Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

NBN Rollout Scrapped

iinet has said in the last day or 2 that in the trial areas they only have 3.7% of premises connected as customers via ADSL. In 2-3 years I'm confident they could get close to that with fibre. iinet is the 2nd largest broadband ISP by broadband customer numbers. I'm sure Telstra haven't just realised they were not as price competitive as they could be and decided to compete late last year. It's when NBN has started to get operational customers. Testra's customers will be on contracts (which can be broken - often for a fee) so it'll take time for people to be contract free.
 
Not sure of the point(s) you're trying to make?

1.5Mbps is hardly fast (even the lowest speed on the NBN is 12Mbps). Also, what do you mean by "93% is a marketing ploy", in relation to us having 80% internet penetration now?

"93% of the population will be connected to the NBN", most of the population already has internet. 1.5Mbps is fast enough for me....end of story. Wow, l'll get my e-mails 0.765 nanoseconds faster, gee, my life will be so much better.
 
Well according to page 4 of the hansard of the joint committee from 16th May, as at 6th May 2011 there were 723 connections ordered in Tasmania, of which 712 had been connected as of that date. Then there were the initial 7 trial connections in Armidale as ay 18th May. So there is at least 730. On top of that, each of the 4 active RSPs is allowed to connect a few people per week in Armidale, so my guess would be that they are now up around 760.

The actual numbers aren't really the issue though. It's the fact that News quoted there being 561, when that is a demonstrably false figure. It clearly isn't hard to get accurate info, they just chose to sensationalise using incorrect info which aided their slant on the story.

Thankyou NBNMyths. Is this still the trial period for customers? If so when will the trial period end? As the shiny blue cable has been in Tasmania some time now can you please advise as to how many houses are able to connect ? As in if the shiny blue cable runs past 10,000 houses and 712 have been connected .... is this a fair take up rate?

THE NUMBERS ARE THE ISSUE NBNMYTHS !!!!!!!!! Without the takeup rate then how does this thing PAY FOR ITSELF ??? HUH ?????

Forget what the bloody newspaper says no-one believes what they read anyhow !!!!!!!!

You are the "DEEP THROAT" on the issue ...... spread the gospel of truth for us please.
 
Thankyou NBNMyths. Is this still the trial period for customers? If so when will the trial period end? As the shiny blue cable has been in Tasmania some time now can you please advise as to how many houses are able to connect ? As in if the shiny blue cable runs past 10,000 houses and 712 have been connected .... is this a fair take up rate?

THE NUMBERS ARE THE ISSUE NBNMYTHS !!!!!!!!! Without the takeup rate then how does this thing PAY FOR ITSELF ??? HUH ?????

Forget what the bloody newspaper says no-one believes what they read anyhow !!!!!!!!

You are the "DEEP THROAT" on the issue ...... spread the gospel of truth for us please.

While Tasmania is still a trial, there are no connection restrictions as far as I know. The network passes about 4,000 premises (again according to the hansard) so there is currently an 18% takeup rate, after 10 months of availability. To put this in perspective, by the end of 2002 there was only a 3% takeup of ADSL connections in Australia even though it was available to (IIRC) about 80% of premises by mid-2002.

There are currently several barriers to NBN takeup in Tasmania:

  • Only 4 ISPs are offering open services in Tassie, and this doesn't include Telstra or Optus. Telstra have got 100 people on a trial to test compatibility with their network systems and the T-hub / T-box devices. Optus aren't participating at all in Tassie until they do the initiation stuff in Armidale. So the two biggest telcos in Australia aren't currently offering services.

  • None of the ISPs are offering a phone service yet, except VoIP. So if customers in Tassie want to retain a 'normal' phone service and number, then they must keep their copper line in addition to the NBN connection. This obviously adds extra costs and complexity.

  • None of the ISPs are offering bundling or migration options, so anyone on an ADSL contract is stuck with it, and anyone with bundled services (eg with Telstra) have a big disincentive to switch because they can't get a Telstra NBN connection yet. Once the NBN is in full swing, existing copper customers will be migrated onto a fibre connection.


Armidale is in trial until the end of September, according to the various reports. NBN is supposed to open it up fully and begin charging as per their wholesale agreement on 1 October.
 
Eggsellent work NBNMyths. I wonder why Telstra and Optus are not offering services there? As it expands I am sure the takeup rate will become profitable ??? RIGHT ???
 
Optus very much avoid Tasmania.

Until the last few years they basically only have ok coverage in 2 cities for mobiles. They have started to expand. They recently announced $25 million expansion of that.

For ADSL they don't offer it in all ADSL enabled DSLAMs. NT and TAS seem to have special exceptions when reading Optus terms. So many are limited to phone for Optus fixed line services.

Until very recently only one company provided fibre access from the big island to Tasmania - Telstra. As an exercise Internode are on the record saying it is cheaper to send data from Sydney, around the globe and land in Perth than between Melbourne and anywhere in Tasmania. There is some competition now but they only have submarine cable so there is no redundancy if you don't like Testra's pricing. I think the ISPs servicing Tasmania had mentioned they expected pricing to be more competitive than what it is.

For Telstra - we can at best speculate but they already have existing infrastructure they will want to maximise profits from before paying another wholesaler. There was some rumblings that Telstra wanted volume discounts from NBN a year or 2 ago but naturally that was blocked otherwise Telstra buys a major advantage.
 
Tasmania is a technology backwater i would imagine many people there have no need for super fast internet because they have no need for super slow internet...you don't miss what you never had.
 
Tasmania is a technology backwater i would imagine many people there have no need for super fast internet because they have no need for super slow internet...you don't miss what you never had.

Post of the month right there!!!!!! I'm gonna get this one framed.

Totally agrees with my perspective of build the damn thing WHERE IT IS NEEDED MOST first, iron out the bugs in high density areas, have massive takeup rate, pay this thing going forward, become profitable earlier, get business's and hospitals and education systems hooked on a shiny blue cable, worry about the movie watchers and gameheads later. :banghead:

I thnk NBNMyths wrote they have sepnt 10 billion already with a further 25 billion to go thus far? Not much in the way of infratructure for nearly a third of the money in the ground??? Does the 25 billion include the 11 billion to Telstra?

10 billion spent = 760 people hooked up ????

Is there an issue here? We have a group of experienced execs, engineers etc designing and building the biggest infrastructure project in Australia's history and writing tenders and signing contracts worth (to date) ~$10 billion dollars, with another ~$25 billion to go.
 
Why would anbody with some idea of maths, and having observed the NBN to date,
believe that we have only $25 bullion to go?
What ever price you have been informed of by this government, then double it, and I will ensure the original project stated by Labor will not be finished.

joea
 
Tasmania is mostly a technological backwater because low population - distributed population too. Another is startup costs. No one except Telstra or a government will spend much here and as we know about how Telstra wholesales with no competition...

Many here would like it. If IPTV is competitive with satellite subscription TV then it will get takeup based on that alone. No shortage of people here with subscription TV via sat.

We're just often left off maps. Watch any comments on the state capital cities. Somehow it stops at a list of 5 on many TV shows.
 
Tasmania is mostly a technological backwater because low population - distributed population too. Another is startup costs. No one except Telstra or a government will spend much here and as we know about how Telstra wholesales with no competition...

Many here would like it. If IPTV is competitive with satellite subscription TV then it will get takeup based on that alone. No shortage of people here with subscription TV via sat.

We're just often left off maps. Watch any comments on the state capital cities. Somehow it stops at a list of 5 on many TV shows.

boofhead
I actually have satellite broadband and I would say its just make do. That is at this point of time.
The contract will only guarantee a percentage of coverage, so they have the defects covered. i.e. 80 % of the time. On whirlpool, the guys says there is a problem with "ipstar or the unit", so hopefully that can be improved as well.
One would hope the satellites coming on line, will be better.
The satellite I am on, is weather compensated, so it will handle rain pretty well.

Put it this way, if I was in a community where a bit of money would give you wire or fibre, thats the way I would go.

To load "market software" the first time I go to the local IT guy, because my satellite is just not good enough.

joea
 
Tasmania is mostly a technological backwater because low population - distributed population too. Another is startup costs. No one except Telstra or a government will spend much here and as we know about how Telstra wholesales with no competition...

Many here would like it. If IPTV is competitive with satellite subscription TV then it will get takeup based on that alone. No shortage of people here with subscription TV via sat.

We're just often left off maps. Watch any comments on the state capital cities. Somehow it stops at a list of 5 on many TV shows.

Ummmmmmmmm so why put the shiny blue cable in Tasmania as a start point? Small population and distribution hassles, topography issues, high cost installation with low takeup numbers. What's the deal with that? Not good business sense?

As for being off the maps ...... try living in rural WA !! I am often on the East Coast and fair dinkum the people there think the world stops at the Great Dividing Range !! :p:
 
At least rural WA is somehow physically on the maps even if unmentioned. Tasmania is sometimes forgotten about.

I say much of the Tasmanian deployment is political. Tasmanian government tendered for the FTTN which included much planning which was used to speed up Tasmania's deployment. It had a head start. Some areas had been parts of a fibre trial although they are not in the first build areas. The company that was supposed to co-build it was a part of existing trials. Some of it may be to help Tasmanians compete - Bass Strait is a major hinderance for physical and information transport. We have little competition for IT infrastructure. Hobart is a bit. Launceston not much. Basically it is the Tas govt with some fibre linking the major population areas and everywhere else Testra. Same issue for NT.

The current uptake numbers will improve as it is only early still. Remember people are on existing plans etc. As more major population centres come online it will improve. Also during the rollout of first areas in Tasmania the rapid rise in confusing information from radio, newspaper, TV (even news which is supposed to be more factual) which permeates through the community. Many thought having the physical connection meant they had to pay monthly fees even if not using it. I've found reading and listening to a lot of rhetoric about it seem to be deliberatly vague. Internode had capacity issues a few months ago because 100 mbit takeup was larger than their plans.

Remember Abbott at the time of the election found it hard to believe NBN could magically go from 100 mbit to 1000 mbit. Jones recently somehow things recent laser innovations make the fibre deployment pointless not knowing lasers drive optical fibre communications. Both people have a lot of influence. Many people reporting have no idea about the technology, for example some coverage of quantum entanglement experiments were reported by people that talked about 50 degrees Kelvin - you don't add the degrees in there.

Economic opinions on why it should or should not proceed are one thing. I can understand both sides but when many people make comment about the technologies involved are factually wrong then that is a different ball game.

Japanese government subsidised the deployment there - with various conditions which allowed the area monopolies to continue to be. Many of which Telstra would be unlikely to agree to.
 
You would think if you are about to spend 36 billion of taxpayers funds on the largest infrastructure/technology programme Australia has ever witnessed that you would have the masses equally stupified with the benefits and or costings?

Why did the Japanese Government subsidise the rollout in Tasmania?
 
Why did the Japanese Government subsidise the rollout in Tasmania?

I didn't mean to say that. I meant Japanese govt subsidised the Japanese network upgrades which the Libs seem to forget about. Asctually mostly when Libs talk about the world they mean USA although USA govt is subsidising some network upgrades which will benefit some of the incumbents there.
 

Attachments

  • NBNtas.JPG
    NBNtas.JPG
    83.6 KB · Views: 20
I thnk NBNMyths wrote they have sepnt 10 billion already with a further 25 billion to go thus far? Not much in the way of infratructure for nearly a third of the money in the ground??? Does the 25 billion include the 11 billion to Telstra?

10 billion spent = 760 people hooked up ????

They haven't spent $10 billion, they have signed contracts for ~$10 billion, which will be paid progressively as the equipment is supplied and installed.

Why would anbody with some idea of maths, and having observed the NBN to date, believe that we have only $25 bullion to go?
What ever price you have been informed of by this government, then double it, and I will ensure the original project stated by Labor will not be finished.
joea

Examples of it going poorly so far?

The only hiccups I have seen are:
- The delay in finalising the Telstra agreement, which is as much Telstra's fault as NBN's, and doesn't add anything to costs. It's rumoured to be almost ready, and set for approval at the Telstra AGM in October.

- The suspension of the fibre construction tender. This now looks to be solved, with Silcar signed up (on budget) for NSW, QLD & ACT, and negotiations with other contractors ongoing for the other states on the same terms as Silcar.

So at this stage, the biggest infrastructure project in Australia's history is running a few months late, and has suffered no budget blowouts. Pretty hard to be unhappy with that.

NBN Co have signed contracts for Australian-made fibre & equipment, 2x datacentres, greenfield estate rollouts, wireless spectrum, wireless rollout, interim satellite, OSS/BSS systems.... all on time and budget.

The wireless contract is an end-to-end provided by Ericsson and is now scheduled to be complete in 2015 instead of 2019 as originally promised. The mainland first release sites are all on time. AFAIK there have been no failures or issues to date.

I'd suggest that the only people thinking it's going poorly are people whose source of NBN info is AM radio and News Ltd.
 
You were doing so well NBNMyths until you started playing the man.

Just the facts M'aam .... just the facts.

Do you have a cost analysis available thus far? As in how much has been spent to date to get this coverage? 10 billion in CONTRACTS have been let. How much of this money has actually been spent to wind the shiny blue cable around Tasmania as per So_Cyclicals map??? How much did Armidale cost to bring on line?
 
I didn't mean to say that. I meant Japanese govt subsidised the Japanese network upgrades which the Libs seem to forget about. Asctually mostly when Libs talk about the world they mean USA although USA govt is subsidising some network upgrades which will benefit some of the incumbents there.

No problem with the Government FUNDING this shiny blue cable boofhead. It is my money they are using so therefore I am entitled to an opinion as to where my money is going BTW. I have posted I can see the benefits in the long haul. I have posted that Alan Jones is not a scientist but a PAID vox pop. I understand the technology and I do get what is trying to be achieved here. I truly do !

My area of concern is that they are placing this wondrous technology in PLACES THAT DON'T FRIGGIN NEED IT FIRST !!!!!!!! Also that the people that are being hooked up FIRST do not need the technology for CRYING OUT LOUD !!!!!!

Look at it from a business perspective. Let's get all the nupties in really, really hard areas to implement on line first with no chance of recouping running costs so that we are behind the 8 ball from the get go. Can you see my point now? Bloody HELL !

OR .......... put it in high density areas, have massive takeup rate, iron out the problematic scenarios, get big end of town to uptake and pay for it by usage AND THEN send it to the minions. Not that hard really !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wont repeat myself as I can feel my blood pressure rising as I type.
 
Top