NBN Rollout Scrapped

[sydboy007]

Where does this 70% figure come from ?

Collectively, Telstra and Optus HFC networks pass ~2.7 million premises. A further ~0.7 million premises are in the geographic area bounded by the networks, but currently not passed.

1 million active users out of 3.4M planned.

I wonder why Turnbull had the cost of rolling out the HFC network redacted? Similar to his no longer having a final rollout date for the CBN. I've NEVER seen a large scale project not have a target date and I've been involved in Australia wide Bank and Fast food chain rollouts.

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No mention of what kind of testing will need to be performed on lead-ins that may not have been used for a decade or more as plenty of properties would have got Foxtel installed only to cancel it.

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo...en/f27fdc68-c7e5-4056-b1bb-f2fbc5b9881c/0000"

CHAIR: So the strategic review appears””and I think Mr Wilms may have gone here already””appears to assume that 2.5 million premises have a coax lead-in. That is on page 89. Is that correct, or are you double counting? I think you mentioned something along these lines, Mr Wilms, so you might want to answer that question; but anyone else can if they want to. So 2.5 million premises have a coax lead-in. Is that both of them combined?

Mr Wilms : that is both of them combined””and, as you can see, if you add 1.7 and 0.9 up, there is actually some overlap in the lead-ins.

CHAIR: What is the actual number of premises that have at least one coax lead. That is that 2.5?

Mr Wilms : That is the 2.5.

CHAIR: Okay. So what are the cost assumptions providing lead-ins for the premises in a footprint where HFC ends up being the optimal solution? How many extra ones is it? Is it only 200,000, or is at 3.4? I am just trying to get an indication of””

Mr Wilms : We have budgeted for two additional types of cost: one is the 0.2 million lead-ins, which currently do not exist within the footprint””

CHAIR: Is it 0.2 within?

Mr Wilms : Yes; and then we have allocated a budget for another 0.7 million of homes which you could call holes in the HFC footprint. They could be smaller-sized holes where the extension of the HFC network is the most economical option.

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http://wiki.nbnalliance.org/Technology+Outlook+HFC

Network maintenance costs are higher than with FTTH networks. Operational costs for HFC networks have been estimated at approximately 5 times those of FTTP networks, to maintain identical operational outcomes.

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http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/blogs/gadgets-on-the-go/hfc-suburbs-nbn-no-mans-land

Today, Telstra and Optus have about 1 million HFC broadband subscribers, which reportedly represents a combined penetration rate of 36 per cent of premises. This means the new-look NBN could triple the number of users on the HFC networks in order to avoid running fibre to those areas. The government actually predicts that 3.4 million premises will end up on HFC under the new NBN plan. That's every home in the HFC footprint.

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http://www.sortius-is-a-geek.com/hybrid-fibre-farce/

Now Simon Hackett, a man I had admired for a long time, has come out swinging seeing as he’s now a part of this NBN farce, posting an article that is a wild step in the opposite direction to much of what he has stated to this point.

Simon is under the impression that 4-7Mbps on an 120Mbps service equates to “low contention-ratio” broadband. That’s closer to a 30:1 contention ratio, one of the highest hardware contention ratios I’ve seen for broadband.

Meanwhile, GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network), even with the 32 fibre splitters being fully utilised, has a contention ratio of 1.33:1 (the NBN only utilises ~19 lines from the split, so it’s a 0.79:1 contention ratio). Even FTTN doesn’t offer such ridiculous contention ratios as HFC, sitting closer to a 3:1 for 50Mbps, and 6:1 for 100Mbps, if you can get those speeds.

I’d actually like to quote Simon himself at this point:

The demand for broadband has to magically plateau on a permanent basis at 2x-3x the current demand that we see in the market.

All the CISCO lovely VNI graphs have to be wrong in the future in a way that they’ve been right in the past.

- Simon Hackett, CommsDay Sydney 2013

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[sydboy007]

Maybe that will just mean that people will spend 25% to 50% less time glued to their PC screens and mobile devices. Heavens, it might even give them some spare time to do something unusual like go for a walk and exercise their limbs. And maybe it might help reduce obesity in Australian kids by 25% to 50%.

Diet changes would probably make bigger inroads into chilhood obesity.

 

[boofhead]

Alternatively with a faster connection they will spend less time waiting of the data and can move on to other activities.

 

[trainspotter]

Alternatively with a faster connection they will spend less time waiting of the data and can move on to other activities.

So they can order their McPizzas quicker on line no doubt?

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

I should also add, that what seems to be lost a little here in the talk about the alleged efficiencies of the "technology agnostic approach", is that the alleged savings have come at the expense of capability.

It wouldn't be so bad if the CBN was "technologically agnostic" with an expectation of minimum 100Mbps speeds rising to 1000Mbps (like the real NBN), but it isn't is it? The alleged saving of $10-15bn (~30%) has come with a 50-75% reduction in capability to just 25-50Mbps.

This post epitomises the pretend triumph of scienticism over logic. The more I hear and see these numbers, the more I want to see a statement at the beginning of this delusion that is the NBN, of benefits versus risk.

The secret of this camoflage is to use latinate words that nobody can understand, and numerical values that are open to interpretation.

This is a sad sorry Magic Pie, full of ulcers, groans, farts, pools of effluent, wise fools and when it comes down to it a burst appendix.

gg

 

[drsmith]

Sorry, don't have the ref. I remember reading it some time ago (although it was given the other way around i.e. that ~30% do have working leadins.)

I refer you to Exhibit 3-2: Categories of premises within the HFC footprint on page 89 of the strategic review,

http://www2.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco/documents/NBN-Co-Strategic-Review-Report.pdf

Collectively, Telstra and Optus HFC networks pass ~2.7 million premises. A further ~0.7 million premises are in the geographic area bounded by the networks, but currently not passed.

1 million active users out of 3.4M planned.

You're obviously more familiar with the above table than Myths, but the basis of his position wasn't about active users. It was about leadins.

Remember that MT regularly tells us that "the last mile" is the reason why FTTP is so expensive. Yet ~70% of premises in the HFC footprint don't have HFC leadins either.

From the above table in the strategic review, there's a combined 3.4m total potential HFC premises of which 2.5m have a coax lead-in.

 

[drsmith]

1. Why didn't Labor use HFC.

I answered this above. When the FTTP NBN was announced, it was not practical for them to acquire an HFC network, nor was it practical to deliver 100Mbps over HFC.

Something about a 1-size fits all solution in a rapidly evolving technological environment comes to mind here.

Simon Hackett,

What about future upgrades?

Upgrade paths beyond 100 megabits for HFC are noted in the strategic review document on page 100. However, the review is also being conservative (in my view) in framing DOCSIS 3.1 as only supporting up to 250 megabit services on HFC.

I have participated in vendor briefings already in which I’ve been shown the rollout path via DOCSIS 3.1 all the way to delivering 1000 megabit data rates. These upgrade paths start to become possible once DOCSIS 3.1 equipment hits the market in the next 3-5 years.

It is also important to note that coaxial cable doesn’t have the very short distance limitations that copper does, at gigabit speeds.

These are much ‘fatter’ cables – in physical and in spectral terms. They are of a far higher quality than copper phone lines, and are capable of sustaining dramatically higher bandwidths.

http://simonhackett.com/2013/12/14/hfc-in-the-nbn/#more-1090

 

[drsmith]

Now Simon Hackett, a man I had admired for a long time, has come out swinging seeing as he’s now a part of this NBN farce, posting an article that is a wild step in the opposite direction to much of what he has stated to this point.

I see.

You now have him on the dark side.

Simon is under the impression that 4-7Mbps on an 120Mbps service equates to “low contention-ratio” broadband. That’s closer to a 30:1 contention ratio, one of the highest hardware contention ratios I’ve seen for broadband.

Meanwhile, GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network), even with the 32 fibre splitters being fully utilised, has a contention ratio of 1.33:1 (the NBN only utilises ~19 lines from the split, so it’s a 0.79:1 contention ratio). Even FTTN doesn’t offer such ridiculous contention ratios as HFC, sitting closer to a 3:1 for 50Mbps, and 6:1 for 100Mbps, if you can get those speeds.

I’d actually like to quote Simon himself at this point:

The demand for broadband has to magically plateau on a permanent basis at 2x-3x the current demand that we see in the market.

All the CISCO lovely VNI graphs have to be wrong in the future in a way that they’ve been right in the past.

- Simon Hackett, CommsDay Sydney 2013

If you're a better technical expert than Simon Hackett, perhaps it might have been worthwhile making submissions to Malcolm Turnbull.

You might have got the tap on the shoulder from Malcolm instead of Simon and got away of those graveyard shifts.

What about contention ratios?

The last part of the coaxial cable network is shared between you and your immediate neighbours.

Despite claims to the contrary (including in Adam Turner’s article linked above), this use of shared segments in the last part of the network is also the case in the existing NBN fibre (FTTP) design.

The FTTP network uses Passive Optical Network (PON) shared segments to deliver access in each local group of premises.

The trick (in both technologies) is to keep the contention ratio acceptable in each of these shared segments. There is a commitment in the NBN HFC context to do that, just as in the FTTP rollout, so that the result is great for all users.

So this really isn’t going to be like present-day HFC internet services, which deliver speeds of up to 100/2 and which do tend to slow down in busy periods.

Instead, the rollout proposed can create an outcome that will be very similar to the FTTP network in terms of consumer outcomes, for speed, performance, and reliability.

http://simonhackett.com/2013/12/14/hfc-in-the-nbn/#more-1090

 

[sydboy007]

From the above table in the strategic review, there's a combined 3.4m total potential HFC premises of which 2.5m have a coax lead-in.

At least 1.1M lead ins to be done, along with how much remediation work on ones that haven't been used for quite some time?

Probably as big, if not bigger cost will be the installation of thousands of optical nodes to the HFC network to get the loop size down to a point where peak usage times won't get to the current crawling speeds most cable users complain of.

I would expect the current topology of the HFC networks will have to go through major changes to achieve the above, which will add considerably to the cost.

Considering that HFC or GPON lead in costs the same, HFC costs around 5 times as much in OPEX to FTTN, I question why those premises without a HFC lead-in aren't just upgraded to FTTN. They could be connected back to the optical nodes for the HFC network. May add to the CAPEX slightly, but then saves the added cost when the eventual move to fibre occurs. To me that is a far better outcome than forcing HFC onto everyone in those areas.

As for DOCSIS 3.1 providing above 250Mbs speeds, at what contention ratio and how far from the node and is the CBN being built to provide those speeds or will the number of optical nodes be minimised so that 100Mbs is all that can be provided? All well and good to say a new standard that hasn't been used out in the real work yet CAN provide those speeds, but is the network that Turnbull has asked CBNCo actually being built to provide it?

Considering how open Turnbull is with his redacted information, my bet is that whatever HFC upgrades occur will be done at minimal CAPEX and provide download somewhere in the 50-90Mbs range and no idea what the upload speeds will be, but seems irrelevant within the CBN. It'll be past the next election beofre we know, and even then maybe not. It's all state secrets from the Turbull Politburo.

 

[sydboy007]

This post epitomises the pretend triumph of scienticism over logic. The more I hear and see these numbers, the more I want to see a statement at the beginning of this delusion that is the NBN, of benefits versus risk.

The secret of this camoflage is to use latinate words that nobody can understand, and numerical values that are open to interpretation.

This is a sad sorry Magic Pie, full of ulcers, groans, farts, pools of effluent, wise fools and when it comes down to it a burst appendix.

gg

You've summed up the Turnbull CBN quite nicely GG

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

You've summed up the Turnbull CBN quite nicely GG

syd,

You have totally missed my point.

The NBN, from the beginning was doomed.

JC himself could have taken it over with mummery and water, and still had a stuff up.

Because the project did not have a proper Risk Analysis done.

It is 101 of any project.

It was not done, because the ALP do not do it.

gg

 

[drsmith]

From the above table in the strategic review, there's a combined 3.4m total potential HFC premises of which 2.5m have a coax lead-in.

At least 1.1M lead ins to be done, ........

3.4 - 2.5 = 0.9.

0.9/3.4 = 0.265 or 26.5%.

 

[sydboy007]

3.4 - 2.5 = 0.9.

0.9/3.4 = 0.265 or 26.5%.

I'm suspecting your point is trying to make out I was supporting myths claim that it was 70% for lead-ins to be installed in an HFC upgrade, when all I did was provide the best available information.

 

[drsmith]

I'm suspecting your point is trying to make out I was supporting myths claim that it was 70% for lead-ins to be installed in an HFC upgrade, when all I did was provide the best available information.

I'll leave any differences you and Myths now have between yourselves, but my response above was about your math.

My response regarding your contribution to Myth's 70% claim was as follows,

You're obviously more familiar with the above table than Myths, but the basis of his position wasn't about active users. It was about leadins.

I should also add that I calculated the actual percentage from the numbers in the Strategic Review in the name of debunking the FUD on the NBN.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

3.4 - 2.5 = 0.9.

0.9/3.4 = 0.265 or 26.5%.

I'm suspecting your point is trying to make out I was supporting myths claim that it was 70% for lead-ins to be installed in an HFC upgrade, when all I did was provide the best available information.

I'll leave any differences you and Myths now have between yourselves, but my response above was about your math.

My response regarding your contribution to Myth's 70% claim was as follows,




I should also add that I calculated the actual percentage from the numbers in the Strategic Review in the name of debunking the FUD on the NBN.

May I please ask you muppets to address the Governance issues over the NBN, as I have politely posted over some years, and stop talking about concepts and numbers that make no sense to rational people.

Please.

gg

 

[drsmith]

My apologies GG.

Upon reflection, math should only be discussed during school hours.

 

[So_Cynical]

No mention of what kind of testing will need to be performed on lead-ins that may not have been used for a decade or more as plenty of properties would have got Foxtel installed only to cancel it.

Foxtel/Telstra stopped new cable installs in Sydney 15 years ago and hasn't done any new cable connections for the same amount of time...the Telstra/Foxtel cable network is Sydney is over 20 years old.

 

[NBNMyths]

I'll leave any differences you and Myths now have between yourselves, but my response above was about your maths.

I should also add that I calculated the actual percentage from the numbers in the Strategic Review in the name of debunking the FUD on the NBN.

The 70% figure I gave was not from the strategic review, and I never claimed as much. It was from something I read well before the SR was done, but can't remember where sorry. Based in the figures given in the SR which sydboy has provided, I assume that it related only to the Optus HFC network, since it ties with the SR figures for the Optus network.

Nevertheless, as Sydboy has stated there is no indication of how many of the once-done leadins actually still work.

And again, while it's probable that NBN can acquire the Optus HFC at a reasonable price (since they are decommissioning it anyway) there's no certainty that NBN will be able to get the Telstra HFC network at all, since Telstra still plan to use and maintain it for Foxtel. There's no incentive whatsoever for Telstra to give it up (as opposed to earning from it), unless there are a lot of dollars on the table.

If I may lob another spanner….(purely guesswork)…. If I were running Foxtel, then I'd have ensured when contracting Telstra to operate the HFC cable for me, that I had exclusive rights to provide TV content over that network. Any such agreement would have to be changed in the event of the HFC moving to NBN, because all of the ISPs would then be using it to provide IPTV services over that cable, in competition to Foxtel. I can't imagine Foxtel would be too receptive to that idea.

So if they can only get the Optus HFC network, they're back to needing ~70% of leadins….

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

My apologies GG.

Upon reflection, math should only be discussed during school hours.

My apologies to all.

Excuse my remarks above. I just get so frustrated with this lemon of a scheme.

Let the maths continue.

gg

 

[NBNMyths]

May I please ask you muppets to address the Governance issues over the NBN, as I have politely posted over some years, and stop talking about concepts and numbers that make no sense to rational people.

Please.

gg

The NBN is all about numbers. That's the whole point. The 'numbers' surrounding Australia's broadband are amongst the lowest in the OECD. If the numbers make no sense to you, then I'd suggest you either learn about them or move on.

Saying that the numbers don't matter is akin to saying you'd be happy with 12v electricity to your house, because so long as it's electricity then discussing the actual numbers is irrational nonsense.


I didn't know rational was a synonym for technologically illiterate.