NBN Rollout Scrapped

[Calliope]

It will be interesting to see if NBNMyths reports the Financial Review to the Press Council for publishing inconvenient truths.

Fewer than 100,000 Australian homes are likely to be linked up to the national broadband network in the months before the next federal election, making it easier for an incoming Coalition government to scale back the costly project.

NBN Co’s four-year corporate plan, released yesterday, predicts that 92,000 homes and offices will be customers by June 2013, a 14 per cent take-up rate well below the previous forecast of 566,000.

With an election due by November next year and the Coalition against a full-blown broadband network, there is great uncertainty about the NBN’s long-term future. The relatively low number of subscribers could help a Coalition government replace NBN Co’s plan with a simpler version.

The government will have to inject an extra $2.9 billion to cover a rise in capital and operating expenses. The completion date will be pushed back six months to mid-2021.

 

[DB008]

This is the thread l mentioned a while ago.

Just go to Whirlpool -> Forums -> NBN and it's in there (up to page 82). No doubt NBNMyths also has a presence there too.

Whirlpool more accurate than AFR, says Conroy

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has delivered a fiery tirade against the media for constantly repeating misconceptions about Labor’s National Broadband Network project, singling out the Financial Review newspaper for particular ridicule and recommending that those interested in accuracy read broadband forum Whirlpool.

The Labor Senator opened a press conference held in Sydney yesterday to release NBN Co’s latest corporate plan by speaking in detail about what he said were a series of “misconceptions” regularly repeated in the media with respect to the NBN.

“You often think if Malcolm Turnbull put out a press release saying “Cost blowout in the NBN due to the Earth being flat”, it’d probably lead the front page of the Fin Review lately,” Conroy told the audience, which was composed of technology journalists from mainstream publications such as The Australian, The Financial Review and technology vertical outlets such as Communications Day, ZDNet and iTNews.


“For those that are interested in a comprehensive discussion of these issues, I can recommend to you the Whirlpool website, particularly the thread entitled ‘fighting the FUD’,” Conroy added. “It is a very informative thread, and I would encourage you to take a look at it. because it does address quite a few of the issues which we debate regularly.”

Fear
Uncertainty
Doubt

Link to above article

 

[NBNMyths]

It will be interesting to see if NBNMyths reports the Financial Review to the Press Council for publishing inconvenient truths.

I didn't attack the Tele for reporting inconvenient truths, I attacked them for reporting demonstrably false information. The press council agreed that the three articles contained numerous factual errors.


Does that FR article contain demonstrably false information, or just opinion that I may not agree with?

 

[Glen48]

Your Government is spend about $5,600 per head ( stand by to pay more ) to get this to your door and you are not happy???

 

[sptrawler]

Well NBNMyths, I just hope the roll out has been carried out on a financial basis, not a political basis.
It would be terrible if the roll out was shut down due to cost blowouts. Then we find out Ma and Pa Kettle have bling speed, but the CBD is hamstrung by slow connections. That would be another pink batt scenario.

 

[NBNMyths]

Your Government is spend about $5,600 per head ( stand by to pay more ) to get this to your door and you are not happy???

That's some interesting maths you've got there. Care to show some working?


If we take the total funding of the NBN to 2021 ($44bn) and divide by the current population (22million), we get $2,000 per head.

If we take the total funding of the NBN to 2021 ($44bn) and divide by the projected population in 2021 (26million), we get $1690 per head.

If we take the peak Govt investment ($30.4bn) and divide by the current population (22million), we get $1,380 per head.

If we take the peak Govt investment ($30.4bn) and divide by the projected population in 2021 (26million), we get $1170 per head.


FYI, the per-capita Govt (PMG) funding to build the copper network (according to BRW) was $1,222.

 

[Glen48]

from Money Morning today:

Yesterday, communications minister, Senator Stephen Conroy revealed the NBN would - surprise, surprise - cost more than originally thought.

That doesn't surprise us. We warned long ago that the real end cost will probably be at least three-times the original forecast.

As The Australian reported:

'The funding required to roll out the super-fast National Broadband Network has blown out by $3.2 billion, with the vast majority of the extra money to come from taxpayer funds.'

The government says the NBN will now cost $44.1 billion. Based on the last Census which showed Australia has 7.8 million households, the NBN will cost $5,653.85 per household.

We're sure that given the choice, you would happily spend $5,653.85 on an Internet connection too. What's that? You wouldn't...we thought as much.

As it happens, when we arrived home last night we saw a letter from our Internet provider, iPrimus. They had written to say that due to an upgrade in the Frankston area we could now use the iPrimus network to get faster speeds.

How much do we have to pay for this upgrade? $5,000? More perhaps? No. It won't cost us a bean for the upgrade. In fact our monthly bill will be $20 cheaper.

Got that? The private sector can provide us with a better service at a lower cost. While the government has to charge each household $5,653.85 for a service we can't be sure will be any better than the one we've already got.

But as usual, the government thinks it knows how to better spend your money than you. So it forces you to spend thousands on health insurance that you don't need, and now it's spending $5,653.85 of your tax dollars on an Internet connection you probably pay about $60 a month for.

 

[MrBurns]

Heard on 3AW this morning a pensioner who gets $800 a fortnight plus $200 from something else . after rent and costs lives on toast and crumpets.

Probably not the place to post this but I'm shocked and angry that her and thousands of others have been forced into poverty and then Gillard puts in a carbon tax to top it off.

Angry very angry.........

 

[DB008]

Heard on 3AW this morning a pensioner who gets $800 a fortnight plus $200 from something else . after rent and costs lives on toast and crumpets.

Probably not the place to post this but I'm shocked and angry that her and thousands of others have been forced into poverty and then Gillard puts in a carbon tax to top it off.

Angry very angry.........

There is a solution.
Fly to Bali on Jetstar and hop on a boat back over here. On the way back, dump your passport in the water. Make up a name, go from there.

 

[NBNMyths]

We're sure that given the choice, you would happily spend $5,653.85 on an Internet connection too. What's that? You wouldn't...we thought as much.

As it happens, when we arrived home last night we saw a letter from our Internet provider, iPrimus. They had written to say that due to an upgrade in the Frankston area we could now use the iPrimus network to get faster speeds.

How much do we have to pay for this upgrade? $5,000? More perhaps? No. It won't cost us a bean for the upgrade. In fact our monthly bill will be $20 cheaper.

Got that? The private sector can provide us with a better service at a lower cost. While the government has to charge each household $5,653.85 for a service we can't be sure will be any better than the one we've already got.

But as usual, the government thinks it knows how to better spend your money than you. So it forces you to spend thousands on health insurance that you don't need, and now it's spending $5,653.85 of your tax dollars on an Internet connection you probably pay about $60 a month for.

Right, except you wrote per head, not per premises.

That aside, your numbers are still wrong, because the NBN will not only connect to homes, but also to businesses, schools etc. So by 2021 there will be a total of ~14 million connections, making the cost ~$3100 per connection.

The fact you can type on this forum at all, and that iPrimus can give you a new ADSL2 connection is because the Govt of the day spend around the same amount connecting your house to the copper network.

All iPrimus are doing is installing a $500 piece of equipment into the Telstra exchange and connecting it to the copper wires that the Govt originally rolled out to your house. They will then connecting it to their own transit fibre network. The same transit fibre network that iPrimus will also use to connect to the NBN.

It's unlikely that iPrimus will give you a speed boost, because ADSL2 speeds are limited by the quality and length of copper between your house and the exchange. Nothing they install at the exchange can improve the maximum theoretical speed of your connection. The only way to do that is to replace the copper with fibre, or at least most of it (ie FTTN).

Also, the Govt is not spending your tax dollars on the NBN. The cost of building the NBN is paid back by your monthly connection charge, just as the cost of building/maintaining the copper network is paid for through your line rental/monthly charge on that network. iPrimus aren't charging you up-front the $500 for installing the DSLAM that lets you use that network, they are recouping that investment through your monthly charge. Exactly the same way that the NBN recoups its investment.

The maximum theoretical speed of ADSL2+ is 24Mbps, but most people get less than 10. The current maximum speed of the NBN is 100Mbps, but that will increase to 1Gbps next year, and probably 10Gbps in another 10 years. Such is the benefit of fibre which has already been tested to 69,000Gbps. So yes, you can be sure that your NBN service will be better.

 

[sptrawler]

That's some interesting maths you've got there. Care to show some working?


If we take the total funding of the NBN to 2021 ($44bn) and divide by the current population (22million), we get $2,000 per head.

If we take the total funding of the NBN to 2021 ($44bn) and divide by the projected population in 2021 (26million), we get $1690 per head.

If we take the peak Govt investment ($30.4bn) and divide by the current population (22million), we get $1,380 per head.

If we take the peak Govt investment ($30.4bn) and divide by the projected population in 2021 (26million), we get $1170 per head.


FYI, the per-capita Govt (PMG) funding to build the copper network (according to BRW) was $1,222.

Hey NBNMyths, I don't put any credibility in Glen48's figures. However I wouldn't bet my goolies on yours either.

I saw an industry upgrade that the scope of work was to upgrade control systems on 12 modules for a cost of $30m. After the first 2 the original $30m was gone, after 6 the cost had blown out to $80m. The project was abandoned. Maybe this will be different, however I doubt it.

 

[drsmith]

If we take the peak Govt investment ($30.4bn) and divide by the current population (22million), we get $1,380 per head.

If the Govt investment is $0 (it borrows the lot) and we divide that by any non-zero number, we get $0.00 per head.

It's this sort of voodoo economics that really worries me.

 

[Calliope]

Senator Conroy is obviously NBNMyth's mentor.

MALCOLM Turnbull: As Senator Conroy descends further and further into the pit of paranoia, the ranks of the hate media in his mind get bigger and bigger. Anyone that disagrees with him is engaged in a vendetta.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...lat-earth-review/story-fn72xczz-1226447081912

 

[DB008]

Calliope - you seem to be on a paid subscription to the Australian. We only seem to be able to read the headline and 1 or 2 sentences.
Here is more of the article.

Other highlights of the press conference. Has the cost increased?

CONROY: It's a pull-through rather than an increase.

If you subtract $35.9 billion from $37.4 billion, how does it come to $1.4 billion?

CONROY: Ah, rounding. If you go into the deep into the documents, that's why $3.9 billion is the correct figure though. A quick look at those rounded estimates would get you to a slightly higher figure than that, but if you look at it, there's a more detailed couple of decimal points. It's a rounding issue. It's literally just a rounding issue. Up front, they round them up. If you're looking for a detailed document to find the estimate, it's a couple of decimal points. When you do the divisions and adds and subtractions, it comes to the figures we're talking about.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/seriously-minister-cut-and-paste-tries-to-utterly-utterly-ignore-the-flat-earth-review/story-fn72xczz-1226447081912

 

[NBNMyths]

Calliope - you seem to be on a paid subscription to the Australian. We only seem to be able to read the headline and 1 or 2 sentences.
Here is more of the article.



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/seriously-minister-cut-and-paste-tries-to-utterly-utterly-ignore-the-flat-earth-review/story-fn72xczz-1226447081912

It's not rocket science. The "more decimal places" Conroy is talking about would mean, for example that it has increased by $1.44bn from $35.94bn, to $37.38bn. While you may round when talking about each number individually, when adding them together correctly you would keep the additional decimal places until you finish, thus you could end up with a figure that doesn't seem to add up unless you are aware of the additional decimals. eg: $35.9+1.4=37.4, when it may actually have been 35.94+1.44 = 37.38 = 37.4

 

[awg]

I know what you mean but in the case of the NBN I'd be expecting a bail out of the contractor given the huge political commitment to building it. Eg spend the $ and keep the issues out of the public eye rather than allowing delays because someone went broke. My guess is that's what will happen...

hmmm...if Labor was re-elected yes...but what chance of that?

dont pay much attention....has Abbott changed his tune?...thought he didnt want it, cant see him chucking extra $$$ at some contractors who cant get things right.

I wouldnt if I was him

 

[So_Cynical]

Heard on 3AW this morning a pensioner who gets $800 a fortnight plus $200 from something else . after rent and costs lives on toast and crumpets.

Probably not the place to post this but I'm shocked and angry that her and thousands of others have been forced into poverty and then Gillard puts in a carbon tax to top it off.

Angry very angry.........

What a complete crock.

Is 1 vote Tony going to force the power company's to roll back the price rises that have all come BEFORE the carbon tax kicked in...no chance in hell.

Any idiot pensioner that has to live on Aldi baked beans now is and always was a charity case.

The private sector can provide us with a better service at a lower cost. While the government has to charge each household $5,653.85 for a service we can't be sure will be any better than the one we've already got.

Pure and utter fantasy...no ifs and or buts about it.

By the way Glen...hows the Internet in the Philippines? Private sector and lighting fast???

 

[MrBurns]

What a complete crock.
Is 1 vote Tony going to force the power company's to roll back the price rises that have all come BEFORE the carbon tax kicked in...no chance in hell.
Any idiot pensioner that has to live on Aldi baked beans now is and always was a charity case.
Pure and utter fantasy...no ifs and or buts about it.
By the way Glen...hows the Internet in the Philippines? Private sector and lighting fast???

I really think you'd be better joining the Nazi party if you havent already, though I guess the ALP is close enough.

 

[IFocus]

What a complete crock.

Is 1 vote Tony going to force the power company's to roll back the price rises that have all come BEFORE the carbon tax kicked in...no chance in hell.

Any idiot pensioner that has to live on Aldi baked beans now is and always was a charity case.

Pure and utter fantasy...no ifs and or buts about it.

Fair go SC you need to get a pair of those Liberal glasses you know the ones that don't see up to 50% rises in electricity bills but declare the world will end if you see a 9% rise tut tut you.

 

[sails]

Interesting comments from Telecommunications Consultant Kevin Morgan plus some history on the NBN before Kevin speaks: