NBN Rollout Scrapped

[drsmith]

I definitely have a mistrust of what the electricity networks say when they're tryign to get more money, but if the the electricity networks aren't just about getting some free money then I wonder how that impacts the cost effectiveness of HFC.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/03/electricity_networks_push_back_against_nbn_network_rules/

So will NBN wear the costs, or will electricity customers be foreced to stump up some extra daily access charges instead to keep the NBN on budget???

60 per cent increase ??

The author of the above linked article should have done a little more homework before publishing.

Below is an extract from the June 12 consultation paper under proposed amendments,

Under Clause 3 of Schedule 3 to the Act, overhead cables in excess of 13mm in diameter cannot be specified as a low-impact facility unless a larger diameter is specified in the Regulations.

In 2011, the Regulations were amended, in effect, to allow overhead cables of up to 30mm and the LIFD was amended to allow optical fibre cabling of up to that diameter. In the move to a MTM approach, in some limited circumstances overhead cabling of up to 48mm will be required, specifically in the HFC network. The Government therefore proposes to amend the Regulations to allow this.

Specifically, the Government proposes to recommend to the Commonwealth Governor-General that Regulation 11.2 be amended to increase the diameter of ‘designated overhead line’ from 30 mm to 48mm. This change would then allow the Minister for Communications to specify overhead cabling of up to 48mm in diameter as low-impact in the LIFD. Such cabling is specified at Item 1 of Part 4A of the Schedule to the LIFD.

NBN Co and comparable carriers are expected to use the smallest cable and cable bundle diameter feasible for above ground line links in an area. NBN Co has advised that in some areas, particularly in HFC areas, it will be necessary to add a cable to an existing overhead cable or a bundle of overhead cables to improve the network. This includes piggy-backing new cables on to existing cables and cable bundles in order to transit through existing coverage areas to reach areas that were missed during previous HFC network rollouts.

In limited circumstances, such as when NBN Co adds an extra cable to an existing 42mm bundle, the diameter of the HFC cable bundle will be 48mm. Typically, HFC cable bundles will be much smaller than this. In addition, NBN Co has advised that in very limited circumstances, individual copper cables of up to 40mm in diameter will need to be used to augment the copper network for FTTN. Further guidance on the limited use of such cabling will be provided in the Explanatory Statement to the amending Determination and other documents as required.

In the past there have been community concerns about the use of overhead cabling for telecommunications. The Government appreciates these concerns but believes that there are important countervailing factors that also need to be considered. Telecommunications cabling is placed on above ground infrastructure for electricity that already exists and to which people are generally accustomed. In large part the additional cabling that is proposed by NBN Co will augment existing cabling (i.e. a cable will be added to an existing bundle); the overall amount of new cabling will be limited; and cabling in new locations (i.e. where there are overhead power cables but no overhead telecommunications cables) will be small in diameter. As a result, any impact is expected to be limited. On the other hand, the cabling will be used to provide significantly better broadband services, services for which there is strong community demand.

https://www.communications.gov.au/h...latory-changes-help-roll-out-faster-broadband

My bolds.

 

[sydboy007]

If you wish to make comparisons between the relative performances of the two communication ministers, I refer you not only to Stephen Conroy's infamous red underpants comment but also (and again) to Simon Hackett's presentation from a year ago and in particular, his comments as to the state the rollout under Labor and what led it to that state.

http://simonhackett.com/2014/09/06/rebooting-the-nbn/

http://www.smh.com.au/business/nbns...ibretothenode-technology-20150325-1m77el.html

NBN Co director Simon Hackett has slammed the federal government's use of fibre-to-the-node technology as part of the national broadband network, saying he wishes it would disappear.

The Coalition's version of the NBN is heavily reliant on the technology, which provides slower broadband speeds at lower costs compared with Labor's preferred method of connecting homes and businesses directly to fibre optic cabling.

"Fibre to the node is the least-exciting part of the current policy – no argument," he said. "If I could wave a wand, it's the bit I'd be erasing."

Speaking at the Rewind/Fast Forward event in Sydney on Wednesday, Internode founder Mr Hackett said he was a strong supporter of connecting premises directly to fibre and was on the board of NBN Co to make it "as least worse as possible".

 

[sydboy007]

http://www.businessspectator.com.au.../how-much-do-fttp-nbn-connections-really-cost

so if they can learn to do it faster and cheaper in NZ, why does the Govt say we haven't / can't do the same here?

When Chorus commenced a FTTP rollout in 2012, the cost per premises passed (CPPP) was about $NZ3,500 and this cost has decreased to an average of $NZ2,134 over the past year. The projection for financial year 2016 is in the range of $NZ1,700 to $NZ1,770.

Chorus reports that over the past year about 75 per cent of the net additions and changes to ultra-fast broadband (UFB) fibre connections have been to adopt 100 Mbps+ download speeds. A key reason for the move to 100 Mbps download plans has been the decision by Chorus to reduce the cost for wholesale 100/20 Mbps fibre connections to $NZ40 per month.

in an effort to justify the MTM broadband plan and explain away the recently announced $15 billion cost blow-out, NBN Co has released a financial report for the financial year ending June 31 2015 and a corporate plan for 2016 to 2018 that quite remarkably indicates that brownfield FTTP rollout costs are increasing.

One has to wonder why FTTP rollouts is the only part of the economy that doesn't benefit from the learning effect ie as you rollout FTTP you learn ways of doing things better and incorporate this into making it faster and cheaper

...the true Capex cost of a FTTP connection falls to an average of $3,659, which if you disregard the use of different currencies, is about $200 per premises more expensive than what Chorus reports.

A key reason why FTTP connection costs should decrease is the use of new technologies including the move from multi-port to mini-port devices that are used to connect fibre running past premises to the drop lines that go into premises. Another step that should be taken is the adoption of aerial fibre distribution, micro trenching and sheathed fibre and other approaches that have been shown to reduce the cost of distribution and drop fibre rollout in locations where existing infrastructure is old and degraded. The option of self-installation of drop lines should be explored too.

Questions must be asked of NBN Co about why there is a major discrepancy between the figures it has reported and figures reported by Chorus and why alternate construction techniques are not being adopted to further reduce FTTP rollout costs as is happening in New Zealand.

 

[drsmith]

http://www.businessspectator.com.au.../how-much-do-fttp-nbn-connections-really-cost

I didn't have to read very far to see that article's a comedy piece,

In New Zealand, the conservative government led by Prime Minister John Key has forged ahead with a fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) rollout abandoning the use of the obsolete Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) which is to be rolled out to over 50 per cent of Australian premises under the Coalition’s multi-technology mix (MTM) broadband plan.

My bolds.

 

[drsmith]

http://www.smh.com.au/business/nbns...ibretothenode-technology-20150325-1m77el.html

To be understood fully, those comments from March this year need to be seen in the broader context and not in isolation.

That broader context is the presentation he gave last year to which I've previously referred.

 

[sydboy007]

I didn't have to read very far to see that article's a comedy piece,



My bolds.

So Doc, you don't find it strange that nbn is forecasting rising or at best static costs for the FTTP portion of the network? Sure we should have moved along similar learning learning curve as in NZ and should now start to see reasonable efficiency gains in the rollout?

I suppose we should just trust the Govt that they wouldn't in any way try to fudge the figures to justify the path they have taken.

So the author engaged in a bit of FTTN hyperbole. You seemed fine with the Liberal $90B claims for FTTP prior to the election, so I wonder why you're so offended now.

 

[sydboy007]

To be understood fully, those comments from March this year need to be seen in the broader context and not in isolation.

That broader context is the presentation he gave last year to which I've previously referred.

Right. So we must view what Mr Hacket said in isolation, rather than seeing how he fully feels about the MTM based nbn, how his views have changed over time.

Depending on the cost for the HFC upgrades, and it seems like nbn have about as much of an idea on the true state of that network as they do with the copper, it will be interesting to see if the senate is able to force the Govt to handover the assumptions underpinning the latest corporate plan.

I don't usually gamble, but I'd be willing to take bets that the Govt is going to fight tooth and nail to keep that information out of the public domain. I'm starting to feel that MT and myself have very different concept on what transparency is. I think MT may have been thinking of being opaque.

 

[drsmith]

So the author engaged in a bit of FTTN hyperbole. You seemed fine with the Liberal $90B claims for FTTP prior to the election, so I wonder why you're so offended now.

FTTN being rolled out to over 50 per cent of Australian premises isn't a bit of hyperbole. It's an outright lie and the author (whom I assume is paid to write this stuff) should know better than to publish such rubbish.

I'll be kinder to you though Syd and let "Liberal $90B claims for FTTP prior to the election" through as hyperbole. As you would remember, it was the worst case of a number of scenarios.

My bolds.

 

[drsmith]

Right. So we must view what Mr Hacket said in isolation, rather than seeing how he fully feels about the MTM based nbn, how his views have changed over time.

In the 12-months or so since that presentation, have you actually listened to it because the ignorance indicated in the above statement indicates you either haven't or at the very least, your memory of the contents has faded somewhat.

 

[sydboy007]

FTTN being rolled out to over 50 per cent of Australian premises isn't a bit of hyperbole. It's an outright lie and the author (whom I assume is paid to write this stuff) should know better than to publish such rubbish.

I'll be kinder to you though Syd and let "Liberal $90B claims for FTTP prior to the election" through as hyperbole. As you would remember, it was the worst case of a number of scenarios.

My bolds.

Shame you din't callout those against FTTP to the same degree you do with this author. Do you in any way find it strange that there are not benefits from learning how to rollout FTTP in our nbn compared to the NZ version? Don't you wonder why over time we're not working out how to do it faster and cheaper?

As for the $90B cost for FTTP, it was the only number used by the Liberals. They never even bothered to put an * on it so people would know it was based on basically no learning how to do the rollout better and everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I could have accepted the Liberals giving a range of X to $90B, but that didn't suit their agenda.

In the 12-months or so since that presentation, have you actually listened to it because the ignorance indicated in the above statement indicates you either haven't or at the very least, your memory of the contents has faded somewhat.

• I’ll say this again, building it with all fiber is the right thing to do
• The issues that Simon talks about are pretty much applicable to the last 2 years as well.
• Morrow – turn around of Vodafone required billions of investment.
• Construction partners - $40M bribe to repair relationships?
• Agree SC0 was a silly metric
• Improving transparency??? Lots of talk, I don’t see it happening. Might as well tell us it’s on water matters.
• Disconnection Process Ramp-up – Do we actually have any information on how this will occur? I’ve only been able to find very vague process documents but nothing that actually examines many of the issues that are likely to occur, including how difficult it is going to be to marry up the exchange to pillar pair and pillar to house pair. The next few months in the trial 1000 node rollout will be very interesting in answering this.
• ISS – unfair to blame Labor for trying to provide it to everyone. If they had limited access then the Abbott coalition would have ran around rural areas telling everyone how bad Labor was.
• Fixed Wireless – labor got it mostly right. Govt owns the spectrum so filling in the gaps isn’t really an issue
• Telstra deal took way longer than Simon thought it would, what MT said it would.
• FTTB – Labor got it wrong forcing FTTP. Much smarter to have put the nodes in and let the body corps decide on copper or fiber. Rollout would have certainly added a couple of hundred thousand extra premises. Didn't suit their narrative though.
• Why is the nbn competing against TPG in FTTP when the Govt argues the nbn should have been built by the private sector?
• Have any of the challenges been resolved with FTTN? Still seems they are having issues with site access and organising power to nodes.
• No real analysis of how the state of the copper network is going to impact the rollout. Currently nbn admits they have no idea and will likely take a considerable amount of time to really quantify the network quality
• No discussion on what the maximum loop lengths are. I’ve yet to find any detailed info on loop lengths for the trial rollout. If customers are due to be signed up surely a transparent minded Govt would have this information released to the public.
• VDSL+ with Vectoring has trouble hitting 100Mbs after 400M. By 650M you’ll have trouble even selling a 50Mbs+ service. No real analysis of the loss of revenue this will cause. That type of customer is around 1/3 of the customer base I support. Loss of AVC revenue and lower CVC as well due to the lower speeds. Will be interesting to see if they follow Chorus and make higher tier speeds more affordable. $14 separates the AVC between 12/1 and 100/40. Would higher CVC demand offset removing this artificial restriction? maybe just having 2 tiers of 50/20 and up to 100/40 would be a better way forward?
• HFC – will the contention ratios really be able to provide fiber equivalent services? Simon says yes, but we wont know for 4+ years.
• Is it rational to assume that as fiber gets cheaper its share will rise? Possibly now that MT is PM, but under Abbott that was never going to be a possibility

 

[drsmith]

Sydney!

Those questions/points above don't address your understanding of his presentation from last year in light of what you said,

Right. So we must view what Mr Hacket said in isolation, rather than seeing how he fully feels about the MTM based nbn, how his views have changed over time.

No. That is not what I said.

To be understood fully, those comments from March this year need to be seen in the broader context and not in isolation.

That broader context is the presentation he gave last year to which I've previously referred.

How he feels about the MTM based NBN and FTTN as a separate element is more broadly outlined in that presentation than it is in that more recent Fairfax piece. Had you listen to it carefully, you will understood that.

That his least preferred technology if FTTN is no great new revelation from the Fairfax article nor is wishing it away if he had a wand. If you understood that earlier presentation, you would have realised that the wand needed is financial.

My bolds.

 

[sydboy007]

Sydney!

Those questions/points above don't address your understanding of his presentation from last year in light of what you said,



No. That is not what I said.



How he feels about the MTM based NBN and FTTN as a separate element is more broadly outlined in that presentation than it is in that more recent Fairfax piece. Had you listen to it carefully, you will understood that.

That his least preferred technology if FTTN is no great new revelation from the Fairfax article nor is wishing it away if he had a wand. If you understood that earlier presentation, you would have realised that the wand needed is financial.

My bolds.

Based on the Govt figures.

The question still unanswered is why the Australian nbn has no learning efficiencies in the FTTP rollout when NZ has seen significant cost reductions, and projecting further cost reductions. What are we doing wrong compared to NZ?

Solve that problem, and FTTN may not be required nearly as much.

I'd be interested no see if you have any complaints about the Liberal nbn, or is it a stunning job as far as you're concerned?

 

[drsmith]

Based on the Govt figures.

The question still unanswered is why the Australian nbn has no learning efficiencies in the FTTP rollout when NZ has seen significant cost reductions, and projecting further cost reductions. What are we doing wrong compared to NZ?

Solve that problem, and FTTN may not be required nearly as much.

I'd be interested no see if you have any complaints about the Liberal nbn, or is it a stunning job as far as you're concerned?

Your comments above don't seem to relate to the post you've quoted.

As for second rate public commentary, you might want to waste time on it but I'm not when the author fails the test on basic detail with the rollout on this side of the Tasman. Your hoop Syd. No one else has to jump through it.

On matters actually happening,

NBN today launches FTTN technology.

http://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-i...bn-launches-fibre-to-the-node-technology.html

National Press Club Bill Morrow keynote address from Wednesday Sept 16.

http://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam...al-press-club-bill-morrow-keynote-address.pdf

 

[Tisme]

So the real question is whether Malcolm can take his Abbott glasses off now and allow a real internet network to be built and give Telstra and Ziggy the bullet?

 

[drsmith]

More background on the FTTN launch,

The rollout of the fibre to the node (FTTN) component of the National Broadband Network is going to see fibre deployed as deeply as possibly, according to NBN Co’s chief architect Tony Cross.

“All of the copper between the exchange and the pillar is not part of the FTTN, it is completely bypassed by the NBN fibre,” Mr Cross told The Australian.

He added that with only the last part of the copper in use, NBN Co is confident that the copper is in “reasonably good” condition.

“We have made allowances within our corporate plan for a reasonable amount of remediation to that infrastructure and we are confident that we have got allocations where we need in the budget to cover any issues we discover with the infrastructure,” Mr Cross said.

“Then we also have choices as to what we do, we can stay with a predominantly FTTN solution and replace whatever copper parts we need to replace or we can look at other options.”

Mr Cross’ comments came as NBN Co officially launched the commercial Fibre to the Node (FTTN) product. With the initial FTTN rollout launched in Belmont, New South Wales, FTTN is aiming to have 500,000 FTTN premises ready for service (RFS) by mid-2016 and 3.7 million by mid-2018.

The state of the copper network has been a significant bone of contention in the overall NBN debate, with NBN Co’s critics highlighting that the degraded state of the copper lines will lead to onerous cost blowouts. However, Mr Cross said that so far the FTTN pilots have not uncovered any nasty surprises.

“We are pretty happy with what we have discovered in the trials so far but to be honest they haven’t been running long enough for us to get any long term insight into any maintenance,” he said.

The FTTN trials have so far delivering download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 40Mbps for residents who live within 400m of a node and an average speed of 50/20 for premises that are 700m from the node.

According to internal NBN data, about 90 per cent of the nation’s premises lie within 700m of a node, as for the 10 per cent of premises that are beyond the 700m range, Mr Cross said they will receive a 25/5 service.

One noticeable feature unearthed during the Belmont trials is that premises with faulty or subpar internal wiring end up receiving slower than expected broadband speeds. It’s unclear just how damaging the issue in-home wiring might be for the overall FTTN NBN build, but Mr Cross said that it’s an issue that will ultimately be dealt by the retail service providers (RSPs).

“In majority of cases the internal wiring is not an issue but if the end user wants to have that looked at then that’s completely up to them and it’s up to the RSPs to see how they can turn it into a product construct that’s part of a service offering or is a chargeable amount,” he said.

“It’s entirely up to them.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...-deep-on-rollout/story-e6frg90f-1227537978529

 

[sydboy007]

Your comments above don't seem to relate to the post you've quoted.

As for second rate public commentary, you might want to waste time on it but I'm not when the author fails the test on basic detail with the rollout on this side of the Tasman. Your hoop Syd. No one else has to jump through it.

On matters actually happening,

NBN today launches FTTN technology.

http://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-i...bn-launches-fibre-to-the-node-technology.html

National Press Club Bill Morrow keynote address from Wednesday Sept 16.

http://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam...al-press-club-bill-morrow-keynote-address.pdf

Yes, the very slow launch of FTTN.

$1B in OSS upgrades but nbn is so unsure of if they will actually work under load they're artifically limiting the number of services being activated for the first 2 to 3 months.

I suppose that's somehow Labor's fault too

 

[drsmith]

Labor ??

No mention of Labor in above quoted post.

 

[overhang]

The wheels are really falling of the MTM NBN now. The government tried to palm off the the cost blowouts as problems with the FTTP roll out however former CEO Quigley has been quick to defend his former board by releasing this document (
https://delimiter.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/MQ-PDF.pdf) which indicates that the cost of FTTP should have actually decreased using the latest 2015 corporate plan against the 2013 strategic review. It makes no sense for the cost of the build to blowout by 15 billion unless of course the costs associated with the MTM were underestimated which now has been confirmed by NBN CEO Bill Morrow who yesterday said

“We talked about the $8 billion cost that caused that … it mostly related to the two new technologies that we’re using,” he said, referring to the HFC cable and Fibre to the Node rollouts highlighted by Quigley.

Morrow said from the NBN company’s point of view, the cost increase was “perfectly understandable”.

When the NBN company conducted its Strategic Review in late 2013, he said, the company had not conducted “in-fill trials” for the two new technologies ”” meaning that it did not have a full picture of their cost. The company has since refined its model, Morrow said.

 

[trainspotter]

Speaking of new technologies ....

Li-Fi, a super-fast alternative to Wi-Fi, has been proven capable of sending data at up to 1GBps in real-world tests.
At that speed, 100-times faster than current Wi-Fi technologies, a high-definition film could be downloaded in a matter of seconds.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook

Tell me why we need the NBN again?

 

[trainspotter]

I wrote this on the 7th June 2011 post #583

It will only take one geeky kid or technoboffin to write a code that can decompress data into bite size chunks to change this story. There was an Australian guy who invented an engine that was 50% lighter and 30% more fuel efficient. A fuel company bought it so bye bye technology. Sarich was his name.

Whatever happened to this startling breakthrough?

“The scratched glass we’ve developed is actually a Photonic Integrated Circuit,” he explained in a University of Sydney statement. “This circuit uses the ‘scratch’ as a guide or a switching path for information -- kind of like when trains are switched from one track to another -- except this switch takes only one picosecond to change tracks.

“This means that in one second the switch is turning on and off about one million times,” he added. “We are talking about photonic technology that has terabit per second capacity.”

An initial demonstration of the photonic technology has revealed it as capable of providing speeds around 60 times faster than today’s networks, which rely on electric switching, but the team is confident that further development will glean even quicker performance.
http://www.thetechherald.com/article...rough-the-roof

So as technology catches up and the shiny blue cable is being eaten by rats who ya gonna call?

COLONIES of rats are sinking their teeth into the $36 billion National Broadband Network on the Darling Downs.

A source close to the telecommunications industry claims the company in charge of the network's roll-out failed to lay rodent-proof cables in a bid to cut costs.

He said contractors were being brought in to replace long stretches of cables that had been mauled by rodents between Toowoomba and Dalby.

http://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/rats-put-bite-on-nbn-roll-out/1410950/

Check out how many people have actually taken up the NBN and how many houses have been passed ...

http://www.mynbn.info/stats