NBN Rollout Scrapped

[NBNMyths]

not for the fed govt???

How about state govt? any other form of government, unions etc.

You are an ALP lackey.

Nope. I only specified the fed govt because they are doing it.

Don't work for the state govt, local govt, a union etc. Not a member of the ALP (although do vote for them more often than not). Not a member of a union, although once was.

An ALP lackey? Yep that's me. I'm being paid to be online at 8pm on a friday night by Conroy.

BTW, I didn't vote for the ALP in the l;ast state election because they were hopeless, and I don't have much time for Conroy because is almost as technically incompetent as Tony Abbott.

 

[NBNMyths]

Interesting that, once again, I'm having to defend myself against accusations of being some Government troll.

Why is that? Let's face facts. With very few exceptions, the only people speaking publicly against the NBN are conservative commentators and politicians. You don't find too many business groups, leaders, execs speaking against it. The IT industry, experts, the business community, the telco community are all backing the NBN, albeit sometimes with assorted qualifications.

Take off the blinkers people, turn off the AM radio, put down the Bolt column and you might see just how popular this network is with the business community.

 

[drsmith]

The realities for a project this size and complexity is that it is unlikely to be on time and wont be on cost. Time and cost will be politicized to death but success engineering wise is about it working, being maintainable and low fault rate.

It won't be completed in its present form with one reason being that the rollout phase will outlive the current government by some margin.

That's assuming the current government doesn't fall before the serious rollout even begins.

 

[drsmith]

The IT industry, experts, the business community, the telco community are all backing the NBN, albeit sometimes with assorted qualifications.

Of course they are.

It's the taxpayer who is stumping up the cash and who will likely take on most, if not all of the risk.

 

[NBNMyths]

Of course they are.

It's the taxpayer who is stumping up the cash and who will likely take on most, if not all of the risk.

First, let's not forget that at least 30% of the taxation revenue in Australia comes from business.

Secondly, you can't have it both ways. ie, you can't say on one hand that there won't be a benefit, and then say that business groups support it because they will benefit from it.

 

[drsmith]

I never said there wouldn't be a benefit, but one wonders whether some of that money could be spent on more worthy projects.

 

[NBNMyths]

It won't be completed in its present form with one reason being that the rollout phase will outlive the current government by some margin.

That's assuming the current government doesn't fall before the serious rollout even begins.

That's all quite possible. I certainly hope it doesn't happen, and there have been many obstacles thrown up to prevent it.

There is a lot of legislation supporting the NBN and preventing assorted outcomes that would sell it off or stop it before completion. Even if the ALP lose in 2013, between them and the greens they'll have the power in the senate, which will prevent the repealing of the NBN legislation.

Then there is the fibre construction contracts, which are now signed for the next two years (to mid 2013), with another 2 year option. You'd have to assume that option would be signed before the next election, locking in another 2 years of rollout (I would hope and think that exit penalties would be harsh). By the time that contract is up, probably 40% of the fibre construction will be complete. I suspect that politically it would be extremely hard to stop at that point, particularly because the most expensive phase of the project (ie the startup) will already be spent. Even if only 20% of the fibre were completed by 2013, the savings from cancellation at that time would be much, much less than 80%. The new Govt would then have to pay the "startup" cost of whatever program they decided to go with instead, and pay out the contracts they cancel in the process.

Fibre aside, the satellites will be ordered soon and the entire wireless component has already been contracted for completion in 2015.

On top of all that, there's the Telstra deal which will probably be signed this year to turn off the copper and migrate customers. Since Telstra is footing the bill to upgrade all their pit and pipe for the NBN, I'd imagine they will have a pretty strong cancellation penalty in there as well.

Put all that together, and the NBN will be an extremely hard egg to unscramble in 2013, and I would say practically impossible in 2016.

 

[bellenuit]

You want an optimistic figure? OK, let's say only 1% of Australians are online at the same time. Including those at work. That would be an average speed of 4Mbps each from the 10 satellites.

So you think spending $5bn to deliver satellites enabling a speed of about half what we can currently get (on average), is a good idea?

I didn't say anything about satellites. I just noted your completely ridiculous assumptions that you used in your reply.

Your model needs to work out how many users are online at any one time on average and the average amount of time each of those users spends actually uploading/downloading from the internet when online.

If 1% are online at any one time on average (your more recent figure) and each spends 5% of their time uploading/downloading (which is high for the average person using the internet at work, but low for online gamers and movie watchers - so it may be close to the average) then that would give an average speed of 80Mbps using your calculations. This compares to the figure of 0.06Mbps that you used in your response to the original post.

See what a difference a bit of realism makes.

 

[IFocus]

IFocus I rarely weigh into these political debates as everyone has them covered (as well as questions to you)...but seriously...you would have to be one of the most die-hard/one-eyed/would run over their own grandmother - Labor supporters i've ever witnessed.

Actually not that happy with the current Labor government but really anti Abbott who really is a drop kick heavily defended on this site.

You can simply not accept that this minority government is a shambles and has done virtually nothing right. If they were all about prosperity and Australia moving forward - they would have responsibly managed the massive inflows coming in via our very favourable lucky land and made "real changes" to ensure this country can thrive once the minerals are gone/China buys us out..

.

What most if not everyone here is look the other way at the alternative say no and do nothing Abbott with his bunch of losers.

The way they conduct themselves and draft legislations beggars belief. The 'resource rent' tax and carbon tax are 2 prime examples of Labor shooting for the moon and landing nowhere near the stars...rather their 'rocket' went backwards. Can you agree on these points? You don't have to say they were bad ideas (in which they are but that's my opinion) - can you agree they have been grossly mismanaged?

Inept management is a understatement but there should be a dividend for Australia from mining (WA Liberal Governess thought so) but Labor has sold Australia short in the mining tax that they are going to raise.

As for Carbon tax everyone here has been in complete denial with their fingers in their ears going na na na na about the coalitions direct action tax funded BS.

Julia has asked you numerous questions in which you have conveniently side-stepped...no doubt you will do the same to mine...thus confirming you know you're caught out...

Not at all just means I don't talk to those that decide to label me various names based on their opinion instead of talking about the issue.

 

[NBNMyths]

I didn't say anything about satellites. I just noted your completely ridiculous assumptions that you used in your reply.

Your model needs to work out how many users are online at any one time on average and the average amount of time each of those users spends actually uploading/downloading from the internet when online.

If 1% are online at any one time on average (your more recent figure) and each spends 5% of their time uploading/downloading (which is high for the average person using the internet at work, but low for online gamers and movie watchers - so it may be close to the average) then that would give an average speed of 80Mbps using your calculations. This compares to the figure of 0.06Mbps that you used in your response to the original post.

See what a difference a bit of realism makes.

I'd hardly call that realistic, especially with the growing boom in cloud computing, on-demand video and other assorted high-bandwidth uses for the internet. FYI, NBN co assume that "busy hour" periods would have about 40% of users being online at the same time. You also need to consider that while some connections are inactive, others are being used for multiple simultaneous uses, and this is increasing all the time.

I don't have average figures for what you described, but what I do have is ABS stats for total data consumed in Australia over fixed networks, from which some extrapolation can be done:

For the December 2010 quarter, that came to a total of 174,665 terabytes (or ~1.4 million terrabits) and growing steadily at the rate of about 50% every year, cumulative.

So let's jump ahead to 2015, a reasonably close target. Expected total volume at that stage is 10.6 million Terrabits per quarter, or 118,000,000 Megabits per day. Given the average broadband connection in Australia is 8Mbps, to achieve that volume of data would mean 25% of all connections operating at 100% capacity, 100% of the time. How's that for realistic?

Without doing the sums again, that means that today (roughly) our total data volume equates to having 2.5% of connections running at 100% of capacity (8Mbps), 100% of the time. Of course, we know it doesn't work that way. At 4am, the volume is low while at 7pm the volume is massive.

With data growth running at 50% a year, can we afford not to build the NBN, or something like it?

 

[medicowallet]

With data growth running at 50% a year, can we afford not to build the NBN, or something like it?

Of course.

WHY is data growing?

Piracy, youtube, social media.

Which of these improves productivity????

Future projections no doubt include streaming of TV and movies.

CONSUMPTION.

extra tax revenues, consumption, zero or v v little increase in productivity = extremely poor investment for me as a taxpayer.

Where would I spend $50 billion?

A viable steel industry / value adding for minerals and port and rail infrastructure.

you know, stuff that will actually make our country LOTS of money.

 

[NBNMyths]

Of course.

WHY is data growing?

Piracy, youtube, social media.

Which of these improves productivity????

Future projections no doubt include streaming of TV and movies.

CONSUMPTION.

extra tax revenues, consumption, zero or v v little increase in productivity = extremely poor investment for me as a taxpayer.

Where would I spend $50 billion?

A viable steel industry / value adding for minerals and port and rail infrastructure.

you know, stuff that will actually make our country LOTS of money.

I have no doubt that all of those things are growing. But that isn't a reason not to build the NBN.

Video and multimedia are the big growth areas for bandwidth, and these things are a part of a modern economy. Whether it be IPTV, movie downloads, HD video conferencing, the sending of large files between producers and customers, the move to cloud computing and online storage etc.

All of these things improve business turnover, efficiency, and therefore productivity.

All that said, the NBN is not "spending" your tax dollars, and none of the NBN equity injections have any impact whatsoever on the budget or other Government spending.

The NBN will be paid for by the revenue coming in from the users of the network. Big users will pay more than small users. As a taxpayer, you're not subsidising those who want big NBN connections for games/piracy/movies, because those users will have to pay a premium for those speeds and volumes, more than paying for their share of constructing the network.

Taxpayers are taking the risk on the NBN, not actually spending on it. True, if it goes pear shaped, then the equity injections will become spends. But given the growing number of signed contracts, the copper network shutdown, the constant growth in data consumption and the announcement by Vodafone and others that they will use the NBN for cellular backhaul (income not figured in the biz case), the chances that the assumptions in the biz case won't pan out are pretty slim and getting slimmer all the time.

 

[medicowallet]

I have no doubt that all of those things are growing. But that isn't a reason not to build the NBN.

Video and multimedia are the big growth areas for bandwidth, and these things are a part of a modern economy. Whether it be IPTV, movie downloads, HD video conferencing, the sending of large files between producers and customers, the move to cloud computing and online storage etc.

All of these things improve business turnover, efficiency, and therefore productivity.

All that said, the NBN is not "spending" your tax dollars, and none of the NBN equity injections have any impact whatsoever on the budget or other Government spending.

The NBN will be paid for by the revenue coming in from the users of the network. Big users will pay more than small users. As a taxpayer, you're not subsidising those who want big NBN connections for games/piracy/movies, because those users will have to pay a premium for those speeds and volumes, more than paying for their share of constructing the network.

Taxpayers are taking the risk on the NBN, not actually spending on it. True, if it goes pear shaped, then the equity injections will become spends. But given the growing number of signed contracts, the copper network shutdown, the constant growth in data consumption and the announcement by Vodafone and others that they will use the NBN for cellular backhaul (income not figured in the biz case), the chances that the assumptions in the biz case won't pan out are pretty slim and getting slimmer all the time.

1. Businesses that benefit from fast internet ALREADY HAVE fast internet. The NBN will only accomplish increased consumption, less jobs.

2. Oh so REVENUE is generated by the taxpayer. WHY should we pay a pseudo tax on top of our service cost to receive a service that is not required over what we already have? I can quite comfortably do whatever I want with the current internet.


Oh that is right, CONSUMPTION.

See, I was not born yesterday. I can tell when something will show a ROI, and for $50 billion / increased cost of access to the internet for the punter, the NBN is a massive fail.

Unless you are a gamer or pirate.

 

[DB008]

NBNMyths, I am not against you.
I just question why the Gov will be spending in the ballpark, ~50 billion for an infrastructure project where it won't be utilised to it's full potential. Much of it will be used by gamers, social media, downloading movies and the like. Sure, hospitals and small business' need it, as do 'bush residents', but major cities? I even spoke to a professor (medicine) recently, and even he had doubts about this project. If he is having doubts, boy 'o' boy, so am l.

The most people who benefit the most from this will be tradies who will be installing/digging cable trenches. The follow on effect won't be as high as, well, the snowy river scheme or building the harbour bridge.

 

[boofhead]

1. Businesses that benefit from fast internet ALREADY HAVE fast internet. The NBN will only accomplish increased consumption, less jobs.

Far from true. Plenty of companies operate outside of the cities. I recently worked at a place where the choice of internet was between substandard dialup or satellite. Satellite had more speed but depending on many factors could drop out at an instant.

Current workplace is at the end of a long copper loop. Barely get ADSL 1 speeds.

In many places there is only 1 choice of infrastructure - Telstra. When you have only Telstra the prices rise. To install fibre many companies would go bankrupt because they are so far from existing fibre runs.

Remember the cities and the population centres mostly only supply one raw material - people.

There are lots of electorates in the cities. Lots of the voters never spend any substantial time away from the cities.

BTW, IPTV seems to be experiencing a bit of growth now which is good. It gives Foxtel competition. Telstra's wholesale customers don't get features enabled that allow efficient delivery of such content - multicast.

 

[NBNMyths]

Far from true. Plenty of companies operate outside of the cities. I recently worked at a place where the choice of internet was between substandard dialup or satellite. Satellite had more speed but depending on many factors could drop out at an instant.

Current workplace is at the end of a long copper loop. Barely get ADSL 1 speeds.

In many places there is only 1 choice of infrastructure - Telstra. When you have only Telstra the prices rise. To install fibre many companies would go bankrupt because they are so far from existing fibre runs.

Remember the cities and the population centres mostly only supply one raw material - people.

There are lots of electorates in the cities. Lots of the voters never spend any substantial time away from the cities.

BTW, IPTV seems to be experiencing a bit of growth now which is good. It gives Foxtel competition. Telstra's wholesale customers don't get features enabled that allow efficient delivery of such content - multicast.

+1

That is spot on. People who believe that businesses who need fast internet already have it must be living a very sheltered life.

I'd suggest you watch what Glen Innes-based Eastmon Digital have to say about how a lack of fast connection is a huge impediment to their business. It's on the 4 Corners programme about the NBN.

But you don't have to go that far into the regions. I'm only 2 hours out of Sydney, and can only get ADSL1 speeds.

The massive lack of telco infrastructure makes operating a media-based business outside the CBDs a very difficult thing to do. This increases centralisation and all the problems associated with it.

 

[So_Cynical]

Far from true. Plenty of companies operate outside of the cities. I recently worked at a place where the choice of internet was between substandard dialup or satellite. Satellite had more speed but depending on many factors could drop out at an instant.

Current workplace is at the end of a long copper loop. Barely get ADSL 1 speeds.

In many places there is only 1 choice of infrastructure - Telstra. When you have only Telstra the prices rise. To install fibre many companies would go bankrupt because they are so far from existing fibre runs.

Remember the cities and the population centres mostly only supply one raw material - people.

There are lots of electorates in the cities. Lots of the voters never spend any substantial time away from the cities.

BTW, IPTV seems to be experiencing a bit of growth now which is good. It gives Foxtel competition. Telstra's wholesale customers don't get features enabled that allow efficient delivery of such content - multicast.

Medico and the other right wing, spend nothing, do nothing Liberals don't care about the broader Australian context and the reality's of life out side the major city's...the vast majority of city people have no idea about what's going on in rural Australia or even on the city fringes.

"Businesses that benefit from fast internet ALREADY HAVE fast internet." yes they do and that's because they need fast internet and so will need faster internet when that's available...its called growth, been going on for years.

------------------------------------

As proven on this forum many times, the right side of politics tends to want Govt to do nothing and spend nothing, while the other side tends to be ok with some "big picture" spending....the debate is political not technical as proven by NBNMyths and others, many times on this forum and whirlpool.

 

[medicowallet]

Far from true. Plenty of companies operate outside of the cities. I recently worked at a place where the choice of internet was between substandard dialup or satellite. Satellite had more speed but depending on many factors could drop out at an instant.

Current workplace is at the end of a long copper loop. Barely get ADSL 1 speeds.

In many places there is only 1 choice of infrastructure - Telstra. When you have only Telstra the prices rise. To install fibre many companies would go bankrupt because they are so far from existing fibre runs.

Remember the cities and the population centres mostly only supply one raw material - people.

There are lots of electorates in the cities. Lots of the voters never spend any substantial time away from the cities.

BTW, IPTV seems to be experiencing a bit of growth now which is good. It gives Foxtel competition. Telstra's wholesale customers don't get features enabled that allow efficient delivery of such content - multicast.

1. I live in the country, I understand that access to fast internet is less here.

2. Can you please explain how faster internet at the business you work for will result in more exports

3. IPTV, Video on demand = consumption . Isn't this exactly what gets countries such as America, Australia, and European countries into dramas such as the GFC.

SORRY, but you cannot sell me a $50 billion dollar investment into consumption when we could invest $50 billion into industry and be guaranteed improved income for the country, yes that means you and me and everyone.

See, like an ALP lackey, you have been sold a con job where you mistake government revenue (taxes) for income for the country.

Conroy and his stupid fools are selling you a dud, which will not show a ROI for the country . BUT see, you cannot understand that. You cannot understand that by you paying the government more for internet, you are effectively paying more tax for something which will not provide any real improvement in income for the country (and I could argue would have negative implications).

I am sorry you cannot understand this.

Happy gaming, piracy and youtube.

 

[medicowallet]

Medico and the other right wing, spend nothing, do nothing Liberals don't care about the broader Australian context and the reality's of life out side the major city's...the vast majority of city people have no idea about what's going on in rural Australia or even on the city fringes.

"Businesses that benefit from fast internet ALREADY HAVE fast internet." yes they do and that's because they need fast internet and so will need faster internet when that's available...its called growth, been going on for years.

1. I don't know what people in the city think, I don't live in one. Do you live in a country town, or are you talking for us with your city perspective?

2. I have never said that businesses will not need access to faster internet. BUT do you actually realise that there are businesses with faster access speeds than NBN?? I am sure that the entire CBA head office does not run off ADSL2. Also, why not then invest in the infrastructure to businesses only?

Why should everyone need access to 100mbit connections? This is stupidly crazy, and a waste of $40 billion plus.

 

[medicowallet]

+1

That is spot on. People who believe that businesses who need fast internet already have it must be living a very sheltered life.

I'd suggest you watch what Glen Innes-based Eastmon Digital have to say about how a lack of fast connection is a huge impediment to their business. It's on the 4 Corners programme about the NBN.

But you don't have to go that far into the regions. I'm only 2 hours out of Sydney, and can only get ADSL1 speeds.

The massive lack of telco infrastructure makes operating a media-based business outside the CBDs a very difficult thing to do. This increases centralisation and all the problems associated with it.

1. How much income for Australia will Eastmon generate with faster internet. Show me the ROI.

2. Why does eastmon require faster than ADSL2 or multiple ADSL2 connections

3. Why should Glenn Innes receive full NBN for 1 business which will increase consumption in that area?

4. Being a regular visitor to Glenn Innes, I don't think they need faster than ADSL2 there.