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How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

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Re: How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

#91

Post by predakanga »

andrewstuart wrote: post #8
gonzo41 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't waste that anger. Vote left (Or at least be very careful with your preference flows) at the next election. And get everyone you can to start talking/pushing for a Royal Commission into this.

I loathe all politicians including the left wing. I just loathe the right wing more. None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest. And I certainly don't agree with the far left who seem to have an anti corporate/anti capitalist whiff to them ... I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that.

There's always the Flux party[0] - as I understand it, they're basically committing themselves to direct democracy within their own party.

[0]: https://voteflux.org/

Re: How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

#92

Post by xoa »

montecarl wrote: post #82
ioquatix wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad it finally happened in NZ and as you say, it's awesome. I'm rocking 1000/500 - the biggest limitation is international throughput and latency which I suppose they are working on and improving all the time.

We need to get the physicists (general relativists?) working on upping the speed of light. Seriously though, how much larger is your latency than speed of light limitations? 2x?

TrueNet keeps track of a lot of good ISP performance measures, including one for international latency [1]. Looking at that average latency to the USA at least it seems pretty damn decent, only about 30-60% worse then the theoretical limit imposed by current fiber tech (speed of light in standard silicon glass fiber is about 30% slower then in vacuum), since direct line is about 7000-8000 miles. And of course as a practical matter fibers are not run directly between every destination, so add on extra for that and if TrueNet's numbers are reasonably accurate then everyone seems to be doing a reasonable job given the distance.

I remember reading years ago about interesting research being done to use photonic-bandgap rims to make fibers that would allow propagation approaching vacuum speed [2], and if deployed eventually that could drop latency by another 40-60ms. But at least back then there seemed to be enough loss (3.5 dB/km) that it'd be impractical over long distances without excessive boosters, even ignoring any cost/durability issues of the fiber itself. That may have been improved in the last 4 years though, but I'm not sure if it ever did make it to market (or if there are even plans still in progress for it, raw throughput was impressive too FWIW).

At any rate: the NZ ISPs seem to be offering pretty solid service on that front even internationally, at least in terms of pure latency. If there is increasing congestion or other issues those are just matters of capex, and between the ISP's servers and premise links there might be more lag being added in. But I don't see any glaring core inefficiencies there in terms of the international link part, unless I'm missing something entirely. Looks a lot better then I'd have expected taking a guess based on how it was a decade ago.

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1: https://truenet.nz/international-latency

2: "Towards high-capacity fibre-optic communications at the speed of light in vacuum": https://www.nature.com/articles/nphoton.2013.45 (DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.45)

Re: How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

#93

Post by exikyut »

cknight wrote: post #17
hackits wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When migrating from 56K modem to ADSL it was amazing. The same cannot be said from the migration from ADSL2+ to NBN Fiber to the home was nice, but wasn't WOW. The whole NBN has turned into a complete joke. If they would of stuck to rolling out fiber everywhere it would solved everything. Nope we now have to have a hybrid of everything.

This depends on your ADSL2+ line. I'm paying for "up to 24mbit" but the line length means I get 3. The rest of my street is now on HFC NBN but my house is an outlier, still waiting on additional work. Been waiting since May, I suspect it'll take until the next May. With 3 people in the house, going from 3 mbit to 25 or 50 will make a pretty huge difference to us. Probably about as much as when we first jumped from 56…

How far away are you from the nearest house w/ NBN connectivity?

Second important question: do you have fiber to the premises, ie an NBN box on each house? If you do...

Remember that the NBN box (unless they changed it) has 4 data ports, each of which can be associated with an isolated ISP plan. Presumably your neighbor is only using Port 1.

If you're close enough, you could probably get away with a couple amplified 802.11ac dongles. A Pi3 or modded router could handle the Wi-Fi point-to-point setup at the remote house.

If that wouldn't quite work, point to point microwave links (which don't require a license, and are basically a pair of boxes that you stick on REALLY tall poles, and which have Ethernet ports on the back) are around $450 a pair. (For example, http://store.freenet-antennas.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=...)

--

If you have fiber to the node (ie the street), I have no idea if extra connections can be added for a house NBN-box-style or what that looks like. It probably means provisioning an extra phone line, which obviously wouldn't work.

But you could viably rent the neighbor(s') actual bandwidth in this situation - in fact, if you can successfully describe and sell a "0% QoS" structure, where whatever bandwidth is not being otherwise used at any given moment is allocated to you, you could probably get away with paying very little. :P

You could also rent from multiple neighbors, too. Supposing an ideal scenario where you rent from 10 neighbors which have 100Mbps each (I know, I know...), you could get a VPS with decent bandwidth in a Real Country™, connect to the VPS from each borrowed connection, bond the resulting TUN interfaces together at both ends of the link, and hey presto - absolutely disasterous ping and jitter, but 1Gbps throughput at 1 o'clock in the morning.

Re: How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

#94

Post by dibstern »

zmmmmm wrote: post #59
Gatsky wrote: post #13

By 'fit for service' they mean 12Mbps down, or average copper wire speeds. What's the point? Although the original goal was great, in hindsight it appears that it could not be delivered anywhere near the original budget. For context, after a prolonged period of centre-right government, a centre-left government was elected, led by Kevin Rudd. He had a progressive agenda, but due to a combination of his unmitigated ego…

I think you are going way too easy on the current government. "Stuffing around" - more like active sabotage. Their policy has been consistent in the NBN all the way through, and has defied all independent technical advice. It was a political solution that never made any technical sense.

I thought he was going too hard on Turnbull (current PM). What has he done that justifies your appraisal of his brief term?

People seem to be forgetting about Abbott, who in my opinion did indeed fuck around with rubbish policy his entire term (helped into the grave by treasurer/idiot Joe Hockey).

Re: How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

#95

Post by thomasfoster96 »

girvo wrote: post #43
andrewstuart wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loathe all politicians including the left wing. I just loathe the right wing more. None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest. And I certainly don't agree with the far left who seem to have an anti corporate/anti capitalist whiff to them ... I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that.

There was the Australian Democrats. I’m still tempted to see if I can resurrect them.

They still run Senate candidates (in Victoria at least) but as independents because they lost party status. Not sure if they can be resurrected though - I think their good people all went to Labor and the Greens.

Re: How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

#96

Post by thomasfoster96 »

mmerlin wrote: post #71
andrewstuart wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loathe all politicians including the left wing. I just loathe the right wing more. None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest. And I certainly don't agree with the far left who seem to have an anti corporate/anti capitalist whiff to them ... I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that.

Sick of politicians? Sustainable Australia party is who you're looking for. William Bourke is eminently sensible. Dick Smith joined. The anti-corruption fighter who wrote "Game of Mates" Dr Cameron Murray is running for them too. http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/qld

Do you have any links to the party?

I’ve never really got the impression that Sustainable Australia (or any of its previous incarnations) was really anything more than an anti-population growth single issue party.

Re: How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

#97

Post by crispinb »

andrewstuart wrote: post #8
gonzo41 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't waste that anger. Vote left (Or at least be very careful with your preference flows) at the next election. And get everyone you can to start talking/pushing for a Royal Commission into this.

I loathe all politicians including the left wing. I just loathe the right wing more. None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest. And I certainly don't agree with the far left who seem to have an anti corporate/anti capitalist whiff to them ... I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that.

> None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest

That is a false and dangerous overstatement. I have met many parliamentarians in 3 nations. They have pretty much the same mix of ethical tendencies as in the general population. They higher they rise, the more compromises are forced on them, but they're no worse in general than their electors (many of whom are also entirely self-interested and grasping).

> I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that

Most Green parties have been suckered by the long-discredited 'natural capital' story, so are unfortunately heavily committed to capitalism. Ipso facto, there are few genuinely Green parties, as capitalism is clearly incompatible with the continued healthy existence of a living planet.

Re: How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

#98

Post by Trav5 »

ggm wrote: post #70
raides wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the Aussie's credit the infrastructure and the regulations instilled on businesses there have always been Federally imposed. Since the mid-90s the government has imposed many regulations for control that has impeded much of the free market progress for network infrastructure. Those regulations coupled with needed external transit installations have not helped. For a long period of time the government would pick an…

I'm not personally sold on the baby bell model of regional monopoly. I think the whole FIOS debacle, and what happened when google started offering citywide fibre says a lot about how US telco industry operates. Lobby your way to the people who make rules and then get rules passed to shut down anything which freaks your own monopoly of indifference.

I am curious and not sure what to search for. What are you referring to? Link?

Re: How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

#99

Post by thomasfoster96 »

andrewstuart wrote: post #8
gonzo41 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't waste that anger. Vote left (Or at least be very careful with your preference flows) at the next election. And get everyone you can to start talking/pushing for a Royal Commission into this.

I loathe all politicians including the left wing. I just loathe the right wing more. None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest. And I certainly don't agree with the far left who seem to have an anti corporate/anti capitalist whiff to them ... I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that.

> I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that.

The Greens have an unofficial right faction (pro-capitalism, pro-green). Most of the recent Greens internal tension has been between this faction (which has a lot of ex-Liberal environmentalists and ex-Democrats) and the Left Renewal faction (many of whom are openly anti-capitalist). The pro-capitalism faction is certainly very strong and seems to control the party leadership at the moment.

Re: How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

#100

Post by FuckOffNeemo »

aplummer wrote: post #25
andrewstuart wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loathe all politicians including the left wing. I just loathe the right wing more. None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest. And I certainly don't agree with the far left who seem to have an anti corporate/anti capitalist whiff to them ... I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that.

We all thought Malcolm Turnbull was supposed to be exactly what you are describing.

He was before he lost to Tony Abbot for running the LNP. As it stands he's a far cry from what his ideals once where.

I'm not informed enough to see how this came about but if I had to take a guess I'd suggest the influence of the Nationals on the LNP has taken it's toll.

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