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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

#151

Post by neotek »

aplummer wrote: post #34
ClassyJacket wrote: post #12

The tl;dr is that Australia started a fibre-to-the-premises project for the whole country (93% of premises, plus rural 7% on wireless), then a conservative government got in power and decided to deliberately destroy it. To do this, they changed it to fibre-to-the-node (DSL) instead. Instead of gigabit to the home, they're spending more money providing people with connections anywhere between 4mbps and 100 at the abso…

This is an extremely biased and misleading take on the situation. Look at premises passed when the LNP came into power. https://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/documents/nbn-ro... Total activated in mid 2014, ~250k. That is completely nuts, you make it sound like this was a steady ship the LNP tipped over.

What an incredibly disingenuous use of those figures.

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

#152

Post by will_hughes »

elementalest wrote: post #112
ggm wrote: post #30

First common mistake: Yes, Australia is geographically huge. No, it is not sparce. it is a highly urbanized economy in terms of geographic concentration of the population. Therefore, the oft-quoted extreme expense "oh, its so much more expensive to do it in OZ compared to ..." is bullshit: its not. There are of course some very expensive locations to service, but thats a USO problem. Overall, the cost of deployment o…

When the Liberals privatised the government owned monopoly telco (now called Tesltra), they didn't properly structurally seperate it in the first place. The government, like NZ, could have gotten the wholesale part of Telstra to start upgrading network infrastructure. If they had done it properly the first time, we wouldn't be in this mess.

> The government, like NZ, could have gotten the wholesale part of Telstra to start upgrading network infrastructure.

They couldn't, though, without a lot more difficulty.

You're missing the context that at the time of Rudd's election and the NBN design/build plan, Telstra was actively hostile towards the government. Solomon Trujillo was the CEO at the time, and actively fought against any suggestion that Telstra might be structurally separated (a-la Telecom NZ's split into Chorus and Spark), or be required to build a nationwide wholesale fibre network.

Telstra under Trujillo was the company that famously gave a last minute 13-page (non-compliant) response[1] to a call for bids to build the NBN, that was effectively a giant middle finger to the government.

Forcing a structural separation when the government own a minority stake in the company[2] would've required either re-purchasing it at market rates, or some kind of legislative change, and thus opening the government up to a shareholder lawsuit. At the time, the CAN and Fibre back-haul networks were considered some of Telstra's greatest assets, those would've been some major purchases.

There were a bunch of bad options, but having been backed into this corner by previous government decisions - there wasn't a whole lot they could've done.

[1] https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/270911/telstra_bann...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstra#Privatisation

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

#153

Post by mmerlin »

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #96
mmerlin wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They're much more than a single issue party :)

- Stop undemocratic privatisation

- Establish an independent Federal commission against corruption

- Require more timely disclosure of political donations

- Invest more in renewable energy

- Moratorium on all fracking

- No new casinos

- Prioritise public transport funding over new tollways

- Lower immigration from its record level (over 200,000 p.a.) back to the long term average of 70,000 p.a.

- Tackle global population growth through increased foreign aid for female education and universal access to contraception

- Establish major community product repair and recycle centres

Public Assets http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/public_assets_utiliti...

Foreign Investment http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/foreign_investment/

Education http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/education/

Housing Affordability http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/housing_affordability...

Health http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/health/

Gambling http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/gambling/

Energy http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/energy/

Finite Resources http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/finite_non_renewable_...

Jobs http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/economy_jobs/

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

#154

Post by kalleboo »

bhalley wrote: post #38

Tasmania got very lucky with the rollout, we are mostly covered with FTTP, Fixed Wireless and only some FTTN. We are also lucky enough to have a local business (Launtel) pushing the constraints of the NBN by offering Gigabit at prices that aren't unreasonable ($14.50/day). They are treating it as a new pricing model, why bill the same as ADSL when there are no costs associated with setup and plan changes? They are bi…

> offering Gigabit at prices that aren't unreasonable ($14.50/day).

$14.50/day = $450/mo. That sounds unreasonable to me.

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

#155

Post by versteegen »

rayiner wrote: post #145
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.

Is this pricing accurate: https://ufb.org.nz/pricing-plans ? I'm seeing prices like $150/month for symmetric 200/200: https://www.trustpower.co.nz/-/media/files/terms/legal-offer... . That's pretty expensive (about what I'm paying for symmetric gigabit with TV and phone in the U.S.). It's interesting to note that the compromises made with UFB would not fly in the U.S. Liberals would kill it as a handout to rich peopl…

A few months ago I compared ISPs and found that Trustpower were one of the most expensive, especially if you don't get the bundle discount for getting power through them.

Vodafone currently offer 200Mbps unlimited data fibre (don't know what the upload speed is) for $110/month, and unlimited speed (up to 900Mbps, depending on location) for $120/month, and deduct $10/month if you go on a contract.

It's only in the last couple years that you can get unlimited data at a reasonable price here.

A large fraction of the cost of bandwidth in NZ is international transit, because there's only one significant undersea cable connecting NZ, the Southern Cross Cable. I couldn't find current prices, but in 2013 it cost about US$0.10/GB to go through that cable [1]

[1] http://www.strategies.nzl.com/wpapers/2013011.htm

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

#157

Post by distances »

bhalley wrote: post #38

Tasmania got very lucky with the rollout, we are mostly covered with FTTP, Fixed Wireless and only some FTTN. We are also lucky enough to have a local business (Launtel) pushing the constraints of the NBN by offering Gigabit at prices that aren't unreasonable ($14.50/day). They are treating it as a new pricing model, why bill the same as ADSL when there are no costs associated with setup and plan changes? They are bi…

$14.50/day is "not unreasonable" for a home connection only if there is literally no competition with anything approaching acceptable speeds.

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

#158

Post by Gatsky »

stephen_g wrote: post #137
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…

> in hindsight it appears that it could not be delivered anywhere near the original budget. What makes you think that? It's on the public record that NBN Co were fairly well on-budget (after they'd upped the peak funding from $39bn to $44.1bn a few years earlier) up until to the 2013 election. Of course, the media preached it was over budget, so that's what most people think, and Malcolm Turnbull was so suspicious th…

Before they self destructed and lost the election, the labour party's costings increased by nearly 10x (along with changing the model). Your comment even describes a budget increase of 5 billion?

Also, there are other reasons why the Chorus costs are coming down, that don't apply here:

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/10/nbn-co-comparisons-with-nz...

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

#159

Post by elementalest »

will_hughes wrote: post #152
elementalest wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the Liberals privatised the government owned monopoly telco (now called Tesltra), they didn't properly structurally seperate it in the first place. The government, like NZ, could have gotten the wholesale part of Telstra to start upgrading network infrastructure. If they had done it properly the first time, we wouldn't be in this mess.

> The government, like NZ, could have gotten the wholesale part of Telstra to start upgrading network infrastructure. They couldn't, though, without a lot more difficulty. You're missing the context that at the time of Rudd's election and the NBN design/build plan, Telstra was actively hostile towards the government. Solomon Trujillo was the CEO at the time, and actively fought against any suggestion that Telstra mig…

You misunderstand, I'm saying that if Telstra were properly separated right from the start (when the Howard government privatised it), the Rudd government could have easily gotten Telstra wholesale to do what Chorus in NZ is doing now. Most of Australia would probably have FTTP by now, or at least FTTN/HFC.

I do agree with the rest of your comment though.

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

#160

Post by rayiner »

versteegen wrote: post #155
rayiner wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this pricing accurate: https://ufb.org.nz/pricing-plans ? I'm seeing prices like $150/month for symmetric 200/200: https://www.trustpower.co.nz/-/media/files/terms/legal-offer... . That's pretty expensive (about what I'm paying for symmetric gigabit with TV and phone in the U.S.). It's interesting to note that the compromises made with UFB would not fly in the U.S. Liberals would kill it as a handout to rich peopl…

A few months ago I compared ISPs and found that Trustpower were one of the most expensive, especially if you don't get the bundle discount for getting power through them. Vodafone currently offer 200Mbps unlimited data fibre (don't know what the upload speed is) for $110/month, and unlimited speed (up to 900Mbps, depending on location) for $120/month, and deduct $10/month if you go on a contract. It's only in the las…

Looks like that’s 200/20.
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