NBN says customers just as happy with FTTN or FTTP

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news The NBN company today stated that customers using its Fibre to the Node service were just as satisfied with their broadband service as those using Fibre to the Premises services, on the basis of the industry standard Net Promoter Score rating.

The original version of the NBN as envisioned by the previous Labor Government called for most Australian premises to be covered by a full Fibre to the Premises rollout, with the remainder to be covered by satellite and fixed wireless technology.

The Coalition’s controversial Multi-Technology Mix instituted by Malcolm Turnbull as Communications Minister has seen the company switch to a model re-using and upgrading the legacy copper and HFC cable networks owned by Telstra and Optus.

However, despite the fact that Labor’s original FTTP model for the NBN provides an objectively technically superior service, today the NBN company went to substantial effort to inform the public that its statistics showed that end user customers considered that they were equally satisfied by each technology platform.

This morning the Financial Review and Australian newspapers published information sent exclusively to them yesterday by the NBN company relating to the company’s latest statistics on its ‘Net Promoter Score’, an industry standard used by the telco sector to determine customer satisfaction.

In the articles — and in a follow-up media release and financial results briefing this morning — the NBN company stated clearly that “User Satisfaction for FTTP and FTTN” was “at the same level”, with “both scoring 7.7 out of 10 for use of the service”.

“The positive experience of connected end-users continues to build advocacy for services over the NBN network, with advocacy rates above 70 per cent for all products including the recently launched FTTN technology,” the NBN company said.

“Although it’s early stages for the latest inclusion to the Multi-Technology Mix, research to date shows the same high percentage of FTTN connected end-users are likely to recommend the NBN network as those with an FTTP connections (both 70 per cent).”

“In the same initial research findings, the experience of FTTN connected homes and FTTP connected homes are the same high levels of satisfaction, with both groups scoring at 7.7 of out 10 for use of the technology. Fixed Wireless customers score their service even higher, at 8.1 out of 10.”

The NBN company’s Net Promoter Score is now +31, an increase of four points from +27 at 30 June 2015. At the same time, the experience of NBN customers, the retail service providers, is improving, with customer engagement trending upwards at the most recent survey.

Results
The news comes as the NBN company in general continues to make strong strides in deploying its network — both the original FTTP network envisioned by Labor as well as the Multi-Technology Mix approach favoured by the Coalition.

This morning the company revealed the number of premises that could order an NBN service had reached nearly 1.7 million, with the company adding 450,000 homes and businesses to its footprint in the six months to the end of December. The company now has some 736,000 premises who are using its services, and is adding on more than 10,000 live customers per week.

The NBN company is particularly ramping up the speed of its Fibre to the Node rollout. It currently has some 120,000 premises being ready for service using FTTN or Fibre to the Basement connections, and the NBN company has a further 600,000 FTTN/B premises under development, and a further 1.29 million in design and preparation. The company says it is on track to meet its full year ready for service footprint target of 500,000 FTTN premises.

The company said: “The accelerated results for NBN in deploying FTTN is becoming evident, with approximately 34,000 premises being added to the footprint in January 2016, at a rate of 8,000 per week (12-week rolling average).”

The network growth has come with corresponding financial growth, with the NBN company having grown its revenue by 152 percent to $164 million compared with the same period 12 months earlier. The NBN company is pulling in average revenue per user (ARPU) of about $43 per month.

NBN CEO, Bill Morrow, said: “Today’s result solidifies 2015 as a year where we met or exceeded every target the Board set for the company, and is a clear signal we will reach our fiscal year goals.”

“There is accelerated growth across all areas of the network, while important milestones are continually achieved with customers, industry partners and the NBN workforce. The organisation is focused on delivering our full year commitments and on bringing the benefits of fast broadband to more and more communities across Australia.”

“We are now seeing the early signs of the network being built at scale, with the construction of Fibre-to-the-Node rapidly extending the footprint to homes and businesses.  We are also encouraged by the end-user demand in our initial launch areas.”

Opinion and analysis to follow.

Image credit: NBN company

228 COMMENTS

  1. This is like those times when companies shrink their product, offering less chocolate or less beer for the same price. Then they say they did it because their market testing showed that the customers wanted it.

    If it could actually be demonstrated that people are equally satisfied (and I don’t believe it can) then this would simply point to a huge snow job and massive efforts to keep people ignorant – the successful selling of the proverbial turd. That might mean plaudits for the marketing team, but it is terrible for Australia – and anyone who was proud of those results would be a pretty twisted person.

    • Satisfaction has a time component like buyers remorse. If you had been on a 4mb/s ADSL service and you now have a 12mb/s nbn fttn service then you are going to be pretty satisfied. In 18 months it might scale up to 25mbps – woohoo! It is not until you start exploring new opportunities that you realise what has been done. For many people, empty nester near retiree, this point of realisation will never come. For the young, innovative and ambitious the fttn is the least of the countries problems and emigration to a forward thinking nation is the only option. For those in the middle this point of realisation will probably come in 5-10 years when the mtm no longer scales and the country is forced to start again. By then the nbn will be sold and politicians will point fingers at the telco sector decrying their lack of foresight and investment.

  2. “The original version of the NBN as envisioned by the previous Labor Government called for most Australian premises to be covered by a full Fibre to the Premises rollout, with the remainder to be covered by satellite and fixed wireless technology.”

    This is getting repetitive and tiresome.

    This same paragraph is repeated in nearly every article, as though Delimiter is advocating for a political policy rather than reporting on facts, the same thing the ABC is in trouble for at the moment.

    Is this site the Labor Party Daily?

    “Delimiter. Just Australia. Just Technology” – you can append that with “Just Labor”.

    • He seems to be repeat it where appropriate. Since the survey compares satisfaction with FTTN vs FTTH it is entirely appropriate. It is also completely factual. Just because a fact doesn’t fit with your ideology doesn’t make it political.

    • Aaricus … it’s actually quite simple.

      From an engineering perspective … FTTP has always been better. That’s not political … that’s just technical and scientific common sense.

      Historically, Renai has never doubted this technical superiority (not that I need to speak for him), but just because a political party happened across a better technical solution than another doesn’t mean that the lesser solution can be considered just as good as the superior.

      No amount of spin from the honchos at nbn these days, or any politician can rewrite this. It’s amusing to see them try (and cynically amusing at how the majority of the public tries to make it fit their own political ideals). The MTM, by it’s very nature of adding more technical complexity (i.e. more ingredients to the soup) to the NBN, is a lesser solution.

    • The truth is out there: FTTP is superior than FTTN.
      As a taxpayer, I hate the fact that the government misuse tax money for shitty project like MTM.

      • I wonder if there has been any surveys done of those who have moved from Fibre to the home to fibre to the node or other technology. I wonder if they are also as satisfied.

    • @ aaricus

      The same question should be asked as to why anyone, anywhere would support a lesser product for the same access price?

      Here are the only rational options…

      a) Personal greed
      b) Dumb blind politics
      c) Immense stupidity
      d) All of the above

      • FTTN is a good intermediate step for an owner of a copper telephone network on the way to FTTH.

        FTTN is a terrible idea when an entity buys an aged copper network.

        • FTTN is a terrible idea when an entity buys an aged copper network.

          Not when the ‘entity’ gets it for the same price the Labor ‘entity’ were going to pay for not getting it.

          • Actually Telstra in reality get a minimum of 2 billion dollars more over 10 years as that’s how much they budgeted to repair the pits and ducts which NBN now have to pay to fix despite leasing them from Telstra!

            And don’t ask me for proof, I’ve previously shown you the article in the AFR confirming this.

          • They didn’t get it for the same price now did they. Any cost that Telstra was labor now is a cost to NBN lol

          • And don’t ask me for proof, I’ve previously shown you the article in the AFR confirming this.

            Show me again, I missed it.

            BTW if you are going to post as Jason K and Derek O at least leave a bigger gap than 1 min.

          • How convenient for you Alain, go find it yourself LibTroll, a simple Google search will find it in seconds… Unless you are clueless as you seem to be!

            P.S. Again showing how clueless you are, users posting with the format: first name + last initial are paid subscribers.

          • Im only reposting it because I misremembered which publisher it was from, it was the UnOz not the AFR.

            In the first detailed look at the financial implications that could impact Telstra because of asbestos safety breaches, Citigroup analysts said that while Telstra had budgeted about $2bn over 10 years for remediation work, this could rise because it was “very likely” that government intervention would lead to stricter procedures.

            http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/telstra-reviews-pay-rates-for-work-on-nbn/story-e6frgaif-1226658167954

          • So where does it say the NBN Co will pay Telstra the $2B Telstra had budgeted over 10 yrs for remediation work?

            Because that’s what you said.

            Actually Telstra in reality get a minimum of 2 billion dollars more over 10 years as that’s how much they budgeted to repair the pits and ducts which NBN now have to pay to fix

            I cannot read the link it is subscriber content.

          • No Reality Telstra gets to save $2B plus as they where responsible for the remediation so far the $11B plus cost of the remediation which is now a cost of NBN plus what ever else is cic in the deal

          • I don’t know where Derek is but the better one is where has your brain gone lol. But then you have been missing it for awhile when you claimed Turnbull pre election policy included HFC lol

          • Lol, to provide rationale or to not provide rationale: that is the question the un-free-market party fascistically chooses to turn it’s nose up at!

          • Alain, I’m sick of your b.s., You are a dishonest liberal troll, feel free to fk off some place else, I’m not going waste a single more moment on you.

          • Actually, if it was going to cost Telstra $2bn, then taking that cost away would be a $2bn incentive. However, it’s not just ‘going away’ – the problem is still there, but NBN Co are paying for it. Who are they paying to fix it? Telstra. So it used to be a liability for Telstra. That has become NBN Co’s liability, but a source of income for Telstra – it’s not like they’re going to do the work for free, is it? They’ll mark it up. So it’s actually a $4bn net improvement – a $2bn liability wiped out, and a $2bn income stream. Not bad for ‘not a cent more’, huh?

            Oh, and what about NBN’s contractual obligation to continue to operate HFC for as long as Foxtel need it? What is that going to cost? Not a cent more indeed. That’s not just disingenuous, that’s just flat out lying.

          • The link that was posted was headed : In the first detailed look at the financial implications that could impact Telstra

            Which Telstra had allowed for $2B over 10 years in their budget.

            It is not a analysis of the financial implications that could impact the NBN Co.

    • It is kind of valid to have that information in an article that is specifically talk about the differences of the original product vs the modified product.

      But forgetting that it’s also just plain valid. Just as the MTM is a mix of Sat, Wireless, HFC, FTTN and FTTP.

      Also you clearly weren’t here when Renai was defending Turnbull and the FTTN as not being that bad. (Something he apologised for after the evidence became clear that Turnbull really did screw us over) I even agreed with a fair number of his assessments, albeit disagreeing overall.

    • “Delimiter. Just Australia. Just Technology” – you can append that with “Just Labor”.

      Actually Renai is a known Greens sympathiser — even worked as a shill directly with Scott Ludlam. It’s shockingly partisan and I can’t even believe he is allowed to be a journalist.

      Shame!

    • If you’re looking at this from the point that he repeats things, bear in mind that not everyone reading these stories are repeat visitors. There are more than enough people picking up these details for the first time that they deserve repeating in every article.

      I dont recall people complaining when every article was referencing the quicker rollout of the MTM option, which did happen prior to the 2013 election.

      Dont let your ideology get in the way of the fact that there ARE benefits to the FttP build, and that build IS part of the MSM plan.

      • “not everyone reading these stories are repeat visitors”

        That’s why usually every second and third paragraph in a Delimiter article is background and context. Because there is a huge amount of background and history in this industry which needs to form part of the groundwork of reporting.

        I encourage those who think this is common knowledge to get into a taxi and talk to the driver about the NBN. You’ll be shocked how little they know — and taxi drivers are usually quite knowledgable.

        • “and taxi drivers are usually quite knowledgeable.” except on knowing where the address you are trying to get to is :)

          • Taxi drivers are also suckers for a good rumor. I started one, completely false about a decade ago that made it all the way to major talkback radio, with the rumor being “from a reliable source”. Uh huh, that reliable source being my wonderful imagination and a hint of truth.

            Rumor was about an NRL coach getting the sack (didnt start the year too well) and being replaced. The bait was that an NRL official was visiting his son in England, unofficially to talk to him about replacing the coach. The NRL official had history with the club the ‘replacable’ coach was heading.

            Reality was the coach in England had just become a dad, and the NRL official was visiting as a doting granddad.

            There was just so much about it that felt true though, the cabbies and station staff in the area went nuts spreading it.

            I’m sure NRL fans can think back about who the coach was. Irony was that the son ended up coming back to Australia anyway, and was a assistant coach elsewhere.

            Tried to get the rumor going that he was there just in case, as the coach started winning games, but that rumor didnt work so well.

        • “I encourage those who think this is common knowledge to get into a taxi and talk to the driver about the NBN.”

          Which is probably why FTTN is receiving broad approval (believing NBNco’s figures at face value, which might be a bit of a stretch, I don’t doubt there will be some independent polling at some point).

          This is the same problem that the ALP had in leveraging their NBN policy in to actual results at the election. It just isn’t that big a deal for most people.

          Raise the GST, cut child care, change industrial relations, the nation will lose it’s mind.

          Rollout broadband, a few dedicated people will take note and the rest will ignore it. (few = less than 5% of the electorate based on previous crowdfunds/protests etc)

          All the end user knows is that they had a slower connection and now they have a faster connection. Win, right?

          Whirlpool and the rusted on Delimiter readers need to wake up to the fact that the nation doesn’t share their enthusiasm for this topic. Most people regard ICT as a form of witchcraft best avoided. If someone is not interested in a topic, they’re hardly to stay in touch enough on the issue to know that they are being shortchanged.

          • Lol Org
            “had a slower connection and now they have a faster connection. Win, right?”. Not from some comments in bundy when during peak time it’s slower than there ADSL connection lol

            But when they do realise what this mess has done there was a completion target of 2016 wasn’t there and cost wasn’t it only going to be $29B it will be already 2 late to fix.

    • This same paragraph is repeated in nearly every article, as though Delimiter is advocating for a political policy rather than reporting on facts

      The statement he made IS factual.

      “Delimiter. Just Australia. Just Technology” – you can append that with “Just Labor”.

      No. You cant do that. Current policy being rolled out is coalition clown policy. Renai would not be accurately reporting facts about the unmitigated disaster currently in motion if he attributed what is happening with the patchwork policy to Labor.

    • “This same paragraph is repeated in nearly every article, as though Delimiter is advocating for a political policy rather than reporting on facts”
      WTF is wrong with that statement of fact? It’s a neat, small paragraph of information that summed up the policy held for 4 or so years.

  3. “It would also be argued by advocates of FTTP that its benefits over FTTN will not become apparent until more customers are using individual nodes and slowing them down, or until new applications render FTTN capacity insufficient”

    1 person on a bike is great.. Now give it a few years and we’ll chuck 10 more people on that bike.

    • Or, 1 car on a single lane road is great, 32 cars isnt. The alternative being that 1 car on a 4 lane highway is great, 32 cars on a 4 lane highway is still great.

      You want to move cars around, you dont build a single lane freeway in the city.

  4. Well the Oz has “which uses the century-old copper network for about the last 350m to homes”. Of corse they would be happy that close unless there copper is crap.

    • Century and a half. The copper phone network started on the back of the telegraph in the 1860’s.

        • It would still be iron if the current clowns in power and their trusty followers here on Delimiter, could jump in the hot tub time machine.

          Ironic really that back then, people with the same illogical ideological thought processes, as the current copper knuckle draggers (thanks HC) of today, could have halted the very copper network the current CKD themselves now cling to.

  5. I’m just as happy with my 3g 5mps as with my neighbors 100mbps fibre, Malcolm Bull.

  6. Of course they’re just as satisfied – they don’t also have a FTTP connection to compare it to. FTTN is better than ADSL2, so therefore people will say “Yeah, it’s awesome! I used to get 3mbits – now I get 26!”

    Talk to those same people a decade from now when the rest of the world is downloading and uploading in Gigabits and ask them how satisfied they are with their FTTN connection.

    • That’s pretty much it. So many people had such terrible terrible services that FTTN was always going to be a (huge) improvement. When you’re coming from such a low base any improvement is revolutionary. If only people understood the cost the revolution is really coming at.

  7. Congestion on my POI (Hamilton NSW) through iiNet FTTN means 3mbps speeds from 6-10 every night. FttP would’ve been nice, but at this stage would provide no benefit.

    • That’s NBN’s fault again, because of their crazy CVC charges which were supposed to fall as data usage increased. They can’t drop those prices much now because they have to pay billions for copper remediation blow outs and are losing huge amounts of revenue to TPG FTTB in the most profitable areas.

  8. Were all those surveyed for NPS NBN employees in trial sites?

    How big was the sample size surveyed, and were they PAYING customers?

    • Interesting that you will take this at face value without taking other factors into consideration.

      I will let you tell me thase factors that are different.

    • The results are outstanding v the old management.
      http://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/documents/nbn-half-year-financial-results-2016-report.pdf

      * Average provisioned speed continues to decrease (34mbps), particularly at the top tiers (100/40 off 3%)
      * growing majority choosing 25/5 or less (comfortably deliverable across of techs)
      * FTTN deployment showing it’s rollout advantage, 123K
      * FTTB continues to deliver where Conroy had no answer
      * HFC trials progressing well, as expected (100/40)
      * losses continue to grow as revenue meekly grows ($1.2b in 6 mths)
      * $16b of taxpayer money spent to service just 736k activate connection
      * employee exp growing unsustainably (if not for continued govt equity), over 4k employees yet rev less than $159m.
      * more than doubling of marketing exp for zero return (except pollies)
      * CPP (v CP16p67) FTTP Brown continues to grow, FTTP Green down, FTTN as predicted (suspect), FW down.

      Basically actual performance confirming what a few of us have regularly pointed out. NBN will be an incredibly expensive folly, but MTM presents significant saving in both time and money.

      NB The audited half yearly report produced in 1 month (despite holidays). Took longer for Quigley’s team to release quarterly rollout figures (today published weekly). Speed often an indication that the senior management team has good news.

      • “* Average provisioned speed continues to decrease (34mbps), particularly at the top tiers (100/40 off 3%)”
        Statistics prove that this will fall as those who are forced onto FTTN have a maximum speed tier available of what ~50/5?
        So not sure why your crowing about the NBN cutting their maximum potential ARPU through a strategy of having the re-deploy $Billions of dollars of CAPEX?

        “* FTTN deployment showing it’s massive rollout advantage, 123K”
        Again not sure why your crowing about the NBN cutting their maximum potential ARPU through a strategy of having the re-deploy $Billions of dollars of CAPEX?

        “* losses continue to grow as revenue meekly grows ($1.2b in 6 mths)”
        If you cut the ability to maximise ARPU then revenue is going to fail to increase, in addition to the falling connection rates due to almost 2 years of inaction, i’m not surprised that revenue growth has been meek.

          • Out of curiosity, what numbers are you going to use?

            Let me ask a few questions. How many brownfield FttP RFS connections are there?

            How many FttN RFS connections are there?

            Why are there X number of FttP RFS connections?

            Why are there Y number of FttN RFS connections?

            Those FttP connections are because of the Labor plan, and the legacy builds under that. Any decisions LNP have made independent of that have been logical and practical, to prevent ridiculous scenarios like half an exchange on FttP and half on FttN. There are some local examples of that.

            But they are all on the back of Labors planning and rollout.

            The number of FttN is purely LNP. Which they promised would be here in 2016, or to most at least, broadly in time for the next election. Obvious to all that the plan was to have a skeleton build in place as a tool in this years election.

            It didnt happen. So why? What caused the delays, and why is it OK for those delays to be ignored, and not the same delays with Labor?

            I’ll give you the answer to disagree to. For BOTH builds, negotiations with Telstra made a MASSIVE impact of build times.

          • “Rollout and activation rates have been higher (and increasing faster) than anytime under the “action” Quigley years.”
            For which product – FTTP, FTTN, Sat, HFC?
            What’s the breakdown per product?
            What’s the ARPU mix per product?

            “Perhaps you’d like to go to the numbers (opinion is not fact).”
            NBN aren’t really giving the same amount of detail since the change of leadership, it seems to be more opinion than usable fact’s nowadays.

            “The small increase in revenue, larger direct opex don’t come close to offsetting the additional capex.”
            Isn’t this totally dependant on the time available to make a return?
            according to NBN’s own data there’s less than 5 years to capture the initial CAPEX and at the reduced ARPU as shown by NBN, there’s only a 2 year Delta between paying for FTTN vs FTTP using the available CPP figures (apparently inflated for FTTP) with the OPEX costs increased for FTTN vs FTTP your always going to be in the red. not very smart business that.

          • @np

            FTTP, LTE both much higher under new management. FTTN showing early results multiples of FTTH. HFC not yet released, but will launch at a pace multiples of FTTN again.

            Breakdown for fixed line brownfields not provided in weekly progress, however January MTM number discussed a below, FTTN smoking.

            More data available under the new management than ever under Quigley.

            Breakeven direct opex / capex for FTTN vs FTTH is more than 22 years using a zero discount rate. Such a rate is ridiculous, at an industry standard 9% additional capex is never recovered.

            Capex for none of the technologies will be recovered in 5 years. Significant investment (transit), cross subsidy (LTE, Sat) and opex still to be recovered.

          • Nice headline. How embarrassing for you.

            “FTTP both much higher under new management.”
            With thanks to extra FTTP being rolled out, all planned by Labor prior to 2013 election.

            Earl proved you to be talking shit about the theory that any new rollout procedure took place.

            “FTTN showing early results multiples of FTTH”
            Multiples under is a bad thing fyi

            “FTTN smoking.”
            Can’t handle the 3 connections it’s trying to serve.

            “More data available under the new management than ever under Quigley.”
            That explains why it’s so dark right now. Lighting is CiC though I presume?

          • @hc architecture 2.x wasn’t approved, nor used in the majority of deployment before the new management was appointed. Earl’s claim wasn’t addressed because it wasn’t true. The weekly deployment shows the actual results of the various managements and technologies. You might like to read them sometime (published weekly these days).

          • Given that they are the exact same deployment methods used prior to the change, the numbers solely represent the expected ramp up in the rollout, which would have continued had new management not hidden the results of performance increases from the Melton trial etc, and cancelled as many existing contracts as possible.

            You might like to read up on that some time.

      • You forgot to mention Richard…

        Many years behind the promised for all by 2016, up to $15B cost blowout, having to renew instead of reuse infrastructure, proving to be little or no faster or cheaper to roll out an inferior product, referred to previously by those now rolling it out as fraudband, whilst they admit FTTP is the end goal.

        But keep clutching at those straws, whilst hiding behind Mal’s yes men’s rubbery figures, to try to justify the plan you could have been commissioned to write.

        • @r sorry I was talking about the latest figures released. Already acknowledge is the destruction of the coalition and ALP NBN costing and timelines. More significant was the failure in the old CPs, looks like CP16 might be on-track from cost & timelines (though I suspect not revenue, we’ll see).

          Your ignorance doesn’t permit you to see how accurate my reuse infrastructure post was. Continue to enjoy it and post your bile. Your fanboy “experts” are looking pretty silly about now.

          • Given your track record I guess we shouldn’t wait for your apology in around 2020 when the inadequacy of FTTN hits home and their is massive expenditure and loss of productivity due to it’s inadequacy and the need to roll out a replacement?

          • @d yeah right, about the time the 2-3 new power stations required for FTTN will have come online. Copper is rotted and obsolete. CAN & HFC will cost billions to acquire. Copper sizes in Oz won’t work…

          • @r Why the random ramblings? What connection does what you wrote in reply have to do with what you are replying to?
            Anyone would think you avoid addressing inconvenient truths.

            But to address what you say. I agree, the copper is rotten, copper is and obsolete communications medium and the CAN and HFC did cost billions to acquire, the bottom line is the same, but now they are responsible for billions in maintenance, remediation and lost revenue. The copper sizes in Oz are smaller than the countries they were basing their performance claims on. Do you feel the constant need to misrepresent what others say because your position because to actually argue your ideological position on merit isn’t possible?

          • Where’s this ‘most accurate’ report you say you wrote?

            “Copper is rotted and obsolete. CAN & HFC will cost billions to acquire. Copper sizes in Oz won’t work…”
            Are you… making fun of yourself?

          • Just like how in 2025 we will only need 15Mbps, thus the basis of FTTN being “fine” for the future, despite the Presto CEO (I think it was the CEO) already coming out to say that FTTN isn’t good enough to offer 4k video as they cannot guarantee a customer will get 25Mbit consistently.

          • Richard, because only 4k video is going to be the only thing that requires higher and consistent bandwidth right?

            Jesus I am tired of the argument that just because it is only video that can currently saturate a connection that there will be no need for more speed ever. (Which isn’t even true…. You can easily saturate any connection by pumping enough data through it….. I can currently work from home editing video files from work on the fly thanks to having an ultra-fast connection, I wouldn’t be able to do it with 15Mbit but, you know… whatever).

          • @r0 asked many times in this forum. What applications require 100+mbps to every household?

          • @rich and as answered just as many times, multi-user house holds!

            This isn’t the 80’s anymore were the family had their only pc in the lounge, now everyone has laptops, tablets, phones, media streaming devices, game consoles and so on all opposing at the same time!

          • Shhh Derek, don’t bring logic into this. Nobody has more than one computer, don’t you know computers are the size of a bus and only a few universities in the world have them?

          • Dam, did I forget to cross check my post with uncy Rupert’s little red book of liberal thoughts I’m allowed to think again? Doh!

          • Well I think a good one would be a band being able to practice together with out having to be in the same room and that’s not counting the rest of the family. I did here in the US they did a live performance with a member in a different town with a 1/1Gbps connection.

          • “asked many times in this forum. What applications require 100+mbps to every household?”
            What applications require a copper telecommunications network deployed Australia wide?
            What applications require an iron telecommunications network deployed Australia wide?
            What applications require a paved road network deployed Australia wide?
            What applications require an electricity network deployed Australia wide?

            ATTEMPT THREE : Where’s this ‘most accurate’ report you say you wrote?

      • “NBN will be an incredibly expensive folly, but MTM presents significant saving in both time and money.”

        Saving money? The Coalition has no idea. They don’t know what the original rollout was going to cost, nor do they know what this MTM will cost (current $56 billion, how’s that working out?). Morrow has admitted as such.

        Saving Time? End of 2016 wasn’t it. Tick tock tick tock. Wonder what excuse this government will come up with to Malsplain why they didn’t make it?

        Propaganda is so hilarious in it’s pseudo-fact confection when you watch what has really gone on for a while.

        • @m I agree politicians (all parties) have no idea. Fortunately, in the absence of financial modelling details, we can do some basic capex calculations (HYR15p21 actuals):
          FTTP B $4419
          FTTP G $2770
          FTTN/B $2300
          FW $3516
          (CP16 p67 estimates)
          HFC $1800
          SAT $7900

          Maybe 20% greenfields so FTTP ~ $3535 + 554 = $4089.
          For simplicity assuming all premises activated (we know only 80% predicted).

          Mix of Premises CP11-13p
          FTTH 93% (11m) x 4089 = $45b
          LTE 4% (0.5m) x 3516 = $1.8
          SAT 3% (0.4m) x 7900 = $3.2
          Total (11.9m) = $50b

          Mix of Premises CP16p39
          FTTH 20% (2.4) x 4089 = $10b
          FTTN/B 38% (4.5m) x 2300 = $10b
          HFC 34% (4m) x 1800 = $7.2
          LTE 5% (0.6m) x 3516 = $2.1
          SAT 3% (0.4m) x 7900 = $3.2
          Total (11.9m) = $32.5b

          To the above we add $4b transit and another $1b or so common. Then massive losses through projected break-even (IMO never). Earlier revenue capturing the majority of demand offsets higher opex. Capex differential impossible (for most) to ignore.

          • FTTN/B $2300
            That number looks great! Until you release it’s just a temporary number.

          • You think Capex is the metric to go by?

            In which case, nobody should ever spend money on anything new … ever. Capex is too high.

            P.S. I also notice that the lifespan of both rollouts are vastly different. What was it … 10 years vs 50 years of revenue?

          • @m funny I remember fighting the fanboys over their refusal to used peak funding as a more representative cost figure than ALP’s often quoted capex. How times have changes.

            Away, no capex is not the only metric. It is a really good one when comparing costs and potential savings (especially when opex differential much smaller). Direct opex, capex and revenue all now modelled by me, fanboys nothing. Develop your 50 year model and I’ll take a look at it;-)

          • And there it is … the request for a person to go an develop a 50 year model. That’s your default answer I’ve noticed.

            Your figures was not “modeled” by you Richard. This was you parroting conflated figures which have their source back in a heavily biased and myopic Strategic Review.

            And no, it’s not a really good one when measured up against maintenance costs and revenue over a period of time. Capex becomes less important as long as there is a return. Which there was.

          • @r Actually most people wanted to use the total cost over a suitable timescale, like they did with the CBA. Shame the CBA was so rigged, no upgrades, inflated cost for FTTH OPEX, no remediation costs, etc.

            ” Direct opex, capex and revenue all now modelled by me, fanboys nothing” Now if we could only get an accurate one rather than one perverted by ideological shills such at yourself.

          • @m true my default answer to those claiming ftth financial superiority is to show the numbers. The BS is exposed immediately.

            Actually they are my calculations, from a variety of sources discussed in the thread. Not the SR.

            Where’s this return? Actuals don’t show it. Oh you mean the completely destroyed CPs (failed on every measure)? Or is it because you say so?

            A single financial model to support the fanboy position. Just one.

          • Really Richard I don’t give a rats arse about your or the CBAs or the CPs or the SRs financial modelling. They are all meaningless if they don’t cost the upgrade to fibre that will be needed.

            “A single financial model to support the fanboy position. Just one”
            No one has enough information to make an accurate one. Having approximations would just let the details be picked to pieces. But you don’t have to produce a model to see the glaring holes in those done. I don’t care who does the model, they just need to create an accurate one. Talking about how FTTN is a good as FTTH because it can be upgraded to G.Fast FTTdp, even if they take the view that won’t be needed until 2030 rather than the early 2020s that others suggest, if you are going to do a CBA until 2040, how can you not cost upgrades? That’s 10s of billions of dollars unaccounted for.

          • “Failed on every measure.”

            According to Malcolm, yes. But they didn’t fail on “every” measure. That’s just your bias again. I don’t need to go through this though, the history on this site and elsewhere has demonstrated this many times over, and from people a lot more experienced than you or me.

            And I never said you got your calculations in the SR … read what I said again.

            “A single financial model to support the fanboy position. Just one.”

            Why? So you can attempt to claim authority on that one too? I can point you to pre-Coalition Corporate Plans, but you’d simply rubbish those, while still trying to claim the high ground for the same reason you think I’m linking them … political bias.

            But all of this is academic.

            Copper will need another rollout a long time before fibre. Add those costs together and you get a more expensive rollout than just rolling out fibre now. O wait … Morrow already admitted they did that.

          • Nice $32b figure, when latest Coalition figures state a minimum of $46b (much more likely to climb above $56b). Numbers man not so good with numbers, oh dear…

            “Develop your 50 year model and I’ll take a look at it;-)”
            OK let’s take your model and add the copper remediation costs estimates to be $1b a year… at 50 years… $83b not looking like a great idea…

            Then add your figure for FTTP since SR, Turnbull, Morrow and others say that needs to be done in 5-10 years and…

            Minimum $133b for MTM!!! Fucking retards.

            Thanks for your help, Richard.

          • Exactly as hotcakes just said, the current costs for the MTM are a minimum of $46b, so how do you explain your napkin math of $32b being $14b less than the actual costs quoted from nbn™?

          • @m forget Malcom, go to their CPs and ARs discussed here

            https://delimiter.com.au/2016/01/05/nbn-fttn-kills-off-adsl-for-metro-customer-to-be-replaced-with-satellite/#li-comment-711610

            By what measure can they claim success? Others may have more experience than you.

            Read your SR comment again, incorrect as I posted.

            I’ve never agreed fibre will eventually be rolled out. However even if so final costs could be less in two stages (surely we don’t need to explain this again). Again the fanboys complaining about the state of fixed line internet in this country would be using it today if not for Conroy’s inflated ego.

          • “@m forget Malcom, go to their CPs and ARs discussed here”

            Quoting yourself doesn’t really count as authoritative Richard.

            “By what measure can they claim success?”

            By being the only source of revenue for nbn … today. By .. pre-election 2013 … being on budget … and making up time (time, mind you, taken up by Telstra’s dithering).

            “I’ve never agreed fibre will eventually be rolled out.”

            Then you’re done here … unless there’s some magical teleportation that’s going to occur in the future.

            “surely we don’t need to explain this again”

            Considering you didn’t get it the first time … I think you might need to hear it again.

            Replacing copper with copper (first FTTN rollout) and then replacing copper with fibre (2nd rollout) ….

            … or …

            Replacing copper with fibre (one rollout).

            It’s not rocket science. Particularly when the most expensive part (copper in the last mile, Node to Premise) is the work that needs to be repeated.

          • @m actually I’m quoting the NBNCO predicted vs actual numbers. These are authoritative.

            It was never a question that some revenue will be generated, however ~$300m a year for $16b equity is an unimaginable poor showing.

            Sadly is appears it is rocket science to some, your simplistic cost only claim ignores many of the factors that make a financial model. I see we need to explain it yet again, sometime.

          • @hotc & @r0 peak funding vs capex. Seriously?

            Getting old very quickly. Embarrassing actually, yet still they come…

            hotc claims copper “remediation” $1b a year? Actually amazing:-( Copper & node maintenance & opex will likely be north of $1b a year, offset by revenue delivered with speeds capturing demand (see model, as opposed to over investing). The irony being the regional CAN is kept under all models (thanks Conroy), the most expensive.

          • “actually I’m quoting the NBNCO predicted vs actual numbers. These are authoritative”

            Which predicted numbers vs which actual numbers. There’s lots of both of those, and multiple from nbn/NBNCo. Using any of them you can spin things however you like. Pointless ultimately, which is why I’m not playing your game. I’ve read it before, many times.

            “Sadly is appears it is rocket science to some”

            Indeed it is. Fortunately it’s not as simplistic as regurgitated spin likes to try to make it. Please … come on over to Whirlpool sometime and we’ll discuss it in a more appropriate forum. Not sure you’ll like the reception you’ll get, considering there’s room there to challenge every one of your simplistic conclusions.

          • @m every figures’ sourced in the post (including page numbers).

            WP? I’ve was told the same when challenge to come here. The result has been underwhelming. The reception is entirely predictable; uniformed bile, no figures.

          • Richard, you may want to check the common denominator with regards to the bile you speak of.

          • So if FTTP G is only $2770, why is NBN still rolling out copper in some new greenfields?

          • Flude:
            “I’ve never agreed fibre will eventually be rolled out. ”
            So not only are you at odds with everyone here and every technologically savvy person across the world, you’re also at odds with your own cronies and their paid-for reviews.

            As an aside, how come even your apostrophes are backwards? It suits you, I must say.

            “~$300m a year for $16b equity is an unimaginable poor showing.”
            New business created:
            Day 0 : Loan withdrawn
            Day 1 : “Why aren’t you turning a profit?” – Flude

            “peak funding vs capex. Seriously?”
            Seriously reading comprehension what is it?

            I quoted entirely your capex figures. YOUR figures. From the post I replied directly to. With the exception of the 50 year remediation figure because you asked for the 50 year plan – take that out and MTM is still $83b vs $50b for FTTP using your figures. YOUR figures.

            “hotc claims copper “remediation” $1b a year?”
            Seriously reading comprehension what is it?

            I said estimates. ESTIMATES. And then you go on to say it will be more than that anyway. You look like you’re getting a little flustered, your illogicality appears to be quickly devolving into Alains incoherence. Think for a second before you press Post. Less embarrassing.

            “The result has been underwhelming.”
            Yes you’ve barely put up a fight at all.

            Alain:
            “Because it’s not the NBN Co rolling out copper in greenfields it is Telstra.”
            Why did the Liberals change the mandate from FTTP exclusivity in greenfields to providers’ choice?

          • @Richard
            “offset by revenue delivered with speeds capturing demand”

            So the FTTN 4.5M with it take up is about $1.5B in revenue is we use the FTTP take up against it its $1.6B. Now if we – your $10 increase in opex which is $0.54b. That drops FTTN to $1B. Now at the 8 year mark of the FTTN revenue is the same as FTTP in 5 years. So if FTTP is deployed up to 3 years after FTTN which the SR had then that claim of yours is a joke.

          • Hotcake,

            Why did the Liberals change the mandate from FTTP exclusivity in greenfields to providers’ choice?

            Start again, there was never a mandate for FTTP exclusivity in greenfields, even under Labor, the developer decides who to contact for a estate rollout and what the infrastructure type is.

      • So only a rollout of 8k a week a bit short of the 24K week of referencing how good FTTN was and still slower than FTTP.

          • @jk gets better (for one of us). Checking the weekly progress report again (previously post number prior to XMAS) NBNCO added 44,536 premises passed 01JAN-28JAN. Article quote states 34,000 of those were FTTN.

            Let’s go back and re-read the other posts:-)

          • So Richard is FTTN rolling out faster than FTTP.

            $50B with a $64B peak funding
            Vs
            $32.5b with a $56B peak funding.

            Lol Richard so for Jan they did 7k a week

          • @jk JAN is a popular holiday time in Oz, reflected in the numbers.

            Your numbers corrected:
            $55b capex (mine) with PF ~$64b (SR13 S1)
            vs
            $37.5b capex (mine) with PF ~$49b (CP16)

            Using S2 figures, not ALP disaster scenario. Clearly the SR capex numbers use a different calculation (been here before). CPP tells the story.

            Rollout completed in half the time, fixed line would be finished today.

            LOL FTTP did 12k a month (7th year)!

          • Lol Richard so it’s a holiday period to rollout 7k a week when they need to hit 50k a week for there 2020 target.

            So but Richard it’s like you said last know figures was your excuse when quoting the $74-84b counter factual.

            So only 9 sec faster of 3 years sooner is half the time. Or are you talking about the failed investment by the private sector. But then we all could have had FTTP by 2010 if it wasn’t for the private sector.

          • @jk again with the basics:
            FTTN 4.5m x (4.5 x 12) = 84k / mth = 20k / wk

            Again I’m happy you use figures, I even corrected them. It’d be nice if you took the time to learn what they mean (note my capex vs SR’s, think PF maybe different?).

            Rollout figures are now available, yet you keep talking 9secs different between models. Bizarre.

          • Yes, if all you had to do is dump a pile of paint at the end of a street to class all the houses in the street as painted wouldn’t life be wonderful. Still hundreds of truck rolls per node before they are all really connected.

          • FTTN 4.5m x (4.5 x 12) = 84k / mth = 20k / wk
            HFC 4m x (4.5 x 12) = 74k / mth = 18.5k / wk

            So sorry 38.5k a week target + what ever FTTP they still have to do

          • Jason K,

            $50B with a $64B peak funding
            Vs
            $32.5b with a $56B peak funding.

            Incorrect, incorrect, incorrect and incorrect, 4 out of 4.

            Congratulations you have reached your peak. (funding)

          • is that all you can do reality to defend the $27B blowout. Is claim the NBN has pulled there figures out of thin air. But that might be true with Turnbull fully costed $29B or the SR $41 lol

      • “The results are outstanding v the old management.”
        Indeed. FTTP being the only income earner, every other tech sinking the ship.

        “Average provisioned speed continues to decrease (34mbps), particularly at the top tiers”
        Which of course only makes sense when the current model being rolled out is barely able to achieve the minimum 25Mbps.

        “growing majority choosing 25/5 or less”
        Growing majority has been denied access to higher speed tiers.

        “FTTN deployment showing it’s rollout advantage, 123K”
        Almost 900 premises passed per month! And not even a 1% connection ratio.

        “losses continue to grow as revenue meekly grows”
        Revenue meekly grows while remaining few FTTP areas roll out.

        • Hotcakes,

          Indeed. FTTP being the only income earner, every other tech sinking the ship.

          No it’s not the only income earner, but as the FTTN and HFC have yet to make a noticeable contributions as their rollout ramps up from here on the FTTP at a CPP of $4,400 nearly as much as fixed wireless at a CPP of $4,900, FTTP is certainly therefore the main contributor to the latest NBN Co net loss of $1.2 billion.

          So which tech is sinking the ship?

          Which of course only makes sense when the current model being rolled out is barely able to achieve the minimum 25Mbps.

          But FTTN was only commercially released in September, now it makes a substantial contribution to current download calculations?

          Growing majority has been denied access to higher speed tiers.

          You know this as the majority reason for customers choosing lower speeds how?

          Almost 900 premises passed per month! And not even a 1% connection ratio.

          Yes we need to compare a product released in September last year with a product released in 2010, and say why aren’t the connection ratios the same.

          FTTP fans love uneven playing fields.

          Revenue meekly grows while remaining few FTTP areas roll out.

          Revenue will increase from FTTN and HFC as the product is rolled out, one thing that will change is that with brownfields FTTP CPP at $4,400 vs FTTN at $2,300 and HFC at $1800, the NBN Co costs and therefore losses will decease.

          • So reality when we have FTTP with an ARPU of $43 and Turnbull was expecting an ARPU of $16 for his FTTN. Oh wait that’s right Turnbull said plans would be cheaper under his model expect FTTN and FTTP are the same price.

            Well Reality considering by 2020 NBN is expecting 36% on FTTP to use 100Mbpd 38% on HFC but only 24% on Fttn that wouldn’t be because they have trouble supplying those speeds would it.

          • “FTTP is certainly therefore the main contributor to the latest NBN Co net loss of $1.2 billion.”
            Then I guess you need to reread the figures, because you missed the part where the FTTP ROI is 11% higher than anticipated.

            “So which tech is sinking the ship?”
            Non-FTTP MTM techs, as explained.

            “But FTTN was only commercially released in September, now it makes a substantial contribution to current download calculations?”
            Reading comprehension what is it?

            The quote was ‘continues to decrease’. The average speed can’t increase unless the average customer has access to speeds higher than the current average. Ergo rolling out a technology that can’t deliver those speeds can only CONTINUE TO DECREASE the average.

            “You know this as the majority reason for customers choosing lower speeds how?”
            Most people aren’t dumb enough to pay for plans that only give them speeds accessible on lower tier plans.

            I know this might be a shocking revelation for you.

            “Yes we need to compare a product released in September last year with a product released in 2010, and say why aren’t the connection ratios the same.”
            You mean how you were doing exactly that with FTTP figures from 2007?

            “FTTP fans love uneven playing fields.”
            Can’t handle it when your exact ‘logic’ is thrown back at you. Hypocrite scum.

            It’s not even comparable; FTTP NBN Co had to build a network from scratch; MTM nbn already had the vast majority of backhaul in place and targets have already slipped at a factor of 6 times worse in half the time!

            Alain : “the NBN Co costs and therefore losses will decease.”
            Flude : “losses continue to grow as revenue meekly grows”
            Alain vs Flude: who will win the battle of most wrong!

            Jason:
            ” plans would be cheaper under his model expect FTTN and FTTP are the same price.”
            Plans at the price point I’m currently on are no longer available. The opposite of what Turnbull preached has been demonstrated (surprise, right?) yet again

            Thankfully my housemate has begun working for Skymesh and in a month gets staff discount :p

          • FTTP is certainly therefore the main contributor to the latest NBN Co net loss of $1.2 billion.”
            Then I guess you need to reread the figures, because you missed the part where the FTTP ROI is 11% higher than anticipated.

            “So which tech is sinking the ship?”
            Non-FTTP MTM techs, as explained.

            “But FTTN was only commercially released in September, now it makes a substantial contribution to current download calculations?”
            Reading comprehension what is it?

            The quote was ‘continues to decrease’. The average speed can’t increase unless the average customer has access to speeds higher than the current average. Ergo rolling out a technology that can’t deliver those speeds can only CONTINUE TO DECREASE the average.

            “You know this as the majority reason for customers choosing lower speeds how?”
            Most people aren’t dumb enough to pay for plans that only give them speeds accessible on lower tier plans.

            I know this might be a shocking revelation for you.

            “Yes we need to compare a product released in September last year with a product released in 2010, and say why aren’t the connection ratios the same.”
            You mean how you were doing exactly that with FTTP figures from 2007?

            “FTTP fans love uneven playing fields.”
            Can’t handle it when your exact ‘logic’ is thrown back at you. Hypocrite scum.

            It’s not even comparable; FTTP NBN Co had to build a network from scratch; MTM nbn already had the vast majority of backhaul in place and targets have already slipped at a factor of 6 times worse in half the time!

            Alain : “the NBN Co costs and therefore losses will decease.”
            Flude : “losses continue to grow as revenue meekly grows”
            Alain vs Flude: who will win the battle of most wrong!

            Jason:
            ” plans would be cheaper under his model expect FTTN and FTTP are the same price.”
            Plans at the price point I’m currently on are no longer available. The opposite of what Turnbull preached has been demonstrated (surprise, right?) yet again

            Thankfully my housemate has begun working for Skymesh and in a month gets staff discount :p

          • Yeah I know hotcakes Alain made a post awhile ago claiming FTTN are cheaper everywhere else.

            but not here lol

  9. Its no different than when T$ finally unlocked ADSL2+. If you doubled or more in speed you were over the moon, a few years (or months if it rained) later you’re swearing because that connection is actually pretty terrible still. Sure FttN or HFC back then would have been awesome. Now its ‘better’ just not enough to justify not spending the little extra to skip the tech and get to the end goal.

    It’ll be very interesting to see the ARPU numbers for FttN given recent additional increases in revenue etc from FttP for MTM (up to a $43 ARPU for FttP!). End of the day people will say they are happy but are they spending the $$ they appear to when they have access to fibre! (noting there is zero revenue from FttN currently on the books)

    • (up to a $43 ARPU for FttP!)

      It’s not just for FTTP, that’s the average across all NBN revenue streams.

      • Well reality since FTTP has the most connection on the NBN so FTTP is the reason for $43. When we start to see it drop due to the increase HFC and FTTN. Are you going to use that same argument

        • No, I repeat FTTP is not the only reason for a ARPU of $43, do some proper research instead of shooting from the hip and playing number games back pedal stunts.

          Have a read of Page 16 of the latest NBN Co half year results PDF on their website released yesterday and see how the ARPU figure is calculated.

          • Oh you read the NBN Co Financial Results on the ARPU calculation and went ‘oh shit’ eh?

          • Lol Reality I would say the same to you with the CP16 with the number $56B written in there lol

          • When caught out (which is often) talk about something else, add plenty of lol’s and carry on as if you never mentioned FTTP ARPU at all.

          • Yes you do quite often. Which tech has the most connection and by how much. That is why FTTP is at $43 lol.

            But as I keep saying but like your statement above when caught out talk about something else. Does or does not the current CP have $56B in it yes or no

          • There was 0 revenue for FttN (which I’ll assume includes B because they never seem to want to split those figures) in the Dec reported period so the $43 ARPU would really struggle to be from any MTM tech.

  10. Here’s a question, why would you respond in any other way? You subscribe to a service because you have come to the conclusion that it’s the best service available in your area. If my ISP sent me a questionnaire asking whether I would recommend their service? I’d respond with yes even though I’m still on ADSL2. Because given the infrastructure available (or not available) it’s the best option.

    Whether I end up with FTTH or FTTN I’ll respond the same. That doesn’t mean that I think FTTN is just as good. That doesn’t change the fact that it would have been a lot better for all involved if they went with FTTH. It just means that I can’t subscribe to FTTH is it’s not available in my area

    • When I next move house, I’ll be damned if I get FTTN now that I’ve had FTTP!

      If I’ve no choice there’s no way that I’ll tell anybody that I’m happy with a 2nd rate service as I’ll _always_ be expecting it to disconnect when it rains and contention to be worse.

      • That’s not the point. The question is whether or not you’d recommend others subscribe to the service you already subscribe to. It’s implied in the question that the same services are available to that theoretical other person as were to you.

        Effectively when asked about FTTN it’s not a question of “FTTN or FTTH”. It’s more a question of “FTTN, ADSL or nothing”. So of course people are going to say they’d recommend FTTN. It’s the same reason why the satisfaction of the wireless service was higher. Where wireless exists there are even less options than there are in FTTH/FTTN areas.

        • Fair enough, for a residence on poor ADSL2+ FTTN or FTTP is great, for a rural residence struggling on 3G wireless or nothing NBN FW or satellite is great.

          No one gets a trial test hooked up to FTTN, FTTP and HFC simultaneously, then asked at the end of the trial which service are you going to sign up for.

          :)

          • “for a residence on poor ADSL2+ FTTN or FTTP is great”

            No, FTTN is not great if I’m on ADSL2. Both are currently rubbish compared to the alternative. I don’t need to test it to know that.

  11. The satisfaction ratings aren’t particularly surprising, NBN Co would have to be almost entirely incompetent if they weren’t.

    Firstly, NBN Co appear to be carefully choosing which areas go RFS on FTTN. Areas that had the first FTTN cabinets stood up are still not RFS.

    A cynical person (A.K.A. any close observer of the current NBN Co management) might conclude that the reason for this is to avoid areas that provide less than favourable results “tainting” their double plus good satisfaction survey.

    But further to that, the average punter will have got a significant boost over their previous ADSL2 service, even if they were previously getting 20+Mbps down they will be getting 5 times the upload.

    What isn’t to like about that? Today at least.

    But this misses the fundamental objective of the NBN, as a concept. NBN Co need to be building a network for the future, not today.

    So whether average users are satisfied with their FTTN connection today is almost irrelevant, it would take an enormous amount of incompetence to screw that up or malicious intent. Let’s ask those same users in 5 years time whether they are happy, that is the current concern, and then longer term in 10, 15 or more years.

    With talk of FTTdp in 2017 it gets even more concerning for those on FTTN today, if I am on a 800m FTTN loop G.fast isn’t going to help me at all. What is NBN Co’s plan for those already on FTTN but with loop lengths beyond G.fast’s limited reach? We can argue about whether it’s reach is 100m, 150m, 200m or 250m but I don’t think anyone is suggesting it is 800-1200m which are the longer FTTN loop lengths.

    • “With talk of FTTdp in 2017 it gets even more concerning for those on FTTN today, if I am on a 800m FTTN loop G.fast isn’t going to help me at all. What is NBN Co’s plan for those already on FTTN but with loop lengths beyond G.fast’s limited reach? We can argue about whether it’s reach is 100m, 150m, 200m or 250m but I don’t think anyone is suggesting it is 800-1200m which are the longer FTTN loop lengths.”

      Shhh… We don’t bring up the facts about G.Fast here, we only bring it up when someone mentions that speeds over copper won’t be able to keep up with demand in the future. That’s when we start talking about G.Fast or Vplus but being careful to never get into any conversation about technical specifics because we know it breaks down our “argument”.

  12. The headline was missing 2 words, For Now.
    This is a piece of 50 year infrastructure so there is still plenty of time for people to be unhappy with it.

    • not 50 years the MTM bit will be obsolete by the time its finished but we’ll have to wait for it to pay itself off (10 years or so) before we can hit the endgame of fibre which is the part stated to be good for next 50 years or so.

  13. I’m satisfied with my current Internet service, which is neither FttN nor FttP. However, that’s no guarantee that it will remain satisfactory in 5, 10, 20 years.

    There are very few services around that push data at rates where FttP would be an advantage over FttN. But that’s not the point. The point is the future satisfaction using the infrastructure currently being implemented.

    • individually no, try having a family with a bunch of devices all connected and wanting to use the connection.

      Youtube, Netflix, Facebook, Skype/video comms, Gaming, streaming music, RDP sessions/remote work. All those things are more than capable of fully utilising a 100Mb plan atm with 4-5 individuals using things at the same time things add up really quick.

      Sure you can lower bit streams and go low or std def. Seriously though do we want to be that far behind everywhere else though?

      • “Sure you can lower bit streams and go low or std def. Seriously though do we want to be that far behind everywhere else though?”

        *Insert comment about a glorified entertainment network or some such*

  14. It all based upon consumer knowledge. Fttn is as good as Fttp as long as a Lada Neva is as good as a Toyota Landcruiser. Yeah, nah.

  15. Of course GimpCo would say this. Why would we expect them to say anything else. They have to sell their vomit turd to Australia and when your outdated and politically motivated plan relies on rotted out infrastructure that needs to be replaced the best way to placate the ones ultimately getting screwed is with idiotic statements such as this. Just ignore future speed requirements too.

    • Then again it doesn’t matter what the customer wants, he gets what NBN roll out.
      Don’t like it? Too bad so sad go move homes.

  16. Of course business is going to keep growing, users have no choice but to switch over to MTM when it comes to them. Switch or have nothing any idiot can make a business grow when he has that sort of power behind him

  17. I like my dialup internet. I can download everything you FTTP koolaid junkies can. Why buy a new Mercedes while my 1925 Model T Ford does just fine.

  18. It’s like asking a group of people who at an orange and a group of people who ate an apple how enjoyable they were.

    So it’s kinda pointless really.

    If you gave both groups both fruit and then asked then to rate them, now that might actually be interesting…

    • The point you are missing or rather avoiding is that the level of satisfaction of a FTTN customer and a FTTP customer is the same with both groups scoring at 7.7 out of 10.

      Fixed wireless had the highest level of satisfaction at 8.1 as you would expect as most of them had no broadband at all before FW.

      • I didn’t miss any point, you did. All they rated was people using their current service, while the nbn press release tries to conflate the services with each other (which is not what those figures actually mean, as they are totally separate services).

        Sorry to see your reading comprehension disorder hasn’t improved lately.

        • +1.

          What would be interesting to know is people who HAVE used FTTP on the NBN and have moved to an area that is now FTTN and what THOSE people have rated it.

          Until we see how people who have experienced both services react to each, stating that someone being 77% satisfied with FTTN is the same as someone being 77% satisfied with FTTP is pointless.

          It’s like McDonald’s being voted the best burger in the world by people who only eat McDonald’s and then Hungry Jack’s being voted the best burger in the world by people who only eat Hungry Jack’s.

  19. @Richard 05/02/2016 at 3:01 pm
    FTTP $55b capex (mine) with PF ~$64b (SR13 S1)
    vs
    MTM $37.5b capex (mine) with PF ~$49b (CP16)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    So the difference is ~$15B?

    That link you posted indicates that there is:
    “a total net benefit of $390 per household per year for using FTTP over using FTTN.”

    With 11 premises, what’s the potential difference in revenue to nbn co?
    Lets see, from 93% down to 20%, thats about 0.73*390*11,000,000 per year, or about $3.1B/year?

    So to pay off the difference would take some 5 years – or maybe a bit more, as fibre was rolling out slower (at the time). Maybe double that to 10 years, as there’s FTTB in there too now on probably both plans.

    I dunno mate, those figures to me sounds like FTTP was a better deal in the long run if we need to upgrade to copper anyway. Isn’t that projected to be at least $30B? Is that extra $15B worth spending to get FTTN in a couple of years earlier?
    Rhetorical questions, oh well.

      • I would say “adjusted” by 30%, rather than destroyed…. Have new analysis now, which takes account of discount rates (0,3,5,10%) and delayed FTTP rollout. Shows there are some assumptions which favour FTTN and some which favour FTTP. It depends which set of assumptions you are prepared to agree with. If earlier FTTN can generate 1 or 2% extra household GDP, then it is well worth doing ahead of FTTP. But this analysis doesn’t take into account when, how much $$, how long FTTN might last for, and replacement cost.

        • 1.3%? GDP for every doubling in speed. (I believe its still a closish call but fibre does ultimately come out ahead in those stakes)

          FttN has the issue where that won’t double if you’re not close enough and there’s little to be done about it as its the very nature of Cu tech.

          “how long FTTN might last for, and replacement cost.”

          Obsolete by time its finished. Looking at what it cost to buy all the Cu its probably going to take 10-15 years to pay that investment off.

    • Don’t worry Jeremy Richard likes to twist things around. Like his claim of more $10 opex for FTTN for earlier revenue is lost if FTTP is deployed in 3 years or sooner.

  20. I wonder though if this score will change once the streetside FTTN rollout gets some real steam. AFAIK most of the nodes online at the moment are in-building – correct me if I’m wrong – and it’s really no surprise that FTTB would perform well in most cases. nbn(TM) is cleverly choosing not to make a distinction between the two, which I suppose is justifiable in a technical sense, but it will be interesting to see how customer satisfaction drops off once FTTN from the street becomes the majority rather than the minority.

    • Considering that 79% on fibre have chosen 25Mbps or slower, it is doubtful that those people will notice any difference. In fact if NBNCo chose to remove the speed tiers, these people would experience a faster service.

  21. Renai,
    Isn’t it about time you threw Richard into the sin bin, he looks like he is trying to dominate the site with 21 posts and not one of them is funny. He’s not enriching the debate but repeating his usual ideological mantra, heard it all before.

  22. Where did they get this info from? I would much rather ADSL then FTTN it is absolute garbage I get 4-7Mbps in peak times with a ping of 150ms+ I used to get 8-9Mbps with a ping of 25ms with ADSL2+. Mind you it works perfect after midnight I get 95Mbps and 16ms ping but I dont game then as I have kids that wake up at 6am every day.

    This is the biggest stuff up ever and to produce utter garbage like this article proves they are just trying to hide it.

    • The fact that you can achieve 95Mbps after midnight highlights that your physical line is fine. It sounds like your ISP hasn’t purchased sufficient CVC from NBNCo. You would have exactly the same issue on FTTP.

      • Not true, NBN Co pre-election had rules to prevent ISP’s from dramatically under provisioning CVC, these seem to have quietly vanished when the “as long as you get 25 mbps for 1 minute, once every 24 hours” rule came in!

      • Mathew a node current only supplies 2Gbps split that between 200-400 homes that’s a 5-10mnps peak time speed

        • This. It doesn’t matter how much backhaul an ISP purchases, with 200-400 connections to a node with a 2Gbit backbone to the node, no user will get their maximum speed during peak hours.

    • 8+ years in and we’re still stuck on ‘early days’! ;)

      Aren’t our governments just peachy!

  23. You can’t take the NBN satisfaction results seriously, for example it doesn’t matter how many people are on a node (splitter) with FTTP. But on FTTN it’s paramount, for example in Bundaberg the nodes service anywhere from 16 residences up to just over 300. And it depends on how many residences have migrated over to the node. You can only get a legitimate comparison when the node is full for FTTN. So making comparison now is futile and the NBN know it. So the only conclusion you can take away from the NBN comparison statement this early in the game is that they are desperate to convince the people that are paying (tax payer) for FTTN that there money is well spent but their desperation tells me it isn’t.

      • I can’t draw any conclusions why FTTP should be higher or lower maybe you can? But I’m more likely to accept the FTTP results at face value only because I have seen similar results in the past. But those results here and the NBN proposition in general is somewhat undermined by the fallacies of the FTTN conclusion.

        • Oh I see let’s concentrate on the FTTN part of the survey because it just not possible that residences using it have the same level of satisfaction as FTTP residences, it is utterly inconceivable.

          So in six months or whatever time period the next survey is done and even more FTTN residences are active and the results are similar are you still going to pull out the ‘fallacies of the FTTN’ excuse?

          I am glad you endorsed the FTTP figure but steered clear of offering a suggestion as to why it was not higher, surely FTTP as espoused by the fans is the ultimate infrastructure solution?

          So why after all this time of a very expensive rollout that started way back in 2010 we only see a 7.7 out of 10?

          • Just like the results of this survey are a waste of my time and so are your questions or are you going somewhere with it.

          • So are all NBN surveys a waste of time or just the ones that show FTTN in a good light or are not that kind to FTTP?

          • Those who currently have/had completely antiquated 1950’s tech will of course be happier with still antiquated but improved 1990’s FRAUDBAND/FTTN…

            A bit like a starving person being happier with rotten food, rather than SFA.

            But realistically, it doesn’t make rotting food or FTTN any more palatable…

  24. As someone who used to work at a telco retail outlet, I was always under the impression (as were my managers) that the Net Promoter Score survey was about customer satisfaction with the person they were dealing with as a representative of the provider they worked for, not the actual outcome of the interaction itself. Being told a product isn’t available to you didn’t necessarily matter, if you were able to provide an alternative or even at least not be a dick to the customer about it you could still get a good score because you provided quality service. Conversely you could get them everything they ever wanted and dreamed of, if you were a poor representative and didn’t connect to the customer well you could still get a low score.

    • Yep – ask those working in customer facing roles at iiNet. They call it being Fewstered (or F’d for short).

      NPS gives you a lovely number to flash to the media (and beat employees over the head with) – it means very little other than the staff member who dealt with the interaction did well. It says bugger all about the product.

  25. As they say, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”. People who are “eating” FTTN are quite satisfied with it.

    I find it humorously ironic that the FTTP fanbois are all quite happily continuing to both pay for and use their copper based ADSL or cable services, while continuing to claim that it is rotting, near collapse and it needs emergency replacement. If copper or cable was so terrible, shouldn’t they stop using it, and, I don’t know, go back to dial up (also copper based.)?

    Demanding the perfect technical solution is like demanding that people should only have the safest and highest performance cars, or should only eat at 5 star restaurants. Reality is different – we buy what we can afford and that is satisfactory for us at the time (sometimes McDonalds, sometimes better, and on special occasions, 5 star restaurants.)

    Of course, it is easy to make the “we demand perfection” argument when most of the bill is being paid for by somebody else (in the case of FTTP, every other tax payer). I would love to eat all the time at 5 star restaurants but only pay McDonalds prices because somebody else is covering the price gap.

    It’ll be fun to watch people go through the 5 stages of grief regarding FTTN. There are already posts here from people at the Denial stage.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model

    • Lol Mr Shark if you where getting better than what you had let’s say 4Mbps and day out of report getting 13Mbps during peak time would you be satisfied too. It when they would like a faster service and NBN unable to deliver that’s going to be funny

    • At the moment, I am paying top restaurant dollars for big macs and the situation would be no different with fttn . Malcolm said cheaper faster sooner .. None of that is happening with fttn . It’s roi is half that of fttp.

      If you want fttn .. Pay for it yourself..

      • Actually considering that 79% on fibre are selecting 25Mbps or slower, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that the minority (16% and falling) selecting 100Mbps plans should be expected to either move or pay for fibre to be installed.

        People select the location of a home for many reasons and a fibre connection will simply be another factor. The cost of a fibre install is likely to be less than 1% of the average house price and significantly cheaper than a bathroom or kitchen renovation so availability is unlikely to impact house values.

    • “we buy what we can afford” – except FTTP was set to deliver a 7% return, while FTTN is just a black whole that sucks in billions of dollars in ongoing power, maintenance and remediation costs.

    • “Of course, it is easy to make the “we demand perfection” argument when most of the bill is being paid for by somebody else (in the case of FTTP, every other tax payer)”
      It’s much bolder and braver to demand imperfection at twice the cost! How strong of you!

  26. I was just as happy with my expensive very limited/slowish 3g broadband at $70 a month as I am with my recently installed unlimited 50/20 WNBN for $67.95 a month.Hey, can someone help me out of this jacket my arms seem to be tethered to each other around my back. Thank god for OK Google.

  27. So they installed FTTP whipped it out then ‘installed’ FTTN and asked the customers which they were happier with? What a crock of meaningless bullshit!

  28. Given OECD advise had regulatory reform, competition for infrastructure and services, besides technology neutrality …
    I wish the fed gov had gone for a competitive infrastructure instead of re-nationalisation/ PMG mk2 or lite model.
    Tell existing carriers you can have fibre/ copper or HFC, but not both. Perhaps HFC can be offloaded to FoxTel before 2020?
    Terrestrial and satellite wireless on top of that.
    Instead the sovereign risk induced by nbn has worked like an arthritic snail on Australia’s scores on international broadband benchmarks.
    It should have focused on competition in extended metro, and let Opel Networks take the fight to Telstra and others in regional, or beyond.
    And Inmarsat, Oneweb, etc etc take the fight to Aussat of SingTel Optus for rural and remote. Subsidised as needed, rather than the sovereign risk that nbn induced..

    • The NBN was designed to do two things;
      Improve individual access speeds and provide a consistent access technology across the nation.
      Break the Telstra fixed line monopoly created stupidly by the Howard Government when they failed to separate Telstra when it was sold off in the ’90’s.

      The Sovereign risk that you mention, has only been created since the NBN was hobbled by the Liberals.

      • > Break the Telstra fixed line monopoly

        By creating a new monopoly with even more power. An RSP could install there own equipment in the exchange and have a direct connection to the customer. Internode installing a DSLAM, switching on ADSL2+ and offering uncapped speeds was a game changer.

        Under the NBN, we have returned to the old Telstra wholesale charging model of a connection fee based on speed and a data charge. As a result 79% of fibre connections are 25Mbps or slower and only 16% (and shrinking) are 100Mbps with zero 1Gbps connections.

        • A natural monopoly run by a GBE is different to a one run by a corporation servicing only its shareholders. They have different motivations. One is to provide a guaranteed service in the national interests, the other is to generate profit for shareholders. The plan was to provide a utility with a high, future-proof, ubiquitous service level, and allow competition by allowing RSPs to value-add to the wholesale service. Unfortunately that plan is now shot to hell. Take-up rates of select bandwidths at a single point in time during initial roll-out of a major infrastructure program designed for the next 60+ years are meaningless. It demonstrates short-term political thinking rather than long-term engineering.

          • Your point would be valid except for two points:
            * The actual take-up of speed tiers is slightly worse than Labor’s predictions which have been described as conservative.
            * There is now several years of data and the trend is towards people selecting slower speeds.

            Labor’s plan was for less than 1% to have a 1Gbps in 2026. In 2016, 1% connected 1Gbps in 2016 is currently below many places in the world, fast forward 10 years and it would see us fall even further behind.

            You would think it inconceivable, but Labor managed to construct an NBN Corporate Plan building a FTTP hobbled to the point where 79% on 25Mbps or slower won’t notice any real world difference when their connection if their connection is FTTN.

  29. The thing I find sad is that if NBNCo eliminated speed tiers on FTTN, the average internet speed would be significantly faster than Labor’s FTTP plan. This can be blamed simply on Labor’s choice to implement speed tiers and the well known result that most Australians (79%) are not prepared to pay for speeds faster than 25Mbps. The result is well known because Labor predicted how many people would connect at each speed in the NBNCo Corporate Plan and revised it for each update.

    Labor promised 1Gbps just prior to the 2010 election and 6 years later there are zero RSPs offering 1Gbps plans because under Labor’s artificially constructed financial model they simply are not viable. Meanwhile Google Fibre are offering free 1Gbps connections in public housing. In Australia only 16% (and falling) are connecting at 100Mbps.

    When Labor’s fanbois admit that Labor made a complete mess of the NBN and can come up with a realistic plan for everyone to have game-changing speeds on fibre, then 100Mbps and faster will remain an option for a small minority.

  30. They promised fibre to the node. Not what they are delivering in many cases.

    I thought it was common sense, implied that greenfields would be all fibre, Not copper with fibre to the node.

    One assumed that they would be replacing crapped out copper with fibre.

    I can’t understand why the copper was purchased and they are now paying for it;s maintenanced.

    Have seen any articles that identify at this late stage the condition of the copper.

    Can’t understand why the taxpayer not Telstra is paying for copper repair.

  31. These fascists treat the dumb with full contempt. They have it in their head people love ADSL and for their dialup technology services to go down for days or weeks when it rains and no care in the world to notify people or bring it up as Telstra does.

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