4 ms·

I'm not sure that is all accurate (umm, light and electricity travel at the same speed ...), but I agree with the central idea: fibre is the next generation of

by zmmmmm 13y ago

I'm not sure that is all accurate (umm, light and electricity travel at the same speed ...), but I agree with the central idea: fibre is the next generation of technology, copper is the last. We can fully expect that just as massive speed increases were achieved on copper, so too will they be on fibre. Gen 1 of fibre is already 10x better than the last generation of copper - how much better will generation 2, 3, 4 be? And fibre is potentially even more upgradeable than copper - it's just a channel for light, the throughput is limited by the boxes at either end which can be incrementally upgraded at low cost. The scary thing is that you only get to do something like this once every 20 - 50 years. So whatever you install needs to well and truly anticipate the future. Spending billions of dollars to install technology that is already at the end of its generation is insane. If people are voting thinking "well the time just isn't right for it", they have to realize - there is not going to be another NBN. It just isn't going to happen, (effectively) ever. Not least because every up and coming politician is watching and learning from this that you don't get rewarded for having any vision about infrastructure. All it does is open up opportunity for your opponents to propose something cheaper and accuse you of waste. It will be very sad if that is the take away lesson from this election.

2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
umm, light and electricity travel at the same speed ... ? Light travels at ~299m/s. This will slow down in a medium like fibre, but it's still faster than anything else. At best, in a particle accelerator you can accelerate electrons to maybe 0.8, 0.9 c?
- ekianjo 13y ago
  Surely you mean 299 000 000 meters/ second ?
  - 2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
    Yes!
- retrogradeorbit 13y ago
  Yes, but the electric field that forms as a circuit closes travels at the speed of light.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
    I am not sure what you are talking about. When you push data down a wire you are definitely not close to c. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propagation_delay http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propagation_delay
pugz 13y ago
(I had to create an account to respond to this) "Light" and "electricity" only travel at the same speed in a vacuum. Neither fibre nor copper wire could reasonably be considered a vacuum; they have different propagation speeds. Also, we are far removed from "gen 1 of fibre", which was developed in 1970, i.e. 43 years ago. If anything, we're currently developing "fifth gen" fibre optics communications. Everything else you said is spot on, though.
- retrogradeorbit 13y ago
  Actually zmmmmm is correct about the speeds. The drift velocity of electrons in a conductor is quite low. Somewhere around 1 meter per second (its been a long time since my physics degree so it may not be exactly 1ms-1). But what happens when you close a circuit of a conductor across a potential difference is an electric field is set up surrounding the conductor. This electric field accelerates all the electrons in the conductor at once. This is why even though the drift velocity of an electron in a conductor is very low, when you switch on a light switch the bulb lights immediately. The propagation of the electric field is at the speed of light (its electromagnetism). So "electrons" move slowly but "electricity" moves at the speed of light. Update: found a wikipedia page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity
  - pugz 13y ago
    That's true, but light only travels at ~0.67c in a fibre optic cable. That's why I mentioned that fibre optic cables and copper wires are not vacuums.
    - retrogradeorbit 13y ago
      According to wikipedia, electric field propagation through unshielded copper is 0.95c to 0.97c. Electric field propagation through standard coaxial cable is 0.66c.
      - pugz 13y ago
jacques_chester 13y ago
Part of the problem is how badly it has been planned and managed from the very beginning. How fast is the actual rollout? We don't know. Commercial-in-confidence. And NBNCo say they don't keep figures down to the street level anyhow (which begs the question of which basis they are using to pay contractors). How much has already been borrowed? We don't know. Commercial-in-confidence. How much has been spent? We don't know. Commercial-in-confidence. Insofar as we have to dig up half the flaming countryside, FTTP is probably worth it on a long-term basis. But that doesn't excuse the project from normal project management requirements. And it shouldn't be excused from being transparent to the Parliament and public. The abuse of commercial-in-confidence for companies completely owned by the government is a backdoor for politicians of all stripes to avoid budgetary accountability while still leaving states and the commonwealth on the hook for debts incurred. Where was the proper front end cost/benefit analysis? There wasn't one. Where was the 3-5 years of planning, surveying and preparation? There wasn't any. Where is the proper contract management? Oh, I guess we'll let NBNCo contract it to Telstra who will contract it to an engineering firm who will contract it to that bloke who has a van and who used to work for Optus. Ends are important. But for the amount of money spent, so are the bloody means.
- threeseed 13y ago
  I am so sick of this obsession with cost/benefit analysis. How can you possibly quantify the future benefits of the NBN ? Nobody could have predicted that when the copper lines were installed that one day it would be primarily used for the internet. And the historic changes to the world economy it has caused. So why even attempt to do it ? Or why not just say it will cost $50 billion but result in $500 trillion worth of benefits.
  - davidp 13y ago
    Because without some rudimentary numbers like the ones he's talking about, everyone involved can escape accountability -- the politicians, the contractors, the public (since they can claim to have been "misled" and not feel guilty later), ... But mainly because it's an invitation to corruption, for people known to be highly corruptible. You're right that cost/benefit analysis is hard for transformative things like this, but the citizens throwing their hands up and saying "I don't care WHAT it costs" is like Pavlov's bell to politicians.
40 13y ago
Which technology is being install that its "at the end of its generation". Surely FTTN will reduce the cost of FTTP. What is wrong with charging for FTTP - this is what UK is doing.
- zmmmmm 13y ago
  All of the curb side "nodes" that are full of gear to connect to DSL copper wires running down each street.
johnchristopher 13y ago
> Gen 1 of fibre is already 10x better than the last generation of copper - how much better will generation 2, 3, 4 be? And fibre is potentially even more upgradeable than copper - it's just a channel for light, the throughput is limited by the boxes at either end which can be incrementally upgraded at low cost. Not really. There is still a physical limit to how many light paths you can have in one fiber wire. If applications are relying more and more on available bandwidth and if more people or more connections are being made (and this is the case and it shows no signs of slowing down) you will want to increase bandwidth because the network will suffer congestion and then you are going to need to dig in the ground and install an additional bunch of physical cables. And that costs more than just tweaking the boxes at the edge of the network.

by zmmmmm 13y ago

2muchcoffeeman 13y ago

umm, light and electricity travel at the same speed ... ? Light travels at ~299m/s. This will slow down in a medium like fibre, but it's still faster than anything else. At best, in a particle accelerator you can accelerate electrons to maybe 0.8, 0.9 c?

ekianjo 13y ago
Surely you mean 299 000 000 meters/ second ?
- 2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
  Yes!
retrogradeorbit 13y ago
Yes, but the electric field that forms as a circuit closes travels at the speed of light.
- 2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
  I am not sure what you are talking about. When you push data down a wire you are definitely not close to c. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propagation_delay http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propagation_delay

pugz 13y ago

(I had to create an account to respond to this) "Light" and "electricity" only travel at the same speed in a vacuum. Neither fibre nor copper wire could reasonably be considered a vacuum; they have different propagation speeds. Also, we are far removed from "gen 1 of fibre", which was developed in 1970, i.e. 43 years ago. If anything, we're currently developing "fifth gen" fibre optics communications. Everything else you said is spot on, though.

retrogradeorbit 13y ago
Actually zmmmmm is correct about the speeds. The drift velocity of electrons in a conductor is quite low. Somewhere around 1 meter per second (its been a long time since my physics degree so it may not be exactly 1ms-1). But what happens when you close a circuit of a conductor across a potential difference is an electric field is set up surrounding the conductor. This electric field accelerates all the electrons in the conductor at once. This is why even though the drift velocity of an electron in a conductor is very low, when you switch on a light switch the bulb lights immediately. The propagation of the electric field is at the speed of light (its electromagnetism). So "electrons" move slowly but "electricity" moves at the speed of light. Update: found a wikipedia page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity
- pugz 13y ago
  That's true, but light only travels at ~0.67c in a fibre optic cable. That's why I mentioned that fibre optic cables and copper wires are not vacuums.
  - retrogradeorbit 13y ago
    According to wikipedia, electric field propagation through unshielded copper is 0.95c to 0.97c. Electric field propagation through standard coaxial cable is 0.66c.
    - pugz 13y ago

jacques_chester 13y ago

Part of the problem is how badly it has been planned and managed from the very beginning. How fast is the actual rollout? We don't know. Commercial-in-confidence. And NBNCo say they don't keep figures down to the street level anyhow (which begs the question of which basis they are using to pay contractors). How much has already been borrowed? We don't know. Commercial-in-confidence. How much has been spent? We don't know. Commercial-in-confidence. Insofar as we have to dig up half the flaming countryside, FTTP is probably worth it on a long-term basis. But that doesn't excuse the project from normal project management requirements. And it shouldn't be excused from being transparent to the Parliament and public. The abuse of commercial-in-confidence for companies completely owned by the government is a backdoor for politicians of all stripes to avoid budgetary accountability while still leaving states and the commonwealth on the hook for debts incurred. Where was the proper front end cost/benefit analysis? There wasn't one. Where was the 3-5 years of planning, surveying and preparation? There wasn't any. Where is the proper contract management? Oh, I guess we'll let NBNCo contract it to Telstra who will contract it to an engineering firm who will contract it to that bloke who has a van and who used to work for Optus. Ends are important. But for the amount of money spent, so are the bloody means.

threeseed 13y ago
I am so sick of this obsession with cost/benefit analysis. How can you possibly quantify the future benefits of the NBN ? Nobody could have predicted that when the copper lines were installed that one day it would be primarily used for the internet. And the historic changes to the world economy it has caused. So why even attempt to do it ? Or why not just say it will cost $50 billion but result in $500 trillion worth of benefits.
- davidp 13y ago
  Because without some rudimentary numbers like the ones he's talking about, everyone involved can escape accountability -- the politicians, the contractors, the public (since they can claim to have been "misled" and not feel guilty later), ... But mainly because it's an invitation to corruption, for people known to be highly corruptible. You're right that cost/benefit analysis is hard for transformative things like this, but the citizens throwing their hands up and saying "I don't care WHAT it costs" is like Pavlov's bell to politicians.

40 13y ago

Which technology is being install that its "at the end of its generation". Surely FTTN will reduce the cost of FTTP. What is wrong with charging for FTTP - this is what UK is doing.

zmmmmm 13y ago
All of the curb side "nodes" that are full of gear to connect to DSL copper wires running down each street.

johnchristopher 13y ago

> Gen 1 of fibre is already 10x better than the last generation of copper - how much better will generation 2, 3, 4 be? And fibre is potentially even more upgradeable than copper - it's just a channel for light, the throughput is limited by the boxes at either end which can be incrementally upgraded at low cost. Not really. There is still a physical limit to how many light paths you can have in one fiber wire. If applications are relying more and more on available bandwidth and if more people or more connections are being made (and this is the case and it shows no signs of slowing down) you will want to increase bandwidth because the network will suffer congestion and then you are going to need to dig in the ground and install an additional bunch of physical cables. And that costs more than just tweaking the boxes at the edge of the network.