because Telstra refused to negotiate on FTTN and Labor proposed FTTP as a face saving exercise. Conroy had the 4G spectrum auction to use as a bargaining tool with Telstra, but he blinked first because Labor needed to be seen to rolling out the network.

          • No what it explains is that the cost of FTTN might just become too close to the cost of FTTP to make sense to prefer it.

            As for the rest of your post, it is your fanciful interpretation of the events that led to Labor adopting FTTP.

            Furthermore, I find your views about the cost of broadband and its effect on those who can’t afford rather intriguing when this is paired with your evident preference for the coalition and your dislike of anything Labor.
            Perhaps, it is based on the hope that the Coalition will take better care of those in needs. I am afraid that, based on its past and present record, it is highly likely that you will be disappointed.

          • Typically… instead of looking at what’s occurring now, the apologists always childishly try to deflect back to what was, to desperately try to justify any and everything…

            It’s the old 8 year old mentality… well, so are you… seriously!

            Because the last government may have erred or not listened during their tenure, it doesn’t justify the new government doing the same…

            Forget what’s happened and concentrate on what’s happening, even if it embarrasses your masters.

    • @David Endres

      ??? not sure there. I think you may have missed the pressure put on Turnbull etc for a very long time by “geeks” etc. Hell they wouldn’t even take questions from this and other blogs/sites well and truly before the election.

      Yes I agree the Nationals are spineless puppets for the LNP.

      I am lucky enough to have the NBN (the real one), which was installed a couple of months before the election. It is fantastic, cheaper than my old Tel$tra deal, double the data allowance, average of 75mb/s (via wifi, faster if I hard wired my house), free loacal/national calls and $30/month cheaper than my old ADSL 1.5mb/s crap service from you know who. Oh and it was FREE to have installed!

      I feel so bad that I have it because sadly, it looks like the rest of Australia are going to be shafted. Hate that thought. Every Australian should be able to enjoy and save in the same manner I have. It is just not fair.

        • BTW love the not so subtle insertion of FREE in caps, straight from the Labor election campaign material, now what did independent analysis say about the use of that FREE term?“Politifact backs Turnbull: Labor’s NBN not “free””

          False. The statement was that ‘installation’ was free, which is 100% factually accurate. The political analysis concluded that it was incorrect to say the NBN was free for consumers overall, which is not what was claimed by Andyrob – he even mentions ongoing costs elsewhere.

          Please learn to read and comprehend before you go injecting your demonstrably dishonest falsehoods into the discussion.

          • +100 TrevorX.

            It is exactly why I worded it that way. How much will it end up costing for an INSTALLATION of FTTP in the future version. That has been an ongoing argument here and elsewhere for some time. I suspect it will be generally business that get it as they will be able to claim the deduction as a work expense. Very unsatisfactory IMO.

            Fibaroid, where did I mention who I voted for?? Give ya self an upper cut you idiot.

          • I didn’t make mention on who you voted for, love the end off with a personal attack – classy.

          • You certainly tried to allude to it.

            I was just stating a fact from my INSTALLATION experience, something you may or may not have read. I would actually like you/all to see in the future (a free install of the full FTTP). Comment justified I believe.

  7. “Stewart said the next phase of the campaign was asking Turnbull to stop ignoring the depth of feeling on this issue”. hhmmmm…. I wonder if there is a section in the 60 day review or any future CBA covering “depth of feeling” in a thorough scientific manner.. It’s clearly more important to substantive policy debate than frivolous and nebulous concepts such as benefits and costs… If Abbott was at all competent, he would appoint a new Ministerial porfolio in charge of Depth of Feeling.

  8. “I can already tell you what Turnbull’s reaction to these ads will be: He will ignore them.”

    Good on him. And I’ll happily put money into campaigns every single week until a better solution is arrived at, and I expect that reporters as well as other MP’s will take note.

    • > Good on him. And I’ll happily put money into campaigns every single week until a better solution is arrived at, and I expect that reporters as well as other MP’s will take note.

      What do you define as a better solution? Is it a set of performance criteria, technology choices, end-user experience, a mixture or something else?

      • Better stability, latency, longevity, upgradability, reliability, durability, bandwidth capability, energy consumption, retail competition, prices, etc.

          • We were comparing the proposed solution (FTTN) with a better solution (FTTP), weren’t we?

            And anyway, no one believes the Coalition policy will provide all of those things (as compared to the current ADSL2/HFC paradigm) using the copper. Certainly not stability (copper), latency (copper), longevity (copper), upgradability (copper, nodes), reliability (copper), durability (copper), bandwidth capability (fastest is slower than HFC), or energy consumption (electricity). Retail competition seems to take a back-seat to infrastructure competition too. Prices appear to be better in the city and worse in the country, in the Coalition’s policy.

          • “And anyway, no one believes the Coalition policy will provide all of those things…”

            I believe you meant no one, “but one?”

    • Actually I’ve been thinking a little about this and trying to figure out why MSM appears to be siding with the Coalition on this.

      With all this social media based discussion, articles, campaigns, advertising and lobbying, I can’t help but wonder if MSM are towing the Coalition line more out of spite for having no control over the campaign vs the actual worthiness of the Coalition FTTH model.

  9. The cold hard fact is that 47% of Australians as of April 2013 voted with their wallet that FTTP performance was not required by selecting at 12Mbps plan for their fibre connection. The take-up chart in the NBNCo Corporate Plan (2013 draft) indicates that the number is likely to be higher now.

      • > Incorrect. They paid for better stability, latency, reliability and prices.

        The biggest issue I’ve had with my ADSL connection has been contractors cutting through the copper. Fibre won’t help that situation.

        I think you seriously over estimate little each of those factors mean to someone on a 12Mbps connection. When the FTTN minimum speed is 50Mbps (or even 25Mbps), someone who only wants 12Mbps is very unlikely to notice the difference.

        • “The biggest issue I’ve had with my ADSL connection has been contractors cutting through the copper. Fibre won’t help that situation”

          The biggest problem I’ve had is that I pay for “up to 24Mbps”, sync’d 2 years ago at around 7Mbps and now sync less that 6, often nearer 5. When it rains it can go down to 3 if working at all.

          These are not problems those on 12Mbps fibre plans struggle with. You pay for 12mbps, you get 12mbps, it doesn’t get slower over time as the fibre degrades like copper, doesn’t shite itself when it rains – must be terrible.

        • The biggest issue I’VE had is that my ADSL2+ connection rarely delivers a third of the promised ‘Up To’ speeds, owing to the soggy copper in the ground (my suspicion there, based on anecdotal correlation between speed drops and rain drops).

          Tell me Mathew, which of our two personal experiences would you suspect is the more frequent one? Me personally, I hear a lot more complaints about copper than about backhoes.

        • Conflating the purpose of the NBN as somehow fully utilised by every single individual account holder is a logical fallacy. The purpose of the NBN has never been to deliver live 1gbps services to everyone regardless of their actual requirements and usage, it is to provide ubiquitous national infrastructure that can support anything up to such high end services should they be required, when they are required. It is up to individuals to determine what plan is more appropriate for their usage and financial situation.

          Surely you must also realise that for the majority of people there is no existing ‘killer app’ that justifies more than a 12mbps connection? Why don’t they need more performance than that? Well, it may have something to do with the fact that unless you have ubiquitous and universally available broadband, there is no existing market for products, services, applications or portals that actually utilise huge bandwidth, so as a developer today designing a product that will require at least 40mbps synchronous performance you would be a fool, because without the infrastructure you have no market, and without a market you won’t sell a thing.

          End user connections aren’t the point of the NBN, they are just a cog in the wheel. A completed NBN provides opportunity, it provides stimulus and a stable, known quantity that underpins business confidence that leads to Startups and investment and opportunity for innovation.

          The fact that neither you nor many individuals (particularly most Liberal voters) appreciate this does not materially alter the facts, it just means your argument is flawed.

          • > It is up to individuals to determine what plan is more appropriate for their usage and financial situation.

            You mean the rich can have their 1Gbps services while the poor (who governments should be helping) will be lucky to get 12Mbps.

            > Well, it may have something to do with the fact that unless you have ubiquitous and universally available broadband, there is no existing market for products, services, applications or portals that actually utilise huge bandwidth, so as a developer today designing a product that will require at least 40mbps synchronous performance you would be a fool, because without the infrastructure you have no market, and without a market you won’t sell a thing.

            They would still be as much a fool today as based on NBNCo’s actual connection rates they would be excluding half of their customer base.

            > End user connections aren’t the point of the NBN, they are just a cog in the wheel. A completed NBN provides opportunity, it provides stimulus and a stable, known quantity that underpins business confidence that leads to Startups and investment and opportunity for innovation.

            Except that it doesn’t because firstly the Labor government badly botched the rollout and secondly the pricing and take up of services which enable innovation under Labor’s pricing model would have continued to see us as also-rans. Can you seriously compare Google Fibre plans with NBNCo plans and suggest that we will be even within spitting distance?

            The stability you talk about means we should not expect the wholesale pricing model to change significantly. The ACCC and NBNCo still haven’t reached agreement on pricing. Think about how much more difficult it will be to change in the future.

            The cost of CVC for 1Gbps services (minimum of $40,000/month per PoI) and small number of potential customers means that it will be very risky for any RSP offering those services.

            > The fact that neither you nor many individuals (particularly most Liberal voters) appreciate this does not materially alter the facts, it just means your argument is flawed.

            We both look at the same facts. You see 50% of connections at 12Mbps and less than 5% of connections at 1Gbps as acceptable and good Labor policy. I see it as evidence of poor decision making that will not advance Australia. I think that abolishing speed tiers and lowering the AVC charge will create a more equitable network, see more people connected, drive usage and lea to innovation.

          • You mean the rich can have their 1Gbps services while the poor (who governments should be helping) will be lucky to get 12Mbps.
            That’s what socialist governments should be doing. Last I checked, we didn’t have one.

            But you are correct that these people will consider themselves lucky, and they will genuinely be lucky, to get a reliable 12Mbps fibre optic connection.

            And in fact, we’ve been over this already (I really wish you’d pay attention, Mathew), but the 1Gbps users (paying far above ARPU) subsidise the 12Mbps users (paying far below ARPU). Similarly, the city users (where deployment cost per unit is small) subsidise the rural users (where deployment cost per unit is large).

            Also, regarding your $40,000 minimum CVC charge figure, I thought it was $20,000, later to fall to $10,000. I’m not doubting you, but what is your rationale for doubling the figure?

          • “You mean the rich can have their 1Gbps services while the poor (who governments should be helping) will be lucky to get 12Mbps.”

            What utter nonsense. Sure, 1gbps services will be prohibitively expensive for those not deriving a financially justifiable commercial benefit from such a connection (or the rich) but that doesn’t change the fact that the network itself is capable of that performance the instant a customer signs up for such a plan. BTW how much, precisely, will a 1000/400 plan actually cost? NBN Co’s ARPU figure for that tier is $150/month, which really isn’t that high. Certainly I can see such a service would be tremendously popular with businesses at anything under $400/month, considering there are plenty who were paying that kind of money for ADSL1 just a few years ago.

            Moving away from discussion of the cost of the most expensive, highest performance product not even available yet, let’s look at your conjecture about affordability of FTTP to ‘the poor’. Right now, if you’re ‘poor’ and you need an Internet connection you’re paying for a phone service you might not need (at $25/month) plus a broadband service for at least $30/month, and you’ll get something between 1GB and 10GB/month download QUOTA. Performance is completely dependant upon condition and length of the copper lines from your premises back to the exchange (or limitations imposed by RIMs etc) so you might get 18mbps if you’re within spitting distance of the exchange, but you might have sub-1mbps – I’ve certainly seen plenty of examples of that first hand.

            What kind of impact do you think that has on people existing on very low incomes? In regards to performance, they are living in a technological ghetto where they won’t use the Internet much because it is far too easy to exceed their quota. They will never use YouTube, iView or any other video platform, because they can’t afford to go over quota. They have this performance tier because they can’t justify anything else and they believe it suits their needs because they ‘only really use the Internet for email’, but the fact is they can’t use it for anything else because they will exceed their quota. So they can’t explore, they can’t learn new things, they can’t click on links from emails from friends and family to multimedia content – they can’t grow and expand their horizons because of the limitations of their entry level broadband plans.

            As for financial impact, $55/month is a lot of money for plenty of people in this country. So much that there are thousands who don’t have Internet services because even entry level plans are simply too expensive.

            So, according to your statement, the NBN must be either perpetuating this inequality or making it worse. How much are entry level 12mbps plans in the NBN? $30/month. $30/month is almost half what they are currently paying for entry level ADSL services today. $30/month for guaranteed 12mbps services that will never drop out or throttle or go flakey due to network faults. $30/month for significantly higher download quotas than they have today. Under FTTP they would have faster, more reliable performance, ability to explore more uses for the Internet than they’ve had access to before, all for a significant reduction in cost.

            Why do you think close to 50% of connections are at the entry level tier? It’s not because the NBN is prohibitively expensive or because they will never have use for anything faster, it’s because for people moving to the NBN from ADSL they are already getting higher performance than they’ve ever had, they already have a huge increase in quota and in exchange they’re paying a lot less for it.

            And then you have those who have never had their own Internet connection joining up for the first time, because broadband has never been so affordable. These people are also going to find the entry level performance and quota amazing for the money.

            So why aren’t they signing up for twice the speed for just $5 or $10 more? Remember, we’re talking about the most price sensitive customers here – $5/month is a lot of money. Why waste $5/month for extra performance and quota that you might not need? They can always upgrade later – right now they are signing up for the entry level to see how well that meets their needs for now.

            Besides, once the NBN has been around for a while and the debt has been paid down, prices are set to reduce significantly – entry level plans might be half this, and it will be even cheaper to upgrade. Low income households make decisions like this daily – ‘is it good enough and can we make it last’? If the answer is ‘yes’, then they will stick to their lowest tier. Even if that means they can’t access services and uses because of their limited performance, they will justify this as being uses they can live without.

            So I would suggest the (previous) government was ‘helping these people out’ because they were getting access to faster services with significantly higher quota for much lower cost per month. How is this not to their benefit?

            Oh, right – you think everyone should have access to 1gbps synchronous point to point services with no quota, for peanuts, huh? Unfortunately we live in a world where we are this thing called money, and the government is limited on how much of this they can spend and in what way, too. Sure, they could fund the NBN right off the budget and give it to everyone for free, but that would be fiscally irresponsible and extremely costly long term. The NBN needs to be self supporting to be viable.

            This is an area where I really applaud the architects because it is such an elegant solution – while low income individuals and households are extremely price sensitive, the wealthy and business users are not – they will pay what it takes for performance that saves them (and their family and their employees) time, that will give them access to services and features only possible at the highest performance tier. These people are the ones funding the NBN and paying all its costs, these people are subsidising the regional customers and low income poor which is why they can afford connections in the first place.

            You mentioned Google Fibre which is USD$70/month. Let’s completely ignore the fact that you’re talking about a single city project compared to one built across a whole country for the most geographically diverse population on the planet for a second, and focus on the price – at AUD$80/month poor and low income people would be completely excluded from the NBN altogether. How the *#&@ does that work? Your beef is purportedly about the perceived digital divide created by the NBN tiered plan structures and your solution is to create an actual digital divide that deliberately excludes the poor and low income households from any access to the NBN. Seriously?

            Or is your ideal solution 1:1 synchronous gigabit point to point services for $30/month, an amount actually accessible for low income people? Sure, and how will you fund such a network? How much would it cost over the $38bn ($45bn in peak funding due to interest payments on loans) the GPON FTTP network was scheduled to require? What will OPEX be on such a network, and what international backhaul will be required to service the data demands?

            Look, we can all dream and fantasise, but when it comes to criticising real world infrastructure and government policy, we need real world objectives, real world considerations and a focus on real world, justifiable funding possibilities. You keep criticising the NBN by comparing it to fantastical, unrealistic and unsustainable fiction.

            If you have real world solutions backed by real world modelling underpinned by realistic and achievable economics, then by all means feel free to present this to the world. But seriously, stop sniping from you fantasy tower with your fairytale criticisms, because what you’ve been saying for months now makes utterly no rational sense.

            “They would still be as much a fool today as based on NBNCo’s actual connection rates they would be excluding half of their customer base.”

            No they wouldn’t, that’s like saying no store is viable because they only average 12 customers in the store at any time. Yet they have the potential to attract as many customers as exist within their potential market; while customers may not be in the store today, they have the potential to visit the store by exercising the effort required to travel there.

            Similarly, if you built a technology requiring a minimum of, say, 40mbps synchronous performance at the completion of the FTTP NBN, you would be able to provide this service to 93% of Australia, potentially. If people don’t currently have a service capable of delivering such performance, they have the potential ability to upgrade their service to access your service. It depends on how compelling your service is as to whether customers consider it worthwhile and justifiable to upgrade in order to access it. But at least you have the business certainty that you know, for certain, that the technology, the infrastructure itself, isn’t a barrier to access your product; only the amount the customer can afford is, which is a consideration for every product and service.

            The huge barrier that you’ve overcome with the ubiquitous availability of fibre is one that businesses can’t normally address, which directly affects available market size – for physical shops this would be the equivalent of relocating every person in the country to within easy driving distance of your store. Your potential market under FTTP becomes the whole country (well, 97% of it). This simply isn’t possible without FTTP.

            “The stability you talk about means we should not expect the wholesale pricing model to change significantly.”

            Logical fallacy: Ambiguity. That is either a fundamental misunderstanding of what I wrote or you’re being deliberately obtuse. I have talked about stability in terms of the technology and business confidence resulting from ubiquitous availability of a network with known high performance. I have never mentioned it in relation to ‘stable’ or unchanging wholesale pricing. We already know the ‘pricing model’ will change because it says so in the business plans. We also know NBN Co and the previous government have mentioned a range of options for what to do with profit generated by NBN Co once the debt has been fully paid down, including significant reductions in access charges.

            “The ACCC and NBNCo still haven’t reached agreement on pricing. Think about how much more difficult it will be to change in the future.The cost of CVC for 1Gbps services (minimum of $40,000/month per PoI) and small number of potential customers means that it will be very risky for any RSP offering those services.”

            Firstly you’ve made up that $40k figure, that is twice as high as even MT was willing to claim. Secondly, top tier customers are the highest profit customers. RSPs will do whatever’s necessary to attract these customers. That doesn’t mean over provisioning – they can happily and safely purchase AVC as required as customers sign contracts for services – the requisite AVC could be purchased within minutes of customer sign up. I’m not seeing any RSP risk in that.

            “We both look at the same facts. You see 50% of connections at 12Mbps and less than 5% of connections at 1Gbps as acceptable and good Labor policy. I see it as evidence of poor decision making that will not advance Australia. I think that abolishing speed tiers and lowering the AVC charge will create a more equitable network, see more people connected, drive usage and lea to innovation.”

            Yes, 50% of connections at 12mbps at very low entry level pricing that is actually affordable to low income households because it is subsidised by the top 20% (and particularly the top 5% who do all the really heavy lifting). I’ve explained the necessity for this situation in order to make the project financially viable. Again, if you have a model that is superior, please feel free to share/publish it. Ideally, of course higher performance universally available for everyone at a very low cost is a lovely idea, but it isn’t realistic, it doesn’t work, it is simply not economically viable… For 20 years. However, once the construction debt and interest have been repaid it won’t be prohibitively expensive to upgrade the network and pricing access to merely cover costs would mean halving of access charges, so maybe then we will have a predominantly left leaning Government who considers reducing access costs to be a priority over, say, paying for extension of the network to the last 7% of the population, or offsetting the tax base, or paying back national debt…

            The point is, your ideal NBN and the source of your criticism for the existing FTTP NBN is an unrealistic fantasy that fails to take into account any real world economics and financial viability. Unless you’re able or prepared to reveal a workable model that addresses these shortcomings, it really is time you stopped your idiotic negativity, because you’re only embarrassing yourself.

          • A perfect illustration of the consequences of prolonged constipation. You just proved Tony Abbott wrong when he claimed no-one individual is the “suppository of all wisdom”.

          • At least he is genuinely wanting to and “can” add to the conversation, not forever make dumb, smart arsed, adolescent gibes and bring the comments down to your level…

          • >> “You mean the rich can have their 1Gbps services while the poor (who governments should be helping) will be lucky to get 12Mbps.”

            > What utter nonsense. Sure, 1gbps services will be prohibitively expensive for those not deriving a financially justifiable commercial benefit from such a connection (or the rich) but that doesn’t change the fact that the network itself is capable of that performance the instant a customer signs up for such a plan. BTW how much, precisely, will a 1000/400 plan actually cost? NBN Co’s ARPU figure for that tier is $150/month, which really isn’t that high. Certainly I can see such a service would be tremendously popular with businesses at anything under $400/month, considering there are plenty who were paying that kind of money for ADSL1 just a few years ago.

            The NBNCo Corporate Plan predicts that less than 5% of connections will be 1Gbps in 2028, so I would hardly call it widely popular.

            The problem with Labor’s NBN is they created artificial scarcity in data with a pricing CVC at $20/Mbps. You need double the bandwidth if you have two customers to avoid congestion (2 * 20*1000 = $40,000). Speed tiers mean that very few (less than 1% until 2026 according to the Corporate Plan) would connect at 1Gbps. So an RSP has to jump for a single customer from $4000/month to $24,000. This is unrealistic, except during the start up phase.

            Lets make a couple of crude assumptions:

            CVC is $20/Mbps
            8 million connections
            5 RSPs with an equal share of the market
            1% on 1Gbps (optimistic until after 2026)
            121 POIs (CVC needs to be purchased separately for each one)
            8,000,000 / 121 / 5 * 1% = 132 customers on 1Gbps plans per RSP
            1:50 contention ratio (not good) = $52,892/month = $400 per customer in just CVC
            1:20 contention ratio (more reasonable) = $132,231/month = $1,000 per customer in just CVC

            Based on this I think $400/month is optimistic for a 1Gbps connection

            Now if Labor didn’t have speed tiers, then the price of CVC could have fallen by close to a factor of 10 because ISPs would have need to buy 2000Mbps minimum instead of 200Mbps. Off peak quotas would have gone ballistic because there was so much surplus capacity.

            It doesn’t take much to realise that Labor’s 1Gbps promise was fanciful at best and as Quigley said it was announced just prior to the 2010 election in response to Google fibre.

            > What kind of impact do you think that has on people existing on very low incomes? In regards to performance, they are living in a technological ghetto where they won’t use the Internet much because it is far too easy to exceed their quota. They will never use YouTube, iView or any other video platform, because they can’t afford to go over quota. They have this performance tier because they can’t justify anything else and they believe it suits their needs because they ‘only really use the Internet for email’, but the fact is they can’t use it for anything else because they will exceed their quota. So they can’t explore, they can’t learn new things, they can’t click on links from emails from friends and family to multimedia content – they can’t grow and expand their horizons because of the limitations of their entry level broadband plans.

            There are very few plans in Australia with quotas under 30GB/month. That supports a reasonable amount of streaming video and other downloads. A DVD can be compressed to 1GB without significant loss of quality so that is about 30 hours a month. I’d hardly call that zero multimedia content.

            As for financial impact, $55/month is a lot of money for plenty of people in this country. So much that there are thousands who don’t have Internet services because even entry level plans are simply too expensive.

            > So, according to your statement, the NBN must be either perpetuating this inequality or making it worse. How much are entry level 12mbps plans in the NBN? $30/month. $30/month is almost half what they are currently paying for entry level ADSL services today. $30/month for guaranteed 12mbps services that will never drop out or throttle or go flakey due to network faults. $30/month for significantly higher download quotas than they have today. Under FTTP they would have faster, more reliable performance, ability to explore more uses for the Internet than they’ve had access to before, all for a significant reduction in cost.

            While your argument has some merit, I suggest that the cost for NBNCo to provide low quota 1Gbps plans is almost the same as 12Mbps plans. Should the poor be thankful that we are giving them that which we don’t consider fit for our own consumption and using the money to fund our 1Gbps connections?

            It would be interesting to see some real world data on the state of the copper network published. The only data I’ve seen on speed was published by iiNet / Internode and stated the average sync speed in Sydney was just under 12Mbps.

            As for access to the internet, I would argue that the revolutionary game changing online activities only start to occur at 100Mbps+ speeds.

            > Why do you think close to 50% of connections are at the entry level tier? It’s not because the NBN is prohibitively expensive or because they will never have use for anything faster, it’s because for people moving to the NBN from ADSL they are already getting higher performance than they’ve ever had, they already have a huge increase in quota and in exchange they’re paying a lot less for it.

            This is not true for everyone. Many people on ADSL2+ have connections faster than 12Mbps.

            > And then you have those who have never had their own Internet connection joining up for the first time, because broadband has never been so affordable. These people are also going to find the entry level performance and quota amazing for the money.

            Do you have some data to support this statement? Has there been any research done to prove that people who have never had the internet are connecting to the NBN? The ABS Internet Activity Statistics state that as of June 2013 there were:
            * 4,787,000 million DSL connections (growth of 60,000 in six months)
            * 934,000 cable connections (growth of 16,000 in six months)
            * 115,000 fibre connections (growth of 24,000 in six months)
            When you consider that some of the fibre connections would have been migration from DSL & cable this suggests ADSL is penetration is still growing.

            I think you are delusional to claim that 12Mbps is amazing in today’s world. 4G phones are faster.

            > So why aren’t they signing up for twice the speed for just $5 or $10 more? Remember, we’re talking about the most price sensitive customers here – $5/month is a lot of money. Why waste $5/month for extra performance and quota that you might not need? They can always upgrade later – right now they are signing up for the entry level to see how well that meets their needs for now.

            If these people are as price sensitive as you suggest and only using the network for basic email and web browsing then adding a data pack to their mobile might be an even cheaper option. NBNCo are suggesting 16% will opt for that.

            > Besides, once the NBN has been around for a while and the debt has been paid down, prices are set to reduce significantly – entry level plans might be half this, and it will be even cheaper to upgrade. Low income households make decisions like this daily – ‘is it good enough and can we make it last’? If the answer is ‘yes’, then they will stick to their lowest tier. Even if that means they can’t access services and uses because of their limited performance, they will justify this as being uses they can live without.

            Falling prices is an NBN myth. While the price per unit will decrease slightly (e.g. CVC falls from $20/Mbps to $8Mbps) but usage grows significantly (e.g. from 30GB/month to 540GB/month per user). ARPU is required to rise steeply for NBNCo to provide the promised return.

            > So I would suggest the (previous) government was ‘helping these people out’ because they were getting access to faster services with significantly higher quota for much lower cost per month. How is this not to their benefit?

            I don’t think the NBN is delivering significantly higher quotas as most RSPs offer the same starting quota as their ADSL plans. I think you have an unrealistic appreciation of how much quota people use.

            > Oh, right – you think everyone should have access to 1gbps synchronous point to point services with no quota, for peanuts, huh? Unfortunately we live in a world where we are this thing called money, and the government is limited on how much of this they can spend and in what way, too. Sure, they could fund the NBN right off the budget and give it to everyone for free, but that would be fiscally irresponsible and extremely costly long term.

            I’ve never claimed that the NBN should be 1/1Gbps. I’ve merely pointed out that by comparison the network that Labor proposed could in no way be considered to be a world’s best practice and I struggle to see how it would take us to the forefront of what is available.

            > The NBN needs to be self supporting to be viable.

            If the NBN can be shown to deliver significant benefit then like other infrastructure the benefit it provides to the country can entitle it to government funding. Currently the NBN prices are discounted and the hope is that the steep growth in ARPU will provide the required revenue.

            > This is an area where I really applaud the architects because it is such an elegant solution – while low income individuals and households are extremely price sensitive, the wealthy and business users are not – they will pay what it takes for performance that saves them (and their family and their employees) time, that will give them access to services and features only possible at the highest performance tier. These people are the ones funding the NBN and paying all its costs, these people are subsidising the regional customers and low income poor which is why they can afford connections in the first place.

            See an early post in this thread as to why this argument is a fallacy.

            > You mentioned Google Fibre which is USD$70/month. Let’s completely ignore the fact that you’re talking about a single city project compared to one built across a whole country for the most geographically diverse population on the planet for a second, and focus on the price – at AUD$80/month poor and low income people would be completely excluded from the NBN altogether. How the *#&@ does that work? Your beef is purportedly about the perceived digital divide created by the NBN tiered plan structures and your solution is to create an actual digital divide that deliberately excludes the poor and low income households from any access to the NBN. Seriously?

            Google Fibre is now a multiple city project. One analysis I saw of the costs suggested that all the cities in the USA could be covered for ~$140 billion. That is a significantly cheaper build than what is being proposed in Australia. Therefore it is worth discussing why there is such a gap in both cost and performance.

            > Or is your ideal solution 1:1 synchronous gigabit point to point services for $30/month, an amount actually accessible for low income people? Sure, and how will you fund such a network? How much would it cost over the $38bn ($45bn in peak funding due to interest payments on loans) the GPON FTTP network was scheduled to require? What will OPEX be on such a network, and what international backhaul will be required to service the data demands?

            NBNCo’s plan is to increase the proportion of revenue derived from CVC and decrease the proportion of revenue from AVC. This will occur naturally as people download more. My proposal is to bring that forward so that connection fees are cheaper encouraging more people to connect and providing faster speeds which has been shown to result in more data being downloaded which results in more CVC revenue. Potentially this is a win-win-win situation with a self reinforcing feedback loop.

            > Look, we can all dream and fantasise, but when it comes to criticising real world infrastructure and government policy, we need real world objectives, real world considerations and a focus on real world, justifiable funding possibilities. You keep criticising the NBN by comparing it to fantastical, unrealistic and unsustainable fiction.

            Google fibre is being built and there is no indication that Google intend to make a loss. Even if they do fail to recover their investment that is no reason not to invite them to come and install fibre here. Heck if we loaned them $20 billion interest free for 10 years it would still be cheaper and faster.

            If you have real world solutions backed by real world modelling underpinned by realistic and achievable economics, then by all means feel free to present this to the world. But seriously, stop sniping from you fantasy tower with your fairytale criticisms, because what you’ve been saying for months now makes utterly no rational sense.

            >> “They would still be as much a fool today as based on NBNCo’s actual connection rates they would be excluding half of their customer base.”

            > No they wouldn’t, that’s like saying no store is viable because they only average 12 customers in the store at any time. Yet they have the potential to attract as many customers as exist within their potential market; while customers may not be in the store today, they have the potential to visit the store by exercising the effort required to travel there.

            The problem is that there is a barrier to accessing your services. You can tell a customer how good it is, but you cannot actually demonstrate the service.

            > Similarly, if you built a technology requiring a minimum of, say, 40mbps synchronous performance at the completion of the FTTP NBN, you would be able to provide this service to 93% of Australia, potentially. If people don’t currently have a service capable of delivering such performance, they have the potential ability to upgrade their service to access your service. It depends on how compelling your service is as to whether customers consider it worthwhile and justifiable to upgrade in order to access it. But at least you have the business certainty that you know, for certain, that the technology, the infrastructure itself, isn’t a barrier to access your product; only the amount the customer can afford is, which is a consideration for every product and service.

            That is a reasonable point, but the reality is that actual potential customer base is much smaller and this impacts on the business case. Instead of 70% (NBNCO’s predicted take-up rate) the easily accessible market where you can demonstrate your product is 35%.

            > The huge barrier that you’ve overcome with the ubiquitous availability of fibre is one that businesses can’t normally address, which directly affects available market size – for physical shops this would be the equivalent of relocating every person in the country to within easy driving distance of your store. Your potential market under FTTP becomes the whole country (well, 97% of it). This simply isn’t possible without FTTP.

            I would argue that fibre on demand provides a similar level of availability. If your product is compelling enough then people will pay for the fibre especially if you are targeting premium customers. The estimate for direct fibre is ~$3000 with some RSPs already talking about providing 24 month payment plans. $3000 is significantly less than 1% of the average house price.

            >> “The stability you talk about means we should not expect the wholesale pricing model to change significantly.”

            > Logical fallacy: Ambiguity. That is either a fundamental misunderstanding of what I wrote or you’re being deliberately obtuse. I have talked about stability in terms of the technology and business confidence resulting from ubiquitous availability of a network with known high performance. I have never mentioned it in relation to ‘stable’ or unchanging wholesale pricing. We already know the ‘pricing model’ will change because it says so in the business plans. We also know NBN Co and the previous government have mentioned a range of options for what to do with profit generated by NBN Co once the debt has been fully paid down, including significant reductions in access charges.

            >> “The ACCC and NBNCo still haven’t reached agreement on pricing. Think about how much more difficult it will be to change in the future.The cost of CVC for 1Gbps services (minimum of $40,000/month per PoI) and small number of potential customers means that it will be very risky for any RSP offering those services.”

            > Firstly you’ve made up that $40k figure, that is twice as high as even MT was willing to claim. Secondly, top tier customers are the highest profit customers. RSPs will do whatever’s necessary to attract these customers. That doesn’t mean over provisioning – they can happily and safely purchase AVC as required as customers sign contracts for services – the requisite AVC could be purchased within minutes of customer sign up. I’m not seeing any RSP risk in that.

            I’m going to assume that you meant CVC in the above paragraph as this is the NBN data charge.

            If an RSP has more than one customer on 1Gbps then they need to purchase 2Gbps of CVC to avoid congestion issues. For an explanation of this read Simon Hackett’s blog post on needing to purchase 200Mbps of CVC in Tasmania. If you refer to my rough calculations above, the risk is this if the number of customers is half (e.g. 66) then the cost of CVC per customer doubles. You cannot reduce the CVC payment below $40,000 without causing congestion and 1Gbps customers are not going to be happy about congestion, so instead of $400/month per customer in CVC you are paying $606/month and loosing $202/month per customer.

            NBNCo are currently providing 150Mbps of CVC free per PoI because of exactly this problem where RSPs would have been loosing too much money during the early phases of the rollout. Again I suggest reading Simon Hackett’s blog for a more detailed explanation of this.

            > “We both look at the same facts. You see 50% of connections at 12Mbps and less than 5% of connections at 1Gbps as acceptable and good Labor policy. I see it as evidence of poor decision making that will not advance Australia. I think that abolishing speed tiers and lowering the AVC charge will create a more equitable network, see more people connected, drive usage and lea to innovation.”

            > Yes, 50% of connections at 12mbps at very low entry level pricing that is actually affordable to low income households because it is subsidised by the top 20% (and particularly the top 5% who do all the really heavy lifting). I’ve explained the necessity for this situation in order to make the project financially viable. Again, if you have a model that is superior, please feel free to share/publish it.

            Actually the top 5% won’t really do all that much heavy lifting because they don’t really pay that much more. It is the bottom 50% that pay the money to make the network viable to enable the top 5% to have their discounted 1Gbps connections when compared with rolling out fibre from the exchange. Those on the 50-100Mbps plans are really the people who are making the network viable because this is where the largest part of the profit will come from.

            > Ideally, of course higher performance universally available for everyone at a very low cost is a lovely idea, but it isn’t realistic, it doesn’t work, it is simply not economically viable… For 20 years. However, once the construction debt and interest have been repaid it won’t be prohibitively expensive to upgrade the network and pricing access to merely cover costs would mean halving of access charges, so maybe then we will have a predominantly left leaning Government who considers reducing access costs to be a priority over, say, paying for extension of the network to the last 7% of the population, or offsetting the tax base, or paying back national debt…

            If the NBN can deliver the predicted benefits which if you read the 2010 Corporate Plan are only achievable at speeds of 100Mbps and faster then it is justifiable. If we believe the predictions, then the economy should grow, government costs fall and budget should be in surplus. If it doesn’t then why are we building it?

            > The point is, your ideal NBN and the source of your criticism for the existing FTTP NBN is an unrealistic fantasy that fails to take into account any real world economics and financial viability. Unless you’re able or prepared to reveal a workable model that addresses these shortcomings, it really is time you stopped your idiotic negativity, because you’re only embarrassing yourself.

            The current wholesale model would have been developed in a spreadsheet with different numbers plugged in for the key variables until the 7% return on investment was achieved. If different assumptions are made (e.g. remove the speed tiers, more data being downloaded) then the same 7% can still be achieved. It would be interesting to have access to the original modelling to see how sensitive it is to changing the assumptions.

            What embarrasses me is the number of people who haven’t actually read the NBNCo Corporate Plan and understood the implications, but instead listened to Labor politicians repeating the mantra that the NBN is 1Gbps capable and assuming that world leading.

          • “The NBNCo Corporate Plan predicts that less than 5% of connections will be 1Gbps in 2028, so I would hardly call it widely popular.

            The problem with Labor’s NBN is they created artificial scarcity in data with a pricing CVC at $20/Mbps. You need double the bandwidth if you have two customers to avoid congestion (2 * 20*1000 = $40,000). Speed tiers mean that very few (less than 1% until 2026 according to the Corporate Plan) would connect at 1Gbps. So an RSP has to jump for a single customer from $4000/month to $24,000. This is unrealistic, except during the start up phase.Lets make a couple of crude assumptions:CVC is $20/Mbps8 million connections5 RSPs with an equal share of the market1% on 1Gbps (optimistic until after 2026)121 POIs (CVC needs to be purchased separately for each one)8,000,000 / 121 / 5 * 1% = 132 customers on 1Gbps plans per RSP1:50 contention ratio (not good) = $52,892/month = $400 per customer in just CVC1:20 contention ratio (more reasonable) = $132,231/month = $1,000 per customer in just CVCBased on this I think $400/month is optimistic for a 1Gbps connection. Now if Labor didn’t have speed tiers, then the price of CVC could have fallen by close to a factor of 10 because ISPs would have need to buy 2000Mbps minimum instead of 200Mbps. Off peak quotas would have gone ballistic because there was so much surplus capacity.”

            Your assumptions here are fundamentally flawed. We are talking about a consumer network, not a dedicated point to point enterprise class network. You do not provision backhaul capacity on a consumer network for dedicated uncontested 1:1 available bandwidth. If you did, people really would be paying commercial rates for fibre. There’s a reason dedicated fibre is so expensive, and will continue to be despite the availability of the NBN – large, dedicated bandwidth costs big dollars. Your idea that NBN connections should be provisioned like this demonstrated your basic lack of knowledge in this area.

            “While your argument has some merit, I suggest that the cost for NBNCo to provide low quota 1Gbps plans is almost the same as 12Mbps plans. Should the poor be thankful that we are giving them that which we don’t consider fit for our own consumption and using the money to fund our 1Gbps connections?”

            There are three points here – 1) Speed tiers should be removed because the upper speed costs NBN Co no more than the lowest, 2) 12mbps is ‘unfit for consumption’ and 3) lowest tier customers are funding the NBN for the top tier minority.
            1) This is incorrect in a real world usage model. Yes, provisioning 1gbps for everyone is technically possible at zero cost to NBN Co as long as there is no activity on the network. As soon as you start adding users who wish to utilise the network you will need adequate capacity to service them. This is tremendously more complicated and expensive for people using 1gbps vs 100mbps or 25mbps.
            This is not simply a function of quota or the quantity of data consumed – people don’t download their monthly quota in nicely organised chunks that can be easily scheduled so they don’t conflict with one another. There is contention, and such contention has to be managed carefully. If you provision for zero contention your network is insanely expensive. If you underprovision you can build your network cheaply, but you have a severely degraded user experience. You seem to think the NBN can be built for peanuts while providing zero contention. I don’t know what you think Mr Hackett has been saying, but while he has criticisms of the NBN as an ideal model he understands the economic rationale. You clearly do not.

            2) If 12mbps is so utterly inadequate, why aren’t you decrying the FTTN model? The absolute best connection it is ever going to be able to guarantee is 50mbps (and unless that is mandated by legislation I find it unlikely that this election promise will prove viable) and that is by 2020. Why aren’t you similarly critical of the FTTN plan which also includes a 12mbps tier?
            What is your criteria for fitness? A comparison between 12mbps and 1gbps? What is the user perceivable performance penalty loading Web pages between the two? Would most people consider that acceptable? If we’re not talking about Web page content, what usage scenarios are we talking about?
            I would contend that 12mbps is adequate for many people, particularly those who don’t rely on home Internet for work. No, it isn’t adequate for everyone – for some people they will always desire the fastest technology available. Many others need something in between, some compromise between cost and performance. That’s why speed tiers work – people can pay for what they need/want/can justify. Those who’s time is extremely valuable can save time by paying for the fastest connections, while those with low incomes can still get access at reasonable performance at a reasonable low entry level price. I don’t know why you find this difficult to comprehend.
            3) This is just utterly ludicrous. Not because of the load they put on the network – we’ve talked about how small that is. It is ludicrous because of the size of the network and the number of customers. You would need 200 million people exclusively on entry level plans to pay for the NBN. We don’t have that many people in Australia – we have to build a network of similar size and scale to something covering half the USA for 7% of their market size. The way that works economically is for premium rate customers to pay disproportionately more for access.
            Fortunately this will also include about a million business customers who have completely different justification criteria for broadband than most people. It is business customers and affluent consumers who can afford premium rate plans that do the heavy lifting paying for the NBN construction. Entry level customers are getting on board for nominal fees that are significantly lower than it costs them to access fixed line broadband today. They are certainly not paying for the bulk of the network or ‘subsidising’ top tier connections, that is so utterly illogical I am finding it difficult to comprehend how you can construct sentences, so I suppose you should be given credit for that at least.

            It would be interesting to see some real world data on the state of the copper network published.

            Yes, I agree. But bear in mind, the absence of officially sanctioned reports does not mean we know nothing nor that isolated and anecdotal reports should be completely disregarded. We have thousands of reports of problems with the copper network, which paints a pretty bleak picture. We even have dozens of reports from people stating that Telstra techs have submitted reports with ‘No fault’ after they have come out and physically fixed faults, suggesting that Telstra can’t even know the state of their own network after instructing technicians to deliberately obscure evidence. In response. Telstra have not performed a comprehensive survey of the real world state of their network in response; their only response has been flat out denial that there are any problems. But as anyone who has personally experienced problems with the copper network knows, these issues are not isolated fringe statistical outliers – they represent a very common scenario.
            So yes, accurate, official reporting of a comprehensive investigation into the state of the copper network would be very welcome, but it’s absence doesn’t mean we know nothing, just that we don’t know everything.

            The only data I’ve seen on speed was published by iiNet / Internode and stated the average sync speed in Sydney was just under 12Mbps.

            I haven’t seen that report – do you have a link to it? I do know that we have seen other evidence suggesting that average performance for Australians is more like 6mbps, which would be broadly consistent with my own experience – I’ve seen a lot of connections limited to less than this by the length and quality of copper lines the ADSL service is operating over. It is nice for you that you have a relatively good service, and even nice for Sydneysiders if they mostly have high quality, high performing connections. But this is not the experience of most Australians, so please stop conflating your experience as somehow being broadly applicable to the rest of the country – it is not.

            This is not true for everyone. Many people on ADSL2+ have connections faster than 12Mbps.

            No, of course it isn’t true for everyone, it is a generalisation, not an absolute statement. Your use of the word ‘many’ is undefined – many could mean hundreds or thousands of individuals, which would be true. But it could also mean a significant proportion of the total number of connections, which I would argue is inaccurate – the statistical majority of people will be too far from the exchange to receive services at those speeds.

            “Do you have some data to support this statement? Has there been any research done to prove that people who have never had the internet are connecting to the NBN?

            No, of course not, I’m not aware of qualitative analysis of NBN subscriber surveys that would reveal such detail having been done yet. What I do know is that significantly reducing the price of something typically increases sales volume as the cost of acquisition becomes more accessible to a greater number of customers. Why wouldn’t this apply to the NBN? Logic suggests that standard economic theory must apply, therefore there will be customers signing up for NBN plans as a result of the lower cost of access. Feel free to demonstrate why this reasonable assumption must be incorrect.

            I think you are delusional to claim that 12Mbps is amazing in today’s world. 4G phones are faster.

            Hold on, aren’t we talking about low income households and the socioeconomically disadvantaged? Since when did people like that have 4g mobile phones? That’s a completely irrelevant argument.

            It’s also misleading – in poor reception areas your 4g phone is next to useless. During peak demand contention ratios can be so high network performance drops significantly, too. 12mbps is amazingly fast in comparison to inconsistent, unreliable mobile performance that loads pages like you’re on dialup at times.

            Personally, my ADSL2+ sync rate is around 9.5mbps, with around 8mbps usable most days. 12mbps reliable, consistent performance would be amazing for me, but yes, for the same cost as my current broadband + phone I could get a 100/40 plan if the FTTP NBN was available. But I need it for work and will derive tangible benefits from such performance – I can see good reasons for simply halving my monthly broadband cost and still getting a significant improvement in performance and reliability.

            With no due respect, I think you are the one suffering from delusions.

            “If these people are as price sensitive as you suggest and only using the network for basic email and web browsing then adding a data pack to their mobile might be an even cheaper option. NBNCo are suggesting 16% will opt for that.

            Again with the erroneous assumptions. Do these people have Internet capable phones? Would such a service be sufficient for their needs? Can it provide access for all members of their household? What happens to their connection if the mobile leaves the premises? Do they have adequate mobile signal for that to even work in their house?

            Suggesting that mobile broadband is a more cost effective replacement for a $30/month fixed line solution to all but a small minority is woefully uninformed.
            Falling prices is an NBN myth. While the price per unit will decrease slightly (e.g. CVC falls from $20/Mbps to $8Mbps) but usage grows significantly (e.g. from 30GB/month to 540GB/month per user). ARPU is required to rise steeply for NBNCo to provide the promised return.

            And here we come to one of the major problems most people have with your position – you clearly fundamentally misunderstand ARPU. ARPU is an average of the revenue NBN Co makes from all areas averaged out to a figure per customer. Now certainly, if you’re either deliberately trying to mislead people or simply cognitively challenged, you could argue that ARPU can be increased by increasing the cost of services for each and every individual. But that’s not the projection, it is not the mechanism by which NBN Co has modelled their economic and strategic business forecasts. ARPU is set to increase because the number of high margin users will increase. This will happen through both upgrades and new signups. Allow me to illustrate by use of some examples:

            If you have ten people connected at the entry level tier that makes NBN Co $25 per user, that means NBN Co is making $250 for those ten users, and ARPU for this group is $25. But say over the course of a year two of these people decide that they really want the 100mbps Plan (because frankly it’s not much more than they’re paying now and they’ll get 8 times the speed), which has an RPU of $38. That gives a total revenue figure of $276, and a resulting ARPU for these ten people of $27.60. That’s a 10.4% increase in ARPU. Real costs didn’t increase, the product being purchased changed for two people while it remained stable for the others.

            Here’s another example – the same 10 people have the same base tier plan, but this time a additional two people come along (two new subscribers) and sign up for top tier 100/40 plans. $326 divided by 12 gives us 27.17, an 8.6% increase in ARPU that doesn’t affect any of the original ten subscribers.

            One final example – to the original ten, we add a local business who has 20 employees and wants the 1,000/400 tier. According to the 13/16 business plan, ARPU on 1000/400 plans will be $150. Now you have eleven subscribers but revenue of $400, an ARPU of $36.36 and an increase in ARPU of 45.45% from just one subscriber.

            As to the question of the impetus behind that 9% growth, apart from new sign ups which will contribute significantly, data utilisation and access trends show a 50% increase on both the amount of data accessed and generated year to year. What you do today is different to what you will want to do next year. As your usage changes you may need a higher tier to get access to more data faster. Those people who found the entry level tier worthwhile initially may find their usage increasing to the point where it is economically justifiable going to a higher tier to save themselves time.

            Now do you see how ARPU can increase so sharply without prices needing to rise for any subscribers? Indeed, you’ve already admitted you understand that access costs are scheduled to decrease both in relative and real terms over time, so I hope we can finally put this erroneous and radically flawed argument of yours to rest, finally.

            I’ve never claimed that the NBN should be 1/1Gbps. I’ve merely pointed out that by comparison the network that Labor proposed could in no way be considered to be a world’s best practice and I struggle to see how it would take us to the forefront of what is available.

            Hold on, so because FTTP isn’t the absolute best solution available in the world, you would prefer to spend almost the same amount building a vastly inferior network? Have you considered that even though NBN Co is building a GPON network today, it could fairly easily be upgraded to a point to point network in the future if necessary and economically feasible? All the fibre (the installation of which is by far the most expensive component of the construction) would be usable in any foreseeable future network, you just have to change the switching and routing equipment. You can’t say the same about FTTN – estimates suggest we would be looking at at least $20bn in today’s money to upgrade FTTN to FTTP down the track. How can you oppose FTTP on that basis and not be appalled at the waste and limitations imposed by FTTN?

            If the NBN can be shown to deliver significant benefit then like other infrastructure the benefit it provides to the country can entitle it to government funding. Currently the NBN prices are discounted and the hope is that the steep growth in ARPU will provide the required revenue.

            Now personally I don’t disagree that it could simply be Government funded – major infrastructure like roads, water, sanitation, electricity and telecommunications should be delivered and controlled by the government as the body responsible for delivering and maintaining essential services for its constituents. People shouldn’t have to pay a premium on essential services when they could be delivered by the state at cost, and managed and maintained for the benefit of everyone (not subject to cost cutting efficiency measures that reduce reliability and quality). But hey, I’m a bit of a lefty-leaning socialist who cares more about the benefits to society than lining the pockets of rich people.

            The fact is the NBN was designed to be self supporting, and in a market based economy like ours that is the most sensible and elegant design. Right now the LNP are in the process of closing departments and reviewing the sale of Government assets for short term benefits; they are already trying to substantially scale back the NBN as it is, do you think they would think twice about killing the project wholesale if it was costing them $4bn a year on budget?
            Google Fibre is now a multiple city project. One analysis I saw of the costs suggested that all the cities in the USA could be covered for ~$140 billion. That is a significantly cheaper build than what is being proposed in Australia. Therefore it is worth discussing why there is such a gap in both cost and performance.

            Can you provide a reference to this analysis? Without reading it, I can say that the US has 316 million people in a country roughly the same size as ours. They have tremendous quantities of existing dark fibre throughout the country that could be put to use immediately. Imagine how much the NBN wold cost and how much more quickly it would be built without needing to construct the transit network.

            Significantly increased polulation density means you have a lot more subscribers and you’re making a lot more money for every dollar you spend on construction. That’s just one of the reasons International projects aren’t directly comparable to Australia.

            But also bear in mind that Google aren’t constructing that network purely as a revenue generating business, it is a field trial for a huge number of technologies and techniques, some of which are being freely published but many of which are proprietary Google experiments they are obtaining tremendous value from. You don’t know the whole story on the Google fibre project, and without that understanding it is difficult to do any sort of (honest) comprehensive analysis or comparison using it.

            NBNCo’s plan is to increase the proportion of revenue derived from CVC and decrease the proportion of revenue from AVC. This will occur naturally as people download more. My proposal is to bring that forward so that connection fees are cheaper encouraging more people to connect and providing faster speeds which has been shown to result in more data being downloaded which results in more CVC revenue. Potentially this is a win-win-win situation with a self reinforcing feedback loop.

            Perhaps surprisingly, I do agree that shifting the revenue focus towards data consumption rather than bandwidth is a good idea, but then that’s my opinion without the benefit of NBN Co’s economic rationalisation planning details. I do feel there’s a role to be played by charging a premium for premium performance in a capitalist economy, but how much that can be offset by revenues from data consumption I simply don’t know. This is one area of legitimate criticism of the NBN that bears further investigation.

            The problem is that there is a barrier to accessing your services. You can tell a customer how good it is, but you cannot actually demonstrate the service.

            Hold on, since when was a live trial required before customers would be interested in your product? Do you let customers open packets of your food and try it out prior to purchase, or do they have to go by the picture and description? Most products only provide a description and some form of marketing introduction prior to purchase. However, it is easy enough to demonstrate the functionality of most software and services through the use of video recordings and demonstrations. What an odd argument.

            I would argue that fibre on demand provides a similar level of availability. If your product is compelling enough then people will pay for the fibre especially if you are targeting premium customers. The estimate for direct fibre is ~$3000 with some RSPs already talking about providing 24 month payment plans. $3000 is significantly less than 1% of the average house price.

            *splutters coffee all over screen* Sorry, what?? Did you just try and make an argument for the LNP’s fibre on demand during the same discussion where you are trying to advocate everyone should have non-discriminatory access to 1gbps fibre because charging a premium rate for it discriminates against the poor and disadvantaged?! Seriously??

            First of all, please point out to me where Fibre on Demand is outlined in the LNP policy document? Oh that’s right, it isn’t in there because it isn’t actually LNP policy, it was a platitude offered by Malcom Turnbull. At this point hope for FoD is a willow-the-wisp, an ethereal, tantalising mirage FTTN apologists cling to in order to fend off arguments against inadequate performance of their copper-limiting network. If you seriously believe FoD is an important part of the FTTN plan, you should be asking Mr Turnbull to ensure it is adopted as official LNP policy.

            So, let’s assume FoD is actually a thing. You think that the possibility for people to be able to pay several thousands of dollars for FoD is ‘just as stable a platform’ upon which to base a business case to develop next gen applications that will require ubiquitous, high performance access, as readily available FTTP to 93% of Australians where adequate performance can be provided by plans in the $60/month range (because even at this low level the upload performance is greater than FTTN is going to be able to deliver even in best case scenarios)? You honestly think those two environments provide the same level of certainty, the same potential market and result in the same business confidence towards such a project? How about, not a chance in hell? WTF are you smoking over there?

          • >>> “The NBNCo Corporate Plan predicts that less than 5% of connections will be 1Gbps in 2028, so I would hardly call it widely popular.

            >> The problem with Labor’s NBN is they created artificial scarcity in data with a pricing CVC at $20/Mbps. You need double the bandwidth if you have two customers to avoid congestion (2 * 20*1000 = $40,000). … RSP1:50 contention ratio (not good) = $52,892/month = $400 per customer in just CVC1:20 contention ratio (more reasonable) = $132,231/month = $1,000 per customer in just CVC. Based on this I think $400/month is optimistic for a 1Gbps connection.

            > Your idea that NBN connections should be provisioned like this demonstrated your basic lack of knowledge in this area.

            Did you completely miss the bit where I wrote about contention ratios in calculating a rough estimate? I appreciate that introducing real numbers into the conversation is difficult for supporters of Labor’s NBN because it makes them face the cold harsh reality of what Labor were delivering versus the promises. I’ve also been active in explaining that NBNCo are selling peak information rate (PIR) AVC not committed information rate (CIR). NBNCo do sell CIR, but it costs $300/month for 5/5Mbps.

            >> “While your argument has some merit, I suggest that the cost for NBNCo to provide low quota 1Gbps plans is almost the same as 12Mbps plans. Should the poor be thankful that we are giving them that which we don’t consider fit for our own consumption and using the money to fund our 1Gbps connections?”

            > There are three points here – 1) Speed tiers should be removed because the upper speed costs NBN Co no more than the lowest, 2) 12mbps is ‘unfit for consumption’ and 3) lowest tier customers are funding the NBN for the top tier minority.
            > 1) This is incorrect in a real world usage model. Yes, provisioning 1gbps for everyone is technically possible at zero cost to NBN Co as long as there is no activity on the network. As soon as you start adding users who wish to utilise the network you will need adequate capacity to so This is not simply a function of quota or the quantity of data consumed – people don’t download their monthly quota in nicely organised chunks that can be easily scheduled so they don’t conflict with one another. There is contention, and such contention has to be managed carefully. If you provision for zero contention your network is insanely expensive. If you underprovision you can build your network cheaply, but you have a severely degraded user experience.

            If you have a large enough customer base then people’s usage habits balance each other out. Do you know how much time on average a person with a 100GB quota on 1Gbps will be able to download at full speed every day? Less than 30 seconds! A 5TB quota takes just over 22 minutes per day.

            As for the degraded user experience we see that now with ADSL1 speeds because RSPs fail to adequately provision backhaul and it will still occur with the NBN in whatever form it is built. The reality is that during the intial build of the network very few servers will be able to provide 1Gbps constantly so that will help RSPs. Your argument can essentially be rewritten as “RSPs may not be able to cope with 1Gbps speeds so NBNCo should protect RSPs from themselves.”

            > You seem to think the NBN can be built for peanuts while providing zero contention.

            I’ve never suggested the NBN would be cheap. I’ve merely suggested that the network charges should be rebalanced so that less revenue comes from connections and more from data.

            > I don’t know what you think Mr Hackett has been saying, but while he has criticisms of the NBN as an ideal model he understands the economic rationale. You clearly do not.

            When NBNCo were talking about 100Mbps being the fastest speed, Simon Hackett suggested that the pricing model for 100Mbps with no quotas for $34/month.

            > 2) If 12mbps is so utterly inadequate, why aren’t you decrying the FTTN model? The absolute best connection it is ever going to be able to guarantee is 50mbps (and unless that is mandated by legislation I find it unlikely that this election promise will prove viable) and that is by 2020. Why aren’t you similarly critical of the FTTN plan which also includes a 12mbps tier?

            The point I’m making is that from an 12Mbps customer’s perspective FTTP or FTTN are likely to be indistinguishable. It is not yet clear that the Coalition plan will have FTTN speed tiers. The differing performance based on distance from the node may make speed tiers more trouble than they are worth.

            > What is your criteria for fitness? A comparison between 12mbps and 1gbps? What is the user perceivable performance penalty loading Web pages between the two? Would most people consider that acceptable? If we’re not talking about Web page content, what usage scenarios are we talking about?

            Any usage scenario that was promoted by Labor as a reason for building the NBN would be an adequate example. Let me quote Quigley for you from teh article Low-income users denied NBN benefits
            “With the quality of high definition that you’ve got, being able to come across this sort of a network, you could easily have a quick hook-up and actually work out, ‘OK, do I need to take him to hospital, or could we keep him at home?’,” Mr Smith said. But when The Australian approached Senator Conroy and Mr Quigley to describe the level of service users could expect at lesser network speeds, they said high-definition video conferencing was not possible on the NBN’s most basic package. “You certainly can’t do high-definition video service on a 1 megabits per second upstream — it’s impossible,” Mr Quigley said.

            > I would contend that 12mbps is adequate for many people, particularly those who don’t rely on home Internet for work. Those who’s time is extremely valuable can save time by paying for the fastest connections, while those with low incomes can still get access at reasonable performance at a reasonable low entry level price. I don’t know why you find this difficult to comprehend.

            The problem is that real benefits of the NBN are in enabling realtime services, not being able to download massive amounts of data. As Quigley confirmed 12Mbps denies this benefit.

            > 3) This is just utterly ludicrous. Not because of the load they put on the network – we’ve talked about how small that is. It is ludicrous because of the size of the network and the number of customers. You would need 200 million people exclusively on entry level plans to pay for the NBN. We don’t have that many people in Australia – we have to build a network of similar size and scale to something covering half the USA for 7% of their market size. The way that works economically is for premium rate customers to pay disproportionately more for access.

            You seem to be fixated on speed as being the only way to charge a premium. Do you know how water usage is charged? There are tiers based on consumption. As you consume more water you pay a higher charge per kilolitre. This is a fair pricing model, because it rewards those people who conserve a common resource and charges more to those people who exploit the resource. Are you aware that NBNCo will over time derive less income from AVC and more from CVC? This is a good thing because it provides a positive feedback loop for NBNCo: when they improve the performance, people can download more, providing more income.

            >> It would be interesting to see some real world data on the state of the copper network published.

            > Yes, I agree. But bear in mind, the absence of officially sanctioned reports does not mean we know nothing nor that isolated and anecdotal reports should be completely disregarded. We have thousands of reports of problems with the copper network, which paints a pretty bleak picture.

            Thousands of faults in a network with millions of connections? If some reports are to believed NBNCo’s fault rate as a percentage is higher.

            > We even have dozens of reports from people stating that Telstra techs have submitted reports with ‘No fault’ after they have come out and physically fixed faults, suggesting that Telstra can’t even know the state of their own network after instructing technicians to deliberately obscure evidence.

            Dozens? Are you expecting a ROFL response?

            > In response. Telstra have not performed a comprehensive survey of the real world state of their network in response; their only response has been flat out denial that there are any problems. But as anyone who has personally experienced problems with the copper network knows, these issues are not isolated fringe statistical outliers – they represent a very common scenario.
            So yes, accurate, official reporting of a comprehensive investigation into the state of the copper network would be very welcome, but it’s absence doesn’t mean we know nothing, just that we don’t know everything.

            I agree that Telstra maintenance hasn’t been the best, however the technician who repaired my copper the last time appeared to be very skilled. After repairing the break, he put multiple layers including heat shrink and a metal case. Telstra’s opinion on the state of the copper network depends on the listener. To the ACCC they report that it is hideously expensive to maintain so please let us charge more. To the Coalition it will last another hundred years.

            >> The only data I’ve seen on speed was published by iiNet / Internode and stated the average sync speed in Sydney was just under 12Mbps.

            > I haven’t seen that report – do you have a link to it?

            Yes – Fibre to the Node: At what price? http://www.internode.on.net/news/2008/02/76.php

            > But this is not the experience of most Australians, so please stop conflating your experience as somehow being broadly applicable to the rest of the country – it is not.

            What we have is hearsay.

            >> “Do you have some data to support this statement? Has there been any research done to prove that people who have never had the internet are connecting to the NBN?

            > No, of course not, I’m not aware of qualitative analysis of NBN subscriber surveys that would reveal such detail having been done yet.

            So more hearsay on your part?

            > What I do know is that significantly reducing the price of something typically increases sales volume as the cost of acquisition becomes more accessible to a greater number of customers. Why wouldn’t this apply to the NBN? Logic suggests that standard economic theory must apply, therefore there will be customers signing up for NBN plans as a result of the lower cost of access. Feel free to demonstrate why this reasonable assumption must be incorrect.

            Except that there is a cheaper product called mobile phones that come with data now. The NBN isn’t the cheapest solution.

            >> I think you are delusional to claim that 12Mbps is amazing in today’s world. 4G phones are faster.

            > Hold on, aren’t we talking about low income households and the socioeconomically disadvantaged? Since when did people like that have 4g mobile phones? That’s a completely irrelevant argument.

            It is a perfectly valid argument. Is it possible to purchase a 2G only phone now?

            > It’s also misleading – in poor reception areas your 4g phone is next to useless. During peak demand contention ratios can be so high network performance drops significantly, too. 12mbps is amazingly fast in comparison to inconsistent, unreliable mobile performance that loads pages like you’re on dialup at times.

            But if it works it’s fine. I actually found that when my ADSL was down that 3G was acceptable for working from home and I’m not in a brilliant coverage area. The point is that when you don’t have much money you are prepared to put up with a lot more inconvenience if it means paying less.

            >> “If these people are as price sensitive as you suggest and only using the network for basic email and web browsing then adding a data pack to their mobile might be an even cheaper option. NBNCo are suggesting 16% will opt for that.

            > Again with the erroneous assumptions. Do these people have Internet capable phones? Would such a service be sufficient for their needs? Can it provide access for all members of their household? What happens to their connection if the mobile leaves the premises? Do they have adequate mobile signal for that to even work in their house?

            > Suggesting that mobile broadband is a more cost effective replacement for a $30/month fixed line solution to all but a small minority is woefully uninformed.

            I guess NBNCo should be considered uninformed for suggesting 16% will be mobile only. But then we already know that because they were totally wrong about predicting 50% would connect at 12Mbps ;-).

            >> Falling prices is an NBN myth. While the price per unit will decrease slightly (e.g. CVC falls from $20/Mbps to $8Mbps) but usage grows significantly (e.g. from 30GB/month to 540GB/month per user). ARPU is required to rise steeply for NBNCo to provide the promised return.

            > And here we come to one of the major problems most people have with your position – you clearly fundamentally misunderstand ARPU.
            > … cut …
            > Now do you see how ARPU can increase so sharply without prices needing to rise for any subscribers? Indeed, you’ve already admitted you understand that access costs are scheduled to decrease both in relative and real terms over time, so I hope we can finally put this erroneous and radically flawed argument of yours to rest, finally.

            What you miss in your examples are that to remain in the same relative position, a rising ARPU means that you will need to spend more, significantly more. In 10 years time, some people would suggest that 100Mbps will be the equivalent of 12Mbps today, and 1Gbps will be the standard. It definitely will be in many parts of the world. Australia I’m doubtful.

            >> I’ve never claimed that the NBN should be 1/1Gbps. I’ve merely pointed out that by comparison the network that Labor proposed could in no way be considered to be a world’s best practice and I struggle to see how it would take us to the forefront of what is available.

            > Hold on, so because FTTP isn’t the absolute best solution available in the world, you would prefer to spend almost the same amount building a vastly inferior network? Have you considered that even though NBN Co is building a GPON network today, it could fairly easily be upgraded to a point to point network in the future if necessary and economically feasible?

            Do you have some evidence for that? My understanding is that it would be a very costly redesign to provide direct fibre. The same argument could be made about FTTN. My problem with FTTP is the artificial pricing constructs that Labor chose which disadvantage those who are already disadvantaged in our community.

            > All the fibre (the installation of which is by far the most expensive component of the construction) would be usable in any foreseeable future network, you just have to change the switching and routing equipment. You can’t say the same about FTTN – estimates suggest we would be looking at at least $20bn in today’s money to upgrade FTTN to FTTP down the track. How can you oppose FTTP on that basis and not be appalled at the waste and limitations imposed by FTTN?

            Where does the $20bn figure come from? Unless it comes from the Coalition then I would apply the same level of scepticism that I apply to the Coalition’s $90bn figure for FTTP.

            >> If the NBN can be shown to deliver significant benefit then like other infrastructure the benefit it provides to the country can entitle it to government funding. Currently the NBN prices are discounted and the hope is that the steep growth in ARPU will provide the required revenue.

            > Now personally I don’t disagree that it could simply be Government funded – major infrastructure like roads, water, sanitation, electricity and telecommunications should be delivered and controlled by the government as the body responsible for delivering and maintaining essential services for its constituents. People shouldn’t have to pay a premium on essential services when they could be delivered by the state at cost, and managed and maintained for the benefit of everyone (not subject to cost cutting efficiency measures that reduce reliability and quality). But hey, I’m a bit of a lefty-leaning socialist who cares more about the benefits to society than lining the pockets of rich people.

            I won’t disagree with you. However in my experience dealing with a variety of government and corporate organisations, businesses are more efficient because they are overtaken by competitors if they stand still. I have grave concerns about NBNCo becoming a slow moving behemoth that is top heavy in management.

            > The fact is the NBN was designed to be self supporting, and in a market based economy like ours that is the most sensible and elegant design. Right now the LNP are in the process of closing departments and reviewing the sale of Government assets for short term benefits; they are already trying to substantially scale back the NBN as it is, do you think they would think twice about killing the project wholesale if it was costing them $4bn a year on budget?

            The changes to the revenue structure of NBNCo that I’ve proposed are not intended to reduce the revenue but to rebalance it in a way that I think benefits the under privileged in society more than the rich.

            >> Google Fibre is now a multiple city project. One analysis I saw of the costs suggested that all the cities in the USA could be covered for ~$140 billion. That is a significantly cheaper build than what is being proposed in Australia. Therefore it is worth discussing why there is such a gap in both cost and performance.

            > Can you provide a reference to this analysis? Without reading it, I can say that the US has 316 million people in a country roughly the same size as ours. They have tremendous quantities of existing dark fibre throughout the country that could be put to use immediately. Imagine how much the NBN would cost and how much more quickly it would be built without needing to construct the transit network.

            It was twelve months ago. A google search should be able to find it again.

            > But also bear in mind that Google aren’t constructing that network purely as a revenue generating business, it is a field trial for a huge number of technologies and techniques, some of which are being freely published but many of which are proprietary Google experiments they are obtaining tremendous value from. You don’t know the whole story on the Google fibre project, and without that understanding it is difficult to do any sort of (honest) comprehensive analysis or comparison using it.

            But that doesn’t mean that it should prevent Malcolm Turnbull picking up the phone to Google and having a chat about the NBN. It is in Google’s best interest to have faster broadband in Australia because they can sell more advertising.

            >> NBNCo’s plan is to increase the proportion of revenue derived from CVC and decrease the proportion of revenue from AVC. This will occur naturally as people download more. My proposal is to bring that forward so that connection fees are cheaper encouraging more people to connect and providing faster speeds which has been shown to result in more data being downloaded which results in more CVC revenue. Potentially this is a win-win-win situation with a self reinforcing feedback loop.

            > Perhaps surprisingly, I do agree that shifting the revenue focus towards data consumption rather than bandwidth is a good idea, but then that’s my opinion without the benefit of NBN Co’s economic rationalisation planning details. I do feel there’s a role to be played by charging a premium for premium performance in a capitalist economy, but how much that can be offset by revenues from data consumption I simply don’t know. This is one area of legitimate criticism of the NBN that bears further investigation.

            So we agree on my main criticism of Labor’s NBN? Offsetting the revenues is easy … you just change some formulas in the financial models. However the challenge is the howls of protest from people expecting unlimited quota on 1Gbps. From discussions I’ve had some people would prefer an unlimited 12Mbps plan to one offering 8TB quota on 50Mbps.

            The concern I have is that the premium performance can be of most use to some of the most disadvantaged in our society (e.g. mobility challenged and those with a mental illness). HD video conferencing will give both sides of the conversation a significantly better experience and almost certainly would have a positive impact on outcomes.

            >> The problem is that there is a barrier to accessing your services. You can tell a customer how good it is, but you cannot actually demonstrate the service.

            > Hold on, since when was a live trial required before customers would be interested in your product? Do you let customers open packets of your food and try it out prior to purchase, or do they have to go by the picture and description? Most products only provide a description and some form of marketing introduction prior to purchase. However, it is easy enough to demonstrate the functionality of most software and services through the use of video recordings and demonstrations. What an odd argument.

            Almost every time I walk through a supermarket there is someone offering a sample or visit the markets and find food available for tasting. Consider this a person wants to try video conferencing but gives up because it buffers. How does a non-technical person know if the problem is the speed of their connection, computer or a choke point between them and their destination.

            >> I would argue that fibre on demand provides a similar level of availability. If your product is compelling enough then people will pay for the fibre especially if you are targeting premium customers. The estimate for direct fibre is ~$3000 with some RSPs already talking about providing 24 month payment plans. $3000 is significantly less than 1% of the average house price.

            > *splutters coffee all over screen* Sorry, what?? Did you just try and make an argument for the LNP’s fibre on demand during the same discussion where you are trying to advocate everyone should have non-discriminatory access to 1gbps fibre because charging a premium rate for it discriminates against the poor and disadvantaged?! Seriously??

            The point I was making is that the impact of FTTN isn’t as bad as what you make out. In fact for people who need faster than 50Mbps it could very easily be cheaper because the costs are being paid up front, instead of interest payments for decades.

            > First of all, please point out to me where Fibre on Demand is outlined in the LNP policy document? Oh that’s right, it isn’t in there because it isn’t actually LNP policy, it was a platitude offered by Malcom Turnbull. At this point hope for FoD is a willow-the-wisp, an ethereal, tantalising mirage FTTN apologists cling to in order to fend off arguments against inadequate performance of their copper-limiting network. If you seriously believe FoD is an important part of the FTTN plan, you should be asking Mr Turnbull to ensure it is adopted as official LNP policy.

            Lets see what the details of the policy are. Labor’s FTTP policy sounded great until the details were revealed.

            > So, let’s assume FoD is actually a thing. You think that the possibility for people to be able to pay several thousands of dollars for FoD is ‘just as stable a platform’ upon which to base a business case to develop next gen applications that will require ubiquitous, high performance access, as readily available FTTP to 93% of Australians where adequate performance can be provided by plans in the $60/month range (because even at this low level the upload performance is greater than FTTN is going to be able to deliver even in best case scenarios)? You honestly think those two environments provide the same level of certainty, the same potential market and result in the same business confidence towards such a project? How about, not a chance in hell? WTF are you smoking over there?

            Again you are using words not actual numbers. 5 years ago high performance would have meant anything above 12Mbps. FTTN will provide 50Mbps minimum and I remember Malcolm stating the download upload ratio was 5:1, but I cannot find a reference for that. If speed tiers for FTTN are abolished, then 47% of connections will receive a doubling of speed and then a quadrupling of speed. This does provide a much wider target audience for any business. If you removed the speed tiers from FTTP we will have a justifiably world class network which has the potential to attract innovation and pilots from around the world.

        • Right, because a contractor cutting through your cable happens FAR more often. Come on, Mathew.

          FTTP has provided great benefits to the 47% of people who make up “basic users”, due to the aforementioned factors (stability, latency, reliability and prices). You can’t refute this.

          And Mathew, apologies for repeating this, but I think it’s fair as you continue to repeat the same demonstrably false argument:

          Ignoring percentages, there’s a humongous, glaring flaw in your argument about these 47%.

          People only take up 12Mbps services because they have determined they don’t need better; in other words, they make use of less than 12Mbps. If you give them 25Mbps+, they will still need no better; they will still make use of less than 12Mbps (although the difference is, under the existing pricing structure, they will be paying more). You are not giving them any more value.

          It’s like giving someone 2L of milk instead of 1L of milk, when all they’ll drink is 750mL. Lucky them, they get more milk they won’t drink.

          If they later decide they need 25Mbps, under the Liberal plan they will get it (by default), and under the Labor plan they will also get it (obviously) – there’s no difference; the number of people who will use the most basic service is the same. In other words, 47% of people are getting exactly what they have decided they need, and giving them more than that “just because” is wasteful and of no value to them. How could you see that as a good thing, Mathew?

          Remember, the digital divide is not about inequality (heterogeneity); that is, it is not about there being different levels of speed and different services across the country. The digital divide is about inequality of opportunity; that is, those who wish to pay more for some given value currently cannot do so consistently and fairly. People paying $70 a month are getting 2Mbps in one street and 20Mbps in another; others get 100Mbps cable while their next-door neighbour is stuck on 4G; others who are prepared to pay for a similar service cannot get one at all. That’s one of the main things that the Labor NBN sought to address, by maintaining a consistent wholesale price, and encouraging retail competition; but we can argue how successful they have been at that.

          Is this all now clear to you? Will you stop repeating such a fallacious argument?

          • > FTTP has provided great benefits to the 47% of people who make up “basic users”, due to the aforementioned factors (stability, latency, reliability and prices). You can’t refute this.

            How significant is that benefit? Stability, latency (~20ms) and reliability (except when contractors are digging) are find on my ADSL connection.

            > Ignoring percentages, there’s a humongous, glaring flaw in your argument about these 47%.
            >
            > People only take up 12Mbps services because they have determined they don’t need better; in other words, they make use of less than 12Mbps. If you give them 25Mbps+, they will still need no better; they will still make use of less than 12Mbps (although the difference is, under the existing pricing structure, they will be paying more). You are not giving them any more value.

            I would argue that people are taking 12Mbps services because they are the cheapest service available. Back in ADSL1 days, people purchased 256/64Kbps. VoIP becomes reasonable at 512/128Kbps and video conferencing is significantly improved at 1500/256Kbps but many people didn’t spend the extra because they couldn’t justify the money on leisure activities.

            > It’s like giving someone 2L of milk instead of 1L of milk, when all they’ll drink is 750mL. Lucky them, they get more milk they won’t drink.

            You are confusing quantity with speed. If I increase the speed of your commute to work by 10 fold you will still make the same number of journeys but the value will be greater. Of course, because it only takes 3 minutes instead of 30 minutes to travel between work and home you might find that in fact you come home for lunch or go back into the office for a couple of hours after dinner.

            > If they later decide they need 25Mbps, under the Liberal plan they will get it (by default), and under the Labor plan they will also get it (obviously) – there’s no difference; the number of people who will use the most basic service is the same. In other words, 47% of people are getting exactly what they have decided they need, and giving them more than that “just because” is wasteful and of no value to them. How could you see that as a good thing, Mathew?

            It depends on the reasons behind the decision. I seriously doubt that 47% are purchasing 12Mbps because that is all they want when for $5 extra a month they could have double the speed. Heck most people reading this thread would probably struggle to understand why everyone isn’t purchasing 100Mbps.

            > Remember, the digital divide is not about inequality (heterogeneity); that is, it is not about there being different levels of speed and different services across the country. The digital divide is about inequality of opportunity; that is, those who wish to pay more for some given value currently cannot do so consistently and fairly.

            What you are clearly missing is that not everyone who wishes to pay more can afford it and some of those people (e.g. mobility challenged people) could benefit significantly from fast broadband with services like high quality video conferencing.

            > People paying $70 a month are getting 2Mbps in one street and 20Mbps in another; others get 100Mbps cable while their next-door neighbour is stuck on 4G; others who are prepared to pay for a similar service cannot get one at all. That’s one of the main things that the Labor NBN sought to address, by maintaining a consistent wholesale price, and encouraging retail competition; but we can argue how successful they have been at that.

            Under the Coalition plan, fibre on demand will be available for those people who request it. You are also ignoring the fact that many rural towns weren’t going to receive FTTP even when their towns were passed by backhaul, but would benefit from FTTN.

            I’m not against a consistent wholesale price or retail competition. The problem is that Labor’s plan was leading to an entrenched digital divide in Australia and lead to a mediocre network that delivers little real world benefit over FTTN for the majority.

            > Is this all now clear to you? Will you stop repeating such a fallacious argument?

            It is clear to me that you don’t understand the point I’ve been making and that your argument is lacking.

            It might be worth you pausing for a second to consider what it would cost to take those fibre connections which are already capable of 1Gbps and removing the speed tiers? Once you’ve calculated the cost, consider the increased revenue from data downloads and benefits from a faster network.

          • > How significant is that benefit? Stability, latency (~20ms) and reliability (except when contractors are digging) are find on my ADSL connection.

            The benefits are very significant. Your ADSL connection is quite obviously the fortunate exception. Lucky you.

            > I would argue that people are taking 12Mbps services because they are the cheapest service available. Back in ADSL1 days, people purchased 256/64Kbps. VoIP becomes reasonable at 512/128Kbps and video conferencing is significantly improved at 1500/256Kbps but many people didn’t spend the extra because they couldn’t justify the money on leisure activities.

            Yes, what you just said doesn’t disagree with my statement.

            > You are confusing quantity with speed. If I increase the speed of your commute to work by 10 fold you will still make the same number of journeys but the value will be greater. Of course, because it only takes 3 minutes instead of 30 minutes to travel between work and home you might find that in fact you come home for lunch or go back into the office for a couple of hours after dinner.

            No, I’m talking about value. There is no added value. What the consumer cares about is value for money. Stop ignoring that.

            > It depends on the reasons behind the decision. I seriously doubt that 47% are purchasing 12Mbps because that is all they want when for $5 extra a month they could have double the speed. Heck most people reading this thread would probably struggle to understand why everyone isn’t purchasing 100Mbps.

            They simply don’t believe they are getting any more value for money if they pay more for a faster connection. They have what they need. So what benefit to them, a faster connection? How can you possibly argue that they are in a worse position, by their own choice, than they would be with a copper-based network?

            But really, the reasons are irrelevant to this point. You make the observation that 47% of connections are slower than some ADSL connections, which leads you to the fallacious conclusion that the Labor NBN plan must be bad, by implying that it is a down-grade. You are correct in your observation, but your conclusion and implication are entirely, hopelessly, wrong. Somewhere between the observation and the conclusion something went wrong in your thought processes. Cognitive bias, probably.

            > What you are clearly missing is that not everyone who wishes to pay more can afford it and some of those people (e.g. mobility challenged people) could benefit significantly from fast broadband with services like high quality video conferencing.

            What you are clearly missing is that is AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ISSUE. I would personally support initiatives for governments to directly subsidise connections for these disadvantaged people on a needs-based evaluation. But that is irrelevant to the digital divide.

            > Under the Coalition plan, fibre on demand will be available for those people who request it.

            That is not equality of opportunity. That merely increases the digital divide, between the haves and the have-nots. It is an entirely different proposition to have someone paying $200 a month for, say, a 250Mbps connection, than to have them pay thousands and thousands of dollars up-front for that connection. Equality of opportunity is not merely whether or not it is offered, that’s just lip-service, it is whether it is reasonably accessible. Under fibre-on-demand, those who will get value from and are prepared to pay for 250Mbps will be split into two: those who can afford to stump up thousands of dollars up-front and those who simply can’t, and let’s not even get started on “node lottery”. On a universal fibre model, on the other hand, those who will get value from and are prepared to pay for 250Mbps will largely be able to afford it, because there is no prohibitive up-front cost, and monthly rents are reasonable.

            > You are also ignoring the fact that many rural towns weren’t going to receive FTTP even when their towns were passed by backhaul, but would benefit from FTTN.

            Well, under such a circumstance, Labor/NBN Co may have made a mistake. That’s certainly possible. The ACCC made a mistake with the 121 POI decision, too. No one said Labor’s plan was perfect, but it was far closer to perfect (93% perfect ;)) than the Coalition’s plan is. Under these circumstances FTTN, ONLY IF BETTER THAN FIXED WIRELESS, would have been the better option. But how many of these, you’ve clearly done the research, how many of these sites are there that would benefit from such an approach? And do these edge-cases justify ruining it for the rest of the population, i.e. the, was it, ~78% of the fixed-line footprint?

            > I’m not against a consistent wholesale price or retail competition. The problem is that Labor’s plan was leading to an entrenched digital divide in Australia

            No, it wasn’t leading to “an entrenched digital divide”. That is ridiculous. In what way? Explain. This 47% of 12Mbps users who CHOOSE the cheapest and most basic plan, CANNOT UPGRADE to 100Mbps, IF THEY SO CHOOSE? Obviously they can. Obviously they’ll pay more – but prices will fall over time as well. At some point the 100Mbps connection will fall to cost the same as the 12Mbps connections. What do you think will be the implications of that? Do I really need to spell it out for you?

            Honestly, your statement is ludicrous. Why do you continue to ignore the difference between equality and equality of opportunity, after I’ve already explained it?

            > and lead to a mediocre network that delivers little real world benefit over FTTN for the majority.

            “mediocre” in what way? The real world benefits of fibre optics over copper-based connections are well-known and well-documented, even at the same nominal bandwidth; everyone (in the fixed-line footprint) will benefit from FTTP over FTTN. And the majority of everyone will benefit from speeds better than FTTN can provide – if not right now, then certainly in the future.

            > It is clear to me that you don’t understand the point I’ve been making and that your argument is lacking.

            My argument may be lacking, that is certainly possible, but you haven’t managed to find and express any fault or shortcomings in it thus far; so far, my argument’s looking pretty good.

            On the other hand, your argument is CLEARLY lacking, even illogical at times. If you actually do have a good point, that is certainly possible, your use of faulty logic, selective information and poor examples, merely obscures the point. Perhaps it’s time for you to find a brand new argument with new examples to drive your point home.

            > It might be worth you pausing for a second to consider what it would cost to take those fibre connections which are already capable of 1Gbps and removing the speed tiers? Once you’ve calculated the cost, consider the increased revenue from data downloads and benefits from a faster network.

            That would take much, much more than a second. I’ll let you do the maths and lay it out here for me so I can evaluate it. You may have a good argument, anything is possible, but thus far you have done a very poor job of presenting it.

            On another note, your statement just now goes to a point I made elsewhere: Why do you support FTTN when it is utterly contrary to your position? You support FTTN, which will never provide 1Gbps, speed tiers or no. More to the point, you support the Coalition’s plan, which still includes speed tiers. This inconsistency perfectly encapsulates the confusion and lack of logic of your arguments. It might be worth you pausing for a minute to consider what your position actually is, and how you can best argue for it, comprehensively and consistently.

          • >> How significant is that benefit? Stability, latency (~20ms) and reliability (except when contractors are digging) are find on my ADSL connection.

            > The benefits are very significant. Your ADSL connection is quite obviously the fortunate exception. Lucky you.

            This is pure hearsay. I’m almost the furtherest it is possible to be from my exchange, so I would assume most people have speeds higher than 10Mbps around here. The only publicly available figures from Sydney the average ADSL sync speed is just under 12Mbps. Many ADSL connections are hampered by Telstra providing inadequate backhaul from RIMS or still only enabling ADSL1 on hardware capable of ADSL2+.

            >> I would argue that people are taking 12Mbps services because they are the cheapest service available. Back in ADSL1 days, people purchased 256/64Kbps. VoIP becomes reasonable at 512/128Kbps and video conferencing is significantly improved at 1500/256Kbps but many people didn’t spend the extra because they couldn’t justify the money on leisure activities.

            > Yes, what you just said doesn’t disagree with my statement.

            You are suggesting that 12Mbps is adequate. I’m suggesting that based on historical evidence and the fact that applications are becoming ever more data intensive means that 12Mbps is should not be considered adequate when 1Gbps is available by simply changing a software setting.

            >> You are confusing quantity with speed. If I increase the speed of your commute to work by 10 fold you will still make the same number of journeys but the value will be greater. Of course, because it only takes 3 minutes instead of 30 minutes to travel between work and home you might find that in fact you come home for lunch or go back into the office for a couple of hours after dinner.

            > No, I’m talking about value. There is no added value. What the consumer cares about is value for money. Stop ignoring that.

            Hello? Providing a 1 Gbps provides no added value? Reducing your commute from 30 minutes to 3 minutes provides no added value.

            >> It depends on the reasons behind the decision. I seriously doubt that 47% are purchasing 12Mbps because that is all they want when for $5 extra a month they could have double the speed. Heck most people reading this thread would probably struggle to understand why everyone isn’t purchasing 100Mbps.

            > They simply don’t believe they are getting any more value for money if they pay more for a faster connection. They have what they need. So what benefit to them, a faster connection? How can you possibly argue that they are in a worse position, by their own choice, than they would be with a copper-based network?

            The point I would make is that a huge amount of money has been spent which delivers very little benefit to the people on 12Mbps.

            > But really, the reasons are irrelevant to this point. You make the observation that 47% of connections are slower than some ADSL connections, which leads you to the fallacious conclusion that the Labor NBN plan must be bad, by implying that it is a down-grade. You are correct in your observation, but your conclusion and implication are entirely, hopelessly, wrong. Somewhere between the observation and the conclusion something went wrong in your thought processes. Cognitive bias, probably.

            I’ve never said that the network is a downgrade as a whole however there are examples now where in rural communities where under Labor’s plan the copper will be maintained for phone lines but the ADSL will be disconnected and people moved onto wireless. What I’ve said is that for anyone that finds 50Mbps adequate the difference between FTTN and FTTP would be insignificant. For those who need faster speeds fibre on demand with a $3000 install will almost certainly be cheaper than Labor’s 1Gbps plans.

            >> What you are clearly missing is that not everyone who wishes to pay more can afford it and some of those people (e.g. mobility challenged people) could benefit significantly from fast broadband with services like high quality video conferencing.

            > What you are clearly missing is that is AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ISSUE. I would personally support initiatives for governments to directly subsidise connections for these disadvantaged people on a needs-based evaluation. But that is irrelevant to the digital divide.

            I see it as being the issue. I consider the network design is acceptable but the policy decisions by Labor that lead to the NBNCo wholesale pricing structure mean that the benefits of a truly fast network will be received by a tiny fraction.

            There are two approaches for subsidising access. Your model is to make the fast speeds expensive and have a complicated, bureaucratic process for providing a subsidy which will only work when the person is in their own home and could be used for other activities. The alternative is provide fast ubiquitous access for everyone and the government negotiate with RSPs to provide unmetered traffic to government sites. The second model is already in action where RSPs provide quota free access to internal mirrors and online streaming.

            >> Under the Coalition plan, fibre on demand will be available for those people who request it.

            > That is not equality of opportunity. That merely increases the digital divide, between the haves and the have-nots. It is an entirely different proposition to have someone paying $200 a month for, say, a 250Mbps connection, than to have them pay thousands and thousands of dollars up-front for that connection.

            You’ve ignored the fact that RSPs (e.g. Optus) have already proposed contracts where the ~$3000 installation payment is spread over the contract, which equals $125/month. Now since fibre is widely held to be cheaper than copper to maintain the monthly cost should be less than current ULL for a 1Gbps connection.

            > Equality of opportunity is not merely whether or not it is offered, that’s just lip-service, it is whether it is reasonably accessible. Under fibre-on-demand, those who will get value from and are prepared to pay for 250Mbps will be split into two: those who can afford to stump up thousands of dollars up-front and those who simply can’t, and let’s not even get started on “node lottery”. On a universal fibre model, on the other hand, those who will get value from and are prepared to pay for 250Mbps will largely be able to afford it, because there is no prohibitive up-front cost, and monthly rents are reasonable.

            Your statement sounds reasonable until you actually crunch the numbers. Just the AVC for a 1Gbps connection is $1800/year. Over two years this is more expensive than the ~$3000 to install fibre on demand. The point is that the customer is contributing to the cost upfront rather than paying the interest bill for a decade or more.

            >> You are also ignoring the fact that many rural towns weren’t going to receive FTTP even when their towns were passed by backhaul, but would benefit from FTTN.

            > Well, under such a circumstance, Labor/NBN Co may have made a mistake. That’s certainly possible. The ACCC made a mistake with the 121 POI decision, too. No one said Labor’s plan was perfect, but it was far closer to perfect (93% perfect ;)) than the Coalition’s plan is.

            Labor’s original plan was FTTN which was stymied by Telstra being obstructionist. The problem with Labor’s FTTP plan is that it was driven by ideology and not focused on what the network would deliver to people. Ignoring FTTN is evidence of this. A failure to survey broadband speeds and build the network based on areas of greatest need is another example. The evidence suggests instead that Labor focused on overbuilding the HFC network first to eliminate competition.

            > Under these circumstances FTTN, ONLY IF BETTER THAN FIXED WIRELESS, would have been the better option. But how many of these, you’ve clearly done the research, how many of these sites are there that would benefit from such an approach? And do these edge-cases justify ruining it for the rest of the population, i.e. the, was it, ~78% of the fixed-line footprint?

            The problem with your argument is that your position is that you consider that for 47% of the population 12Mbps is adequate. If I accept that (which I don’t) then my position is that 12Mbps should be adequate for everyone and those people who want more should pay for it. The health system provides a base level of service, but if you want a private room or to be treated by a particular doctor then you pay for it.

            >> I’m not against a consistent wholesale price or retail competition. The problem is that Labor’s plan was leading to an entrenched digital divide in Australia

            > No, it wasn’t leading to “an entrenched digital divide”. That is ridiculous. In what way? Explain. This 47% of 12Mbps users who CHOOSE the cheapest and most basic plan, CANNOT UPGRADE to 100Mbps, IF THEY SO CHOOSE? Obviously they can.

            You use the word choose as if when people buy a car they have the choice between buying a Merc or a Kia and that the cost is a minor consideration. If cars were sold like the NBN then freeways would have special lanes for those who can afford to pay more to travel faster.

            > Obviously they’ll pay more – but prices will fall over time as well. At some point the 100Mbps connection will fall to cost the same as the 12Mbps connections. What do you think will be the implications of that? Do I really need to spell it out for you?

            Do you realise your statement about pricing is actually wrong? The AVC Price Profile in the NBNCo Corporate Plan shows that the price of 100Mbps will fall over time, but it never reaches 12Mbps, even when the average network speed is 250Mbps! The second observation I would make is that NBNCo predict that the percentage of fibre customers on the 12Mbps plan barely drops below 50% in 2028. Until NBNCo revealed that 47% were connected at 12Mbps in April 2013 the overwhelming consensus was that very few people would connect at 12Mbps. That has been conclusively shown to be wrong.

            If you have some evidenced based assertions, then I would be glad to read them, but what I read is wishful thinking from someone who is worried they won’t have their 100Mbps connection and hasn’t realised that fibre on demand isn’t that expensive.

            > Honestly, your statement is ludicrous. Why do you continue to ignore the difference between equality and equality of opportunity, after I’ve already explained it?

            My kids are enrolled in a $20,000+ private school for high school. We’ve made a choice that the costs for primary school didn’t outweigh the increase opportunity. Now I wouldn’t consider us rich, but I also wouldn’t suggest that every parent in Australia has the same opportunity. You are trying to make a similar argument with your support for Labor’s FTTP pricing structure.

            >> and lead to a mediocre network that delivers little real world benefit over FTTN for the majority.

            > “mediocre” in what way? The real world benefits of fibre optics over copper-based connections are well-known and well-documented, even at the same nominal bandwidth; everyone (in the fixed-line footprint) will benefit from FTTP over FTTN. And the majority of everyone will benefit from speeds better than FTTN can provide – if not right now, then certainly in the future.

            Mediocre when compared to the rest of the world, that we are seeking to be internationally competitive with in a knowledge based economy. If everyone had a 1Gbps connection then companies may choose to pilot programs here, because Australians have a reputation for being early adopters. Under the Labor’s proposal where there is a range of speeds, the company is just as likely to choose Singapore or Kansas.

            >> It is clear to me that you don’t understand the point I’ve been making and that your argument is lacking.

            > My argument may be lacking, that is certainly possible, but you haven’t managed to find and express any fault or shortcomings in it thus far; so far, my argument’s looking pretty good.

            Except for the minor fact that the NBNCo Corporate Plan directly contradicts several of your expectations like changes in speed tier profiles.

            > On the other hand, your argument is CLEARLY lacking, even illogical at times. If you actually do have a good point, that is certainly possible, your use of faulty logic, selective information and poor examples, merely obscures the point. Perhaps it’s time for you to find a brand new argument with new examples to drive your point home.

            If you consider Labor’s NBN as a brick wall propped up by hype (1Gbps for everyone) which is cheered on by a enthusiastic cheer squad, hiding an ugly reality like (47% at 12Mbps and rising ARPU) then an effective technique is to show that the Labor’s NBN has many failures because this will cause rational people to re-evaluate their position and push for something better.

            Have you noticed how I rarely talk about the ability of NBNCo to provide the 7% return on investment? The reason for that is not that I trust the numbers, but that I’m well aware that the 7% return came first and NBNCo worked backward to set the pricing.

            >> It might be worth you pausing for a second to consider what it would cost to take those fibre connections which are already capable of 1Gbps and removing the speed tiers? Once you’ve calculated the cost, consider the increased revenue from data downloads and benefits from a faster network.

            > That would take much, much more than a second. I’ll let you do the maths and lay it out here for me so I can evaluate it. You may have a good argument, anything is possible, but thus far you have done a very poor job of presenting it.

            The problem is that it would just lead to assumptions. When NBNCo’s pricing model was released, Simon Hackett came up with an alternative charging model of $34/month for 100Mbps with no CVC. I don’t agree with the no CVC charge because transferring of data does put a load on the network. Usage based charging provides an income source for NBNCo to improve the network infrastructure and an incentive to upgrade choke points (e.g. GPON2.5 to GPON10) because revenue will increase.

            > On another note, your statement just now goes to a point I made elsewhere: Why do you support FTTN when it is utterly contrary to your position? You support FTTN, which will never provide 1Gbps, speed tiers or no. More to the point, you support the Coalition’s plan, which still includes speed tiers. This inconsistency perfectly encapsulates the confusion and lack of logic of your arguments.

            If there is direct fibre to the node, then it is reasonable to assume that 1Gbps connections will be available. In fact with direct fibre simply changing the transceiver at each means that 100Gbps would be available :).

            I haven’t seen enough detail of the Coalition’s plan to actively review it based on what it delivers. At the same stage, Labor’s FTTP plan sounded like a great idea until the Corporate Plan was published and reality was revealed. Speed tiers on a FTTN network are more difficult to implement because the available speed decreases with distance from the node. Telstra solved this by limiting ADSL connections to 1.5Mbps, although many would argue this was to more to protect FoxTel by preventing ADSL from being used for video on demand services. What we do know is that that for everyone on a 50Mbps or slower connection it is likely to deliver the same experience at a cheaper price. Fibre on demand provides for those people who require speeds faster than 100Mbps.

            If I had a preference it would be for Google Fibre, but I accept that probably isn’t realistic. In the meantime the actual difference between FTTN and FTTP for the average end-user is much closer than you think. Labor’s plan risked leaving us with an expensive network which delivered only a fraction of the performance it was capable of.

            > It might be worth you pausing for a minute to consider what your position actually is, and how you can best argue for it, comprehensively and consistently.

            I’ve had a reasonably consistent position for many years: Speed tiers cause immeasurable harm and that NBNCo should seek to derive the majority of it’s revenue from usage charges rather than speed because that see more people connected and engaging in activities online.

            I’d suggest that you study the Corporate Plan and compare what was promised by Labor with what is happening in other parts of the world. At best it may have seen us maintain our current rankings, realistically I think it would have seen us plummet.

          • > This is pure hearsay. I’m almost the furtherest it is possible to be from my exchange, so I would assume most people have speeds higher than 10Mbps around here.

            That is pure hearsay.

            > The only publicly available figures from Sydney the average ADSL sync speed is just under 12Mbps. Many ADSL connections are hampered by Telstra providing inadequate backhaul from RIMS or still only enabling ADSL1 on hardware capable of ADSL2+.

            The problems arising from Telstra’s complacency in its position of market dominance is another major issue that the NBN is seeking to address.

            > You are suggesting that 12Mbps is adequate. I’m suggesting that based on historical evidence and the fact that applications are becoming ever more data intensive means that 12Mbps is should not be considered adequate when 1Gbps is available by simply changing a software setting.

            I am not suggesting that at all. Don’t put words in my mouth.

            > Hello? Providing a 1 Gbps provides no added value? Reducing your commute from 30 minutes to 3 minutes provides no added value.

            Value is determined by the consumer, not by you, Mathew. You can’t push your preferences onto others. I wish that, like you, everyone would demand 1Gbps, so Turnbull would have no leg to stand on, but they don’t, because it’s their choice. It is their own choice. Their. Own. Choice.

            > The point I would make is that a huge amount of money has been spent which delivers very little benefit to the people on 12Mbps.

            The benefits have already been outlined. There is no arguing against the fact that a 12Mbps fibre connection is better than an up-to-12Mbps ADSL2 connection. In other words, by their own choices, half of the population receives “a little benefit” because they choose not to make use of the capacity, and the other half receive “a lot of benefit” because they do choose to make use of the capacity. Everyone benefits. It is money well-spent.

            > I’ve never said that the network is a downgrade as a whole

            That is what you have strongly implied, when you effectively say that ‘47% of people will be worse off’. That is a complete lie.

            > however there are examples now where in rural communities where under Labor’s plan the copper will be maintained for phone lines but the ADSL will be disconnected and people moved onto wireless.

            I don’t know enough about this to comment. But can you even say for certain that they will be worse off?

            > What I’ve said is that for anyone that finds 50Mbps adequate the difference between FTTN and FTTP would be insignificant.

            That is not correct. The large difference in upload speeds between the two technologies would be vastly significant, for one example.

            > For those who need faster speeds fibre on demand with a $3000 install will almost certainly be cheaper than Labor’s 1Gbps plans.

            That is ridiculous. Fibre on Demand will cost much more than $3000 for the people who need it most – people who are furthest from the node and aren’t able to get 100Mbps. Additionally, 1Gbps will not be achievable in the near future with Fibre on Demand; for instance, BT in the UK only offer 330Mbps. And if BT’s pricing is any indication, the ongoing rents are extremely prohibitive.

            On the other hand, with FTTP, there is the option for someone on 50Mbps who later decides they need faster to get 100Mbps or even 1Gbps “by simply changing a software setting” as you put it, rather than with the very expensive and time-consuming delivery of fibre from a single node to a single house to service a single customer.

            > I see it as being the issue. I consider the network design is acceptable but the policy decisions by Labor that lead to the NBNCo wholesale pricing structure mean that the benefits of a truly fast network will be received by a tiny fraction.

            And now, due to policy decisions by the Coalition, an even tinier fraction will benefit from a truly fast network – for a very long time. People would have naturally taken up faster plans as bandwidth usage grows (contrary to your belief, 47% of people wouldn’t stay on 12Mbps ad infinitum), and people would have gradually adopted a truly fast network. Now, that possibility is well and truly shot, thanks to the Coalition.

            > There are two approaches for subsidising access. Your model is to make the fast speeds expensive and have a complicated, bureaucratic process for providing a subsidy which will only work when the person is in their own home and could be used for other activities. The alternative is provide fast ubiquitous access for everyone and the government negotiate with RSPs to provide unmetered traffic to government sites. The second model is already in action where RSPs provide quota free access to internal mirrors and online streaming.

            I’m sure there are more than two approaches. But I don’t believe your ideals work in reality, Mathew. And your rhetoric is not even consistent with your ideals.

            > You’ve ignored the fact that RSPs (e.g. Optus) have already proposed contracts where the ~$3000 installation payment is spread over the contract, which equals $125/month.

            You’ve ignored my argument. It would be nice if it worked that way in reality, but I suspect it’s a lot more complex than that.

            > Now since fibre is widely held to be cheaper than copper to maintain the monthly cost should be less than current ULL for a 1Gbps connection.

            I suspect it’s a far different proposition between maintaining fibre in an all-fibre passive optical network, and maintaining someone’s active (powered) fibre connection for a single fibre line in a node that is shared with others’ copper connections.

            >> Equality of opportunity is not merely whether or not it is offered, that’s just lip-service, it is whether it is reasonably accessible. Under fibre-on-demand, those who will get value from and are prepared to pay for 250Mbps will be split into two: those who can afford to stump up thousands of dollars up-front and those who simply can’t, and let’s not even get started on “node lottery”. On a universal fibre model, on the other hand, those who will get value from and are prepared to pay for 250Mbps will largely be able to afford it, because there is no prohibitive up-front cost, and monthly rents are reasonable.

            > Your statement sounds reasonable until you actually crunch the numbers. Just the AVC for a 1Gbps connection is $1800/year. Over two years this is more expensive than the ~$3000 to install fibre on demand. The point is that the customer is contributing to the cost upfront rather than paying the interest bill for a decade or more.

            Your argument fails to hold weight when you realise that even after paying the expensive >$3000 install, access to the connection is not free. If it were, then bloody brilliant, sign me up. But it isn’t.

            Also, what you’ve said simply distracts from the main point about equality of opportunity. There is no equality of opportunity under a fibre-on-demand model.

            >> Well, under such a circumstance, Labor/NBN Co may have made a mistake. That’s certainly possible. The ACCC made a mistake with the 121 POI decision, too. No one said Labor’s plan was perfect, but it was far closer to perfect (93% perfect ;)) than the Coalition’s plan is.

            > Labor’s original plan was FTTN which was stymied by Telstra being obstructionist. The problem with Labor’s FTTP plan is that it was driven by ideology and not focused on what the network would deliver to people. Ignoring FTTN is evidence of this. A failure to survey broadband speeds and build the network based on areas of greatest need is another example. The evidence suggests instead that Labor focused on overbuilding the HFC network first to eliminate competition.

            You have made many accusations that have no factual basis. I’m not saying that you’re wrong, you may or may not be, but that there is no factual evidence to back your assertions up.

            On the other hand, there is evidence that FTTP was chosen because longevity is more important for a major infrastructure project than mere ‘speed’, and overbuilding the HFC network was necessary for economic reasons, in order to generate revenue – in order to subsidise the cost of rural connections. A single public provider of basic infrastructure like a telecommunications network is the best option for Australia. Telstra’s wholesale division should never have been privatised. But it was, so here we are, trying to fix John Howard’s mistakes. And we’re doing that by overbuilding a patchwork of networks with one uniform, incidentally technically superior, wholesale network.

            The NBN uses a simple solution (a single wholesale provider of fibre to the premises) to solve a multitude of problems (including, but not limited to, poor speeds) resulting from a mistake made by a previous Coalition government (Telstra’s privatisation). The new Coalition government looks set to make their own mistake in telecommunications.

            >> Under these circumstances FTTN, ONLY IF BETTER THAN FIXED WIRELESS, would have been the better option. But how many of these, you’ve clearly done the research, how many of these sites are there that would benefit from such an approach? And do these edge-cases justify ruining it for the rest of the population, i.e. the, was it, ~78% of the fixed-line footprint?

            > The problem with your argument is that your position is that you consider that for 47% of the population 12Mbps is adequate. If I accept that (which I don’t) then my position is that 12Mbps should be adequate for everyone and those people who want more should pay for it. The health system provides a base level of service, but if you want a private room or to be treated by a particular doctor then you pay for it.

            There was no argument there, there were questions. Why have you not answered them?

            And again, I do not believe that 12Mbps is adequate. Don’t you dare put words in my mouth. Don’t you dare misrepresent my position. However, others do believe that 12Mbps is adequate – 47% of people do. What *I* believe is that 100Mbps is adequate (for now). What I believe is that 47% (and more) of people will come around to my view, given time.

            >> I’m not against a consistent wholesale price or retail competition. The problem is that Labor’s plan was leading to an entrenched digital divide in Australia

            > You use the word choose as if when people buy a car they have the choice between buying a Merc or a Kia and that the cost is a minor consideration. If cars were sold like the NBN then freeways would have special lanes for those who can afford to pay more to travel faster.

            So your position is that, for example, iiNet’s 100Mbps plan which starts at $70/mo, is unaffordable?
            And the fact is, people already do pay different prices for different modes of transport. People pay for public transport, or they buy a car and pay for fuel, or they take taxis. Some modes are faster than others, or more convenient, or there is some other inherent value. The consumer decides what value is worth what price. 47% of people clearly do not find additional value at higher prices. We could try to convince them how wrong they are, but who are you to tell them what they should want?

            > Do you realise your statement about pricing is actually wrong? The AVC Price Profile in the NBNCo Corporate Plan shows that the price of 100Mbps will fall over time, but it never reaches 12Mbps, even when the average network speed is 250Mbps! The second observation I would make is that NBNCo predict that the percentage of fibre customers on the 12Mbps plan barely drops below 50% in 2028. Until NBNCo revealed that 47% were connected at 12Mbps in April 2013 the overwhelming consensus was that very few people would connect at 12Mbps. That has been conclusively shown to be wrong.

            I assume you’re talking about Exhibit 8-8. It’s true that the prices don’t later match up, so I was mistaken about that. Sorry. However, those are nominal dollars, not real dollars. When the network average speed is 250Mbps, the AVC charge for a 100Mbps connection is $30. The real dollar price of the 100Mbps connection would be less than that. We would need to determine the year it hits that average to determine the price in real dollars, but I would guess that it is as low as or lower than the current $24 AVC charge for 12Mbps.

            > If you have some evidenced based assertions, then I would be glad to read them, but what I read is wishful thinking from someone who is worried they won’t have their 100Mbps connection and hasn’t realised that fibre on demand isn’t that expensive.

            Fibre on demand delivers less (if we take BT’s example in the UK) and costs much more (if we take BT’s example in the UK). Worse, not everyone will have access to fibre. That’s my major issue with it. Ubiquitous access will lead to applications that require more bandwidth, which will lead to people taking up higher capacity services. This is about the future, and our vision for the future of the country.

            > My kids are enrolled in a $20,000+ private school for high school. We’ve made a choice that the costs for primary school didn’t outweigh the increase opportunity. Now I wouldn’t consider us rich, but I also wouldn’t suggest that every parent in Australia has the same opportunity. You are trying to make a similar argument with your support for Labor’s FTTP pricing structure.

            Education isn’t really a good example of equality of opportunity (in fact you clearly state that not every parent has the same opportunity), so I’m not sure why you thought that would make a good example. Especially your example. $20,000+ versus what price for the public alternative? Doesn’t that go to my point? Some few will be able to afford the private school and pay a big premium, but most won’t. But the difference between a massive up-front cost for a single connection versus a cost that is spread over a population and a generation is not merely one of price, but one of access. The difference between a $24 and a $38 AVC charge is much smaller than that between a “free” connection and a more than $3000 up-front cost or loan. So going back to your example, most people do not have access to these private schools. If these private schools only cost a little more than public schools, there’d be far more children enrolled in these private schools.

            > Mediocre when compared to the rest of the world, that we are seeking to be internationally competitive with in a knowledge based economy. If everyone had a 1Gbps connection then companies may choose to pilot programs here, because Australians have a reputation for being early adopters. Under the Labor’s proposal where there is a range of speeds, the company is just as likely to choose Singapore or Kansas.

            You’re right. I wish everyone could have a 1Gbps connection at an affordable price. I just don’t think it’s doable.

            But for argument’s sake, let’s imagine that it is; here’s the thing. You support the Coalition’s plan, which is less than mediocre, which uses the existing copper infrastructure. If we proceeded with Labor’s rollout of FTTP, then perhaps a future government and/or company board could order the change of the pricing structure so that everyone gets 1Gbps but we pay solely for usage. But if we go with the Coalition’s plan, pricing structures are irrelevant; that 1Gbps-for-all future is technically impossible. So why do you so strongly support the Coalition on this?

            >> My argument may be lacking, that is certainly possible, but you haven’t managed to find and express any fault or shortcomings in it thus far; so far, my argument’s looking pretty good.

            > Except for the minor fact that the NBNCo Corporate Plan directly contradicts several of your expectations like changes in speed tier profiles.

            That was one, and technically that was not “thus far”. And I’ve acknowledged it, corrected it and rebutted your argument.

            > If you consider Labor’s NBN as a brick wall propped up by hype (1Gbps for everyone) which is cheered on by a enthusiastic cheer squad, hiding an ugly reality like (47% at 12Mbps and rising ARPU) then an effective technique is to show that the Labor’s NBN has many failures because this will cause rational people to re-evaluate their position and push for something better.

            Push for something better, like… FTTN? Prohibitively expensive fibre on demand? Haves and have-nots? I question your definition of “better” and whether you consider yourself among the number of “rational people”.

            > Have you noticed how I rarely talk about the ability of NBNCo to provide the 7% return on investment? The reason for that is not that I trust the numbers, but that I’m well aware that the 7% return came first and NBNCo worked backward to set the pricing.

            Good on you. However, I’d like to note that companies generally target specific (minimum) ROI anyway; NBN Co has just chosen a much lower ROI than standard.

            >>> It might be worth you pausing for a second to consider what it would cost to take those fibre connections which are already capable of 1Gbps and removing the speed tiers? Once you’ve calculated the cost, consider the increased revenue from data downloads and benefits from a faster network.

            >> That would take much, much more than a second. I’ll let you do the maths and lay it out here for me so I can evaluate it. You may have a good argument, anything is possible, but thus far you have done a very poor job of presenting it.

            > The problem is that it would just lead to assumptions. When NBNCo’s pricing model was released, Simon Hackett came up with an alternative charging model of $34/month for 100Mbps with no CVC. I don’t agree with the no CVC charge because transferring of data does put a load on the network. Usage based charging provides an income source for NBNCo to improve the network infrastructure and an incentive to upgrade choke points (e.g. GPON2.5 to GPON10) because revenue will increase.

            I still want to see your working.
            The problem with Simon’s price is that that would leave voice-only customers and basic users (i.e. the 47% of customers who are 12Mbps users) who pay $35 or less a month RETAIL out in the cold. So there is both a political and economic reality to deal with there. I know how you feel. If only they’d pay $10 more, we could all have 100Mbps cheap!

            > If there is direct fibre to the node, then it is reasonable to assume that 1Gbps connections will be available. In fact with direct fibre simply changing the transceiver at each means that 100Gbps would be available :).

            BT in the UK only offers 330Mbps. And why do you presume that it would be direct fibre? Additionally that conveniently ignores my point. So you want EVEN LESS PEOPLE to have 1Gbps connections? You are completely inconsistent.

            > I haven’t seen enough detail of the Coalition’s plan to actively review it based on what it delivers. At the same stage, Labor’s FTTP plan sounded like a great idea until the Corporate Plan was published and reality was revealed. Speed tiers on a FTTN network are more difficult to implement because the available speed decreases with distance from the node. Telstra solved this by limiting ADSL connections to 1.5Mbps, although many would argue this was to more to protect FoxTel by preventing ADSL from being used for video on demand services. What we do know is that that for everyone on a 50Mbps or slower connection it is likely to deliver the same experience at a cheaper price. Fibre on demand provides for those people who require speeds faster than 100Mbps.

            But your position that the Coalition’s plan (which you admit to not having enough detail for) must automatically be better is based on some assumptions. What are your assumptions? My suspicion is that you only have one assumption (what should really be a conclusion after careful thought and reasoning), that the Coalition’s plan is better, and that you work backwards from that assumed conclusion to arrive on a position.

            > If I had a preference it would be for Google Fibre, but I accept that probably isn’t realistic. In the meantime the actual difference between FTTN and FTTP for the average end-user is much closer than you think. Labor’s plan risked leaving us with an expensive network which delivered only a fraction of the performance it was capable of.

            We would probably all prefer Google Fibre… At least, assuming it was an open wholesale network.

            > I’ve had a reasonably consistent position for many years: Speed tiers cause immeasurable harm and that NBNCo should seek to derive the majority of it’s revenue from usage charges rather than speed because that see more people connected and engaging in activities online.

            You have done a poor job of arguing for that position from what I’ve seen at least, especially when you support alternative network infrastructure like FTTN. That is where you’re inconsistent. You can’t ever have a fibre network without speed tiers without first pursuing a fibre network. I suggest you switch to supporting Labor’s NBN’s overall vision and technology choice (FTTP), while only attacking their pricing structure.

            > I’d suggest that you study the Corporate Plan and compare what was promised by Labor with what is happening in other parts of the world. At best it may have seen us maintain our current rankings, realistically I think it would have seen us plummet.

            That is a complete fallacy. How can Labor’s plans >cause< our rankings to plummet? That is the implication you are making there. However, I can say this. Our potential long-term rankings are going to be much lower under the Coalition's plan than it would have been under Labor's plan.

          • Corrections:
            iiNet’s plan starts at $90 (not sure where I read $70; was it $70 previously?). Although a reasonably useful connection would cost $120. I’m paying that much for my ADSL2 connection plus phone rental, and I’m certainly not rich. I would consider it affordable, especially if the cost were shared among friends or family.

    • no, they voted for cheaper and faster and to get rid of the ALP

      FTTN isnt really that much cheaper, and its not going any faster so far, how long do we give it before we call it a failure?

        • Exactly, the public vote for the House as a judgement on how the incumbent government performed (past) and vote for the Senate on the basis on how much they really trust the party they just voted for in the House (future).

          I’d say based on the Senate voting, the Coalition have no mandate to rely on.

          • So how would all of you all say the hung Parliament vote of 2010 was a mandate for the Labor NBN?

          • Seriously: in lieu of any other viable policy at the time or are you going to pull a little history rewrite. Labor announced their policy and the Coalition fumbled theirs.

            What did happen was that following the election a majority of voters supported the ‘FTTP’ model that Labor settled on – this was seen through various pollsters. Can you say that the Coalition has the same level of support today for their policy?

            SMH: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/voters-prefer-labors-nbn-20130415-2hv8i.html 63 in favor of Labor’s model vs 41 for the Coalition.

          • @BruceH

            The last poll that I am aware of where the question was asked about preference of Labor vs Coalition policy the gap was closing fast, remember for most of Labors six year reign the Coalition didn’t have a published policy to poll on, it was only released in April this year.

            This poll was taken right on the heels of the Coalition policy release, so not much time allowed to digest the contents.

            I am not aware of any poll since that one to indicate if the trend continued , that is a higher percentage of Coalition voters swung behind the Coalition policy as the election got nearer, I doubt Labor voters were going to move. :)

            http://delimiter.com.au/2013/04/30/new-nbn-policy-galvanised-coalition-voters/

          • Yes, coalition voters did move – but bugger all changed even so. Besides, not a lot of time to consider the policy – Didn’t Malcolm decry that this was one of the Coalition’s most widely discussed and well known policies?

            But you can’t deny (well maybe you can) that Australia’s largest ever petition of 267,000 supporting the FTTP NBN is probably indicative that there is still a majority support for the Coalition NBN.

          • That petition number is not even close to be representing a majority, it’s not random, respondents select themselves to answer, so when it comes to the label ‘majority’ it only represents a majority of the people who are motivated to respond to the petition, you either agree and have read the relentless pushing to answer it in Delimiter or Whirlpool etc or you don’t bother.

            Those that supported the Coalition NBN policy, or don’t care either way have no representation in that petition at all.

          • I tend to agree…

            But I agree because it (strangely and rarely) makes some sense… not because my politics dictates I must.

          • It is a logical fallacy to conclude that voting for a particular party was a vote for a particular network model. Fewer people voted for the Liberal Party than for Labor on primary preferences.

            The only way we can really know how people would vote on a telecoms network plan is through a referendum.

          • Probably a plebiscite rather than a referendum, unless we’re willing to write FTTP into the Constitution… A plebiscite could possibly be a good idea.

          • To be fair, the AEC uses the term “advisory referendum” as a synonym for “plebiscite”, so you’re not entirely wrong.

            There is no information on who can initiate a plebiscite, or how one can do so, however.

  10. When there is a crisis for a pilot, he has one overriding responsibility: Keep flying the plane. Radio calls, checklists, even emergency procedures are secondary.

    Malcom appears to have forgotten his prime responsibiliy: Represent the views of his electorate.
    He has become too blinkered by ideology the LNP power game, and his additional, secondary role in office.

    No matter what else he acheives, his report card should show: FAILED

    • Actually that’s incorrect – we don’t have representational democracy in Australia, that’s a myth. Voting along party lines has always taken precedence in this country. So he’s actually doing his job as a party member, even if he’s essentially being treasonous to the Nation (but again, because that’s not treason against the Monarchy, it’s not technically treason in Australia).

  11. My wife’s family in the Philippines has FTTH! They aren’t part of the mega rich, just a typical middle class family in a third world country.

  12. It’s a catchy tagline, but the “Malcolm, increase the share of FTTP for a more equal broadband network.” is unfortunately clunky. It’s an unashamedly left-wing argument so utterly ineffective in this context. It’s preaching to the choir, not Malcolm (and most of those who voted for him).

    The most effective way to shut down Turnbull’s plan is to do so on economic grounds: “A public FTTP network is inevitable, so let’s truly save time and money by doing it now.” – does that not sound far more rational to the average voter? Including the LNP voter?

    It’s sad to see thousands of dollars go down the drain in this way. Perhaps they could’ve used some of that money on employing the services of someone who actually knows political advertising 101.

    • I’m sure they’re open to being contacted… But I agree with the thrust of your criticism. But I mean, it depends who they’re really targeting, to be honest. Has the ad already been published, or is it not too late?

    • Michael – “A public FTTP network is inevitable, so let’s truly save time and money by doing it now.”

      Have you been following this topic at all? Thats been a key criticism of the Liberal plan from day 1. Do it right, do it once.

      My followup argument is that it also saves unnecessary maintenance of what would immediately become outdated technology, giving profitability back to the RSP’s pretty much overnight. theres another economic benefit.

      Problem is, no matter how many times its stated, anti-FttH simply ignore the statement. It gets drowned out in biased and misleading statements whos sole intent is to undermine a Labor policy.

      What should be a bi-partisan policy was turned into a petty political scrap solely to get points off each other. Its a disgusting lesson in how low Australian politics have gotten. Not the only one either.

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