The NBN (National Broadband Network)

Good article on the benefits and costs of the NBN.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au...-Conroy-pd20101201-BQ433?OpenDocument&src=sph

We could save billions and still have 40 Mbps, by going fibre to the hub. When technology is about to catch up to that speed, then it would surely be simple enough to take fibre to the premises.

Moses, good point.

Scotty, the article in Bus Spec outlines the case pretty well. I had a lunch date with our corporate telco yesterday, with a group of their other clients, and their national manager. He was very enthusiastic about the NBN and was talking up the technical benefits. Fair enough. He then went around the table and asked each of us what we thought. The reactions were interesting and fairly diverse. I said my principle issue was the eye watering cost of it and my scepticism that any government (especially this one) could actually pull it off. I also pointed out that all the bandwidth in the world doesn't help me with latency. We would still have to jump through all the same technical hoops to get our applications to perform well enough in a distributed environment. Fat pipes don't necessarily fix that problem.

Yes, but it would have been the wrong thing to do, particularly in light of the current financial situation around the globe.

Sort of like having a massive extractor system for your exhaust, but only a small engine?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...ns-monopoly-plan/story-fn59niix-1225964807868

Looks like the ACCC are going to knock back at least part of the NBN's plan. What a surprise the ACCC want greater competition! Pity the government doesn't also think the same way.

More or less, yeah.

I'm dredging this one up again as I only just found it. After years living in the bush, only to move to Canberra and find out that I still could not get anything other than dial-up internet I am most certainly in favour of a broadband network. The private sector would never fund this level of infrastructure upgrade, as they would not even maintain their equipment in Australia's capital city.

When we moved here and tried to get the internet connected, we rang every company that offered internet plans. They all told us that they could not provide a service because they rent the lines from telstra and there is a fault in the line and they couldnt do anything about it. We then rang telstra and they told us that they would not be fixing the line as we were not current customers and they had no obligation to do so. We then went wireless and had all sorts of problems with it dropping out when too many users were on etc. We are still on wireless because we cannot get broadband at all.

In my opinion the cost of the NBN may be a little high, but it is a direct investment from the Australian government in the future of Australia. I am a public school teacher and i can tell you that over 90% of all schools that have cash injections for buildings feel that it is a worthwhile investment as well. I do believe that this government is doing something right, and i most definately feel that the NBN is one of them.

Of course they do, but they do have a vested interest don't they? Ask them if for the same money with a better organised program that they could have got another 20-30% more space or better facilities, then I think their answer to that would 'we'll take that was well thanks'.

Can I also suggest that the NBN supporters (on this thread and elsewhere) seem to just agree with the concept of the NBN (which is fair enough) but don't seem to be able to look deeper into its implementation and possible wastage of funds. Why can't you agree with the concept but question how it is being implemented and costed?

Very well summed up Moses. I haven't heard one argument from a NBN support that can possibly counter that. Generally their arguments are based on general feelings about it rather than facts and analysis.

I agreed with the original proposal and would be happy enough to see them throw $5B at the fibre to the node upgrade.

I made this argument to some friends the other day and they asked the same thing - what would you do with the money you saved? Well, we don't actually have that money in the first place (it will be borrowed funds), so we shouldn't be spending too much of what we don't have, particularly for thinks that aren't needed by more than 5-10 % of the population. If we did have that money, then infrastructure upgrades would be top of my list.

I asked the same question myself though on a different instance of government spending - $500m given to Indonesia for green improvements and $1m to Queensland for flood recovery. It just doesn't make sense.

East Asia
Estimated ODA to Indonesia and East Asia in 2010-11: $1,092.3 million *

http://www.ausaid.gov.au/makediff/default.cfm

Isn't it ironic that a significant amount of our aid to Indonesia would go to helping build islamic schools? Surely we should only be funding in areas that provide a broader viewpoint of the world and different beliefs.

I would assume that any money provided for education would be tipped into the government school system in Indonesia. Indonesia whilst not quite secular, generally realises freedom of religion and is not an Islamic state. I don't think there is really any issue there.

I had a very interesting discussion with an ISP CEO recently. Commercial confidence stuff will prevent me naming etc. Suffice to say at present there is only one ISP & one infrastructure company (they happen to be the same company) that complies with the NBN spec as it is currently written. As things stand this company (and it isn't a company that many will recognise) will hold a monopoly on the NBN until such time as the other extract their digit, but they will always be playing catch up.

In the conversation another interesting point was brought up, what happens when we have a blackout? Currently the Telstra Copper network is supplied by back-up UPS and generators to supply the requisite voltage to the customer and exchange to keep the system running. However if the copper network is no longer there where does the power come from the generate the light signal for the fibre at the customer end? Do we then have to supply and install a UPS along with the connection to every premises in Oz? It is not a tenable situation to have the primary means of communication disabled in an emergency considering Power supply is generally the first utility to be lost in any emergency, and in Country Oz where mobile networks are very hit and miss and electricity supply is also somewhat unreliable this could be a dangerous situation.

I asked surely this issue has been considered, and apparently it is not in the scope of works currently. Thoughts people?

IMO this is just another reason to go to the node (which are equiped to deal with power failures) and retain the Copper network from there. I cannot see any reason to dismantle a perfectly functional piece of infrastructure which isn't even being used at its full capacity now.

Gnostic I agree with your point about fibre to the hub, rather than the premises.

On the power issue, you'll find that every exchange will have backup power anyway and it could well be that the current requirements are lower to power the fibre gear (don't know or not, just speculating). So nothing really changes there I think.

I can't remember where I saw it but the power problem has been considered and appropriate remedies are in the plans.
The power problem was one of many possible problems that received a beat-up from the Australian in the Murdoch press campaign against the NBN that continues apace. The fact that Murdoch and News Ltd have a huge conflict of interest in this matter has surprisingly received no mention in their papers.