Censored: NBN denies FOI access to skinny fibre trial results

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news The NBN company has flatly rejected an attempt to retrieve the results of its skinny fibre trials in Victoria through Freedom of Information laws, with the company listing a large number of reasons why it does not believe it should have to release the information.

In March this year, Delimiter and a number of other media outlets published a set of leaked documents produced by the NBN company in August 2015. The documents detailed the fact that the NBN company was set to trial a new style of fibre cable deployment in the ‘Local Fibre Network’ which delivers fibre to neighbourhoods as part of the NBN rollout.

The aim of the project was to test a new kind of “skinny” fibre deployment which the NBN company hopes will allow it to drive down the cost of rolling out fibre cables around Australia.

The NBN company has previously told Senate hearings that the trials of this ‘skinny fibre’ technology in the Victorian towns of Ballarat and Karingal had gone extremely well, with the technology being able to reduce the cost per premise of deploying the NBN to those regions by about $450 per premises.

This cost reduction has been interpreted by many commentators to be likely to help the NBN company bring down the cost of its Fibre to the Premises or Fibre to the Distribution Point rollout options significantly, meaning it may be attractive to deploy those technically superior technologies instead of the Coalition’s preferred Fibre to the Node option.

To gain further clarity about the trials, in March Delimiter filed a Freedom of Information request with the NBN company seeking the results of the trials.

Delimiter believes the release of trial data would be significantly in the public interest, as it would directly assist with the public debate about the future model for the NBN rollout.

This issue has been a key one in this year’s election campaign, with the major parties taking radically different approaches to the NBN’s architecture model.

However, in a letter sent to Delimiter, the NBN company has flatly refused to release any of the data. You can download a copy of the letter here in PDF format.

In the letter, NBN legal counsel for FOI, Privacy and Knowledge Management, Kate Friedrich, noted that the documents with information about the trial results were created in the course of the NBN company carrying out its functions to complete its rollout in a way that achieved a commercial return.

As such, Friedrich argued, they contained costs, margins and processes; related to ongoing commercial endeavours; contained research and development data and intellectual property and more.

The lawyer argued that the release of these documents would negatively impact on commercial relationships held by the NBN company.

For all these reasons, Friedrich wrote, she had decided to deny the request.

Ultimately, the lawyer wrote, “NBN’s ability to roll out the NBN network cost-effectively” could be compromised if the documents were released, and even expose the company to legal action on the basis of a breach of confidence with its partners.

“For the above reasons, I am of the opinion that the relevant documents relate to NBN’s commercial activities and are exempt from release,” Friedrich wrote. “I am also of the opinion information in the relevant documents is either irrelevant to the application or too intrinsically linked with NBN’s commercial activities to be released in part.”

The decision follows a long history of the NBN company denying Freedom of Information requests.

According to the NBN company’s current FOI disclosure log, it has not released any documents under the FOI Act since mid-January this year. In addition, the company typically only releases a handful of documents each year — sometimes redacted — which have been sought under FOI laws.

Despite this, a 2012 review of the NBN company’s compliance with FOI legislation gave the company high marks in the area, stating that it was achieving a “high standard” in its administration of the FOI Act.

opinion/analysis
I had to try. I knew this FOI request would get knocked back, but I had to try.

Because this information is critical to the public debate over the viability of Fibre to the Distribution Point as a technology for the NBN company, as well as in the cost debate between FTTP and FTTN.

And because it was the right thing to do.

56 COMMENTS

  1. Do the AVC and CVC prices change based on the technology connected?

    Prop’s for trying though!

    Just sounds like since they’ve already decided and announced these technologies as ‘basically sucking’ they don’t want to release any info that might contradict themselves and that it basically might do that.

    • AVC & CVC remain the same for all techs. Even with the lower capex (CPP HFC 1/3, FTTN/B 1/2), revenue still unlikely to ever recover costs. $~2b FY16, same every year in CP.

      Skinny fibre info would have been technically interesting, wasted on most here. However most of the information re difference is already public. $500 drop in CPP doesn’t make it near competitive with alternatives, nor time to deploy. Pulling more fibre into the network is labour intensive (expensive) and time consuming. Entering homes (FTTH) even more so. Perhaps suitable with FTTPdp once it’s adopted commercially.

      A topic of much discussion over the past week; skinny fibre is much more susceptible to water ingress. But hey, won’t know without the FoI release;-)

  2. Can’t they (buzzword warning) redact the price and other sensitive information, or distill it down to throughput figures?

  3. It almost sounds like they are scared like someone else will roll out a broadband network. Can we start a rumour saying Telstra will roll out a FTTP network :p

    • “Can we start a rumour saying Telstra will roll out a FTTP network :p”

      It won’t be a rumour, Telstra has every intention of rolling out a FTTP network at the earliest opportunity. They’d be mad not to. It just won’t be a national network, it will cherry pick.

      It’s the inevitable result of Turnbull’s FTTN obsession.

      If you want to see the future, look at South Brisbane.

      • If you want to see the future, look at South Brisbane.

        Telstra butchered that though, even NBNCo didn’t want it after they started negotiations and got a good look at it.

        • “Telstra butchered that though”

          That is the future. An expensive butchered network. Mostly controlled by Telstra.

          Much the same as the past, but with less oversight.

  4. Because this information is critical to the public debate over the viability of Fibre to the Distribution Point as a technology for the NBN company, as well as in the cost debate between FTTP and FTTN.

    It is critical, and if they start using it, it’ll just end up being included in the CP anyway. I suspect the real reason is they don’t want you to to see the real costs as opposed to the publicly available CP16 costs.

  5. There’s that phrase again “commercial return”!!!

    FFS, Lib’s this is a national Infrastructure project building infrastructure for the public good, NBN Co is not bloody Telstra/Optus/Vodafone, it’s a god dam GBE!!!!

    • Yep, reading through the reply they sent to Reani, according to their “reasons” no information should be released about pretty well anything to do with the NBN.

      Transparent my arse…

      • “no information should be released about pretty well anything to do with the NBN.”
        And they haven’t followed that train of thought to the letter thus far?

        • They did when it was NBNCo, and the LPA is more than happy to leak stuff they want out there…

  6. Given the recent flooding of NBN nodes, I’m a little surprised that they didn’t cite “on-water matters”…

  7. Renai, the ONLY reason you even got a response at all is they are legally required to respond to requests!

    NBN are just a secret little fiefdom busily going about their secret work. The DOD and intelligence agencies release more information!

    What they’re really trying to avoid is accountability. Their own website claims the 3 year rollout plan is updated quarterly, yet the current one is almost a year out of date.

  8. This morning I asked a NBN Technician “Hows it going?”. NBNs legal team came back to me later today with “Your application to know how the NBN technician is “going” has been denied”

  9. There is such thing as commercial in confidence.

    “Delimiter and a number of other media outlets published ”

    Ummm don’t you mean “Delimiter and a number of media outlets published” ?

    As one who works is in IT, and in media (as a topical, current affairs show producer on radio), the golden rule for media is to contain both sides, be fair and above all, remain 100% completely without bias – something delimeter fails on the latter of upon a massive scale, this means your just another of the gazillion techie bloggers out there, not a media outlet.
    Cheers

    note to trolls: I do not get updates or bother to re-read blogs like this where I comment on, this means feel free to bring out your rather old and tiresome nbn fanboisms and beat your chest with your grandstanding brothers if it makes you feel good, you dont score brownie points since I wont see them.

      • it’s not new. also known as “in before”
        classic attempt of a troll who definitely will be coming back to head off any dissemination of their “work” as fraudulent and or fallacial.

    • Can we vote to delete or hide this comment since the poster states he won’t be participating in further discussion?

    • The reason for countering the idiocy of the troll is not to convince the troll, it is to ensure any other readers who might be mislead into thinking the troll might have a valid point are well informed as to the failures in the troll’s trolling. The further non-participation of the troll simply saves frustration. So thanks for not coming back and wasting further time.

      Your comment is a logical fallacy – appeal to authority. You provide zero justification for your position, it is nothing more than an ad hominem attack. You also have terrible grammar and don’t know the difference between your and you’re, so you don’t even pass the intelligence snuff test, making your statement even less persuasive.

      Here’s a hint – 100% completely without bias does not mean giving an equal platform and equal credibility to all sides – if one side makes claims that are demonstrably false based on available evidence, giving them a platform to continue to spruik their misinformation without criticism *is* bias. Pretty much every media outlet in the country is biassed against Labor on the NBN topic because they published LNP propaganda without question while they were in opposition, and now use the fact that the LNP are the Government of the day to continue to parrot their talking points without criticism or any form of analysis, while being highly critical of both Labor’s statements and their previous performance while in Government (well, their perception of Labor’s track record, anyway).

      So Nobby and everyone like him is part of the problem. Delimiter’s problem is that they’re following (and reporting) the facts, and unfortunately the LNP are on the wrong side of the facts, so the LNP, the sabotaged NBN Co and conservatives everywhere dislike Delimiter and are doing their best to discredit it. Unfortunately LeMay has actually done his level best to be supportive of Malcolm and his NBN changes – there are eight months of articles from April to December 2013 that sit as testament to how much backbending he tried to do to make reality fit the LNP’s version. He was wrong, and ended up admitting it, because the facts eventually became too overwhelming for even his blinkered reality. But it demonstrated that he was very willing to trust Malcolm and the LNP with as much rope as necessary.

      So no, Delimiter is not politically partisan, it is simply doing its best to report the truth, in an area that appears to be too complicated for the rest of the media to even attempt to cover. Your comment is the very definition of trolling – the irony of you attempting to claim those willing to refute your nonsense are trolls *before you’ve even read their comments* (which is itself preemptive trolling) is not lost on us ;-)

    • Actually, I’m not done – if you’re a journalist who thinks ‘unbiased reporting’ means giving an equal platform to every side of every argument, you’re doing two things. First, you’re demonstrating that you know so little about the topic that you can’t provide even a modicum of analysis, interpretation or editorial – you have no skills beyond that of a transmission medium. Claiming ‘IT’ credentials is utterly pointless if you make absolutely zero use of those skills.

      Secondly, you’re raising up your idea of ‘unbiased reporting’ as the pinnacle of your professional standard, yet your job as a journalist is surely to provide the public with the truth? That’s what ‘unbiased’ means – the truth, no matter which side it’s on. By attempting to provide a platform for all sides without criticism, fact checking or analysis, you’re nothing but a mouthpiece. That’s not journalism. That’s a distribution platform for hire.

      So what we’ve learnt from this is that you aren’t any good at *either* of your jobs. Thanks for playing!

      • Fantastically well said!
        Please accept my gratitude for an eloquent statement on the need for sites like Delimiter.

        Bravo

      • First, you’re demonstrating that you know so little about the topic that you can’t provide even a modicum of analysis, interpretation or editorial – you have no skills beyond that of a transmission medium.

        +10,000!

        This is the exact reason News Corpse is so shit these days, they give equal time to crackpots, and other unscientific views, to show a false balance.

        Who hasn’t seen “The science isn’t settled, there are many alternate views”…they aren’t “alternate views”, they are alternate opinions until they are researched and pass peer review.

        Sadly, the ABC is heading down this path too.

        • The ABC has been run by conservative LNP affiliates for over a decade. The fact that it is even slightly useful is pretty amazing at this point.

    • “I do not get updates or bother to re-read blogs like this where I comment on”
      “I will state whatever I want to state as a matter of cold, hard fact but you will not get the right of response or criticism, because I am operating without a sense of moral guidelines and you will just accept what I say or to hell with you”

      So your entire comment is invalid? Got it.

    • “the golden rule for media is to contain both sides, be fair and above all, remain 100% completely without bias”

      And there it goes:
      FTTP has a vision and is a big step forward, MTM is a biggest fuck up this country ever saw.

  10. It’s still using the faulty copper to the pit where most of the problems are. Probably better but still stupid. I would run ethernet out there if I could. The pits get flooded like the abomination ADSL exchanges they have slapped up do.

    It may still expose how they invested all our money in ADSL to upgrade the ADSL though.

  11. Thanks for trying Renai. Unfortunately the same can’t be said of Turnbull and his cronies.

  12. This sounds like on water matters all over again. When it suits the government, information, which was of the greatest sensitivity and essential to be kept secret for months, is announced in a press conference as part of an election campaign.

    Pardon my cynicism.

  13. If ‘skinny fibre’ is so important why aren’t Labor putting in a FOI request for the trial results?

    • They don’t need FOI, they can use the senate committee (once the election is over).

      It’s only serfs like us that need to FIO them.

  14. If it makes them look bad, it’s CiC. If it’s leaked, it’s a matter of national security.

    Because their job security would be at stake in any government less corrupt than this.

    Royal Commission/ICAC please.

  15. “Despite this, a 2012 review of the NBN company’s compliance with FOI legislation gave the company high marks in the area, stating that it was achieving a “high standard” in its administration of the FOI Act.”

    That previous review in no way relates to NBNCo as it has been since 2013, I don’t know why you made mention of it regarding this year’s operations as if it were in any way relevant.

    After the government changeover, the gutting and repopulating of staff, not to mention the commands from on high to give out as little information about anything as possible, it’s an entirely different company culture which refuses to provide anything meaningful.

    They didn’t receive a good review back in 2012 despite their current behaviour, they did so because the behaviour of the company was far better back then. A new review by the same QC of their post 2013 practices would likely have a completely different finding.

    • A new review by the same QC of their post 2013 practices would likely have a completely different finding.

      if the LPA did do a new review, they’d probably appoint Dyson Heydon and he’d “show” the unions have undermined the FOI process, while pointing out what a great job the management have been doing.

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