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Where's mine ?
NBN Rollout Scrapped
- Thread starter Garpal Gumnut
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I'm looking forward to NBNMyths trotting out a Conroy rebuttal to this, and a justification for wasteful box of propaganda.
The first I knew about "the box" was seeing Malcolm's rather pathetic video. He sure is getting a serious flaming in the comments.
I have no idea what the story behind it is, who it goes to, how many there are or anything else about it.
I note that Mal got it wrong talking about NBN Co being the producer though. It's actually a DBCDE kit. I suppose that goes nicely with just about everything else he says about the NBN.
Either way, I'm not sure what the issue is though? Is there something wrong with the Dept producing info kits about their flagship policy?
Personally, I prefer this Turnbull video:
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Google Fibre
Just saw this on the net
Google fibre - 1GB/s
https://fiber.google.com/about/
Pricing
https://fiber.google.com/plans/residential/
Just saw this on the net
Google fibre - 1GB/s
https://fiber.google.com/about/
Pricing
https://fiber.google.com/plans/residential/
Re: Google Fibre
1 Gb/s. NBN will be offering those speeds too. It's been the sticking point about Telstra offering services in Tasmania on the NBN because some premises have equipment that could only go to 100 Mbit/s.
1 Gb/s. NBN will be offering those speeds too. It's been the sticking point about Telstra offering services in Tasmania on the NBN because some premises have equipment that could only go to 100 Mbit/s.
Re: Google Fibre
I like what they're offering.
$120/month for Gigabit internet+TV
$70/month for Gigabit internet stand alone
Or Free 5Mbps internet for 7 years!
I'll bet the existing operators in Kansas are a bit nervous!
I like what they're offering.
$120/month for Gigabit internet+TV
$70/month for Gigabit internet stand alone
Or Free 5Mbps internet for 7 years!
I'll bet the existing operators in Kansas are a bit nervous!
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Re: Google Fibre
Mmm.
How about our gummint opens up to competition and lets Google come here and offer US those sorts of "fiber" prices - why should we have to pay some of the highest broadband prices in the world?
Mmm.
How about our gummint opens up to competition and lets Google come here and offer US those sorts of "fiber" prices - why should we have to pay some of the highest broadband prices in the world?
Re: Google Fibre
Google could come here and do the same (or at least a similar) thing. There isn't any prohibition on anyone else building a broadband network in Australia. The only restriction (since the NBN legislation was passed) is that any new network must be operated on a wholesale-only, open access basis.
Prior to the NBN, anyone could have build a competing network on a vertical/closed basis, but nobody did. The only one to give it a go was Optus, and they only covered 15-20% of the population, then gave up after losing a billion dollars. They have publicly said they wouldn't try again.
I too lament the price of broadband in Australia. However at least some of it can be attributed to the higher cost of getting the data here. A good portion of our data comes from overseas, and our ISPs have to pay to get it here via the undersea cables (essentially they pay for every MB that comes through those cables).
Mmm.
How about our gummint opens up to competition and lets Google come here and offer US those sorts of "fiber" prices - why should we have to pay some of the highest broadband prices in the world?
Google could come here and do the same (or at least a similar) thing. There isn't any prohibition on anyone else building a broadband network in Australia. The only restriction (since the NBN legislation was passed) is that any new network must be operated on a wholesale-only, open access basis.
Prior to the NBN, anyone could have build a competing network on a vertical/closed basis, but nobody did. The only one to give it a go was Optus, and they only covered 15-20% of the population, then gave up after losing a billion dollars. They have publicly said they wouldn't try again.
I too lament the price of broadband in Australia. However at least some of it can be attributed to the higher cost of getting the data here. A good portion of our data comes from overseas, and our ISPs have to pay to get it here via the undersea cables (essentially they pay for every MB that comes through those cables).
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The real question comes down to how much further growth does the internet have? At some point it will become a "mature" technology, after which growth will only be in line with overall GDP growth of a few % per annum.
There was a time when road traffic was growing rapidly and many thought this would continue forever. Reality set in eventually - regardless of the cost of petrol or standard of the roads, there's only so much travelling that the average person wants to do. Per capita car travel is now actually declining in much of the developed world such that any growth in overall volume will be less than population growth.
Electricity was the same. It was taken for granted that depending on the location in question, demand went up 7 - 10% per annum compounding and enormous power projects were planned on the assumption this would continue. Then the 1980's arrived and reality set in - no matter how cheap it became and how much was available, there's only so much electricity that the average person can usefully consume. People didn't actually want their living room bathed in the equivalent of full sunlight at 10pm and with very few exceptions not even city streets did the "turn night into day" thing. 30 years later and we're no closer to building some of those elaborate power schemes than we were when they were first thought up. There just isn't a sensible use for that much power, at least not one that we've come up with thus far.
Ultimately, there's a limit to how much internet there will be worthwhile use for. I very much doubt that internet connected ovens or fridges will ever catch on and most don't want it in the shower either. As with the motor car and electricity before it, much of the internet growth has now become about displacing other means of supplying the same thing.
At first, the car (and trucks etc) was a novelty and didn't compete against rail so much as complement it. Then that changed and growth came from transferring existing load from rail to road. Then growth ended.
Same with electricity. It was in many cases the gas companies which first introduced it and they saw no threat. Then electricity growth switched, and became all about taking market share from gas, wood etc. Then growth fell in a heap.
And with the internet. At first it was all new and not a threat to anything. In the more recent past however, growth has been all about taking from some established industry and doing it online instead. Music and movies are the big data hogs, just like heating water and rooms are the big electricity uses that were "taken" from other technologies. But there's only so many movies that anyone really wants to watch and there's only so much hot water they can sensibly use.
Sure, I could have 1 Gbps internet just like I could have a sub-station in the backyard and live on a 6 lane highway. But what practical use does this have that can't be done at 100 Mbps or even 10 Mbps?
If the movie streams as fast as I can watch it then that's good enough. I don't actually want to watch it at 50 times its' intended speed since whilst the connection might be that fast, humans aren't. Likewise any other use.
I'm not arguing against the NBN per se, but there's got to be a limit on the practical amount of data the average person actually wants. Just like lew people pay much attention to computer specs these days simply because any new computer easily exceeds what the average user requires, so too the internet will in due course be the same.
There was a time when road traffic was growing rapidly and many thought this would continue forever. Reality set in eventually - regardless of the cost of petrol or standard of the roads, there's only so much travelling that the average person wants to do. Per capita car travel is now actually declining in much of the developed world such that any growth in overall volume will be less than population growth.
Electricity was the same. It was taken for granted that depending on the location in question, demand went up 7 - 10% per annum compounding and enormous power projects were planned on the assumption this would continue. Then the 1980's arrived and reality set in - no matter how cheap it became and how much was available, there's only so much electricity that the average person can usefully consume. People didn't actually want their living room bathed in the equivalent of full sunlight at 10pm and with very few exceptions not even city streets did the "turn night into day" thing. 30 years later and we're no closer to building some of those elaborate power schemes than we were when they were first thought up. There just isn't a sensible use for that much power, at least not one that we've come up with thus far.
Ultimately, there's a limit to how much internet there will be worthwhile use for. I very much doubt that internet connected ovens or fridges will ever catch on and most don't want it in the shower either. As with the motor car and electricity before it, much of the internet growth has now become about displacing other means of supplying the same thing.
At first, the car (and trucks etc) was a novelty and didn't compete against rail so much as complement it. Then that changed and growth came from transferring existing load from rail to road. Then growth ended.
Same with electricity. It was in many cases the gas companies which first introduced it and they saw no threat. Then electricity growth switched, and became all about taking market share from gas, wood etc. Then growth fell in a heap.
And with the internet. At first it was all new and not a threat to anything. In the more recent past however, growth has been all about taking from some established industry and doing it online instead. Music and movies are the big data hogs, just like heating water and rooms are the big electricity uses that were "taken" from other technologies. But there's only so many movies that anyone really wants to watch and there's only so much hot water they can sensibly use.
Sure, I could have 1 Gbps internet just like I could have a sub-station in the backyard and live on a 6 lane highway. But what practical use does this have that can't be done at 100 Mbps or even 10 Mbps?
If the movie streams as fast as I can watch it then that's good enough. I don't actually want to watch it at 50 times its' intended speed since whilst the connection might be that fast, humans aren't. Likewise any other use.
I'm not arguing against the NBN per se, but there's got to be a limit on the practical amount of data the average person actually wants. Just like lew people pay much attention to computer specs these days simply because any new computer easily exceeds what the average user requires, so too the internet will in due course be the same.
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Thats goes along my thoughts smurph, I don't see the point in running optical to the house in most places, it is just overkill. I do agree running it to commercial districts and c.b.d's, where high data transfers occur also a degree of point to point security is requred e.g banks and big business.
However most households don't need more than what is already available on the copper network.
Also with the copper network when you have a power failure, your normal basic phone still works. I know, I have one in the shed, for just such occassions.
I can't wait untill there is a power failure in an N.B.N coverage area, which has limited mobile coverage.
My bet is, it will hit the national news.
It may be caused by a bushfire or something, but all of a sudden the people affected will go "$hit the phone doesn't work"
There are some occassions where the 'kiss' system is the best system.
"Keep It Simple Stupid", but that would never apply with this government.
Make it bigger, make it sillier, look at meeee, look at meee. Talk about an inferiority complex. The government has it in spades and it is deserved.
However most households don't need more than what is already available on the copper network.
Also with the copper network when you have a power failure, your normal basic phone still works. I know, I have one in the shed, for just such occassions.
I can't wait untill there is a power failure in an N.B.N coverage area, which has limited mobile coverage.
My bet is, it will hit the national news.
It may be caused by a bushfire or something, but all of a sudden the people affected will go "$hit the phone doesn't work"
There are some occassions where the 'kiss' system is the best system.
"Keep It Simple Stupid", but that would never apply with this government.
Make it bigger, make it sillier, look at meeee, look at meee. Talk about an inferiority complex. The government has it in spades and it is deserved.
There's no doubt that demand will level off eventually, but it won't happen any time soon. The internet is a very immature technology, and bandwidth needs/growth is still increasing very rapidly. There are many current uses that already exceed the capability of the copper network, let alone known emerging technologies and unknown future technologies.
The rate of growth is still increasing:
To use your electricity analogy, demand has always come in spurts as new technologies took advantage of the network....lighting, refrigeration, hot water, TV, heating, air conditioning, computers etc.
And so it is with the demand for data, but we are only at the beginning of the sequence. Just last month, a Japanese manufacturer released the first QuadHD 3D TV. Uncompressed video for it is over 1Gbps per channel.
Saying most households won't need fibre is incredibly short-sighted. People said the same thing before the telephone was rolled out everywhere. I'm also certain that 20 years ago, most Australians would have thought they'd never want the internet at all (See this 1995 Newsweek article). Then when 256k ADSL arrived 10 years ago, people thought they could never possibly need more speed than that.... Do you see a pattern?
The NBN has a backup battery, which maintains a corded phone for about 4 hours, so you don't lose your phone in the case of a typical blackout. This is essentially the same situation as the Optus HFC network, and I don't recall seeing too many front page stories about Optus phones dying. But then, it's not an ALP policy so I would expect some beatup in the News Ltd fish wrappers with regards to the NBN.
That said, many people have moved to cordless phones and/or Naked DSL/VoIP so the number of people who can use a phone in a blackout is constantly declining.
By the way, the opposition's FTTN plan will be substantially worse in this case than the NBN. You can't fit many batteries in a street cabinet, and they are prone to flooding/fire/accident damage due to the active electronics therein. So not only will they be no better than the NBN in a blackout, but they will also suffer much more severely from natural disasters and accidental damage (Because the NBN's nodes are unpowered/passive).
It's not "just this government" doing fibre networks. The world is moving to fibre networks. There are now residential brownfield FTTP networks being built in over 50 countries around the World, and greenfield FTTP is the standard in essentially every developed nation.
A couple of months ago, Alcatel-Lucent, one of the World's largest suppliers of copper-FTTN and fibre-FTTP equipment announced that their ratio of copper:fibre sales revenue had gone from 71:29 to 50:50 in the last 6 months. Clearly, FTTP is not just the future, it is the current.
If I may finish with an appropriate quote from Prof Rod Tucker:
An enduring characteristic of human nature is our inability to understand and accept the rate of technological change and its impact on society.
The rate of growth is still increasing:
To use your electricity analogy, demand has always come in spurts as new technologies took advantage of the network....lighting, refrigeration, hot water, TV, heating, air conditioning, computers etc.
And so it is with the demand for data, but we are only at the beginning of the sequence. Just last month, a Japanese manufacturer released the first QuadHD 3D TV. Uncompressed video for it is over 1Gbps per channel.
Thats goes along my thoughts smurph, I don't see the point in running optical to the house in most places, it is just overkill. I do agree running it to commercial districts and c.b.d's, where high data transfers occur also a degree of point to point security is requred e.g banks and big business.
However most households don't need more than what is already available on the copper network.
Also with the copper network when you have a power failure, your normal basic phone still works. I know, I have one in the shed, for just such occassions.
I can't wait untill there is a power failure in an N.B.N coverage area, which has limited mobile coverage.
My bet is, it will hit the national news.
It may be caused by a bushfire or something, but all of a sudden the people affected will go "$hit the phone doesn't work"
There are some occassions where the 'kiss' system is the best system.
"Keep It Simple Stupid", but that would never apply with this government.
Make it bigger, make it sillier, look at meeee, look at meee. Talk about an inferiority complex. The government has it in spades and it is deserved.
Saying most households won't need fibre is incredibly short-sighted. People said the same thing before the telephone was rolled out everywhere. I'm also certain that 20 years ago, most Australians would have thought they'd never want the internet at all (See this 1995 Newsweek article). Then when 256k ADSL arrived 10 years ago, people thought they could never possibly need more speed than that.... Do you see a pattern?
The NBN has a backup battery, which maintains a corded phone for about 4 hours, so you don't lose your phone in the case of a typical blackout. This is essentially the same situation as the Optus HFC network, and I don't recall seeing too many front page stories about Optus phones dying. But then, it's not an ALP policy so I would expect some beatup in the News Ltd fish wrappers with regards to the NBN.
That said, many people have moved to cordless phones and/or Naked DSL/VoIP so the number of people who can use a phone in a blackout is constantly declining.
By the way, the opposition's FTTN plan will be substantially worse in this case than the NBN. You can't fit many batteries in a street cabinet, and they are prone to flooding/fire/accident damage due to the active electronics therein. So not only will they be no better than the NBN in a blackout, but they will also suffer much more severely from natural disasters and accidental damage (Because the NBN's nodes are unpowered/passive).
It's not "just this government" doing fibre networks. The world is moving to fibre networks. There are now residential brownfield FTTP networks being built in over 50 countries around the World, and greenfield FTTP is the standard in essentially every developed nation.
A couple of months ago, Alcatel-Lucent, one of the World's largest suppliers of copper-FTTN and fibre-FTTP equipment announced that their ratio of copper:fibre sales revenue had gone from 71:29 to 50:50 in the last 6 months. Clearly, FTTP is not just the future, it is the current.
If I may finish with an appropriate quote from Prof Rod Tucker:
An enduring characteristic of human nature is our inability to understand and accept the rate of technological change and its impact on society.
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Including wireless technology which will make the NBN worthless.
(Please excuse my selective editing of your post NBNMyths)
How so? Every time I read such lines I've never found they match the reality - speeds, downloads, pricing. Please note Telstra recently increased the price of some mobile calls.
What is the wireless technlogy that will make the NBN worthless? The NBN does include a wireless component. 3G and fixed wireless are different things too.
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Here is a few links I came across recently
http://www.grepscience.com/archives/4395
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...aves-could-boost-wireless-capacity-infinitely
I thought the wireless argument had been done to death?
There is a difference between technological advance and breaking the laws of physics.
Don't you wonder -just a little- why the only people saying that the NBN will be made obsolete by wireless are people with no technical knowledge? Where are all the engineers? The physicists? The telecommunication experts saying this? The answer, of course, is that they actually know what they're talking about so they don't make such ridiculous statements. For that, you'll have to listen to Alan Jones et al.
Oh, and the twisted radio waves (and other assorted variations on the theme) do not overcome any of the other limitations of wireless (ie weather, obstructions, geography, distance etc), and therefore do not solve any problem other than spectrum shortages. And even then, only in theory. They also have inherent problems with a moving transceiver (because the "twist" changes based on distance and position), and have currently only been tested over relatively short distances.
Perhaps the biggest problem though, is that they use modified parabolic antennas between those fixed points, because that's what is required to twist the signals. Obviously, it's rather difficult to a) Get parabolic antennas into small devices and b) Ensure that the mobile antenna always faces the source.
The other point, of course, is cost of wireless services. Telstra recently increased their large 4G data plan pricing. The cost for a 400GB/month service at about 10Mbps is now $600.00!
On the NBN you can get 1000GB/month at 100Mbps for $100.
Would you pay 6x more money for 1/2 the data at 1/10th the speed?
Let me leave you with another quote. This time one of mine:
There is not a single country or telecommunications company -anywhere in the World- attempting or proposing to replace their urban fixed line networks with wireless networks.
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I thought the wireless argument had been done to death?
There is a difference between technological advance and breaking the laws of physics.
Don't you wonder -just a little- why the only people saying that the NBN will be made obsolete by wireless are people with no technical knowledge? Where are all the engineers? The physicists? The telecommunication experts saying this? The answer, of course, is that they actually know what they're talking about so they don't make such ridiculous statements. For that, you'll have to listen to Alan Jones et al.
Oh, and the twisted radio waves (and other assorted variations on the theme) do not overcome any of the other limitations of wireless (ie weather, obstructions, geography, distance etc), and therefore do not solve any problem other than spectrum shortages. And even then, only in theory. They also have inherent problems with a moving transceiver (because the "twist" changes based on distance and position), and have currently only been tested over relatively short distances.
Perhaps the biggest problem though, is that they use modified parabolic antennas between those fixed points, because that's what is required to twist the signals. Obviously, it's rather difficult to a) Get parabolic antennas into small devices and b) Ensure that the mobile antenna always faces the source.
The other point, of course, is cost of wireless services. Telstra recently increased their large 4G data plan pricing. The cost for a 400GB/month service at about 10Mbps is now $600.00!
On the NBN you can get 1000GB/month at 100Mbps for $100.
Would you pay 6x more money for 1/2 the data at 1/10th the speed?
Let me leave you with another quote. This time one of mine:
There is not a single country or telecommunications company -anywhere in the World- attempting or proposing to replace their urban fixed line networks with wireless networks.
So are you saying that there will never be a wireless solution that is as fast or faster than the NBN?
I'm saying there will never be a wireless solution as fast or faster than optical fibre. OF has already achieved 69 Terabits per second (Tbps) on a single strand using 120 wavelengths over hundreds of km, plus a recent success of 26Tbps using a single wavelength (meaning 120x26 or ~3,100Tbps is theoretically possible on a single strand using known technology), wireless is not even on the radar (current max of 0.0003Tbps per cell, not per user). The only limiting factor for OF currently is the computer equipment at the ends of the cable.
The actual speeds implemented on the NBN fibre will depend on demand, one would imagine. It's currently capable of 1Gbps, with 10Gbps on the roadmap for ~5 years and 100Gbps in ~15 years.
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All I can say, even though I have no expertise in this field, is the following:
"When talking about technology - never say never - as those that do often end up with egg on their face."
Guess I am just a technological optimist.
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I think NBN is right Dutchie, the fastest medium known, that humans can use is the speed of light.
That's why the optical fibre will be the backbone infrastructure for a very long time. Downstream the delivery medium may change i.e wireless, microwave ect.
But the only way to move bulk data at bling speed, is optical.
