Satellite NBN a “great opportunity”, West Tasmanian MP claims

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news Tasmanian MP Brett Whiteley has told residents and businesses unhappy with the satellite broadband the NBN company is planning to deploy in his electorate in Western Tasmania that the infrastructure represents a “great opportunity” and they should stop pining for a Fibre to the Premise instead.

Residents of areas such as Queenstown in Western Tasmania were previously scheduled to have received a full Fibre to the Premises rollout as part of the previous Labor Government’s original NBN plan.

However, under the Coalition’s revised Multi-Technology Mix approach to the NBN, they will instead only receive satellite broadband, with the NBN company not planning to deploy any fixed broadband infrastructure to some areas of the state, despite the fact that townships such as Queenstown already have ADSL broadband over Telstra’s copper network, and several thousand local residents.

Residents and business groups in the region have bitterly complained about the issue to their local MP, Brett Whitely, demanding better broadband.

However, in a speech in Federal Parliament last week, Whiteley — the Liberal Member for Braddon — rejected the complaints.

“Satellite will be delivered to the west coast of Tasmania in the next few months. I say to the people of the west coast: that is a great opportunity. Sign up. Find out what it is like. And if it is still a problem let’s talk about it,” Whiteley said. “But I do not believe it will.”

Whiteley said Christmas might have been over six months ago, but Labor party figures were “still parading as economically irresponsible Santa Clauses … telling everybody that they should have Fibre to the Premise, that Fibre to the Node is a complete waste of time, that satellite will be no good and that the wireless tower technology is a waste of money.”

However, Whiteley told the Federation Chamber in Parliament (watch the video in full above), it was “about time” the Labor Party “came clean”.

“My electorate, on the west coast, are being stirred up into a bit of a frenzy—a few of them—by the Labor Party, particularly, and they need to understand this: when we inherited the NBN plan there was no plan, no design, no money, no funding, no contract, no anything for any NBN to flow to the west coast of Tasmania,” said Whitely.

“Yet they are rolling in there telling everyone they can have [Fibre to the Premises].”

Whitely said there was “no plan” for the Labor Party to deliver a fibre NBN — “in any way, shape or form” — into the west coast of Tasmania.

“The people of the west coast need to understand that. If they want to hold onto the hope the Labor Party pretends to put forward, we are looking at a potential eight to 10-year delay in providing the sort of rolled gold system that the Labor Party is talking about. I say to the people of the West Coast: do not believe them.”

“There is an opportunity, in the next few months, for the people of the west coast to sign up to a satellite service that will deliver speeds 10 times faster than those they have now, and it will be a great opportunity for that community.”

opinion/analysis
Allow me to put a few facts on the table in relation to Whiteley’s speech.

Firstly, it is clear that the NBN company and the previous Labor Federal Government did somewhat stuff up the FTTP NBN rollout in Tasmania. Tasmania was supposed to be the first state in Australia to get the NBN, but the rollout got bogged down in problems largely to do with contractors and the construction process.

However, Whiteley’s claim that Labor didn’t have a plan for Tasmania is not true. The state was to receive mostly FTTP under the previous Labor plan … now it is to receive a mix of various technologies.

The satellite issue on the state’s west coast also continues to be a major issue.

There are a number of major communities on the Tasmanian west coast which already have Telstra copper in the ground, and even have access to some fibre infrastructure in the region. Normally this would be a clear-cut case or upgrading that infrastructure to fibre, or at least fibre to the node.

And yet the NBN company appears to be ignoring the communities in rural Tasmania, instead pledging to put satellite dishes on areas which have thousands of homes.

Whiteley can rant all he wants about how great satellite is. But the reality is that these people deserve — and were promised — better. If the NBN company is going to take over Telstra’s copper network, after all, the least it can do is upgrade it with some fibre. Satellite is usually not the best option when there is existing infrastructure in the ground.

80 COMMENTS

  1. “when we inherited the NBN plan there was no plan, no design, no money, no funding, no contract, no anything for any NBN to flow to the west coast of Tasmania,” said Whitely.”

    Ummm wasn’t it Turnbull who mislead everyone in saying he would ‘honour contracts’, only to scrap all signed FTTP contracts and replace with FTTN… or nothing, since Tassie has been pretty much neglected since Liberals came into power?

  2. “…when we inherited the NBN plan there was no plan, no design, no money, no funding, no contract, no anything for any NBN to flow to the west coast of Tasmania…”

    *except for FTTP

  3. If they already have ADSL, then surely the backhaul network must already be in place, albeit it in a possibly limited way? Perhaps FTTP is a little unrealistic at this stage, but satellite seems like a substantial downgrade. (speeds aside)
    Why can’t they just upgrade the existing backhaul network? Surely it’s just a microwave link or fibre, or some other easily upgraded terrestrial infrastructure? perhaps then install FTTN or at least FTTdp?
    I’d be absolutely P….D off too, if I was to lose a good ADSL connection and be downgraded to satellite, with it’s high latency, and very small, expensive data plans!
    It seems a disgrace that anyone with a current fixed line copper phone service, should not be receiving at least a 25Mbps service, with high data allowances and affordable plan prices. (like ADSL)
    In fact, I wish they’d just stop referring to the satellite service as ‘NBN’. It’s not. It’s a consolation service to those that miss out on the NBN.
    Oh… You’re rural or remote? Oh well, no decent internet for you!
    It seems that politicians just don’t care what service we get, so long as it’s ‘up to’ 25Mbps!
    Low data allowances? Expensive data plans? High latency? Crap speeds at peak times? Drops out in bad weather? DOESN’T MATTER! You’ve got your 25Mbps at 2 o’clock in the morning, what are you whinging about?

  4. What was the cost of the researched transist fibre to service several thousand residents? $20m. No surprise Labor is stilling promising it. Money means nothing to them.

    However under both the LTE and Sat footprint the copper is retained. Maybe Telstra will improve their offering. It’d be a great irony;-).

    • “However under both the LTE and Sat”

      You’re conflating. There is no mention of LTE in this region.

      “Maybe Telstra will improve their offering”

      You’re fantasizing. Their track record of not improving this region for the last decade and a half is vastly more compelling than your wishful thinking.

      Besides, if satellite is as compelling as Whiteley claims, how could Telstra possibly compete with their Jonny-come-lately DSL and LTE?

    • The current issues of basslink highlight exactly why another fiber transit is needed.

      Secondly, if a FTTP rollout did occur in tasmania, I would argue that the bandwidth requirements of the current infrastructure across the strait (even the currently non functioning links) would have been overwhelmed.

      That may even be the reason why satellite is being focused on instead of more wireless towers or FTTN – there is only so much bandwidth across the strait and the coalition is looking to “save as much money as possible”. If you want to go FTTP – spend more money, you want more wireless – spend more money, you want FTTN – spend more money.

      The fact is that this decision will effect a significant amount of people, those of which are taxpayers and not in far remote settings, which is what the Sat service was planned for.

    • Telstra already have fibre to one of these towns. As nbn also costa redundant path, this could not be the same geographical route, hence the high cost.
      They did not concider Sat services or MW as a backup route?

      As to this politician, he should hang his head in shame.

      He is servicing his religion, and not doing what he is paid to do, that is represent his electorate.

    • “Maybe Telstra will improve their offering”

      Telstra completely failing to maintain and improve broadband infrastructure generally is why we need an NBN in the first place – a private company with shareholders to appease seeks after profit above all else, and residents in rural and regional areas suffer.

      The backhaul is already in place to at least provide FTTN – there’s absolutely no excuse to be pushing thousands of people onto the satellite service that’s already going to be fairly heavily subscribed.

      • “the satellite service that’s already going to be fairly heavily subscribed.”
        Over subscribed – the two satellites were designed to handle over 200,000 customers – now climbed to over 300,000 for the same regions and the Liberals have extended that to 500,000…

      • klaw,

        The backhaul is already in place to at least provide FTTN –

        No it’s not, read the ABC news link link below.

    • Have they improved their offering in the last 15 years?

      What the proponents of private is better don’t seem to realise is that they have had 15 years to improve their offer and it hasn’t happened.

      The government needs to build it and spending $20 million will provide thousands of home with internet for the next few decades – what’s the issue here?

      You know those cost of everything but the value of nothing – if we had your way of thinking we wouldn’t have the copper network or the electricity network as they would have been looked at as “too expensive”.

  5. “Whiteley said Christmas might have been over six months ago”

    Well, hmm, actually Christmas was less than two months ago. The connection with reality is clearly tenuous with this one.

    “if it is still a problem let’s talk about it,” Whiteley said. “But I do not believe it will.”

    If the poor man cannot calculate the distance between December and February how can he possibly make conclusions around the technicalities of Internet infrastructure and geo-stationary satellites?

    But it will be fun talking to him in a coupla months when his constituency realizes just how much latency sucks on the modern internet. Given it’s entirely likely that those on DSL on the West Coast will actually have a seriously degraded experience moving to satellite.

    • Indeed Mark…

      “But it will be fun talking to him in a coupla months…”

      Yes, when christmas might have been, according to this shinning light of political wonderment, over 15 months ago.

  6. The voting option in Tasmanian MP Brett Whiteley’s electorate is clear – don’t vote for him.

  7. There was always a plan for high speed FTTP and wireless in tasmania. The main reason behind it was due to tasmania being well behind the rest of the nation in regards to telecommunications infrastructure.

    IIRC, the tasmanian trials were some of the first to start in the project.

    Unfortunately and IIRC, the main 2 reasons behind the ongoing delays were the onerous telstra negotiations and agile wanting to cash in for their pole access. These issues compounded the contractor issues which resulted later (and to disastrous effect).

  8. But the satellites are exactly what labor ordered and planned for, last time I looked it was still 3% coverage of Australian premises, so no changes there. Remember the labor NBN vision was for everyone to be equal, so satellite as it is, is still exactly as labor promised so would be better then FTTN anyway, and equal to FTTH. So what is to complain about, unless you are complaining about Labor’s NBN.

    • Yes Frank we (well I) remember you bleating.

      While we in the urban areas were willing to subsidise the rural users and YOUR improvements (albeit it not FTTP) to ensure you didn’t have to pay exorbitant prices, you wanted FTTP for 100% (and to hell with the cost) or fuck FTTP.

      Seems you got choice 2.

      Well done.

    • @Frank – Labor’s satellite strategy only allowed for 3% of residents – these people are NOT part of that 3%, as the article makes very clear.

      The satellites have a fixed bandwidth and their capacity will be quickly overloaded if we keep shuffling people away from fixed-line connections onto the satellites because Turnbull can’t be bothered with doing anything else.

      At this rate, we’ll have to launch a 3rd satellite at a cost of ~$2B, which is considerably more than a few thousand FttN or FttP connections.

      • “At this rate, we’ll have to launch a 3rd satellite at a cost of ~$2B”
        If the satellite service was to be kept in with the original design, we’d need another 2 at a MINIMUM.

      • klaw,

        if we keep shuffling people away from fixed-line connections onto the satellites

        Where is this happening?

    • “But the satellites are exactly what labor ordered and planned for, last time I looked it was still 3% coverage of Australian premises, so no changes there. ”
      3 outright lies in your opening sentence!

      Labor designed the satellites to cater to over 200,000 customers, which has now climbed to over 300,000 in the same footprint. The Liberals have raised this total to 500,000, so not only is this not what Labor ordered and planned for, but completely obliterates the ‘still 3%’ claim as well – refer to people getting shafted for even FTTN by satellite because copper remediation would be a nightmare, particularly in areas where existing ADSL served them better; Tas is no exception here.

      • But there is more then 200 000 premises in the 3% of premises of Australia. Always has been. So why did they design something that could not cover what they said it would cover?

        Also why has no one picked up on that? Seems mighty odd as it have been staring everyone in the face for many years. Maybe no one cared, too blinded by promises of 100mbps fibre.

        • Correct, there’s ~1 million.

          The original plan called for 800,000 premises on fixed wireless and 200,000 on satellite.

          The libs have screwed this up too, surprise surprise!

        • I was recently comparing CP’s for a sceptical friend of a friend and came up with the following to confirm that the Libs have in fact doubled the number of premises to be covered by the LTSS and reduced the number of Fixed Wireless premises.

          So page 71 of the 2010 Corp Plan has “up to 200k users” for LTSS and page 16 of the 2016 Corp Plan has “more than 400k” for LTSS.

          2010: http://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco/documents/nbn-co-3-year-gbe-corporate-plan-final-17-dec-10.pdf

          2016: http://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/documents/nbn-corporate-plan-2016.pdf

          The CP2016 also now says “~590k Fixed Wireless” vs 800,000 FW for the CP2010 plan (1mil -200k for LTSS page 77)

          • OK, so then Labor were not building the NBN for all Australian’s since there is more then 200 000 premises in 3% of the final 100% of Australia. There were approximately 200 000 premises labor were not planning on covering with the NBN.

            The other question is why did no one bother to point that out to labor?

          • OK, so then Labor were not building the NBN for all Australian’s since there is more then 200 000 premises in 3% of the final 100% of Australia.

            Huh? How did you come to that?

            Oh, I see, by totally ignoring that 4% of rural were also also going to be on fixed wireless…

  9. (Whiteley said Christmas might have been over six months ago,)
    NO, he clearly said 6 weeks ago but with MTM they plan to have 400k of residences on the satellite so it will be a dude of a connection. Can the average Joe Blow afford the satellite set up, a farmer could rite it off on tax but not the average punter.

  10. Ho hum just another LNP politician waffling on about stuff they know absolutely nothing about. You could call it cost cutting since Turdballs MTM has gotten so expensive. NBN won’t pay extra to put the likes of West Tasmania on to FTTN, just chuck them on the ole satellite instead. Cost cutting is probably also behind congestion problems in Newcastle with not enough backhaul to cope. And it will probably get even worse the further they go as they look to trim even more costs following even more massive blowouts for Turdball’s MTM.
    The one big thing that cheeses me off the absolute most is the fact that the LNP keep calling it the NBN and that alone has confused most of the numptys in this country to actually believe Turdball’s MTM is a good thing. The ultimate in deception right there.

  11. Telstra has no fibre to the west coast of TAS, they have a series of high capacity digital radio links, which they spend a few million on upgrading every few years when the capacity runs out.
    Transend does have an OGPW on their HV transmission lines, this is what NBN were planning to use for backhaul. The cost of installing their own backhaul or even just a diverse path is prohibitive.
    For NBN to deploy even FTTN they would have to connect the Transend fibre to Telstra exchanges (their FANs), and then run fibre to each node. If you are familiar with the population distribution, terrain and geology of this area, you would know that even this is a very expensive undertaking if existing duct capacity is insufficient.

  12. The community consider themselves to be worth spending the bucks on, rightfully.

    Those mining town people have contributed by working hard, bringing in royalties, and paying high taxes for years when the mine was productive. Now they need a hand and the best technology to transition into new types of industries and more diverse education opportunities, for their future.

    The response for NBN to the Question on notice from Nick McKim and the response from Brett Whiteley is shameful. Abbott’s onion boy, who only sees the politics and has zero understanding of the network or the benefit to the people.

    • “The response for NBN to the Question on notice from Nick McKim and the response from Brett Whiteley is”
      … the same as Turnulls : move somewhere with better NBN. Put up or shut up. Don’t take us as leadership examples. We already have FTTP because we are better than you.

  13. Rest assured, Mr Whitely is firmly in the “why do we need an internet at all?” camp. I chased him off my property prior to the last election when he tried to tell me there was no need for more than one TV set in peoples homes. Well you get what you vote for

      • He will fight for a car yards but won’t fight for decent broadband for the community that voted him in.
        Please Bradden vote him out at the next election and vote in someone that will fight for you on all worth while fronts.

  14. Satellite internet is great. When communicating with people the extra 700ms latency gives you plenty of time to think of what to say. Totally superior to other forms of acc… [max monthly bandwidth reached].

  15. He’s got that look in his face, where is the door so I can make a dash for it when people find out I have no idea what I’m doing here or what I’m talking about. Where do the coalition get these fucking useless fossils from.

  16. Queenstown was targeted for FTTP under Labor? – it’s not on this list, so it must have been added later.

    https://delimiter.com.au/2011/10/18/nbn-co-reveals-2012-rollout-schedule/

    A later link would be good.

    Also if there is a requirement to get backhaul into Queenstown now it would have been a requirement for FTTP as well, it would be interesting to know how the Labor NBN Co was going to fast track this and get them all a FTTP connection before satellite.

    But Mr Whiteley said the Government had no intention of rolling out fibre to the west coast.

    “There is no intention to be spending at least $30 million on what we call a back haul line from Burnie through to Zeehan, through to Queenstown and Strahan,” Mr Whiteley said.

    and…

    Mr Kelly said the NBN Co had looked into all options to get the NBN to the west coast as quickly as possible.

    “While there is some dark fibre, as it’s called, owned by other instrumentalities, when they were looked at and the numbers were done on them, it was actually not possible to use the dark fibre that is there.

    “It would have taken many millions of dollars for it to be upgraded so the NBN could use it, and it would of course take many years for that to occur.”

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-08/tasmania-west-coast-nbn-stoush-local-council-concerns/6837316

    With those cost outlays I find it surprising the Labor NBN Co didn’t schedule Queenstown and area for satellite in the first place.

    • That is not the most recent map, in the first link. Burnie and Devonport are also missing.

      In the early days NBN were also using electricity poles and may have planned to use them for the west coast.

      • Yeah I know that is not the most recent map, I couldn’t find any info on FTTP plans for Queenstown and I don’t think they planned to use electricity poles to get backhaul into Queenstown. :)

        Under the circumstances quoted so far it seems a satellite solution for Queenstown was always the most viable outcome.

          • That’s just a ALP pre election media propaganda hastily released by Albanese just before the last election, it says nothing about when FTTP was scheduled by the NBN Co for a build in Queenstown.

            In fact, if nbn™ had stuck to their plan as the Libs promised before the election, they’d be finished in Tassie now.

            Labor had real trouble sticking to their plan, nothing to do with the Libs.

            But thanks for the link, I especially loved this at the end.

            Tasmanians now face a clear choice: they can vote for the future and fibre under Labor or the past and copper under the Coalition.

            Well that worked.

          • That’s just a ALP pre election media propaganda hastily released by Albanese just before the last election, it says nothing about when FTTP was scheduled by the NBN Co for a build in Queenstown.

            It does, however, show the ALP were going to use FttP for Queenstown….which was the point of the post….which you missed yet again…

          • But nothing what ever to indicate when it was going to happen, so in the absence of hard data the pro FTTP cheer squad guessed based on nothing more than gut feel Queenstown would have had FTTP before satellite.

            In the meantime in the real world where it is 2016 and not 2013 NBN fairy land anymore, that area is scheduled to get satellite.

          • A downgrade of their original schedule for FTTN.

            which was a downgrade of the original schedule for FttP.

            Seems like it’s always a race to the bottom when the LNP and their supporters get involved…

          • In the meantime in the real world where it is 2016 and not 2013 NBN fairy land anymore, that area is scheduled to get satellite.</q?

            At a bargain basement price of $7,900 CPP.

            Your welcome Alain.

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