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The problem with the NBN is that Labor has, like so many other of their policies, sold it beyond terribly. It's about 2 things, and neither are raw download sp

by NamTaf 13y ago

The problem with the NBN is that Labor has, like so many other of their policies, sold it beyond terribly. It's about 2 things, and neither are raw download speed. 1) It's about upload speed. That's the major upgrade that we don't see right now. As the net moves towards more and more user-generated content (youtube, dropbox file relocation, etc.) it's going to be upload speeds that are the Achilles heel of these technologies working. 2) Related to #1 and perhaps even more importantly, it's about leveling the playing field. Right now, if you design an online service you have to assume someone has DSL at 1.5Mb/sec down, as that's the minimum guaranteed DSL connection. You can't assume people can stream HD. You can't assume people can move multiple GB of data down in a reasonable time, or even hundreds of MB up in a reasonable time. All of these assumptions play a crucial role in what online services can deliver in this country. It would be as if some new technology came along for our road network that allowed people to drive safely at 500km/hr but there's also a cheaper alternative that allowed travelling at 200km/hr, then focusing on whether we need to be able to drive at 500km/hr or 200km/hr over our existing road network to get to work or not. That's completely missing the point. The thing that a 500km/hr road network allows you to do is completely change how and where towns are constructed. Suddenly, traveling from Sydney to Melbourne by road is trivial, rather than a plane trip as it currently is. People can live in Newcastle (for non-AU people, a small industrial satellite town of Sydney) but work quite conveniently in Sydney, changing the game for the real estate pricing problems Sydney presently faces. The problem is that people are extrapolating present-day experiences to this new tech and that is completely missing the point. Doing what we currently do, only faster, is about 1% of the puzzle. The overwhelming majority of the advantage comes about from completely changing the landscape on what online services can do, what they can assume, and how they will go on to affect what will undoubtedly be a huge array of facets of our day-to-day life. When we upgraded from 56k dial-up to DSL, it wasn't about loading animated spinning wireframe skull gifs from Geocities faster. It was about being able to stream audio and (eventually) video. The landscape changed and suddenly Netflix/YouTube/etc. became possible.

40 13y ago
You can already find plenty case studies on the NBN here: http://www.nbn.gov.au/case-studies/ http://www.nbn.gov.au/case-studies/ and here: http://www.nbnco.com.au/nbn-for-business/case-studies.html http://www.nbnco.com.au/nbn-for-business/case-studies.html The problem I see is that most are already possible with current internet speeds. The ones like media production studios (http://www.nbnco.com.au/nbn-for-business/case-studies/increasing-international-competitiveness.html http://www.nbnco.com.au/nbn-for-business/case-studies/increa...) do offer new opportunities which aren't possible with ADSL2. The only issue here is that they can easily afford to pay the 2K for FTTH under the Coalition policy.
- NamTaf 13y ago
  My DSL, at 6km from the CBD of a city of >2 million, syncs at about 3400kbps down and 700kbps up. I struggle to stream 720p video unless it's compressed to oblivion. Purchasing games on Steam is an overnight (plus potentially during work the following day) affair to actually get the content. Grabbing trial software (stats packages and VMs are two that I've encountered so far) to do online study are hours of waiting. 60-70KB/sec upload means that producing video content is out of the question. It means that dropbox-style syncing of content I produce on my mobile device to the could is not possible. Services like crashplan are a far-away dream. There's many, many things that are not possible even with our current DSL network, even for people who are living in the highly developed parts of this country. Never mind those who are out in rural areas and for whom DSL is even more crippled.
  - Wingman4l7 13y ago
    Yeah, for those not in the know -- unless you're just a couple of km away from your local telephone exchange, you can kiss goodbye any hope of 21st century sync speeds. It's amazing how quickly the speeds drop off. If you want to get an idea of this, just look at the "DSLAM maps" for a major Australian ISP: http://www.tpg.com.au/maps/ http://www.tpg.com.au/maps/
callumjones 13y ago
This is a way better explanation of what the NBN is.
jacques_chester 13y ago
This analogy assumes that there is a linear relationship between speed and new applications. But streaming video is about as hard as it gets, and that can be done pretty well with either FTTP or FTTN. Better with FTTP, certainly. The problem is: what's after video? There doesn't seem to have been a rash of such game-changing applications of faster networks coming out of Japan or South Korea. They've had very fast internet for around a decade; where are the step-function changes in what can be done and what are they?

by NamTaf 13y ago

40 13y ago

You can already find plenty case studies on the NBN here: http://www.nbn.gov.au/case-studies/ http://www.nbn.gov.au/case-studies/ and here: http://www.nbnco.com.au/nbn-for-business/case-studies.html http://www.nbnco.com.au/nbn-for-business/case-studies.html The problem I see is that most are already possible with current internet speeds. The ones like media production studios (http://www.nbnco.com.au/nbn-for-business/case-studies/increasing-international-competitiveness.html http://www.nbnco.com.au/nbn-for-business/case-studies/increa...) do offer new opportunities which aren't possible with ADSL2. The only issue here is that they can easily afford to pay the 2K for FTTH under the Coalition policy.

NamTaf 13y ago
My DSL, at 6km from the CBD of a city of >2 million, syncs at about 3400kbps down and 700kbps up. I struggle to stream 720p video unless it's compressed to oblivion. Purchasing games on Steam is an overnight (plus potentially during work the following day) affair to actually get the content. Grabbing trial software (stats packages and VMs are two that I've encountered so far) to do online study are hours of waiting. 60-70KB/sec upload means that producing video content is out of the question. It means that dropbox-style syncing of content I produce on my mobile device to the could is not possible. Services like crashplan are a far-away dream. There's many, many things that are not possible even with our current DSL network, even for people who are living in the highly developed parts of this country. Never mind those who are out in rural areas and for whom DSL is even more crippled.
- Wingman4l7 13y ago
  Yeah, for those not in the know -- unless you're just a couple of km away from your local telephone exchange, you can kiss goodbye any hope of 21st century sync speeds. It's amazing how quickly the speeds drop off. If you want to get an idea of this, just look at the "DSLAM maps" for a major Australian ISP: http://www.tpg.com.au/maps/ http://www.tpg.com.au/maps/

callumjones 13y ago

This is a way better explanation of what the NBN is.

jacques_chester 13y ago

This analogy assumes that there is a linear relationship between speed and new applications. But streaming video is about as hard as it gets, and that can be done pretty well with either FTTP or FTTN. Better with FTTP, certainly. The problem is: what's after video? There doesn't seem to have been a rash of such game-changing applications of faster networks coming out of Japan or South Korea. They've had very fast internet for around a decade; where are the step-function changes in what can be done and what are they?