NBN Rollout Scrapped

joea · 5 August 2012

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/nbn-seeks-verdict-on-wall-warts-20120801-23for.html

and the plot thickens further. When is a decision, not a decision.??

Plan as we go. In Japan they plan for 55 minutes, then install for 5 minutes.
In Australia we plan for 5 minutes, and install for 55 minutes.:1zhelp:

joea

sptrawler · 5 August 2012

NBNMyths said:
Overall, I don't think there will be any massive changes to the Govt equity required or the payback time.....fingers crossed....

That's the first time I have heard you use reference, to a degree of luck being required.

During my working career, which wasn't long ago, I was involved in a few fairly large State Government infrastructure projects.
As smurph alluded to, very few if any, ever come in on time or under budget and most times fall short in the delivery of the promised outcomes.
We will get what we get, hopefully if and when it is abandoned, what is left behind is of some value.

sails · 5 August 2012

joea said:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/nbn-seeks-verdict-on-wall-warts-20120801-23for.html

and the plot thickens further. When is a decision, not a decision.??

Plan as we go. In Japan they plan for 55 minutes, then install for 5 minutes.
In Australia we plan for 5 minutes, and install for 55 minutes.:1zhelp:

joea

From that link, Joea - it seems these ugly boxes on lounge room walls shown below is upsetting people the most and the fact that fibre-optic cables carry light, not electricity, and makes phone lines useless during a blackout and copper wires will be removed once households are transferred to NBN Co's fibre-optic cables.

sptrawler · 5 August 2012

sails said:
From that link, Joea - it seems these ugly boxes on lounge room walls shown below is upsetting people the most and the fact that fibre-optic cables carry light, not electricity, and makes phone lines useless during a blackout and copper wires will be removed once households are transferred to NBN Co's fibre-optic cables.

View attachment 48409

Also who pays for the backup batteries when they require replacing.
At the moment the 50vd.c on the phone line is supplied from the exchange.
Now people not only have a phone bill, they also cop the increase in the electricity bill to run a battery charger 24hrs per day.

sails · 5 August 2012

sptrawler said:
Also who pays for the backup batteries when they require replacing.
At the moment the 50vd.c on the phone line is supplied from the exchange.
Now people not only have a phone bill, they also cop the increase in the electricity bill to run a battery charger 24hrs per day.

And there is concern about the effect on the environment - these are being installed under the direction of a government which is taxing us under the guise of the environment. How hypocritical is this? From the same link:

There is also a huge cost associated with the batteries and an environmental impact, with at least 10 million 12-volt lead acid batteries needed. These batteries must be replaced every five years.

Julia · 5 August 2012

Those boxes are hideous. Are we going to be forced to have the NBN or will wireless be an alternative?
NBN Myths?

sptrawler · 5 August 2012

10 million batteries, wow that will help our battery manufacturers, LOL I forgot they will be all bought from overseas.
Too expensive to manufacture here, but isn't battery storge one of our leading edge new technology industries that the carbon tax is going to encourage. What a load of BS, the government is full of it.:bad:

sptrawler · 5 August 2012

Julia said:
Those boxes are hideous. Are we going to be forced to have the NBN or will wireless be an alternative?
NBN Myths?

How I see it is, if you don't install it when it goes past your house, it will be difficult to get it retrofitted at a later date. It is a bit like natural gas, when Perth was reticulated by by the government it was free.
If you buy an established house now that didn't have it fitted, it is just about impossible to get it retrofitted. This is becoming a huge problem for people who are completely reliant on electricity for heating and cooking, as electricity prices sky rocket.

I think the NBN will cause a similar issue for households that don't install the fibre when it goes past the house. Once the optical fibre is installed and capacity handling capability is increased, it opens up new avenues of charging you for what you presently get for free e.g television.
It won't take long for the free to air t.v stations to say, hang on a minute, why transmit something free and rely on advertising. When we can send it down a cable and charge for it, the reason they don't do it now is the current infrastructure can't handle it.
As for using wireless rather than the fibre, it will be available, like telsra 4g at the moment. But it won't have the data handling and speed capabilities of the fibre.
It will be only a matter of time before the content providers have the applications that make you rue the day you didn't get it installed when it was free.
Even if I don't use it and opt not to take the backup batteries, if it goes by the house and it's free I will be getting the cable pulled in. I will just get the box put in a closet and worry about wiring the house later.

joea · 5 August 2012

Julia said:
Those boxes are hideous. Are we going to be forced to have the NBN or will wireless be an alternative?
NBN Myths?

All I can contribute is, if you are on satellite and want faster speed you go through NBN.
Because they will own the bit on the ground.
The concept is ok, its just how they went about it that is on the nose.

Personally I think there is nothing like a bit of cable hooked to the computer.

Wireless or microwave or what ever, nothing is like a cable hook up to get what will be available in the future.

joea

Calliope · 7 August 2012

Ho hum, another Labor failure to deliver

NBN Co fails on target rollout

BROADBAND Minister Stephen Conroy's reluctance to share the National Broadband Network's new corporate plan is in sharp contrast to his usual enthusiasm for spruiking the NBN. After sitting on the plan for weeks, he's due to release it tomorrow. His reluctance is understandable given it can only highlight the massive failure to reach any of the initial plan's goals.

The initial plan was released in December 2010 by Julia Gillard. That plan is now in tatters despite the fact before its release the Prime Minister's Department paid corporate advisers Greenhill Caliburn $1.1 million for an initial 11 days' work to vet the plan.

The subsequent report said: "Greenhill Caliburn believes that, taken as a whole, the corporate plan for the development of the NBN is reasonable."

Why then, if costly advice said the plan was reasonable and implicitly realistic, has NBN Co missed the targets set by that plan for mid-2012 by a huge margin? Could it be that NBN Co and its head Mike Quigley simply aren't up to the job?

Bd on its original targets, NBN Co has achieved only 9 per cent of its rollout target for homes passed by fibre and 3 per cent of the planned connections where customers are hooked up to broadband. Based on its initial estimates, by June this year 317,000 households should have been passed with fibre and 137,000 homes actually connected to a broadband service. In reality, fewer than 25,000 homes had been passed and fewer than 4000 connected.

Read more

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...n-target-rollout/story-e6frgd0x-1226444256903

drsmith · 7 August 2012

Rob Oakshott's getting fidgety.

Mr Oakeshott said he did not understand why the government was reticent about providing his committee with up-to- date financial and construction data on the NBN. He added that his constituents were largely excited by the project’s benefits.

“Most of our relationship [with the government] has been good but there’s been this issue around data and the committee has raised it a couple of times,” he said. “We’re an agnostic committee that will promote the good and criticise the bad. So there’s no *reason to play games with the committee and in fact doing so will only *agitate the 59 members involved.”

Ovum research director David Kennedy said that the NBN data *currently available was not detailed enough for forecasts and audits due to months of delays caused by various factors. He added that NBN Co had failed to adhere to its own targets set by the previous corporate plan and that this could be its last chance to prove itself before the next election.

http://afr.com/p/technology/tell_the_truth_on_nbn_oakeshott_j03rUy3qfNSOmfnLK6BVaK

joea · 7 August 2012

drsmith said:
Rob Oakshott's getting fidgety.

http://afr.com/p/technology/tell_the_truth_on_nbn_oakeshott_j03rUy3qfNSOmfnLK6BVaK

Poor old Bob. Still not on the correct wavelength with Conroy and Labor.
joea

awg · 7 August 2012

Further to a post I made some time ago, after chatting today with a very experienced individual employed by a major sub-contractor to manage installations. This man has 30+ yrs experience.

He absolutely confirmed many of my suspicions.

He considered the majority of managers are inexperienced.
Very highly paid engineers are sitting about twiddling their thumbs.

He also stated much of the initial cost estimation had been carried out by inexperienced younger staff, he has been urgently drawing atterntion to the numerous difficulties of bringing in the actual jobs for the allocated budget.

Conroy is a Class A clown

I confidently predict the NBN will be an overpriced fiasco, and an abortion when Abbott gets elected.
(and I actually think its an ok idea in principle)

Smurf1976 · 7 August 2012

sptrawler said:
How I see it is, if you don't install it when it goes past your house, it will be difficult to get it retrofitted at a later date. It is a bit like natural gas, when Perth was reticulated by by the government it was free.
If you buy an established house now that didn't have it fitted, it is just about impossible to get it retrofitted.

Why is it so hard to get connected to gas? Isn't it in the gas company's interest to connect new customers?

Here in Tas the gas company advertises quite heavily trying to get new customers to connect. Standard cost to connect is $3000 but they'll do it for $0 if you switch your major energy uses (heating and hot water) to gas.

Smurf1976 · 7 August 2012

awg said:
He also stated much of the initial cost estimation had been carried out by inexperienced younger staff, he has been urgently drawing atterntion to the numerous difficulties of bringing in the actual jobs for the allocated budget.

There's lots to go wrong when pulling cable, lots.

It's risky enough in a new conduit system, but once you consider the re-use of an existing network then there's sure to be issues with rocks (or rats, mice, mud, sand and all sorts of other things) in conduits. And there will be broken conduits too. And ones with silly tight bends that someone who has never actually pulled in a cable installed because it was quick and easy. And conduits that were damaged (or removed altogether) by roadworks, road signage or other utilities.

And that's just what goes wrong with plastic conduit or GWI pipe. The old Telstra network includes various earthenware and fibro pipes as well - I've never pulled cable through either of those materials but I'd expect that it's not a lot of fun. Those old earthenware pipes are easily broken during roadworks, and I'm pretty sure that in many cases they don't get fixed before being covered up again.

And then there's that little "conduit's already full" problem too.

On the positive side, I do recall a few funny moments pulling in various cables. I wish those estimating this job the best of luck. I don't expect them to over estimate on time however, and cost overruns are likely. (And no, I wouldn't want to be estimating it either by the way - too much risk of others under quoting in order to win the work, safe in the knowledge that they can always add on extra costs later (they will...)).

sptrawler · 7 August 2012

Smurf1976 said:
Why is it so hard to get connected to gas? Isn't it in the gas company's interest to connect new customers?

Here in Tas the gas company advertises quite heavily trying to get new customers to connect. Standard cost to connect is $3000 but they'll do it for $0 if you switch your major energy uses (heating and hot water) to gas.

When our daughter moved into a unit (stand alone not in an apartment situation) we rang the gas supply company and they flatly refused to connect the gas.
I will look into it again and give an update, that was 10 years ago.

sptrawler · 7 August 2012

Smurf1976 said:
There's lots to go wrong when pulling cable, lots.

It's risky enough in a new conduit system, but once you consider the re-use of an existing network then there's sure to be issues with rocks (or rats, mice, mud, sand and all sorts of other things) in conduits. And there will be broken conduits too. And ones with silly tight bends that someone who has never actually pulled in a cable installed because it was quick and easy. And conduits that were damaged (or removed altogether) by roadworks, road signage or other utilities.

And that's just what goes wrong with plastic conduit or GWI pipe. The old Telstra network includes various earthenware and fibro pipes as well - I've never pulled cable through either of those materials but I'd expect that it's not a lot of fun. Those old earthenware pipes are easily broken during roadworks, and I'm pretty sure that in many cases they don't get fixed before being covered up again.

And then there's that little "conduit's already full" problem too.

On the positive side, I do recall a few funny moments pulling in various cables. I wish those estimating this job the best of luck. I don't expect them to over estimate on time however, and cost overruns are likely. (And no, I wouldn't want to be estimating it either by the way - too much risk of others under quoting in order to win the work, safe in the knowledge that they can always add on extra costs later (they will...)).

This is where the cost + quotes that came in the early days caused all the angst. I think the government threw out about six tenders. However to get it up and running one would assume they agreed to a degree of "flexibility" in the contract, for unforseen circumstances, that will burn them.
Every contract is based on best case scenario, very seldom does it work out that way.

NBNMyths · 7 August 2012

sails said:
From that link, Joea - it seems these ugly boxes on lounge room walls shown below is upsetting people the most and the fact that fibre-optic cables carry light, not electricity, and makes phone lines useless during a blackout and copper wires will be removed once households are transferred to NBN Co's fibre-optic cables.

sptrawler said:
Also who pays for the backup batteries when they require replacing.
At the moment the 50vd.c on the phone line is supplied from the exchange.
Now people not only have a phone bill, they also cop the increase in the electricity bill to run a battery charger 24hrs per day.

sails said:
And there is concern about the effect on the environment - these are being installed under the direction of a government which is taxing us under the guise of the environment. How hypocritical is this? From the same link:

Personally, I have no interest in the backup battery box. I have a cordless phone anyway, so it doesn't work in a blackout. If I want to call 000, I use my mobile. But there are many people (particularly elderly) who use a corded phone and expect it to work in a blackout, hence the battery backup system that is part of the trial.

I hope that the policy changes and it becomes opt-in, because as cordless phones, naked DSL and cable internet grows, there are already many people without a "blackout" phone, and that number grows every day.

Other Qs:
If you take up the battery backup option, then it will be your ISP that replaces it when required.

The two boxes shown do not have to go "on the lounge room wall". They can be placed (within reason) wherever you choose, such as in the garage, home-office, laundry etc. In my case, I'd choose the home-office. One of the boxes is the NBN fibre-ethernet box, the other is the battery backup.

Julia said:
Those boxes are hideous. Are we going to be forced to have the NBN or will wireless be an alternative?
NBN Myths?

You can choose wireless instead if you want. But with prices 5 or 10 times higher than the NBN (with smaller quotas and slower speeds), it will only be a small percentage of users for which a wireless alternative makes sense. Telstra just put all their 4G data prices up 10%.

Also as I mentioned, you really only need one of those boxes (the other is the battery), and they don't have to go "on the lounge room wall".

NBNMyths · 7 August 2012

Calliope said:
Ho hum, another Labor failure to deliver

NBN Co fails on target rollout

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...n-target-rollout/story-e6frgd0x-1226444256903

I usually ignore anything about the NBN published by the Australian, since their record on accuracy is.....ummm.... less than perfect....

And I certainly ignore anything about the NBN written by self-annointed "independent telecommunications expert" Kevin Morgan, whose only "claim to fame" was allegedly helping design the atrocious privatisation of Telstra for the ALP, later implemented by the Libs. He still argues against the structural separation of Telstra, perhaps embarrassed by the 15 years of problems caused by it's privatisation as a vertical monopoly.

As far as I'm aware, Kevin seems to do little else but bag the NBN is newspaper columns, which he has done constantly for the last 3 years. He has no qualifications of which I'm aware, has no business website and apart from claiming to be a former advisor to Kim Beasley, has no public resumÃ© of positions or who, aside from the occasional newspaper, he has ever provided communications consultancy services for.

NBNMyths · 7 August 2012

Smurf1976 said:
There's lots to go wrong when pulling cable, lots.

It's risky enough in a new conduit system, but once you consider the re-use of an existing network then there's sure to be issues with rocks (or rats, mice, mud, sand and all sorts of other things) in conduits. And there will be broken conduits too. And ones with silly tight bends that someone who has never actually pulled in a cable installed because it was quick and easy. And conduits that were damaged (or removed altogether) by roadworks, road signage or other utilities.

And that's just what goes wrong with plastic conduit or GWI pipe. The old Telstra network includes various earthenware and fibro pipes as well - I've never pulled cable through either of those materials but I'd expect that it's not a lot of fun. Those old earthenware pipes are easily broken during roadworks, and I'm pretty sure that in many cases they don't get fixed before being covered up again.

And then there's that little "conduit's already full" problem too.

On the positive side, I do recall a few funny moments pulling in various cables. I wish those estimating this job the best of luck. I don't expect them to over estimate on time however, and cost overruns are likely. (And no, I wouldn't want to be estimating it either by the way - too much risk of others under quoting in order to win the work, safe in the knowledge that they can always add on extra costs later (they will...)).

sptrawler said:
This is where the cost + quotes that came in the early days caused all the angst. I think the government threw out about six tenders. However to get it up and running one would assume they agreed to a degree of "flexibility" in the contract, for unforseen circumstances, that will burn them.
Every contract is based on best case scenario, very seldom does it work out that way.

Part of the $11bn deal with Telstra is for access to their duct network. A condition is that the ducts must be fit for purpose, and if they are not then Telstra must make them so (at their expense). IIRC, Thodey stated at the shareholder meeting that they have budgeted ~$2bn for NBN-related duct/pit/pipe repairs/replacements/upgrades.

The NBN quotes that were rejected a while back were pre-Telstra deal, and included a clause where the tenderer would possibly be liable for duct repairs and upgrades. Once the Telstra deal was done, that clause was removed from the requirements for the contractors, which contributed to the lower costs. This was stated by Quigley at a (Estimates?) hearing when asked why the new quotes were lower than the rejected ones.

NBN Rollout Scrapped

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