Australian NBN Rollout and how it sucks. (If you're a peasent)

[saya_kucing]

Australian internet speeds have never been great, in fact despite being a proud Aussie and defending our claims to technological progression even I can admit that our internet infrastructure is indeed, laughable. Our recent PM has copped a lot of flak over his conservative views and budgeting allocation (including reinstating the titles of Knights and Dames) - however politics aside, our internet is balls.

 

Our previous governing party had a plan to change all this by promising (and to the best of their ability fulfilling) claims of a fibre optic based network to the home (FTTH). Great, right? After millions of tax-payer's dollars poured into the concept, organising, planning, advertising, equipment, human resources and training they began to install the majesty of fibre. In the dying days of the party's call to fame they managed to connect a fraction of households with this standard. 93% of premises were promised with fibre available directly, where the remaining 7% would be covered though either fibre to the node (FTTN) or wireless satellite coverage.

 

Everything seemed to be looking good, until the recent and globally reported incident of discrepancies in votes and various other touchy subjects. Long story short - my team lost and FTTH is now science fiction.

 

UNLESS of course you were one of the lucky ones in the final stage of Labor's bid to win the hearts and minds of voters in a bold action to connect as many homes through FTTH as logistically possible. Sadly, under new leadership only 22% of homes will be connected to FTTH, where the remainders will be stuck with FTTN or wireless satellite. These changes are due to take hold by the year [you're guess is as good as mine], despite everything being set, and IN MOTION for a nation-wide standard.

 

Life being what it is, the wealthy are set to inherit the updated standard - where middle and working-class are going to be stuck with copper phone lines from the 1950s (already retrofitted to convey internet data), which on rainy days are known to fail entirely. In a country where the government owns the infrastructure ISPs can only provide the consumer with what they are physically able to. I see this as such a major failure of government initiative, resource management and overall attitude towards what is obviously such a critical medium in today's society.

 

 

[Askew]

Never mind being bad for lots of people, it makes the whole country look backward in terms of technology.

[DrunkAssassin]

I am not going to start a rant as I already have in another thread about the joke called telstra and Australia's internet speeds all I will leave you with is this.

 

[Hoppa]

I think we'll eventually get it.. But by that time Japan will probably have 10 gbit internet speeds.

My copper speed is pretty beast so I don't really care (I get more than promised hehe). Plus my area was never planned to get fibre so nothing was going to change for me.

I think telstra was voted as the most complained about company in Australia.. so there you go... Shitest company in Australia = our biggest ISP.

I've always said that Australians are the biggest complainers but I guess there's always something to complain about here.

[Accidentx13]

Well I didnt vote for the wing nut, in fact cause he was elected I lost my job at Telstra.

[skywake]

Well you'll all love this video:

 

Entire argument for their change in approach from this propaganda video:

- The Facebooks and Skypes are better than they were on the old crappy ~5/1Mbps link

- We get it "quicker"*

 

"The Not-quite-NBN: it's fast enough**"

 

*May not actually be delivered quicker

**Your experience, including speed, depends on the NBN technology used to deliver services to you and factors outside of our control, including length and quality of the copper line to your premises (for FTTN), your equipment, connection quality, software, broadband plan and service provider's network design

[Darren]

You jealous of New Zealands Fibre rollout? Currently got 100Mbps, Gigabit is available but untested, but not far...

[skywake]

Here's a little bit of fluff from their most recent propaganda document. A document that once again agrees that the original FTTH model would have made a return on investment.....

 

Should future demand grow more slowly than expected, it avoids the high sunk costs of having deployed FTTP. On the other hand, should future demand grow more rapidly than expected, the rapid deployment of the MTM scenario allows more of that growth to be secured early on, with the scope to then upgrade to ensure the network can support very high speeds once demand reaches those levels.

 

To read through the fluff there they're trying to argue that their approach is all of the good things. That if demand is slow then you're spending extra money on a network that won't be used. Ok, makes sense I guess. However they then also try to argue that if demand is HIGHER than even the old NBNCo predicted then they'll somehow still be better off. Apparently because the extra couple of years head start, if we even believe that, will generate more revenue quicker. Then they have the nerve to say that you could then upgrade the network for FTTH speeds after the fact. And this is the cheaper option? Even if demand is high? Building the network twice?

 

But hey, we all know what would happen if they did get FTTN through and there was still demand. We'd have to start banging pots again demanding another network upgrade but this time we'd have to try and justify an upgrade from VDSL rather than ADSL. A much, much harder thing to do. So we'd be stuck with FTTN for a long while if they don't build FTTH. That's my guess.

 

Oh, and within their rant their prediction is that demand for higher speeds will be LOWER than estimated. To be specific they believe that migration to the sort of speeds only available on FTTH (>50Mbps) will be lower than 13%pa for the next decade starting. Not sure what the base is but they claim that only 5% of users will actually use 50Mbps in 2023.... which is interesting. Now I don't know what the actual subs are now for those speed tiers (edit: I asked twitter and they delivered, it's 20% on 100/40Mbps)............. so...........

 

20% on 100Mbps now -> 5% in 2024 -> under 17% in 2034? Great predictions

[MuffinTopMike]

It is unacceptable that a wealthy country like Australia, where the tax is very high, that we are forced to use copper phone lines installed 50 years ago for our internet. 

[MrAznJzn]

The PM of Australia: 

"Just if I may add something. I mean, at 25 megs, you can simultaneously be downloading four HD TV programmes. So you can have four people in four different parts of the standard house watching the sport, a movie, whatever you might be doing. So we are absolutely confident that 25 megs is going to be enough, more than enough, for the average household." 

 

25mbps .. that's a laughing matter. The NBN rollout also isn't prioritizing places where it is needed. I have a friend who has absolutely no internet access apart from dial up and wireless which cost a fortune for a few GB of data.  

[TR1ALZ]

This is what happens when the commodore drivers vote.

[skywake]

 

"by 2020 we estimate that people will only need 50/10Mbps"

 

.......................

 

#libertarianbloodboiling

 

http://youtu.be/bWXazVhlyxQ?t=4m12s

[Guest]

The PM of Australia: 

"Just if I may add something. I mean, at 25 megs, you can simultaneously be downloading four HD TV programmes. So you can have four people in four different parts of the standard house watching the sport, a movie, whatever you might be doing. So we are absolutely confident that 25 megs is going to be enough, more than enough, for the average household." 

 

25mbps .. that's a laughing matter. The NBN rollout also isn't prioritizing places where it is needed. I have a friend who has absolutely no internet access apart from dial up and wireless which cost a fortune for a few GB of data.  

I don't get what you're upset over - note his classification: "Average household". For the average household, it'll be fine however most tech savy people like us don't fall under the classification of the average household with high powered PC's, dedicated media servers and complex network setups.

[skywake]

I don't get what you're upset over - note his classification: "Average household". For the average household, it'll be fine however most tech savy people like us don't fall under the classification of the average household with high powered PC's, dedicated media servers and complex network setups.

Because their plan is only 30% cheaper up-front, has higher running costs and doesn't allow enthusiast like us to buy our higher tier service. They say they're the "small government" party and they make a song and dance about not picking winners and instead letting the market decide. They act like their "technology mix" is somehow better for that reason but it really isn't. In reality they're deciding for us as end users what speeds we should be able to buy. And by some odd co-incidence they've landed on precisely the speed that they needed to land on to sell their particular policy. i.e. 25Mbps is all you'll need and 50/10Mbps is enough for even the heaviest users.

 

Here's the sub-mix for FTTH on the NBN as of right now:

 

Clearly a fair chunk of people are more than happy to pay for a faster service even now. History would tell us that over time the higher tier plans will only become more popular. But the Libs are willing to bet that the graph above will not only not change in that direction but will skew towards the lower end more over time and stay that way for decades. This isn't something to get worked up about? We should just accept their modelling? What a load. People would have brought the higher tier plans, people are *already* buying those plans.

[ZombieMan762]

Why does the government own the infrastructure? You guy's don't have free market competition to provide internet?

[Guest]

Why does the government own the infrastructure? You guy's don't have free market competition to provide internet?

No one is putting their hand up to pay for it.

[skywake]

Why does the government own the infrastructure? You guy's don't have free market competition to provide internet?

We do. We had it and it alone as a driving factor for 'net upgrades from ~1996 to 2007. Nothing happened. In 2007 the gov said they'd subsidise a large scale network upgrade, asked for a major player to put their hand up. Nothing happened. In 2009 they decided they'd instead do it themselves with FTTH. They got ~10% of the way through then in 2013 the gov' changed. New gov' thinks FTTN is a better idea, has put the breaks on it and is starting again.

 

Meanwhile I'm still on <10Mbps 'nets with the promise of anything from 25Mbps to 100Mbps somewhere between now and 2025. At least with the previous guys I knew I'd be able to get whatever speed I wanted when it finally came. New plan? I could in theory wait a decade, get 25Mbps and then have to wait again. Fantastic.

 

*looks at watch*

[MrAznJzn]

I don't get what you're upset over - note his classification: "Average household". For the average household, it'll be fine however most tech savy people like us don't fall under the classification of the average household with high powered PC's, dedicated media servers and complex network setups.

Well the problem is that we're falling behind in comparison to the rest of the world. 25mb may be enough for the average household in terms of streaming/downloading/etc. but we are essentially unable to use cloud computing services efficiently such as Google Drive due to poor upload speeds (peaking @ 5-10mb). I'm pretty sure average households need those services. 

 

We also need to keep in mind that as technology continues to grow, so does demand for internet bandwidth. What may be deemed as 'alright' may not be in the future (talking about 3 to 5 years time).

 

IMO this is just a 'band-aid' solution. It's not going to last long as the aging copper network still has to be replaced.