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The NBN (National Broadband Network)

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Groucho

Greg Davis (50)
I think there is some confusion out there in Oz consumer-world about the difference between wholesale broadband and retail services.

NBNCo will provide the physical network in the same way as Telstra and Optus do now. Retail service providers (who cannot be NBNCo - a lesson learned from mistakes made with Telstra) then compete to provide services that the consumer pays for. There is no direct charge to the consumer for the network: it is funded initially from tax dollars, and then in the long term from the rent that the retail service providers pay to NBNCo.

People who opt out of a connection are being silly. Running fibre to the home after the rollout will be a chargeable activity, although, as now, it may be funded initially by the customer's chosen retail service provider.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
I bet that it will end up being installed by the retailer provider, possibly at a low or no cost, but that this will then be subsidised by the NBN Co as the cost to the retailer (passed onto the consumer) will be too high and preclude people from taking it up. (Hope that made sense.)
 

Groucho

Greg Davis (50)
I bet that it will end up being installed by the retailer provider, possibly at a low or no cost, but that this will then be subsidised by the NBN Co as the cost to the retailer (passed onto the consumer) will be too high and preclude people from taking it up. (Hope that made sense.)

That would be a huge own goal.
 

Groucho

Greg Davis (50)
Is there no cost for connection AFTER the initial roll out?

If that is the case, why would you let someone run a cable into your house you weren't going to use. I already have TV, internet and phone running in, why would I want another one, one I am not going to use anyway.

Mr Timms, do you already have broadband? If you already have fibre then there will be no new cable. If you have Telstra copper then there's a cable changeover that you will need, I think, since the Telstra CAN will be switched off and your phone line will stop working (although I must check that out).

If you currently have no broadband at all then you will have the option, since the government can't force it on you.
 

Sully

Tim Horan (67)
Staff member
So basically you can get the fibre to your home now definately for free or you can wait and take a chance it's still free then.
 

Bowside

Peter Johnson (47)
I think I public will react in the same way they did to free view. Once people realise its worth having they will get it, and if its free, then why would they not get it done.
 

MrTimms

Ken Catchpole (46)
Staff member
Mr Timms, do you already have broadband? If you already have fibre then there will be no new cable. If you have Telstra copper then there's a cable changeover that you will need, I think, since the Telstra CAN will be switched off and your phone line will stop working (although I must check that out).

If you currently have no broadband at all then you will have the option, since the government can't force it on you.

I understand all the wholesale side of this. I just have objections to being told what will or won't be installed into a house I own (probably runs a little deeper than that too, but we digress...).

It would be better handled by the reseller contacting the customer and advising they are changing the carriage of my service, when can we organise the connection.
 

Groucho

Greg Davis (50)
I understand all the wholesale side of this. I just have objections to being told what will or won't be installed into a house I own (probably runs a little deeper than that too, but we digress...).

It would be better handled by the reseller contacting the customer and advising they are changing the carriage of my service, when can we organise the connection.

MrTimms, no one is forcing anyone to install anything. You, like everyone, will be offered the choice.

However, I guess the "problem" with consumer choice in this matter is that the total cost of n separate installations will be considerably higher than for a structured rollout of the service. If I was concerned about the total cost to the nation of NBN (and don't get me wrong, I am) then I'd want my house cabled up in the initial rollout, and I'd want other people to do the same.

There'll be some people out there (I don't mean you) who'd see a higher total cost as an acceptable investment in embarrassing the government. That's the problem when technology plans become political footballs. It would be a real bummer for Australia if the real cost of the project trebled, with the overspend hidden in higher retail service charges.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
Does anyone know if the plan is to offer free connection from the street to the house to every house in Australia? I haven't seen any information on this and wonder if it is just being done in the trial locations.

It would make more sense for the retail providers to do it when consumers subscribe.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
Business Spectator article on the subject:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au...-telstr-pd20101008-A23DA?OpenDocument&src=pmm

The shift in the approach to rolling out the national broadband network from an "opt in" model to an "opt out" system could have significant, but offsetting, implications for its cost and revenues.

The move, which will be legislated initially by Tasmania, where the roll-out is being trialled, appears to relate to the poor take-up of the service there despite NBN Co not charging a wholesale fee to the retail service providers and discounting by the RSPs to attract customers.

In what you can assume will be an approach NBN Co tries to adopt nationally, Tasmanian homes and businesses will automatically have the optical networking terminals (ONTs) that bring the fibre to the outside of their premises attached unless they actively choose not to.

It is a departure from the nature of the roll-out envisaged in the implementation study produced by McKinsey and KPMG, who foresaw a demand-driven roll-out of the ONTs, with retail service providers having to obtain the consent of each individual home owner or business to install the boxes.

Just rolling the cable past premises would obviously be a lower cost approach to building the network than installing ONTs in every premise regardless of whether or not the owner wants to take up the NBN service.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
It gets worse as the article goes on:

It is instructive that in South Korea, where more than $US70 billion of government subsidies has created the world’s leading deployment of fibre, only about a third of household connections are actually fibre despite a decade of access to the network. Given a choice, it appears, a majority of users are happy with copper.

The implementation study’s revenue scenarios used three levels of demand for fixed line broadband – penetration rates of 70 per cent, 80 per cent and 90 per cent. For the NBN to get to those sorts of rates and maximise its rate of revenue growth it needs to displace the existing fixed-line technologies – copper and the HFC networks – as rapidly as possible.

That’s why the federal government used such draconian measures to force Telstra to negotiate with NBN Co to rip out its copper and hand over its customers. To give NBN Co some prospect of covering its funding costs it needs to become a wholesale monopoly, ideally as quickly as possible.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
Here is my NBN analogy:

Joe Smith wants to build a retaining wall in his back yard, so he can flatten in out and enable his kids to play out there. He has several different options for this retaining wall - timber sleeper, concrete sleeper, interlocking blocks and reinforced concrete masonry. Now Joe is on a bit of a budget, so he is tossing up between the cheaper two options (the sleeper walls). Just as Joe is about to give the go ahead for the builder to start he finds out that the local government has outlawed the use of timber sleeper, concrete sleeper and interlocking blocks.

He complains to council, but they explain that they are now only allowing for the reinforced concrete masonry walls to be built as they believe they will last longer, and future proof retaining wall construction. They say, don't worry Joe, all the builders that build the other types of walls also build this type, so you should be able to get a pretty good price for it.

However the builders can't offer Joe the same price as a sleeper wall, as it costs them more to build it and they have to retain their margins. So poor Joe ends up paying a price that is about double what he wanted to spend, even though he does get a better product for it. He has no choice in the matter, because the government has forced a particular retaining wall type upon him.

The requirements of the Labor government for Telstra to decommission the current fixed lines is very similar to this scenario, and it is taking choice and freedom away from the inhabitants of this country.
 

Bowside

Peter Johnson (47)
But what you don’t hear is the story of Joe’s next door neighbour.

You see, Joe's next door neighbour, let’s call him Scotty, decided that he would get in before the new rules came to play and got a wooden sleeper wall built that is not as strong as Joes reinforced concrete masonry. A couple of years later there is a period of drought, followed by record rainfall which leads to soil movement. The wood sleeper then starts to rot away. The next year it rains again and Scotty's kids think it’s great and are having a waterfight in the back yard. One of them tries to climb the retaining wall to get a higher vantage point and wet the others with the hose, but the rotting wall is placed under too much pressure and gives way, crushing the child.

Joe's neighbour Scotty then has to pay massive medical bills to fix his kids broken bones. In addition to this he has to fork out for a new retaining wall. Upon hearing what has happened, Joe finally realises that government is looking out for his best interest.
 

I like to watch

David Codey (61)
can someone pleeeeease explain to this hillbilly, what the value add of NBN will be to me personally using the net @ home?
Some of the tekheads have rambled on about a new world etc. But to me @ home what will it do, that I can't do now?
for my share of $43bill + higher access costs it would want to be pretty fucking outrageous!
Why wouldn't they just do a pilot in the inner city where the rollout cost per head is much lower & the take up rate probably much higher?
 

Bowside

Peter Johnson (47)
can someone pleeeeease explain to this hillbilly, what the value add of NBN will be to me personally using the net @ home?
Some of the tekheads have rambled on about a new world etc. But to me @ home what will it do, that I can't do now?
for my share of $43bill + higher access costs it would want to be pretty fucking outrageous!
Why wouldn't they just do a pilot in the inner city where the rollout cost per head is much lower & the take up rate probably much higher?

Now I don’t want to sound arrogant, but your use of '@' leads me to believe that you probably don’t pay tax anyways, and if I am right than it's a little bit hypocritical to complain.

None the less, tax dollars are being spent investing in technology that will improve the speed at which and eventually ways in which all Australians are able to access information. Contrary to popular belief, there is more to this than being able to download porn faster. The roll out scheme does not just cover inner city areas because the technology is somewhat more useful to people in the bush, especially farmers/small business owners, but also remote doctors and teachers. I also suspect that the rural independents have something to do with the way in which it is being rolled out.

As the tech heads who know more about this than me have said above, it will mean totally new softwares and services that many of us probably are not yet able to comprehend.
 

Groucho

Greg Davis (50)
can someone pleeeeease explain to this hillbilly, what the value add of NBN will be to me personally using the net @ home?
Some of the tekheads have rambled on about a new world etc. But to me @ home what will it do, that I can't do now?
for my share of $43bill + higher access costs it would want to be pretty fucking outrageous!
Why wouldn't they just do a pilot in the inner city where the rollout cost per head is much lower & the take up rate probably much higher?

The change that will affect most people will be the evolution of the Internet from a collection of documents into the equivalent of a single machine.

We see see the first signs of that now, with web drives and Citrix and the like, but in a decade there will no longer be a clear distinction between your computer and other computers on the net. You'll be able to click on an application located anywhere you have access to, and run it like it was on your own computer.

The applications for that world are being developed right now, and they are being designed with fast broadband as a given.

That doesn't mean there won't be traditional forms of software, and traditional types of computer, at least for a while, but those will be phased out as the markef for them decreases.

Twenty years from now, many of the things you do in life will be circumscribed by whether or not you are on the network. For entertainment, computing, home systems such as home heating, car servicing, innumerable everyday activities, there will be a world of haves, and a world of have-nots, all demarked by connectivity.

And it won't just be a matter of slow download speeds. Without fast broadband, you simply won't have access to first-world cars, first-world refigerators, first-world computers... the list grows longer as the set of devices and services that are run by computers inexorably increases.

And by access, I mean that you won't be able to buy them, or if you can, then you won;t be able to use them. You'll be stuck with the equivalent of the Trabant.

Thirty years from now, you will have trouble finding a job, as homeworking becomes a necessity rather then the exception, using virtual offices that deliver a host of feeds and connections to your home. If you live in an area that is not comprehensively connected, then you will see that area become poorer as wages fall. Your house price will go through the floor.

Then your dog will leave you and the wife will get fleas. Well, maybe not that. ;)
 
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