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Careful GG. People who like to theorise rather than do will be all over that comment. However, as people with experience know, actions/results speak louder than words.
MW
It was rolled ot too quickly without a cost benefit analysis taking in to account risks and benefits.
gg
NBN Co is unlikely to switch construction to a fibre-to-the-node model until late 2014 due to the complexity of changing the network architecture, the company’s executive chairman told a Senate estimates committee.
Getting every premises connected to speeds of at least 25 megabits per second [Mbps] by the end of 2016, as promised by the Coalition during the last election, was a "very, very tight timetable", Ziggy Switkowski said on Tuesday night. Meanwhile, NBN Co would keep installing fibre all the way into households throughout 2014.
"One key advantage of fibre to the node is that the network can be built and completed more quickly and less intrusively and less expensively than an all fibre network," Dr Switkowski said.
"So yes, fibre-to-the-node should see us provide [broadband] access to Australians at the 25 Mbps level faster than virtually any other fixed network option. The transition ... to a fibre-to-the-node architecture will take most of next calendar year to execute. So we will be fibre-to-the-premises from now well into next year, and then you could say the starting date for fibre-to-the-node at scale will be quite late next year. So to have until to the end of 2016 is a very, very tight timetable."
Mr Switkowski added that changes to NBN Co's construction maps since the change of government did not mean households previously slated for a fibre to the home connection would no longer receive one. The government-owned company recently changed its maps by removing premises where construction was due to start within one or three years, and now only shows premises where services were available or construction was physically underway
"That is just a way of presenting data. Nothing changed. The only thing that changed was the way in which we were reporting the roll out," Dr Switkowski said.
Changing the maps also did not "create expectations that NBN Co struggled to meet".
"Rather than making promises to pass as many houses as possible with an operational model that has clearly struggled, my priority is to fix the model itself," Dr Switkowski said.
Under questioning from Labor Senator Kate Lundy, Dr Switkowski defended recent arrival of several former Telstra executives at NBN Co, including himself, saying Telstra was one of the few organisations in Australia that "produce the range of skills that building this network requires".
There had been too few ex-Telstra executives working under former NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley, Dr Switkowski said later in the hearing, and too few people with knowledge of Australia’s construction industry.
Senator Lundy and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam also questioned NBN Co about the of state Telstra’s copper network and whether this infrastructure was fit for use in a fibre-to-the-node network. The node-based network uses up to several hundred metres of existing copper wires running from each premises up to the node, rather than replacing the entire copper wire with fibre optic cable.
Dr Switkowski said there were already millions of people using Telstra’s copper network for broadband and the fault rate on its network this year was "maybe higher than it was when I was at Telstra, but not materially". He added that many faults in 2013 were caused by wetter than usual weather and if individual copper wires were unusable they would be replaced with fibre.
Dr Switkowski refused to say what potential copper network remediation costs would be because this was "commercially sensitive" information that would be part of NBN Co’s renegotiations of its deal with Telstra.
NBN Co's new chief operating officer Greg Adcock confirmed NBN Co would test parts of Telstra's copper underground network before it made any definite moves to a fibre to the node network.
"The current thinking is that there would be testing done. Whether it informs the strategic review or whether the strategic review makes some assumptions to be then tested, I think that is the way we would frame it at this point," Mr Adcock said.
Meanwhile, Dr Switkowski warned the committee about over-estimating Australians' need for faster download and upload speeds.
"I would be very careful about making decisions today that have associated with them enormous costs and enormous execution challenges because we think that in ten years time there are going to be particular applications that will require just that form of delivery," he said.
A total of 4217 additional lots/premises were passed/covered by the network during the week, of which 2566 were in Brownfield and 1152 were in Greenfield areas. Fixed wireless coverage increased by 499 premises. There was an increase of 4506 in the number of serviceable premises in Brownfield areas. During the week an additional 2,498 premises had services activated on the network, including 1942 on fixed line services and 556 using satellite and fixed wireless technologies.
A total of 6760 additional lots/premises were passed/covered by the network during the week, of which 5198 were in Brownfield and 865 were in Greenfield areas. Fixed wireless coverage increased by 697 premises. During the week an additional 2988 premises had services activated on the network, including 2111 on fixed line services and 877 using satellite and fixed wireless technologies.
Leaked NBN Co document downgrades revenue projections by up to 30pc
Leaked internal analysis from the NBN Co downgrades revenue projections for the Government's broadband policy by up to 30 per cent by 2021, Fairfax newspapers report.
The draft document identifies problems with the rollout of the Coalition's network to provide fibre to the street corner.
The document says the change from Labor's fibre-to-the-home plan will affect the rollout timetable and the promised speeds for users.
It says it is unlikely NBN Co will meet the 2016 deadline, promised before the election for voters to have minimum download speeds of 25 megabits per second.
The Coalition’s national broadband network model will prove inadequate for many businesses, is poorly planned and is unlikely to be completed on time, according to NBN Co’s internal analysis for the incoming Abbott government.
Obtained by Fairfax Media, the analysis casts doubts over the timing and cost-effectiveness of the government’s proposed fibre-to-the-node model, highlighting numerous legislative, construction and technical challenges likely to blow out the Coalition’s 2016 and 2019 delivery deadlines.
The draft document also slashes revenue projections important for the project’s commercial viability by up to 30 per cent by 2021.
That 30% revenue difference to 2021 is in accordance with the Coalition's own projections associated with the release of its FTTN plan earlier this year when compared to NBN Co's 2012 corporate plan.Gee, who could have seen this coming? I guess now we know why Turnbull didn't want the Blue Book released....
More details:
http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/govern...-meet-coalitions-deadline-20131128-hv3tp.html
That 30% revenue difference to 2021 is in accordance with the Coalition's own projections associated with the release of its FTTN plan earlier this year when compared to NBN Co's 2012 corporate plan.
The above Blue Book analysis was also prepared under Mike Quigley's stewardship. We all know how accurate his corporate plans for NBN Co itself have been.
Of interest, I recently had the chance to have a chat with a Telstra technician repairing a broken copper line across the road. His view on the copper network is that some of it is good that some of it isn't. That I suppose we know. Where it became more interesting was where he talked about some sort of glue that had been used in some pits several years ago to repair leaks. What was interesting was that he said that if the glue itself continuously came into contact with water, it would turn to acid and that was, well, not good. He also commented that in relation to asbestos remediation of Telstra's pits, there are now 5 people on site instead of two previously and that as a result, there's a significant additional cost, some of which at least is at NBN Co's expense.
As part of his repair, he also inspected a Telstra pit on the street. It's in a location where regular inundation occurs after heavy rain and upon lifting the top, it was clear that the pit itself was not watertight and judging by the dirt stain inside, water had in the past entered the pit. The wires though were further sealed inside the pit itself and upon inspection of that, the seal appeared effective (surfaces inside were clean and neat). He said the contents therein were in good condition. What struck me was how quickly the pit could be inspected for water damage at the very least.
My conclusion from the above discussion is that it's not all beer and skittles with the state of the copper network, but then it's not all gloom and doom either.
The Telstra contractor was quiet adamant that where the remediation work was in relation to the NBN, the NBN will bare some of the additional cost. Is this particular element of the contract publically available? It would be interesting to see.There shouldn't be any additional cost to NBN Co for the extra people, because as part of the Telstra deal, it is Telstra (and Telstra alone) responsible for the remediation of the pits to make them suitable for NBN use.
That 30% revenue difference to 2021 is in accordance with the Coalition's own projections associated with the release of its FTTN plan earlier this year when compared to NBN Co's 2012 corporate plan.
The above Blue Book analysis was also prepared under Mike Quigley's stewardship. We all know how accurate his corporate plans for NBN Co itself have been.
Of interest, I recently had the chance to have a chat with a Telstra technician repairing a broken copper line across the road. His view on the copper network is that some of it is good that some of it isn't. That I suppose we know. Where it became more interesting was where he talked about some sort of glue that had been used in some pits several years ago to repair leaks. What was interesting was that he said that if the glue itself continuously came into contact with water, it would turn to acid and that was, well, not good. He also commented that in relation to asbestos remediation of Telstra's pits, there are now 5 people on site instead of two previously and that as a result, there's a significant additional cost, some of which at least is at NBN Co's expense.
As part of his repair, he also inspected a Telstra pit on the street. It's in a location where regular inundation occurs after heavy rain and upon lifting the top, it was clear that the pit itself was not watertight and judging by the dirt stain inside, water had in the past entered the pit. The wires though were further sealed inside the pit itself and upon inspection of that, the seal appeared effective (surfaces inside were clean and neat). He said the contents therein were in good condition. What struck me was how quickly the pit could be inspected for water damage at the very least.
My conclusion from the above discussion is that it's not all beer and skittles with the state of the copper network, but then it's not all gloom and doom either.
This is what happens when "manager" managers get involved in engineering.TTelstra management basically threatened techs with job losses if they didn't use the sealant, even though they had been advised many times that it was causing major issues.
So much of it was used over so much of the copper that it would be hard to not find damage due to it in most suburbs Australia wide.
Sources close to a strategic review being prepared for Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull by NBN Co say it will push for wider use of the *copper network, a change that would provide slower internet access to millions of Australians than foreseen in the Coalition’s original plan. By limiting more fibre to “nodes”, or cabinets on street curbs, instead of direct to buildings, NBN could deliver big financial savings for the project, which is now budgeted at around $20 billion.
“They want to bring the fibre down, not up,” a source said. “They’re aware that doing 2.8 million homes directly with fibre is still a huge project.”
In light of the Telstra tech suggesting a node at the pillar in my local area, How many pillars are there in Telstra's network Australia wide ?
http://www.afr.com/p/technology/nbn_review_expected_to_push_for_ULqXPzh5MZDnxHaPzxiCcN
Personally, I'd do a proper job (fibre network) and build it to the majority of the population over roughly 7 years with the rest ("difficult" sites) being picked up over the following 3 years. Some pain in the short term, it takes a bit longer, but we end up with a world class network as opposed to one that will be second rate and the cost wouldn't be that much different.
A FIBRE-ONLY NBN would face greater data congestion during peak load periods than a copper, fibre-to-the-node network promoted by the Coalition, a key proponent of DSL technology told The Australian yesterday.
John Cioffi, an electrical engineer, is credited with original DSL designs and the new vectored VDSL that offers fast internet over twisted-pair cabling. He is referred to in some circles as "the father of DSL".
"There's no argument anywhere in the world" against Australia embracing fibre-to-the-node, he said.
Dr Cioffi, a speaker at the NBN: Rebooted conference in Sydney, firmly advocates vectored DSL technology and fibre-to-the-node models for handling peak load needs.
Dr Cioffi is chief executive and chairman of ASSIA, which develops software management for DSL and WiFi. He predicts that the typical family of four will have around 50 devices in their home in 2022 compared with the current 10.
But fibre-to-the-premises may not cope with an influx of devices as the signal was carried on a PON (passive optical network).
He said PON fibre cables in the street carried the data traffic of a group of residents and when you tapped into that network, the data in your cable included neighbours' traffic.
"They branch off the fibre to your home and connect that way. And basically you receive all of your neighbour's signals as well as your own, and that raises security issues, because it is possible to decode if you have their passwords and so forth and it's not encrypted," Dr Cioffi said.
Your fibre installation was "supposed to pick off yours and only your signal and deliver it to you inside the home", he said.
In contrast, FTTN and high-speed vectored DSL over copper offered "individual connections".
"The good news is when you do that, you have individual connections now from the presumably higher-speed fibre driven to the cabinet, and you don't run into the data sharing problems that you do with fibre PONs today, when they have as many as 32 - sometimes in some case more than that - residences sharing the PON."
Dr Cioffi said vectored DSL technology offered 100 megabits per second reliably over copper for 600m to 1km in ideal conditions. Faster speeds of up to 1 gigabit over 200m would be possible in future with the G.Fast protocol, but it wasn't standardised yet.
Dr Cioffi said United Arab Emirates was the only country to fully connect by fibre. It cost $8000 per customer.
"There is no other country that has more than 10 per cent."
NBN Co yesterday wouldn't buy into which technology better handled peak load situations.
"Both fibre and advances in copper are capable of delivering large amounts of data to people's homes," a spokesman said.
Opinions vary on what is a "proper job".
It is my firm opinion that the only people to have benefited from the NBN Mark 1 , would it have been spotty teenage boys downloading pr0n.
The speeds are way above what we need for Commerce or Education.
It was a thought bubble from the worst ever ALP administration ever in our history.
Rudd and Co. will be haunted by the launch of the NBN, and its' demise.
It is being scrapped, and it is proper that it should be.
gg
I have issue with
Dr Cioffi said vectored DSL technology offered 100 megabits per second reliably over copper for 600m to 1km in ideal conditions. Faster speeds of up to 1 gigabit over 200m would be possible in future with the G.Fast protocol, but it wasn't standardised yet.
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