NBN Rollout Scrapped

[sydboy007]

if you'd like to see how your broadband speeds compare to your neighbours

http://www.adsl2exchanges.com.au/heatmap-state.php?State=VIC

You can then do a search for your address and click on heatmap on the map

The site is also handy to see which ISPs have their own DSLAM in your exchange

 

[Shaker]

if you'd like to see how your broadband speeds compare to your neighbours

http://www.adsl2exchanges.com.au/heatmap-state.php?State=VIC

You can then do a search for your address and click on heatmap on the map

The site is also handy to see which ISPs have their own DSLAM in your exchange

Not very many spots on the heatmap in my area. I just did a download/upload test and I have 5Mb/s and 700Kb/s.
My plan is a Telstra ADSL2+ 17,329Kbs/800Kbs service.

Mt exchange is about 1.5 km away. I reckon I must have a few issues .

Shaker

 

[drsmith]

Some more reports out in the AFR today.

Firstly, at least 2.5 million premises contracted for FTTP under the previous government.

http://www.afr.com/p/technology/nbn_direct_link_ups_for_premises_KtBZwiFGYupLDR64ZJSQNL

Secondly, an article about the rollout itself (What went wrong with the NBN, subscription only).

The National Broadband Network Company was to be the Labor government’s crowning achievement in the vein of Medicare and the Snowy River Dam Project. But four years on the reality is murkier.

http://www.afr.com/p/national/what_went_wrong_with_the_nbn_OOFd2s5eB4KLuceU4Cp9QO

 

[drsmith]

Now that the Coalition has stopped releasing any information on refugee boat arrivals, .......

They're serious about stopping them, unlike Labor.

During the election campaign, Mr Morrison flagged the possibility that boat arrivals would no longer be reported if the Coalition won government. He said at the time this would be an "operational matter" for the three-star head of the Coalition's new Operation Sovereign Borders taskforce.

Mr Morrison's spokesman reaffirmed on Friday that it would be up to the newly appointed military head of Operation Sovereign Borders, Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell.

It is unclear whether General Campbell has yet issued a directive. As of Friday afternoon, sources on Christmas Island – to which asylum-seekers on intercepted boats are initially taken – were saying there had been no boats in recent days.

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-po...s-on-asylum-boat-arrivals-20130920-2u5t5.html

This is probably a discussion for the asylum seeker thread.

 

[sydboy007]

They're serious about stopping them, unlike Labor.



http://www.theage.com.au/federal-po...s-on-asylum-boat-arrivals-20130920-2u5t5.html

This is probably a discussion for the asylum seeker thread.

My point being why the secrecy. Oppositions always love open Government till they're in Government. Labor have been just as bad.

Hopefully MT will provide full access to every report generated under his direction, though I'm sure he'll sit on anything too adverse just like any good minister.

Just for interest sake Dr Smith, have you checked out the heat map for your area?

 

[drsmith]

My point being why the secrecy. Oppositions always love open Government till they're in Government. Labor have been just as bad.

On this, they did flag the possibility before the election and at the moment, it is still just that.

I doubt secrecy is the objective in any case. They're not going to be able to keep boat arrivals secret.

Hopefully MT will provide full access to every report generated under his direction, though I'm sure he'll sit on anything too adverse just like any good minister.

I think there's already something left in the chair from the previous occupant, slightly pressed and farted upon.

Just for interest sake Dr Smith, have you checked out the heat map for your area?

Out of curiosity, I did.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Sri Kosuri from Harvard has contacted me to bring to the attention of posters on this thread, some recent storage in DNA which will make metallic servers obsolete.

It is nicely summarised in the following article.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134672-harvard-cracks-dna-storage-crams-700-terabytes-of-data-into-a-single-gram

Just think about it for a moment: One gram of DNA can store 700 terabytes of data. That’s 14,000 50-gigabyte Blu-ray discs… in a droplet of DNA that would fit on the tip of your pinky. To store the same kind of data on hard drives ”” the densest storage medium in use today ”” you’d need 233 3TB drives, weighing a total of 151 kilos. In Church and Kosuri’s case, they have successfully stored around 700 kilobytes of data in DNA ”” Church’s latest book, in fact ”” and proceeded to make 70 billion copies (which they claim, jokingly, makes it the best-selling book of all time!) totaling 44 petabytes of data stored.

Looking forward, they foresee a world where biological storage would allow us to record anything and everything without reservation. Today, we wouldn’t dream of blanketing every square meter of Earth with cameras, and recording every moment for all eternity/human posterity ”” we simply don’t have the storage capacity. There is a reason that backed up data is usually only kept for a few weeks or months ”” it just isn’t feasible to have warehouses full of hard drives, which could fail at any time. If the entirety of human knowledge ”” every book, uttered word, and funny cat video ”” can be stored in a few hundred kilos of DNA, though… well, it might just be possible to record everything (hello, police state!)

It’s also worth noting that it’s possible to store data in the DNA of living cells ”” though only for a short time. Storing data in your skin would be a fantastic way of transferring data securely…

I would predict that transfer of data using biological systems will not be far behind.

What a waste, all this money on the NBN, if that turns out to be the case.

Long live the mighty amoeba.

gg

 

[sydboy007]

Sri Kosuri from Harvard has contacted me to bring to the attention of posters on this thread, some recent storage in DNA which will make metallic servers obsolete.

It is nicely summarised in the following article.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134672-harvard-cracks-dna-storage-crams-700-terabytes-of-data-into-a-single-gram

I would predict that transfer of data using biological systems will not be far behind.

What a waste, all this money on the NBN, if that turns out to be the case.

Long live the mighty amoeba.

gg

Oh I've read many tech articles that show lab test results and the amazing tech that will come of it. IBM have had many such successes and much of the discoveries take a good 20 years to commercialise.

Speed of light in a fibre optic cable ~ 200,000,000 M/S

Speed of nerve impulses - at best 119 M/S

Sort of sums up the difference between FTTP and FTTN nicely GG

 

[bellenuit]

I would predict that transfer of data using biological systems will not be far behind.

Men and women have been doing that for years and enjoying the experience at the same time. How else could our DNA pass to the next generations.

 

[medicowallet]

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/entire-nbn-board-resigns-20130922-2u84w.html

NBN board to resign.

MW

 

[drsmith]

There's also this out this morning in the AFR (first part quoted below),

Telstra has built a test site using the Coalition’s preferred national broadband network technology as part of an aggressive strategy to win billions of dollars in construction contracts.

The trials involve the construction of a fibre to the node test site by Telstra using equipment from Alcatel-Lucent.

The trials began in early September, just days after the Coalition’s federal election victory.

Industry experts believe Telstra stands to win construction contracts worth between $5 billion and $6 billion if the Coalition agrees to let it build the NBN across Australia.

The entire board of NBN Co has offered to resign amid suggestions the new Coalition government does not have faith in them, The Sydney Morning Herald has reported.

A Telstra spokeswoman confirmed the tests were under way and said they were proving to be successful.

http://www.afr.com/p/australia2-0/telstra_targets_billion_dollar_nbn_X8Wul0CVmC2TossqGfpqMP

In reference to an article from last week,

Some more reports out in the AFR today.

Firstly, at least 2.5 million premises contracted for FTTP under the previous government.

http://www.afr.com/p/technology/nbn_direct_link_ups_for_premises_KtBZwiFGYupLDR64ZJSQNL

Secondly, an article about the rollout itself (What went wrong with the NBN, subscription only).

http://www.afr.com/p/national/what_went_wrong_with_the_nbn_OOFd2s5eB4KLuceU4Cp9QO

I'm able to access the second article above this morning, without subscription. It's quiet a long read.

The National Broadband Network Company was to be the Labor government’s crowning achievement in the vein of Medicare and the Snowy River Dam Project.

Where high speed broadband was traditionally restricted to corporate networks and international links, Labor would connect it to 93 per cent of homes and businesses, from the sandstone manors of Bellevue Hill to the valleys of Tasmania and everywhere in between.

But four years on the reality is murkier. Its founding chief executive has been pushed out the back door while the entire telecommunications industry is despondent.

The current chairman Siobhan McKenna – despite attempts to confront the company’s mismanagement – has been earmarked for replacement.

And Telstra, the one company NBN Co sought to sideline in its efforts to rewire Australia, has found itself with the whiphand; poised to get the very contracts it was denied.

How did things go so wrong and who is to blame?

According to those who claim to know , many of the problems can be traced to a single shock decision in 2011.

After a year of hard-fought negotiations between Australia’s 14 biggest construction firms the tender to build the national broadband number for $12-14 billion had been thrown out the window amid claims of mass price-gouging.

“We weren’t going to get to a fair price, and the only way to achieve that was to sit down opposite a credible company and work through the detail,” NBN Co head of corporate services Kevin Brown said later.

To the bidders involved, it sounded like a gut-churning April Fools’ joke. The decision to cancel tenders, approved by NBN Co’s inaugural chief executive Mike Quigley, led to the immediate departure of Patrick Flannigan, NBN Co’s first head of construction, just days after the announcement.

“It was obviously a shot across the bows and showed they were very determined to get the best value for money,” says Graeme Sumners, a former managing director of telecommunications services firm, Service Stream. It was one of the main companies responsible for building the NBN. Together with Lend Lease it formed a 50-50 joint venture named Syntheo that won contracts worth up to $315 million.

NBN Co eventually sat down with a select group of contractors and began to squeeze every cent of discount from the players at the table. Eventually four companies agreed to final contracts worth $1.1 billion.

Fingers point blame at CEO Mike Quigley

But notably missing was Telstra – the only company with the construction and telecommunications experience required to pull off a project as monumental as the NBN.

“There was absolutely executive discussion about getting Telstra engaged,” says one former high-level NBN Co employee. “We wanted them and needed them but we couldn’t find a way through the commercials that were acceptable to us.”

Though Telstra would eventually receive more than $11 billion in compensation for its existing infrastructure and the effective loss of its monopoly on broadband, it never received a major construction contract.

Fast forward to 2013 and it appears NBN Co was in the wrong, on both the contracts and Telstra. Syntheo has dissolved amid heavy losses, particularly to Service Stream, while those that survived are now being paid up to 20 per cent more money under renewed contracts.

Despite receiving $5.2 billion from the Government and hiring over 2600 staff, the company missed its June 30 target by 42 per cent having passed just 205,000 homes and businesses with fibre optic.

Some of the senior executives who worked at high levels of NBN Co have laid much of the blame at the feet of its star chief executive Mike Quigley.

Just three months after announcing his $43 billion network, then communications minister Stephen Conroy announced he’d found the man to lead it. Quigley was a cancer-surviving telecommunications veteran once seen as the future head of global tech giant Alcatel-Lucent.

“On the surface it looked like a fabulous appointment – highly experienced guy, global experience, long-term Alcatel guy who knew about telecommunications,” says an NBN Co insider. “But he didn’t know anything about construction.”

Quigley may have known all about the inner-workings of global board rooms but those closest said he was unable to master the nuances of Australia’s construction market – a fatal flaw for the man leading the country’s biggest construction project.

For behind the blinking lights and glass fibre cabling of the NBN’s high-speed broadband are thousands of workers who don hard hats to dig up streets.

“He was always the smartest guy in the room but he had to prove it,” they said. “So he’d have a discussion with someone in a particular field and then he’d have a better idea.”

Political hot potato

It didn’t help that politics were rife within NBN Co. Despite ostensibly being a start-up business, staff numbers exploded – hitting 2600 workers in just four years – factions quickly formed within the business.

Network design and procurement decisions were made without approval from the construction group, while stories of six-hour meetings with few actual decisions were common.

By January 2013 NBN Co had lost its second head of construction when Dan Flemming - a well-respected figure in the industry - was made redundant.

“If you look at the whole process from end-to-end it took a lot of effort,” says Sumner. “You’d find fault with one thing, it’d get sent back and then it’d go into an inevitable loop.

“In the end they weren’t able to adapt to new and changing information and that just unfortunately comes down to there being not enough people and depth of knowledge.”

The result was a construction timeline that has never stopped slipping. Since launching its first rollout forecasts in 2010, NBN Co has consistently been in the spotlight over what it has said it would do, versus what it actually managed to achieve.

Plans to reach 1.2 million homes and businesses by June 2013 - according to its 2010 plan - were downgraded to less than a quarter of that figure when an updated corporate plan was released in August 2012.

Six months later, NBN Co admitted it would fail to reach that target once again. A third draft corporate plan, never publicly released, reveals NBN Co did not expect to make up its construction losses for years to come.

For those in the know many of the problems stem from the fateful day in 2011 when contractors were squeezed for NBN Co’s bottom line, resulting in a distinct lack of industry investment.

“The biggest challenge was always mobilisation,” says Steve Christian, who headed NBN Co’s networks for three years before retiring to NSW’s North Coast in 2012.

“Getting contracts done with large vendors takes longer than people think. It takes a while to get contracts in place and once those are in place, it takes a while for the construction companies to get their resources on the ground and into a position where they can actually start building.”

Before joining the government business to make sure the network never went offline, Christian built Optus’ cable system, a network that passes 2.2 million premises in capital cities.

It, along with Telstra’s rival network, was the NBN of its day, promising fast broadband to Australians. But, where those networks used the might of the utilities and the density of the big cities, NBN Co faced a different path - wiring up homes as disparate as Willunga in South Australia and Armidale, 5.5 hours outside of Sydney.

“It took a lot longer to mobilise the right people at the right time in the right place with the right skills to get the job done,” Christian says. “Fundamentally that is where I think the whole thing, it was underestimated by everybody, the companies and the NBN.”

Equivalent of building Snowy River Dam Project

Ramping up to a construction effort that would hire 20,000 workers at its peak, and pass 6000 homes a day with fibre was never going to be an easy task - especially when there weren’t enough workers to go around.

In many ways it was the equivalent of building the Snowy River Dam Project without having a mass migration program.

“NBN Co never realised it was their responsibility was to develop the industry,” Sumner says. “No other carrier was going to pay for it and neither was any other contractor [because] the up-front payments paid to contractors were never large enough to pay for things like training schools.

“There was only one organisation that was able to and whose interests were best served by investing in industry development.”

Each player in the chain, from the contractors hired by NBN Co to design and build the network, to the high-vis-wearing man in a hard hat, had his margin. And by wittling down contractors to the lowest possible cost, NBN Co had reduced any chance of a profitable venture for the little guy.

As the project wore on, news of small construction and even air-conditioning companies going broke and threats of lawsuits against contractors began to emerge.

Union officials railed against the schemes, decrying the inexperienced ‘mum-and-dad contractors’ that were building the NBN when the veterans turned it down.

NBN Co denied there was a costs issues; the contractors were happy with the prices they were being paid, they said.

“It’s one thing for contractors like Service Stream to lose money, and I can tell you it isn’t good,” Sumners says. “But at the end of the day the industry has survived on the good will of subcontractors and small operators who need to be encouraged to stay in the industry.”

But in March 2013 there came a ray of what many hoped was sunshine. Close associate of Lachlan Murdoch and Ten Network director Siobhan McKenna took on the role of chairman with gusto.

She immediately took to the job with energy, learning how to splice fibre while meeting with stakeholders and staff alike. Board minutes show she demanded status updates on how the company was running and clarity on how bad the delays had become.

“I never met Harrison Young and I can’t really comment on him given I didn’t really know him,” says Sumner. “But Siobhan in my mind set out to address the issues and she tried to stuff the genies back in the bottle.

“But there were too many problems and by the end the relationship with Malcolm [Turnbull] wasn’t very good.”

Turnbull NBN’s most effective critic

Through it all then-Opposition Communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull was NBN Co’s most effective critic, drilling deeply into the project’s every flaw.

But despite McKenna’s overtures towards the Coalition and initiating a hunt for Quigley’s replacement, she never won Turnbull’s approval. It resulted in what some have seen as a fatal move - the appointment of lobbying firm Bespoke Approach to help firm up the jobs of NBN Co’s board members in case of a Coalition victory at the Federal election.

Far from impressing Turnbull, it accelerated his public anger and has hastened her likely departure.

There was one potential solution to those problems: Telstra. One of the original 14 bidders to construct the network, the telecommunications behemoth had been given a token task building a trial site in Melbourne, along with some work building out some of the fibre networks linking cities and major network hubs.

But it remained largely on the sidelines of construction, a cause some say of a cultural aversion to NBN Co’s predecessor within the company. Yet Telstra’s gaze and quiet control of construction remained over the project, a fact that became quite apparent when, in late May this year, construction halted on the NBN.

Concerns that contractors had improperly removed and handled asbestos material lining the thousands of kilometres of ducts that lie under Australian streets sent instructions flying to immediately stop any work.

A snap meeting of government ministers, contractors and union leaders was held, and for weeks victims groups warned of the potential impact the hazardous materials could have on hundreds of bystanders.

For two-and-a-half months, the preliminary work necessary to begin NBN construction in a given suburb remained dormant, exemplifying just how much control Telstra exerted on the project.

Telstra is the captain’s pick for any significant changes to the network rollout. With a new, Coalition government promising greater efficiencies to the rollout, the company now can renegotiate its $11 billion deal, and gain construction deals.

It is the final irony that despite trying to remove Telstra’s monopoly NBN Co has returned the behemoth being front-and-centre of a future NBN with the Coalition seen as its saviour.

 

[sydboy007]

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/entire-nbn-board-resigns-20130922-2u84w.html

NBN board to resign.

MW

Well with the Cherry Picking in play for the cities the NBN is not going to have the income to cross subsidise the country areas without ongoing budget support. Who'd want to be involved with that kind of debacle?

We're heading for a limited competition in the cities with large MDUs maybe having 2 or 3 companies equipment in the basemet and certain level of choice, while those not on the wireless / sat NBN will get??

 

[13ugs13unny]

the NBN is not going to have the income to cross subsidise the country areas without ongoing budget support. Who'd want to be involved with that kind of debacle?

Its the liberals monkey now. The ~60,000 cabinets with each containing ~12car batteries for back up power, and in the UK its been reported on hot days, they shut down due to excessive heat. Therefore given Australia's climate 60,000 cabinets will need to be refrigerated.

I'm not sure if the libs have thought this through. The irony is this could be a pink batts type of debacle.

I could go into the technical analysis in great detail, but you get the idea.

 

[NBNMyths]

Well with the Cherry Picking in play for the cities the NBN is not going to have the income to cross subsidise the country areas without ongoing budget support. Who'd want to be involved with that kind of debacle?

We're heading for a limited competition in the cities with large MDUs maybe having 2 or 3 companies equipment in the basemet and certain level of choice, while those not on the wireless / sat NBN will get??

You've hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what Alan Kohler said later today:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au...l&utm_content=432134&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt=

The current chair, Siobhan McKenna and her five colleagues, will no doubt be unable to get out of the place quick enough. Each will be hoping not to be the one whom the new minister and shareholder, Malcolm Turnbull, asks to stay on to assist with the transition.....

....If David Teoh is allowed to have the apartment buildings in the cities, then the Malcolm Turnbull/Ziggy Switkowski NBN will simply be an unprofitable competitor on price in the cities and an unprofitable, supplier of fibre to the node services to rural Australia.....

....It will, in short, be a donkey, a money sinkhole, a political noose, and an end-of-career nightmare for a mild-mannered nuclear physicist who might end up wishing he’d stayed at the opera.

Not only will the Coalition's 'NBN' be late and obsolete, but it will also be a financial disaster.

Its the liberals monkey now. The ~60,000 cabinets with each containing ~12car batteries for back up power, and in the UK its been reported on hot days, they shut down due to excessive heat. Therefore given Australia's climate 60,000 cabinets will need to be refrigerated.

I'm not sure if the libs have thought this through. The irony is this could be a pink batts type of debacle.

I could go into the technical analysis in great detail, but you get the idea.

Yep, in the UK they shut down, while in the US the "vaults" (FTTN cabinets) catch fire:
http://www.fierceiptv.com/story/real-estate-lobby-calls-for-u-verse-fire-probe/2008-02-19

 

[Smurf1976]

I'm able to access the second article above this morning, without subscription. It's quiet a long read.

“No other carrier was going to pay for it and neither was any other contractor [because] the up-front payments paid to contractors were never large enough to pay for things like training schools.

“There was only one organisation that was able to and whose interests were best served by investing in industry development.”

Each player in the chain, from the contractors hired by NBN Co to design and build the network, to the high-vis-wearing man in a hard hat, had his margin. And by wittling down contractors to the lowest possible cost, NBN Co had reduced any chance of a profitable venture for the little guy.

As the project wore on, news of small construction and even air-conditioning companies going broke and threats of lawsuits against contractors began to emerge.

Union officials railed against the schemes, decrying the inexperienced ‘mum-and-dad contractors’ that were building the NBN when the veterans turned it down.

Warning - very long post.

I've been there, done that when it comes to putting cable (power and communications) into the ground both through existing infrastructure (conduits, pits etc) and new builds. I'll say this....

If your own business is primarily not related to cabling, and the job is straightforward and "generic" in nature (eg running a power cable from the electricity network in the street to a house / shop / warehouse etc) then you can go ahead and contract someone to do the lot. Provided that you use someone suitably qualified (electrical contractor or the holder of a communications cabling license as appropriate) and let them do the lot, then things will generally go according to plan. They'll typically sub-contract the excavation work and any asbestos removal, and will install the new infrastructure themselves in most cases (since they are legally responsible for it).

But if your business is effectively the entire industry, or most of it, then things are very different. You won't easily find someone competent to take on the whole task themselves, since by definition they aren't really in that line of work to start with (since you are the whole industry). Secondly, you'll get the "out of sight, out of mind" problem in a big way when it comes to underground works - and in this case practically everything is underground and thus impractical to inspect after the work is done.

Planning is another thing. Running a cable from the street to a single building is pretty straightforward. Give the contractor a plan of the property showing the preferred route and location of other services. Then you're up and running - the contractor will already know where the switchboard or communications termination is going to be since they're doing that too (or at least connecting to an existing one).

But where are the plans for the NBN? I just can't believe that anyone has handed a comprehensive set of plans to the contractors detailing everything that's required. That means that, in practice, the end result is largely being determined by the workers in hard hats building whatever they see fit in order to get from point A to point B. That's where the real trouble starts.

If they are your own employees, and thus accountable directly to the company for time, materials, public complaints, safety and the end result then it's reasonably easy to keep things in line as long as you've got decent workers.

But if they are a sub-contractor of a sub-contractor of a contractor with nobody having an actual plan, nobody really being accoutable and all the major decisions being made on the job by those hauling the cables, driving excavators and so on well that's a recipe for disaster. You end up with a situation where nobody gives a damn what happens, so long as they don't get pulled up by Workplace Standards (or the equivalent in each state) and they get paid. Dig that trench, throw some conduit in, fill it up and move on. Asbestos? No worries - just throw it on the back of the truck. Properly laying the conduit? Why waste time with proper bedding or even glue when nobody's around to see what's going on. Nuclear test of compaction? What's that! The Council won't likely come along until long after the job is finished, and they'll never track down who was responsible anyway so no need to worry about that one. Reinstatement? If it looks good then she'll be right. The cable kinked, was barked or suffered some other problem during installation? No worries - out of sight, out of mind and you can always blame any of the other sub-contractors or, if it's going to be a while until it's used, just blame rats or some other utility (gas, power, water etc) and say it was fine when it was installed.

It's akin to getting on a plane in Melbourne. The Captain thinks the destination is Perth but isn't concerned since he's paid as long as the plane takes off and subsequently lands somewhere. The First Officer thinks the destination is Darwin but isn't fussed since he's just a labour hire pilot and will be paid for overnight accommodation if required. The man loading the bags thought it was the flight to Los Angeles and loaded the bags for that flight onto this plane, which isn't capable of flying that far anyway (a point he noted, thought was odd but dismissed since it's not his problem). Meanwhile another baggage handler has loaded your bags onto the real flight to LA, which will be taking off just before yours. The flight attendants think they're heading to Brisbane. The passengers think they're flying to Auckland, as do the airline's check-in staff. And the man putting the fuel in the plane, only put in enough to get to Adelaide because he gets in trouble if there's too much fuel on board (excess weight). That being so, as a passenger you'd be better off if that plane stayed on the ground and didn't go anywhere.

That analogy is awfully similar to what NBNCo are trying to achieve - building something which unavoidably lacks anything other than a broad concept plan at a higher level, reliant on workers "on the ground" who also don't know what's going on (the inevitable consequence of so many sub-sub-sub-contractors being involved) and who don't really care anyway since they'll be paid for whatever they do regardless of whether it's right or wrong. It's a recipe for problems, problems and more problems - all of which will end up being fixed by time and cost blow outs.

So the bottom line is that to properly build something like the NBN, NBNCo itself needs to be actively involved in physical construction. They don't need to necessarily do everything themselves, but there needs to be an NBN employee on site during all critical works. Realistically, they'd be wise to take direct control of cable hauling and conduit installation with an NBN foreman in charge of contractors engaged to provide physical labour only (paid by time on the job). They could outsource excavations etc where required, so long as actually installing the new conduit involves at least one NBN employee "on the tools" down in the trenches. Asbestos removal? No real hassle outsourcing that, provided that they do a lot of random inspections, sampling etc and that each contractor agrees to be filmed at any time without further notice. Do all that and it will cost less, and you'll actually get the thing built to meet real world requirements.

So long as NBNCo are focused solely on paperwork and not involved in construction they will continue to receive poor value and encounter problems. You can outsource some things, but not to the point that NBNCo (which largely is the industry in this case) loses, or more likely doesn't gain in the first place, sound knowledge in house. As it stands now, they are at the mercy of whatever the contractors give them - price, time and quality.

Could Telstra do it better? That depends how they go about it, but they do have a reasonable base if knowledge in house to start with. They'll likely regret some of the job cutting they've done, but they still have reasonable knowledge from which to build up. NBNCo would still be at the contractor's (Telstra) mercy to some extent, but at least Telstra is capable of doing it, leaving only the question of whether they will actually do it properly - and that comes down to a question of final ownership. As with any contractor, they have an incentive to cut corners with quality if

So, there's 3 real options if they want a quality outcome.

1. Build it with NBNCo staff working alongside contractors on-site. It's not as contractually difficult as it may seem, so long as the contractors are engaged under appropriate terms (effectively labour and equipment hire).

2. Let Telstra build it with Telstra owning the completed network as a regulated asset. That is, NBNCo effectively rents the working network from what I'll refer to as "Telstra Network", with any "Telstra Retail" use of the system going via NBNCo the same as any other retailer would do. In practice, this would likely end with Telstra itself being split at the corporate level - a utility company that owns the NBN and makes capacity available to others, and a service company that sells communication services. Any problems with the network are a matter for the owner, such that construction quality liabilities don't sit with NBNCo.

3. NBNCo aquires Telstra's existing network business in its entirety. Cables, vehicles, staff - the whole lot. Then get this aquired Telstra division to build the NBN. The only real difference to option 2 being in ownership of the completed network - Telstra versus NBNCo ownership.

 

[NBNMyths]

NBN Co used to have an employee at each site monitoring the construction. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but I presume it is. I'm sure they'd tell you if you asked.

 

[sydboy007]

So, there's 3 real options if they want a quality outcome.

1. Build it with NBNCo staff working alongside contractors on-site. It's not as contractually difficult as it may seem, so long as the contractors are engaged under appropriate terms (effectively labour and equipment hire).

2. Let Telstra build it with Telstra owning the completed network as a regulated asset. That is, NBNCo effectively rents the working network from what I'll refer to as "Telstra Network", with any "Telstra Retail" use of the system going via NBNCo the same as any other retailer would do. In practice, this would likely end with Telstra itself being split at the corporate level - a utility company that owns the NBN and makes capacity available to others, and a service company that sells communication services. Any problems with the network are a matter for the owner, such that construction quality liabilities don't sit with NBNCo.

3. NBNCo aquires Telstra's existing network business in its entirety. Cables, vehicles, staff - the whole lot. Then get this aquired Telstra division to build the NBN. The only real difference to option 2 being in ownership of the completed network - Telstra versus NBNCo ownership.

Great post Smurf.

I get the feeling MT is going to provide some lucrative contracts to Telstra to get the FTTN ball rolling. Still I do wonder if they can cope with the extra work. They seem to have MSDs (mass service disruptions) and high workload areas covering 99% of the country (well it feels like it). They've had an MSD running for a few months now that covers the Greater Sydney metro area along with a lot of the central coast. Repair times have blown out, and Telstra are not liable for any form of compensation once the MSD is declared.

I think option 3 might be an easier sell - maybe via a split of the shares so that you own Telstra NBN who will be the monopoly supplier of comms in the country and Telstra retail who provide services over Telstra NBN. It gets around the issues of copper last mile ownership, and shareholders benefit from still having part ownership of a company that provides a steady income stream.

The tricky part will be determining how much Govt ownership will be of Telstra NBN since they'll be pumping something like $20-30B of funding into it. It will be very interesting to see who MT can get on board NBN now. With the treatment they gave the high level staff, Labor looking to get the knife in at every chance, you'd really have to have a masochistic streak to put ya hand up for a high level position with them.

 

[So_Cynical]

Warning - very long post.

I've been there, done that when it comes to putting cable (power and communications) into the ground both through existing infrastructure (conduits, pits etc) and new builds. I'll say this....

I did cable and Satellite for a few years...contractors on the whole are capable of running cable and doing a good job of it, due to the size of the NBN gig i would imagine that having an assessment team going along behind the contractors and paying the contractors based on those assessments would be the go.

 

[Smurf1976]

NBN Co used to have an employee at each site monitoring the construction. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but I presume it is. I'm sure they'd tell you if you asked.

I've seen a few NBN works crews on the job (Hobart and suburbs).

Either the NBN employee was dressed in the same uniform as the contractors, was doing actual work not just monitoring and chose to turn a blind eye to a kink in the cable, or they weren't there. That was night works, inner Hobart CBD area.

I noted two safety breaches and one instance of possible cable damage, all in the time it took me to walk past.

 

[moXJO]

Not only will the Coalition's 'NBN' be late and obsolete, but it will also be a financial disaster.

I preferred labors NBN but I just couldn't see it being built at all, or anywhere near budget. Liberals NBN I don't have much faith in either and it looks a messy joke right now with a lot of potential problems. Imo labor flucked its implementation in the first 3 years and now its libs turn to mess it up a little more.
NBN good idea but thats where it ends.