Truth: This week’s flooded FTTN nodes are just the start

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This week’s pictures of flooded Fibre to the Node cabinets in a rural NSW town are just the first drop in the ocean to come. Heavy rainfall is going to be playing havoc with Malcolm Turnbull’s brittle copper infrastructure for the next decade and beyond.

Truth: South Australia’s “Gig City” plan is hyped-up nonsense

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"Gig City"? I don't think so. The South Australian Government's plan to bring 1Gbps broadband to key areas around Adelaide won't even make a tiny dent in the state's broadband needs, and is worth little more than the paper its press release was printed on.

After Quigley, the silence is deafening

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On Wednesday night, one man stood up for the truth. My hope is that eventually that number will swell to many.

Truth: A Labor Government will not roll back data retention

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Those holding out hope that a Bill Shorten Labor administration would wind back the Orwellian Data Retention laws that Labor and the Coalition waved through Parliament last year should give up now: All indications are that Data Retention is here to stay.

Truth: The Coalition will not launch a new Election NBN policy

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If you don't like the Coalition's existing National Broadband Network policy, then tough cookies: Every indication points towards the fact that it won't be changed or updated at all for the Federal Election in two weeks.

Devil’s Advocate: The gaping holes in Labor’s new NBN policy

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Labor's new National Broadband Network policy appears to be a pitch perfect plan for Australia's future broadband needs. But what if it's not?

Truth: Labor’s new NBN plan is pitch perfect

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Labor's new NBN vision is a comprehensive, well-thought out policy with no downsides, based solidly on comprehensive research and supported by a huge amount of detail.

The Inside Track: What we learned from the Sydney AWS outage

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The Sydney Amazon Web Services outage could end up being a long-term positive, if it heightens the stability of major IT infrastructure. However, if IT professionals don't heed its lessons, then the opposite will be true. Where one outage can occur, others can follow. And the damage may not quite be as limited the next time around.

The Inside Track: The Coalition is strongly hinting it won’t support a FTTdp NBN

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Fifield and Turnbull are clearly aware that Labor is likely to announce a FTTdp-based NBN policy in the near future. What we are very likely seeing here is the advance start of an effort by the Coalition to lay the groundwork for a strategy of disparaging a FTTdp-based NBN policy issued by Labor.

Truth: Turnbull’s MTM decision is coming home to roost … financially

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This is the unfortunate logical consequence of abandoning a model which had provided well-defined certainty and benefits for all concerned.

The Inside Track: Behind the scenes of NBN Co’s Fibre on Demand program

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So what's going on with the Technology Choice program? Is it still viable? Why are so few premises being connected? We'll try to present some answers to these questions in this article.

Truth: Tassie FTTP pledge raises questions about Labor’s broader NBN policy

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The truth is that Labor's announcement -- as positive as it sounds -- actually raises more questions for the rest of the nation than it answers for the tiny area of Tasmania it covers.

Truth: Expect a post-election Australian anti-encryption bill

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The Federal Government is clearly right now engaged in the early stages of seeding the Australian public with the idea that tough new anti-encryption laws are something we need to stop terrorists.

Truth: The MTM NBN could have been so much better

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Everyone knows that Malcolm Turnbull's Multi-Technology Mess is an absolute dog of a model for the NBN. But every dog has its day, and the truth is that even the MTM could have been implemented so much better than it has been.

Truth: We’re building an NBN that only a mother could love

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The reality that is becoming increasingly apparent is that the MTM – or, more specifically, its emphasis on trying to breathe life into a dog's breakfast of creaking old and unproven new technologies – is going to cost nearly as much as the original FTTP plan and do nothing at all to improve Australia's broadband to anything that can be called remotely 'world-class'.

The Inside Track: New CVC model is NBN’s attempt to fix congestion issues

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The new CVC pricing model announced by the NBN company this morning is at least partially an attempt to fix the peak hour congestion issues being experienced by early Fibre to the Node users. But only time will tell whether the attempt will succeed.

Insight: Morrow is misleading us about America’s gigabit FTTP appetite

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The evidence indicates that NBN chief executive Bill Morrow is likely deliberately attempting to deceive the Australian public about America's appetite for high-speed fibre broadband.

Truth: Google Fiber shows how great a FTTP NBN could be

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Labor's original version of the NBN would have delivered the broadband capability which the global technology industry agrees will be needed for the future. It would have done so in the public interest, with the aim of delivering nation-building infrastructure, and it would have done so using a unified technology platform: The best technology platform.

Insight: Warning: Most of Australia’s IT bellwethers are cutting jobs

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Yesterday morning an unexpected chill wind blew through Australia's technology sector.

Insight: Kevin Russell will probably be the next Telstra CEO

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It doesn't take a particularly bright spark to guess that Telstra's weak current chief executive Andy Penn won't be in the role forever ... and that the telco's new hire Kevin Russell is now the most likely person to succeed him.

Truth: Fibre to the Node is dead

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The FTTdp model proposed by the NBN company is cheap enough and fast enough for the Coalition, while having enough technical capacity and upgradability to satisfy Labor. It has the potential to bring both parties together in a relatively bipartisan view for the NBN.

Insight: FTTdp is probably Turnbull’s election NBN policy

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The NBN company's secret plan to cut the cost of its Local Fibre Network and trial FTTdp gives Turnbull an election option. Packaging the two ideas together will allow the Member for Wentworth to promise to deliver an NBN that has FTTP-like speeds, while still coming close to matching the cost and rollout timing of FTTN.

Insight: HFC is the gap in all of Labor’s FTTP NBN promises

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Bill Shorten's statements about the National Broadband Network this week show that the Opposition Leader either doesn't understand the fundamental basis of the Coalition's Multi-Technology Mix for the NBN, or that Labor is planning to retain the HFC component of the network.

Truth: Trial shows why HFC cable is unsuitable for the NBN

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The results of the NBN company's first trial of HFC cable show why this technology was always a poor fit for the National Broadband Network and should be abandoned as a dead end -- as it already was by Telstra and Optus more than a decade ago.

The Inside Track: History repeating: How the Govt will privatise NBN Co

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For a long time, the question regarding the Coalition's oft-denied plans to privatise the NBN company has not been "if", but "when and how". Yesterday Infrastructure Australia for the first time gave us a solid framework for how we might start to answer these questions.

Truth: A lack of Wi-Fi is definitely bad for your health

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Australia's national broadcaster has unfortunately let one of its senior journalists engage in a fear-mongering campaign to convince Australians we should be scared of a technology we invented: wireless data transmission. The truth is that the only thing we should be scared of is a lack of signal.

Devil’s Advocate: Dallas Buyers Club decision will force Turnbull’s hand on Internet piracy

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The decision by Dallas Buyers Club to abandon its Internet piracy lawsuit is not the comprehensive victory many of Australia's digital rights activists and Internet pirates think it is. It merely signals that the next round of the rapidly intensifying legal and political fight over Australian copyright law has already begun.

Truth: NBN Co is trying as hard as it can to normalise FTTN

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The NBN company is trying hard to pull the wool over Australians' eyes through creating the impression that Fibre to the Node and Premise are equivalent technologies. And while Australians aren't stupid, this is one company not short of resources and motivation to make its case.

Truth: The CSIRO is not Netflix: Science cannot be treated like a startup

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Technology and science are different fields. Replacing long-term research with ‘big data initiatives’ and ‘performance metrics’ might - if we are being super optimistic - help to streamline efficiency processes, but it won’t necessarily deliver accurate results and it will rob this country of crucial data we need to make the big decisions about its future.

Devil’s Advocate: Why brand new copper is great news for new estates

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Rolling out brand new copper to greenfields estates will help residents in those areas get broadband quicker (or at all) and pave the way for easy future upgrades. What's not to like?

Truth: The Govt’s data retention project has already spun out of control

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The ridiculous number of agencies which have applied for unwarranted metadata access clearly shows that the data retention policy enacted by the Coalition and Labor was founded on a preposterous lie: That access would be limited. The truth is that scope creep was built into the policy's DNA.

Truth: Simon Hackett proven right on “insane” NBN pricing, POIs

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History has proven Simon Hackett right: The pricing and Points of Interconnect models set up by the NBN company and the ACCC have helped destroy broadband competition in Australia and are actively helping Telstra re-establish its odious monopoly in an NBN world.

Truth: The NBN’s two satellites will be nowhere near enough

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The NBN company's radical overhaul of its satellite plans this week represents a very clear signal that even the 135Gbps of capacity that its two new birds will provide will not go anywhere near close enough to meeting the rapidly growing demand from rural and remote areas for high-speed broadband.

Truth: Yes, the Coalition will try to sell off the NBN

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The truth about an eventual sale of the NBN is that, for a Coalition Government, it is truly only a matter of timing and political position. It is not a matter of if: Only a matter of when.

Devil’s Advocate: Is the political innovation obsession a giant waste of money?

4
Eventually we'll look on this madness the same way as we did the first technology bubble: Unsustainable hype. It'll be a great party while it lasts, fuelled by billions of dollars in taxpayer money. But eventually it'll all come crashing down.

Truth: The NBN is the Achilles heel of Turnbull’s Innovation policy

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A rude black crack ran through yesterday's brightness that Turnbull cannot have failed to notice. Try as he might, the Earl of Wentworth just could not and cannot escape from the shocking mess that he has made of the National Broadband Network.

Truth: Turnbull’s innovation policy is the Hail Mary, slam dunk moment Australian technologists have...

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Truly, the wind has changed in Canberra. It will be exhilarating to see just how far an unleashed Australian technology sector can go.

Truth: The MTM NBN business case is unravelling by the day

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Senator Mitch Fifield has only been Communications Minister a matter of months. And yet, if his performance in the Senate this afternoon is any indication, he has already gotten to the point of attacking anyone who dares to even question the Government's controversial Multi-Technology Mix NBN model.

Devil’s Advocate: What if the MTM NBN actually turns out to be great?

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I've spent most of the past three years on Malcolm Turnbull's Multi-Technology Mess, and it's actually been kind of great. Will the complaints about the MTM die away as it's rolled out Australia-wide?

The Inside Track: Is Microsoft surging or fading? Behind the scenes at Ignite on...

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Last week I spent three days immersed in the new world that Microsoft is trying to create, as a guest of the company at its Ignite conference on the Gold Coast. What did I discover? Is Microsoft surging again? Or is it still stuck in the doldrums? Read on to find out.

The Inside Track: No bullshit? What its IPO docs tell us about Atlassian

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Is Atlassian, as its Initial Public Offering documents proclaims, truly something different -- an "open company" with "no bullshit"? Is the company determined not to "#@!% the customer"? Does it "play as a team"?

Truth: NBN results show Labor’s plan is still working

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The NBN company's latest set of financial results released yesterday confirm a truth which has become almost taboo to mention in public: Labor's original strategy for the National Broadband Network is working very well -- in fact, it still represents almost all the NBN company has done in its existence so far.

The Inside Track: How will G.Fast actually work on the NBN?

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How will G.Fast actually be implemented in the NBN company's network in a practical sense? How will it be installed? Who will benefit? When will it be installed? How will the whole process work? What can Australia's broadband users expect from G.Fast? It's these questions with respect to G.Fast that we'll try to answer in this issue of The Inside Track: Not the debate or the hype, but the granular details about this controversial standard which will affect people's lives.

The Inside Track: DataStart is much older and smarter than it looks

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The truth is that those criticising DataStart as a lightweight program are off the mark. I like Stilgherrian, but in this case he's wrong. Behind the scenes, this initiative involves a great deal more than it appears to on the surface, and it wasn't put together overnight. It may never set the world on fire. But for a few Prime Minister keen to get some wins, DataStart may eventually turn out to be the little engine that could.

The Inside Track: How NBN Co decides rollout locations

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If you’re wondering how the NBN company decides which locations around Australia it will roll out the National Broadband Network infrastructure to and why, wonder no more. This issue of The Inside Track will examine the company’s selection criteria.

The Inside Track: What’s delaying Telstra’s data retention compliance?

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The deadline for the Government’s Data Retention policy to go live has come and gone, and yet large Australian telcos such as Telstra have openly stated they are not yet complying with the policy. What’s holding things up? We’ll provide a view from the inside in this edition of The Inside Track.

Truth: No, Labor will not be returning to a full FTTP NBN model

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If you believe what you read, the Australian Labor Party plans to ditch Malcolm Turnbull's Fibre to the Node technology and shift the NBN back to a full Fibre to the Premises model if it wins the next Federal Election. However, the truth is a great deal more complicated than the headlines would suggest.

Truth: Data Retention: We told you so

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The catastrophic failure of the Attorney-General’s Department to successfully implement the ludicrous Data Retention scheme its incompetent bureaucrats dreamed up at the behest of Australia’s intelligence and law enforcement cabal comes as absolutely no surprise. In fact, many people have been predicting it since the start of this doomed project.

Truth: The Internet piracy industry code may be dead in the water

2
The required date for Australia’s Internet service providers to address the Internet piracy issue has long ago come and gone. Now our new Communications Minister appears determined to let the issue lie. Has the Government decided to abandon its efforts to curb Internet piracy?

Truth: Will NBN Co be rolling brand new copper in some places to deal...

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The NBN company has recently been putting out conflicting messages about what it will do when faced with sections of Telstra’s copper network which are too degraded to use for Fibre to the Node. But when you did a bit deeper, the truth is that the company appears to have a preference towards remediation or even replacement of the copper rather than upgrading it with fibre.

The Inside Track: The history of Vodafone’s $1bn deal with TPG, and its deep...

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Vodafone’s $1 billion deal with TPG announced this morning has been 18 months in the making and will have substantial implications for the rest of Australia’s technology sector. Delimiter goes behind the scenes of the deal, speaking to the major players and looking at the impact it will cause over the next few years.

The Inside Track: What’s behind Macquarie Uni’s move to ditch Gmail

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Macquarie University’s very public decision this week to dump the Gmail platform it adopted with great pomp and ceremony just five years ago sends a clear message to Australian chief information officers of what they can expect when they buck corporate IT trends: Internal insurrection and ongoing dissent.

The Inside Track: How Atlassian’s IPO will change everything

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The public listing of Australia-based tech company Atlassian on a US stock exchange will have a huge impact on Australia’s technology sector, unleashing a lasting wave of innovation and ongoing digital disruption that will deeply impact the nation at a fundamental level. Watch closely: Things are about to drastically change.

The Inside Track: Australia’s tech sector has a new champion: Wyatt Roy

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Australia’s new Assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy has only been in the job for two days, but he’s already strongly demonstrated that he understands the needs of Australia’s technology startup sector. Are we about to enter a new era of tech-savvy politicians in Canberra?

Truth: Turnbull didn’t “fix” the NBN, Mr Fletcher — he turned it into a...

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Malcolm Turnbull didn’t “fix” the National Broadband Network … but he did do an extraordinarily successful job at turning what was formerly a visionary nation-building project into an incredibility politicised, tragic mess.

Truth: Turnbull’s new Communications Minister is … Malcolm Turnbull

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Seven days ago Malcolm Turnbull formally resigned as Communications Minister to take the top role from Tony Abbott. But yesterday’s Cabinet reshuffle reveals that upgrade to be an illusion: Our new PM will, in fact, retain direct control of his former portfolio through several able lieutenants who will do exactly as he bids.