News & Discussion: National Broadband Network

[Vee]

Beg to disagree, Clayboro.

Critics often just pick on the home entertainment argument and ignore the many, many other benefits of fast, reliable broadband as mentioned previously. The world is changing and we can't afford to get stuck in the past. Industries are transforming, new jobs are being created and it is a global market/environment.

The NBN is "off budget" and will make a return on investment of approx. 7%. There are many ISP plans on offer and these are very competitive.
A great investment for our future and more equitable for people who live beyond the big urban centres, many of whom would be left out If left to private enterprise. It would be cherrypicked and patchwork.

France tried FTTN and is now building FTTH/P. (Infrastructure that Malcolm Turnbull has investments in)

The NBN is vital infrastructure, just like major roads, rail, ports and public transport. The time is right and I believe that FTTN is not the answer.
http://nbnmyths.wordpress.com/why-not-fttn/

Incidentally, here is a photo gallery of an NBN installation for anyone interested.
http://ow.ly/kFba5

People are entitled to different views as we can see in this forum. I have researched, discussed with tech. people and come to my conclusion. It's NBN FTTH/P for mine.

[rubberman]

Besides, it is just physically and arithmetically impossible for the FTTN proposal to be cheaper than FTTH.

How can you build fibre to the node, then build cabinets, then pay $1Bn per year maintenance on the copper, then as the copper gives way eventually build fibre to the home when you replace the copper and discard the cabinets...and do all that cheaper than just building the fibre to the home straight away? Even if the total final cost of doing it bit by bit were the same, then how can anyone say that paying for extra billions of dollars worth of cabinets and billions of dollars to maintain copper can be cheaper. That also assumes that Telstra will not charge for the copper. Really? I'd like to hear the Telstra shareholders' view on that one. I'll bet they will give away an asset just out of the goodness of their hearts. There's another few billions.

The fibre to the node must be more expensive.

Finally, the downloading of videos and games is probably fine for both schemes as long as you live or work near a node. However, for business, you also need to be able to upload files to send to clients. That is where the NBN is far superior even for premises at the nodes. It has a much higher upload speed than FTTN.

So, LOL, it is the Fibre to the Node proposal that satisfies the needs to download movies but NOT the needs of business, and Fibre to the Home (or premises) that will provide the business infrastructure, increase productivity and save jobs.

If you are worried about cost - the NBN is cheaper.
If you are worried about keeping your job and national productivity - the NBN is better.

Mind you, if we vote for Fibre to the Home, then we will probably be glad of the ability to download movies as we stay at home unemployed.

[claybro]

I guess we will all wake up in September, the sun will rise, there will more than likely be a Liberal Government, and the government funded NBN fibre to home will be dead.Will Australian homes have access to TV, movies, Foxtel,home shopping, etc?...yes!. Will Australian business cease to exist, no.they will pay for fibre connection. Will the fibre roll out continue, yes. Will user pays end up with a comprehensive fibre system in 30 years anyway, yes. Will the end result be the same...yes. Will we still be paying off $50 billion in borrowings? No.

[Wayno]

My bet is irrespective who wins the election the final NBN design will differ to what either party is proposing today.

Also Turnbull has always been an NBN FTTH advocate even though he currently can't say so.

Lastly, once fully deployed you can bet the govt of the day will privatise the network for a tidy sum.

[Aidan]

My bet is irrespective who wins the election the final NBN design will differ to what either party is proposing today.

Why? I can understand why the Libs would go back to the drawing board, but why would Labor?

Also Turnbull has always been an NBN FTTH advocate even though he currently can't say so.

Are you sure? If that were the case then I'd expect to see Turnbull ambushed with a load of his quotes about why FTTH is better.

Lastly, once fully deployed you can bet the govt of the day will privatise the network for a tidy sum.

Indeed. And you can bet subsequent govts will curse their doing so, as a toothless regulator lets them get away with only a very gradual cut in prices as their annual profits eventually dwarf the sale price.

[rubberman]

I guess we will all wake up in September, the sun will rise, there will more than likely be a Liberal Government, and the government funded NBN fibre to home will be dead. (snip) Will Australian business cease to exist, no.they will pay for fibre connection. Will the fibre roll out continue, yes. Will user pays end up with a comprehensive fibre system in 30 years anyway, yes. Will the end result be the same...yes. Will we still be paying off $50 billion in borrowings? No.

Claybro.

Will you please explain how this will work:

A business 200m from a node desperately needs to upgrade. They are prepared to pay $5000 to do it.
However, that amount of money is not enough to upgrade the connection unless the other properties between the node and the business also contribute. So the telco says 'nix'.

How do you propose that the business will get those others along the way to contribute so the extension becomes viable? The carrier is not going to replace the copper for the $5000 - it will cost far more than that to get to the business premises. That business will have to wait possibly years before the extension happens.

Do you see the problem? It is all very well to just wave one's hands and say that 'business will pay' - but it isn't practical. It won't work. This problem is well known in the power and water sectors. IT.DOES.NOT.WORK.

What is more, if you could discover some way to make this work - you can chuck in your present job and make yourself a real fortune as a consultant advising utility companies and governments round the world. If you think you can solve this issue, you have the makings of being a millionaire. Many many people have tried to crack the problem, NONE have succeeded. You would think that before trying to spend a few tens of billions of dollars, the Coalition would have an answer for this. The Coalition plan will founder on a problem that is well known in the utility industry and which will kill the economics of their scheme.

Now, even if we could solve that problem by some miracle, and business does pay. How does that make it cheaper? All that means is that the costs get shifted onto business. Well, I guess employers would be happy enough to pay out the extra money...mind you, they would have to cut some staff to pay for it. I mean, if business actually gets slugged directly for the Coalition scheme - do you think it will encourage them to spend more on wages?

We won't save $50Bn in borrowings. We will push $50B onto the costs of the private sector...at a much higher interest rate.
This is what happened with the sale of Telstra. We sold off Telstra and saved interest at the low bond rate on that money as a government, but private debt increased as people borrowed to buy shares and we ended up paying interest at full commercial rates. Wow. You can see quite clearly from the figures that as government debt decreased under the Howard government, private debt increased in step. So, total debt the same or more, but higher overall interest rates paid by us punters instead of the lower government rate. Pushing debt onto the private sector and making them pay a higher rate is not going to make anyone's job safe.

[rhino]

Looks like Malcolm Turnbull doesn't want to talk about upload speeds ... from ABC on line

Turnbull resists call for broadband speed guarantee
By science and technology correspondent Jake Sturmer

Upload speeds determine how quickly things like files and movies get uploaded to the internet.

They are crucial for making the most of using cloud services which constantly upload documents and data.

Labor's National Broadband Network (NBN) has a minimum upload speed of 1 megabits per second, but most plans on offer today have at least 10 megabits per second.

When the network reaches maximum speeds later this year, customers could have upload speeds of 400 megabits per second.

The Opposition's proposal relies on the existing copper network, which degrades in speed and reliability the further away customers are from an exchange.

In an online debate hosted by ZDNet, the Coalition's communication spokesman Malcolm Turnbull would not guarantee minimum upload speeds on the alternative network.

"The ratio of download/upload is a commercial decision future NBN Co would make, but there is no technical barrier to having very high upload speed," Mr Turnbull said.

"You've got to form a judgment about commercial demand.

"I agree that there is more uploading going on now because of the cloud, but because the bulk of the additional bandwidth being consumed across the internet is video entertainment... the networks are becoming if anything more asymmetrical at the customer premise."

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy suggested the Opposition had failed to recognise the importance of upload speeds.

"Malcolm doesn't want to talk about upload speeds and what he can guarantee because it's like a wooden stake to a vampire because his network cannot deliver the sort of upload capacity that a fibre to the premise network can deliver," Mr Conroy said.

"He cannot guarantee these upload speeds and if you are going to have a cloud based digital economy which is where things are moving, you've got to be able to give reliable upload speeds.

"You don't need to be able to guess - am I close to a node?

"Famously a former Telstra engineer said to me once - do it once, do it right, do it with fibre."

[Vee]

Link to today's Conroy-Turnbull NBN debate, hosted by ZDNet, here:
http://zd.net/17QbMOA

SMHNews item about the debate - includes focus around difference on Upload speeds.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political ... 2j2fk.html

[claybro]

Once again the question is not which is the best system, has the most bandwidth/ upload/download speeds. We all know this. It is not news, despite some trying whip up outrage againt the oposition proposal. I maintain though, that unless you rely on super high speed internet, it just is not currently and issue as is evident in the polls. As you are all probably aware, I am in the logistics industry. We have been begging for a fast highway from captial to capital, and within adelaide itself for decades. The technology obviously exists but it is cost prohibative. We see a more pressing issure for the economy, the ability to transport goods from A to B with speed and reliability. This is currently not possible in Adelaide, or Nationally. Our interstate highways and many ports are third world standard, and still the transport industry has no promise of a comprehensive road network...not even in our lifetime,and yet here we have people outraged, because very many of us question the need to spend $50 billion right now on cable to home. There is no need to sell the NBN proposal on speed or capacity, it is the imperative need to spend the money to have every person in the nation connected to 100 MBPS right now, that needs to be justified, when we struggle to get our goods exported due to the state of our roads/rail/ports.

[monotonehell]

Once again the question is not which is the best system, has the most bandwidth/ upload/download speeds. We all know this. It is not news, despite some trying whip up outrage againt the oposition proposal. I maintain though, that unless you rely on super high speed internet, it just is not currently and issue as is evident in the polls. As you are all probably aware, I am in the logistics industry. We have been begging for a fast highway from captial to capital, and within adelaide itself for decades. The technology obviously exists but it is cost prohibative. We see a more pressing issure for the economy, the ability to transport goods from A to B with speed and reliability. This is currently not possible in Adelaide, or Nationally. Our interstate highways and many ports are third world standard, and still the transport industry has no promise of a comprehensive road network...not even in our lifetime,and yet here we have people outraged, because very many of us question the need to spend $50 billion right now on cable to home. There is no need to sell the NBN proposal on speed or capacity, it is the imperative need to spend the money to have every person in the nation connected to 100 MBPS right now, that needs to be justified, when we struggle to get our goods exported due to the state of our roads/rail/ports.

You're right. It's not about which is the best system.

It's about one system being a not thought through, complete waste of money. If your argument is "we can't afford it" then your choice should be "do nothing", because the Lib's plan is one huge cost, followed by no improvement in infrastructure, then followed by another huge cost later.

Do nothing is a better option.


As for the old chestnut of "we should spend money elsewhere", governing a country is not the same as a household budget. It's a completely different economic animal and those bleating "balance the books! balance the books!" are counting on the majority of people are ignorant of that fact.

[claybro]

It's about one system being a not thought through, complete waste of money. If your argument is "we can't afford it" then your choice should be "do nothing", because the Lib's plan is one huge cost, followed by no improvement in infrastructure, then followed by another huge cost later.

Do nothing is a better option.

Ok, I admit, I must be really missing something here? Isnt the oposition proposal to lay cable to every street corner in the country? How is that doing nothing, and a complete waste of money? Isnt existing copper being used only for the final line to home? Dont people who need, have the oppotunity to connect fibre to their premises from the node at their cost?Is there some alarmaing issue with connecting a cable from an existing node? Surely the worst that can happen is that the final copper connection proves inadequate for most households and a decision is then made to complete the fibre network? How is the original outlay wasted?

[Dog]

The sad thing is if the coalitions plan gets up we are going to have to pay Telstra a lot of money to just to use the last few hundred metres of old copper network and for ever be held over a barrel. Spent $40band do it properly or $30b and be held for ransom for every over the last few hundred metres of copper which we all payed for years ago.

[claybro]

The sad thing is if the coalitions plan gets up we are going to have to pay Telstra a lot of money to just to use the last few hundred metres of old copper network and for ever be held over a barrel. Spent $40band do it properly or $30b and be held for ransom for every over the last few hundred metres of copper which we all payed for years ago.

Telstra will no longer own the copper.

[rubberman]

Telstra will no longer own the copper. Very true, since we will have to buy it from them. How much will that cost? Are you seriously suggesting that Telstra will give it to us? Telstra? Give something away? I can just imagine the Telstra shareholders reaction to the Company giving anything away.

Then, we will have to maintain it at $1Bn per year. How much will that cost over twenty years? And then at the end we will have to put in the rest of the fibre because by then almost all the copper will have degraded. How much will that cost? So in the end we will have paid for fibre to the home, plus paid for cabinets that will have to be junked, plus pay Telstra for the copper, plus pay for maintaining the copper network. It not only is an operational disaster because of slow upload speeds, but it will also cost more in the long run...much more. This is sheer lunacy.

Add it all together, and overall, the Coalition plan is far far more expensive. How they have managed to pull the wool over people's eyes and get them to believe that somehow you can get fibre to the node plus pay for the copper plus a billion a year to maintain the copper, plus the purchase and maintenance costs of the cabinets, plus the cost of extending the fibre when the copper degrades, and then say it is cheaper. This is something Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.

[rubberman]

Ok, I admit, I must be really missing something here? (snip) Dont people who need, have the oppotunity to connect fibre to their premises from the node at their cost?Is there some alarmaing issue with connecting a cable from an existing node? Surely the worst that can happen is that the final copper connection proves inadequate for most households and a decision is then made to complete the fibre network? How is the original outlay wasted?

Yes there is an alarming issue with connecting a cable from an existing node.

How is it paid for? The do not lay individual cables to service each house, they lay bundled cable - not individual fibres in individual sheaths. So only one cable per street is laid, and that contains enough fibres to serve the street. Otherwise it does not fit in the existing copper ducts. So, once the fibre is laid to remote premises, it is laid for ALL the customers in the street. So how does anyone pay for extending the fibre to their place unless they pay the full amount for connecting the whole street from the Node to their place? The 'alarming issue' is that paying the whole cost of connecting the street is beyond most small businesses. The 'alarming issue' is that most other people living in the street will wait until some poor sucker business person gets the fibre extended at the cost to the business, and then pay nothing themselves - since the fibre will run past their houses already paid for by the business person. Either that, or the business will have to relocate to somewhere near a node. If it wasn't so stupid, I would almost like to have the fibre to the node system in place, and then laugh myself silly when all those small business people who think the Coalition is their friend, suddenly discover that they cannot get fibre to their premises even if they are willing to pay, unless they pay for the whole street.

The original outlay is wasted because when they do continue to the home, they have to junk the cabinets. Every.Single.One.
The original outlay is wasted because when they do continue to the home, they have to junk the copper, which they will have paid Telstra for. If anyone thinks that Telstra will give the copper away well, I have a bridge in Sydney Harbor for sale at a very reasonable price to sell them.