8 ms·

I want the NBN

83 points by collypops 13y ago

chris_wot 13y ago
Too late!
- korynunn 13y ago
  Read the message at the top of the site, it is a petition to the libs.
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    Yeah, I know. I even signed it. They won't ever do it. That would involve logic and a basic grasp of technology.
    - wernah 13y ago
      I find it rather scary that they write policies on things they don't understand, or want to.
      - dagw 13y ago
        Don't worry. Chances are they leave the actual writing of policies to powerful think tanks and lobby groups that understand that situation perfectly (and then cynically exploit it for maximum profit for whoever is backing them). All the politicians do is push the policy and sign it into law.
      - sirkumi 13y ago
        Welcome to modern democracy, where the people who win elections are really only knowledgeable about and good at winning elections...
    - shelf 13y ago
      Given they mostly have business / law / academic backgrounds, I am not sure that anybody has ever put the case for fibre speeds to the Libs in terms other than 'this is what people want, and it is good.' The use cases used in Labor promotions were patronising to the extreme. Don't be surprised that they've concluded it is simply a 'nice thing' that people want but will loathe paying for. To be honest with you, the things I am planning to do when I get a gigabit line are not exactly in the 'nation-building' category, either. I'm not sure how to fix that PR problem.
      - chris_wot 13y ago
        Turnbull is well aware that fibre is the right way to go. They were trying to wedge Labor by not allowing them to get credit for anything. Labor was not able to communicate its vision or its successes. Rudd was brought I. Far too late to undo the damage. They are now in the wilderness for some time. Yet again.
      - jacques_chester 13y ago
        > Given they mostly have business / law / academic backgrounds Lawyers or former law students are the most numerous profession in Parliament. Gillard was a lawyer. Abbott studied Law as an undergraduate, as did Howard and Hawke. The professional training of a lawyer equips them to vigorously argue a case they may not themselves agree with, and to do so in forensic detail. The skillset and subject matter has a strong overlap with the work of politics. That doesn't mean we couldn't do with some more professional diversity in Parliament and the Cabinet. It'd be nice to see some more scientists, engineers and the like on both sides of the chamber.
        kef 13y ago
        I'm thinking the Mad Scientists Party might stand a chance of a seat in the senate next time around.
jschuur 13y ago
The top of the page tells me nothing about what they're campaigning for. FTTN? NBN? FTTH? English people. English! I'm not even sure if this is a parody. The Liberal Party of Australia: Reconsider your plan for a 'FTTN' NBN in favour of a superior 'FTTH' NBN Australia needs the right NBN. Vote at change.org if you agree!
- jschuur 13y ago
  And yes, I realize the change.org site has more details. But once again, the whole top of that page has no actual info in the title except a bunch of acronyms.
  - kaliblack 13y ago
    In Australia, where this petition is relevant, these acronyms are well understood by the public and don't need further explanation.
    - devnetfx 13y ago
      I am in Australia and these acronyms are not well understood by the public. Luckily jdaley explained these well in his comments above.
      - chewxy 13y ago
        This is exactly the problem. Also, the vox populi interviews in newspaper from older people saying "25 mbps is fast enough" makes me rage so hard. Oh, 25 Mbps is fast enough? So if I were to offer you $25 or $1000 which would you take? Ugh. The NBN is a good idea, but poorly sold to the older generation who cannot seem to grasp the idea of its importance,
        dbaupp 13y ago
        > 25 mbps is fast enough Of course it's fast enough! You can fill your entire 640 kB of RAM (who needs that much anyway?) in 200ms with that raw speed.
jpau 13y ago
I do really want the NBN to be the best it can be, but I really really really want a proper debate about the issue. Arguments should not be as one-sided as either "the Coalition's plan is crap, because it's slower" or "Labor's plan is crap, because it costs more". Instead, the debate needs to be about whether or not the extra speed is worth the cost. We aren't currently seeing this sort of debate. The Coalition says "give us some benefits to quantify". Labor says "giving all of the benefits would be impossible". I believe Labor should at least try. If they fail, they can fall back to their current position; no ground lost. At this point, Labor need only give benefits from the speed difference to support the cost difference - not the entire project cost. P.s., the change.org petition is full of flaws. For example: "Broadband internet is an ‘infrastructure’ and should be considered in the same light as highways, water management, electricity and so forth; it should be a ‘right’ available ‘equally’ to all Australians." But surely, better roads exist where they are needed more- where the cost justifies such? My parent's farm runs off of tank water and a self-sufficient sewerage system, not town water. The cost to provide the same service I receive at my apartment building as to their farm would be ludicrous. Why are we not seeing a proper debate on this issue?
- XorNot 13y ago
  Because it's technical, nuanced and wholly ends up bound up in "well I just didn't trust labor to do it". It requires comprehending civil works project scale, scope, duration and expected lifetimes, the logistics and finances of managing large infrastructure works and a mind open to the idea that the internet isn't "just for games or something". So, not going to happen ever - but for what it's worth, I fully expect the Coalition to quietly keep going with FTTP since winding back the NBN doesn't save them any money with it spooling up - the money has been borrowed, but not borrowing it doesn't suddenly put the budget in the black. Instead you just don't get a future major asset, and do get to keep the maintenance costs of the old network.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  > Why are we not seeing a proper debate on this issue? There are two reasons. First is the coalition, who started on the wrong footing: arguing about technology choice. This made it pretty easy for the ALP to take attention away from the project itself. Second is a vocal band of people who want super fast internet, dammit. Now that it has been promised, there is a constituency for it. Public debt seems rather abstract and besides, the NBNco promises that it's all going to be profitable somehow (without actually releasing their modelling to the public). As a properly-run public infrastructure project over a decade or 15 years it could have been the envy of the world. Instead we are going to get something that will be an expensive mess, no matter how you slice it.
jwilliams 13y ago
I guess this means well and I hate to say it -- but this is largely pointless. Even this were as persuasive as hell, the Liberals just gained government by bashing the NBN plans (amongst other things). They're not going to change.
peterkelly 13y ago
Step 1 (now): Fibre to the node Step 2 (later, on an incremental basis): Fibre to the home Why do we need to do both steps at the same time? The last mile is incredibly expensive and difficult (as the slow rollout of Labour's scheme has demonstrated). Doing fibre to the node now doesn't stop us from having it to the home at a later point in time, as demands increase.
- 3825 13y ago
  Please do not be misinformed. The last mile is a very contentious issue. What incentive does Telstra have to share the infrastructure to the last mile with some scrappy upstart?
  - nikcub 13y ago
    Telstra won't be sharing it, NBN Co. will be purchasing the copper network. One of the benefits of having an NBN Co. is you don't have the retailer/wholesaler conflict of interest as we did with Telstra and as the UK did with BT The solution in the UK was to mandate open access in regulation with BT OpenReach. The solution in Australia is NBN Co.
- Cameron_D 13y ago
  > Why do we need to do both steps at the same time? The last mile is incredibly expensive and difficult Well, it does work out cheaper in the long run, doing FTTN now involves buying the copper from Telstra, then later on pulling it out and replacing it with fibre. This article does a nice job of going into more details on the costs of it: http://theconversation.com/can-australia-afford-the-coalitions-nbn-17494 http://theconversation.com/can-australia-afford-the-coalitio... > as the slow rollout of Labour's scheme has demonstrated I can't really comment as I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the rollout progress, but this may be worth a read: http://delimiter.com.au/2013/09/05/factcheck-will-nbn-take-another-20-years-complete/ http://delimiter.com.au/2013/09/05/factcheck-will-nbn-take-a...
- astrec 13y ago
  A good mate of mine owns a fibre splicing business and has been doing predominantly NBN work for the last couple of years. He's fairly ambivalent because about the prospect of FTTN because much of the copper network is in such poor condition that it will need to be replaced. In essence he doesn't regard the FTTN plan as cheaper or more deliverable -- and he'll quite happily bid for the work. NBN Co allegedly signed a an awful lot of new contracts prior to entering caretaker mode. During the election campaign Turnbull promised that these contracts will be honoured. I'm more concerned that this will result in a two-tier NBN, with over a million homes with FTTH, and the rest left behind on a 2nd tier system. Perhaps Ziggy will set the Government straight...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dan15 13y ago
I'll just leave Shaun Micallef's segment on Tony Abbott's NBN here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-6E5yX1E0U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-6E5yX1E0U
samuellevy 13y ago
Good to see this one up on HN. I've been running http://www.weneedthenbn.com/ http://www.weneedthenbn.com/ since Saturday night, and it's been getting a bit of traction, too. My phone call to my local MP wasn't exactly promising - while I couldn't talk directly to the MP (although I didn't expect to), the person who answered seemed generally uninterested in anything that I had to say, and was unaware of the technical differences (other than "the LNP plan is cheaper"). I hope we can make a difference here, and there seems to be a lot of support for it. Even if 1% of the people who signed the petition called/emailed/wrote to their local member, we might have a chance of making a difference.
- korynunn 13y ago
  If you want you could add a link to your site and send me a pull: https://github.com/KoryNunn/iwantthenbn https://github.com/KoryNunn/iwantthenbn
- dbaupp 13y ago
  > the LNP plan is cheaper I've heard that it's cheaper to build, but significantly more complicated and expensive to run because of the maintenance of the copper network and the fact that the nodes require power under the LNP NBN, but not the ALP NBN. (I'd like confirmation/anti-confirmation of this if anyone happens to know more.)
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  Make a time to see your MP. Talking to a staffer on the phone is hit-and-miss.
nikcub 13y ago
The petition grossly oversimplifies the difference in approach between the major parties. The NBN will still be built under the new government, NBN Co. will still exist, the debate isn't so much about FTTN vs FTTH (terms that most Australian's aren't familiar with) nor about copper vs fiber. It is about the tradeoff between delivering higher speeds and the time taken to implement. The coalition plan is prominently technology agnostic[0]. The reason why Australia ranks 40th[1] globally with an average broadband speed of 4.1Mbit is not because we haven't rolled out fiber to every home, but rather because of mistakes made during deregulation and the delays in implementing a new plan have meant that large sections of the population have fallen behind international standards and are unable to access even a decent ADSL service, let alone a better VDSL or fiber based service. This has left the country in a situation where because of a lack of basic service, 47% of the country currently access the internet using mobile broadband[2]. This is beyond unacceptable. The two approaches to solving this problems are 1) build a nation wide network that delivers a satellite and wireless service to 7% of the population and a fiber to the home service to the other 93% of the population. ETA 2021. or 2) set a bandwidth target of delivering at least 25Mbit and up to 100Mbit to all households by 2016 and then upgrade to 100Mbit by 2019 using a mix of technologies The 25-100Mbit by 2016 plan would bring Australia into the top 3 or 4 nations worldwide for internet access speeds, where we belong (neither plan would solve high bandwidth prices - the NBN only reaches from your home to your nearest point of interconnect, it does nothing to resolve the current poor state of internet bandwidth/backhaul access in Aus which has a lot of existing broadband connections struggling with international speeds). The new approach is about applying the best technology to fit the situation and to get more bandwidth out sooner. This means that in new housing areas (known as greenfields) where new trenches have to be dug fiber to the home will be deployed (this doesn't change). In remote areas it will be a mix of satellite and wireless service (this doesn't change). In existing suburbs (brownfields) there will be a mix of fiber to the home, fiber to the basement, and fiber to the node with VDSL (and later GFast) delivering the last hundreds of meters. There is yet another rollout case that is the most complicated and that is multi-dwelling unit's (or MDU's) - apartments, town houses, retirement villages, office buildings etc. The old plan was that in these instances the existing copper within a building would be pulled out and replaced with fiber. The problem is that co-ordinated the millions of residents, strata bodies, building co-ops, owners, etc. is a bureaucratic nightmare. When Optus and Telstra rolled out their HFC networks in the 90s they bypassed many of these residences because of the problems it involves. I think even the most strident Labor NBN supporter would concede that MDU's require a new plan and a different approach (not coincidently a report by NBN Co. on the MDU problem was due out a couple of months ago but its release was delayed until after the election). This is why technological decisions should not be dictated by online petitions that at best oversimplify the situation and at worse misrepresent it. I was hoping that with the election now behind us that the toxic partizan debate surrounding the NBN would be over and that people that are best suited to finding a solution - engineers, network architects etc. could set about working out how to achieve the aim of delivering 25-100Mbit to Australian by the end of the first term of this new government. The solution is using a mix of technologies - FTTH in new areas, FTTN in existing areas, an option to upgrade to fiber for businesses, fiber to the basement in MDU's, satellite and wireless in remote areas, etc. Whatever works, just get more bandwidth out there sooner. As a technologist I can only support using a practical approach to finding the best solutions to hitting targets. Off course we all want fiber to the home, off course we all want gigabit speeds, but there is a much more immediate problem of solving the blackspots in existing services. It is about taking smaller steps and delivering more bandwidth to more people sooner rather than a clean slate approach of an entirely new network, and all the risks that involves. I personally know many people who are stuck using 3G modems to access the web and who not only have terrible data speeds but also have usage caps that are a few gigabytes a month. I struggle to explain to them why my area, where I already have an ADSL2+ service at 16Mbit+, is on the roadmap to receive an NBN service this year while their area, closer to the city than I live, is scheduled to start construction of the NBN in 3 years time. I think it is much more important to get at least 25Mbit to those 47% of households before I get my connection upgraded from 16Mbit to 50 or 100Mbit. There are no doubt still a lot of problems with the new plan. I wouldn't count myself as an ardent supporter of the coalition plan (I don't think I even like the very idea of there being an NBN and an NBN Co., but I digress), but I do believe that taking immediate small steps to solve the most critical problem is much more important than rolling out fiber to every home. What is certainly the case is that many, many people are overreacting to the change in government and the new broadband plan. The sky definitely isn't falling and we aren't tearing out what was built and dissolving NBN co. I wish more and more Australians would take a more pragmatic and less partizan approach to the problem. As an aside, the coalition policy document [3], at 37 pages, is definitely worth a read. It goes into all of the background into how they made their decision, their research, etc. It is articulated, thought out, thoroughly referenced and well researched - I recommend everybody with an interest in the NBN read it and contrast to how this petition is presenting the 'problem'. see also: "Will FTTN advances delay FTTH?": http://www.lightwaveonline.com/articles/print/volume-30/issue-4/cover-story/will-fttn-advances-delay-ftth.html http://www.lightwaveonline.com/articles/print/volume-30/issu... on how advances in squeezing more bandwidth out of copper (a technology that is far from dead or antiquated) is causing more telco's to forgoe ambitious FTTH plans in favor of FTTN. [0] http://www.afr.com/p/technology/turnbull_cut_price_broadband_plan_cyno2UoMeEYk6G1E5KrCDM http://www.afr.com/p/technology/turnbull_cut_price_broadband... [1] http://www.news.com.au/technology/state-of-the-internet-australia-web-speeds-ranking-dwindles-to-40th-place-globally/story-e6frfro0-1226560992748 http://www.news.com.au/technology/state-of-the-internet-aust... [2] http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/03/aussies-nuts-for-mobile-broadband-also-downloading-more-data-every-year/ http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/03/aussies-nuts-for-mobile-br... [3] http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/assets/Coalition_NBN_policy_-_Background_Paper.pdf http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/assets/Coalition_NBN_polic...
tezza 13y ago
I am an expat Australian living in London. Here in Belsize Park I have access to Virgin Media, which is fibre to a closeby yet remote center nearby (FTTN). This is easily good enough for me on the 120Mbit plan. I often get 12 MB/s with suitably fast peers. So I reckon that FTTN would be just fine.
- XorNot 13y ago
  What is the physical wiring coming into your house made of? Because there is no way you are getting 120 mbit's through telephone copper. If it's not fiber then you're on HFC which means shared coax. In which case, well, that's not happening here because you'd still have to run coax to millions of premises. The type of wiring is not the expensive part.

I want the NBN

83 points by collypops 13y ago

chris_wot 13y ago

Too late!

korynunn 13y ago
Read the message at the top of the site, it is a petition to the libs.
- chris_wot 13y ago
  Yeah, I know. I even signed it. They won't ever do it. That would involve logic and a basic grasp of technology.
  - wernah 13y ago
    I find it rather scary that they write policies on things they don't understand, or want to.
    - dagw 13y ago
      Don't worry. Chances are they leave the actual writing of policies to powerful think tanks and lobby groups that understand that situation perfectly (and then cynically exploit it for maximum profit for whoever is backing them). All the politicians do is push the policy and sign it into law.
    - sirkumi 13y ago
      Welcome to modern democracy, where the people who win elections are really only knowledgeable about and good at winning elections...
  - shelf 13y ago
    Given they mostly have business / law / academic backgrounds, I am not sure that anybody has ever put the case for fibre speeds to the Libs in terms other than 'this is what people want, and it is good.' The use cases used in Labor promotions were patronising to the extreme. Don't be surprised that they've concluded it is simply a 'nice thing' that people want but will loathe paying for. To be honest with you, the things I am planning to do when I get a gigabit line are not exactly in the 'nation-building' category, either. I'm not sure how to fix that PR problem.
    - chris_wot 13y ago
      Turnbull is well aware that fibre is the right way to go. They were trying to wedge Labor by not allowing them to get credit for anything. Labor was not able to communicate its vision or its successes. Rudd was brought I. Far too late to undo the damage. They are now in the wilderness for some time. Yet again.
    - jacques_chester 13y ago
      > Given they mostly have business / law / academic backgrounds Lawyers or former law students are the most numerous profession in Parliament. Gillard was a lawyer. Abbott studied Law as an undergraduate, as did Howard and Hawke. The professional training of a lawyer equips them to vigorously argue a case they may not themselves agree with, and to do so in forensic detail. The skillset and subject matter has a strong overlap with the work of politics. That doesn't mean we couldn't do with some more professional diversity in Parliament and the Cabinet. It'd be nice to see some more scientists, engineers and the like on both sides of the chamber.
      - kef 13y ago
        I'm thinking the Mad Scientists Party might stand a chance of a seat in the senate next time around.

jschuur 13y ago

The top of the page tells me nothing about what they're campaigning for. FTTN? NBN? FTTH? English people. English! I'm not even sure if this is a parody. The Liberal Party of Australia: Reconsider your plan for a 'FTTN' NBN in favour of a superior 'FTTH' NBN Australia needs the right NBN. Vote at change.org if you agree!

jschuur 13y ago
And yes, I realize the change.org site has more details. But once again, the whole top of that page has no actual info in the title except a bunch of acronyms.
- kaliblack 13y ago
  In Australia, where this petition is relevant, these acronyms are well understood by the public and don't need further explanation.
  - devnetfx 13y ago
    I am in Australia and these acronyms are not well understood by the public. Luckily jdaley explained these well in his comments above.
    - chewxy 13y ago
      This is exactly the problem. Also, the vox populi interviews in newspaper from older people saying "25 mbps is fast enough" makes me rage so hard. Oh, 25 Mbps is fast enough? So if I were to offer you $25 or $1000 which would you take? Ugh. The NBN is a good idea, but poorly sold to the older generation who cannot seem to grasp the idea of its importance,
      - dbaupp 13y ago
        > 25 mbps is fast enough Of course it's fast enough! You can fill your entire 640 kB of RAM (who needs that much anyway?) in 200ms with that raw speed.

jpau 13y ago

I do really want the NBN to be the best it can be, but I really really really want a proper debate about the issue. Arguments should not be as one-sided as either "the Coalition's plan is crap, because it's slower" or "Labor's plan is crap, because it costs more". Instead, the debate needs to be about whether or not the extra speed is worth the cost. We aren't currently seeing this sort of debate. The Coalition says "give us some benefits to quantify". Labor says "giving all of the benefits would be impossible". I believe Labor should at least try. If they fail, they can fall back to their current position; no ground lost. At this point, Labor need only give benefits from the speed difference to support the cost difference - not the entire project cost. P.s., the change.org petition is full of flaws. For example: "Broadband internet is an ‘infrastructure’ and should be considered in the same light as highways, water management, electricity and so forth; it should be a ‘right’ available ‘equally’ to all Australians." But surely, better roads exist where they are needed more- where the cost justifies such? My parent's farm runs off of tank water and a self-sufficient sewerage system, not town water. The cost to provide the same service I receive at my apartment building as to their farm would be ludicrous. Why are we not seeing a proper debate on this issue?

XorNot 13y ago
Because it's technical, nuanced and wholly ends up bound up in "well I just didn't trust labor to do it". It requires comprehending civil works project scale, scope, duration and expected lifetimes, the logistics and finances of managing large infrastructure works and a mind open to the idea that the internet isn't "just for games or something". So, not going to happen ever - but for what it's worth, I fully expect the Coalition to quietly keep going with FTTP since winding back the NBN doesn't save them any money with it spooling up - the money has been borrowed, but not borrowing it doesn't suddenly put the budget in the black. Instead you just don't get a future major asset, and do get to keep the maintenance costs of the old network.
jacques_chester 13y ago
> Why are we not seeing a proper debate on this issue? There are two reasons. First is the coalition, who started on the wrong footing: arguing about technology choice. This made it pretty easy for the ALP to take attention away from the project itself. Second is a vocal band of people who want super fast internet, dammit. Now that it has been promised, there is a constituency for it. Public debt seems rather abstract and besides, the NBNco promises that it's all going to be profitable somehow (without actually releasing their modelling to the public). As a properly-run public infrastructure project over a decade or 15 years it could have been the envy of the world. Instead we are going to get something that will be an expensive mess, no matter how you slice it.

jwilliams 13y ago

I guess this means well and I hate to say it -- but this is largely pointless. Even this were as persuasive as hell, the Liberals just gained government by bashing the NBN plans (amongst other things). They're not going to change.

peterkelly 13y ago

Step 1 (now): Fibre to the node Step 2 (later, on an incremental basis): Fibre to the home Why do we need to do both steps at the same time? The last mile is incredibly expensive and difficult (as the slow rollout of Labour's scheme has demonstrated). Doing fibre to the node now doesn't stop us from having it to the home at a later point in time, as demands increase.

3825 13y ago
Please do not be misinformed. The last mile is a very contentious issue. What incentive does Telstra have to share the infrastructure to the last mile with some scrappy upstart?
- nikcub 13y ago
  Telstra won't be sharing it, NBN Co. will be purchasing the copper network. One of the benefits of having an NBN Co. is you don't have the retailer/wholesaler conflict of interest as we did with Telstra and as the UK did with BT The solution in the UK was to mandate open access in regulation with BT OpenReach. The solution in Australia is NBN Co.
Cameron_D 13y ago
> Why do we need to do both steps at the same time? The last mile is incredibly expensive and difficult Well, it does work out cheaper in the long run, doing FTTN now involves buying the copper from Telstra, then later on pulling it out and replacing it with fibre. This article does a nice job of going into more details on the costs of it: http://theconversation.com/can-australia-afford-the-coalitions-nbn-17494 http://theconversation.com/can-australia-afford-the-coalitio... > as the slow rollout of Labour's scheme has demonstrated I can't really comment as I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the rollout progress, but this may be worth a read: http://delimiter.com.au/2013/09/05/factcheck-will-nbn-take-another-20-years-complete/ http://delimiter.com.au/2013/09/05/factcheck-will-nbn-take-a...
astrec 13y ago
A good mate of mine owns a fibre splicing business and has been doing predominantly NBN work for the last couple of years. He's fairly ambivalent because about the prospect of FTTN because much of the copper network is in such poor condition that it will need to be replaced. In essence he doesn't regard the FTTN plan as cheaper or more deliverable -- and he'll quite happily bid for the work. NBN Co allegedly signed a an awful lot of new contracts prior to entering caretaker mode. During the election campaign Turnbull promised that these contracts will be honoured. I'm more concerned that this will result in a two-tier NBN, with over a million homes with FTTH, and the rest left behind on a 2nd tier system. Perhaps Ziggy will set the Government straight...

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

dan15 13y ago

I'll just leave Shaun Micallef's segment on Tony Abbott's NBN here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-6E5yX1E0U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-6E5yX1E0U

samuellevy 13y ago

Good to see this one up on HN. I've been running http://www.weneedthenbn.com/ http://www.weneedthenbn.com/ since Saturday night, and it's been getting a bit of traction, too. My phone call to my local MP wasn't exactly promising - while I couldn't talk directly to the MP (although I didn't expect to), the person who answered seemed generally uninterested in anything that I had to say, and was unaware of the technical differences (other than "the LNP plan is cheaper"). I hope we can make a difference here, and there seems to be a lot of support for it. Even if 1% of the people who signed the petition called/emailed/wrote to their local member, we might have a chance of making a difference.

korynunn 13y ago
If you want you could add a link to your site and send me a pull: https://github.com/KoryNunn/iwantthenbn https://github.com/KoryNunn/iwantthenbn
dbaupp 13y ago
> the LNP plan is cheaper I've heard that it's cheaper to build, but significantly more complicated and expensive to run because of the maintenance of the copper network and the fact that the nodes require power under the LNP NBN, but not the ALP NBN. (I'd like confirmation/anti-confirmation of this if anyone happens to know more.)
jacques_chester 13y ago
Make a time to see your MP. Talking to a staffer on the phone is hit-and-miss.

nikcub 13y ago

The petition grossly oversimplifies the difference in approach between the major parties. The NBN will still be built under the new government, NBN Co. will still exist, the debate isn't so much about FTTN vs FTTH (terms that most Australian's aren't familiar with) nor about copper vs fiber. It is about the tradeoff between delivering higher speeds and the time taken to implement. The coalition plan is prominently technology agnostic[0]. The reason why Australia ranks 40th[1] globally with an average broadband speed of 4.1Mbit is not because we haven't rolled out fiber to every home, but rather because of mistakes made during deregulation and the delays in implementing a new plan have meant that large sections of the population have fallen behind international standards and are unable to access even a decent ADSL service, let alone a better VDSL or fiber based service. This has left the country in a situation where because of a lack of basic service, 47% of the country currently access the internet using mobile broadband[2]. This is beyond unacceptable. The two approaches to solving this problems are 1) build a nation wide network that delivers a satellite and wireless service to 7% of the population and a fiber to the home service to the other 93% of the population. ETA 2021. or 2) set a bandwidth target of delivering at least 25Mbit and up to 100Mbit to all households by 2016 and then upgrade to 100Mbit by 2019 using a mix of technologies The 25-100Mbit by 2016 plan would bring Australia into the top 3 or 4 nations worldwide for internet access speeds, where we belong (neither plan would solve high bandwidth prices - the NBN only reaches from your home to your nearest point of interconnect, it does nothing to resolve the current poor state of internet bandwidth/backhaul access in Aus which has a lot of existing broadband connections struggling with international speeds). The new approach is about applying the best technology to fit the situation and to get more bandwidth out sooner. This means that in new housing areas (known as greenfields) where new trenches have to be dug fiber to the home will be deployed (this doesn't change). In remote areas it will be a mix of satellite and wireless service (this doesn't change). In existing suburbs (brownfields) there will be a mix of fiber to the home, fiber to the basement, and fiber to the node with VDSL (and later GFast) delivering the last hundreds of meters. There is yet another rollout case that is the most complicated and that is multi-dwelling unit's (or MDU's) - apartments, town houses, retirement villages, office buildings etc. The old plan was that in these instances the existing copper within a building would be pulled out and replaced with fiber. The problem is that co-ordinated the millions of residents, strata bodies, building co-ops, owners, etc. is a bureaucratic nightmare. When Optus and Telstra rolled out their HFC networks in the 90s they bypassed many of these residences because of the problems it involves. I think even the most strident Labor NBN supporter would concede that MDU's require a new plan and a different approach (not coincidently a report by NBN Co. on the MDU problem was due out a couple of months ago but its release was delayed until after the election). This is why technological decisions should not be dictated by online petitions that at best oversimplify the situation and at worse misrepresent it. I was hoping that with the election now behind us that the toxic partizan debate surrounding the NBN would be over and that people that are best suited to finding a solution - engineers, network architects etc. could set about working out how to achieve the aim of delivering 25-100Mbit to Australian by the end of the first term of this new government. The solution is using a mix of technologies - FTTH in new areas, FTTN in existing areas, an option to upgrade to fiber for businesses, fiber to the basement in MDU's, satellite and wireless in remote areas, etc. Whatever works, just get more bandwidth out there sooner. As a technologist I can only support using a practical approach to finding the best solutions to hitting targets. Off course we all want fiber to the home, off course we all want gigabit speeds, but there is a much more immediate problem of solving the blackspots in existing services. It is about taking smaller steps and delivering more bandwidth to more people sooner rather than a clean slate approach of an entirely new network, and all the risks that involves. I personally know many people who are stuck using 3G modems to access the web and who not only have terrible data speeds but also have usage caps that are a few gigabytes a month. I struggle to explain to them why my area, where I already have an ADSL2+ service at 16Mbit+, is on the roadmap to receive an NBN service this year while their area, closer to the city than I live, is scheduled to start construction of the NBN in 3 years time. I think it is much more important to get at least 25Mbit to those 47% of households before I get my connection upgraded from 16Mbit to 50 or 100Mbit. There are no doubt still a lot of problems with the new plan. I wouldn't count myself as an ardent supporter of the coalition plan (I don't think I even like the very idea of there being an NBN and an NBN Co., but I digress), but I do believe that taking immediate small steps to solve the most critical problem is much more important than rolling out fiber to every home. What is certainly the case is that many, many people are overreacting to the change in government and the new broadband plan. The sky definitely isn't falling and we aren't tearing out what was built and dissolving NBN co. I wish more and more Australians would take a more pragmatic and less partizan approach to the problem. As an aside, the coalition policy document [3], at 37 pages, is definitely worth a read. It goes into all of the background into how they made their decision, their research, etc. It is articulated, thought out, thoroughly referenced and well researched - I recommend everybody with an interest in the NBN read it and contrast to how this petition is presenting the 'problem'. see also: "Will FTTN advances delay FTTH?": http://www.lightwaveonline.com/articles/print/volume-30/issue-4/cover-story/will-fttn-advances-delay-ftth.html http://www.lightwaveonline.com/articles/print/volume-30/issu... on how advances in squeezing more bandwidth out of copper (a technology that is far from dead or antiquated) is causing more telco's to forgoe ambitious FTTH plans in favor of FTTN. [0] http://www.afr.com/p/technology/turnbull_cut_price_broadband_plan_cyno2UoMeEYk6G1E5KrCDM http://www.afr.com/p/technology/turnbull_cut_price_broadband... [1] http://www.news.com.au/technology/state-of-the-internet-australia-web-speeds-ranking-dwindles-to-40th-place-globally/story-e6frfro0-1226560992748 http://www.news.com.au/technology/state-of-the-internet-aust... [2] http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/03/aussies-nuts-for-mobile-broadband-also-downloading-more-data-every-year/ http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/03/aussies-nuts-for-mobile-br... [3] http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/assets/Coalition_NBN_policy_-_Background_Paper.pdf http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/assets/Coalition_NBN_polic...

tezza 13y ago

I am an expat Australian living in London. Here in Belsize Park I have access to Virgin Media, which is fibre to a closeby yet remote center nearby (FTTN). This is easily good enough for me on the 120Mbit plan. I often get 12 MB/s with suitably fast peers. So I reckon that FTTN would be just fine.

XorNot 13y ago
What is the physical wiring coming into your house made of? Because there is no way you are getting 120 mbit's through telephone copper. If it's not fiber then you're on HFC which means shared coax. In which case, well, that's not happening here because you'd still have to run coax to millions of premises. The type of wiring is not the expensive part.