Australia's internet speed is a joke.

[mr moose]

"The extensive delays suffered by NBN Co during its rollout under the previous Labor administration are starting to hit the project under the Coalition as well. Last week it was revealed that NBN Co’s new deal with Telstra may not be inked until the end of 2014. And later on in the week ZDNet confirmed that NBN Co’s trials of the Coalition’s preferred Fibre to the Node technology have also been delayed."

http://delimiter.com.au/2014/06/02/huge-whopping-surprise-cbn-fttn-trials-already-delayed/

 

They can't even build an inferior network upgrade on time

 

*sigh*

 

I believe this is the case because the NBN (like it or not) is an infrastructure that the majority of Australians don't exactly need* and that the government can actually afford (regardless of who runs the country).  But we all want it, and the lobby groups for it are convincing people that we will get better health care** with it. 

 

*we're not going to die from having a 1Mb connection.

**there have been no studies into whether the advantages of remote care can't be carried out on current network infrastructure.

[Jerakl]

You shloud talk to Canada about there net speeds

55$/mo for 15 down / 1 up

What I actually get: ~7 down / .3 up

[skywake]

I believe this is the case because the NBN (like it or not) is an infrastructure that the majority of Australians don't exactly need* and that the government can actually afford (regardless of who runs the country).  But we all want it, and the lobby groups for it are convincing people that we will get better health care** with it. 

 

*we're not going to die from having a 1Mb connection.

**there have been no studies into whether the advantages of remote care can't be carried out on current network infrastructure.

 

Saying the majority of Australians don't need FTTH now or even in the near future is a bit of a red herring. I don't think that's the case and I do think the health benefits are a bit overblown. However that's not what makes the NBN as it was with solid FTTH a good idea. Don't assume that us "just" wanting it isn't enough. If we want it we'll pay for it and you know that when the FTTH goes down the street people are going to go nuts. Like a kid in the candy store. The enthusiasts like us happily going mad over it would have pushed down the price for everyone else. That's how it would have worked and that's what has happened in the areas that did get it.

 

My main counter to the conservative attack on this project has always been incredibly simple. The NBN as it was would have made a return on the investment. People were going to pay for it, some people were going to buy ludicrously fast connections, some people might even have a use for a 1Gbps link. Once it was there nobody was going to build over it and there would have been no need or desire for any further large scale upgrades for the foreseeable future. Once it was done there would have been virtually nothing left to do in that space. I don't think that the Coalition's plan of being marginally cheaper and marginally faster to complete by their own numbers is enough to cover the loss of that.

 

The Coalition's main argument from the start was that Labor are magnets for delays on this scale of project and the Liberal Party were not. Somehow. Magically. Then they use their whole process of reforming the NBN to promote people with close ties to corporations with heavy vested interests. The NewsCorp guy getting the CFO job is just the icing on the cake at this point. Before the election I assumed and repeatedly told people that the Coalition's attack on the NBN was a political thing. Once they got in they'd claim their hands were tied and they'd just go ahead with something very much like the NBN as it was. Frankly I'm shocked that they are actually going ahead with their mad scheme.

 

edit: and the thing about me having a go at you for the Lib website. I don't see how the bit in there is really that "damning". The whole cost-benefit thing was a storm in a teacup. My retort to that carefully selected Liberal question would be where is their cost-benefit analysis for their network? How much work did they do working out the multi-decade long term return a FTTN/HFC upgrade would make vs a FTTH upgrade before coming to their conclusions? What evidence is there for their position on this being anything other than an exersise of political point scoring with $10s of bns?

[mr moose]

Saying the majority of Australians don't need FTTH now or even in the near future is a bit of a red herring. I don't think that's the case and I do think the health benefits are a bit overblown. However that's not what makes the NBN as it was with solid FTTH a good idea. Don't assume that us "just" wanting it isn't enough. If we want it we'll pay for it and you know that when the FTTH goes down the street people are going to go nuts. Like a kid in the candy store.

 

My main counter to the conservative attack on this project has always been incredibly simple. The NBN as it was would have made a return on the investment. People were going to pay for it, some people were going to buy ludicrously fast connections, some people might even have a use for a 1Gbps link. Once it was there nobody was going to build over it and there would have been no need or desire for any further large scale upgrades for the foreseeable future. Once it was done there would have been virtually nothing left to do in that space. I don't think that the Coalition's plan of being marginally cheaper and marginally faster to complete by their own numbers is enough to cover that.

 

The Coalition's main argument from the start was that Labor are magnets for delays on this scale of project and they were not. Somehow. Magically. Then they use their whole process of reforming the NBN to promote people with close ties to corporations with heavy vested interests. The NewsCorp guy getting the CFO job is just the icing on the cake at this point. Before the election I assumed and repeatedly told people that the Coalition's attack on the NBN was a political thing. Once they got in they'd claim their hands were tied and they'd just go ahead with something very much like the NBN as it was. Frankly I'm shocked that they are actually going ahead with their mad scheme.

 

I think the NBN for both parties is just a voting buying venture.  Everyone wants it, but the reality is that the reason a feasibility study was not done was because it's not feasible. At a realistic cost of 40B to complete it would then cost every single Australian (baby to death) $2000 just to pay for the construction.  This kind of cost puts it well outside any realistic feasibility as a domestic infrastructure project.    Keep in mind that all major cities, Universities and hospitals and schools are already linked with AARnet, the fibre optic back bone.

 

To add to that many countries are now moving to 5g wireless as it is suitably fast, cheaper to install and covers more people.  I think the liberal party are flogging a dead horse to even consider doing anything with the NBN let alone a cut down version, but they have to, the people want it, and the people will crucify any government that doesn't give it to them. 

 

As far as jobs for boys go,  it's not exclusive to the liberal party, labour are just as bad.  Like all the union work that came out of the BER and the pay rise for childcare workers debacle.

 

All I am saying is the NBN is a mess, it should have been properly setup, properly funded and all the lobby BS should have been dealt with, now we have a shambles of a network, Telstra can't repair their network because they have to sell it yet even though it may still be required.  Currently no work has stopped on the NBN, so the lack of roll out currently is not due to any action the current government has taken, but due solely to the inherent issues it had.  I came into this thread strongly because people were blaming the liberal government for it all, when so far all they have done is setup audits into the current regime and tell everyone they don't want to run fibre to the home just yet and their reasoning is financial. We will not know if this is true or BS until after the treasury and independent audits are done, so at the moment all people are basing their opinions on are assumptions and political propaganda.  

[skywake]

I think the NBN for both parties is just a voting buying venture.  Everyone wants it, but the reality is that the reason a feasibility study was not done was because it's not feasible. At a realistic cost of 40B to complete it would then cost every single Australian (baby to death) $2000 just to pay for the construction.  This kind of cost puts it well outside any realistic feasibility as a domestic infrastructure project.    Keep in mind that all major cities, Universities and hospitals and schools are already linked with AARnet, the fibre optic back bone.

 

To add to that many countries are now moving to 5g wireless as it is suitably fast, cheaper to install and covers more people.  I think the liberal party are flogging a dead horse to even consider doing anything with the NBN let alone a cut down version, but they have to, the people want it, and the people will crucify any government that doesn't give it to them. 

 

As far as jobs for boys go,  it's not exclusive to the liberal party, labour are just as bad.  Like all the union work that came out of the BER and the pay rise for childcare workers debacle.

 

All I am saying is the NBN is a mess, it should have been properly setup, properly funded and all the lobby BS should have been dealt with, now we have a shambles of a network, Telstra can't repair their network because they have to sell it yet even though it may still be required.  Currently no work has stopped on the NBN, so the lack of roll out currently is not due to any action the current government has taken, but due solely to the inherent issues it had.  I came into this thread strongly because people were blaming the liberal government for it all, when so far all they have done is setup audits into the current regime and tell everyone they don't want to run fibre to the home just yet and their reasoning is financial. We will not know if this is true or BS until after the treasury and independent audits are done, so at the moment all people are basing their opinions on are assumptions and political propaganda.  

 

Firstly I'd dispute your point about the cost of it. It is a lot of money but you need to look at it in context. We're talking about $40bn or so of peak cap-ex for a project that is going to run over a decade. Note the term peak cap-ex rather than actual cost because both proposals give us a network that has some value and does make money out the other side. One that people will happily pay to use. I mean $2k/person sounds like a lot but you need to remember that it's over ten years and the network will be around for decades. Consider your internet bill, $2k is probably less than you pay for it over a couple of years let alone thirty.

 

You make a point about governments wasting money on things when you do your whole "Labor do Jobs for the boys to" bit. Well sure. How much did BER actually cost? About $20bn right? How much will PPL cost? Direct Action? How much money did the feds just set asside for road funding over the next few years? They made a point of saying they were putting an extra $50bn or so into it. Those are all things that won't generate revenue and are ongoing. FTTH is a one off thing that will last for decades and over the same period of time is probably cheaper than a lot of these other programs. How much tax revenue every year is forgone because of negative gearing? How much welfare do we give to people who can probably support themselves without it? And you say FTTH is the thing that should be scaled back?

 

As for the 5G comment.... really? You're attempting to make that point on this forum? Good luck trying to gain traction with that one. Go and see my most on the other page of this thread. Australia is a world leader in mobile speeds. The rest of the world isn't moving towards better mobile while we're lagging behind. We're moving towards better mobile speeds rapidly and everyone else is lagging behind us. On the other side of things the rest of the world is deploying fibre for fixed line nets including us. Both sides of politics came to the conclusion that extending the fibre footprint was the way to go. It's an entirely different sort of infrastucture and it's in that space where we're actually lagging behind the rest of the world. And despite that, despite the fact that our mobile coverage/speed is world class and our fixed nets are BS.... 90% of data still travels across fixed nets in this country. 90%. Look at it on the ABS. 90 freeking %. So why even bother pointing to mobile? Ours is already world class and people barely sip data from their 50Mbps+ mobile links while they hammer their 8Mbps links at home.

[mr moose]

Firstly I'd dispute your point about the cost of it. It is a lot of money but you need to look at it in context. We're talking about $40bn or so of peak cap-ex for a project that is going to run over a decade. Note the term peak cap-ex rather than actual cost because both proposals give us a network that has some value and does make money out the other side. One that people will happily pay to use. I mean $2k/person sounds like a lot but you need to remember that it's over ten years and the network will be around for decades. Consider your internet bill, $2k is probably less than you pay for it over a couple of years let alone thirty. Only if it was as simple as that.

 

You make a point about governments wasting money on things when you do your whole "Labor do Jobs for the boys to" bit. Well sure. How much did BER actually cost? About $20bn right? How much will PPL cost? Direct Action? How much money did the feds just set asside for road funding over the next few years? They made a point of saying they were putting an extra $50bn or so into it. Those are all things that won't generate revenue and are ongoing. FTTH is a one off thing that will last for decades and over the same period of time is probably cheaper than a lot of these other programs. How much tax revenue every year is forgone because of negative gearing? How much welfare do we give to people who can probably support themselves without it? And you say FTTH is the thing that should be scaled back? Yes, roads do pay for themselves through increase productivity, the less time people and products spend in transit the more money the country turns over,  Running fibre to the domestic household does not provide the same productivity. This is basic economics. 

 

As for the 5G comment.... really? You're attempting to make that point on this forum? Good luck trying to gain traction with that one. Go and see my most on the other page of this thread. Australia is a world leader in mobile speeds. The rest of the world isn't moving towards better mobile while we're lagging behind. We're moving towards better mobile speeds rapidly and everyone else is lagging behind us. On the other side of things the rest of the world is deploying fibre for fixed line nets including us. Both sides of politics came to the conclusion that extending the fibre footprint was the way to go. It's an entirely different sort of infrastucture and it's in that space where we're actually lagging behind the rest of the world. And despite that, despite the fact that our mobile coverage/speed is world class and our fixed nets are BS.... 90% of data still travels across fixed nets in this country. 90%. Look at it on the ABS. 90 freeking %. So why even bother pointing to mobile? Ours is already world class and people barely sip data from their 50Mbps+ mobile links while they hammer their 8Mbps links at home.

 

I think you'd better analyse that data again.  mobile and fixed wireless make up 49.1% of all internet connections in Australia (2013). That's almost half.  This is why the average connection speed is reported as being so low (around 4Mb/s I believe).

 

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8153.0/

 

We may have better than average coverage but we are not world leaders, especially in mobile net.

 

The UK, Sth Korea are already preparing to upgrade their networks to 5g (U.K are doing it instead of fibre optic).  The European Union has set a goal of 2020 of wide spread 5g adoption.

 

I don't need traction from this forum to know what the reality is, and that is that by the time Australia gets 1Gb/s fibre to each home the rest of the world will be on 1GB/s 5g.

 

As I said before, it doesn't matter who the government is, it's a poorly planned project.  And anyone who fails to plan plans to fail.

[PuNkPoEtS]

wow i thought i had terrible down speeds until i saw this my speeds are 30 down 1 up and i pay like 100 a month... gotta love telstra

[The Crazed Child]

Yep, 4G is not an option. It might have high speeds (I've seen 50Mbps, and I live in a regional town) but the ping is terrible, I would never game on such a high ping.

[gibbsy81]

Adsl2+  2km from exchange regional Victoria the other day it was up to 19mbps but now apparently there are works going on

[mr moose]

 

Adsl2+  2km from exchange regional Victoria the other day it was up to 19mbps but now apparently there are works going on

 

I'm in regional too, this is actually just under what I usually get (15/16Mb).

 

 

EDIT: judging by these results the average Au. connection speed is just faster than yours. 

[skywake]

Yes, roads do pay for themselves through increase productivity, the less time people and products spend in transit the more money the country turns over,  Running fibre to the domestic household does not provide the same productivity. This is basic economics

 

I think you'd better analyse that data again.  mobile and fixed wireless make up 49.1% of all internet connections in Australia (2013). That's almost half.  This is why the average connection speed is reported as being so low (around 4Mb/s I believe).

 

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8153.0/

 

Firstly yes, roads do pay for themselves through increased productivity. So does better telecommunications infrastructure. Ontop of that, regardless of how much you wish to ignore this fact, we're happy to pay a fairly high "toll" on our internet subscription. A better road system won't generate more revenue, a higher quality internet service will. "This is basic economics".

 

And you say I need to analyse that data more. Well maybe you should do the same. Subscriptions and use are not the same thing. There are the same number of wireless subs as there are fixed broadband subs in this country. Fact. I agree. We also have a better mobile infrastructure that on speedtest performs about twice as well as our fixed infrastructure and in the top 5 countries globally. About on par with South Korea on mobile a fact which you continently choose to ignore. However ABS shows that despite this 90% of the data consumed in this country was on a fixed line connection. Seriously, I encourage you to click on that link you suggest I investigate further. You will find a table titled "Volume of data downloaded by type of access connection". It shows for the last quarter....

 

Fixed line: 823,421TB

Wireless: 37,426TB

Mobile Handset: 27,627TB

 

So please, get out of your bubble and consider the data infront of you. I've laid it out bare for all to see. Get out your calculator and work out what % of the total data consumed that is. Is 823PB bigger than 37PB + 27PB or not? Please help because apparently I don't know how to do the maths. It's about 90% right? Please, I'm more than happy to be corrected on this number.  

[mr moose]

Firstly yes, roads do pay for themselves through increased productivity. So does better telecommunications infrastructure. Ontop of that, regardless of how much you wish to ignore this fact, we're happy to pay a fairly high "toll" on our internet subscription. A better road system won't generate more revenue, a higher quality internet service will. "This is basic economics". Fact = you maybe happy to pay more for a premium service but many people are complaining about the high cost of interne/phonet as is stands.  do you really think that people want to pay more for what is effectively the same thing? (not everyone requires huge data).   And better road systems do produce better revenues, why do you think properties with good transport access fetch a higher price on the market.

 

And you say I need to analyse that data more. Well maybe you should do the same. Subscriptions and use are not the same thing. There are the same number of wireless subs as there are fixed broadband subs in this country. Fact. I agree. We also have a better mobile infrastructure that on speedtest performs about twice as well as our fixed infrastructure and in the top 5 countries globally. About on par with South Korea on mobile a fact which you continently choose to ignore. However ABS shows that despite this 90% of the data consumed in this country was on a fixed line connection. Seriously, I encourage you to click on that link you suggest I investigate further. You will find a table titled "Volume of data downloaded by type of access connection". It shows for the last quarter....

 

Fixed line: 823,421TB

Wireless: 37,426TB

Mobile Handset: 27,627TB

 

So please, get out of your bubble and consider the data infront of you. I've laid it out bare for all to see.

 

No need to be rude, when you say you have analysed it, have you accounted for the fact that the total data amount is heavily biased due to data caps on wireless plans which won't exist if wireless was to replace the copper network?

[ZacDaMan72]

Posted on wrong thread *smooth*

New Zealand, I pay $120 a month for VDSL. Cannot use any other fiber providers because they take out copper wire, and my fire/security alarm need copper because it notifies the police/fire dept etc.

[Demonicreature]

 

 

Maybe he lives in the middle of nowhere (aka Castilla or Andalucia)

Sorry, I don't know anything about Spain and thanks.

[skywake]

Fact = you maybe happy to pay more for a premium service but many people are complaining about the high cost of interne/phonet as is stands.  do you really think that people want to pay more for what is effectively the same thing? (not everyone requires huge data).   And better road systems do produce better revenues, why do you think properties with good transport access fetch a higher price on the market.

 

No need to be rude, when you say you have analysed it, have you accounted for the fact that the total data amount is heavily biased due to data caps on wireless plans which won't exist if wireless was to replace the copper network?

 

Well for the rudeness, you were the one who claimed to have the economic expertise here. You then tried to counter my point about people preferring to chew up data on fixed vs mobile 9:1 by saying "well there are more mobile subs". A bit rich to be lecturing me about how I don't understand basic economics when you're deliberately ignoring a very obvious and easy to understand statistic. If you're so great at economics then surely some simple maths and reading comprehension shouldn't be beyond your reach.

 

About the cost thing well I'm on iiNet right now. Pay about $95/mo for phone and 'net with 250GB of quota  of which I use ~130GB or so at this speed

 

Compare that to the same provider, same product (includes a fibre phone product), same sort of quota (100/100GB peak/offpeak) on the NBN. Instead of $95/mo for 6/1Mbps it's $80/mo for 12/1Mbps, $85/mo for 25/5Mbps, $95/mo for 50/20Mbps or $100/mo for 100/40Mbps. You know what? At that price I probably would go for 100/40Mbps. Most of that lower actual cost is because it's much cheaper to provide a VOIP service than a phone service and on FTTH you can guarantee some level of quality. However given that product is not available to me I'm still on 6/1Mbps and am not going to pay for that extra bandwidth because I can't. Not that hard a concept and not that controversial either. Especially given that that part of the NBN is something that even the Coalition included in their modelling of the NBN cost to some degree.

 

As for your roads arguments, do you really think that better property prices are enough to cover the expense? Most of the road infrastructure upgrades are paid through fuel excise, registration, road tolls and general revenue. How many of those things go up after you upgrade a highway? Realistically maybe general revenue indirectly because of the assumed improvement in productivity, maybe a bit on the toll if you happen to have a toll, registration won't change and you'd assume the fuel usage would actually go down. I agree that a road upgrade will make a return on the investment generally but it won't be a direct return on investment. Compare that to the 'nets where you are charged for usage directly and this particular upgrade opens the network up to more usage than there currently is.

 

On the wireless point. OF COURSE the number is "heavily biased" because of the crappy quotas on mobile. You say that like somehow I've not noticed this fact but in reality that's almost entirely my point. Most of the reason why our mobile networks perform as well as they do is because there is less traffic on them due to the restrictive quotas. If you decided to drop all of the traffic onto wireless the speeds would grind go a halt. Wireless is not capable of handling that sort of traffic and most of the 5G dream you're talking about involves reducing cell size and offloading data onto the fixed line network. If mobile was upto the task as much as you want us to believe we wouldn't need the NBN. However if it was upto the task we wouldn't have such restrictive quotas and a much larger amount of data would be on it already.

 

It isn't because it's not. Period. It's the same reason why WiFi tends to suck compared to running Ethernet through your walls but on a much, much grander scale. So again, on this forum? Good luck with gaining traction with this wireless BS. You'd probably get further if you said using WiFi for your NAS instead of Gigabit was a good idea.

[mr moose]

Well for the rudeness, you were the one who claimed to have the economic expertise here. Then tried to counter my point about people preferring to chew up data on fixed vs mobile 9:1 by saying "well there are more mobile subs". A bit rich to be lecturing me about how I don't understand basic economics when you're deliberately ignoring a very obvious and easy to understand statistic.  I wasn't trying to be rude or lecture, so I apologize for that. 

 

As for the cost thing well I'm on iiNet right now. Pay about $95/mo for phone and 'net with 250GB of quota  of which I use ~130GB or so at this speed

 

Compare that to the same provider, same product (includes a fibre phone product), same sort of quota (100/100GB peak/offpeak) on the NBN. Instead of $95/mo for 6/1Mbps it's $80/mo for 12/1Mbps, $85/mo for 25/5Mbps, $95/mo for 50/20Mbps or $100/mo for 100/40Mbps. You know what? At that price I probably would go for 100/40Mbps. Most of that lower actual cost is because it's much cheaper to provide a VOIP service than a phone service and on FTTH you can guarantee some level of quality. As for your roads arguments, do you really think that better property prices are enough to cover the expense? Most of the road infrastructure upgrades are paid through fuel excise, registration road tolls and general revenue. They make a return on the investment generally but not directly much at all. Compare that to the 'nets where you are charged for usage directly and this particular upgrade opens the network up to more usage than there currently is.  Roads do pay for themselves, property price was just an example. If roads didn't pay for themselves then we wouldn't have any at all. Government incomes all comes from the people, so any spending on roads comes from business who pass it on to their clients who build it into their costs,  better roads means less costs which generates more gross domestic product.  You are Lucky you can get IInet, where I am I am restricted to telstra or iprimus,  To go to an NBN plan that is closest to what I currently get will cost $30 more a month (note though it does keep changing).

 

As for the wireless point. OF COURSE the number is heavily biased because of the crappy quotas on mobile. That's about 98% of my point underneath the point that I was making. Most of the reason why our mobile networks perform as well as they do is because there is less traffic on them due to the restrictive quotas. If you decided to drop all of the traffic onto wireless the speeds would grind go a halt. Wireless is not capable of handling that sort of traffic and most of the 5G dream you're talking about involves reducing cell size and offloading data onto the fixed line network. If mobile was upto the task as much as you want us to believe we wouldn't need the NBN. However if it was upto the task we wouldn't have such restrictive quotas and a much larger amount of data would be on it already.

 

It isn't because it's not. Period.

 

Sth Korea has 48 Million people on a 3g/4g network,  they are looking to wifi spots to ease congestion (which isn't that bad),  however given that there are only 23 million people in Australia and 1/4 of those won't need mobile data, I'd say this is proof enough that the wireless network can handle it.  If you read the links I posted earlier, you'd know that 5g is not a dream but a reality, it's coming and probably quicker than the NBN. 

[skywake]

Roads do pay for themselves, property price was just an example. If roads didn't pay for themselves then we wouldn't have any at all. Government incomes all comes from the people, so any spending on roads comes from business who pass it on to their clients who build it into their costs,  better roads means less costs which generates more gross domestic product.  You are Lucky you can get IInet, where I am I am restricted to telstra or iprimus,  To go to an NBN plan that is closest to what I currently get will cost $30 more a month

 

Sth Korea has 48 Million people on a 3g/4g network,  they are looking to wifi spots to ease congestion (which isn't that bad),  however given that there are only 23 million people in Australia and 1/4 of those won't need mobile data, I'd say this is proof enough that the wireless network can handle it.  If you read the links I posted earlier, you'd know that 5g is not a dream but a reality, it's coming and probably quicker than the NBN. 

 

Seriously, the roads thing is simple. You pay directly for an internet subscription and an upgrade to the capability of the network allows people to upgrade their plans. The ability for people to choose to upgrade allows the upgrade to pay for itself directly even before you consider potential indirect benefits. A road upgrade does improve productivity generally but it doesn't usually result in a direct return on investment to the government itself. A road upgrade pays for itself almost purely via indirect benefits.

 

iiNet was/is going to be on every PoI so the point is moot, the NBN as it was (don't know if this is still the case) would have opened up competition on the retail side. 121 PoI instead of some 6000 exchanges kinda does that. If you were on the NBN you could have grabbed an iiNet plan. So inform yourself, compare your Telstra copper plan to the NBN ones from TPG or iiNet before you say it would have cost more.

 

Also offloading the data onto WiFi to ease congestion, way to make my point for me. I'd also note that South Korea just happens to have the best fixed line network in the world. What you're talking about is different, you're saying have a mobile network without a fixed line network and then somehow magically keep the performance up at the levels they are now or even better than they are now. It won't work. Sorry to burst your bubble.

[mr moose]

Seriously, the roads thing is simple. You pay directly for an internet subscription and an upgrade to the capability of the network allows people to upgrade their plans. The ability for people to choose to upgrade allows the upgrade to pay for itself directly even before you consider potential indirect benefits. A road upgrade does improve productivity generally but it doesn't usually result in a direct return on investment to the government itself. A road upgrade pays for itself almost purely via indirect benefits. <- yes

 

iiNet was/is going to be on every PoI so the point is moot, the NBN as it was (don't know if this is still the case) would have opened up competition on the retail side. 121 PoI instead of some 6000 exchanges kinda does that. If you were on the NBN you could have grabbed an iiNet plan. So inform yourself, compare your Telstra copper plan to the NBN ones from TPG or iiNet before you say it would have cost more. <- this is good news, because I hadn't heard that before.

 

Also offloading the data onto WiFi to ease congestion, way to make my point for me. I'd also note that South Korea just happens to have the best fixed line network in the world. What you're talking about is different, you're saying have a mobile network without a fixed line network and then somehow magically keep the performance up at the levels they are now or even better than they are now. It won't work. Sorry to burst your bubble.

The other part of what I said was that the congestion wasn't that bad, but the point is that their wireless system can handle the current data regardless of the fixed system that operates alongside it.

[skywake]

The other part of what I said was that the congestion wasn't that bad, but the point is that their wireless system can handle the current data regardless of the fixed system that operates alongside it.

They also have a world class fixed line network to ease mobile congestion and the "5G" stuffs mostly involves leveraging the existing fixed line networks. When you say South Korea has double our population and still gets about the the same speeds we do on mobile that is one of the reasons. What you were suggesting was to drop the fixed line bandwidth, which is currently a good 90% of all data consumed, onto that wireless spectrum (last I checked 10x was more than 2x). All this while people's data usage keeps going up and somehow delivering the same sort of speeds. Something which a FTTH network or even a copper network can well and truly handle as long as the end user doesn't demand more data than their largely non-shared download speed can provide. The limit on quota for a fixed line connection is on the ISP side. With a mobile network the more data the end users want to consume (in GB/mo) the lower the speed (Mbps) you can reliably deliver.

 

And just to repeat yet again the road thing, I still think you're not quite getting my point there. When you upgrade a road you don't necessarily increase the amount of revenue you can generate directly. All of the value in the upgrade is in the assumed improved productivity which benefits the economy more generally. For a road people just wanting the road and using the road is not enough to justify an upgrade. The NBN is not like that. It may improve productivity like a road upgrade and I tend to believe that it would however it doesn't need to to be worth it. That's because upgrading the network allows people to subscribe to higher value services. Whether that be just a higher quality service, a higher speed service or even just the IPTV and multicast services it opens up (goodbye Foxtel monopoly). For the tl;dr don't discount the "want" part of the network upgrade so easily.

[mr moose]

 

 

And just to repeat yet again the road thing, I still think you're not quite getting my point there. When you upgrade a road you don't necessarily increase the amount of revenue you can generate directly. All of the value in the upgrade is in the assumed improved productivity which benefits the economy more generally. The NBN is not like that. It may improve productivity like a road upgrade and I tend to believe that it would however it doesn't need to to be worth it. That's because upgrading the network allows people to subscribe to higher value services. Whether that be just a higher quality service, a higher speed service or even IPTV and multicast services it opens up. For the tl;dr don't discount the "want" part of the network upgrade so easily.

 

Funny, but I think I do get it,  It's just that I don't wholly agree with you.

 

They also have a world class fixed line network to ease mobile congestion and the "5G" stuffs mostly involves leveraging the existing fixed line networks. When you say South Korea has double our population and still gets about the the same speeds we do on mobile that is one of the reasons. What you were suggesting was to drop the fixed line bandwidth, which is currently a good 90% of all data consumed, onto that wireless spectrum (last I checked 10x was more than 2x). All this while people's data usage keeps going up and somehow delivering the same sort of speeds. Something which a FTTH network or even a copper network can well and truly handle as long as the end user doesn't demand more data than their largely non-shared download speed can provide. The limit on quota for a fixed line connection is on the ISP side. With a mobile network the more data the end users want to consume (in GB/mo) the lower the speed (Mbps) you can reliably deliver.

 

 

 

Just to be sure, I am only talking about the domestic wireless traffic, not the network backbone.  Australia's network back bone is not that shabby, For us the biggest problem is from the exchange to the house. Keep in mind that if the new government do little more than install  fibre to the node then this could well be enough for 5g to take off from.  Using VDSL across the existing copper as an interim measure.

[skywake]

Just to be sure, I am only talking about the domestic wireless traffic, not the network backbone.  Australia's network back bone is not that shabby, For us the biggest problem is from the exchange to the house. Keep in mind that if the new government do little more than install  fibre to the node then this could well be enough for 5g to take off from.  Using VDSL across the existing copper as an interim measure.

 

It's all a question of what the bottleneck is. For mobile the major bottleneck is the spectrum which is shared across a tower. The more people on a tower the less bandwidth each user has available to them. Add more users or have more users using more data then the amount of bandwidth left to share goes down. The big bandwidth gains will come mostly from shrinking the tower footprint and chewing up more spectrum. They're quickly running out of low hanging fruit which is why they're all starting to talk about offloading bandwidth onto WiFi (i.e. wired).

 

For most wired connections that's not the limit. On my ADSL2+ that's a crappy 6Mbps I can hammer that at full 6Mbps all day long and it won't slow down my neighbours connection on the copper side of the network. If Abbott stays in long enough and I end up with FTTN I might get something closer to 35Mbps and if I hammer that all day that won't slow down my neighbours connection either. Now at 35Mbps good luck ever being able to have a large number of people doing that regularly on mobile unless it's a FTTN link or better masquerading as mobile. With FTTH in the long term, with future PoI side upgrades, I could (in theory) hammer the link at a full 1Gbps or even more and still not slow down my neighbours link. That's why a wired connection is essential, assuming the ISP isn't cheap on the backhaul and equipment it can basically take whatever you can throw at it without disrupting other users.

 

And you say "little more than install FTTN" but I think you underestimate the scale of FTTN. There's a reason why the not as large scale FTTN upgrade the Coalition are proposing is only going to finish a couple of years sooner than their estimate of the the time FTTH would have been done. They're both massive upgrades. The key difference is that one can deliver speeds well beyond what even a techie like me could imagine even wanting to have. And the other is shooting for something in the ballpark of 40Mbps for "most" (whatever that means). They've said "upto 100Mbps" but for that speed they're talking a line distance to the node in fairly ideal conditions of 100m. Better hope you get a node right on your driveway......

[Guest andyysplash]

I hope they put some fiber over there... But isn't that special... I wouldn't call it fiber:

 

Maybe he lives in the middle of nowhere (aka Castilla or Andalucia)

 

I would call that fibre. If we discount Korea and China, then we're left with three camps of internet speed: America, UK + Aus + Germany + France, and then Eastern Europe (which varies wildly). Over here, David Cameron has 'promised' 'superfast' to 90% by 2017, with 60% by 2015, and a minimum of 2meg to 100% of people. To him 'superfast' is 20meg. Fibre is being rolled out as FTTC (fibre to cabinets, but copper from cabinet to house), and targeting between 20 and 50meg for most people, with those next to the cabinet able to get upwards of 100.

 

The 'average' is around about 15meg now for the UK because although cities mostly have 20+, some roads and whole villages are stuck at less. I've got second-fastest speed in my village at a whopping 1meg down, 0.3 up and ping of 30-40ms. Others are on sub 1-meg, and lately I've been down to 0.8. Consider that copper connections are between £20 and £40/month and fibre is between £25 and 60 depending on data cap and consumer vs business-class internet (which can run into £100s/month), and that most people where I live are on 1meg connections with 40GB data caps and CAN'T upgrade because the next package up is fibre and we aren't on the list for fibre, then I think worrying over 10meg vs 20meg and the '25meg by 2015' thing isn't that much of a big deal.

 

Whilst I'm not paying $90/month, I'm still getting a lot less for my money, and have not been able to watch a Youtube video in HD. Pages take multiple seconds to load, and images can be up to 1 minute resolution depending. It's like 2002 again. 3G used to be faster until my carrier had their speed throttled.

 

Overall, anything over 10meg is fine, unless your bill is a stupidly high amount. I hate to say it, but Tanznia has 60meg internet up from 2meg thanks to money that China gave them. Here's the article. What does that say when supposedly third-world countries are given high bandwidth internet connections in order to check the weather or prices of their crops, and a 'first world country' like Britain (or, to a lesser extent Australia) still has people on speeds from a decade ago?

 

Also, did I mention that it's a 10 minute drive from where I live to the town centre, and they've basically expanded the town so that my village is 'part of it'. There's other villages further away from the town than I am. I have no idea what it's like for them - all I know is there's no 3G over there.

[Guest andyysplash]

Aaaand... NEVER TAKE MY POSTS SERIOUSLY... I was just talking

also typo warn

 

I wrote the first half of that post late last night (spent this morning looking for the Tanzania article) so that might be why I took it seriously I managed to use a 2meg wifi connection in town the other day and it was such an improvement over 1! Loading 480p video faster than realtime - might have been able to do 720, not sure o-o

 

I'm just annoyed that over here BT use their effective monopoly (they own all copper lines that others use, but Virgin have their own fibre network) to improve the already improved, and not bother with the 30-year-old wiring that needs an upgrade. Oh, and the 'new customers get better deals thing'. Yeah.

 

But what really steals the proverbial biscuit like a kelptomaniac feline in the snacks isle of a supermarket is that the 60% plan is 'ahead of schedule', and our exchange has been fibred but there's no ETA on my cabinet's upgrade. Hasn't been confirmed or denied, just ignored. It's an indefinite wait for some poor sod to run some fibre from wherever they left off and put in a new cabinet, which will give a guaranteed increase of x35 (so 35meg+) and I'm <100m from the cabinet so it'll be close to 100. So I'll be going from "struggling to do 1 360p video" to "stream all the things!!! 1080p EVERYTHING" but it could be one month, it could be 10 years.

[Guest andyysplash]

duh movistar (aka Telefonica) monopoly here... And I'd say that 100% of all ADSL lines in Spanish islands are provided by them. Ruling the Peninsula too tho... They don't even give a fack of EU fines...

 

Ouch...and isn't Telefonica the company who owns O2 over here?

[Guest andyysplash]

Could be... they like to buy ISPs

Yes: http://www.o2.co.uk/ look up and right...

 

It's that (for me and others I know) O2 behaves very well in the market - they don't quite have a monopoly (thanks to EE) and lend out their network to partners (such as Tesco mobile and Giffgaff who I'm with), and their speeds are decent. The only problem I get now is that Giffgaff's speed is slower than O2 in the same area (seems capped at 0.5meg) but apparently that's something to do with Giffgaff not paying for enough bandwidth or something. I'm surprised that Telefonica are doing a Comcast/TimeWarner on you if O2 are respectable in the mobile space in the UK.