13 ms·

How Australia's $49B internet network came to be ridiculed

135 points by boyter 9y ago

andrewstuart 9y ago
In Australia, the Liberal party leadership is clever enough to design national computer communication networks. Wait.... no they're not even close to that clever. But it doesn't stop them anyway. What we can be sure of it now that Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull have completely ruined our chance at having a world class NBN, they'll not do what is needed to actually make it world class. It's really strange that politicians simply are not driven by making things awesome. They're driven by something else and it's certainly not the goal of getting to the best possible outcome for the people and the country. So I have HFC coming into my home right now.... where is my symmetric 10Gbps connection? https://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/industry/hfc-what-is-full-duplex-docsis-3-1.html https://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/industry/hfc-what-is-full-dupl... I loathe politicians with the burning heat of a thousand supernovas.
- gonzo41 9y ago
  Don't waste that anger. Vote left (Or at least be very careful with your preference flows) at the next election. And get everyone you can to start talking/pushing for a Royal Commission into this.
  - andrewstuart 9y ago
    I loathe all politicians including the left wing. I just loathe the right wing more. None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest. And I certainly don't agree with the far left who seem to have an anti corporate/anti capitalist whiff to them ... I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that.
    - gonzo41 9y ago
      I'm not discounting that, but use what you've got. Your vote.
    - perilunar 9y ago
      What about the Reason Party (ex. Sex Party)? They are broadly Libertarian but more pro-environment than the Lib-Dems.
    - shabbyrobe 9y ago
      So when your choice is for the worst or the less worse, vote less worse! We don't have to like it (though that'd be nice), just prefer it. Case in point: the original plan for the NBN was vastly preferable to this scandal ;)
      - aplummer 9y ago
        I disagree about the original plan being preferable. The original NBN plan was a pipe dream in terms of cost feasibility, the rollout was aligned electoral boundaries, and the country first mentality means you get 12 megabit per second ADSL2 across from the Telstra building in the Melbourne CBD, and 100mbit in a large number of country towns.
        andrewstuart 9y ago
        I live in the city but "country first" is exactly the right way to go. Internet service in Australia outside the cities is absolutely terrible. It would be a game changer for the whole of Australia if Internet was first class everywhere. Then it truly wouldn't matter where you lived for certain classes of work. And regarding cost, well I think this is precisely what the government should be spending OUR money on. They make such a huge song and dance about $49Biliion for the NBN, but the government is desperate to throw our money at companies. Have you heard ANYTHING about the $50Bn tax cut the government has given to companies? http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbulls-company-tax-cut-rises-from-50-billion-to-654-billion-20170511-gw2ksm.html http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/mal...
        aplummer 9y ago
        We'll just have to disagree. Last weekend I was at a farm in Glenburn with NBN, but since on the farm they get 4g which is easier they just use that instead, especially just for email and occasional agri-mapping software. Meanwhile software developers in Fitzroy working from home get ~5mbit - ~10mbit and actually need the data.
    - aplummer 9y ago
      We all thought Malcolm Turnbull was supposed to be exactly what you are describing.
      - FuckOffNeemo 9y ago
        He was before he lost to Tony Abbot for running the LNP. As it stands he's a far cry from what his ideals once where. I'm not informed enough to see how this came about but if I had to take a guess I'd suggest the influence of the Nationals on the LNP has taken it's toll.
    - girvo 9y ago
      There was the Australian Democrats. I’m still tempted to see if I can resurrect them.
      - thomasfoster96 9y ago
        They still run Senate candidates (in Victoria at least) but as independents because they lost party status. Not sure if they can be resurrected though - I think their good people all went to Labor and the Greens.
        flukus 9y ago
        Due to todays events the former Democrats leader (Andrew Bartlet) will probably be replacing Waters.
        thomasfoster96 9y ago
        That’s true.
    - mmerlin 9y ago
      Sick of politicians? Sustainable Australia party is who you're looking for. William Bourke is eminently sensible. Dick Smith joined. The anti-corruption fighter who wrote "Game of Mates" Dr Cameron Murray is running for them too. http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/qld http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/qld
      - Benjamin_Dobell 9y ago
        Unfortunately, Dick Smith's reputation has been somewhat tainted by getting involved with a racist national disgrace: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/08/17/hanson-dick-smith-meet-over-capping-immigration http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/08/17/hanson-dick-sm...
        mmerlin 9y ago
        Somewhat, although he backed away from One Nation after Pauline wore a Burka in parliament. It's a shame the media has conflated any discussion of an immigration policy with racism (ie because of One Nation) Dick's not running though, so checkout the candidates and party, they are academics and scientists for the common good.
      - thomasfoster96 9y ago
        Do you have any links to the party? I’ve never really got the impression that Sustainable Australia (or any of its previous incarnations) was really anything more than an anti-population growth single issue party.
        mmerlin 9y ago
        They're much more than a single issue party :) - Stop undemocratic privatisation - Establish an independent Federal commission against corruption - Require more timely disclosure of political donations - Invest more in renewable energy - Moratorium on all fracking - No new casinos - Prioritise public transport funding over new tollways - Lower immigration from its record level (over 200,000 p.a.) back to the long term average of 70,000 p.a. - Tackle global population growth through increased foreign aid for female education and universal access to contraception - Establish major community product repair and recycle centres Public Assets http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/public_assets_utilities/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/public_assets_utiliti... Foreign Investment http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/foreign_investment/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/foreign_investment/ Education http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/education/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/education/ Housing Affordability http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/housing_affordability/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/housing_affordability... Health http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/health/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/health/ Gambling http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/gambling/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/gambling/ Energy http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/energy/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/energy/ Finite Resources http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/finite_non_renewable_resource_use/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/finite_non_renewable_... Jobs http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/economy_jobs/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/economy_jobs/
    - predakanga 9y ago
      There's always the Flux party[0] - as I understand it, they're basically committing themselves to direct democracy within their own party. [0]: https://voteflux.org/ https://voteflux.org/
    - crispinb 9y ago
      > None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest That is a false and dangerous overstatement. I have met many parliamentarians in 3 nations. They have pretty much the same mix of ethical tendencies as in the general population. They higher they rise, the more compromises are forced on them, but they're no worse in general than their electors (many of whom are also entirely self-interested and grasping). > I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that Most Green parties have been suckered by the long-discredited 'natural capital' story, so are unfortunately heavily committed to capitalism. Ipso facto, there are few genuinely Green parties, as capitalism is clearly incompatible with the continued healthy existence of a living planet.
    - thomasfoster96 9y ago
      > I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that. The Greens have an unofficial right faction (pro-capitalism, pro-green). Most of the recent Greens internal tension has been between this faction (which has a lot of ex-Liberal environmentalists and ex-Democrats) and the Left Renewal faction (many of whom are openly anti-capitalist). The pro-capitalism faction is certainly very strong and seems to control the party leadership at the moment.
- quink 9y ago
  And that's not even covering the reason why the NBN was necessary in the first place. Howard's/Costello's (former Liberal PM and treasurer) privatisation of the essentially monopoly government-run communications provider without any separation of retail from wholesale or HFC network from telephony network. It was the equivalent of pre-breakup AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cox (and the only competition was Optus, probably equivalent in market share then to Charter now) all in one go without breaking up anything. Oh, and guess what, they're also in a 50%-50% joint venture with the only major Pay TV provider left, FOXTEL (so that's the equivalent of Dish and DirectTV on top of the above). And their partner in FOXTEL is Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp which also happens to own 70%, yes, 70% of daily newspaper circulation in the country. But in the light of that of course, the government has finally come to its senses and done something about media ownership regulations. ... And they actually did, but what they did was just overturning the rules to allow Newscorp to also buy more radio or FTA TV assets. Which included a recently bankrupt FTA TV network run in and owned in substantial part (essentially as much as legally allowed by regulation at the time) by a certain James Murdoch. How did it go bankrupt? Credit withheld, guess by who. Well, not entirely, it was him and a guy who also owns a affiliated regional FTA network who wanted to take over the lot. But in the only bit of actual hilarity in this whole thing, CBS bought that FTA TV network in bankruptcy. Outbidding Newscorp. So at least things are on the up and up. They may still have a complete and total stranglehold and perverted national infrastructure in collusion with a political party they're so strongly biassed towards. But at least an eternally bankrupt (they went bankrupt in the late 80s too) TV network at a time when TV is headed for terminal decline has escaped the grasp. Yay us :|
DigitalSea 9y ago
I truly fear the day the NBN comes to my area. I am currently with Telstra and fortunately have HFC, I get pretty reliable speeds between 112 and 115mbps, with ping of 9ms. I am a developer and I rely on my currently decent connection to make money, video call clients in other countries, transfer large files (to and fro) if speeds were to suffer resulting in the inability to communicate properly, it would be crushing. The fact that retailers are not purchasing enough bandwidth means you're buying a Ferrari with a broken engine that is being pulled by a single horse. My area is slated for NBN 2019, let's hope they do something about the bandwidth before then (apparently at an estimates hearing a solution was promised by Christmas this year). What a joke.
- andrewstuart 9y ago
  I believe you have 18 months after the NBN arrives before you are forced to switch. The NBN has come to my area. I am on Telstra 100Mbps HFC and it has worked pretty much flawlessly for years. I have heard from various people in the area how terrible the NBN is. I'm not switching until as late as I possibly can.
- hackits 9y ago
  When migrating from 56K modem to ADSL it was amazing. The same cannot be said from the migration from ADSL2+ to NBN Fiber to the home was nice, but wasn't WOW. The whole NBN has turned into a complete joke. If they would of stuck to rolling out fiber everywhere it would solved everything. Nope we now have to have a hybrid of everything.
  - cknight 9y ago
    This depends on your ADSL2+ line. I'm paying for "up to 24mbit" but the line length means I get 3. The rest of my street is now on HFC NBN but my house is an outlier, still waiting on additional work. Been waiting since May, I suspect it'll take until the next May. With 3 people in the house, going from 3 mbit to 25 or 50 will make a pretty huge difference to us. Probably about as much as when we first jumped from 56k to 256k ADSL 15 years ago.
owengriffiths 9y ago
This article didn't mention what Australians are choosing to do when they have a range of speeds. According to the figures NBN released 80% of customers aren't even paying for the top speed they could. Similarly, this piece from Vox notes that fast internet just is not nearly as valuable as proponents claimed. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/only-17pc-of-nbn-users-choosing-highspeed-packages/news-story/20ab3be87d9cc9ca6760c3889e29fb41 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/only-17p... https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/17/13230500/gigabit-networks-chattanooga-google https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/17/13230500/gigabit-ne...
- girvo 9y ago
  The craziest part is that I was getting 100/60 that actually ran FASTER than it’s advertised speed, unlimited (truly) for $69 a month, with TPGs private FTTB network. But I had to move, and now I’m on an Opticom network; $99 a month for slower upload, but I do get a static v4 IP, so that’s a plus for what I use it for. And this is all in Fortitude Valley, basically the centre of Brisbane...
  - ACow_Adonis 9y ago
    'tis true. Can vouch because that's the plan/infrastructure I'm on in Melbourne. I can only extrapolate my own experience, but perhaps if there was some truth in advertising enforcement. I've had NBN plans elsewhere, and I never chose the top plan, because I'd still be limited by other parts of the internet I was communicating with in practice, and everyone knew the top rate plans quoted speeds are literal nonsense. Why pay extra when you get the same performance on the bottom/mid plan?
- gonzo41 9y ago
  The default Telstra plan is 25/5. That is why most have that limit. I have FTTN and won't pay above that because at peak netflix hours my 25/5 drops to 10/1. If i go higher, I can't break 35/8
- bobbles 9y ago
  It really is on par with saying something like hard drives should never get bigger because we dont use the space. The capabilities need the infrastructure in place first so that they can grow to use them, it's impossible for the other way around to occur as you cannot transfer something that requires faster connections before they exist.
ClassyJacket 9y ago
The tl;dr is that Australia started a fibre-to-the-premises project for the whole country (93% of premises, plus rural 7% on wireless), then a conservative government got in power and decided to deliberately destroy it. To do this, they changed it to fibre-to-the-node (DSL) instead. Instead of gigabit to the home, they're spending more money providing people with connections anywhere between 4mbps and 100 at the absolute most, with no possibility of upgrades. The cost to do this, is, of course, far more money in the long term than installing the fibre. Some people in metropolitan areas will get connected to the existing coaxial network, which is going to have huge contention problems as it's stretched far beyond what it was ever intended for. It's the biggest trainwreck of an infrastructure project in Australia's history and will set every person and business back for decades, and the blame lies squarely with the Liberal Party. The current head of the project has gone on record saying that Australians don't want fast internet and wouldn't use it if it was free.
- vacri 9y ago
  > Some people in metropolitan areas will get connected to the existing coaxial network, which is going to have huge contention problems as it's stretched far beyond what it was ever intended for. s/some/most/. HFC is the predominant plan for most of the capital cities (I think not... hobart? or was it adelaide?).
- Retric 9y ago
  Wait, if the Conservative party decided to destroy it how is that the fault of the Liberal Party?
  - ClassyJacket 9y ago
    Because it's the same party. The Liberal Party is the name of the conservative party.
    - vacri 9y ago
      It's not even a misnomer to our American friends. The Australian main conservative party is more liberal than the American main liberal party.
Gatsky 9y ago
By 'fit for service' they mean 12Mbps down, or average copper wire speeds. What's the point? Although the original goal was great, in hindsight it appears that it could not be delivered anywhere near the original budget. For context, after a prolonged period of centre-right government, a centre-left government was elected, led by Kevin Rudd. He had a progressive agenda, but due to a combination of his unmitigated egotism and internal party conflicts, he instituted a variety of programs that were poorly conceived and executed, and was ultimately ousted by his own party in a fairly disasterous manner. The National Broadband network was a product of this highly disappointing and dysfunctional period of government. Since then the problems have continued across a change back to the centre-right government, who with a very slim majority have essentially stuffed around for the last few years with a lame duck leader who seems hamstrung by the ultra conservatives in his own party. For my part, I'm dropping all wires and switching to 4G/LTE, where I can stream 4K content, get decent uploads and still pay less than I would on the National Broadband network.
- neumann 9y ago
  This is an excellent summary of the situation. There was a few major potholes in the original plan. The nobel aim was to wire up (and use satellite to augment) the majority of australia, including, critically a large part of the rural population. The appeal was to level the access for the population to high quality internet. From then on; however, it became a political football, with both parties internal reworking it and bike shedding the entire technology stack with no clue on implementation and a strong lobby from the incumbent privatised telco (Telstra) and other telcos to ensure their business is not threatened. Bunch of muppets.
- flukus 9y ago
  > For my part, I'm dropping all wires and switching to 4G/LTE, where I can stream 4K content, get decent uploads and still pay less than I would on the National Broadband network. If everyone does that you'll be lucky to stream youtube videos at 240p. Wireless bandwidth is inherently shared between everyone, wired is dedicated.
  - vacri 9y ago
ggm 9y ago
First common mistake: Yes, Australia is geographically huge. No, it is not sparce. it is a highly urbanized economy in terms of geographic concentration of the population. Therefore, the oft-quoted extreme expense "oh, its so much more expensive to do it in OZ compared to ..." is bullshit: its not. There are of course some very expensive locations to service, but thats a USO problem. Overall, the cost of deployment of the CAN is within scale of any other urban economy. Higher than Singapore? Sure. But, comparable per head of population to NZ. Second common mistake: The argument which led to the MTM replacing FTTP was not about technology. It was about the cost of capital works, and the economic model of recovery. Labor was stupid enough to float a mixed-economy pluralist argument hinting at a future independent non-utility model with zero cost (long term) to the government. This hung them because it allowed the Liberals to go hard on cost recovery and privatization. If the intent had been to reserve a national utility function in layers 1 and 2, and promote competition above this, we'd be in a different conversation. That conversation was about structural separation of the former monopoly Telco. It was quashed by Labor, in a stupid reactive move. It was floated, and the banking sector indicated a preference. Reactively the union movement and Labor party moved to reject it: if the banks wanted it, it must be bad. Talk about a huge missed opportunity. The NZ model, by comparison is gold: structural separation. Crown holdings for the fiber. A pot of money, re-circulating to deploy to the cities, each region re-fills the pot to move to the next town. Far simpler. And.. fibre to (most) homes.
- Gatsky 9y ago
  Yeah this is spot on. Other comments are blaming the Liberals, but the reality is if you are an effective leader trying to create a huge infrastructure project that you care deeply about, you need to come up with a solution that will last through a change in government, with aligned economic and political contingencies. If you are just governing for fun then you do what Rudd did. It always lets you blame the next government though, as he is doing now.
  - raides 9y ago
    To the Aussie's credit the infrastructure and the regulations instilled on businesses there have always been Federally imposed. Since the mid-90s the government has imposed many regulations for control that has impeded much of the free market progress for network infrastructure. Those regulations coupled with needed external transit installations have not helped. For a long period of time the government would pick and choose companies based on their ideals rather than their talent. This has hindered progress from both sides of the fence by liberal and conservative administrations. I ran a semi successful ISP and consulting company for a decade in the US and I have always enjoyed the tiering system we setup vs other country Infrastructures. It wasn't until recently when the FCC gained control that states started to use the new regulation power to hinder progress. I am still on the fence about the whole thing because the exploitation has not been bad in my area but the horror stores I have heard in other states make me sad. Hopefully it will get back to normal.
burntrelish1273 9y ago
Reminds me of Dave of EEVblog (in AU, obviously) discussing about how stupid the pricing, bureaucracy and outdated are on various, overlapping internet service providers, especially NBN. https://youtu.be/haImi4cWau0 https://youtu.be/haImi4cWau0 (2017) https://youtu.be/nJxQZr4dz3g https://youtu.be/nJxQZr4dz3g (2014)
vacri 9y ago
So here's my tale of what happened: Party A was in power, and having infighting problems. Party B was headed by an absolute arse of a man, who used the tactic "Say No! to EVERYTHING". Didn't matter how benign or banal, the opposition party would say no. A flagship policy like the NBN was particularly focused on - and if you look at interviews with the opposition communications minister at the time (now our prime minister), it was clear that he was toeing the party line and didn't think changing the policy was a good idea. Fast-forward to the next exection, and Absolute Arse gets into power. Turns out he can't govern at all (despite 20 years on the front benches) and he definitely isn't going to backtrack on something he's attacked so routinely. He's kicked out by his own party. At this stage, the NBN has been gutted, and its doom is sealed. In steps the comms minister as the new PM, but he is now beset by factionalism. He knows what a turkey the NBN is, but he doesn't have the political power to do an about-face on his party's policies. In short, we're fucked. By the time any other party can get in, the NBN will be 'mostly complete'. The most annoying thing is that the folks who really need good internet is business, not residences (think graphic design, medical imagery, etc), and the party that fucked the NBN is the 'party of business'. Enterprises can already dictate their own network backbones, but small-to-medium businesses cannot.
- prawn 9y ago
  "Enterprises can already dictate their own network backbones, but small-to-medium businesses cannot." Before that election, I can remember having an argument about the need for the NBN with a friend who works for a very large company. He argued that the internet in Australia was fine because their teleconferencing video in the boardroom worked well. I told him that not only would they have had a very specialised connection, that in the very near future, households would see multiple, concurrent, hi-res video streams, and that business demands would be high too. We're a home of four. It's not uncommon for the kids to be streaming Netflix while I work (with a basketball stream running), and my wife uploads large photos and streams a TV show on her phone while she works. We're still a year away from getting NBN and our internet absolutely crawls.
bhalley 9y ago
Tasmania got very lucky with the rollout, we are mostly covered with FTTP, Fixed Wireless and only some FTTN. We are also lucky enough to have a local business (Launtel) pushing the constraints of the NBN by offering Gigabit at prices that aren't unreasonable ($14.50/day). They are treating it as a new pricing model, why bill the same as ADSL when there are no costs associated with setup and plan changes? They are billing daily which allows more flexibility meaning you could spin up a connection for a day (At an Airbnb for example) or change speed depending on your usage. This is all in beta for them at the moment and only available in Tasmania. Here is a speedtest I ran yesterday from my home FTTP connection https://www.speedtest.net/result/6738001151.png https://www.speedtest.net/result/6738001151.png
- contingencies 9y ago
  Wow. Just wow. My advice is buy cheap real estate and start an internatianal incubator. The weather alone should keep people indoors and focused... only half joking!
  - bhalley 9y ago
    It was like I had jumped into the future when this was connected. The Tasmanian Government is actually offering grants to incubators at the moment http://www.startuptasmania.com/incubator-support http://www.startuptasmania.com/incubator-support
- boyter 9y ago
  The fact that you get that where as the majority get up-to 12 Mbps is enough to make me cry. I am still waiting for any connection and happy that at least my ADSL2+ gets 15 Mbps solid pretty much 100% of the time. I think the only way I could ever be happy with how the NBN story finishes if if Turnbull and Abbott serve gaol time for deliberately acting against the best interests of Australia and its people.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  > offering Gigabit at prices that aren't unreasonable ($14.50/day). $14.50/day = $450/mo. That sounds unreasonable to me.
shmerl 9y ago
> After the conservative government attained power in 2013, the NBN struck more upheaval, with copper wire ordered for the final stretches of connection, surrounding neighbourhood broadband nodes. How would pulling copper make it any better? It surely couldn't make it cheaper and at the same time would only use an inferior technology. Why would anyone pulling a new network today use anything but fiber optics?
- boyter 9y ago
  Because rhe current prime minster hung his entire political career on the idea that fibre is bad and copper would be cheaper. They cannot change because it would cost him his job.
- stephen_g 9y ago
  They're trying to use existing copper for most of it, but as predicted by all the experts it's not working (the Government promised 50Mbps to all and up to 100Mbps but many people only get ~35Mbps - of course, the parts done by the old Government are capable of gigabit), and the cost has blown out by more than $15bn anyway... So yeah, should have just stayed with the fibre.
porjo 9y ago
Running FTTH to every home was always a pipe dream (excuse the pun). Some kind of technology mix was a necessary compromise however the balance is wrong - percentage of FTTH is way too low. My home town is literally (and inexplicably!), divided down the middle - one half with FTTH, the other FTTN.
- JauntyHatAngle 9y ago
  >Running FTTH to every home was always a pipe dream (excuse the pun). Why do you say this?
  - porjo 9y ago
    Because of the astronomical cost involved in running fibre to some premises. And not even talking about city vs bush - two city dwellings in close proximity can have vastly different cost of installing fibre. I would qualify my original statement with 'as part of a NBN-like project'. I didn't intend to suggest that not every home should have fibre, or in deed will have fibre at some point in the future, just not at the tax payer's expense.
gumby 9y ago
The BBC blamed, in part, "Australia's preference for underground wiring" as if it was a fashion statement. In reality Britain simply lacks serious termites (and is in general underequipped in terms of dangerous animals, if you use Australia as a baseline). I think this article buries the sins of the Liberal party (though the whole problem cannot be laid at their feet). I still have hope she'll be right in the end.
vazamb 9y ago
I will be moving to Melbourne next year. What kind of internet speed can I expect, what areas should I be looking at for a good connection at home? I currently have 200/20 in Berlin, presumably will need to downgrade my expectations...
- boyter 9y ago
  Depends on the area but expect 10 Mbps or less. NBN has not really moved into capital cities yet. I am looking forward to them rolling out FTTN connections on copper laid 50 years ago and insulated using newspaper. Even if you get an area with NBN keep in mind they are not obligated to provide more than 12 Mbps during co existence and 25 Mbps after. With 5 dropouts a day considered acceptable service. If you can find a unit with TPG FTTN go with that. It will be cheaper and uncongested.
- huckyaus 9y ago
  https://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/rollout-map.html https://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/rollout-map.htm...
dis-sys 9y ago
I lived in Australia for 12 years, they fed me fake news about the progress of the NBN on weekly basis. In the end, they didn't deliver it at all - I was living in Sydney's inner city suburb but there is no way to get it 10 years after the promise was first made. Moved back to Shanghai in 2017, was really happy about the fact that CCP didn't play the same game, they deliver concrete results. 500Mbps fiber costs me $450/year, with an extra $20/year, I can screw the GFW - streaming 4k from youtube is easy and I am watching it now. I really like the fact that there was no general election topic or endless + meaningless debate on whether such a fiber network is good or not, CCP just deliver what they believe is good and take responsibility from there. Life is short, how many 10 years you have to waste on craps like that? It is also worth pointing out that in Chinese definition, wasteful spending on tax money is serious corruption, you'd be seeing trucks load of CCP officials sent into jail should they dare to spend $49b without delivering the network on time.
loa_in_ 9y ago
> In 2013, Australia ranked 30th for average internet speeds. The NBN was meant to improve that, but the most recent standings ranked Australia 50th. Well, I'm pretty sure 50th place today is a lot better than 30th back then still. They might not have the best internet around, but it probably got better for the users in that timespan. It smells to me like typical misused statistics in search of click-earning controversy.
- jaredklewis 9y ago
  How is this misusage of statistics? Given that internet speeds are a moving target, it really only makes sense to compare with other nations. If Australia doubles their internet speed that's great and all, but if the rest of the world makes a 10x improvement, sure doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment.
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rayiner 9y ago
It’s interesting to compare Australia’s grand experiment with Stockholm’s. Australia’s proposal, before retrenching, was 93% coverage at 100 mbps (later, one gigabit), with a government investment around $30 billion AUD. Completion was promised on an eight-year timeline. Stockholm, in comparison, followed a very different model: https://www.stokab.se/Documents/Stockholms%20Stokab%20-%20A%20Blueprint%20for%20Ubiquitous%20Fiber%20Connectivity%20FINAL%20VERSION.pdf https://www.stokab.se/Documents/Stockholms%20Stokab%20-%20A%.... A city owned company was created. No public money was contributed; the network was financed by the utility taking loans. The government imposed no coverage requirement. Service was expanded based on demonstrated demand, and it took 17 years to cover 90% of the city. The utility started turning an overall profit in 2008, after 13 years of operation. The Stockholm system is expensive--customers are charged a set-up fee to recoup construction costs, and although prices must be transparent, they are not rate-regulated. NBN Co., in contrast, is subject to rate regulation and does not recover construction costs as part of a setup fee. Broadly speaking, there are three lessons to take from this: 1) Urban areas and rural areas should not be part of the same program. "Universal service" sounds nice in theory, but in practice the challenges of deploying in rural areas can torpedo the project. In Sweden, the government did help deploy fiber in rural areas: http://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/Opinions/2013/Rural_FTTH_Nordics_Final.pdf http://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/Opinions/2013/Rural_FTTH.... Sweden required dark fiber to be deployed to within a few kilometers of rural areas, but rural residents had to pay for their own hookups. The government subsidized 50% of the cost of those hookups, up to about $600 USD per property. 2) Coverage requirements are a bad idea. When you force the operator to cover areas where the business case doesn't yet exist, you're forcing them to charge their existing customers more to subsidize new customers. That can make the product too expensive for existing customers. 3) It's okay for fiber to be expensive, at least at first. Charging more to early adopters to recoup large fixed costs is a basic business model in the tech industry. Telia in Sweden charges about $120/month for gigabit, and in many cases customers are liable for construction setup costs. That's okay--it allows the operator to quickly recoup construction costs and use ongoing revenues to expand the network. Sweden does not regulate rates to make fiber affordable for poor people, nor does it force fiber operators to subsidize service themselves.

135 points by boyter 9y ago

In Australia, the Liberal party leadership is clever enough to design national computer communication networks. Wait.... no they're not even close to that clever. But it doesn't stop them anyway. What we can be sure of it now that Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull have completely ruined our chance at having a world class NBN, they'll not do what is needed to actually make it world class. It's really strange that politicians simply are not driven by making things awesome. They're driven by something else and it's certainly not the goal of getting to the best possible outcome for the people and the country. So I have HFC coming into my home right now.... where is my symmetric 10Gbps connection? https://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/industry/hfc-what-is-full-duplex-docsis-3-1.html https://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/industry/hfc-what-is-full-dupl... I loathe politicians with the burning heat of a thousand supernovas.

gonzo41 9y ago
Don't waste that anger. Vote left (Or at least be very careful with your preference flows) at the next election. And get everyone you can to start talking/pushing for a Royal Commission into this.
- andrewstuart 9y ago
  I loathe all politicians including the left wing. I just loathe the right wing more. None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest. And I certainly don't agree with the far left who seem to have an anti corporate/anti capitalist whiff to them ... I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that.
  - gonzo41 9y ago
    I'm not discounting that, but use what you've got. Your vote.
  - perilunar 9y ago
    What about the Reason Party (ex. Sex Party)? They are broadly Libertarian but more pro-environment than the Lib-Dems.
  - shabbyrobe 9y ago
    So when your choice is for the worst or the less worse, vote less worse! We don't have to like it (though that'd be nice), just prefer it. Case in point: the original plan for the NBN was vastly preferable to this scandal ;)
    - aplummer 9y ago
      I disagree about the original plan being preferable. The original NBN plan was a pipe dream in terms of cost feasibility, the rollout was aligned electoral boundaries, and the country first mentality means you get 12 megabit per second ADSL2 across from the Telstra building in the Melbourne CBD, and 100mbit in a large number of country towns.
      - andrewstuart 9y ago
        I live in the city but "country first" is exactly the right way to go. Internet service in Australia outside the cities is absolutely terrible. It would be a game changer for the whole of Australia if Internet was first class everywhere. Then it truly wouldn't matter where you lived for certain classes of work. And regarding cost, well I think this is precisely what the government should be spending OUR money on. They make such a huge song and dance about $49Biliion for the NBN, but the government is desperate to throw our money at companies. Have you heard ANYTHING about the $50Bn tax cut the government has given to companies? http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbulls-company-tax-cut-rises-from-50-billion-to-654-billion-20170511-gw2ksm.html http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/mal...
        aplummer 9y ago
        We'll just have to disagree. Last weekend I was at a farm in Glenburn with NBN, but since on the farm they get 4g which is easier they just use that instead, especially just for email and occasional agri-mapping software. Meanwhile software developers in Fitzroy working from home get ~5mbit - ~10mbit and actually need the data.
  - aplummer 9y ago
    We all thought Malcolm Turnbull was supposed to be exactly what you are describing.
    - FuckOffNeemo 9y ago
      He was before he lost to Tony Abbot for running the LNP. As it stands he's a far cry from what his ideals once where. I'm not informed enough to see how this came about but if I had to take a guess I'd suggest the influence of the Nationals on the LNP has taken it's toll.
  - girvo 9y ago
    There was the Australian Democrats. I’m still tempted to see if I can resurrect them.
    - thomasfoster96 9y ago
      They still run Senate candidates (in Victoria at least) but as independents because they lost party status. Not sure if they can be resurrected though - I think their good people all went to Labor and the Greens.
      - flukus 9y ago
        Due to todays events the former Democrats leader (Andrew Bartlet) will probably be replacing Waters.
        thomasfoster96 9y ago
        That’s true.
  - mmerlin 9y ago
    Sick of politicians? Sustainable Australia party is who you're looking for. William Bourke is eminently sensible. Dick Smith joined. The anti-corruption fighter who wrote "Game of Mates" Dr Cameron Murray is running for them too. http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/qld http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/qld
    - Benjamin_Dobell 9y ago
      Unfortunately, Dick Smith's reputation has been somewhat tainted by getting involved with a racist national disgrace: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/08/17/hanson-dick-smith-meet-over-capping-immigration http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/08/17/hanson-dick-sm...
      - mmerlin 9y ago
        Somewhat, although he backed away from One Nation after Pauline wore a Burka in parliament. It's a shame the media has conflated any discussion of an immigration policy with racism (ie because of One Nation) Dick's not running though, so checkout the candidates and party, they are academics and scientists for the common good.
    - thomasfoster96 9y ago
      Do you have any links to the party? I’ve never really got the impression that Sustainable Australia (or any of its previous incarnations) was really anything more than an anti-population growth single issue party.
      - mmerlin 9y ago
        They're much more than a single issue party :) - Stop undemocratic privatisation - Establish an independent Federal commission against corruption - Require more timely disclosure of political donations - Invest more in renewable energy - Moratorium on all fracking - No new casinos - Prioritise public transport funding over new tollways - Lower immigration from its record level (over 200,000 p.a.) back to the long term average of 70,000 p.a. - Tackle global population growth through increased foreign aid for female education and universal access to contraception - Establish major community product repair and recycle centres Public Assets http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/public_assets_utilities/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/public_assets_utiliti... Foreign Investment http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/foreign_investment/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/foreign_investment/ Education http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/education/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/education/ Housing Affordability http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/housing_affordability/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/housing_affordability... Health http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/health/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/health/ Gambling http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/gambling/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/gambling/ Energy http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/energy/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/energy/ Finite Resources http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/finite_non_renewable_resource_use/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/finite_non_renewable_... Jobs http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/economy_jobs/ http://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/economy_jobs/
  - predakanga 9y ago
    There's always the Flux party[0] - as I understand it, they're basically committing themselves to direct democracy within their own party. [0]: https://voteflux.org/ https://voteflux.org/
  - crispinb 9y ago
    > None of them represent the citizens. They represent their own grasping self interest That is a false and dangerous overstatement. I have met many parliamentarians in 3 nations. They have pretty much the same mix of ethical tendencies as in the general population. They higher they rise, the more compromises are forced on them, but they're no worse in general than their electors (many of whom are also entirely self-interested and grasping). > I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that Most Green parties have been suckered by the long-discredited 'natural capital' story, so are unfortunately heavily committed to capitalism. Ipso facto, there are few genuinely Green parties, as capitalism is clearly incompatible with the continued healthy existence of a living planet.
  - thomasfoster96 9y ago
    > I'm a committed capitalist AND green and they is no political party aligned to that. The Greens have an unofficial right faction (pro-capitalism, pro-green). Most of the recent Greens internal tension has been between this faction (which has a lot of ex-Liberal environmentalists and ex-Democrats) and the Left Renewal faction (many of whom are openly anti-capitalist). The pro-capitalism faction is certainly very strong and seems to control the party leadership at the moment.
quink 9y ago
And that's not even covering the reason why the NBN was necessary in the first place. Howard's/Costello's (former Liberal PM and treasurer) privatisation of the essentially monopoly government-run communications provider without any separation of retail from wholesale or HFC network from telephony network. It was the equivalent of pre-breakup AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cox (and the only competition was Optus, probably equivalent in market share then to Charter now) all in one go without breaking up anything. Oh, and guess what, they're also in a 50%-50% joint venture with the only major Pay TV provider left, FOXTEL (so that's the equivalent of Dish and DirectTV on top of the above). And their partner in FOXTEL is Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp which also happens to own 70%, yes, 70% of daily newspaper circulation in the country. But in the light of that of course, the government has finally come to its senses and done something about media ownership regulations. ... And they actually did, but what they did was just overturning the rules to allow Newscorp to also buy more radio or FTA TV assets. Which included a recently bankrupt FTA TV network run in and owned in substantial part (essentially as much as legally allowed by regulation at the time) by a certain James Murdoch. How did it go bankrupt? Credit withheld, guess by who. Well, not entirely, it was him and a guy who also owns a affiliated regional FTA network who wanted to take over the lot. But in the only bit of actual hilarity in this whole thing, CBS bought that FTA TV network in bankruptcy. Outbidding Newscorp. So at least things are on the up and up. They may still have a complete and total stranglehold and perverted national infrastructure in collusion with a political party they're so strongly biassed towards. But at least an eternally bankrupt (they went bankrupt in the late 80s too) TV network at a time when TV is headed for terminal decline has escaped the grasp. Yay us :|

DigitalSea 9y ago

I truly fear the day the NBN comes to my area. I am currently with Telstra and fortunately have HFC, I get pretty reliable speeds between 112 and 115mbps, with ping of 9ms. I am a developer and I rely on my currently decent connection to make money, video call clients in other countries, transfer large files (to and fro) if speeds were to suffer resulting in the inability to communicate properly, it would be crushing. The fact that retailers are not purchasing enough bandwidth means you're buying a Ferrari with a broken engine that is being pulled by a single horse. My area is slated for NBN 2019, let's hope they do something about the bandwidth before then (apparently at an estimates hearing a solution was promised by Christmas this year). What a joke.

andrewstuart 9y ago
I believe you have 18 months after the NBN arrives before you are forced to switch. The NBN has come to my area. I am on Telstra 100Mbps HFC and it has worked pretty much flawlessly for years. I have heard from various people in the area how terrible the NBN is. I'm not switching until as late as I possibly can.
hackits 9y ago
When migrating from 56K modem to ADSL it was amazing. The same cannot be said from the migration from ADSL2+ to NBN Fiber to the home was nice, but wasn't WOW. The whole NBN has turned into a complete joke. If they would of stuck to rolling out fiber everywhere it would solved everything. Nope we now have to have a hybrid of everything.
- cknight 9y ago
  This depends on your ADSL2+ line. I'm paying for "up to 24mbit" but the line length means I get 3. The rest of my street is now on HFC NBN but my house is an outlier, still waiting on additional work. Been waiting since May, I suspect it'll take until the next May. With 3 people in the house, going from 3 mbit to 25 or 50 will make a pretty huge difference to us. Probably about as much as when we first jumped from 56k to 256k ADSL 15 years ago.

owengriffiths 9y ago

This article didn't mention what Australians are choosing to do when they have a range of speeds. According to the figures NBN released 80% of customers aren't even paying for the top speed they could. Similarly, this piece from Vox notes that fast internet just is not nearly as valuable as proponents claimed. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/only-17pc-of-nbn-users-choosing-highspeed-packages/news-story/20ab3be87d9cc9ca6760c3889e29fb41 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/only-17p... https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/17/13230500/gigabit-networks-chattanooga-google https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/17/13230500/gigabit-ne...

girvo 9y ago
The craziest part is that I was getting 100/60 that actually ran FASTER than it’s advertised speed, unlimited (truly) for $69 a month, with TPGs private FTTB network. But I had to move, and now I’m on an Opticom network; $99 a month for slower upload, but I do get a static v4 IP, so that’s a plus for what I use it for. And this is all in Fortitude Valley, basically the centre of Brisbane...
- ACow_Adonis 9y ago
  'tis true. Can vouch because that's the plan/infrastructure I'm on in Melbourne. I can only extrapolate my own experience, but perhaps if there was some truth in advertising enforcement. I've had NBN plans elsewhere, and I never chose the top plan, because I'd still be limited by other parts of the internet I was communicating with in practice, and everyone knew the top rate plans quoted speeds are literal nonsense. Why pay extra when you get the same performance on the bottom/mid plan?
gonzo41 9y ago
The default Telstra plan is 25/5. That is why most have that limit. I have FTTN and won't pay above that because at peak netflix hours my 25/5 drops to 10/1. If i go higher, I can't break 35/8
bobbles 9y ago
It really is on par with saying something like hard drives should never get bigger because we dont use the space. The capabilities need the infrastructure in place first so that they can grow to use them, it's impossible for the other way around to occur as you cannot transfer something that requires faster connections before they exist.

ClassyJacket 9y ago

The tl;dr is that Australia started a fibre-to-the-premises project for the whole country (93% of premises, plus rural 7% on wireless), then a conservative government got in power and decided to deliberately destroy it. To do this, they changed it to fibre-to-the-node (DSL) instead. Instead of gigabit to the home, they're spending more money providing people with connections anywhere between 4mbps and 100 at the absolute most, with no possibility of upgrades. The cost to do this, is, of course, far more money in the long term than installing the fibre. Some people in metropolitan areas will get connected to the existing coaxial network, which is going to have huge contention problems as it's stretched far beyond what it was ever intended for. It's the biggest trainwreck of an infrastructure project in Australia's history and will set every person and business back for decades, and the blame lies squarely with the Liberal Party. The current head of the project has gone on record saying that Australians don't want fast internet and wouldn't use it if it was free.

vacri 9y ago
> Some people in metropolitan areas will get connected to the existing coaxial network, which is going to have huge contention problems as it's stretched far beyond what it was ever intended for. s/some/most/. HFC is the predominant plan for most of the capital cities (I think not... hobart? or was it adelaide?).
Retric 9y ago
Wait, if the Conservative party decided to destroy it how is that the fault of the Liberal Party?
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  Because it's the same party. The Liberal Party is the name of the conservative party.
  - vacri 9y ago
    It's not even a misnomer to our American friends. The Australian main conservative party is more liberal than the American main liberal party.

Gatsky 9y ago

By 'fit for service' they mean 12Mbps down, or average copper wire speeds. What's the point? Although the original goal was great, in hindsight it appears that it could not be delivered anywhere near the original budget. For context, after a prolonged period of centre-right government, a centre-left government was elected, led by Kevin Rudd. He had a progressive agenda, but due to a combination of his unmitigated egotism and internal party conflicts, he instituted a variety of programs that were poorly conceived and executed, and was ultimately ousted by his own party in a fairly disasterous manner. The National Broadband network was a product of this highly disappointing and dysfunctional period of government. Since then the problems have continued across a change back to the centre-right government, who with a very slim majority have essentially stuffed around for the last few years with a lame duck leader who seems hamstrung by the ultra conservatives in his own party. For my part, I'm dropping all wires and switching to 4G/LTE, where I can stream 4K content, get decent uploads and still pay less than I would on the National Broadband network.

neumann 9y ago
This is an excellent summary of the situation. There was a few major potholes in the original plan. The nobel aim was to wire up (and use satellite to augment) the majority of australia, including, critically a large part of the rural population. The appeal was to level the access for the population to high quality internet. From then on; however, it became a political football, with both parties internal reworking it and bike shedding the entire technology stack with no clue on implementation and a strong lobby from the incumbent privatised telco (Telstra) and other telcos to ensure their business is not threatened. Bunch of muppets.
flukus 9y ago
> For my part, I'm dropping all wires and switching to 4G/LTE, where I can stream 4K content, get decent uploads and still pay less than I would on the National Broadband network. If everyone does that you'll be lucky to stream youtube videos at 240p. Wireless bandwidth is inherently shared between everyone, wired is dedicated.
- vacri 9y ago

ggm 9y ago

First common mistake: Yes, Australia is geographically huge. No, it is not sparce. it is a highly urbanized economy in terms of geographic concentration of the population. Therefore, the oft-quoted extreme expense "oh, its so much more expensive to do it in OZ compared to ..." is bullshit: its not. There are of course some very expensive locations to service, but thats a USO problem. Overall, the cost of deployment of the CAN is within scale of any other urban economy. Higher than Singapore? Sure. But, comparable per head of population to NZ. Second common mistake: The argument which led to the MTM replacing FTTP was not about technology. It was about the cost of capital works, and the economic model of recovery. Labor was stupid enough to float a mixed-economy pluralist argument hinting at a future independent non-utility model with zero cost (long term) to the government. This hung them because it allowed the Liberals to go hard on cost recovery and privatization. If the intent had been to reserve a national utility function in layers 1 and 2, and promote competition above this, we'd be in a different conversation. That conversation was about structural separation of the former monopoly Telco. It was quashed by Labor, in a stupid reactive move. It was floated, and the banking sector indicated a preference. Reactively the union movement and Labor party moved to reject it: if the banks wanted it, it must be bad. Talk about a huge missed opportunity. The NZ model, by comparison is gold: structural separation. Crown holdings for the fiber. A pot of money, re-circulating to deploy to the cities, each region re-fills the pot to move to the next town. Far simpler. And.. fibre to (most) homes.

Gatsky 9y ago
Yeah this is spot on. Other comments are blaming the Liberals, but the reality is if you are an effective leader trying to create a huge infrastructure project that you care deeply about, you need to come up with a solution that will last through a change in government, with aligned economic and political contingencies. If you are just governing for fun then you do what Rudd did. It always lets you blame the next government though, as he is doing now.
- raides 9y ago
  To the Aussie's credit the infrastructure and the regulations instilled on businesses there have always been Federally imposed. Since the mid-90s the government has imposed many regulations for control that has impeded much of the free market progress for network infrastructure. Those regulations coupled with needed external transit installations have not helped. For a long period of time the government would pick and choose companies based on their ideals rather than their talent. This has hindered progress from both sides of the fence by liberal and conservative administrations. I ran a semi successful ISP and consulting company for a decade in the US and I have always enjoyed the tiering system we setup vs other country Infrastructures. It wasn't until recently when the FCC gained control that states started to use the new regulation power to hinder progress. I am still on the fence about the whole thing because the exploitation has not been bad in my area but the horror stores I have heard in other states make me sad. Hopefully it will get back to normal.

burntrelish1273 9y ago

Reminds me of Dave of EEVblog (in AU, obviously) discussing about how stupid the pricing, bureaucracy and outdated are on various, overlapping internet service providers, especially NBN. https://youtu.be/haImi4cWau0 https://youtu.be/haImi4cWau0 (2017) https://youtu.be/nJxQZr4dz3g https://youtu.be/nJxQZr4dz3g (2014)

vacri 9y ago

So here's my tale of what happened: Party A was in power, and having infighting problems. Party B was headed by an absolute arse of a man, who used the tactic "Say No! to EVERYTHING". Didn't matter how benign or banal, the opposition party would say no. A flagship policy like the NBN was particularly focused on - and if you look at interviews with the opposition communications minister at the time (now our prime minister), it was clear that he was toeing the party line and didn't think changing the policy was a good idea. Fast-forward to the next exection, and Absolute Arse gets into power. Turns out he can't govern at all (despite 20 years on the front benches) and he definitely isn't going to backtrack on something he's attacked so routinely. He's kicked out by his own party. At this stage, the NBN has been gutted, and its doom is sealed. In steps the comms minister as the new PM, but he is now beset by factionalism. He knows what a turkey the NBN is, but he doesn't have the political power to do an about-face on his party's policies. In short, we're fucked. By the time any other party can get in, the NBN will be 'mostly complete'. The most annoying thing is that the folks who really need good internet is business, not residences (think graphic design, medical imagery, etc), and the party that fucked the NBN is the 'party of business'. Enterprises can already dictate their own network backbones, but small-to-medium businesses cannot.

prawn 9y ago
"Enterprises can already dictate their own network backbones, but small-to-medium businesses cannot." Before that election, I can remember having an argument about the need for the NBN with a friend who works for a very large company. He argued that the internet in Australia was fine because their teleconferencing video in the boardroom worked well. I told him that not only would they have had a very specialised connection, that in the very near future, households would see multiple, concurrent, hi-res video streams, and that business demands would be high too. We're a home of four. It's not uncommon for the kids to be streaming Netflix while I work (with a basketball stream running), and my wife uploads large photos and streams a TV show on her phone while she works. We're still a year away from getting NBN and our internet absolutely crawls.

bhalley 9y ago

Tasmania got very lucky with the rollout, we are mostly covered with FTTP, Fixed Wireless and only some FTTN. We are also lucky enough to have a local business (Launtel) pushing the constraints of the NBN by offering Gigabit at prices that aren't unreasonable ($14.50/day). They are treating it as a new pricing model, why bill the same as ADSL when there are no costs associated with setup and plan changes? They are billing daily which allows more flexibility meaning you could spin up a connection for a day (At an Airbnb for example) or change speed depending on your usage. This is all in beta for them at the moment and only available in Tasmania. Here is a speedtest I ran yesterday from my home FTTP connection https://www.speedtest.net/result/6738001151.png https://www.speedtest.net/result/6738001151.png

contingencies 9y ago
Wow. Just wow. My advice is buy cheap real estate and start an internatianal incubator. The weather alone should keep people indoors and focused... only half joking!
- bhalley 9y ago
  It was like I had jumped into the future when this was connected. The Tasmanian Government is actually offering grants to incubators at the moment http://www.startuptasmania.com/incubator-support http://www.startuptasmania.com/incubator-support
boyter 9y ago
The fact that you get that where as the majority get up-to 12 Mbps is enough to make me cry. I am still waiting for any connection and happy that at least my ADSL2+ gets 15 Mbps solid pretty much 100% of the time. I think the only way I could ever be happy with how the NBN story finishes if if Turnbull and Abbott serve gaol time for deliberately acting against the best interests of Australia and its people.
kalleboo 9y ago
> offering Gigabit at prices that aren't unreasonable ($14.50/day). $14.50/day = $450/mo. That sounds unreasonable to me.

shmerl 9y ago

> After the conservative government attained power in 2013, the NBN struck more upheaval, with copper wire ordered for the final stretches of connection, surrounding neighbourhood broadband nodes. How would pulling copper make it any better? It surely couldn't make it cheaper and at the same time would only use an inferior technology. Why would anyone pulling a new network today use anything but fiber optics?

boyter 9y ago
Because rhe current prime minster hung his entire political career on the idea that fibre is bad and copper would be cheaper. They cannot change because it would cost him his job.
stephen_g 9y ago
They're trying to use existing copper for most of it, but as predicted by all the experts it's not working (the Government promised 50Mbps to all and up to 100Mbps but many people only get ~35Mbps - of course, the parts done by the old Government are capable of gigabit), and the cost has blown out by more than $15bn anyway... So yeah, should have just stayed with the fibre.

porjo 9y ago

Running FTTH to every home was always a pipe dream (excuse the pun). Some kind of technology mix was a necessary compromise however the balance is wrong - percentage of FTTH is way too low. My home town is literally (and inexplicably!), divided down the middle - one half with FTTH, the other FTTN.

JauntyHatAngle 9y ago
>Running FTTH to every home was always a pipe dream (excuse the pun). Why do you say this?
- porjo 9y ago
  Because of the astronomical cost involved in running fibre to some premises. And not even talking about city vs bush - two city dwellings in close proximity can have vastly different cost of installing fibre. I would qualify my original statement with 'as part of a NBN-like project'. I didn't intend to suggest that not every home should have fibre, or in deed will have fibre at some point in the future, just not at the tax payer's expense.

gumby 9y ago

The BBC blamed, in part, "Australia's preference for underground wiring" as if it was a fashion statement. In reality Britain simply lacks serious termites (and is in general underequipped in terms of dangerous animals, if you use Australia as a baseline). I think this article buries the sins of the Liberal party (though the whole problem cannot be laid at their feet). I still have hope she'll be right in the end.

vazamb 9y ago

I will be moving to Melbourne next year. What kind of internet speed can I expect, what areas should I be looking at for a good connection at home? I currently have 200/20 in Berlin, presumably will need to downgrade my expectations...

boyter 9y ago
Depends on the area but expect 10 Mbps or less. NBN has not really moved into capital cities yet. I am looking forward to them rolling out FTTN connections on copper laid 50 years ago and insulated using newspaper. Even if you get an area with NBN keep in mind they are not obligated to provide more than 12 Mbps during co existence and 25 Mbps after. With 5 dropouts a day considered acceptable service. If you can find a unit with TPG FTTN go with that. It will be cheaper and uncongested.
huckyaus 9y ago
https://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/rollout-map.html https://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/rollout-map.htm...

dis-sys 9y ago

I lived in Australia for 12 years, they fed me fake news about the progress of the NBN on weekly basis. In the end, they didn't deliver it at all - I was living in Sydney's inner city suburb but there is no way to get it 10 years after the promise was first made. Moved back to Shanghai in 2017, was really happy about the fact that CCP didn't play the same game, they deliver concrete results. 500Mbps fiber costs me $450/year, with an extra $20/year, I can screw the GFW - streaming 4k from youtube is easy and I am watching it now. I really like the fact that there was no general election topic or endless + meaningless debate on whether such a fiber network is good or not, CCP just deliver what they believe is good and take responsibility from there. Life is short, how many 10 years you have to waste on craps like that? It is also worth pointing out that in Chinese definition, wasteful spending on tax money is serious corruption, you'd be seeing trucks load of CCP officials sent into jail should they dare to spend $49b without delivering the network on time.

loa_in_ 9y ago

> In 2013, Australia ranked 30th for average internet speeds. The NBN was meant to improve that, but the most recent standings ranked Australia 50th. Well, I'm pretty sure 50th place today is a lot better than 30th back then still. They might not have the best internet around, but it probably got better for the users in that timespan. It smells to me like typical misused statistics in search of click-earning controversy.

jaredklewis 9y ago
How is this misusage of statistics? Given that internet speeds are a moving target, it really only makes sense to compare with other nations. If Australia doubles their internet speed that's great and all, but if the rest of the world makes a 10x improvement, sure doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 9y ago

It’s interesting to compare Australia’s grand experiment with Stockholm’s. Australia’s proposal, before retrenching, was 93% coverage at 100 mbps (later, one gigabit), with a government investment around $30 billion AUD. Completion was promised on an eight-year timeline. Stockholm, in comparison, followed a very different model: https://www.stokab.se/Documents/Stockholms%20Stokab%20-%20A%20Blueprint%20for%20Ubiquitous%20Fiber%20Connectivity%20FINAL%20VERSION.pdf https://www.stokab.se/Documents/Stockholms%20Stokab%20-%20A%.... A city owned company was created. No public money was contributed; the network was financed by the utility taking loans. The government imposed no coverage requirement. Service was expanded based on demonstrated demand, and it took 17 years to cover 90% of the city. The utility started turning an overall profit in 2008, after 13 years of operation. The Stockholm system is expensive--customers are charged a set-up fee to recoup construction costs, and although prices must be transparent, they are not rate-regulated. NBN Co., in contrast, is subject to rate regulation and does not recover construction costs as part of a setup fee. Broadly speaking, there are three lessons to take from this: 1) Urban areas and rural areas should not be part of the same program. "Universal service" sounds nice in theory, but in practice the challenges of deploying in rural areas can torpedo the project. In Sweden, the government did help deploy fiber in rural areas: http://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/Opinions/2013/Rural_FTTH_Nordics_Final.pdf http://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/Opinions/2013/Rural_FTTH.... Sweden required dark fiber to be deployed to within a few kilometers of rural areas, but rural residents had to pay for their own hookups. The government subsidized 50% of the cost of those hookups, up to about $600 USD per property. 2) Coverage requirements are a bad idea. When you force the operator to cover areas where the business case doesn't yet exist, you're forcing them to charge their existing customers more to subsidize new customers. That can make the product too expensive for existing customers. 3) It's okay for fiber to be expensive, at least at first. Charging more to early adopters to recoup large fixed costs is a basic business model in the tech industry. Telia in Sweden charges about $120/month for gigabit, and in many cases customers are liable for construction setup costs. That's okay--it allows the operator to quickly recoup construction costs and use ongoing revenues to expand the network. Sweden does not regulate rates to make fiber affordable for poor people, nor does it force fiber operators to subsidize service themselves.