Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

NBN Rollout Scrapped

Jump to new
Garpal Gumnut said:
And back to the real world comrades.

Many people in Aitkenvale, Townsville Q. distressed by NBN.

Either can't get connected or can't understand the concept.

What a fubar.

And in 1 week they lose their phone access.

gg
Click to expand...

Well, they've only had 18 months to get their head around it. I realise it may be a difficult concept, to reply to the letter sent by their existing phone/internet provider, or to give them a call.

I can understand why people are so confused by such an overly complicated process, especially given the ridiculously short time they've had to address the issue. How on earth will they cope with buying clothes for next summer? It's only 8 months away!

:banghead:
 
NBNMyths said:
Well, they've only had 18 months to get their head around it. I realise it may be a difficult concept, to reply to the letter sent by their existing phone/internet provider, or to give them a call.

I can understand why people are so confused by such an overly complicated process, especially given the ridiculously short time they've had to address the issue. How on earth will they cope with buying clothes for next summer? It's only 8 months away!

:banghead:
Click to expand...

Many of the people having problems with signing on for the NBN are vulnerable, e.g pensioners, mental health clients, migrants and are unable to cope with the muppet process.

It's all a breeze for yuppies who want to download movies.

Difficult for citizens in danger of losing their landlines.

gg
 
NBNMyths said:
Well, they've only had 18 months to get their head around it. I realise it may be a difficult concept, to reply to the letter sent by their existing phone/internet provider, or to give them a call.

I can understand why people are so confused by such an overly complicated process, especially given the ridiculously short time they've had to address the issue. How on earth will they cope with buying clothes for next summer? It's only 8 months away!

:banghead:
Click to expand...

Well I don't know about the issues in Townsville.
But in Mandurah W.A, they are saying the same thing, change over or be disconnected.

http://www.nbnco.com.au/about-us/media/news/countdown-started-for-mandurah-to-switch.html

The funny thing is, my place falls in the mapped area and they can't connect me and don't know when they will be able to.lol
 
Garpal Gumnut said:
Many of the people having problems with signing on for the NBN are vulnerable, e.g pensioners, mental health clients, migrants and are unable to cope with the muppet process.

It's all a breeze for yuppies who want to download movies.

Difficult for citizens in danger of losing their landlines.

gg
Click to expand...

But it's not a "muppet" process. It couldn't be any easier. Residents have been told through ads and letters for 18 months that the NBN would replace their copper line. The care agencies in the area are all aware of the process.

Their ISP/phone provider will do all the work. If they stay with them, then the will pay the same or less per month. There is no cost for the connection. All they have to do is authorise their provider to swap the connection for them. Job done.

It's true that it doesn't matter how easy something is though, there will always be some people who can't do it, for whatever reason. Such is the relentless march of progress. You have to turn it off eventually, just like analogue TV and analogue mobile networks were switched off. 18 months seems like a more-than adequate time. Or do you think the old network should continue to operate indefinitely, with the increasing maintenance costs and decreasing revenue that goes with that decision?

Perhaps gg you'd care to identify ways the changeover process could be made easier?
 
Another media update on the state of the rollout in Tasmania,

THE National Broadband Network rollout in Tasmania — which Labor promised would be the first state fully connected to lightning-fast internet services — has been “so shambolic” and failed “so abysmally” to meet its targets that urgent political intervention is needed.

The Weekend Australian can reveal the state’s peak IT business group, a longstanding supporter of Labor’s original “Rolls-Royce” NBN, has warned there is “no realistic chance” the project will be completed by the end of 2015, as once promised by former communications minister Stephen Conroy and NBN Co.

The Tasmanian ICT sector peak body, known as TASICT, says the process for connecting new customers to the optic fibre network is failing.

The warnings have nation*al significance as the NBN Co prepares a new corporate plan for the entire $41 billion project to give effect to the Coali*tion’s promise of a “multi-tech*nology mix” to deliver the project sooner and more cheaply.

A devastating strategic review found cost blowouts and delays had plagued the nation’s biggest infrastructure project, with “significant queues” in connections and disputes over construction-related contracts.

Tasmania is considered a testbed for the national rollout of high-speed broadband, with Senator Conroy having said it would provide “valuable learnings” for the wider mainland build. The Coalition has not put a deadline on the Tasmanian project. But the office of Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said yesterday that the rollout had started again at the end of last year after being “completely stalled” under Labor.

The NBN Co said it now had commitments to “fibre” as many Tasmanian premises this year as had been passed in the previous five years — but the rollout would not be achieved “by continuing to set heroic targets”.

In a submission obtained by The Weekend Australian, *TASICT says that without “urgent political intervention, the project will continue to fail Tasmania” and laments that the project has been used a “political tool” by all major parties.

“The first-mover NBN advantage once trumpeted as an economic saviour for Tasmania, is gone,” the submission says.

The submission was written by the group’s executive officer, Dean Winter, who ran as an ALP candidate for the 2012 Tasma*nian upper house seat of Hobart.

It also warns that Tasmanians “now wonder if they will ever get the NBN”.

“Business has lost enthusiasm for the project ...

“Tasmania, already dealing with an inadequate communi*cations infra*structure, faces lengthy delays to ever see the project completed.”

The submission says the rollout is still not back on track, but backs Mr Turnbull’s move to trial the use of overhead cables on Aurora’s power poles as *potentially faster and cheaper. and a way to have more direct fibre connections. It also says telephone and internet service providers — who sell the NBN to homes — are frustrated by “the lack of certainty about which technology will be used, the slow pace of the rollout and the failing process for connecting new customers to the network”.

Under the rollout, the NBN is connected to a utility box on the outside of a home or business. People who want to switch their phone and internet to the NBN contact a retail service provider, who makes an appointment for an NBN installer to put in equipment.

But the submission says the connection process in Tasmania has been “farcical”.

Customers were being hit with long wait times between ordering and connecting to the NBN and there were estimates up to 50 per cent of appointments with customers are being missed by NBN contractors.

“There is anecdotal evidence that some of these appointments are being ignored because *contractors arrive at the appointment, identify a difficult or time-consuming job and make an assessment it is not worth the rate being offered,” the submission says.

Last year an asbestos shutdown delayed the project. Also, there were disputes *between *Visionstream — lead contractor on the island — and subcontractors over pay. While there were 20,065 premises passed by the NBN by June 1, 2013, the rollout all but came to a complete halt over the following months.

By December 2, there were 32,271 passed. For the week to April 21, there were 36,117 brownfields passed. In December, *Visionstream said it was accelerating its rollout of fibre to more than 200,000 premises.

The TasICT submission says it was clear by June last year there were significant “issues” in Tasmania, but these “were never dealt with by the government of the day”.

“In fact, they were completely ignored and the rollout had almost stopped by September 2013. It was hoped these issues would be addressed by a new government and the rollout could get back on track. To date, this has not happened.”

Yesterday, Mr Turnbull’s spokesman said since the rollout started again at the end of last year, more than 4000 extra premises have been passed in brownfields areas. Visionstream had been *issued with build contract instructions for 17,000 premises, while advanced planning was under way in areas with a further 19,000.

“With premises already passed that brings the number of homes and businesses committed to NBN fibre by the end of the year to about a third of premises in the state,” Mr Turnbull’s spokesman said.

NBN Co spokesman Andrew Sholl said construction standards were being improved so homes were connected at the same time that fibre was rolled down the street and existing infrastructure was being incorporated into the network.

Before the federal election, TasICT lobbied for Labor’s fibre-to-the-premises model to stay on the island, rather than the *Coalition’s model that uses Telstra’s copper for the final few hundred metres to homes.

TasICT has made its comments in a submission to a private bill proposed by Tasmanian ALP Senator Anne Urquhart that would force the NBN Co to provide only FTTP to at least 200,000 premises on the island. The group opposes the bill.
Click to expand...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/tec...bns-first-state/story-e6frgakx-1226896452411#
 
drsmith said:
Another media update on the state of the rollout in Tasmania,



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/tec...bns-first-state/story-e6frgakx-1226896452411#
Click to expand...

THE National Broadband Network rollout in Tasmania — which Labor promised would be the first state fully connected to lightning-fast internet services — has been “so shambolic” and failed “so abysmally” to meet its targets that urgent political intervention is needed.
Click to expand...

I though that they got urgent political attention 7 months ago? what a political beat up that story is...disgraceful, Conroy gets 2 mentions and he has been out of the job for 7 months...what a crock.
 
http://www.zdnet.com/nbn-co-cannot-offer-fttb-in-tpg-serviced-buildings-morrow-7000029094/

the future is coming to an MDU near you.

brought to you by labor not accepting to use FTTB in their original rollout and enhanced by the L+NP not making a decision on if what TPG is doing should be allowed

Testifying before the Senate Select Committee on the NBN this week, Morrow – supported on technical details by outgoing NBN Co chief technology officer Greg McLaren – said the company would be forced to roll out fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) services directly to multi dwelling units (MDUs) to bypass FTTB equipment that TPG had already installed.

That did not mean all MDUs serviced by TPG would get NBN Co FTTP, however.

Commercial, not technical imperatives would guide NBN Co's decision about whether to deploy infrastructure in such buildings, Morrow said, because if TPG were able to cherry-pick the most profitable buildings the lost revenues would affect NBN Co's revenues "considerably".

Wont be long before Optus Telstra iiNet start to fight over which MDU they can get exclusive access to.

Yay for Labor being so pedantic about fiber. Yay for the current Govt thinking private investment would lead to a better outcome. Glad I'm not in an MDU and should in theory have a choice of NBN providers sometime by 2016 ah sorry by 202X.
 
drsmith said:
But does it make commercial sense for NBN co to compete with another service provider at the infrastructure level ?

Labor couldn't even get that right.
Click to expand...

I suppose when we get multiple power / water / sewer lines into each building then I'll accept it makes economic sense to have multiple telecoms pipes into buildings too.

The future is looking like islands of monopolies for residents of MDUs. Residents can't actually stop a telco from installing equipment in their building, so either they have to somehow legally delay long enough for NBN to get their FTTB in first, or accept that TPG or another company will have monopoly rights for providing high speed broadband into the building. If the strata management does somehow manage to delay other companies long enough for NBN to get in then I can see the lawyers making lots of $$$ over it.

Once the internal cabling is being used for VDSL anyone wishing to stay on ADSL will have to accept a very degraded service since the signal from VDSL will interfere with the ADSL signal. It'll be a perfectly legal way to force everyone onto the VDSL service. Yay for market forces.

So we've moved from single network that provides retail level competition to what is starting to look like a gold rush era dash to be the first to stake a claim and be relatively assured of having a monopoly within an MDU. You can't have multiple FTTB nodes otherwise you can't do vectoring so the magical 100Mbs speeds Malcolm had been promising wont be possible. I can see property values being affected if TPG is the sole provider. They're cheap and nasty with many users complaining on whirlpool of peak time slow downs. An MDU with NBN infrastructure will be a preferable place to live, all else being equal.
 
sydboy007 said:
I suppose when we get multiple power / water / sewer lines into each building then I'll accept it makes economic sense to have multiple telecoms pipes into buildings too.
Click to expand...
Isn't that the NBN framework Labor created despite the fact it was aiming for a monopoly ?
 
drsmith said:
Isn't that the NBN framework Labor created despite the fact it was aiming for a monopoly ?
Click to expand...

There's a massive difference between an infrastructure monopoly that is legally obligated to provide open access and an infrastructure monopoly that locks out all competition, or charges access fees so high as to make it uneconomic for competition.

This is the competition Malcolm was calling for prior to the election. If private companies cherry pick the top 10% of revenue earning MDUs that will be more than enough to send NBNs revenue down far enough that there can no longer be a city to bush cross subsidy.
 
sydboy007 said:
There's a massive difference between an infrastructure monopoly that is legally obligated to provide open access and an infrastructure monopoly that locks out all competition, or charges access fees so high as to make it uneconomic for competition.

This is the competition Malcolm was calling for prior to the election. If private companies cherry pick the top 10% of revenue earning MDUs that will be more than enough to send NBNs revenue down far enough that there can no longer be a city to bush cross subsidy.
Click to expand...

Yet Telstra had to allow competitors to piggy back on their system, and cherry pick high density population areas. While not offering a service in low population areas.
This was also multinational companies with much deeper pockets than Telstra and its shareholders.
Funny how what is right and wrong, depends on which outcome suits you personaly.
 
sptrawler said:
Ah but your missing the point, with the introduction of led lighting, advances in lower power consumption devices such as led/lcd t.v's and soft start 12v refridgerators. the requirement for 250v is diminishing.
But as you said, it's off thread.
Click to expand...

Here you go NBNMyths.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/wa/a/23208846/solar-power-saps-energy-groups-take/

And the pertinent sentence.
With marketable battery storage devices as little as five years away, experts claim it is only a matter of time before some customers disconnect from the grid.
Sorry of thread, just a follow up on a post. Appologies
 
sptrawler said:
Yet Telstra had to allow competitors to piggy back on their system, and cherry pick high density population areas. While not offering a service in low population areas.
This was also multinational companies with much deeper pockets than Telstra and its shareholders.
Funny how what is right and wrong, depends on which outcome suits you personaly.
Click to expand...

* Telstra refused to provide ADSL2+ in an exchange unless a competitor had installed their own equipment.

* ADSL only became widely available after it was declared by the ACCC and ULL rental was forced to a rate at which it was economical for Telstra competitors to provide services by installing their own equipment.

* Telstra has used it's monopoly muscle is so many anti competitive ways. Give you an example. For every tech you want to have access to a TEBA (exchange) you have to fill in an access form. Access only lasts for 3 months. So say you have 10 staff needing access to an average of 50 exchanges each. Imagine the cost for every retail provider that has to comply with this. Then we have Telstra charging for interference investigations which is usually the only way we're able to get a tricky copper fault fixed. Can you imagine the water company telling you that if you want issues with your water supply fixed you have to lodge a special investigation that is billed at $150/ hour and even if it is the water company's fault you will still have to pay them to fix it?

* It was the Howard Govt that sold a vertically integrated Telstra and turned it into a private monopoly. We'd not be havingthis debate if Howard hadn't wanted top $$$ and instead split the company into an open access wholesale company and a retail company. Instead we've had the anti competitive Telstra doing it's best to use it's monopoly power to maximise profits. The Australian economy is poorer for it and every telephone and internet user in the country is paying more. It's a productivity issue as much as anything else.
 
drsmith said:
Isn't that the NBN framework Labor created despite the fact it was aiming for a monopoly ?
Click to expand...

No. The framework they created was for a single open-access network with retail competition.

TPG are trying to use a loophole in the legislation which allows small extensions of existing networks, which made sense because banning any addition could leave new premises 'at the end of the line' without a service until the NBN went through.

It was never the intention to allow TPG (or anyone else) to light up their installed commercial dark fibre, then 'extend' it into hundreds of premises and turn it into a vertical monopoly FTTN network. The legality of those actions is yet to be tested, but in any case could be easily overcome with an amendment to the NBN legislation.

The problem is that banning it would go against Turnbull's public demands for infrastructure competition, while allowing it will destroy his business case. Decisions, decisions.

sptrawler said:
Here you go NBNMyths.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/wa/a/23208846/solar-power-saps-energy-groups-take/

And the pertinent sentence.
With marketable battery storage devices as little as five years away, experts claim it is only a matter of time before some customers disconnect from the grid.
Sorry of thread, just a follow up on a post. Apologies
Click to expand...

Not really related to the original analogy. Even going off-grid, you'd still have a 240v system via an inverter or in-series battery bank.

But yes, going off-grid will only get more viable. I could do it now for maybe $15k, and battery tech is only getting cheaper. We'll probably end up with a situation similar to water, where you have to pay whether you connect to the grid or not. /topic
 

Similar threads

N
The Australian Human Rights Commission: A national disgrace
3 4 5
Replies
85
Views
15K
Tisme
Tisme
A
National Broadband Network
23 24 25
Replies
483
Views
57K
sptrawler
sptrawler
Joe Blow
ASF Mark III
7 8 9
Replies
173
Views
44K
mr. jeff
mr. jeff
A
Money management
Replies
0
Views
4K
absolute1
A
R
Deception: use + abuse of information by governments + terrorists
Replies
2
Views
5K
reichstag911
R
Top