NBN Rollout Scrapped

drsmith said:

You seem to want to apply far higher standards to the Coalition in government than Labor managed while they were in office. In one sense I can understand that. Labor in government did set the bar very low.

Will Labor from opposition be as critical of a Coalition government as the Coalition was when Labor was in government ?

They'll have to stop talking about themselves first.

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Seems like labor will have enough seats left to make some noise, Dont forget the senate will give Tony a hard time.

drsmith said:

You seem to want to apply far higher standards to the Coalition in government than Labor managed while they were in office. In one sense I can understand that. Labor in government did set the bar very low.

Will Labor from opposition be as critical of a Coalition government as the Coalition was when Labor was in government ?

They'll have to stop talking about themselves first.

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I say just applying the same standards the Coalition kept calling for.

The Abbott govt has set the policy benchmarks themselves. I don't seem to remember any caveats in their election pitch - Faster and Cheaper. Anything less is a policy failure.

sydboy007 said:

I say just applying the same standards the Coalition kept calling for.

The Abbott govt has set the policy benchmarks themselves. I don't seem to remember any caveats in their election pitch - Faster and Cheaper. Anything less is a policy failure.

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Ultimately, it's a question of whether they achieve their policy benchmarks better than Labor did with theirs.

That's shouldn't be difficult, but I hoping they do much better than Labor.

sydboy007 said:

I say just applying the same standards the Coalition kept calling for.

The Abbott govt has set the policy benchmarks themselves. I don't seem to remember any caveats in their election pitch - Faster and Cheaper. Anything less is a policy failure.

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Sydboy, you have said "I just plan to keep the Coalition to the promises they were elected on." I am intrigued as to how you can make a promise to do this singlehandledly. After all, the Coalition with more resources than you, failed to keep the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd government honest for six years.

You say you have a plan. What is it?

Just anecdotally, a crew of Fibre cable layers (not NBN) have started work in the large inner Sydney industrial/office complex where i work..laying fibre to all the units and offices in the complex, 6 private contractors laying fibre to businesses (that according to Medico and a few other deniers) that don't need fibre.

Private money getting invested, private sector work being created as a direct result of something Labor inspired and that we don't need unless faster pr0n is a business requirement.

drsmith said:

You seem to want to apply far higher standards to the Coalition in government than Labor managed while they were in office.

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To pick a random analogy, if XYZ supermarkets says their food is locally grown and always fresh then that's exactly what I would expect if I shop there. That competitors are selling poor quality frozen goods from overseas is irrelevant - if XYZ is promising local and fresh then that's what consumers will expect them to be selling.

Likewise with politics. Regardless of what Labor may or may not have done, the Coalition has a key policy of doing something specific with the NBN. It is therefore reasonable to expect them to deliver on that promise - whether or not Labor / Greens / PUP would have done any better is irrelevant in that context. The Coalition did not promise to simply do better than Labor, they promised something far more specific than that.

Smurf1976 said:

To pick a random analogy, if XYZ supermarkets says their food is locally grown and always fresh then that's exactly what I would expect if I shop there. That competitors are selling poor quality frozen goods from overseas is irrelevant - if XYZ is promising local and fresh then that's what consumers will expect them to be selling.

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Where though would you shop if XYZ doesn't provide exactly what you expect but is still better than the competitors ?

Smurf1976 said:

It is therefore reasonable to expect them to deliver on that promise - whether or not Labor / Greens / PUP would have done any better is irrelevant in that context. The Coalition did not promise to simply do better than Labor, they promised something far more specific than that.

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It is only natural that you and Sydboy have expectations that on NBN rollout, Turnbull will outperform the Conroy version in cost, quality and delivery. That's why we elected them.

But I think you are both aiming a little too high in expecting perfection. After all I doubt if either of you achieve this in your own lines of work, which apparently allow you time to pursue your political agendas.

However I will follow with interest your campaign to keep them on the ball. But I think it will have to be more than carping and nit picking, or random analogies.

Calliope said:

It is only natural that you and Sydboy have expectations that on NBN rollout, Turnbull will outperform the Conroy version in cost, quality and delivery. That's why we elected them.

But I think you are both aiming a little too high in expecting perfection. After all I doubt if either of you achieve this in your own lines of work, which apparently allow you time to pursue your political agendas.

However I will follow with interest your campaign to keep them on the ball. But I think it will have to be more than carping and nit picking, or random analogies.

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No carping

Just performance benchmarking against what they said they will do.

NBN was one of the secondary issues that garnered votes tot he Coalition. All the fear mongering they did with Labors NBN they at least need to deliver the minimum 25Mbs by late 2016 and NBN plans under the coalition should not cost more than current plans. Pretty simple KPIs. Tony and MT both said they can do it, and never once did they highlight any issues they thought they might face that could impede them meeting their targets.

As for my expectations, actually I dont believe MT can acheive the NBN rollout on schedule, or that much cheaper (unless Telstra really does rollover and give him the copper for free), and definitely not quality (not even MT argues copper is better than fibre), but we'll know in 18-24 months who's correct. If MT is right that it will take a year till they start the FTTN rollout, that means ~40000 nodes to be rolloed out in 27 months, which will be a very difficult target to meet.

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drsmith said:

Where though would you shop if XYZ doesn't provide exactly what you expect but is still better than the competitors ?

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Should xyz be allowed to falsely advertise with no consequences? Abbott did say the election was about integrity, so shouldn't he have to deliver what he's promised?

On integrity, I'll dare to forecast the Coalition in this term of government will emerge with more than Labor did from the last.

drsmith said:

Where though would you shop if XYZ doesn't provide exactly what you expect but is still better than the competitors ?

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Quite possibly I would, but I'd have a legal right to demand a refund if I found out that the goods I had already purchased were misleadingly stated as being different to what they actually are.

So using that logic, if the Coalition isn't going to deliver on its' promises then we need to re-run the election, with the actual policy being clearly stated. People will then be making a choice based on the facts.

Smurf1976 said:

Quite possibly I would, but I'd have a legal right to demand a refund if I found out that the goods I had already purchased were misleadingly stated as being different to what they actually are.

So using that logic, if the Coalition isn't going to deliver on its' promises then we need to re-run the election, with the actual policy being clearly stated. People will then be making a choice based on the facts.

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It's time we forced our Dear Political leaders to keep their promises.

Labor was voted out in part for lots of gunna talk and not enough delivery.

The coalition has said they'll deliver a minimum of 25Mbs to all Australian households by late 2016 with no increase in broadband costs. It was one of their major policies, and some would argue they have a mandate to do it, though with most polls showing pretty strong support for the fibre NBN I'm not sure they do have a mandate to push on with the FTTN. But if you argue they have the mandate to do an FTTN, then you should be arguing they HAVE to deliver.

Abbott has said his broadband policy is Bulletproof. How someone can have the hubris to say that on a project of such a massive scale is beyond me. There will be plenty of unknown unknows that plague the FTTN rollout, just as the current NBN has faced.

I helped with the migrations of a banks network away from the company I worked for in my previous job. The Telco that had scored the contract had told the bank they expected to have the migration done within 6 months. 18 months later and the new company was paying a few of us to remain back as they were a bit too scared to take over some of the legacy equipment. It took them nearly 2 years to fully move all the banks services over to their network. That bank network would have been 3-4% of the complexity of designing a FTTN, and Australian bank networks are some of the largest private networks in the world based on geography.

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drsmith said:

On integrity, I'll dare to forecast the Coalition in this term of government will emerge with more than Labor did from the last.

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And i say one of the best ways for the Coalition to achieve that is by delivering on their election promises.

Just reading quite an interesting post on the potential blowout for the FTTN.

In the Coalition policy document they state they will need ~50000 nodes.

Either they're incompetent, or decided to try and deceive the public as:

The most basic constructural element of the existing copper network is the “DA” or the “Distribution Area”

Trunk cabling runs from the exchange to each of these posts – (many have been replaced by cabinets, and RIMs and other similar structures) – and the copper running to your home wends it way to the post at the centre of the DA you are in.

Presuming that the same DA layouts are followed – (and NBN Co have predominantly done so up until now, because following that means you don’t have to dig any new ducts – they are already there with the copper running through it) – each node would be roughly analogous to the existing DA posts.

The NBN – (in whatever form it takes) – is meant to cover about 12,700,000 premises – with about 900,000 covered by wireless and satellite.

So, the 93% that remains – (about 11,800,000 premises) – would need to be split into chunks of approximately 300 premises on average, to save the construction of new ducting.

In rough terms, this is about 39,370 nodes. Sounds like a relatively small number, but it’s not that simple.

Malcolm wants everyone to be close enough to a node to get to 25Mbps minimum, and not everyone in the 300-premise DA is going to be close enough to the existing DA post to get that speed, presuming the node is dropped at that location.

My hunch is that each DA will certainly need 2, and maybe 3 nodes to get everyone in the 25Mbps “range” from the node they are connected to. Shall we be generous and say on average each existing DA will need 2.3 nodes.
That’s about 90,000 nodes, and in the ball park of most expert predictions.

Remember, the tender response submitted by Optus for the original NBN tender was for 75,224 nodes, with 75% coverage at 12Mbps with ADSL2.

So 90,000 has a reasonably accurate feel to it for minimum 25Mbps minimum with VDSL.

That’s stage one. The second stage of Malcolm’s plan is get everyone to 50Mbps, which means putting more nodes out there to get everyone close enough to a node to get to 50Mbps. Malcolm has already called these “mini nodes”.

So, I’m pretty confident with the answer of “beyond 90,000 nodes”.

And lets remember, the moment a DA has more than one node in it, you’re changing the wiring layout of the area, and committing to at least some re-trenching/re-ducting to get it all connected together.

FTTN might well be quicker to roll out, but you create more work, simply because there is a distance vs speed boundary with copper that you don’t have with fibre.

This is where Malcolm is going to find it a lot harder than he thinks, or at least says publicly.

Now lets see how many people will be OK with the below out front of their house - this is what an AT&T node looks like.

Smurf1976 said:

Quite possibly I would, but I'd have a legal right to demand a refund if I found out that the goods I had already purchased were misleadingly stated as being different to what they actually are.

So using that logic, if the Coalition isn't going to deliver on its' promises then we need to re-run the election, with the actual policy being clearly stated. People will then be making a choice based on the facts.

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Didn't you purchase your goods from the shop that the majority of the electorate deemed to be of lower quality than that of the opposition ?

The problem with your analogy is that the ultimate authority in this case is not consumer law, it's the ballot box and there it's a question of relativities.

sydboy007 said:

Just reading quite an interesting post on the potential blowout for the FTTN.

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Myths might be able to further the discussion on the more technical aspects of your post, but a couple of quick questions do come to mind.

sydboy007 said:

The NBN – (in whatever form it takes) – is meant to cover about 12,700,000 premises – with about 900,000 covered by wireless and satellite.

So, the 93% that remains – (about 11,800,000 premises) – would need to be split into chunks of approximately 300 premises on average, to save the construction of new ducting.

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What proportion of the fixed line component is planned to be FTTP under the Coalition's plan ?

sydboy007 said:

Remember, the tender response submitted by Optus for the original NBN tender was for 75,224 nodes, with 75% coverage at 12Mbps with ADSL2.

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How long ago was that tender ?

sydboy007 said:

Just reading quite an interesting post on the potential blowout for the FTTN.

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How about a link to this "interesting post". It always helps to know the origin, and thus the bias, of an "interesting post".

drsmith said:

We've seen those images of some of Telstra's infrastructure. Below is an NBN trench, post construction.



http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2013/08/one-b-in-minnamurra-street-kiama-with-its-nbn-story.html

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Hmm. A few comments are warranted here...

The first pic on that blog is a Telstra trench, as indicated by the Telstra pit cover (as opposed to an NBN pit cover). It may or may not be related to the NBN, but even if it is, so what? The NBN has been past 300,000-odd premises, and he's found one dodgy (and perhaps not NBN anyway) trench?

Oh dear, the sky is falling. Never before in the history of the World, and never again in the future, with a footpath be dug up to install infrastructure.

I wonder what he'll be saying when there's one of these on the footpath every few hundred metres?


Clearly the people of Kiama are furious, given the huge* number of complaints in the real media, not to mention the abysmal takeup rate down that way. Oh, wait....

The rest of it is typical of his ranting, false blog posts ever since he got the **** for defaming Julia Gillard, and hasn't quite been able to work out he deserved it yet.

I must admit that reading the comments on his posts is quite funny. It's like reading Bolt comments, but with extra loon.


I notice he's still going on about 4G wireless being an alternative network, despite the laws of physics (not to mention the practical World, including the Coalition). Even assuming wireless could cope, if the average Australian broadband connection was instead delivered over Telstra 4G wireless, it would cost about $400 per month. Like physics, it's a fact the clueless wireless advocates apparently fail to grasp.

*For the purpose of this post, "huge" = "<10"

I watched 8 NBN workers, replacing the copper with fibre, to a group of six two bedroom free standing single story units.
They took nearly two days and as they were fairly straight forward installs would be a fairly typical timetable. So one can assume it will take quite a while to do 12,000,000 dwellings, with the FTTP.

NBNMyths said:

Hmm. A few comments are warranted here...

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Welcome back Myths. I can't do much for the persistent heartburn but yes, as of last weekend the nation elected a new government and the sun is still rising every morning.

With the new government about to be sworn in, the first question will be the actual state of the current rollout. There's been a few bits and pieces in your absence including one media article about a shortfall in the June 2014 target.

As you are going through this thread, I'm sure you'll find it.

NBNMyths said:

I wonder what he'll be saying when there's one of these on the footpath every few hundred metres?
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It certainly ruins the look of that well-manicured carefully maintained "footpath".