Comment

Comment by Phillip Watson on April 5, 2011 at 5:19pm

@Dale. I would suspect there was some disagreement about the tender process, and Pat lost!

 

What Paul Fletcher said is most likely why the tender process was suspended, and echos what NBN said last week. The tenders were an attempt at gouging, hence the suspension.

Comment by Phillip Watson on April 4, 2011 at 10:07pm

Phillip who do you work for? Well I will make you a deal, when any member of my immediate family gets NBN i will post it here.

We are all on satellite. None of us can get wireless. There is no mobile phone reception. Phone is satellite as well.

So how does that sound? Fair enough for you - I wonder when I will get it now?

 

Not that it really matters, but I work as a freelance video editor for a few small publishers, and for myself. To answer your next question... No I don't work for the govt or any political party, although I shot and edited a promo video for the NSW rail union and Cityrail a few years back.

 

Like I said, the NBN includes satellite for the "last 3%". I have a cousin on satellite now, paying $139.95 from Harborsat for Max 1Mbps and 15GB of download. On the NBN satellite, they will get 12Mbps of speed and probably 50GB of data for about half what they are paying now. Surely, that must be better value than your current satellite service?

 

The NBN plan to offer an interim satellite service (The Broadband guarantee replacement) using existing satellites from July this year, but their new satellites won't be ready for launch until 2014-15, after which you'll be able to get the 12Mbps service.

 

Phillip, I am intrigued by your faith in the NBN roll-out plan, and NBN Co, in-so-far as the cost estimates are concerned. The govt's track record on less complex infrastructure projects is lousy, they refuse to submit the plan to Productivity Commission scrutiny, and we are continually exhorted to believe just how wonderful, and within budget, it will be.

What can I say, I'm an optimist!

 

But seriously, I'm not too worried about the NBN budget for a few reasons.

 

First, while the current govt has had their share of stuffups (the insulation scheme jumps to mind), they also have successes (The CSIRO ASKAP telescope/SKA bid jump to mind). Every Govt (and company) stuffs things up, and the coalition were certainly not immune to this (The Sea Sprite helicopters were a good multi-billion dollar example). Every govt has successes and failures, but we often don't hear much about the successes, politics being what it is.

 

Second, the NBN isn't a govt department. They are a team of extremely qualified people in dealing with the technologies and networks that they have been tasked to build. I think the suspension of the fibre tender process this week is a good indication that they will not "build it at any cost".

 

Third, KPMG and Caliburn have both assessed the project's costs and forecasts as reasonable.

 

All that said, it may well go over-budget and/or over time. There are no guarantees with any large project (or small ones for that matter). But that's not a reason to abandon all hope. If the coalition can do it better, then good luck to them. Let them give us a viable, forward-looking policy and they can take over. I don't care who does it, I just want Australia to (finally) get with the times and move towards a world-class communications system, instead of our current position near the bottom of the OECD tallyboard.

Comment by Phillip Watson on April 4, 2011 at 7:26pm

Point of interest, not one member in my family will be able to access the NBN (adult members that is) due to where we live.

 

That's not true. You might not be able to access the fibre portion of the NBN, but that's only part of the project. The NBN will be available to every single Australian, whether it be the 93% in the fibre area, the 4% in the 4G fixed wireless area, or the 3% in the next-generation satellite areas. The NBN covers 100% of the Australian population.

 

The recent estimates are that the fibre-to-the-home rollout represents about 50% of the total NBN cost, with the remainder being the wireless and satellite components, the backbone, the data infrastructure and management/planning etc costs.

 

Not bl@@dy necessary....

Internet speeds have increased in the last 15 years by about 400 times. We are now at the practical limit of what copper pairs can deliver, so for the current growth to continue and for us to move with the rest of the developed World, the copper needs to be replaced.

 

To date, private industry has not shown any indication that it's going to do it, and if they do it would be likely a repeat of what happened in the 1990s cable rollout, where only the most profitable CBD areas were done. It has thus fallen to the Government to step in and fix this problem.

 

Comment by Phillip Watson on April 4, 2011 at 4:35pm

Well, council don't really have any idea at this stage, since it's the NBN Co that set the areas.

The indication I gave was just looking at the sat photo of the town, and the population certainly starts to become sparse the further up the highway you go from Turvey Ct. I may well be wrong, and the fibre service may continue further on. Looking again, there might be a case to take it as far as 12358 Carnarvon Highway, which seems to be the end of the town. Either way, that will be a matter for NBN Co to assess once they get closer to rolling out in that area and they will hold public meetings to discuss these things before they begin the rollout in the area.

 

You said:

Then why are the locals being told that they will not all be able to connect to it - only a select few?

To be fair, even if those past Turvey Court are not connected to fibre, your statement is rather lop-sided. The "Select few" would be the vast majority of the town, while "the locals" would be the 20 or 30 properties on the outskirts of town.

 

Just because the fibre "runs past their front door" doesn't mean they can connect to it. It's like having a railway line running through your property, but not being able to board the train. The fibre needs to run into town to the distribution point (probably the telephone exchange), and then run back out to the properties.

 

Again, I have no idea how far the fibre will extend, but at some point there has to be a cut-off, otherwise it becomes increasingly difficult and expensive to connect outer properties. How far is viable to run a cable to connect one or two properties? 1km? 2km? And if you go that far, why not another 2km to the next house? There are already loud complaints about the cost of the network, so you can imagine what people would be saying if the cost ballooned by 50% due to increasing the fibre footprint from 93 to 95% of the population.

 

I sympathise with those who will miss out on fibre, and I'd love to see it go to everyone, but you have to draw a line. That said, if the NBN provides a return greater than forecast, then I would like to see that extra money spent on gradually extending the footprint. NBN Co have also said that they are willing to extend fibre if the incremental cost difference (between fibre and wireless/sat) is met by someone else (eg, the state/local govt or a community group). So if the Balonne Shire wanted to pay the difference between fibre and wireless for those outside the fibre footprint, then NBN Co will extend the fibre footprint.

 

 

Comment by Phillip Watson on April 4, 2011 at 2:01pm

No idea. Who are they asking?

 

At this stage, I would imagine that NBN have only done detailed planning for the 2nd release sites, of which St George is not one (In QLD, the sites are Toowoomba, Brisbane (Inner Nth) and Springfield Lakes. I doubt whether anyone would be in a position to give detailed information on St George yet, so I don't see how locals could be told yes or no for particular streets.

 

That said, given St George's population, it's a certainty that the town itself will be covered by fibre. Taking a quick look at the map (Long time since I've driven through there), the population looks quite concentrated, so I don't see how anyone living within, (for example) the area bordered by

The Airport, Turvey Ct, St George Tce and Mitchell St would be left out of the fibre coverage.

Comment by Phillip Watson on April 4, 2011 at 1:29pm

According to the NBN's indicative Map and Towns list for Queensland, the town of St George is part of the fibreoptic coverage area.

 

Given the population, I don't see that changing. It's well over the 1000 requirement for fibre.

Comment by Phillip Watson on April 4, 2011 at 12:19pm

Without knowing the area you're talking about, I can't comment specifically, but the fibre area isn't absolutely final yet, so what you are saying wouldn't be set in stone no matter what the area. Would you like to identify the town you're speaking about, so I can check it out?

 

The fibre footprint is designed to be available to any premises in a town of 1000 or more people, plus any premises in a town of 500 or more people, where the fibre cable is running through that town anyway (ie, on its way to somewhere else).