Leaking NBN Co staff in “rebellion” against MTM, says Husic

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news The NBN company’s staff is leaking internal documents because they are in a “rebellion” against the Multi-Technology Mix model which is being foisted against them, Labor MP Ed Husic said yesterday, in a fiery speech which also touched upon the lack of suitability of HFC cable for the NBN network.

The NBN project has suffered a prolonged spate of damaging leaks over the past few months, with all aspects of the Coalition’s Multi-Technology Mix revamping of the project having controversial details exposed to the Opposition and elements of the media such as Delimiter.

The leaks have shown a number of major problems with the MTM model, ranging from increased costs associated with Telstra’s copper network, to issues with Optus’ HFC cable network, to delays with the NBN company’s Fibre to the Node build. The latest leak this morning shows that the NBN company has carried out a secret trial of a new fibre model which could dramatically bring the cost of a full Fibre to the Premise rollout down.

Speaking in the House of Representatives yesterday (see the full speech above), Labor’s Ed Husic — who holds Shadow Parliamentary Secretary roles to both the Shadow Treasurer and the Leader of the Opposition — said the leaks occurred due to the disillusionment of the NBN company’s own staff with the Coalition’s controversial model.

NBN chief executive Bill Morrow, Husic said, was now in “defensive mode trying to work out why there is leak after leak from his own organisation.”

“NBN Co’s internal organisation are in revolt,” said Husic. “They are in a rebellion. They do not believe in their heart of hearts that the network that is being foisted upon the Australian public by those opposite is one that will deliver, and that is why they are leaking. They do not have confidence in the CEO and they do not have confidence in [NBN Co chair] Ziggy Switkowski.”

“That is why you have an organisation in revolt. That is why consumers are in revolt over this. And that is why we are being misled about this network rollout by those opposite—and they stand condemned for it.”

Husic also took aim at the unsuitability of the Telstra and Optus HFC cable networks for the NBN project. Labor’s original model would have done away with the legacy networks, but the Coalition is acquiring them and upgrading them instead.

The Member for Chifley said fellow Labor MP Michelle Rowland — who, like Husic, has substantial experience in dealing with the telco sector — had pointed out on a number of occasions that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission had said that the HFC networks were not fit for purpose, as had Optus.

“My own constituents tell me that the HFC network is not fit for purpose,” said Husic.

“They say, ‘It is fantastic; it gives you great speeds at 4AM.’ That is what they tell me. They tell me that Malcolm Turnbull’s network provides you excellent download speeds if you get up at 4AM and no-one else is on that network.”

Husic said the HFC networks could not work when a lot of people used them simultaneously, a principle which he said was “bizarre” when applied to the NBN.

“You have this huge demand from people wanting a modern broadband network and they are told, ‘You can get it, but if a lot of you use it it will be slow; so don’t use it.’,” he said.

Referring to the Black Adder TV comedy TV series, Husic sarcastically said the MTM model represented a “cunning plan”.

“It is a broadband network absolutely designed by Blackadder’s Baldrick,” said Husic.

“And it may be the case that Baldrick is on the management team of NBN Co … You have the CEO, Bill Morrow, who turns up to Senate estimates and is asked a series of questions about the network he is managing and probably 90 per cent of the questions that were raised with him were taken on notice.”

“If this was a person who had command of the facts and was such a singularly impressive management representative, as the minister is suggesting, you would think he would be able to answer questions. But he cannot.”

opinion/analysis
I am in regular contact with a number of people inside the NBN company, and I must say that Husic is accurate. Quite a few of the company’s staff are extremely angry about the MTM model, which they see as a ridiculous perversion of the originally pure (in an engineering sense) NBN FTTP vision.

There is a reason that there are a constant stream of leaks from within the NBN company, and it’s not because it’s sunshine and ponies over there. As Bill Morrow has pointed out, morale at the NBN company is improving these days somewhat from the dark days of the 2013 Federal Election. But things have not improved enough to stop everyone from being angry at what is going on.

82 COMMENTS

  1. The NBN company’s staff is leaking internal documents because they are in a “rebellion” against the Multi-Technology Mix model which is being foisted against them, Labor MP Ed Husic said yesterday

    He’s absolutely right, aside from the over-paid Lib crony’s in upper management and above, no-one else with genuine telco experience and in their right mind could possibly support wasting billions on a 3rd rate, short term, copper network when the same level of gov investment would give us 93% FTTP netowrk that would form the basis of our national comms network for the next 60+ years!!!

      • I’m not so sure that HFC acquisition and retasking for MTM will be a *total* disaster. HFC requires upgrades but (to my knowledge) does not include anywhere near as much physical intervention in rehabilitating the last mile connection. This means overbuild with FTTP can occur post completion (similar to FTTB) without too much wastage.
        FTTN on the other hand seems like a total waste of resources in that a lot of resources are diverted to deployment of FTTN infrastructure, which is totally deprecated in the change to FTTP.
        Comments welcome, just ruminating after Friday drinks ;)

        • Can’t speak for the Optus side of HFC, but the Telstra/Bigpond system is actually pretty good, upgraded to DOCSIS 3.1 I think it could possibly even be excellent.

          • Agree. Though not as “pure” as the optical fibre FTTP, the HFC technology isn’t inherently as bad as a lot of commenters (including some on this web page) keep claiming. Currently in my area the Optus HFC with DOCSIS 3.0 regularly runs at close to 100 Mbps download speeds, sometimes dropping to around 60 Mbps during peak Netflix viewing periods.

            However it seems that the Optus HFC network is very much under-provisioned in some suburban areas, but that is an Optus penny-pinching budgetary issue, and not a fault in the nature of HFC. They just haven’t been spending enough to keep their HFC DOCSIS 3.0 network performing as well as it could.

            If you look into the enhancements that come with DOCSIS 3.1 you’ll find that, properly engineered and provisioned, it’s capable of very decent download AND upload speeds, as well as having some very important network manageability improvements that will increase network availability while reducing maintenance costs.

            Certainly DOCSIS 3.1 should quite good enough for much domestic usage, nevertheless as papers like http://www.nctatechnicalpapers.com/Paper/2015/2015-hfc-improvement-for-docsis-3-1-evolution show HFC’s analog optical is not as open-ended in terms of sheer terabit speeds as is the original NBN’s optical technology.

        • I suspect it was just an opportunity for Optus to offload its aging redundant co-axial cable system to the NBN/MTM and recover monies already spent.

          • The Coalition paid Optus the same $800M that Labor had contracted with them not to acquire their HFC, so even if for example the NBN Co only use 70% of the Optus HFC they are still ahead.

            Optus use the $800M to ‘recover monies already spent’ either way.

          • NBN co bought the revenue generating Optus customers, nbn bought the loss making EOL Optus HFC.

            Very stark difference!

          • Both options get the revenue generating Optus customers, one option just doesn’t get the HFC infrastructure as well, no ‘stark difference’.

          • @ alain “one option just doesn’t get the HFC infrastructure as well, no ‘stark difference’.

            Yes the good option gets rid of the “FAILED” (your word) HFC, where as the dumb option has to pay extra to fix and maintain the FAILED HFC…

            Seems there is a stark difference.

            You’re welcome.

      • Here’s a thought. Why not just replace the overhead HFC cable with Fibre cable on the existing overhead power lines & run FTTP that way. It sure must be cheaper that ripping out & upgrading the HFC nodes & CMTS equipment & upgrading the HFC cable to a larger cable as is being proposed. Why is common sense not being used & just replace the HFC cable with fibre & complete FTTP with the end cable drop performed exactly the same way it is currently done with HFC, i.e from pole to house. And then if you want to connect to FTTP just ring up your ISP& they will organize the fibre to be hooked up & installed the same way as it works now with HFC operators. It is surely the most cost efficient method to install FTTP’

        • It would be the logical thing to do. Maybe they’ve ordered a bunch of coax to go with the copper. It’ll probably be in next week’s leak.

        • Unlike copper cables Optic fibre is not very forgiving. It doesn’t take well to being blown around in the wind and doesn’t stretch, the glass fibre breaks easily causing the fracture to scatter the laser beam and the infrastructure immediately stops working, which is why the preferred method is to gently pull the cable into a conduit buried beneath the soil and leave it there, undisturbed.

          • Fibre CAN be deployed above ground. The HFC cables in my area have many kilometres of fibre lashed alongside the coax.
            I once asked a work crew why they were doing it – Telstra had said the ducts in the area were full. There may have been a commercial reason too – Optus would have to pay Telstra duct rent, if they used their HFC routes, no ‘tax’ to Telstra….

            At any rate, I expect a normal armoured outdoor grade fibre cable is far more robust than the HFC coax. Bend or crush the HFC coax too much and there goes the signal quality. It’s also less likely to ‘work harden’ over time like the aluminum alloy the HFC coax is made out of.

          • Unlike copper cables Optic fibre is not very forgiving.

            And yet fibre is exactly what they use for international links and backbones, go figure, eh Max?

      • I can’t agree Ryan (disclosure: I’m on HFC). I think it would actually be pretty healthy for nbn™ to upgrade HFC to DOCSIS 3.1 (for the medium term), as it’d get a lot of runs on the board for them, and get their ARU going.

        I’d be more than happy to be able to access 1000/400 until 202x…

    • Derek O,

      short term, copper network when the same level of gov investment would give us 93% FTTP network

      Incorrect.

      • B.s., Keep up the ignorant LibTroll work there devoid of reality, Keep ignoring those inconvenient facts, we enjoy watching a fool at work, it’s funny and sad all at the same time!

          • Nope, you are still incorrect…

            Calling black white and white black doesn’t work on people like me with real world Telco experience.

          • And we aren’t interested in your uneducated partisan drivel, you’re still completely wrong as usual!

          • You’re right Alain; a lesser government investment would have given us 93% FTTP. Now we’re spending more for almost infinitely less.

      • @Reality – “Incorrect”

        Agreed…the short-term total investment in repair and utilizing the copper networks should prove to be substantially more than FTTP, by a wide margin.

        • Chas, Reality aka Alain is claiming that the 29 Billion gov investment is not enough to build a 93% FTTP network. Im not sure what you think he’s saying?

          • Alain quoted your statement that the “same level of gov investment would give us 93% FTTP network” and labeled it incorrect. In point of fact, the level of investment required for MTM is much higher than that for FTTP.

          • “Actually no, the gov investment is supposed to be the same for both NBN and MtM.”

            I submit to you that the artificial limit currently in place will not last long. Also, since FTTP returns a far higher GDP return than MTM, then the net Government investment is actually less.

  2. “I am in regular contact with a number of people inside the NBN company, and I must say that Husic is accurate”
    Same, some have had enough and left because of it, but a few still hang in there.

    “As Bill Morrow has pointed out, morale at the NBN company is improving these days somewhat from the dark days of the 2013 Federal Election”
    Except he makes out like it’s an improvement over when Quigley was in charge. From what I’m told things were much better back then. The moral sunk to the lows Morrow refers to when Turnbull’s bully boys were put in charge.

    I am not surprised upper management can’t answer question, they apparently have consultants decide everything. I guess that will them a abrogate responsibility when this shit fest is exposed for what it is.

    • I am not surprised upper management can’t answer question, they apparently have consultants decide everything. I guess that will them a abrogate responsibility when this shit fest is exposed for what it is.

      Nice to see people are catching on to how the LNP prefers to do business ;o)

      For anything they can’t blame on consultants, they blame the ALP…but nothing is ever their fault…

      • Good to see Labor continuing with the negative smokescreen while at the same time saying absolutely nothing about what they are going to do about it.

        The political tactic is obviously to keep up the barrage and hope the electorate don’t notice that they are not offering any solutions or making any firm commitments that may bite them.

        • Says the troll who supports the most useless do nothing gov in the history of our nation!

          • As compared to Labor who think they are playing ‘witty’ by using Black Adder comparisons, wow the substance behind any Labor NBN utterance these days is absolutely incredible.

            As a policy substitute Black Adder will have to do this time, and there are plenty more where that came from, Fawlty Towers, Dad’s Army, Yes Minister etc, that should take care of it right up until election day.

          • Whatever you say devoid of reality, I actually feel sorry for you, you clearly aren’t smart enough to challenge your own beliefs and apply equal criticism to all parties.

            I used to be a die hard LNP voter but I woke up! It’s about time you did the same!

          • @Reality – “As compared to Labor who think they are playing ‘witty’ by using Black Adder comparisons”

            As opposed to the Coalition who appear to be re-imagining Gilligan’s Island?

        • Labor are playing their cards close to their chest having learned that to their detriment the hard way from previous elections where they elaborated on what they would do if reelected only to have the LNP steal their policies and claim them as their own.

          • You are being too kind, Labor don’t have any cards but they may have the Black Adder DVD box set.

          • Labor are playing their cards close to their chest having learned that to their detriment the hard way from previous elections where they elaborated on what they would do if reelected only to have the LNP steal their policies and claim them as their own.

            Indeed Max, and it’s not like the LNP actually have any policies out since MT took over, they’d probably be more than happy to lift a few from Labor.

  3. the biggest thing to note here is that Labor have a new strategy,they have employed very experienced stylists to match turnbull on that front (the guy is 97% style and verbal trickery!) and then they’ll come at him from the side with *substance* :)

    Husic is looking sharp!

    [ my best attempt to be positive in response to a 2016 article about the state of the NBN ]

  4. “..which they see as a ridiculous perversion of the originally pure (in an engineering sense) NBN FTTP vision.”

    But it WAS pure:

    It was pure in the technical sense.
    It was pure in the consistency sense.
    It was pure in the upgradability sense.
    It was pure in the level-playing-field sense.
    It was pure in the long-term sense.
    ..and it was pure in the understand-ability (layperson) sense.

    • It was also pure temptation for the meddling LNP amateur experts, they thought they knew better.

  5. Surprising isn’t the leaks, but how few know what they show. How many actually work in private industry? At what level?

    Personally supportive of many more leaks. They offer a valuable insight into the company’s operations and senior management thinking. Also enlightening reading the “experts” opinions in comments;-)

    • C’mon guys let’s be fair to Richard…

      After all, he does not work in the telecommunications industry, but chuckles to himself whilst modestly telling (and chastising people – many highly qualified and experienced) in telecommunications, how much more Richard knows about telecommunications (well everything including comms) than they do…

      Well to be fair, he did claim he could have been commissioned to write MTM…

      Oh wait…

      Right you are guys, I’ll point, you laugh…

      • I am sure he could have produced the same for MTM as they now. Provided you can type fast enough taking dictation from Turnbull isnt hard. I am sure hed cream himself over Lord Lightbulbs every brain fart.

        • Right only in your own mind, which is obviously a strange, backward little place Richard…

          • @r so the document wasn’t about the local fibre distribution network and identified savings applicable to all techs? How many of your “experts” disagree with me? Their names would be useful;-)

          • Richard, the document focus is on the “Local Fibre network” or LFN, there’s even a nice friendly diagram setting the document focus from the start.

            The benefits highlighted for the connecting Micro-nodes, FTTB & FTTdp are secondary. The document is primarily focuses on improvements improvements in rolling out GPON for FTTP & FTTdp.

    • “How many actually work in private industry?”

      Have you ever seen some of the bulls**t deals the APS signs up to with private industry IT contractors? The big IT service providers must be laughing their asses off.

      • Oh I know that feeling. Its silly though, with repeated budget cuts, funding keeps being shifted out of OPEX, and IT gets sent over to four year contracts that can be shuffled into CAPEX.

        Currently pulling apart one government agency’s outsourcing arrangement and rationalising it into something that actually works :/

        • That sounds like fun!
          I have tons of stories.
          The time some middle manager almost lost it because I fixed the SQL in some cobbled together shared MS Access database – my response was, well, I can fix it or you can have no work done for eight hours…….
          Or the fact that it was faster to use the legacy terminal system to run fuzzy searches than using the web front end – which only ran in Explorer, no tabs or multiple browser sessions allowed…..

    • “Also enlightening reading the “experts” opinions in comments;-)”
      Yes you’ve been a regular source of entertainment for years, it seems.

  6. “They say, ‘It is fantastic; it gives you great speeds at 4AM.’ That is what they tell me. They tell me that Malcolm Turnbull’s network provides you excellent download speeds if you get up at 4AM and no-one else is on that network.”
    I would love to share this ad for your viewing pleasure in relation to this wonderful argument:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1fCgca9ZNk

  7. All i can say to those unhappy people @ NBNCo please keep the leaks coming, its the only way an average Joe will understand what Turnbull has done.

    Thanks in advance

    • All i can say to those unhappy people @ NBNCo please keep the leaks coming, its the only way an average Joe will understand what Turnbull has done.

      +1

      Also those brave folks working at Naru/Manus that risk it too, there are are a lot of Aussies that do want to know wtf is actually going on…

  8. Typical fact-free commenting by Husic and Renai, unfortunately.

    The HFC component of MTM is the single best part of it! The current congestion some users get is because the incumbent operators haven’t upgraded the active equipment at the end of the cable, or the backhaul to it.

    The cable itself is not the cause of the slowdown, and that’s the only bit that NBN will be reusing.

    • Malcolm is that you? The only fact free reporting is anything that has come from LNP and NBN Co since Sept 13.
      Turnbull will stand alongside Alston and Coonan as the Comms Ministers who condemned Australia to 3rd rate, overpriced, delusional, nepotism-centric attempts to cripple our entry into the 21st Century and beyond.
      We have been cursed by Ministers who cannot understand that infrastructure actually adds to the national asset register. They look at the return to their mates in private business and ignore the greater good.
      A pox on their house and their future

    • The current congestion some users get is because the incumbent operators haven’t upgraded the active equipment at the end of the cable, or the backhaul to it.

      And you’re assuming that once nbn™ take over HFC, the backhaul from the HFC node will be the same?

  9. The old Cable ad is still spot on even today. I know for a fact the number of cable headends will have to increase exponentially to feed each cable run for the promised speeds. IMHO a massive waste of money, power and effort. Copper and cable and VDSL are not fit for purpose going forward. The outright liars in parliament should be jailed for the almost criminal waste of money. I worked for Ziggy when he ran Telstra and he is a creepy spineless jellyfish, i feel for the NBN staff working under that buffoon. He was more inept than Sol Trujillo and that’s saying something. Any person with half an engineering brain in their head and been involved with projects would have been more than satisfied with the FTTP rollout knowing that systems had to be built, geospacial work done and suppliers selected and standards produced before a sod was turned. Once started, such a project begins to ramp up….. sigh… what could have been… :'(

  10. “I worked for Ziggy when he ran Telstra and he is a creepy spineless jellyfish”
    Oh, I say Sir – that’s a bit hard on jellyfish! What have they ever done to you?

  11. Check date, yep it’s February 2016 not September 2013, have some NBN employees just realised Labor lost the last election and they are not working on the Labor NBN plan anymore?

  12. Husic said the HFC networks could not work when a lot of people used them simultaneously, a principle which he said was “bizarre” when applied to the NBN.

    “You have this huge demand from people wanting a modern broadband network and they are told, ‘You can get it, but if a lot of you use it it will be slow; so don’t use it.’,” he said.

    Of course you left out the bit that the HFC network will be upgraded to handle higher speeds and the number of simultaneous users, you also left out upgrading it to DOCSIS 3.1 provided even higher speeds, you also left out the bit that the biggest RSP in the USA Comcast is currently undergoing that upgrade to their high speed HFC infrastructure.

    So I take it is a given Husic after your comments about HFC that Labor is going to overbuild all HFC infrastructure with FTTP, or are you not prepared to say that as a firm statement yet because….?

    • “you also left out upgrading it to DOCSIS 3.1 provided even higher speeds”

      Speeds we keep getting told by you LibTrolls that we don’t need, thus we don’t need FTTP.

    • “Of course you left out the bit that the HFC network will be upgraded to handle higher speeds and the number of simultaneous users, you also left out upgrading it to DOCSIS 3.1 provided even higher speeds, you also left out the bit that the biggest RSP in the USA Comcast is currently undergoing that upgrade to their high speed HFC infrastructure.”

      And you left the bit out where NBNco HFC was already meant to be available to end users.

      It was only a moderately good idea if it could bring significant numbers of users to NBNco quicker, thereby using the revenue to help fund the rest of the build.

      But instead the MTM is going to be a three year distraction. It will have resulted in less end users connected to the NBN than if continued with majority FTTP and focussed on process improvement and ramp up.

    • MTM (FRAUDBAND) slower, dearer and err, slower…and upgrades to the FAILED HFC networks…

      Wow.

      No wonder, as you say, the opposition need a solution to this massive mess, the adults have idiotically created and are unable to fix…eh alain…?

      You’re welcome.

    • So I take it is a given Husic after your comments about HFC that Labor is going to overbuild all HFC infrastructure with FTTP, or are you not prepared to say that as a firm statement yet because….?

      I’m kinda more on your side with the HFC stuff Reality, unlike the copper network, I think there’s still some legs left in it (especially when Comcast is saying they’ll be able to get DOCSIS 3.1 up to 10Gb). And as HFC covers around 30% of the population, it’s kind of a no brainer to upgrade it to 2030, give or take 10 years.

      At some point though, it’ll need to be overbuilt by fibre all the way (as a lot of other broadband providers in the US are currently doing).

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