NBN Rollout Scrapped

[Smurf1976]

NBN customers can choose 12/1. The fact that 75% of them choose to pay more for higher speeds than that suggests that demand far exceeds 12Mbps. Because if it didn't, then people could save money by choosing the lower speed.

Go to any service station and watch people filling cars with petrol.

Now realise that the vast majority of cars on Australian roads are built and tuned to run on 91 RON petrol, a small number require 95 and very, very few require 98.

But you won't have to wait at the servo for long to find someone filling a vehicle with 98. A vehicle that runs a compression ratio of 8.5:1 and which has the ignition timing already set to minimal advance in order to comply with emissions requirements. But it costs more so it's automatically better, right?

Likewise with the NBN, there's zero practical benefit in a high speed connection if you're just going to read a few emails and visit forums like ASF. That won't stop such people choosing to pay more in a "mine's bigger than yours" type of logic however, just as it doesn't stop them putting slower burning fuel in cars because they think it's somehow better.

The notion that consumers do what is most efficient and economical works in theory but we've got an entire industry, marketing, to persuade them to do otherwise and it's effective in practice. A minority of consumers will consistently make the "right" choice in any given area of spending, and practically nobody will do it across everything they buy.

No doubt there will be some people who have done a rational analysis of their internet needs. But for most, it's either "pick the cheapest" or it's "pick the most expensive" with no real effort to get it right as such.

 

[sptrawler]

Go to any service station and watch people filling cars with petrol.

Now realise that the vast majority of cars on Australian roads are built and tuned to run on 91 RON petrol, a small number require 95 and very, very few require 98.

But you won't have to wait at the servo for long to find someone filling a vehicle with 98. A vehicle that runs a compression ratio of 8.5:1 and which has the ignition timing already set to minimal advance in order to comply with emissions requirements. But it costs more so it's automatically better, right?

Likewise with the NBN, there's zero practical benefit in a high speed connection if you're just going to read a few emails and visit forums like ASF. That won't stop such people choosing to pay more in a "mine's bigger than yours" type of logic however, just as it doesn't stop them putting slower burning fuel in cars because they think it's somehow better.

The notion that consumers do what is most efficient and economical works in theory but we've got an entire industry, marketing, to persuade them to do otherwise and it's effective in practice. A minority of consumers will consistently make the "right" choice in any given area of spending, and practically nobody will do it across everything they buy.

No doubt there will be some people who have done a rational analysis of their internet needs. But for most, it's either "pick the cheapest" or it's "pick the most expensive" with no real effort to get it right as such.

It's somewhat like buying a Lamborghini, to go to work in the city,
You have something that can do 300klm/hr, but you can only go as fast as the Hyundia Getz, sitting in front of you.
Untill everything is connected to bling speed, you are still reduced to the lowest common denominator.

 

[sydboy007]

https://twitter.com/TurnbullMalcolm/status/513557154796539904

Donald MacKenzie on high frequency trading and the importance of geography and limits of fibre optics

It's laughable that he's taking an issue for high frequency traders, a few ms can mean the difference between winning and losing a trade, and trying to make out it's a limit for optical fibre. It's a fundamental law of the universe - the speed of light.

For most people it's not so much the latency, but how much data you can get in a particular time period, and nothing beats fibre on that score.

 

[sptrawler]

Turnbull seems to have done a good job, of calming down the hysteria.

There seems to be a fair bit of connection activity, around my area.

 

[Logique]

Turnbull seems to have done a good job, of calming down the hysteria.

There seems to be a fair bit of connection activity, around my area.

Yep, same here, connections are coming.

 

[Tisme]

Go to any service station and watch people filling cars with petrol.

Now realise that the vast majority of cars on Australian roads are built and tuned to run on 91 RON petrol, a small number require 95 and very, very few require 98.

But you won't have to wait at the servo for long to find someone filling a vehicle with 98. A vehicle that runs a compression ratio of 8.5:1 and which has the ignition timing already set to minimal advance in order to comply with emissions requirements. But it costs more so it's automatically better, right?

Being one of those tragics who modifies cars and mechanicals I can't agree with the premise of your post, but I know what you are trying say. I mentor young lads in car mechanicals and allow them the use of my personal workshop to rebuild and blue plate engines/cars and prosecute the idea of new over old (e.g. injected over carbs).

The internet on 50 megs is so much better than even 30 megs, and ADSL2+ on 20 megs is like a Ron91 in a 95 engine without auto retune = pinking and poor response. It isn't so much the peak power that counts but the dependent variable torque curve that results from a good power curve through the range.-

The basic tune method these days is to have automatic spark advance in response to a couple of knock sensors, EGT and CO (via O2 sensing). Putting 98 in a modern engine does raise the curve and on a personal bias the Shell Ultra is the better fuel to me, although I'm no wedded to it. Factory ECUs have been quite smart for some time now, unfortunately politics hasn't IMO.


Vive the NBN

 

[SirRumpole]

Its been said about computers that programs expand automatically to consume all available memory space, ie the more you can do with a given system, the more people try to do.

I scanned my PC yesterday. There were millions of files on it. What do they all do ? How many are actually needed ?

Seems to me that we actually use a lot less of our computer than we think, and the rest of the stuff on it is just unnecessary and used to justify the high price of computer software. So to with the NBN. As smurf said, people will buy the fastest they can get, so they can say that they have got it, not because they need the capability.

The idea of a national fibre connected NBN seemed attractive at first. Certainly, everyone should have the ability to connect to the internet, but we should consider if we are being sold a Rolls Royce when a Commodore may suit us better.

 

[Tisme]

It's somewhat like buying a Lamborghini, to go to work in the city,
You have something that can do 300klm/hr, but you can only go as fast as the Hyundia Getz, sitting in front of you.
Untill everything is connected to bling speed, you are still reduced to the lowest common denominator.

Not everyone is confined to the city, there are places like Brisbane that some rather onerous hills, poor roads and reasonable freeways. None of those are serially connected nor dependent on each other, but each compromises an econobox. Add in road noise, over steering, s41te gear trains, pcb poisoning from cheap plastics, poor seating support, price compromised handling geometry and it's a challenge for those who are accustomed to well engineered cars to even contemplate the stooping to that level.

The corollary of course is to understand how the internet works and how the human brain works in forever striving for better. The internet is in no way a serial pipe, the rest of the world is rapidly moving to high speed while we debate the inevitable need to join, meanwhile bandaiding old soldered copper wire top hat IDF based infrastructure that was the primary reason for selling it off in the first place (before it lost it's usefulness). I wonder if the aversion of light pipes to the door is all about keeping the Howard's battlers happy they bought Telsra shares and the dividends that flow because of LNP govt policy to sink billions of money into a dreadnought instead of missile cruisers.


For years Ralph Nader was vilified for using California to clean up car pollution for the rest of the world, I think it was Liberal premier Richard Court who mandated the cessation of leaded fuel in WA, two people most probably politically opposed, but not stupid to the need for progress in the face of apathy, antipathy and lethargy of intelligence.

 

[Tisme]

Its been said about computers that programs expand automatically to consume all available memory space, ie the more you can do with a given system, the more people try to do.

I scanned my PC yesterday. There were millions of files on it. What do they all do ? How many are actually needed ?

Seems to me that we actually use a lot less of our computer than we think, and the rest of the stuff on it is just unnecessary and used to justify the high price of computer software. So to with the NBN. As smurf said, people will buy the fastest they can get, so they can say that they have got it, not because they need the capability.

The idea of a national fibre connected NBN seemed attractive at first. Certainly, everyone should have the ability to connect to the internet, but we should consider if we are being sold a Rolls Royce when a Commodore may suit us better.

The idea that the NBN is Rolls Royce is a nonsense insofar as it is already being outpaced by other installs in other countries. While we determine our future with obsequious devotion to a political party, the rest of the world, who haven't discovered Australia on the map yet and do not know the pleasure our elected leaders, will continue to evolve and so will the need for bandwidth and computer power.

I myself was an early participant in the technology game, using the same processors and memory that put men of the moon. The programming was done using assembly (or worse) and because of the small memory we had to be very clever with what instructions we used, what we pushed on to stacks and what we discarded. We used rudimentary networks that had likewise rudimentary error checking, we polled at agonisingly slow speeds and anyone who saw a factory, building, telemetry system running marvelled at the idea computers were controlling things. Those same e.g. 56kbyte Z80 based systems have long gone, replaced with enormous amounts of computing power by comparison, they are invariably web based, factory/building owners can program themselves and that is because of evolution of technology.

We have apps that are so easy to write now we have the computing power and less of a need to be frugal with the memory. There are programming standards that require licencing from developer kits, there are open protocol conventions, etc that eventually build into a synergy that spawns the next evolution. We are on the cusp of the next big thing and the internet is going to be central to that theme...lets hope we can handle the leap with a multiplexed system of Rims that fool the end user into thinking the speed is something it isn't

 

[SirRumpole]

The idea that the NBN is Rolls Royce is a nonsense insofar as it is already being outpaced by other installs in other countries.

Doesn't that just bring up the question of whether our NBN will be outdated before it's installed ?

I doubt I will ever get fibre as I live on a dirt road and the vastness of the country means that it will be a long time before fibre coverage exists outside the major cities.

 

[So_Cynical]

The idea of a national fibre connected NBN seemed attractive at first. Certainly, everyone should have the ability to connect to the internet, but we should consider if we are being sold a Rolls Royce when a Commodore may suit us better.

For a decade Telstra told us we only needed a push bike...they were wrong.

The history of computer and internet development is littered with instances of people getting it wrong, these people were often very smart and often made significant contributions to development without knowing the significance at the time.

 

[Tisme]

Doesn't that just bring up the question of whether our NBN will be outdated before it's installed ?

I doubt I will ever get fibre as I live on a dirt road and the vastness of the country means that it will be a long time before fibre coverage exists outside the major cities.

I remember back in 1985 I was involved in fibre rollout to a multifunction polis. That fibre is still in use and has a long life ahead. My sister had fibre run to her greenfield house in WA in the nineties and Telstra still doesn't have the infrastructure pipes in place that it promised way back then. I was net savvy way back when it was freed up from the universities to domestic consumption. None of that was Rolls Royce, but

The NBN as it is now designed is already redundant old technology. The NBN MkI would have had the necessary hardware in place to allow privateers black fibre speed already available in other countries in excess of gigabyte speed.... not now.

The knock down effect of the junior system we are getting will be the loss of foreseeable ubiquitous net telephony, ubiquitous net media streaming, ubiquitous educational tools, ubiquitous domestic automation, etc. The privileged few will enjoy the ability to adopt the new technologies already being rolled out worldwide that are web based.

For you Rumpole it may mean the top wire of the paddock fences for some time to come, but the idea was to put the urban dwellers on fibre to allow enough wireless bandwidth to give rural districts decent services.... that ain't gonna happen now.

 

[Tisme]

Something some of you may not know is that when Telstra rollout fibre in a suburb, you have 18 months to change to NBN before your ADSL is disconnected.

 

[sydboy007]

So one of Turnbulls biggest gripes of the Labor NBN was the lack of infrastructure competition.

TPG decide to step in after the last election and use it's fibre network to offer FTTB to apartments in major urban centres.

You'd think Turnbull would have lauded this since he seemed to think internet access is the only utility that should have competing pipes into your home.

But no, he did an eleventh hour conversion and changed the rules to force any company offering high speed internet services on their own infrastructure will have to structurally separate and provide wholesale access to their competitors.

So mid December he's given a Jan 1 2015 deadline for the new rules to come into effect from July 1 for any company currently offering such services to be compliant with the new license conditions.

So TPG has withdrawn their FTTB services from public offer till they meet the short deadline, or they may decide that creating a totally separate wholesale entity, complete with independent board, would make their FTTB service uncompetitive.

It seems so much of what the Govt said in opposition was the opposite of what they planned to do once they go into office.

 

[Tisme]

So one of Turnbulls biggest gripes of the Labor NBN was the lack of infrastructure competition.

TPG decide to step in after the last election and use it's fibre network to offer FTTB to apartments in major urban centres.

You'd think Turnbull would have lauded this since he seemed to think internet access is the only utility that should have competing pipes into your home.

But no, he did an eleventh hour conversion and changed the rules to force any company offering high speed internet services on their own infrastructure will have to structurally separate and provide wholesale access to their competitors.

So mid December he's given a Jan 1 2015 deadline for the new rules to come into effect from July 1 for any company currently offering such services to be compliant with the new license conditions.

So TPG has withdrawn their FTTB services from public offer till they meet the short deadline, or they may decide that creating a totally separate wholesale entity, complete with independent board, would make their FTTB service uncompetitive.

It seems so much of what the Govt said in opposition was the opposite of what they planned to do once they go into office.

Telstra monopoly again!! What is it with that company that it wields so much power within the LNP? We might as well appoint a Postmaster General and forget about competition


http://www.tpg.com.au/fttb

 

[SirRumpole]

Australia's Broadband scheme slips to 44th in world

Internet speeds: Australia ranks 44th, study cites direction of NBN as part of problem


A US study has delivered an unwelcome finding about Australian internet speeds, finding that they are well behind the international pack.

One engineering expert said the nation would continue to tumble down in world rankings if the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) continues in its current form.

The State of the Internet Report from cloud service provider Akamai ranks Australia 44th for average connection speed.

The US-based company produces the quarterly report looking at connection speeds and broadband adoption around the world.

Dr Mark Gregory, a network engineering expert from RMIT University, said the Akamai report was a reputable review.

"In the latest report, Australia has dropped a couple of places down to the 44th position, which is a pretty big drop really over such a short period of time," he said.


Dr Gregory said Australia's relative decline was because many other countries were moving forward apace with new and upgraded networks.

"The drop is happening because a lot of other countries over this period are moving towards fiber-based access networks, or they've already completed rollouts of what we would call the multi-technology mixing/mixed networks," he said.

"Whatever way you look at it, what it means is that the average speeds that Australians are enjoying are slowly becoming less than most of our competitors around the world."
Copper-based network slowing Australia down: expert

Dr Gregory said the Federal Government's decision to switch from fibre-to-the-home to a mixed fibre/copper network was part of the reason for the decline.

"One of the reasons is that we're falling down the list [is] that we're moving towards utilising a copper-based access network," he said.

"Whereas previously, under the Labor government, we were moving towards an all cyber-based network, which is what most of our competitors are now doing.
Average connection speed by country

1. South Korea

2. Hong Kong

3. Japan

4. Switzerland

5. Sweden

6. Netherlands

7. Ireland

8. Latvia

9. Czech Republic

10. Singapore

44. Australia

Source: Akamai's State of the Internet Report

"And we're also seeing this drop because, as we keep changing direction with the NBN, we're putting in large delays before the rollout is actually occurring."

New Zealand is one of the nations now ranked ahead of Australia, with faster average internet speeds.

Dr Gregory said that was largely because it has stuck with a fibre-to-the-home network.

"The key difference between New Zealand and Australia is that New Zealand made the decision to do fibre-to-the-premise, they've stuck with that decision," he said.

Even though Australia is much larger geographically, Dr Gregory said fibre-to-the-home should be financially viable for a network to cover the vast bulk of the population.

"Fibre-to-the-premise is viable in Australia, mainly because most Australians are clustered around the coast," he said.

"If you look at the density of Australians, then really we don't differ very much from most other countries in the world, we're just a large country, but with the technologies that we've got today to actually roll out fibre systems, the cost is not that different from most other countries in the world."
Quality of streamed video 'much lower' than overseas

Dr Gregory said many households will notice the deficiencies in Australia's internet when they try to watch television over the internet, such as through the Netflix service coming to Australia this year, or its local rivals.

"Even though the suppliers say they are giving us high definition of 4K steaming, to actually be able to stream over Australia's connection and our connections will be a lot slower than the rest of the world," he said.

"What they will do is that they will increase the compression ratio on the video.

"Even though they are saying that we are getting high definition, or 4K TV, the actual compression will be far more in other countries and therefore the quality of the video that we are viewing at home will be much lower."

Dr Gregory added that another development may push Australia even further down the rankings for internet speed.

"The most important change is occurring in the United States where the FCC chairman - and that's their body that looks after telecommunications - has decided to redefine broadband to 25 megabits per second download speed," he said.

"So what that means is that, in Australia, the Government has been saying that they're going to provide every Australian with high-speed broadband.

"In the future they'll be able to say that they're providing Australians the bare minimum broadband under the new FCC determination on what broadband will be called.

"For many other countries around the world of course, they're moving towards gigabit broadband now and that is super-fast broadband under the new definitions."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-12/australian-internet-speeds-rank-44th-in-the-world/6012570

 

[Tisme]

Australia's Broadband scheme slips to 44th in world

If you want to correspond faster there's a perfectly good Post Office you can use.

No good complaining Rumpole, we are getting what you voted for.... a politician.

Third quarter last year and 1st place Hong Kong was 84.6Mpbs average peak connection speed and 10th place Luxembourg was 54.4Mbps

Now 4k is rolling out we shall see if Malcolm's prediction of copper and wireless suitability for the future will provided the 15Mbps metric req'd.....given that ADSL2+ general consumer quality is way lower than that and ADSL2+ business quality is just bouncing around that figure.

 

[SirRumpole]

If you want to correspond faster there's a perfectly good Post Office you can use.

No good complaining Rumpole, we are getting what you voted for.... a politician.

Third quarter last year and 1st place Hong Kong was 84.6Mpbs average peak connection speed and 10th place Luxembourg was 54.4Mbps

Now 4k is rolling out we shall see if Malcolm's prediction of copper and wireless suitability for the future will provided the 15Mbps metric req'd.....given that ADSL2+ general consumer quality is way lower than that and ADSL2+ business quality is just bouncing around that figure.

Sorry, Im a bit of a dummy when it comes to speeds. 4k ? Do you mean 4G ?

 

[Tisme]

Sorry, Im a bit of a dummy when it comes to speeds. 4k ? Do you mean 4G ?

That's the new video resolution that is taking over hi def. Of course I'm sure there are those here who will parade black and white letterbox format as being perfectly adequate.

 

[SirRumpole]

That's the new video resolution that is taking over hi def. Of course I'm sure there are those here who will parade black and white letterbox format as being perfectly adequate.

You're not talking about me I hope ?