news Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning travelled to Geelong to spruik the benefits of its looming Fibre to the Node deployment, braving the ire of local residents and Labor politicians, who are increasingly demanding local Liberal MP Sarah Henderson support the technically superior Fibre to the Premises version of the NBN instead.
Geelong is currently served relatively well with broadband due to the presence of an iiNet HFC cable network covering much of the city. The infrastructure was upgraded in late 2014 to deliver speeds of up to 100Mbps. However, significant gaps in coverage still exist in the city, especially in the central business district and around the outskirts.
The previous Labor Government had planned to deploy Fibre to the Premises (also known as Fibre to the Home) infrastructure around much of Geelong, bringing the city up to date with modern broadband requirements. However, the Coalition’s Multi-Technology Mix plan is instead featuring deployments of Fibre to the Node infrastructure in some areas. It it also a possibility that nbn will acquire iiNet’s HFC cable network in the city and extend it, as it is doing with the networks of Telstra and Optus in state capital cities around Australia.
This morning, Minister Turnbull noted on Twitter that he had travelled to the region of Torquay outside Geelong, with local Liberal Member Sarah Henderson — who holds the seat of Corangamite. Torquay is one area of Geelong where Fibre to the Node infrastructure will be used.
However, the Minister’s move attracted immediate controversy on social media, with a substantial number of respondents commenting that the Member for Wentworth had failed to mentioned that he was visiting a FTTN installation in Torquay.
“No mention of FTTN?” wrote one commenter on Twitter. “The public are waking up to your rubbish. I feel sorry for the Torquay residents.” Another added: “Your FTTN won’t fix my buffering. FTTH is the logical NBN network.” And a third added: “Always thought [former Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s] NBN was a good idea. Keep up the good work, Malcolm, and think outside the node.”
The criticism aimed at Minister Turnbull appears to be based on several factors. Firstly, one of the photos posted on Twitter following the visit featured what appears to be an ageing Telstra pit, representing the interconnection point between nbn’s fibre and the Telstra copper network needed to deliver the FTTN version of the NBN.
With @SHendersonMP inspecting the NBN rollout in build preparation in Torquay this morning. pic.twitter.com/t2SdsCkBd9
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) July 29, 2015
An ongoing debate has existed in Australia for many years over whether Telstra’s copper network — often embedded in pits as seen in today’s photo — is fit for purpose in terms of the planned upgrade to Fibre to the Node, with a number of technical commentators alleging the infrastructure has problems with corrosion and water and will not serve Australia’s future telecommunications needs well. Other commentators, including Telstra itself, believe the copper network will be able to meet the needs of the FTTN rollout. FTTN is also being successfully deployed in countries such as the UK, although the copper network there is substantially different from Australia’s network.
In general, the consensus of Australia’s technical community is that only a full FTTP rollout will be able to meet Australia’s telecommunications needs over the very long-term. Some expect the Coalition’s FTTN and HFC network plans with its Multi-Technology Mix NBN rollout schema to be upgraded to full fibre over the very long term.
It appears that the Coalition — including Henderson personally — has faced significant public and political pressure in Geelong over a protracted period to abandon the FTTN plans and maintain Labor’s previous FTTP rollout schema.
Geelong Labor Councillor Rod Macdonald has openly called for the Coalition Government to “ditch the copper” and has been open with his opinion that “a smart, successful Australia must have NBN fibre from east to west”, as his Twitter profile states.
In September, the Geelong Advertiser quoted Macdonald as stating that it was “essential” that the city have a full fibre network. Macdonald was part of a delegation that met with senior NBN Co executives at the time, noting that the city needed support to build new industry following the collapse of the manufacturing industry.
In March Henderson gave a landmark speech in Parliament, among other comments calling for the Coalition’s version of the NBN to be fast-tracked in Geelong, attacking the previous Labor Government’s record of delivering the NBN, and backing the Coalition’s approach.
However, the sitting Liberal MP is also increasingly coming under fire on the issue from Libby Coker, the Labor candidate for Henderson’s seat of Corangamite. Coker issued a media release earlier this month, claiming that Henderson was misleading local residents about the extent of the NBN rollout in the region.
“Fibre to the home is not a “niche” option as Sarah Henderson says, rather it is a core part of the NBN Co’s Corporate Plan 2014-2017, and it is what people want,” Coker said.
The Labor politicians’ efforts also appear to be backed by some degree of local community support for the FTTP model. A Facebook page purporting to be published by a group dubbed ‘Support FIbre to the Premises NBN — Geelong campaigners’ — has attracted more than 1,000 likes, and is actively updated, although it is not clear who is behind the page.
Henderson’s seat could be at risk in the upcoming Federal Election. In 2013, the MP won Corangamite with a majority of 53.9 percent on a two party preferred basis from sitting Labor MP Darren Cheeseman with a 4.2 percent swing. Additionally, the seat has historically generally been in Liberal hands. However, a substantial swing back to Labor or the Greens, which polled at 11.9 percent in 2013, could see Henderson fighting to retain her position in Parliament.
opinion/analysis
Fascinating situation we’re seeing here.
The mainstream media this morning was obsessed with Minister Turnbull’s train ride out to Geelong, and rightly so — the move was obviously aimed at making a political statement about the controversial helicopter flight which Bronwyn Bishop took out to Geelong to attend a Liberal Party fundraiser.
However, there are much deeper issues going on here. It appears that the Coalition’s move to ditch Labor’s FTTP NBN model and take Fibre to the Node into Geelong has angered quite a few local residents. Multiple local Labor politicians have picked up on this mood and are now sticking it to the local sitting Liberal MP Sarah Henderson, who could lose her seat on the basis of this and other issues in the next Federal Election. This is obviously one of the reasons why the Minister went to Geelong this morning.
It is also very clear that Henderson is feeling the pressure on this issue. It appears that the MP specifically used part of a House of Representatives adjournment speech (late at night, after Parliament has finished its formal business) in March to address the issue directly. MPs usually use this type of speech to address key issues in their electorates. Henderson would not have mentioned it if she did not want to show she was delivering for her constituents on this issue.
It also appears the MP has also used other opportunities to raise the issue in Parliament.
However, I can’t help but feel that Turnbull’s attendance may not help the situation. It draws attention to the ongoing broadband problems plaguing Geelong, it draws attention to the local debate, and most of all, it draws attention to the Coalition’s technically inferior FTTN model.
Now, I don’t want to exaggerate the situation — the NBN is not typically viewed as a mainstream political issue, and of course people will decide who they are going to vote for on the basis of many factors during the next election. The NBN will be only one of those factors. And Henderson herself also appears to be quite a decent MP worthy of respect. She is aware of this issue and working to address it.
However, I do want to note, that if this issue is dividing a community like Geelong — if there is this degree of localised discussion, which I wasn’t aware of until I started investigating it — then you can bet this same discussion is also taking place in other communities all around Australia. I’m sure Minister Turnbull and his staff are tracking a good deal of it quite closely, especially in marginal seats. I’d give a pretty penny to know just how worried they are about it.
Image credit: Office of Malcolm Turnbull
Consider the current trial rollout is slower than deploying FTTP and Turnbull claimed it could all be done in 3 years it’s getting harder and harder to defend.
+1
In fact, unless I’m mistaken (clarification?), some two years on, and as you say only one to go, and no one is actually hooked up to NBN FttN as yet…
*shrugs*
yup afaik all the current connections and progress (there has been a trial FttN area or two but ho hum in comparison) is basically the old FttP contracts … well the ones not cancelled or simply shrunk to fit areas that the left over funds can get to.
I’ve got friends living in modbury (ish) areas in SA. Well one of the black spot rollout area’s supposedly. They have been on the map off the map on the map and off. Now HFC is supposedly their saviour with trials due to start sometime after middle of 2016 ….. just hope it doesn’t rain between now and then I guess (won’t be connected before next election that’s for sure).
Indeed, I remember there was much noise before the election saying how quick the FttN rollout would be. Many commentators echoed that on various tech websites including this one. It would be interesting to know what they think of the FttN fiasco now but they seem to have all disappeared… but anyway 520 days to go by my clock: http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?iso=20161231T00&p0=57&msg=Coalition+Clown+25mbit+download+speed+for+%22every+household+and+business%22+in+Australia
:-)
Teflon Turnbull, he’s a slippery as a greased pig but with only 520 days to go he won’t slip out of this one hey Hubert.
Now…
519 days 6 hours and 16 minutes, but who’s counting.
Defending the indefensible seems to be Turnbull’s specialty, he’s certainly not doing anything constructive with the NBN!
Turnbull would do well to just STFU and stay in his office instead of showing his smarmy face in public trying to convince people FTTN is so much better than FTTP. He needs to realise Australians are not idiots and Australians are well aware that he is investing his own money in FTTP rollouts overseas.
Australians who voted these morons are idiots.
“Turnbull would do well to just STFU and stay in his office instead of showing his smarmy face”
Maybe you are not too good at reading facial expressions but that “smarmy face” is one that is mixed with fear, regret and confusion. Don’t let the smile fool you.
It’s hard to tell, but I have a feeling that there might be a groundswell of disquiet building up over the MTM.
The almost complete abandonment of discussion of the subject by Big Media since the election has left a lot of people thinking that everything is on track for a brand new network, when around the corner all we are going to see is a very expensive DSL upgrade with marginal improvements.
People I talk to seem to have expectations of the NBN that FTTN will not fill. I don’t know how or when that disappointment might manifest itself, but I suspect that Turnbull is hoping it doesn’t happen on his watch.
I have long suspected there are two real reasons for the Liberals push for Fibre to the Node.
1. The longer provisioning times allow for Turnbull’s buddies in the telco sector to drain another couple of years out massive profit of their ADSL networks. These networks have long been paid for. They are now creating margin better then what dialup used to create .
2. Bandwidth limitations brought on by the NBN wholesale pricing structures.
The ISP’s can’t afford the bandwidth from the POI’s to their megapops along with having to pay $20 per CVC mbps.
Do the maths for just a 10:1 ratio for 10,000 customers with 100mbps tails.
$20 per mbps for transmission
$20 per CVC mbps
$34k per POI connect
$1500 per rack
$38 (i think) per month per service for the tails.
Imagine they are earning $100 ARPU. They simply can’t make enough money at that contention ratio. In fact NBN connections need to be something like 400 or 800:1 to become profitiable, even when you factor in economies of scale.
This is causing huge issues for current NBN customers who are moaning across WP about heavily congested services.
which leads me to my point. Why would the government purposely price the NBN to the extent that it ruins Fibre to the House connectivity.
I don’t understand it personally but having worked in this sector long enough I know these conniving bastards are doing it firstly to profit themselves (corruptly) and secondly because it serves some sort of political purpose.
You have to remember the initial NBN rollout areas were done expressly for political purposes. All that baloney that they weren’t is exactly that. Crap.
Maybe they want to ruin these fibre connections to spite ALP voters in those areas. Probably.
1984: It is poltical, but your looking way too hard, its the big picture;
– The right (LNP) want availability of services decided by buisness needs.
– The left (ALP+GRN) want availability of services decided by peoples need.
Yet at the same time. SMEs are crying out for more cost effective high bandwidth solutions.
I think you meant to say:
– The right (LNP) want availability of services dictated by delivery (telco/infra) business’s requirements.
People of Geelong – you voted Liberal – you knew that meant FTTN – stop your whining – you should be last in line for FTTP when it eventually replaces FTTN
@Geoff That might be a better claim if it werent for the fact that the majority of Geelong is in the Corio electorate, which has been held by Labor for the last 48 years straight.
Agreed and hurrah. Those particular idiots got what they voted for. THE SYSTEM WORKS.
@ Geoff & Hotcakes
At first I thought, seems a little harsh, but no, you guys are absolutely correct.
Everyone knew (or could/should have known) exactly what the Coalition’s broadband policy was… even though a number of Coalition MP’s all hypocritically openly called for FttP in their own electorates before the election.
In fact it’s a lot fairer for this government to do what they actually said they’d do with the NBN, even though it’s sadly inferior and well completely fucking ludicrous… in comparison to other things they promised (pre-election) but as soon as their bums were snuggly in the governments side of the house, simply reneged or stridently tried to.
Least those cranky Geelongians are getting FTTa (anything).
Poor old northern NSW, stuck with LTE (as much as it’s an improvement over robber baron Telstra 3G wireless, it’s not useful for small biz, video, eHealth, telecommuting etc)
“Geelongians” are not getting Ftt-Anything. There have been zero brownfields rollouts of any of the technologies in the greater Geelong area. All Geelong NBN connectivity is greenfields only.
As soon as Turnbull realised there was an HFC network in Geelong he might be able to slowly negotiate for, everything got pulled. Everything.
What has happened to the ducts the previous Labor Govt bought of Telstra?
They didn’t buy them, they leased access to them, but Malcolm re-negotiated everything…
http://blog.jxeeno.com/poor-nbn-fttnb-design-may-lead-to-decades-of-congestion/
“Poor NBN FTTN/B design may lead to decades of congestion.”
““With a measly 2Gbps backhaul per node you can forget about 4K Netflix. FTTN is going to be no different to the current Telstra RIMs”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/01/the_nbns_speed_limit_making_fttn_play_nice/
“NBN must limit downloads to 12 Mbps downloads until copper handover
‘Transition period’ between ADSL2+ and FTTN to force sensible hand brake.”
Clearly the Liberals were utterly unaware of the pace of progress when it comes to technology and services that run off it. Much like the idiots that didn’t see the popularity of Netflix coming. Seriously?
4k TV is but one highly visible example. Contextual point to point video will revolutionise customer service and on demand services.
No wonder Australia is slipping outside of the top 20 best places to run a startup. Lack of infrastructure is definitely a factor.
“4k TV is but one highly visible example.”
4K is taking off in a big way. It will reach critical mass within the next 3 years. It’s not just 4K TV’s (and monitors) Canon, Nikon and Panasonic all have stills cameras capable of shooting 4K video in addition to digital cinema cameras from Blackmagic and Red (Red actually has an 8K camera on the way). It wont be long before 4K becomes a common feature on webcams too. If you are on FttN you can forget about uploading your 4K footage to YouTube in any respectable time due to the pathetic upload speeds you will be doomed to endure.
I have the latest J B HIFI catalogue, they are advertising twice as many Ultra HD TV than standard HD TVs, not conclusive more money to be made but if you were buying a new TV what would you buy, probably Ultra HD.
Ultra HD = 19
HD =10
I read an article on UHDTV, with the new H265 compression, If I remember right the article was over the licensing and fees that are going to be charged and the new kid on the block making waves.
However it pointed out that the new revolution in video which is being developed is definition as well as resolution, i.e 10 bit rather than 8 bit per pixel, a major impact on compression alogarithms. Will allow detail in darker or more subdued lighting in the picture. That blocky compression will no longer suffice and far greater bandwidth will be needed.
The suggestion in the article was to not rush out and buy a 4K or 8K set, OLED maybe as they have a limited lifespan anyway which is fine for Tablets and Smart Phones as not many survive past 4 or 5 years before the next upgrade
As a Geelong resident, Henderson – (my local member) – is really irritating on this issue.
Before the change of government, 65% of Geelong was on the FTTP rollout plan, almost all of which was due to commence work within a few months.
Come the change of government, Geelong completely disappeared off of the rollout maps, and listed as “check back soon”.
Henderson spouts in the local media that she wants the NBN for Geelong as soon as possible – (note Torquay isn’t Geelong) – and that it is desperately needed, that it’s a shame that the previous government couldn’t see fit to bring the NBN to Geelong, and promises to “push” Turnbull for rollout dates.
However, when you point out that so much of Geelong was on the previous rollout schedule, and that if she’s serious that she should ask Malcolm why he took Geelong off the schedule, she very quickly changes the subject to speak of how much of the surrounding area is enjoying wireless NBN coverage.
Like much of the debate from her side of politics, the message is massaged to suit the question.
I think nbn the company should be investigated by the ACCC for misleading advertising. They are misleading everyone with their ads claiming the FTTN/HFC NBN will actually be world changing. I could understand if we were getting a FTTP NBN but those ads are just ridiculous.
Turnbull is standing in front of an asbestos pit that ;would have been replaced by Telstra in a FTTP rollout. Now NBN would have to pay to replace it as part of Telstra FTTN deal so dangerous asbestos left to rot.
Are there any other significant drivers behind the NBN uproar than access to entertainment? Almost all the discussion around the NBN appears to centre around our human right to access entertainment, in HD, and lots more of it in the future and how we’re being left behind by other countries more advanced entertainment infrastructure.
Am I the only one wondering if our national goals should, and can, extend beyond “entertainment”?
Sure there are fringe cases around education or doctors or whatever, but almost all discussion on the NBN seems to concern entertainment. And what horrors will befall this nation if we don’t roll out more entertainment, immediately.
Apparently acessing Netflix is our critical national priority for the NBN and in general?
Hmm…. thinking to the future, do I feel scared now..
“Are there any other significant drivers behind the NBN uproar than access to entertainment?”
You know Ian just because the coalition clowns tried to sell you the original NBN as a “video entertainment system” doesn’t mean you have to believe it. That was the line they used to show what a waste FttP was yet now they themselves use the number of HD videos you can stream as a measure of how “good” one of their FttN patchwork connections will be. I’ve always said it sheer stupidity to use video examples to measure bandwidth, that applies to FttN and FttP, but here we are regardless.
Your straw man comments however are even more ridiculous though, because the Internet has always and always will be used for a multitude of things. Just because one of those things is more video doesn’t make it invalid. What people do with their internet connections is irrelevant, if they pay a monthly fee to their ISP that is the only driver you need to consider.
+1
That’s fine, if they pay for full profitable cost. However I’m not sure it’s the states responsibility (and by extension me and all other tax paying citizens) to ensure full and broad access to Netflix. Just saying… There must be other drivers to justify the public expense and focus, surely..
Oh is this the old “I’m not paying for other people’s entertainment” chestnut.
Right. So why did we ever start Broadcasting TV? Why did we ever set up phone lines for communication?
The Entertainment industries are simply the most obvious examples, that affect the largest populations.
Music, Movies, TV, Gaming, all multi billion dollar industries. Of which Australia certainly has its place. (Would be a bigger place if successive government supported our local industries better).
There are other industries as well. As a way to reduce costs, the company I work for uses Video Conferencing facilities regularly to reduce flights. I have seen technology where we have had a Mine model being examined in a 3d environment spread across three Countries (Australia, USA and Indonesia). This was realtime.
We also have the benefits of generally faster connections, with business. Why host locally onsite when you can get as fast a speed hosted in a data centre?
AND that doesn’t take into account the potential for other areas. With a solid baseline companies can build to that standard. So they can build products that make use of the available bandwidth, providing either “fuller” experiences or “faster” experiences, or if the pipe is big enough both.
The point is, the current MTM model, is going to cost as much (if not more) than the FTTP model. And we are getting a worse system.
All very valid and interesting points Woolfe!
However..
Re: Broadcast – the commercial channels paid their own way AFAIK. The public stations were set up with a specific community based charter, and have fullfilled them well. And even SBS has part private funding. And they use the air, not physically laid to each Australian house fibre. The air was pre-existing and cost nothing to build (in fact it’s been revenue positive as a very significant little earner for the government, the infamous Air Tax!)
Re: Phone lines – are inarguably an economic and social benefit because communications boosts GDP and improves social relations. Voice lines are a very different scale of bandwidth and infrastructure requirement though. That being said the Economist Magazine observes a very signifcant GDP jump with the introduction of voice communications, and a smaller jump again with the Internet, and to broadband again. In other words, no revolution is as signifcant as the first, very low bandwidth, and cheap, voice call. So good example, of a much more significant, and cheaper, revolution.
Re: Conferencing – yes I see significant economic and social benefits from this. Do we need FTTH rather than FTTN to every house in Australia to get decent video conferencing though? Wouldn’t places of business need it more?
I am lucky enough to get 15MBIt/s currently and I can say it’s *very* adequate. I may not be able to get 4K streaming, but quite frankly, I have other visions in mind for how to spend my life and our ever more pressured taxation revenue. I can think of almost anything that warrants spending priority over 4K, 10K, 20K or whatever future NetFlix we fear being denied to us.
Re: Current model. OK it may cost more in the long run. So how about we look for private investors and partners to part if not fully fund it? Or have we tried that before with core infrastructure and hasn’t worked too well? If that’s the case then I am more than happy to pay less tax (or support other government services) instead and forego access to 4K NetFlix for now. I’d rather see a kid get in to see a doctor a littler earlier than my neighbour get 4K NetFlix.
Yeah I know, call me cruel and inhuman lol.
As for congestion, well, line speeds and quotas can address that. Those who want 20K NetFlix or whatever, can happily pay for the extra infrastructure needed to serve them?
Then there’s VSDL2 which (with a good <500M copper connection) can perform extremely well anyway.
I see your points, and they are valid. However it's just a personal view that we should not limit our national vision to current and future entertainment needs. Surely Australia is destined for more.
“Then there’s VSDL2 which (with a good <500M copper connection) can perform extremely well anyway"
But why spend money on it? Nearly every estimate of bandwidth growth shows it's obsolete by the time it's rolled out. Why not spend the little bit more to rollout something that has a much longer useful life?
There are two solutions, rollout something with a useful life, or do as Turnbull did, pay for a report that predicts lower growth by orders of magnitude than any other prediction. It doesn't make FTTN any better, just protects his arse when the shit hits the fan about the massive cost to rollout something to replace the shit he is rolling out.
Hi Ian,
Thanks for your nostalgic input.
It’s like revisiting Delimiter a few years back when a number of former FttP naysayers (where are they now) had all the (wrong) answers too.
“Phone lines are inarguably an economic and social benefit because communications boosts GDP”
Wow you can see that phones lines boost GDP, but not see the obvious correlation to internet, which is phone lines and so much more? Really?
“Do we need FTTH rather than FTTN to every house in Australia to get decent video conferencing though?”
Let me ask a simple question still unanswered after I have asked it many times, to many sound-a-likes. Why do you think (accept?) that FttN (yes the same FttN the government supporting it now, previously referred to as fraudband) is quite ok to roll out, but FttP is not ok to roll out?
Cheers.
The other thing people like him like to avoid is most of the examples Malcolm used to justify switching to FTTN are currently switching over to FTTP (not just most of the US companies, even BT/Openreach).
+1
Yes the previous poster boys for FttN have seen it a waste of time and really, no quicker or cheaper. Just like we are seeing here. And in most scenarios (if not all) the ones rolling out FttN elsewhere are the incumbents/owners of the copper, who are simply trying to squeeze the last drops of profitability from an obsolete source, not upgrading for the future per se`.
But sadly, our government even after 2 years of nothingness in relation to FttN, will never be able to bite the bullet as these others have abroad, because a major part of the Abbott opposition, now government politics, involves “always” portraying their opponents as complete mismanaging, wasteful, no hopers, who never have and never will have, a good idea. Unlike the “adults” who are correct 100% of the time.
For example when the previous mob were in charge and interest rates went up = an economy out of control because of a wasteful mismanaging government, said Joe. When they went down = an economy choking and in need of stimulus, because of a wasteful mismanaging government, said Joe.
With such a mantra, they simply can’t now admit that the FttP NBN was/is the best option after all.
Unless of course their leadership changes… they then may possibly have some room for movement.
How do you propose to differentiate between businesses and private homes? Sure, if you run FTTN to most of the country, you could let businesses and rich folk order FTTP. But there are two problems with this argument – 1) NBN (Co) have been silent on FTTP ‘to order’ and 2) it ignores the tremendous inefficiencies of mixed rollouts. You see, you get economies of scale through doing the same thing over and over in large numbers. A leaked internal report showed FTTP could be delivered for close to $1k per premises, on average, due to increasing efficiencies as NBN Co were improving deployment techniques through ongoing experience. That isn’t possible now.
So the real question isn’t ‘what current usage model do we have that requires FTTP today’, it is why should we spend more on a vastly inferior product? FTTP would have cost less than FTTN just on raw cost, but when you consider the profitability scenarios, FTTN is a black hole of debt, where FTTP was financially profitable (and thus able to repay the debt).
So if you want to talk about costs and footing the bill, why should tax payers be encumbered by a highly inferior network that is barely an improvement over ADSL, when they could have had FTTP in less time at zero cost to the budget?
+1
+10
I give you the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932.The height of the Depression when hardly anyone had cars. And the Sydney M2 road widening. And the rules preventing enhancements to public transport in competition with said M2. I give you the Sydney Opera House in 1956—who saw Jumbos and the explosion of tourism? It’s called foresight.
Richard, may I also add the cooper phone line network – PSTN.
Which, as an irony within an irony, if the governments of the day had been as blinkered and devoid of foresight like the one we have now… we wouldn’t even have the very copper they now require, for their fraudband/FttN.
“So how about we look for private investors and partners to part if not fully fund it?”
This is EXACTLY what was being done. The FTTP NBN was designed around investment funding of 4%. With an assumed 7% ROI earnings from the NBN they would have been able to cover the investment. IE no tax payer dollars.
Now however because of the hodgepodge of the new NBN. The ROI is going to be much harder to meet (which means tax dollars may be needed to pay off the investment debt) in addition a lot of the standardisation benefits have been lost. Which means business no longer has a level playing field to target.
As to all your comments on specific things.
Broadcast – This is still paid for by private industry. If you want to broadcast to the internet you pay your provider based on the traffic you are getting.
Phone lines – The copper lines are aging and end of life tech. Fibre can replace them giving us the old functionality plus extra.
Conferencing – So. Being that the cost to run FTTN infrastructure and the cost to run FTTP infrastructure were comparable. Do you choose to build a system that allows conferencing at your current performance, or for the same cost of putting in infrastructure for a much greater performance, and indeed is relatively future proof for the next 50 years?
“I see your points, and they are valid. However it’s just a personal view that we should not limit our national vision to current and future entertainment needs. Surely Australia is destined for more.”
Ah see I would agree with this. Except it is complete rubbish. We are not in fact “limiting” ourselves to the current and future entertainment needs. They are just the most obvious beneficiaries. You get them PLUS the benefits of a high speed network, that would allow growth, specifically NOT limiting us to any specific need.
Interesting… so the FTTN roll out will erode the ROI and may in fact increase costs?
I’m not suggesting that the NBN is limited to entertainment. Just that I find it curious that almost all discussion seems to centre around entertainment access. Perhaps this is more of a social observation. I just hope that the collective Australian vision extends well beyond entertainment. I confess to a level of cynicism around entertainment as we are increasingly awash in entertainment options and it now appears to consume a large part of Australian society. I just hope we will strive for more as a nation, that’s all :-)
@ Ian.
Contrary to you assurances of not suggesting that the NBN is limited to entertainment… err, that’s exactly what you were suggesting multiple times, above…
“Am I the only one wondering if our national goals should, and can, extend beyond entertainment”?”
“There must be other drivers to justify the public expense and focus, surely..”
“If that’s the case then I am more than happy to pay less tax (or support other government services) instead and forego access to 4K NetFlix for now. I’d rather see a kid get in to see a doctor a littler earlier than my neighbour get 4K NetFlix.”
“As for congestion, well, line speeds and quotas can address that. Those who want 20K NetFlix or whatever, can happily pay for the extra infrastructure needed to serve them”
But I can understand you now wanting to distance yourself from such insular comments.
@Ian
So are you suggesting that no other business goes on online at the moment? Are you suggesting that all those companies, Homes, Retailers, Small business, schools, not for profits, charity, social clubs etc don’t currently use the internet. Further are you suggesting that there would be no benefit to them at all from a boost to their base speeds, potentially at no extra cost. Or are you suggesting that new technologies/uses won’t come of having the extra available?
I get what you are saying about entertainment, but as I and others keep saying, it is simply the most obvious in your face benefit that is in our faces at the moment (with Netflix and other similar services). This doesn’t mean it will be the only benefit.
I visited my accountant a week ago to do my tax as one does at this time of year – as he knows my profession he was having a grumble to me about all the “young accountants” talking his small-medium business business customers into migrating from MYOB on-site versions into the cloud. He said the main driver for this push is sheer laziness on the part of the accountants who dont want to perform sites visits for support.
The big issue with all of this is the customers simply dont have access to adequate broadband – he mentioned that one of his customers upgraded to symmetrical bonded DSL and still only got 6/6mbps and his 100GB MYOB migration to the cloud took out his accounting system for a full day as the migration was bottlenecked by his net connection. Even after the migration he now gets regular complaints that the cloud version of MYOB is slow and frustrating to use compared to his old self hosted version. The part that blew my mind was the $1,000 per month it was costing his customer!
These are are Melbourne metro businesses too, so we arent talking small country towns running on satellite services!
The Libs killing the real FTTP NBN are doing massive damage to our economy but are just too stupid to see it. I hear about the lack of adequate comms services to business on a daily basis, It boggles my mind that we now are wasting so much money on infrastructure which is no longer fit for purpose in even the short term!
to start with you need the bandwidth for ALL so that everyone is on a even playing field not a case of the (haves and have nots) that we have at current i for 1 am a member of the facebook group “Support FIbre to the Premises NBN — Geelong campaigners” and my biggest concern of not having it is a inequality for future generations both on education, communication, health and jobs because they are all affected by this little piece of glass strands and as i have very publically stated if the public can’t trust the elected government rep to do the job of rolling out a network that a great majority want do what they have done in the rural north of the uk and get the community to design and build a community based fibre to the premises/home network owned by the people for the people
All very valid and interesting points!
However..
Re: Broadcast – the commercial channels paid their own way AFAIK. The public stations were set up with a specific community based charter, and have fullfilled them well. And even SBS has part private funding.
Phone lines are inarguably an economic and social benefit because communications boosts GDP and improves social relations. Voice lines are a very different scale of bandwidth and infrastructure requirement though.
Re: Conferencing – yes I see significant economic and social benefits from this. Do we need FTTH rather than FTTN to every house in Australia to get decen video conferencing though?
I am lucky enough to get 15MBIt/s currently and I can say it’s *very* adequate. I may not be able to get 4K streaming, but quite frankly, I have other visions in mind for how to spend our ever more pressured taxation revenue. Like say, hospitals or something. Heck, I can think of almost anything that warrants spending priority over 4K, 10K, 20K or whatever future NetFlix we fear being denied to us.
Re: Current model. OK it may cost more in the long run. So how about we look for private investors and partners to part if not fully fund it? Or have we tried that before with core infrastructure and hasn’t worked too well? If that’s the case then I am more than happy to pay less tax (or get other government services instead) and forego access to 4K NetFlix for now.
As for congestion, well, line speeds and quotas can address that. Those who want 20K NetFlix or whatever, can happily pay for the extra infrastructure needed to serve them?
Then there’s VSDL2 which (with a good <500M copper connection) can perform extremely well anyway.
I see your points, and they are valid. However it's just a personal view that we should not limit our national vision to current and future entertainment needs. Surely Australia is destined for more.
That’s all very well Ian, however hospitals etc aren’t paid for from bond sales, they are paid for from general taxation revenue.
The NBN is paid for by selling government bonds, huge difference and as a result does not reduce money for Hospital funding.
Idiots like hockey and Abbott defunded hospitals and schools to the tune of 80 billion because they don’t have the balls to stop their big biz mates from paying zero taxes!
From looking at the photo of Malcolm near the pit an internet meme has come to life. He really is running a piece of string between tin cans!
By some people’s thinking , it’s a wonder we got past the stone age.
Hughie
It’s certainly interesting…all these little problems currently popping up with the MTM.
I seem to remember Malcolm promising areas where the copper wasn’t up to scratch, NBN would replace it all with fibre (Like Bribie Island – http://www.caboolturenews.com.au/news/Will-Bribies-copper-cable-be-abl-to-handle-nbn/2429185/), but I heard recently they are actually pulling new copper to replace a lot of the network up there.
I got over their spin a few years back….now I’m just sickened by the waste of money Malcolm’s “cheaper/faster/sooner” option is inflicting on the taxpayer, and how far it’ll put us behind the rest of the world…
Hi tin man
Yes its a dam disgrace the waste of time and money.I am an old man now but i can remember my father who worked for the then PMG in scotland uk in the mid 1960 attending a meeting in Edinburgh to talk about this new stuff called glass fiber and how it would revolutionise the communications between Glasgow,Edinburgh,London and would save millions in maintenance.
But as in our Australia i think they are still dithering around. MTM well what dose he really care what goes down?,after all it is only tax payers money and there is plenty more where that came from and at the end of the day they all go home with a few million in the bank and leave a load of crap as a communication system behind and think they are just wonderful.
At this moment in time I can not think of any body worth a cracker
I fear for my country.
Could you have said “technically inferior” many more times? Inferior in terms of bandwidth delivery maybe, technically inferior? no not even a by a long shot.
FTTN / HFC are inferior by every measure, bandwidth, OpEx, ROI (short, medium & long term), reliability and so on it goes.
Why else have Verizon and now Comcast committed to abandon their legacy 20th century era copper networks and replace them with FTTP?
Because economy of scale in a nation of over 300 million people, is different to economy of scale / density in a similarly sized nation of barely 24 million people? Also we may need to consider the economic distortions where almost all our investment capital appears to flow to residential housing – not business or infrastructure – which is either left up to foreign investors – or the government – to plug the gap. The USA has a much stronger culture of investment risk taking (i.e. competition) than Australia. So our geography combined with our long aversion to investing in almost anything except housing may challenge direct comparisons with markets such as Europe, USA, Asia etc. Additionally as few seems to realise, no one will pay to connect to Australia. We must pay to connect to everywhere else, slung along a small handful of undersea cables (I believe, under 5). Persistent comparisons with more favourably located, densely populated and less risk countries are counterproductive.
Shoudl we instead focus on how to overcome our unique challenges in an economically efficient manner?
10 million premises to pass is not lacking in the economies of scale dept. Much much smaller nations (including many 3rd world nations) are proceeding with FTTP rollout’s of their own – perhaps you should brush up on your research skills?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_country
Pretty well every country in the world is rolling out fibre in some way:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_country
Much like the ETS, were the only ones that have gone backwards on things like this…
Fair enough and I stand corrected on a number of points (thank you for pointing this out). However it would be interesting to see density like for like comparisons, or some sort of density ‘normalised’ comparisons. Considering that Australian cities and population are famously sparse or spread out.
Actually, our cities aren’t that spread out, our urban areas are very comparable to the USA, just look at how our population are mostly located down the east coast of Australia. This is why Labor said 7% of the population would need to be on satellite.
It’s only when you take our very hollow centre in to account that the population density looks a lot worse and makes Malcolm’s scenarios seem reasonable.
Our Lieberal politicians (and Rupert’s press) rely on this fact to make the Labor NBN “undo-able”….
Geography is not actual the impediment you make it out to be.
We are a heavily urbanised society. Greater than the US in fact. So yes economies of scale come into play, but they actually benefit us by doing it enmasse in one big project rather than this mess that the MTM is.
Indeed we are heavily urbanised, but dense? Our relative market size compared to the USA etc is not only smaller, we are more spread out (less dense IIRC) and also that we are located in the middle of a vast southern ocean. Meaning that few if any players will ever pay to connect to Australia, whereas Australia is happy to pay to connect to other links via our submarine cables (IIRC).
One thing that I also find interesting is the impact increased demand will have on our few submarine cables, and how much data will be sourced locally. Will we have to lay more (at Australian or private investor expense, charged back to us) or is current submarine capacity sufficient for a long time yet?
Replying to me as I can’t to Ian’s.
Density and Urbanisation are completely different factors. We are not a dense nation. Our Population per square kilometre is very low. However that is a statistic that fails to take into account urbanisation. Urbanisation shows that whilst we have a much smaller overall population density, the majority of that population is in fact located in several heavily urbanised locations.
Hence on a major city by city level we are comparable to the US. Where we have issues is as you state in the backbone department. The links between cities and then from here to the rest of the world, are indeed going to be a greater cost than the equivalent in the US.
As I understand it, a lot of that work has already been done, and in fact the FTTN NBN is profiting from the outlay that occurred for the FTTP NBN, in which they upgraded the backbones. I could be wrong there however. If anyone can answer that accurately it would be good to know.
That is simply a supply and demand issue.
We’re actually pretty well serviced with submarine cables Ian (http://www.submarinecablemap.com/).
We could always use more though. More is usually better :)
Because economy of scale in a nation of over 300 million people, is different to economy of scale / density in a similarly sized nation of barely 24 million people? Also we may need to consider the economic distortions where almost all our investment capital appears to flow to residential housing – not business or infrastructure – which is either left up to foreign investors – or the government – to plug the gap. The USA has a much stronger culture of investment risk taking (i.e. competition) than Australia. So our geography combined with our long aversion to investing in almost anything except housing may challenge direct comparisons with markets such as Europe, USA, Asia etc. Additionally as few seems to realise, no one will pay to connect to Australia. We must pay to connect to everywhere else, slung along a small handful of undersea cables (I believe, under 5). Persistent comparisons with more favourably located, densely populated and less risk countries are counterproductive.
We need instead to focus on how to overcome our unique challenges in an economically efficient manner.
http://www.submarinecablemap.com/
A lot of those links aren’t even fully utilised, so off-shore bandwidth isn’t really an issue.
ok guys this is the facebook page that is in question in the article if you did not know
https://www.facebook.com/savethenbngeelong
All Australia should have access to this upgrade (i.e. not Malcolm’s sideways/downgrade BS). Change the Facebook page to Australia and I’d be happy to like/up vote it…
well i will contact the admin and ask if it possible to change the name but i ask EVERYONE HERE to do one thing add a +1 to comment if you would join the page if the name was changed if you were not already a member
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