Labor has 60 complaints from congested FTTN users who want their ADSL back

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news The Opposition said this week that it has received about 60 complaints from early adopters of the Government’s preferred Fibre to the Node NBN rollout model, many of whom were receiving such poor service that they would prefer to have their original ADSL broadband back.

On Tuesday this week Delimiter published the story of Newcastle resident Robbie Gratton, an Optus FTTN customer on the National Broadband Network who detailed how his connection would slow down to almost unusable speeds during peak periods.

Later that night in Senate Estimates hearing pertaining to the NBN, former Communications Minister Stephen Conroy revealed Labor had received about 60 similar complaints so far from early adopter users of the Fibre to the Node network which the NBN company is deploying around Australia. The full Hansard transcript is available online in PDF format; the NBN section starts on page 97.

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 technically inferior model re-using and upgrading the legacy copper (Fibre to the Node) and HFC cable networks owned by Telstra and Optus.

Conroy gave a number of detailed examples of the issues.

For example, a Robin Dell from Belmont North said that they had signed up to a 50Mbps NBN FTTN service, but such speed were only “rarely achieved”. “Could you please make inquiries of the appropriate officers or ministers as to whether the FTTN NBN will provide a worse service compare to the ADSL 2+ it is replacing,” they asked. “At the moment that seems to be the case.”

Conroy said another user, Gerry Wallace from Valentine, wanted to go back to ADSL. It appears Wallace bought a 100Mbps FTTN plan, but it now goes down to under 5Mbps in the evening, and he is having trouble communicating with colleagues overseas and in Brisbane.

“Mr Maxwell Taylor … Gorokan, said he was better off under ADSL 1,” said Conroy. “There was a cabinet right outside the front of his house. He bought an up to [100Mbps] plan and was getting as low as [2Mbps]. He said that it was shocking at night and weekends and considerably slower than his old ADSL service. He has to hotspot his Optus mobile phone to get a decent service.”

Conroy further added: “Lawrence Alderton in … Belmont, said: ‘I have been connected to the NBN for two days with TPG on a [25Mbps] plan. What a joke. Peak time download speed is around four megs. That’s less than my old ADSL 2.'”

There were a number of other similar examples detailed by Conroy in the hearings, including some aged residents who were actually without service because the self-install process for the NBN’s FTTN network had failed, despite a number of FTTN modems having been sent out to customers.

“… apparently nothing can be done because Telstra is too overwhelmed with complaints in the area,” said Conroy about one customer.

In response to the issue, NBN chief executive Bill Morrow said he was “certain that the problems were real for the customers concerned. The executive said he did not want any customers to have a poor experience on the NBN.

However, Morrow stated that it was his belief that the similar teething problems would have been seen when the NBN company first started deploying its original Fibre to the Premises model, and that the issues were not related to the specific nature of Fibre to the Node as a broadband technology.

“I know you had many calls coming into your office when we first started to roll out fibre to prem as well,” he told Conroy, who was Communications Minister at the time. “It is the unfortunate nature of doing something for the first time.”

Morrow said the NBN company had examined every complaint that had so far been received about its FTTN network, and stated clearly that “not one of them was actually a speed issue that was related specifically to the Fibre to the Node technology”.

Instead, Morrow said, there were a number of other issues that could come into play, especially the amount of capacity which each retail ISP (such as Telstra or Optus) had purchased to aggregate customer connections back to their backbone networks.

“For people that are experiencing a peak busy hour reduction of speed, that is more likely to do with that CVC capacity that has been purchased by the RSP, the provision in the network size by the RSP and/or if there are other points of contention within the network,” said Morrow. “We evaluated and inspected every complaint on this to see, because it is so important for us to understand if in fact the technology cannot deliver the speeds that we need to. We did not find one case where the fibre-to-the-node technology was a factor in those speed complaints.”

Morrow said the NBN company was working very closely with the retail ISPs to resolve the issues.

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield also acknowledged he had received complaints on the issue.

opinion/analysis
On a technical basis, and examining the evidence, I am forced to agree with Morrow about this issue.

While Fibre to the Node is a comprehensively inferior broadband delivery mechanism compared to superior alternatives such as Fibre to the Premises, it still remains fact that it is not likely to be FTTN as a technology platform that is responsible for the peak hour congestion issues we are seeing here.

The bottleneck in this situation would not be in the copper cable running between customer premises and neighbourhood nodes, and nor would it be likely to be in the (extremely high capacity) fibre which runs from those nodes to local telephone exchanges. Instead, the issue is likely to be in the amount of capacity which retail ISPs are provisioning to each node — how much ‘CVC’ circuit capacity they are buying from the NBN company.

We’ve seen this same issue with ADSL services previously in Australia. Many will recall the term “contention ratio” and how there often seemed to be a vast difference in how that ration was applied between the various retail ISPs out there. I think we’re seeing a similar issue here. Retail ISPs like Optus appear to have completely underestimated the amount of capacity FTTN will require.

There are other issues, of course. The NBN company and its partners are not perfect at making appointments with customers to install FTTN, communicating with those customers, getting the right modem to those customers, and dealing with a hundred other issues involved in the broadband provisioning process.

However, again Morrow is right to say that many of these issues are not specific to FTTN as a technology but more related to the fact that this is a new type of rollout mechanism that the company is trialling.

The proof that FTTN can be reliably delivered in Australia is pretty easy to see. As I have previously written, I am on TransACT’s FTTN network in Canberra. I usually get speeds of up to 90Mbps even during peak periods, and installation of the service was a breeze. We’ve had very few outages, as this is a mature and well-developed network. It’s also being successfully used in the UK.

None of this is to say, of course, that FTTN is suitable as a technology for the NBN in general. My view continues to be that we shouldn’t be wasting time on it. Even if decent FTTN speeds can be achieved today, over the next 15 years the network will come to be massively outdated and need a huge upgrade to get to FTTP.

By 2030 at the outside (more likely 2025), Australians will consider FTTN the same way they do ADSL today — quite limited and not delivering what they need in their everyday life. That is the greater unaddressed issue here. We should not be conducting halfway measures when the obvious future of telecommunications networks is in ubiquitous optic fibre.

Video credit: Parliamentary Broadcasting

181 COMMENTS

  1. CVC?
    Sen. Conroy questioned how that could be the issue with so many different user ISPs

    I’d be looking at line faults that cause issues with crosstalk at peak times too. FTTN should have the same types of troubles as ADSL but much worse.

    • Ugh. Yes copper magic is a vastly inferior technology to fibre. Yes we shouldn’t be wasting money on it. But that isn’t the issue here. The issue is shitty ISPs who don’t know how “to Internet” combined with the ridiculous CVC pricing. Exactly the same congestion issue would be happening if fibre had been rolled out instead of FTTN, possibly even worse because of the higher throughput. The shitty ISPs like Optus and Exetel and iiNet still would have skimped on CVC capacity.

      • Are you calling iiNet a shitty ISP?

        Apart from the fact they are now owned by TPG they have some of the highest (If not the highest) satisfaction of any ISP in the country.

        • Yes. I don’t subscribe to the iiNet reality distortion field. They’re not what they were a decade ago. iiNet is a shitty and overpriced ISP.

        • Yes, I would. They were SHIT before TPG took them over (IINET is not the great ISP it used to be), and they are SHIT now TPG owns them.

      • Yeah, sorry Bruce, while the jury is out on iiNet’s performance under TPG, to call iiNet a ‘shitty’ ISP that skimps on backhaul capacity undermines the validity of your comment, because it is demonstrably incorrect.

        • Not always, but they have skimped at times. I was with Netspace when iiNet bought them and on an Optus DSLAM. Those that couldn’t be put onto iiNet (Chime DSLAMs) were moved to Telstra DSLAMs. 50kb (yes kilobit) evening speeds across the country for that who had been moved to the Tesltra DSLAMs. iiNet blaming Telstra, saying they couldn’t do anything. Luckily there was a Netspace senior tech who decided to privately contact all those who had this issue because he was disgusted with what iiNet doing, and let them know that they weren’t given backhaul because they were profitable enough to cover the extra cost of being on a Telstra DSLAM. No option to pay more, they just provisioned minimum backhaul so eventually the customers would churn to someone else.

          • I call BS on the reason given by the tech, either he was clueless or he had an axe to grind. It’s more likely they were provisioned on a RIM, which (in the pre-tophat days) tended to congest at the drop of a hat. The most iiNet could do in that situation is ask nicely that the RIM be upgraded… and you can imagine how well that went.

      • But the fact remains that there are practically zero stories of Optus, TPG, Exetel or iiNet customers on FTTP slowing to 3Mbps during peak.

      • Agree totally, iinet cant deliver as we are on the line of sight wireless and are lucky to get 4Mbps during peak times, hours and hours on the phone to these pricks in South Africa as they twist and turn trying to avoid fixing the issue, not congestion more them not paying for enough internet

    • It would be interesting to see if FTTH customers connected to the same POI were experiencing the same problem. CVC is shared between FTTH and FTTN on the same POI.

      • Yes they are having the same issue
        just spend a little time in the optus and iinet parts of whirlpool to see that

        • Sorry, but a little more scientific test would be appreciated. Like comparing the speeds and making sure that they are from the same POI. That hasn’t happened yet and I am yet to see an iiNet customer complaining about getting 2-4Mb during evening times, more like their 100Mb connection slows to 25Mb. Big difference.

          • I’d wonder if perhaps these shitty ISPs have spent about the same on CVC for FTTN as they have FTTP and with FTTN cabinets serving larger numbers of houses is causing the problem?

    • iiNet have identified that CVC congestion is occurring on their side of the POIs in Newcastle. They have been constantly upgrading over the last few weeks to meet demand. Sounds like they either underestimated the speeds people would get on VDSL or the amount of unmetered Netflix that would be consumed once people got decent connections

  2. I’d be interested to know how a TransACT node’s backhaul compares to a NBN node’s initial 2x1GB fibres. Does anyone know the details? A quick Google search on my part failed.

    • its also about customers per node. Have to remember you’re either being switched off or connected via MTM with 0 alternative so they’re supposedly signing up large numbers all at once.

      Transact is basically an alternative (although no idea why anyone wouldn’t want to be on it if they could).

      The 2x1Gb does make me wonder if its based on MTM premise of 25mb though

      I mean people were crying about 1/32 splits of 2.5Gbps!! Not so much hue and cry about MTM’s 2-300/2Gbps (probably due to the CiC et al of MTM)

      • Yeah, it would have made more sense for me to ask about contention ratios.

        Especially given that there was a post on Whirlpool which claims TransAct keep their copper length to a maximum of around 300m which would greatly reduce the number of users per node when compared to the NBN’s.

        • The 300m length is where the use cat5 instead of twisted pair. But I do remember reading somewhere for home past that point they went back to twisted pair

          • Not sure what you are on about, Cat5 is only rated for 100m as per TIA/EIA spec 568-5-A.

  3. Even if underprovisioning of CVCs turns out to be the problem, I will still blame NBN Co for not lowering CVC prices as they were supposed to do…

    Talking about it and real action are two different things.

    They are keeping CVC high to fill the massive hole in their budget due to the massive costs of switching to MTM, copper remediation and maintenance and losses from TPG FTTB and other FTTB players.

    http://www.afr.com/business/telecommunications/nbn-internet-prices-may-be-worlds-most-expensive-20150421-1mpxu9

    • Umm… the Liberals dropped CVC pricing from $20 to $17.50 on 1-Feb-2015. This was earlier than expected under Labor’s plan.

  4. You said:
    Instead, the issue is likely to be in the amount of capacity which retail ISPs are provisioning to each node — how much ‘CVC’ circuit capacity they are buying from the NBN company.

    My understanding is that CVC was to the POI, not to the node.

    • It definitely is just to the POI. If they’re under subscribed @POI (maybe because a new FttN area’s has appeared suddenly?) its the RSP’s at fault (likely this is the case).

      Otherwise its lack of bandwidth at the Node as the fibre from there back to the POI is on MTM and MTM only. Current indications is the cards/electronics in use have 2x1Gbps links running back to the POI though (can go up to 8x1Gpbs) which if that’s for 2-300 folk is why they are getting ~5mb each when everyone’s using it.

      Self install and modem issues are entirely MTM though imho (better testing and planning should have had this number pretty insignificant edge cases).

    • The bottleneck is occurring at the POI and isn’t FTTN specific. Renai just loves to attack FTTN whenever he can.

      • Good point apart from, you know, the fact Renai already said that…
        “..it still remains fact that it is not likely to be FTTN as a technology platform that is responsible for the peak hour congestion issues we are seeing here.”

        But why would you read the article, you already knew what it said right?

    • Internet Tax Cubed: Netflix Tax, OzLog/ Mandatory Metadata Retention, nbn/ NBN (just look at cost of FTTx/ VDSL through TPG), if no GAFW.

  5. When Internode + iiNet first rolled out ADSL2 they also had trouble with the contention ratios. From memory, because of the smaller user base the instantaneous peaks are higher, so they had to provision about double what they were expecting. Although nbn have their own fibre links so I can’t fathom why they wouldn’t just add the extra capacity at the start to save coming back every 4 months to upgrade it.

    I was one of the first to get FTTH on the mainland and I can confirm there were no congestion issues.

    • They shrunk the FttN cabinets a lot (say from what BT uses) to make them far closer to the FttP ones. They have 0 room for extra anything atm they can’t even run their own FoD/FttdP out of them.

      I believe the cards (7333 or some such ) in use have 2 fibre strands being run @1Gbps back to the FSAM/POI (out of possible 8). I don’t know for sure how many customers atm per Node (have heard 2-400) but that bandwidth is very small in comparison to say FttP (1/32 split of 2.5Gbps) ~5mbps vs 78 (if you assume worst case usage during peak period)

      even running at 8 which has it maximised I still worry about the provisioning levels.

      • There’s certainly no congestion issues on FTTP to this day. Skymesh serving me quite nicely.

        It’s interesting that Skymesh have the rep as one of the most reliable NBN providers, and they’ve chosen to completely ignore FTTN to this point…

          • Your copy and paste cut off what you didn’t want to post.

            It’s probably a start of next year thing, we’re so close to the end of this year already. Our strong preference is to work with nbn co rather than other competing providers.

            There we go, the full explanation.

          • lol Alain you believe what you want to believe. My housemate works there and there is absolutely zero happening on the FTTN front at this point. I guess ‘early’ this year could be anywhere up until June, so we’ll see.

            Rizz’ quote was clearly more apt.

          • I don’t really care one way or the other what one ISP does or doesn’t do re FTTN, if they decide to not sell it all that’s their business decision, I was just copying the full statement, not just a copy, cut and paste.

  6. How do the fibre links compare between Node -> POI and PON ->POI. (Hope I got the acronyms right) ie under the fttn v fttp rollouts. Are the fibre capacity links identical?

    • for Fttp its split 1/32 between 2.5Gbps on the strand etc.

      for FttN a node cabinet servers 2-300 odd customers (need better hard data on this tho) with supposedly 2x1Gbps (out of 8) from the current card/hardware installed.

      • So the fttn plan reduces the capacity compared to fttp? That bodes ill. Expect more user complaints.

        • It stands to reason when you consider most people won’t be getting much more than 25Mbps, compared to the need to provide for people on 100Mbps (and was capable of offering 1000Mbps services although they appear to be withdrawn from sale). But the possible (probable) change of 32 premises to hundreds of premises is an answer waiting for disaster.

  7. I’d like to point out something fairly important that this exposes. A big part of the argument from the LNP/the SR/the castrated NBN Co for the viability of the MTM approach including both FTTN and HFC is that, according to them, Australians do not and will not make use of faster, higher capacity networks than FTTN and HFC can deliver for at least the next ten years. What we have here is the first real world test case to that premise (you know, about the only time that word has been used correctly in the past five years).

    You see, if it turns out that users are demanding much greater capacity than the contention ratios of FTTN and HFC can actually deliver, then they are obsolete *before* they’ve even been constructed. Forget new usage models, this is what people are doing with their connections in the real world *right now*. If users are demanding much greater capacity than RSPs can provision without the product costing more than they can recover, then it is an unworkable model.

    And bear in mind that we are almost certainly not talking about nodes that have been activated at full capacity at this point. It is likely that this problem is actually going to get *worse*, not better.

    For the naysayers that would dismiss this as negative speculation, that there’s no way network designers could build something so comprehensively incapable of doing the job even to minimal standards, I would point you to the problems people have experienced on HFC for well over a decade – contention ratios so high that peak times make services that should be able to deliver 100mbps completely unusable. I would direct you to analyse the problems experienced by mobile broadband users in high density areas, particularly the nightmare that was 3G. Contention is a significant issue in network design, and if significant capacity isn’t thrown at the problem, carefully monitored and regularly upgraded to continually exceed linearly and inexorably growing demand, then such a network will crawl to a standstill and fail to deliver a decent service. It has always been extremely concerning that FTTN has much higher contention ratios than the real NBN was designed to deliver, but the unfolding of such short sightedness may just demonstrate how perversely ignorant, deceptive and utterly incapable the spruikers of FTTN and HFC as suitable next generation broadband technologies are.

    • Although the issue here is that people are getting much lower speeds than the copper can reach. People are syncing at 100mbps and only getting 3. This isn’t an issue with FTTN, it’s an issue with CVC pricing, and/or ISPs being under prepared. Whether the connection is FTTP or FTTN doesn’t make a difference.

      • No, you can sync at 100 and only receive 3mbps usable because of contention. I’m not saying this isn’t an issue of insufficient virtual circuit allocation, I’m saying that is unlikely to be the whole story. Is virtual circuit pricing the same for FTTN as it is for FTTP? If so, why are we suddenly seeing stories about this now as FTTN customers are being connected, yet we have seen nothing of this ilk for the past three years on FTTP? There is definitely *something* significant about this that is directly related to FTTN.

  8. If Conroy got his way and the great internet firewall filter of Australia was erected, we wouldn’t have congestion. There would be no P2P and no porn. I can’t believe people actually listen to someone like Conroy.

    • Is that the best you can do?

      Have you actually watched him in Senate Estimates? He actually knows what he is talking about the majority of the time, unlike Malcolm T.

    • Yes, and collecting everyone’s metadata will have zero impact. Now, post something on topic rather than trying to deflect the subject. Sorry but most people here are posting based on technology. Delimiter is not a political forum, you seem to be lost.

      • “Delimiter is not a political forum, you seem to be lost.”

        +1

        There are a couple of others here who don’t seem to get that either.

        Those who always retort with, but Labor in 2007, but FTTP, but Quigley, but they, whenever we are discussing what is actually happening right now.

        But apparently because the current roll out is years behind and as much as $27B over budget – in relation to what we were promised pre-election (25-50mbps for all Aussies and a sub $30B fully costed FTTN based plan) we are fibre zealots, fibre fanboys and the ones who are politically biased for daeing to mentioning it?

        Go figure.

    • The adults are in charge now, not Conroy.. Can’t blame Conroy for Malcolms mess.

    • I’d say because there’s ~1.1million customers now so there’s room for managing contention.

      Atm MTM has 6k customers if you believe those are actually paying/connected etc. split across a few RSP’s across a few areas (probably several POI) and they could spike the data usage for an RSP in a specific area such that its POI CVC is under what it needs to be.

      That users are hitting 5mbs is however worrying as even with FttP it was folk hitting 15-25mb etc.

      • Isn’t that why the first 150Mb of CVC is free per POI. It was never a problem with FTTH. Sure people were complaining about evening slowdown, their connections dropping from 93Mb to 25Mb during peak times, but not 90 odd down to 3-4Mb

    • Just jump on to the Whirlpool forums of nearly any NBN RSP and you’ll see these issues exist for FTTP too.

    • Exactly right HC, 1/1Gbps backhaul to the node is a recipe for disaster and here it is!!!

      For the sake of a lousy couple of grand per node (4x 10GigE SFP’s vs 4x 1GigE SFP’s – 2 in each node and 2 at the POI), LNP_nbn is screwing folks over by limiting the actual peak bandwidth available to users at 5 Mbps!

      What a farce, everyday the #FraudBand moniker continues to prove 100% accurate!

      • “For the sake of a lousy couple of grand per node (4x 10GigE SFP’s vs 4x 1GigE SFP’s – 2 in each node and 2 at the POI), LNP_nbn is screwing folks over by limiting the actual peak bandwidth available to users at 5 Mbps! ”

        +1000

        This is the Turnbull legacy.

        Everyone, including him, knows this will all need to be SCRAPPED in a few years time, and the ENTIRE network rebuilt using fibre like it should have been done in the first place.

        Turnbull is a whizz at spending MY tax money, and just to ram the point home, he’s making me pay for it TWICE!

      • Wrong… do you realise that greenfields FTTP sites are fed by 1Gbps backhaul?

        The backhaul is not the issue, and it ever because the issue, it’s scaleable right now.

        The issue here is CVC bandwidth, pure and simple, nothing more.

        • B.s. Just showing your ignorance here Scott, FTTP here is using GPON which is 2.5/1.25 gbps per 32 way splitter.

          This gives a guaranteed worst case scenario of 78/39 mbps layer 2 bandwidth per premises.

    • I remember reading this and subsequent discussions about it on whirlpool.

      Would be good if Renai had mentioned it in his opinion/analysis as it is definitely another point of contention that is specific to FTTN. Otherwise Morrow doesn’t have to address it and he just gets away with shifting the blame to ISPs.

    • What choice do you have? Fibre on demand is a myth. Stick to mobile broadband? Then you have Malcolm ‘Political Vandal’ Turnbull claiming that all people wanted was mobile broadband after all!

      If you wanted to refuse anything, you should have refused to vote Liberal at the last election. I cant believe the number of people who voted these criminals in who have spent the last three years complaining about the ‘deceit’. As though there weren’t weekly examples of their unashamed deceit for years prior to September 2013. If you want to do something about this situation do whatever you can to stop their re-election. Nothing else will matter a whit.

      • Very, very well said! IT’s not as if the public didn’t know that Abbott was an unintelligent moron who described the Internet as a “Video Entertainment System” It’s not as if they didn’t know they woulfdn’t get a best in class system. Hell I have friends in New Zealand who have 600 mbit/s Fbire connections to their homes.

        His party still does not understand the expense that it has committed Australia to! Paying for and installing a FFTN network that is already obsolete. We are all paying for this and will continue to pay for the dismantling of the FTTP plan for the next 20 years.

        MY brother in law is a Lib/coalition voter, and to hear him complain about the NBN is a joke. He blames what happened to it on Labor. HE actually got a very, very poor FTTN connection while I was lucky to get fibre. I said to him The only person to blame for your Internet problems is the one staring at you in the mirror each morning.

        • ” to hear him complain about the NBN is a joke. He blames what happened to it on Labor.”
          Your brother in law is the type of idiot inhabiting this country that makes me want to leave. Over half of ‘us’ are your brother in law. At this point this country looks irredeemably stupid.

  9. 60 cases is a very low number on what is still a trial and I’m sure most of those if not all could easily be resolved by NBN reworking things.

    My understanding of this issue is that the ISPs/RSPs are not purchasing enough capactiy from NBN, and hence there is a slowdown in peak times.

    There is no problem between the node and the house, there is no problem between the node and the exchange, and there is no problem in the NBN backhaul. So there is no problem with the FTTN NBN.

    These customers should take up their complaints with their ISP/RSP and as should Senator Conroy. The only reason he would be bringing this up is because its an election year and he wants to grand stand about how its all Turnbulls fault which it isn’t.

    Clearly if the company the person is buying Internet from isn’t buying enough NBN capacity, that’s their decision and has nothing to do with NBN.

    The vast majority of posts I’m reading about NBN are positive, and the homes connected are very happy with their connections. As more people take up FTTN services, these companies will be more easily able to justify upgrading their NBN links at that location because profits will be soaring.

    This article is quite repetitive as well, the author is quite adamant that hes going to continue pushing Labor broadband policy so don’t expect fair or balanced coverage here. It’s just a barrage of anti-government news articles rather than at least a balanced view like for instance covering the vast majority of happy homes on FTTN NBN.

    • “This article is quite repetitive as well, the author is quite adamant that hes going to continue pushing Labor broadband policy so don’t expect fair or balanced coverage here.”

      If you are going to have a go at the article, at least read it. From your post it’s pretty clear you haven’t or that your ideological blinkers blind you.

      • Oh?

        “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 same paragraph is copy/pasted in nearly every past article if you don’t believe me go and look yourself.

        • The reason for that has been explained many times……you must have missed it. Maybe we should get Renai to add this to his copy and past message as well.

        • Yes, but it’s not repeated within this article. Do you expect any reader to read all the previous articles before this one?
          How is that even advocacy? He is simply stating a fact. It being good or bad is not mentioned. Feeling so insecure about MTM is a good solution that any mention of fibre is being political? Surely people are allowed to say fibre is a technically superior technology without having to pretend it’s not for some sort of false balance.

        • Oh?

          And the same replies of “but Labor, but in 2007, but FTTP, but Quigley, but they…. perpetually and nonsensically spew forth from the same people (just check this one article and those replies)..

          NEWSFLASH: – the Coalition were voted in because the majority of people weren’t happy with the previous government (not necessarily their BB policy, but them in general) and as a consequence of this change of government, we are trying to discuss what the government of today, are actually doing with our comms, “now”, in amongst the endless dumb interjections of , but they… *sigh*

          But I can understand with the MTM being an unparalleled fuck-up, to the lengths unheard of in Australia’s history (just as we told the, but they, mob it would be – but the level of absolute incompetence, I think is surprising even us) … of course, you guys are compelled to blame someone…

          … else!

          • Rizz,

            the Coalition were voted in because the majority of people weren’t happy with the previous government (not necessarily their BB policy, but them in general)

            Yes it never has anything to do with NBN policy but only when Labor lose government on a FTTP platform, but if Labor win this year and have another go at a partial FTTP rollout it will suddenly have everything to do with NBN policy, and the voters have ‘seen the light’.

            Electors decide on who to vote for all sorts of reasons and I know it gags but many of them may have seen what the Labor NBN Co did with the FTTP rollout after six years and actually decided ‘you had your chance and you blew it’, give someone else a go.

          • @ alain

            Complete childish stupidity and conjecture… but what”s new?

            Especially from one who depends on FUD to cloud the facts, then contradicts him self almost daily… oh just as he did here..

            Remember you past and present (and org’asmo presently) telling us how comms has “no impact” upon any election victories/losses, whatsoever?

            Remember?

            And then you prattled on about FTTP having nothing to do with Abbott not becoming PM in 2010 (even though the Liberal Party via Peter Reith admitted it was a big factor in Tassie where had they won seats, impacted upon by FTTP, they’d have won the election..”

            Looky now …”many of them may have seen what the Labor NBN Co did with the FTTP rollout after six years and actually decided ‘you had your chance and you blew it’, give someone else a go.

            So does comms have an affect on elections alain?

            So far your definitive answers are no and yes… ROFL, depending
            on the FUD and perpetual yes man BS needed at any given time.

            Unbelievable :/

            You’re welcome

          • (even though the Liberal Party via Peter Reith admitted it was a big factor in Tassie where had they won seats, impacted upon by FTTP, they’d have won the election..”

            Incorrect, Reith said that the NBN, might have had a impact on one seat in Tasmania, Bass.

            There you go fixed it for you (again).

          • Your childish argumentative hurting is most delicious.

            Why do you think Peter Reith bothered to highlight the negative impact, FTTP had on the Coalitions vote in Tassie, where the Coalition had the biggest swing against them (iirc) ever and missed out on governing, in a hung parliament situation?

            Because it had no impact? ROFL

            Yes that makes sense, in your backward world.

            Almost as good as your classic, “before roads there were no roads”

            You’re welcome

        • This same paragraph is copy/pasted in nearly every past article if you don’t believe me go and look yourself.

          No need. I believe you. Always a good idea to give some basic facts for new readers. I know there are some who would like to revise history in their favor but fact of the matter is the previous government (Labor) did in fact enact a policy that called for most Australian premises to be covered by fibre. That is not an opinion.

        • It’s hilarious how many people have a problem with such a simple, straight forward statement of fact.

          Facts != bias. Learn something!

    • The time for blaming trials is over once the official commercial launch has taken place.

    • “for instance covering the vast majority of happy homes on FTTN NBN”

      hey mate,

      I refer you to Delimiter Principle 2:

      https://delimiter.com.au/statement-of-principles/

      “Where there is a choice of technologies to be implemented, we support the option that will be the best fit for purpose in the long-term.”

      In this case, it is clear that in the long term, FTTP will be a better fit for purpose technology for Australia than FTTN. Sure, there are happy FTTN users today … but come 2025 and 2030 … they will not be happy, when their neighbours have FTTP.

      There is no argument regarding this clear fact — hence why Delimiter is pro-FTTP.

      However, that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. I base all my writing on evidence ;) If you can present new evidence that may change my mind, I welcome you to do so …

      Renai

    • “There is no problem between the node and the house, there is no problem between the node and the exchange, and there is no problem in the NBN backhaul. So there is no problem with the FTTN NBN.”

      And your evidence of this lies where? At the bottom of the harbour. You have no idea where the problem/s lay, but pushing an ideological barrow works? Even the “fibre zealots” admit that there is a problem in the amount of CVC the RSP’s have purchased, but to say that this is 100% the only cause of the congestion is the equivalent of putting on the Kool Aid blinkers, blocking your ears and shouting “nanananananana”.

      A simple look at the node to exchange backhaul shows that there is only 5Mbps/customer. That’s definitely going to add contention issues. Also totally laughable that the LNP Kool Aid brigade were harping on that FTTP “only” had 78Mbps/customer…

      • Also totally laughable that the LNP Kool Aid brigade were harping on that FTTP “only” had 78Mbps/customer…

        Indeed, I certainly recall a few comments along those lines, I think it was about at the same time they were saying “nobody needs more than 25mbps” too.

    • “grand stand about how its all Turnbulls fault which it isn’t.”
      Technically, since this issue never occurred to this extent with FTTP, if the FTTP rollout had continued and people were connecting to that, this FTTN wouldn’t exist and to that end it is of course 100% Turnbulls doing.

      “the author is quite adamant that hes going to continue pushing Labor broadband policy”
      Talk about bias! He never even mentions Labor. All he said is that FTTP is clearly superior, technically and financially. This is a practically indisputable fact, or at least it would be if so many eggheads weren’t so consistently disputing it.

      “It’s just a barrage of anti-government news articles rather than at least a balanced view like for instance covering the vast majority of happy homes on FTTN NBN.”
      You mean like this?
      https://delimiter.com.au/2016/02/08/most-australians-now-support-mtm-nbn-claims-morrow/
      Be careful, you risk looking like a fucking imbecile.

  10. Quite a few people looking pretty stupid today (will the correction be acknowledged?). Congratulations to DO and, in particular CW for his outstanding photo contribution.

    7330 with NANT-E backplane (2x10ge), single pair fibre uplink (currently unknown) in use another reserved (remaining 8 cores for further expansion: read FTTP). Uplink capacity max 2x10ge per node, installed capacity not yet known (1/1 or 10/10ge?). Obviously not the cause of the issues, despite the squealer letters to Conroy (tech genius).

    Looks like the ramp up of FTTN rollout catching more than a few RSPs of guard. Not surprising when use to waiting years for an area to become RFS;-)

    • [Edit – the “correct” is directed @Richard, not Derek O]
      Correct. ~40K in the last week alone and if you look at it on a 26 week rolling basis (takes out the understandable inaction over xmas break), they are well past any previous peak while SC0 continues to drop.

      I do get a good laugh out of the comments re 2gbps out of a node not being enough. People would be horrified if they knew how oversubscribed ADSL is/was.

      • ADSL has average speeds of 6-7mbps per second so provisioning a DSLAM with 1/1 GigE backhaul in the pre-netflix days was more than adequate for a mid range ISP to support ~3,000 services with contention ratios of less than 25:1.

        • In terms of pre-NBN ADSL networks, you’re off by one or two orders of magnitude depending on which network you’re talking about. It would truly be interesting and very enlightening for a lot of people on a thread like this if someone ever leaked, by POI, # services per RSP with corresponding AVC and POI CVC for the RSP. People would learn a lot quickly.

          Jxeeno has two fifths of fk all idea what he is talking about and should probably stick to mapping. **No one in the industry** buys agg capacity on the basis of at theoretical calculation of what CIR is needed to watch Netflix – ever. They look at their actual utilisation on their links and bump up performance when they reach whatever their percentile is they define as the one where they buy more capacity. Unless you’re Optus in which case you don’t care and let the CVC run hot because they’re tight/.

          I am very amused that the fibre boosters are pointing the finger at some sort of systemic FTTN flaw when it is almost certainly the case that it is the speed of rollout afforded by FTTN that is catching the RSPs with their dacks down in terms of insufficient CVC and/or not caring.

          • The ISP I used to work aimed for 25:1 contention ratios for consumers and 4:1 contention ratio for business services.

        • @do module used not yet confirmed, I too would be surprised with 1/1GE given savings small compared with the cost of the node (simple upgrade anyway). However DC is also on target, 1GE is large when considering (0.8×192=153) largely residential premises. Add almost 80% choosing 25/5 or less with high contention ratios (30-50:1).

          FTTN & FTTB are well understood/deployed technologies. It’s deployment ramp-up amazing already. Bring on HFC (H2) and we’ll see how the policy should have been done (completed today, billions saved). Labor should be smashed bring this up.

          • @Richard, the problem is nbn arent the ISP, they are supposed to provide the infrastructure then get the F out of the way – then if Dodo want to under provision CVC for their budget service vs Telstra provisioning more realistic CVC they can.

            NBN is supposed to be a transparent Layer 2 provider … which it pretty much is for FTTP due to the GPON standards.

    • They are not running 10g connections but 1g based on everything I have seen.

      Why are they not future proofing by using 10g is bizarre and a massive waste of money when they have to come out and continually add more capacity.

      But then that is the way nbn TM roll these days.

      • It is quite bizarre, I’d be shocked if the 10GigE SFP’s cost more than ~$500 each compared to the ~$100 each for a 1GigE SFP.

      • Perhaps they’re are putting 2gbps out of each node because they actually have industry experience and know that in the real world that is actually a pant load of capacity for 300 resi-grade services?

          • Not at all – it is basic economic sense. Why would you put in some arbitrarily large capacity link when there is no proven or immediate demand for it? This is especially the case in light of the fact 80% of people on FTTP or FTTN buy 25mbps or less anyway. To repeat what I said earlier, NO ONE buys capacity based on a worst case scenario for some unknown point in the future based on ports multiplied by Netflix multiplied by 4K TVs and whatever else. “Future proofing” is a bullsh1t concept that ignores price and opportunity cost on the capital. Companies buy capacity based on demonstrated current usage in a given percentile and increase that as requirements increase. This is how the Internet was built.

            One given node might get a bunch of subscribers on it at 100mbps or whatever because of some local conditions like a business park. Another might never see the sides of a 2gbps link touched because it is in an area with senior citizens or other conditions that cause lower backhaul requirements. One node might fill up quickly, and another might take ages to fill up because maybe users in that area go to 4G or whatever – who knows? You and your mate Aj sure as hell don’t.

            This fibre booster mentality to want to platinum plate everything within an inch of its life shows that people either think that they can predict the future or have fk all idea about how to run a business profitably. It also ignores the whole history of how the Internet came to be – market driven, incremental refinements to technology over time in response to users’ changing needs.

          • D.C. You clearly fail to understand the concept of a wholesale only infrastructure provider, they are not supposed to be the limiting factor, they are there to provide a layer 2 service and then get the hell out of the way.

            This would then leave the ISP to provision their cvc to their liking so for example dodo can keep providing a crap but cheap service and better quality ISP’s like Telstra can provide better quality services.

            Further, a single 10/10 gbps backhaul link would allow a 192 port node to provide and average of 50 mbps continuous bandwidth to each port for a cost difference off about $800 per node.

          • I entirely understand the concept of a wholesale provider. Providing a L2 service and ‘getting the hell out of the way’ is not a rationale for spending millions of additional dollars on optics that might not be required in the long term and are definitely not required in the short term.

          • Not required in the short term eh? Well clearly current FTTN customers feel differently, they were getting better results on ADSL despite slower sync speeds!

            Besides, let’s say for arguments sake NBN are rolling out 60,000 nodes, $800 extra per node is $48 million extra total, that’s loose change on an up to $56 billion dollar project!

          • How would 10gig optics in a node fix Optus not buying enough CVC at the relevant POI?

            If you think $48mil is “loose change” because the overall project is large then we will have to agree to disagree on value.

          • @do you’re conflating issues. Not a single FTTN customer or RSP is today, nor the near term, restricted by a 1ge uplink (if confirmed). Upgrade to max capacity of 20ge if required trivial, fibre already laid and reserved.

            Your wholesale L2 position is oversimplified; read the bitstream product guides and traffic classes.

            DC is spot on with his analysis and reasoning, however I agree installing 10ge modules would not materially affect the costings.

            FTTN here is a non-issue (noted in comments to the original article, reread the bile). The pace of rollout and underprovisioned backhaul appears to have caught RSP out.

            Renai now understands, kodos.

            Uplink capacity will become an issue in the future particularly given the importance of CVC to NBNCo revenue (modelled) and the lower peak speeds obtainable utilising FTTN. Revenue growth (without expensive/disruptive line card upgrades) and end user experience will depend on reducing contention ratios. Anyone that’s provisioned a 1:1 8/8mbps with QoS will attest to its impressive throughput.

          • You know what is trivial Richard the cost between 1g and 10g .
            You know what is not the added cost of doing it again later (which they won’t do)

          • D.C. Reports indicate all ISP’s have unhappy customers, not just the suckers who went with Optus, iiNet and TPG.

          • Richard I’m not conflating anything, you only need to look at the GPON specs to see that using the 32-way splitter config results in a minimum bandwidth per port of 78/39 mbps which is the primary reason we aren’t seeing mass contention issued on that platform.

          • @aj another Rizz. To add another 10ge requires installing the spf module and a couple of SM patch leads and configuration (both ends). You’re way out of your league.

          • @do it is not the minimum, but the average theoretical max sustained bandwidth. NBNCo was selling 1gbps VC on FTTP last mile with total bandwidth unable to sustain all drop customers ordering even 100mbps! This is how networks work.

            Also provisioned fibre transist will be well below that required to guarantee anywhere near that bandwidth to every premise.

            RMIT’s Gregory talk of 10G-PON just as ridiculous, backhaul and transit (including installed dark fibre) unable to scale to anywhere near that potential capacity. Think of the undersea fibre capacity!

            This is NOT an uplink issue.

          • Minimum bandwidth is a highly simplistic term, however it serves it’s purpose and that is to show all things being equal, an FTTP GPON port will never have less than 78/39 mbps of layer 2 bandwidth available if all ports are being used continuously at the same time.

            It’s a valid metric.

          • Once again Dick, I see that you are overwhelmingly compelled to mention me, even when I haven’t commented… at this and (if not all) well most of your simplistic, uneducated comments.

            It really shows how defensive and unhealthily vengeful you are, simply due to my truthful expose’s of your obsequious lies and contradictions.

            There’s a word for this – butthurt.

        • @david Connors
          “Perhaps they’re are putting 2gbps out of each node because they actually have industry experience and know that in the real world that is actually a pant load of capacity for 300 resi-grade services?”

          Interesting, so you are saying that NBNco couldn’t have under provisioned the node backhaul because of their industry experience?

          I guess RSPs like Optus, iiNet plus others must not have any industry experience?

        • So what you’re saying is that people who paid for 12/25/50/100Mbps but who can only get 6Mbps because of inadequate backhaul provisioning – actually, 3Mbps, because it’s 1Gbps each way – should just suck it up because they’re only a “resi-grade service”?

          Especially when putting in 10Gbps backhaul each way is trivial, both in terms of time and cost (and yes, $48 million in a $56 billion project is pocket change, and probably counts as a rounding error in the accounting software). Especially when if a proper FTTP NBN had been put in place, this wouldn’t be an issue because there would be adequate backhaul provisioning.

          “How would 10gig optics in a node fix Optus not buying enough CVC at the relevant POI?”

          Because if the backhaul is inadequately provisioned, then there simply isn’t enough CVC. Fix that issue first, and then start blaming RSPs for not buying enough CVC if the problem persists.

          • Well put Robert, the lack of logic of these rusted on lib supporters is truly staggering!

          • @r a 1ge uplink would guarantee min 6.5mbps (each direction) for a fully loaded node (80% or 153 customers) even IF everyone was choosing 100mbps (actual 79% choosing less than 50). This is far greater than RSP provisioned CVC (30-50:1) or RSP backhaul from PoI.

            This is not an uplink issue.

            @do has nothing to do with lib supporters.

          • @Richard: Whether people are paying for 12Mbps or 100Mbps is irrelevant. The fact remains that people are not getting the bandwidth and speeds they’re paying for because there isn’t enough backhaul. As has been pointed out REPEATEDLY, it would be a trivial exercise to upgrade the available backhaul to a far more useful 10Gbps. So, yes it is an uplink issue.

            And maybe the reason that not many people are taking up the higher speed bands is that those bands simply aren’t available in their area. Or because of situations like this, where they’d be getting far less than the speeds they paid for.

          • @r there are a few points of possible congestion: premise > node, node > PoI, CVC at PoI, RSP backhaul, wider Internet interconnections, …

            As posted when the story broke (obvious to tech literate, acknowledge now by NBNCo & RSP) The issue is not on the NBNCo network. They could upgrade their node uplink to the max 20ge and it would not help.

            It is not uplink (transist). The problem is after NBNCo’s network: CVC and/or backhaul. Upgrading to 10ge CVC and backhaul is neither trivial norinexpensive. If available the CVC alone would be $175000 per month (add same again for backhaul if available) and it would be under utilised.

            Time a few learnt about Internet network design; speed and contention ratios critical (bandwidth far less than many assume).

          • Richard, no one is claiming the ISP’s aren’t under provisioning cvc, what we are saying is the backhaul to the node is going to make this situation worse Than it otherwise would be.

          • @Richard: If NBN upgraded the backhaul at each node to 10Gbps each way, then it would actually be quite helpful. With the same number of customers per node, it would mean that the people would stand a much better chance of actually getting the speeds they’re paying for. Incidentally, the backhaul IS on NBN’s network – partly because it’s the capacity from the node heading upstream, but mostly because NBN own the entire bloody thing from exchange to wall socket. And I’d like to see something to back up your claim of $175k per month for 10/10Gbps capacity.

            @Derek: Well… there can’t be more CVC than the backhaul capacity will allow, so if there isn’t enough backhaul, then the RSPs can’t really be faulted for under-provisioning CVC. If the backhaul issue is fixed and this issue persists, then we can go after the RSPs with torches and pitchforks.

          • @do not true. Might have an effect in the future as discussed.

            @r please stop. Uplink (transit), PoI is the end of the road for NBNCo. The issues are after the NBNCo network.

            RSP’s backhaul is from PoI. CVC can be provisioned greater than either backhaul and/or transit (independent). Can be shared (or not) amongst all customers at PoI (ie multiple nodes, FW, FTTB, FTTH, ….)

            For per Mbps costing see the NBNCo price list. Multiply by the number of megabits.

            You can after the RSPs today, the cause is known (knowledge of the tech exposed it, first article; reread the “told you so” gems of the usual suspects getting it completely wrong).

    • Yes indeed Dick, to suggest MTM (IMO and many other’s opinions here, the most mismanaged fuck up in Australia’s history) is going along so well – with 4 year hold ups and $27B over the promised sub $30B fully costed plan – that the RSP’s can’t keep up, is not pretty stupid it is stupidity of the highest order.

      Amazing

      • Addendum… even more ironically, juicy Dick (ooh those two words didn’t meld too good eh?) Regardless…

        To think you, yes you the L(l)ibertarian, who says all things government are hopeless and private enterprise rules… now (after pleading that you support MTM but only with government out) is flip-flopping and completely contradicting yourself, AGAIN…

        Wow…

        So you now say that private enterprise “can’t keep up with the GBE MTM?” Really?

        How about that?

        Like it’s complete fucking BS, to desperately try to hide and/or excuse the MTM (that you wrote, or something like that) fuck up. But the irony of such contradictory stupidity, “to suit the current narrative”, I’m sure didn’t register at the time and such a humiliating back-flip away from one’s previously supposed steadfast, ideological umm, err, idiocy, is absolute GOLD, Dick…

        • @rizz perfectly illustrating his intellect and grasp of the subject.

          There’s no contradiction, NBNCo (new mgmt) has had a win (reread my weekly progress report analysis and your comments). However the company has consumed $16b for some 500k customers, $300m annual revenue and $2b loss likely this year. This being in their 6th year. Performance that is disastrous, in the private sector everyone would have been sacked (Quigley and friends paid themselves bonuses every year). Compare performance with BT, DT, several telcos in North America, Chorus, …

          But leave it alone. Top post previous article defining your ignorance and gullibility. Asked repeatedly to be civil it’s time you direct your bile at somebody else. Sadly you’re too dumb to understand how little you know.

          • Oh Dick the bile, the bile… lol, hypocrite…

            Anyway, back to reality (feel free to join us)…

            Yes as usual Dick claims Dick is right and everyone else is wrong… even after Dick is proven wrong * S I G H *

            Keep banging that Dick drum Dick…

            MTM management haven’t had a win yet, ever or forseeable they are a rabble (using your plan)…

            But to support them as you must, you prostituted your L(l)ibertarian whatever beliefs, to laud the MTM at the expense of private enterprise…

            And surprise, surprise you now claim you didn’t…

            Seriously the word complete goose comes to mind.

          • “There’s no contradiction,”

            “NBNCo (new mgmt) has had a win”
            “Performance that is disastrous,”

            “Quigley and friends paid themselves bonuses every year)”
            Quigley paid himself less than the current criminals and donated his to charity. Morrow on the other hand is such an upstanding bloke, he takes more and donates nothing.

            But you’ll keep bringing up Quigley every chance you get for 2 years straight… like you have a hard on for him or something.

            “it’s time you direct your bile at somebody else. Sadly you’re too dumb to understand how little you know.”

            “There’s no contradiction,”

        • lol, yet another RR contradiction exposed, I think it’s time for popcorn again Rizz :-)

          • Indeed HC, once again Dick says something then denies he said it and personally attacks…LOL.

            Like IDGAF, I can take it (and laugh at the desperation) but even more laughable is… Dick sobbing about bile and his inability to take criticism… it just get’s better.

            But it’s interesting to know he thinks MTM is superior to private enterprise… Because everyone but the government, NBN ™ (not NBNCo – lol) and the trusty mindless minions here, know that MTM is hopeless, so what does that say about his L(l)ibertarian poster boy private enterprise…

            PRICELESS

          • Calling Richard Dick all the time adds credence to your posts?

            Really?

            You and others are actually doing the MtM argument a favour, but you don’t actually get it that is what is happening with all the meaningless repetitive ranting as we get nearer and nearer to the election.

          • Alain, congrats you just made your quota of 1 meaningful post per month!

            Rizz, he’s right mate, Richard deserves to be called by his preferred name, as do we all.

          • As usual, the MTM mouth has the audacity to whinge at others, for doing to him/them, exactly as they do…

            Apparently these warped individuals believe it’s ok for them to not only refer to someone by a name other than their own (Brissy line boy is one), but to also ridiculously accuse multiple people of being the one person…

            Note, I haven’t complained. Par for the course.

            Unbelievable perpetual hypocrisy, yet again from the usual suspects.

            You’re welcome.

          • Oh sorry alain (yes alain) perhaps like all things NBN you simply don’t have the capacity to comprehend that Dick is actually short for Richard?

            The fact it fits like hand in glove, is nothing more than a happy accident.

            You’re welcome.

          • “Calling Richard Dick all the time adds credence to your posts?”
            You… do know what Dick is short for, right…

            “You and others are actually doing the MtM argument a favour,”
            lol ill perceived name calling somehow disproves facts.

  11. Renai the CVC is provisioned at the interconnect between the POI and the RSP network – not between the POI and the node. Additionally, the RSP might not have enough Agg out of the POI as well. The former is a quick fix the latter might be hard. Both will cost the RSP cashola so they will be reluctant to send up big if they’re offering unlimited plans, as Optus is. I guess NBN could name and shame people running CVC red hot but that is a bad way to treat your own customers.

    The other issue you have is that the run rate of serviceable and activated premises is at an all time high now (40K premises made serviceable in the past week) and this growth will likely put a lot of pressure on any RSP’s preexisting CVC commitments/pricing models.

    I am somewhat bemused that Conroy and Co would go hard on this issue when the CVC pricing debacle was entirely of their construction.

      • Indeed, I love how the Lib boosters try to blame the RSP’s and pretend they all somehow got their CVC completely wrong for FTTN only! beggars belief!

        • Equally, I love how people with an anti-MTM NBN agenda seek to blame the issue on the MTM technology, when it’s demonstrably not the issue.

          CVC overbooking is the only issue here. Everyone bitched about it when FTTP started up too, they’ve just forgotten about it as economies of scale kicked in. All that’s happened here is that a lot more POIs have suddenly become service ready in a short space of time (due to the faster rollout of MTM) and exactly the same issue has occurred again, because the RSPs have not learned from last time.

          • B.s. NBN have installed 1/1 gbps backhaul, cvc is a side issue till the backhaul is upgraded to 10/10 gbps.

          • Um, no. If the backhaul is inadequately provisioned – by, for example, trying to divide 1Gbps between 300+ people – then any RSP who tries to get a decent amount of CVC for their customers is going to overbook… and not be able to do a damn thing about it until the backhaul capacity issue is rectified.

          • @ Scott,

            “…Equally, I love how people with an anti-MTM NBN agenda”

            Mate I don’t think anyone here has an anti-MTM agenda, per se`. But there are “definitely” those here who have an anti-FTTP agenda (in fact crusade)…

            What I do also think is, there are many here who can looked past dumb politics to see that FTTP is the best avenue to take and that’s how they/we comment here, accordingly.

            Which makes us pro-FTTP (only by default, anti-MTM) and seemingly anti-MTM through having to argue with blind anti-FTTP political crusaders, who will contradict every comment they posted previously to continually support their political masters every word :(

            The MTM which is IMO, by all comparisons a complete dud – 4 year hold ups. Massive blowouts in cost to as much as $56B. Vast maintenance costs/upgrade costs/replacement costs for copper and HFC… all for a greatly inferior product, which those themselves rolling it out even referred to as fraudband and will openly admit that FTTP is their end goal too, so upgrades to FTTP will be required…

            MTM would have been great 10 years ago, so no I’m not anti-MTM, but I am against MTM in 2016, especially when we already had FTTP rolling out FFS… and it was stopped simply for political reasons only –

            How fucking ridiculous :(

          • MTM would have been great 10 years ago, so no I’m not anti-MTM, but I am against MTM in 2016, especially when we already had FTTP rolling out FFS…

            Excellent point Rizz. I mostly feel the same way and I’m sure many others share this view. Defies logic to be rolling out this disastrous plan rather than FttP in 2016 yet we still have copper fanboy knuckle-draggers amazingly arguing for the MTM patchwork and against FttP. Even after all these years we have yet to hear a valid and rational argument from them. So when the shit hits the fan just as we predicted instead of blaming the clowns that caused it they lash out at us instead because we point out the flaws.

          • So when Labor implement a MtM policy who you gonna vote for the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party?

            :)

          • “CVC overbooking is the only issue here.”
            I look forward to you providing a link or two showing 100Mbps FTTP connections slowing to 3Mbps.

      • https://disqus.com/home/discussion/itwire/itwire_our_woeful_fttn_nbn_an_open_user_letter/#comment-2507466712

        “Ash • a day ago
        I can report that I am having the same experience on FTTP on Optus. When first connected in May it was great, by mid June it was terrible, something happened in July and it was fixed and fantastic until December, then has been slowing getting worse until now, where it is similar to the experience above. FTTN could be an issue, but I believe in this instance that the backhaul bottleneck is the culprit. Agreed that there needs to be communication back the Telco’s that they must support their nodes with sufficient backhaul, otherwise their licence as NBN provider can be stripped. There has to be regulation…”

          • Do you even know how to Google?

            https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2413856
            “From about 4-5pm to 12 midnight, my speeds drop from 99Mbps to around 12Mbps, then pings are around 150 – 200ms which makes gaming online pretty difficult.”

            Oh and the unthinkable! Someone wants ADSL back instead of FTTP:
            “Yeah I’m done with TPG nightly speeds make me wish for adsl2.”

            https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2373215
            “I have had the NBN installed today… Was getting 60Mbps when installed around 2pm…
            I am paying for 100/40
            Now its down to 1.79Mbps. 9:50pm (Calamvale QLD).
            Their service is crap, called tech support and the just said network congestion and there’s nothing they can do, this is normal during peak periods.

            NOT HAPPY.
            Wish I stayed on ADSL. Better speed (during so called peak periods) and ping.

            Going to call iinet or TPG and see when I can get this changed over.

            STUFF U OPTUS. Long time customer…. NOT ANY MORE”

          • D.C. We know Optus is Shiite no matter what the infrastructure, your post proves only that!

            Show me a Telstra customer with the same problem if you can?

          • Derek Own Goal: I showed you the first two threads I found and one was Optus – the other was TPG.

            Telstra didn’t come up in the results I looked at – probably because Telstra probably buy the correct amount of CVC.

            And with that, my friend, I am out. ;)

          • Finally, a single reference to someone who had a bad time on FTTP. I’m willing to concede that all stories regarding Optus can be chalked up to Optus being a pile of crap. Honestly, it didn’t take much.

            Still no evidence to support that this is an ISP issue on the whole.

  12. So its clear they learned nothing from the whole RIM and then Top Hat thing that Telstra went through.

    Smells remarkably like under provisioned links between the Node and POI if its happening to many ISPs at once. I remarked that within minutes of watching the video. Now reading the comments of 2*1Gps backhaul to Nodes with 2-300 customers its no shock. In peak periods such levels of under provisioned infrastructure will bite you on the arse.

    Again it appears to try and still claim its cheaper than fibre they are cutting every possible corner to say money and still blowing the budget while providing a sub-par service. No shock everyone called it before the election.

    Sad truth is short term FTTN will cost as much if not more than FTTP due to all the problems pointed out previously. As an added bonus its not future proof and delivers less than good performance. This is now the biggest waste of money for purely political reasons I have every seen…

  13. LIES LIES LIES LIES CORRUPTION SECRECY MORE LIES LIES LIES MORE CRAP TO THE PILE OF SHIT CREATED Don’t they realize we well some of us know how this really works and setup and everything cut the BS. Well if if worked in the UK then why isn’t it working here. Oh yeah government control and everything. BS LIES CUT THE CRAP AND BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF YOU MIGHT SLEEP BETTER AT NIGHT THEN.

  14. But if the issue is hilariously inadequate backhaul provisioning (and if what people have been saying is true, and it is only 1Gbps up and down for 200+ people, calling it “hilariously inadequate” might be an understatement), surely the issue of whether or not the RSPs are buying enough CVC capacity becomes somewhat moot. If there isn’t enough to go around, then there isn’t enough to go around and there’s not a lot the RSPs can do about it.

    More proof – if any more was needed at this stage – that the MTM model is woefully inadequate to current needs, let alone future demands.

  15. As all my points in regards to FTTN vs CVC vs ISP etc have already been covered in the post’s along with a lot of ISP ‘bitching’, what ISP in Aus do we recommend then? I use to recommend Internode here in ADL, then it went to IINET, been with them for 10+yrs and they have always been good. Use to always slag on TPG but now they own IINET I’m dumbfounded on who to recommend or even use my self. In honesty I don’t think any of the ISP’s in AUS can handle the sheer bandwidth at each exchange they are going to need to keep everyone happy at peak hours. As Renai pointed out the price of the CVC’s needs to drop to have ISP’s invest in enough bandwidth to the exchanges to handle pk hrs. What a broadband backwater we have become (not that we were ever at the top of the ladder). I know Delimiter had an article just about this ISP recommendation at the time of the TPG buy out but its still a question unanswered. Who is the #1 ISP to recommend in AUS, (if any!).

    • > As Renai pointed out the price of the CVC’s needs to drop to have ISP’s invest in enough bandwidth to the exchanges to handle pk hrs.

      The problem with dropping the price of CVC is that this means the AVC component has to rise. More people than forecast are connecting at 25Mbps or slower (79%) while fewer are connecting at 100Mbps (16% down 3% in 12 months). If you increase AVC pricing then less people will connect at slower speeds. The second issue is that the NBN financial plan is based on CVC being the source of revenue growth, so if you discount CVC, revenue growth disappears too.

      The problem is that during the build out phase, there are not enough customers connected to each PoI for RSPs to experience savings from economies of scale. Simon Hackett described the problem in December 2010 in this article: http://blog.internode.on.net/2010/12/19/nbn-points-of-interconnect-and-the-future-of-competition/. Labor & Quigley initially said that it wasn’t an issue, but later conceded that problem was real and provided 150Mbps of free CVC per POI.

      Labor took the first step in providing 150Mbps of free CVC. The second step is to boost the subscriber numbers. If NBN can speed up the integration of the HFC network this will provide a massive boost in customer numbers (33% of total build) enabling RSPs to reach economies of scale. Another option is to reduce the AVC pricing. This will increase the take-up rate, but not have a significant impact on future revenue growth unlike reducing CVC pricing.

  16. So, what NBN (Morrow) has said is they’ve set up a business model where customers have to sign up to an RSP at a range of possible speeds, but the actual speed achievable in each district is determined by the secret business arrangements between each RSP and NBN and the behaviour of the other customers, which customers have no way of evaluating before purchase.

    I’m glad NBN is being so helpful to consumers with their “not our problem” attitude to internet service delivery. We have minimum performance standards for hospitals, energy companies and other government regulated services, but when it comes to the internet, it’s just the wild west. Brilliant.

    Perhaps NBN should provide the public with minimal performance data for each RSP interconnect at each POI so customers know how often and when the interconnect reaches saturation. An alternative would be to penalise RSP’s when the interconnects reach saturation resulting in complaints.

    At least in the pre-NBN era, the ISP was responsible for everything, so if your service sucked, you knew exactly who was responsible for the problem, and you could change provider. Now we have a secretive quasi-government body that RSP’s are forced to use, but the customers are left paying for substandard services while your RSP and NBN point the finger at each other.

    • OK, reality check.

      NBN is a wholesaler. They’re not there to deal directly with the end user. If you use iiNet for a resold Telstra ADSL service, you can’t deal directly with Telstra, either.

      If you think the “the ISP was responsible for everything” pre-NBN then I’m sorry, but you are very very wrong. There were and are only a very few ISPs with their own end to end networks, the vast majority of ISPs were reselling someone else’s network at some level, so the situation was little different.

      NBN should absolutely *not* publish details of their commercial arrangements with their customers (the RSPs), any more than your employer should publish details of your salary package and annual performance ratings.

      For once Renai hasn’t had a blinkered anti-NBN bash, suggest you do the same.

      • “For once Renai hasn’t had a blinkered anti-NBN bash, suggest you do the same.”

        Oh ok, so when Renai publishes a factual (one says you) article you agree with you laud it. But when he publishes err, all of his other equally factually articles, that don’t fall within your bias parameters, he’s blinkered and anti-NBN.

        Wow…!

      • “NBN should absolutely *not* publish details of their commercial arrangements with their customers (the RSPs), any more than your employer should publish details of your salary package and annual performance ratings.”
        For what reason(s)?

      • Scott, dumbest argument ever, there are laws covering accurate measurement of products like milk, juice, electricity, water, data, etc!

        it’s high time bandwidth was covered too!

  17. Congestion!! How i would love to have congestion. I cant even get ADSL 1 in my area, a brand new home in Carnes Hill, NSW……Yes a suburb of Sydney.

    NBN and Mr Turnbull’s response…..it OK you will have NBN by 2020. I could dig a trench, by hand, to the nearest fiber cable by the time it comes along!!

  18. Pity I can’t upload a photo.
    In rural Vietnam right now, in a village 60km from Quy Nhon city. VNPT fibre is installed at the house I’m having dinner at. 9.8/7 back to internode in Sydney in a speed test on a 10/10 for AUD $8 per month. I visited a neighbour with the competing Vietel network they have 30/30 and I got 29/17 back to internode in Sydney on another speed test.

    Vietnam is overbuilding multiple GPON networks after visiting Australia and following our lead. They now are light years ahead of us with redundant fibre networks offering true competition becoming available everywhere. The cud time with the viettel 30/30 connection is paying AUD $15 per month and gets Paytv with 140 channels from viettel as well. There previous ADSL connection which was crap as we know copper is cost $10 and Paytv $10. So they are saving a lot with the optic fibre rollout.

    Vietnamese people don’t believe me when I tell them that their internet is so much better than ours and we have people fighting to upgrade the obsolete old system.

    • Upload it to Imgur or something similar and put the link in the comment.

      And the fact that Vietnam is building better infrastructure comes as no real surprise, given the number of other countries around the world that are doing the same thing. Except us, who are stuck with a mish-mash of technologies and an end result which is simply not up to the task.

    • Vietnam is overbuilding multiple GPON networks after visiting Australia and following our lead.

      Certainly telling that that even dirt countries realise the potential and value of fibre and assuming what you say is true about them following our example I do wonder what they think of Australia now that we are going backwards.

      • They don’t realise that we’ve stopped. And I think that’s a good thing. They’re moving ahead on the basis that they’re still catching up with us but actually they’re leapfrogging us.

  19. Interesting interview on RN Breakfast this morning with Sri Lankan Minister for Telecommunications:

    https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgZL785yqG

    While predominently about the Google Loon project the most telling comment comes at +4:25 when he describes the Sri Lankan ground network – these guys are going to have 100% FTTP within two years in addition to a world class wireless network. Listen and weep, Australia.

    • Yes, like I said above, Vietnam is already rolling out FTTP in Villages that are 60km from small regional cities. When I’m in Vietnam I am in a bigger city and have Viettel and VNPT. Though I’ve only once had to switch from VNPT to Viettel during an outage as the uptime is pretty much as good as my NBN in Brunswick Victoria.

  20. Luckily for me when I go to the NBN Rollout page to see if my address is slated to be connected to the Fraudband garbage I continue to get “The rollout of the nbn™ network has not started in this area.” Hallelujah…..

    Hopefully this may mean if Labor is elected and the current bunch of Born To Be Liars is kicked out I may just get that FTTP connection I yearn for…..

    I am at Caves Beach next to Swansea NSW…….. When you cross the Swansea Bridge you are in enemy territory of FTTN from Blacksmiths down to the original test site of Belmont. Friends of mine who were initially happy to get Fraudband are livid at the speed anomalies which in some cases are sub ADSL 1 days for so called upto 50/20 speeds.

    It sickens me when I see and hear Pyne and Barnaby talking about the internet and the technology as if they think they know what they are talking about when they clearly don’t on Q&A and everywhere else when the relevant facts are always missed.

    How many times have you heard these dangerous idiots say that “the mums and dads DON’T NEED fast speeds”. Says bloody WHO ?????

    Family of 4 with 2 laptops 4 tablets and 4 phones 2 Chromecast sticks and 2 AppleTV boxes a Smart TV and a Smart Bluray player all 16 devices have internet access for work and play……. This shows the completely different world we live in now than we did even since the 2009 initial FTTP policy. Back then a desktop and a phone were all that was available to the average household to go online

    But Abbott and Turnbull set about to keep us in the dark ages with this FTTN crap.

    Time stops for no one, I only hope time is up for the LNP.

    See ya all

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