Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what's doubly ridiculous -- if you didn't do fiber on the last leg (to the residence) then it will be obsolete before it's even finished being built! Besides, the asbestos in the pits* would have to have been cleaned up some time anyway. * (was NOT unforseen, my mistake)
Asbestos problems were mentioned in 2011 in the Senate: http://safedesign.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/nbn-asbestos-rais... Beyond that anyone who had looked at plans from the 1940s to 1970s would have known it was there: http://safedesign.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/nbn-asbestos-know... Either the NBN people were completely incompetent, which is highly unlikely, or the Asbestos problem was raised much earlier internally, p…
Why the NBN needs to go the full way
11–20 of 80 posts
Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way
#12It's maddening to see a such a shortsighted attempt to cut costs by essentially un-future-proofing brand new infrastructure. Heck, why not replace the last leg with a couple of cans and a piece of string? It'd be even cheaper then! >. It's such a false economy!
Apparently you will be able to pay for fibre all the way yourself.
Turnbull says about 2K, the ALP 5K. Delimeter seems to indicate toward the lower value.
http://delimiter.com.au/2013/08/23/open-deception-albanese-c...
Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way
#13I always thought it was a silly argument until I was using my laptop in London. Getting 20 meg downloads just blew my mind away. For me, it changed everything. (Non technical) friends just didn't bother with torrents anymore. It was easier for them to download a movie legitimately instead of all the mucking around...
Keep in mind that Rupert Murdoch owns half of Foxtel which is the main cable tv network in Australia as well as owning most of the newspapers (he has a monopoly in several states). The argument that you can watch tv from companies like Netflix under an NBN is one of the main reasons the opposition is getting an easy run from the media here. Every year Rupert is spared that is millions more in the bank. The ALP were a…
It's funny when people say RT is a propaganda machine, when all major news here is from one source. :)
Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way
#14Australia has a chance to do something really amazing here. Shame it looks like they'll miss the chance.
It's really only partly about fibre vs DSL. It's also about the new incentive structure that FTTH would create in the Australian broadband market. An FTTH NBN would be an economic game changer in AU.
Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way
#15The most cost effective thing the Australian government can do to better the experience of Australians is to subsidise hosting in Australia. The cost of hosting a server in a data centre is 2-3x the US. If you've ever been in San Francisco you'd have experienced how all the web services feel like they're running on localhost!
Last I checked, Australia only has a few international pipes operated by a cost duopoly. All traffic is charged at high rates because it can go over those very expensive lines to the US, Guam or Singapore.
All it means is that the NBN will be expensive unless and until a third player enters the market ... and doesn't get immediately bought out.
Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way
#16I'm not sure that is all accurate (umm, light and electricity travel at the same speed ...), but I agree with the central idea: fibre is the next generation of technology, copper is the last. We can fully expect that just as massive speed increases were achieved on copper, so too will they be on fibre. Gen 1 of fibre is already 10x better than the last generation of copper - how much better will generation 2, 3, 4 be…
umm, light and electricity travel at the same speed ...
? Light travels at ~299m/s. This will slow down in a medium like fibre, but it's still faster than anything else.
At best, in a particle accelerator you can accelerate electrons to maybe 0.8, 0.9 c?
Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way
#17I'm not sure that is all accurate (umm, light and electricity travel at the same speed ...), but I agree with the central idea: fibre is the next generation of technology, copper is the last. We can fully expect that just as massive speed increases were achieved on copper, so too will they be on fibre. Gen 1 of fibre is already 10x better than the last generation of copper - how much better will generation 2, 3, 4 be…
(I had to create an account to respond to this)
"Light" and "electricity" only travel at the same speed in a vacuum. Neither fibre nor copper wire could reasonably be considered a vacuum; they have different propagation speeds.
Also, we are far removed from "gen 1 of fibre", which was developed in 1970, i.e. 43 years ago. If anything, we're currently developing "fifth gen" fibre optics communications.
Everything else you said is spot on, though.
Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way
#18Everyone in tech I know wants it, but the problem is also the speed of rollout - it would be several years on their current schedule before most people would get it. Probably a moot point too, given the likely outcome of the election.
Yeah I live on the North Shore in Sydney and there are currently "no plans" for the NBN in my area.
I was a couple of years away here but I was really looking forward to the NBN. Telstra has the only ADSL ports in town and pricing for what by world standards is a reasonably shit service is crazy.
If I have to munge a lot of data I just do it on a VPS and shuffle data back and forth to different cloud storage. I try and avoid downloading anything I might have to send back. I created a pipeline to process some video for work from the home/office it was way too painful on ADSL.
I can't imagine what it is like if you are a content producer. Just syncing my mobile camera images when I get home takes forever. And if my wife and I try to do Coursera and both kids wanted to watch ABC iView on their iPads everything just stops. With everything moving to HD and pretty much all services (including education) moving online my kids future is looking bleak unless something radical happens.
We have substandard services for lots of things in rural areas including health and education but being withheld a quality Internet service by Telstra/Murdoch/Abbott might be the last straw for us.
Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way
#19I'm not sure that is all accurate (umm, light and electricity travel at the same speed ...), but I agree with the central idea: fibre is the next generation of technology, copper is the last. We can fully expect that just as massive speed increases were achieved on copper, so too will they be on fibre. Gen 1 of fibre is already 10x better than the last generation of copper - how much better will generation 2, 3, 4 be…
Part of the problem is how badly it has been planned and managed from the very beginning.
How fast is the actual rollout?
We don't know. Commercial-in-confidence. And NBNCo say they don't keep figures down to the street level anyhow (which begs the question of which basis they are using to pay contractors).
How much has already been borrowed? We don't know. Commercial-in-confidence.
How much has been spent? We don't know. Commercial-in-confidence.
Insofar as we have to dig up half the flaming countryside, FTTP is probably worth it on a long-term basis. But that doesn't excuse the project from normal project management requirements.
And it shouldn't be excused from being transparent to the Parliament and public. The abuse of commercial-in-confidence for companies completely owned by the government is a backdoor for politicians of all stripes to avoid budgetary accountability while still leaving states and the commonwealth on the hook for debts incurred.
Where was the proper front end cost/benefit analysis? There wasn't one. Where was the 3-5 years of planning, surveying and preparation? There wasn't any. Where is the proper contract management? Oh, I guess we'll let NBNCo contract it to Telstra who will contract it to an engineering firm who will contract it to that bloke who has a van and who used to work for Optus.
Ends are important. But for the amount of money spent, so are the bloody means.
Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind that Rupert Murdoch owns half of Foxtel which is the main cable tv network in Australia as well as owning most of the newspapers (he has a monopoly in several states). The argument that you can watch tv from companies like Netflix under an NBN is one of the main reasons the opposition is getting an easy run from the media here. Every year Rupert is spared that is millions more in the bank. The ALP were a…
It's funny when people say RT is a propaganda machine, when all major news here is from one source. :)
Rupie's dad was briefly the Australian Director General for Information during WWII but apparently nobody could stand him. Our answer to Goebbels. They don't fall far from the tree.