4 ms·

This guy was specifically installed to hold back the project as much as possible for the sake of partisan politics and making profit. He's well aware that he's

This guy was specifically installed to hold back the project as much as possible for the sake of partisan politics and making profit. He's well aware that he's installing a useless network, that's his job. They're actually actively installing slower connections than people had before, and spending around 2300$ per house to do so. And the technology they're using has no capability to be upgraded. At all. Ever. Labor wanted fibre, so the Liberal Party wanted copper. The current plan is to waste the entire NBN budget so that even if the other government gets back in power, they still can't give us good connections. There is no excuse for deploying fibre-to-the-node in 2007, let alone 2017. It's a deliberate, political move. Jobs, education, small businesses, science, research, film, art -- all of these will sadly be held back in Australia for at least a decade while we wait for decent internet. Thanks for destroying our future, Turnbull. But at least a few Telstra shareholders got a bigger mansion.

Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago
I felt like the up-vote just wasn't enough. Well said!
helthanatos 10y ago
Man. Looks a lot like America... Spending money just to waste money AND to hurt your citizens.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  Indeed, I seem to recall a massive subsidy given to American telcos in the 1990s to deliver fiber to the consumer (we all know how that turned out).
kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
To be fair VDSL is good enough for a single household to run a 4K stream or two and other activities provided you actually get the whole 55Mb downstream and not the BS "up to" line the telcos like to use for their craptastic DSL offerings. 100Mb+ isn't really a necessity for most people.
- sumedh 10y ago
  > 100Mb+ isn't really a necessity for most people. Maybe today, what about the future.
- hiisukun 10y ago
  Could you imagine telling someone that moves a lot of files around their computer, or compiles large projects regularly, that they don't need a faster HDD/SSD? Would you tell someone who renders 3d movies for their job or hobby that they don't need a faster CPU/CPU? Telling people who regularly pull (and upload!) docker containers, software packages, or meaningful work data like pictures, videos or backups that they don't need to have time shaved off their activities is equally strange. A decade ago we had to 'imagine' what quality internet we might need in 2017. But now it is 2017.
- qzervaas 10y ago
  This thing is supposed to last more than 3 years into the future.
- ClassyJacket 10y ago
  You can get 100Mbit even, if the node happens to live in your front lawn. Problem is they're installing them up to a km away and only promising 25Mbit -- and lots of people aren't even getting that. There are people on 10 and less. Also, why spend MORE on "Maybe 25mbit or up to 100" with no upgrade potential when you could install the fibre and have reliable gigabit right away? It makes no sense. The NBN should be for the future, not for what's okay for most people today. Imagine if we only had dialup now because that was all we needed 15 years ago. That's what the Liberals are doing to the NBN.
  - mortehu 10y ago
    Are coaxial cable connections not available? These days, you can get 10/1 Gbps with DOCSIS 3.1 (although TWC in USA offers only 300 Mbps), and the standard seems to be improving still.
    - 10y ago
gilgoomesh 10y ago
> There is no excuse for deploying fibre-to-the-node in 2007 Which was exactly the finding of Telstra's own internal investigations in 2005 and the reason why the FTTN tender process was set aside by the Labor government in 2008. The destruction of the fibre-to-the-premises rollout is so achingly wrongheaded. It's an example of politicians clearly, directly lying on numerical, objective criteria – getting called out about their deception on a regular basis by the opposition, media and senate and clearly failing to meet their targets at every level – and there being precisely zero consequences despite the waste of some $40 billion of public funds. If politics were working properly, the person responsible would be in jail. Instead, he got promoted to Prime Minister.
- robbiep 10y ago
  If you look at the political decisions made in this country in the last 5 years they have all been wrong footed disasters aimed at attempting to paint the other (instigating) party as wrong and appeal to the most base elements of either party, without consideration of our national future
  - nyxtom 10y ago
    This appears to be a frequent theme
djsumdog 10y ago
That's really sad. I had TPG in Melbourne and it was pretty terrible. I worked in my company's data centre and we had a really good link, so I knew the capability for good connections was there. I also worked for a shop in Wellington. DSL at home was shit, but even at work with our decent Telecom/SparkNZ pipe, speeds still felt not-that-great. NZ is in way worse shape just because of the limited number of fibre connections to the islands. Australia has several Asian and trans-Pacific connections and should be in a better position to offer solid fibre to the continent.
- lancewiggs 10y ago
  My 1 Gbps unlimited UFB connection at home is sweet, here in Auckland. Times change - and NZ speeds are pretty impressive now.
  - marak830 10y ago
    As is my 2gb unlimited in Japan. I can't imagine moving back to Aus. I am so disappointed at what they have done, it's a large reason we decided to stay here.
vacri 10y ago
Yep. This boneheaded plan was born from Tony Abbott's 'angry toddler' period, where he just said "No!" to everything the incumbent party was doing, regardless of merit. So he got into power and had to stick to his lines. This is something that Americans should keep in mind, given that they've just come off six years of a Republican majority going "No!" to everything, and now they're in power, free and clear. The utterly nonsensical thing is that residential fast internet is just a nice-to-have, but for business, it opens up lots of new avenues. It's business that really has need of fast internet. And the party that scuttled this is the party that's supposed to be the business-friendly one.
- prawn 10y ago
  I think you're under-representing residential internet there. Residents with fast internet are customers for entertainment services - movies, episodic shows, streaming of sports and events, education, etc.
  - vacri 10y ago
    Sure, but that's more a 'nice-to-have', not something new. People already watch streamed activities in the residential market, just not at hi-def resolutions. I certainly think there's a demand for it, just not the opening of new avenues of activity.
NamTaf 10y ago
To speak for the quality of internet here, my DSL syncs at about 5800/600 kbps on a good day (rain will drop that and enough of it will throw sync loss issues in to the mix also). I live 5km from the CBD of Brisbane, a city with a greater population of ~2 million. Here is a list of things I have directly experienced that are affected by my internet connection, which result in me not using services and products that I otherwise would (or would more so): - Streaming 720p is possible if nothing else uses the connection but anything higher is laughably impossible. To this end, I don't have Netflix or any equivalents. - Online backups are simply impossible at any significant scale because 70KB/sec is simply too slow. That rules out Crashplan, etc. Even icloud sync, photo stream etc. is a pain because it happening at the wrong time just destroys any other internet usage (see point 1). - Similar to the above, uploading anything is painful. From a storage/upload point of view, I don't use Flickr. I don't use YouTube. It's just not a reasonable experience. - Games are becoming a literal multi-day download affair if digitally distributed (if not, I'm paying the Australia Tax). 24 hours of absolute 100% download usage = 49.5GB. I stick to a small subset of games and only grab new ones very infrequently when I can leave my PC on for multiple work days to get through it all. See also my quota, though I could pay more to avoid that. - Telecommuting using a remote desktop for my work is painful. It's a one-handed number of FPS sort of thing. I just don't even bother unless it's absolutely necessary and then only for the bare minimum to get what I need done before I come in to the office. That's just off the top of my head with present-day use cases. Who knows what'll come in the next 5 years as I get left behind on the internet.
pmyjavec 10y ago
Even if it wasn't about about "super-fast", people need "super-reliable internet", if relying on old copper, that's probably not going to be a reality. If paying for 25Mbit/s, that is what one should get. Not 5Mbit/s with all sorts of packet loss. Anyway, it's a real shame. I telecommute for work daily (SRE) and I can honestly say, the NBN rollout hasn't done much to improve my situation. Pulling packages and depdencies, cloning large repos, working with Docker containers and hconference calls are often very average experiences for me. It was really quite problematic while interviewing for remote positions, a laggy conference call doesn't exactly impress potential employers :) Here is what I often have to work [1], this is about a 2 month old connection and this happens intermittently. I'm just starting the (often long winded), support dance now. I know others who have similar experiences, this is nothing new for a lot of people in Australia. I guess whatever old and degraded copper lines people relied on before NBN rollout, are still the same old and degraded copper lines after the rollout? [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3vGeC5VUAAK0lV.png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3vGeC5VUAAK0lV.png

Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago

I felt like the up-vote just wasn't enough. Well said!

helthanatos 10y ago

Man. Looks a lot like America... Spending money just to waste money AND to hurt your citizens.

nitrogen 10y ago
Indeed, I seem to recall a massive subsidy given to American telcos in the 1990s to deliver fiber to the consumer (we all know how that turned out).

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago

To be fair VDSL is good enough for a single household to run a 4K stream or two and other activities provided you actually get the whole 55Mb downstream and not the BS "up to" line the telcos like to use for their craptastic DSL offerings. 100Mb+ isn't really a necessity for most people.

sumedh 10y ago
> 100Mb+ isn't really a necessity for most people. Maybe today, what about the future.
hiisukun 10y ago
Could you imagine telling someone that moves a lot of files around their computer, or compiles large projects regularly, that they don't need a faster HDD/SSD? Would you tell someone who renders 3d movies for their job or hobby that they don't need a faster CPU/CPU? Telling people who regularly pull (and upload!) docker containers, software packages, or meaningful work data like pictures, videos or backups that they don't need to have time shaved off their activities is equally strange. A decade ago we had to 'imagine' what quality internet we might need in 2017. But now it is 2017.
qzervaas 10y ago
This thing is supposed to last more than 3 years into the future.
ClassyJacket 10y ago
You can get 100Mbit even, if the node happens to live in your front lawn. Problem is they're installing them up to a km away and only promising 25Mbit -- and lots of people aren't even getting that. There are people on 10 and less. Also, why spend MORE on "Maybe 25mbit or up to 100" with no upgrade potential when you could install the fibre and have reliable gigabit right away? It makes no sense. The NBN should be for the future, not for what's okay for most people today. Imagine if we only had dialup now because that was all we needed 15 years ago. That's what the Liberals are doing to the NBN.
- mortehu 10y ago
  Are coaxial cable connections not available? These days, you can get 10/1 Gbps with DOCSIS 3.1 (although TWC in USA offers only 300 Mbps), and the standard seems to be improving still.
  - 10y ago

gilgoomesh 10y ago

> There is no excuse for deploying fibre-to-the-node in 2007 Which was exactly the finding of Telstra's own internal investigations in 2005 and the reason why the FTTN tender process was set aside by the Labor government in 2008. The destruction of the fibre-to-the-premises rollout is so achingly wrongheaded. It's an example of politicians clearly, directly lying on numerical, objective criteria – getting called out about their deception on a regular basis by the opposition, media and senate and clearly failing to meet their targets at every level – and there being precisely zero consequences despite the waste of some $40 billion of public funds. If politics were working properly, the person responsible would be in jail. Instead, he got promoted to Prime Minister.

robbiep 10y ago
If you look at the political decisions made in this country in the last 5 years they have all been wrong footed disasters aimed at attempting to paint the other (instigating) party as wrong and appeal to the most base elements of either party, without consideration of our national future
- nyxtom 10y ago
  This appears to be a frequent theme

djsumdog 10y ago

That's really sad. I had TPG in Melbourne and it was pretty terrible. I worked in my company's data centre and we had a really good link, so I knew the capability for good connections was there. I also worked for a shop in Wellington. DSL at home was shit, but even at work with our decent Telecom/SparkNZ pipe, speeds still felt not-that-great. NZ is in way worse shape just because of the limited number of fibre connections to the islands. Australia has several Asian and trans-Pacific connections and should be in a better position to offer solid fibre to the continent.

lancewiggs 10y ago
My 1 Gbps unlimited UFB connection at home is sweet, here in Auckland. Times change - and NZ speeds are pretty impressive now.
- marak830 10y ago
  As is my 2gb unlimited in Japan. I can't imagine moving back to Aus. I am so disappointed at what they have done, it's a large reason we decided to stay here.

vacri 10y ago

Yep. This boneheaded plan was born from Tony Abbott's 'angry toddler' period, where he just said "No!" to everything the incumbent party was doing, regardless of merit. So he got into power and had to stick to his lines. This is something that Americans should keep in mind, given that they've just come off six years of a Republican majority going "No!" to everything, and now they're in power, free and clear. The utterly nonsensical thing is that residential fast internet is just a nice-to-have, but for business, it opens up lots of new avenues. It's business that really has need of fast internet. And the party that scuttled this is the party that's supposed to be the business-friendly one.

prawn 10y ago
I think you're under-representing residential internet there. Residents with fast internet are customers for entertainment services - movies, episodic shows, streaming of sports and events, education, etc.
- vacri 10y ago
  Sure, but that's more a 'nice-to-have', not something new. People already watch streamed activities in the residential market, just not at hi-def resolutions. I certainly think there's a demand for it, just not the opening of new avenues of activity.

NamTaf 10y ago

To speak for the quality of internet here, my DSL syncs at about 5800/600 kbps on a good day (rain will drop that and enough of it will throw sync loss issues in to the mix also). I live 5km from the CBD of Brisbane, a city with a greater population of ~2 million. Here is a list of things I have directly experienced that are affected by my internet connection, which result in me not using services and products that I otherwise would (or would more so): - Streaming 720p is possible if nothing else uses the connection but anything higher is laughably impossible. To this end, I don't have Netflix or any equivalents. - Online backups are simply impossible at any significant scale because 70KB/sec is simply too slow. That rules out Crashplan, etc. Even icloud sync, photo stream etc. is a pain because it happening at the wrong time just destroys any other internet usage (see point 1). - Similar to the above, uploading anything is painful. From a storage/upload point of view, I don't use Flickr. I don't use YouTube. It's just not a reasonable experience. - Games are becoming a literal multi-day download affair if digitally distributed (if not, I'm paying the Australia Tax). 24 hours of absolute 100% download usage = 49.5GB. I stick to a small subset of games and only grab new ones very infrequently when I can leave my PC on for multiple work days to get through it all. See also my quota, though I could pay more to avoid that. - Telecommuting using a remote desktop for my work is painful. It's a one-handed number of FPS sort of thing. I just don't even bother unless it's absolutely necessary and then only for the bare minimum to get what I need done before I come in to the office. That's just off the top of my head with present-day use cases. Who knows what'll come in the next 5 years as I get left behind on the internet.

pmyjavec 10y ago

Even if it wasn't about about "super-fast", people need "super-reliable internet", if relying on old copper, that's probably not going to be a reality. If paying for 25Mbit/s, that is what one should get. Not 5Mbit/s with all sorts of packet loss. Anyway, it's a real shame. I telecommute for work daily (SRE) and I can honestly say, the NBN rollout hasn't done much to improve my situation. Pulling packages and depdencies, cloning large repos, working with Docker containers and hconference calls are often very average experiences for me. It was really quite problematic while interviewing for remote positions, a laggy conference call doesn't exactly impress potential employers :) Here is what I often have to work [1], this is about a 2 month old connection and this happens intermittently. I'm just starting the (often long winded), support dance now. I know others who have similar experiences, this is nothing new for a lot of people in Australia. I guess whatever old and degraded copper lines people relied on before NBN rollout, are still the same old and degraded copper lines after the rollout? [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3vGeC5VUAAK0lV.png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3vGeC5VUAAK0lV.png