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Why the NBN needs to go the full way

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Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way

#41

Post by paulftw »

jacques_chester wrote: post #19
zmmmmm wrote: post #7

I'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…

Spot on.

When government is spending taxpayers' money it doesn't care about efficiency, only about getting a slice of the pie. Family members, business partners and overcharging contractors feast on these multibillion dollar projects, and only them.

We've seen this happen with "Building the edu revolution", house insulation and so on. Porting bloody e-tax to Mac cost them $5.2 million.

The smaller the spending on NBN the smaller the waste.

Govt should focus on reducing friction for business, eliminating monopolies and building a healthy economy.

Competition and market forces can take care of the fiber just fine. If we had those.

Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way

#42

Post by threeseed »

sien wrote: post #12
Wingman4l7 wrote: post #3

It'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...

Everyone is missing the real tragedy though. You can only pay for the fibre if you own the premises. Which basically means that anyone who rents will never have access to the NBN.

Who typically rents ? Young people.

Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way

#43

Post by 40 »

gd1 wrote: post #39
sien wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Seems fair. Some quick maths says that 200 billion dollars (just you watch it blow out) / 30 million people = roughly $6600 per man, woman and child living in Australia. Probably $12k per taxpayer. Seems fair to make the user pay for a bit of that rather than dump the debt on the next generation. I know people don't like to let little things like numbers intrude on their socialist utopia, but this is real money I'm a…

2K is not much either if you amortize if over a few of years.

Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way

#44

Post by elithrar »

jbarham wrote: post #40

As a relatively recent arrival to Australia I'm surprised that that there isn't more skepticism about the long term wisdom of granting wholesale internet access for the entire country to a single government funded monopoly. It's absurd to hear politicians argue about how networks should be built. IMO that is the role of a competitive market.

The issue there is that it is extremely difficult for a private organisation without existing cable assets to deploy a new fibre network.

Land access, easement issues, pit access/location/sharing and so on are very difficult problems with no single solution.

Private industry wouldn't be able to take the risk.

Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way

#45

Post by pugz »

jbarham wrote: post #40

As a relatively recent arrival to Australia I'm surprised that that there isn't more skepticism about the long term wisdom of granting wholesale internet access for the entire country to a single government funded monopoly. It's absurd to hear politicians argue about how networks should be built. IMO that is the role of a competitive market.

Your surprise is because you're a relatively recent arrival to Australia. :) The broadband market here has been stagnant for over a decade due to the failure of the competitive market to improve anything.

Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way

#46

Post by Wingman4l7 »

jbarham wrote: post #40

As a relatively recent arrival to Australia I'm surprised that that there isn't more skepticism about the long term wisdom of granting wholesale internet access for the entire country to a single government funded monopoly. It's absurd to hear politicians argue about how networks should be built. IMO that is the role of a competitive market.

When I went to pick out an ISP, I was astounded when I finally figured out that every single one of them is forced to rent the copper from the same company (Telstra), who takes its sweet time sending out technicians to the tune of 10-20 working days to get internet service up & running. Can you imagine the rioting if that were a utility like water or electricity? What's worse is that the ISP, who has zero control over it, gets the blame for the delay.

To my understanding, it went something like this:

AU Govt: "Let's privatize all of our telecoms infrastructure.... what's that? Give it all to a single company, creating a de-facto monopoly and ensuring mediocre service, lack of upgrades, and the stifling of competition for years hence? What a capital idea!"

I would love to out the politicians whose pockets got lined by that move.

Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way

#47

Post by pugz »

gd1 wrote: post #39
sien wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Seems fair. Some quick maths says that 200 billion dollars (just you watch it blow out) / 30 million people = roughly $6600 per man, woman and child living in Australia. Probably $12k per taxpayer. Seems fair to make the user pay for a bit of that rather than dump the debt on the next generation. I know people don't like to let little things like numbers intrude on their socialist utopia, but this is real money I'm a…

If the FTTP network will blow out to $200B, why won't the FTTN network blow out to $150B?

Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way

#48

Post by 40 »

schappim wrote: post #9
damian2000 wrote: post #2

Everyone 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 just visited http://www.nbnco.com.au/when-do-i-get-it/rollout-map.html and saw that construction will start in one year. :)

I have absolutely no problems paying 2K or 5K for FTTH.

Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way

#49

Post by zmmmmm »

jacques_chester wrote: post #19
zmmmmm wrote: post #7

I'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…

> Ends are important. But for the amount of money spent, so are the bloody means.

If the alternative was proposing to do the full project but address all those concerns that would be wonderful. But that is not the choice we have. And it may not be a realistic choice at all. Every single large project like this that has ever been undertaken has had these kind of problems. Look at the east west link in Melbourne - no business plan, no (public) cost benefit analysis, the whole thing commercial in confidence. I agree it's disgusting and in my view ideally would be unconstitutional (when it's our money, we get to see how it's spent - even if that inflates costs, that's the price of democracy, suck it up).

But the bigger problem is that we've manufactured a political environment where it's more expedient to hide all this stuff than to openly talk about problems, uncertainties and vision far into the future. Even your own words reflect that - you're criticizing them for problems in planning a project that is a one of a kind - never been undertaken before anywhere, and never will again. It's just an unrealistic expectation at some level that it can ever go perfectly.

Re: Why the NBN needs to go the full way

#50

Post by gd1 »

pugz wrote: post #47
gd1 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems fair. Some quick maths says that 200 billion dollars (just you watch it blow out) / 30 million people = roughly $6600 per man, woman and child living in Australia. Probably $12k per taxpayer. Seems fair to make the user pay for a bit of that rather than dump the debt on the next generation. I know people don't like to let little things like numbers intrude on their socialist utopia, but this is real money I'm a…

If the FTTP network will blow out to $200B, why won't the FTTN network blow out to $150B?

Because it won't be overseen by the most incompetent and corrupt federal government in Australian history?
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