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Permalink Reply by Kevin Hicks on February 11, 2011 at 3:54pm

25% of cables are now going to be above ground, and Gillard has to have new legislation passed allowing them to do so.  And here it comes again, otherwise they will not be cost efficient to do??

 

The same as they had to have legislation to stop Telstra or Optus from competing for potential customers or they would not be viable.

Funny though in 2009 this amendment got through  

TELECOMMUNICATIONS LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (COMPETITION AND CONSUMER SAFEGUARDS) BILL 2009 

According to the explanatory memorandum:

Structural separation may, but does not need to, involve the creation of a new company by Telstra and the transfer of its fixed-line assets to that new company. Alternatively it may involve Telstra progressively migrating its fixed-line traffic to the [National  Broadband Network] over an agreed period of time and under set regulatory arrangements, and sell or cease to use its fixed-line assets on an agreed basis. This approach will ultimately lead to a national outcome where there is a wholesale-only network not controlled by any retail company – in other words, full structural separation in time.

1.10 Part 1 of Schedule 1 also provides for Telstra to be functionally separated

Should Telstra choose not to voluntarily implement structural separation?  The bill Achieves functional separation by requiring Telstra to: 

• Conduct its network operations and wholesale functions at arm's length from the rest of Telstra;

• Provide the same information and access  to regulated services on equivalent price and non-price terms to its retail business and non-Telstra wholesale customers; and

• Put in place strong internal governance  structures that provide transparency for the regulator and access seekers,  and that ensure that equivalence arrangements are effective.

 

So it shows the decision this week, was laid out in TELECOMMUNICATIONS LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (COMPETITION AND CONSUMER SAFEGUARDS) BILL 2009

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Permalink Reply by Laurel Ender on February 11, 2011 at 8:59pm

I see theyre a;lready doing deals with telstra and optus, the 2 biggest  ripoff  providers that I know of.

so sew up a deal before the damn things even legal?

how are they getting away with this?

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Hicks on February 13, 2011 at 2:43pm

This is how the NBN started with Krudd claiming to build a $4.7billion Network.  And yet a lot of people seem to accept the $40billion NBN we are looking at???

 

Labor's $4.7 billion broadband plan

 March 21, 2007

Federal Labor has unveiled plans to raid the Future Fund to build a $4.7 billion national high-speed broadband network.

Under the plan, Labor will sell up to $2.7 billion worth of Telstra shares held in the Future Fund to help pay for the project.

The project will connect 98 per cent of Australians to broadband services with a speed more than 40 times faster than most current speeds.

Labor leader Kevin Rudd said it was a historic decision to build a world-class national broadband network.

"We believe this is a critical step when it comes to Australia's long-term economic future," Mr Rudd told reporters.

Labor proposes to invest up to $4.7 billion - including the existing $2 billion communications fund - in a partnership with the private sector to build the network over the next five years.

Mr Rudd said Australia was lagging behind the rest of the developed world on broadband take-up rates and available bandwidth.

"Nation-building in the 19th century was about building a new national railway network for Australia," Mr Rudd said.

"Nation-building for the 21st century lies in building a new national broadband network. It's part of our pathway to the future."

Home-based small businesses could not operate properly without a high-speed network and Australia needed the investment to remain globally competitive, he said.

"There has been inaction - inaction big-time - when it comes to the development of an effective national broadband network to meet the future demands of the Australian economy," he said.

"This is a gaping hole in the government's economic performance to date.

"It is retarding the development of Australian business, in particular small business into the future, and we look forward to taking this proposal forward to the Australian community."

Federal caucus signed off on the plan after a robust debate this morning and it will now go to next month's Labor national conference for approval.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/labors-47-billion-br...

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Hicks on February 13, 2011 at 2:59pm

The only people that could stop them is the Govt. and as they are doing what Gillard has told them to do, they won't be stopped.  While we still have this failure of a Govt.

Laurel V said:

I see theyre a;lready doing deals with telstra and optus, the 2 biggest  ripoff  providers that I know of.

so sew up a deal before the damn things even legal?

how are they getting away with this?

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Permalink Reply by Carol Petith on February 13, 2011 at 4:35pm

A caller the other day to 2gb said he worked in the industry.  He said that Gilliard does not care if the NBN is a success or not, that the real reason for the NBN is to satisfy the unions.  The unions are in control somehow. The caller mentioned about jobs connected with the NBN.  Said that the unions had been given their power back.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Greg Knight on February 26, 2011 at 9:35pm

I have just been informed that where I live, Windermere, Tasmania, the current ADSL and ADSL2 connections will be replaced with Wirelessand and Saterllite not fibre. That means no land line after 2014 when the copper is decommissioned. But I assumed wrongly that if you are on broadband now you were in an area covered by the 93% to get fibre. Based on the information received there will be a lot less than 93% on fibre. 

 

Read more about it here - http://tvnbnc.wetpaint.com/

 

I was also horrified to see the fibre in Scottsdale hanging off the side of houses and not underground.

 

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Permalink Reply by Phillip Watson on February 28, 2011 at 1:20pm

Hi Kevin,

Support or oppose the NBN (Personally I strongly support it), I think it's important that you do so with an understanding of the project and the facts surrounding it. I notice a lot of what's written above is based on some incorrect or old information, which I'd like to correct. I've included references so you can see them for yourself.

 

Coverage:

The fibre component of the NBN will go to 93% of the population with speeds up to 1Gbps. The way that NBN Co have decided what constitutes this is explained on page 63 of the NBN Business Case, but to summarise their methods:

1. They included almost every town with a population of >1000. Some were excluded if the town was isolated and a long way from the network footprint. This gave them 91.4% coverage.
2. They then added every town with a population of >500 if that town was located along the pathway of the network. This took them to 92.3% coverage.
3. They then added projected population increases within the fibre area by 2020. This took them to 93%.

 

The town you specifically mention, North Arm Cove, is listed on the NBN website as receiving a fibre connection. See for yourself here. You can also see it plotted on the NSW coverage map here.

 

The remaining 7% are served by wireless or satellite, both at a speed of 12Mbps.

The 4% wireless service will be a 4G/LTE system by either Nokia or Ericsson.  

The 3% satellite service will be amongst the fastest in the world, at 12Mbps. The current fastest retail satellite internet in the World is Hughesnet in the USA, at 5Mbps. NBN are launching the latest Ka-band satellites to deliver the faster speeds. The fastest current satellite service available in Australia is just 1Mbps, with a retail price of about $140 per month for 15GB of data. Under the NBN, the 12Mbps satellite service will be about $60 per month.

 

The Economist report / Our NBN vs South Korea's:

This report:

a) has been misquoted by The Australian and

b) is incorrect/out of date on a few points.

First, the cost:
Australia's NBN isn't 24x more expensive than Sth Korea's, it's taking 24x more Government investment. The total cost is actually about 30% less (although their population is 4x ours).

The current South Korean broadband plan comes at a cost of US$24.6bn, with US$1bn coming from the Government. The rest is being funded by the telco itself.

But Sth Korea already has a fibre NBN, running at a speed of 100Mbps. It was built following the asian economic crisis of the late 90s, and cost the Government US$28bn at the time. So the current US$24.6bn plan is just to upgrade their existing govt-funded network to a speed of 1Gbps by replacing all the hardware on the fibre network, and build additional backhaul to cope with the data increase.

The total cost of the Sth Korean NBN then is about US$52bn, over the last 12 years. But because the Economists report only deals with future plans, the fact they already had a fibre network (and it's build cost) is outside their terms of reference.

Also FYI, rolling out the Japanese fibre NBN had cost a total of US$40bn since 2001.

Second, the speed:
And on speed, our NBN the same as Sth Koreas, at 1Gbps. The report incorrectly stated that ours will be 100Mbps, rather than 1Gbps. This could have been because they started the report in 2009, before it was announced that out NBN would increase from 100Mbps to 1Gbps. Here are a couple of stories about our NBN, showing it offers exactly the same 1Gbps speed as the South Korean NBN:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/12/2980752.htm
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/224374,nbn-co-tests-fibre-network-to-...

 

Overhead/Underground:

About 25% of the NBN cable will be aerial, with 75% underground. See page 23 of the business case linked to above. Basically, wherever the existing telephone cables are underground, the NBN will be too as they have an agreement to use Telstra's existing ducts and pits. But if Telstra don't have ducts/pits in an area because the phone lines are up on poles, then that's where the NBN cables will end up too.

The Townsville site was done before the Telstra agreement was struck and without their participation, hence why they are overhead in much of that site. But if you look at other trial sites such as Kiama and Brunswick, you'll see they are underground wherever Telstra had ducts. Also, even the Towsville aerial depoloyment was barely damaged by the cyclone, with only 3 of the 79 aerial sections being damaged.

 

Hope the above info is useful. If you'd like any further references, let me know.

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Permalink Reply by Phillip Watson on February 28, 2011 at 6:58pm

John Mikkelsen said:

Whichever way you shake the sauce bottle there are many more pressing infrastructure and other needs (health for one) which would benefit from the  estimated $40 billion or $36 billion cost (probably a lot more than that) of the NBN roll-out. Gillard's mob couldn't even organise pink batts in the ceilings, how could anyone expect them to deliver this on time or on budget?

I think you could always find uses for Government funds that are "more pressing" than a lot of other programs. How much do we give to the Arts, for example?

 

The Govt contribution to the NBN is about $27.5bn over the 10 years build. During that same 10 years, Australian Governments will spend about $1Trillion on public health, $500Billion on public education, and $220Billion on Defence.

 

The NBN has the potential to save money on, and improve, many other sectors of the community which is one of the reasons I'm so in favour of it. It really does have the potential to revolutionise education, for example. Imagine no longer having a "school of the air", but instead having remote communities able to access high definition video classrooms, and really improve the education opportunities of remote students. That's just one example off the top of my head.

 

I think the concern about the Govt ability to deliver is a valid one, but having researched the people who have been appointed to build the NBN, I am very confident in their ability to do so. Remember, this isn't a Govt department doing it, and the NBN Co has some very serious and experienced talent. So long as the Govt stay out of the details (so far, so good), I have great confidence that it will be a very good network.

 

Will it be on time? Probably not. Most large projects either public or private run over time. But I'm not hugely worried about that. Better a late network than none at all. But I'd expect it to be maybe a year or two late, at worst.

On budget? I think it will be pretty close. They have already locked in the major components (hardware, fibre cable, wireless spectrum) and also have a deal with unions to limit pay rises for the construction workers. KPMG reviewed the costings, and backed them. The Tasmanian trial was on time and under budget. The mainland trial sites are ahead of time (They are now slated for testing in April, instead of June). I haven't seen any mention of the cost being over or under budget.

 

The major risk I can see is if there is a labour shortage, which could cause a blowout and delays.

 

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Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on February 28, 2011 at 8:12pm

Philip,

           Thanks for sorting your name tag out(my fault for not enforcing the matter). You seem very well informed and it is always good if we know if one has a vested interest in something that they are trying to swing support too.

      We have activ8 satellite here and  often at peak periods it struggles to open a window or upload a posting. I can't abide such a costly hobby to be served up by people I don't particularly trust. Our net would be about as bad as it could be in the country and if it could improve say double -I would be stoked.

 

As for a factor of 40- well tell Combet "he's dreaming"

 

You mentioned that NBN co is full of smart tecko's and not Govt-

I could have sworn that Mike Kiaser   disgraced ALP hack from QLD Goss, Rudd era- got the job for the last three years to head the same company. Must have been a tough job as the pay was $500000 per year and parliament still hasn't passed a vote on it !

 

How come it is being rolled out?

 

Will it be like the alcopops Tax? The day they mentioned it - on it went to the price of the drinks. Two years later it goes ass up in parliament and -sorry we'll have to keep the money.

 

I'm all for fun and toys if the country was humming along with good roads and assets and very little debt but I'm afraid you have the job ahead of you if you are going to sell me on it.

 

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Permalink Reply by Laurel Ender on February 28, 2011 at 11:29pm

I read just this evening that now TELSTRAS crying...the NBN would create a...MONOPOLY!

oh dear, if it isnt a Telstra monopoly then  it must be stopped?

how many years have they managed to charge us huge fees for little service?

kept other companies from being able to compete?

and now we who are to PAY for this, will be paying evermore as its sold off to another OS owner profit taker monopoly...

My ADSL only just works and I am just over  1km from a local exchange. I dont see fibre doing any different.

 

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Permalink Reply by Phillip Watson on March 1, 2011 at 7:28am

Laurel V said:

I read just this evening that now TELSTRAS crying...the NBN would create a...MONOPOLY!

oh dear, if it isnt a Telstra monopoly then  it must be stopped?

how many years have they managed to charge us huge fees for little service?

kept other companies from being able to compete?

and now we who are to PAY for this, will be paying evermore as its sold off to another OS owner profit taker monopoly...

My ADSL only just works and I am just over  1km from a local exchange. I dont see fibre doing any different.

 

Laurel,

Fibre effectively doesn't lose speed for many thousands of KM, so distance from the exchange/node is not an issue. Think of the undersea cables, which currently run at over 2Tbps (That is 1,000 times faster than our home NBN connections).

 

I'm going to do a blog post on the monopoly concerns soon.

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Permalink Reply by Phillip Watson on March 1, 2011 at 1:17pm

alan mikkelsen said:

Hi Phillip

Would you not agree that the Korean performance number is an actual, in operation, whereas 'ours', from 0.1Gbps (I'd be thrilled with that, for my current 49 bucks a month) suddenly turbocharged to 1.0Gbps, is predicted? anticipated? hmmm ...... hoped for?

 

Not quite. South Korea's is still at 100Mbps. They too have only announced that they are upgrading it to 1Gbps, it's not operation as yet. But it is proven standard technology, called a GPON (Gigabit passive optical network). We are using a different brand to SK (We are using Alcatel, they are using Flexlight), but the standard is the same.

 

Fibre networks are easily upgradable. GPON is the current level of FTTP, with a 10Gbps NGPON in the prototype stage, and 100Gbps NGPON3 projected for 2025. For all of these upgrades, the fibre cable itself remains unchanged, they just upgrade the hardware at the "ends" of the cables. Similar to the DSL upgrades for example. The copper stayed the same, but to get from ADSL1 to ADSL2+, Telstra upgraded the exchange equipment, and you upgraded your modem/router. The fibre cable that carries 2Tbps is essentially the same as the fibre that carries 100Mbps.

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