Nbn

[Twodogs]

Re: Nbn

Or Greens. Might be a more realistic sale to Labor voters than the LNP.

I think GS's point is the ALP need a kick up the arse and a near death experience in seats like Gellibrand and Maribyrnong in order to remind them who their natural contstituency (geez that's a hard word to spell, thank god for spellcheck) is. And that maybe the only way they get some infrastructure built in their electorates is to stop just mindlessly returning Labor members to parliament after parliament.

I'm happy to be corrected though.

[Eastdog]

Re: Nbn

I think GS's point is the ALP need a kick up the arse and a near death experience in seats like Gellibrand and Maribyrnong in order to remind them who their natural contstituency (geez that's a hard word to spell, thank god for spellcheck) is. And that maybe the only way they get some infrastructure built in their electorates is to stop just mindlessly returning Labor members to parliament after parliament.

I'm happy to be corrected though.

Were there swings in Gellibrand and Maribyrnong at the last election. Maribyrnong held by the opposition leader. Batman which takes in suburbs like Thornbury, Northcote, Preston I think had a swing against Labour in the last election with the Greens really gaining popularity there.

[Twodogs]

Re: Nbn

Were there swings in Gellibrand and Maribyrnong at the last election. Maribyrnong held by the opposition leader. Batman which takes in suburbs like Thornbury, Northcote, Preston I think had a swing against Labour in the last election with the Greens really gaining popularity there.

Nortcote was a state by-election but is a good case in point. It had been in the ALP's hands since its inception 90 or 100 years ago. The local electorate obviously got tired of being taken for granted and decided it was in their best interests to find a parliamentarian at the bottom of the garden.

[GVGjr]

Re: Nbn

Can I respectfully ask that we please get back onto the topic

[Greystache]

Re: Nbn

That's a good point I've heard at work before. It may even be that physical infrastructure to individuals house/suburbs becomes redundant.

Yep that seems the popular view in the tech space, but they also suggest the complexity is greater than most realise, and it won't be available on mass as quickly as people might think. I'm not sure, it's not really my field, but there were concerns the FTTP model may have been redundant before it could be finished given all the problems, and the cost so huge we'd not have been able to afford the next generation solution.

The old network was crumbling, and the next gen technology not ready, so the current nbn solution seems about right. If wireless doesn't become the immediate future then we can upgrade connection points to full fibre, and if it does then the interim solution at least serviced a larger area and didn't totally cripple the economy.

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

[Bornadog]

Re: Nbn

Wireless is not the answer to the NBN. It may be ok in areas where the population is sparse, but in suburban areas the problem gets back to the number of users. Imagine a wireless tower and everyone in the area using it, it will just slow down to ridiculous levels again.

[ratsmac]

Re: Nbn

Yep that seems the popular view in the tech space, but they also suggest the complexity is greater than most realise, and it won't be available on mass as quickly as people might think. I'm not sure, it's not really my field, but there were concerns the FTTP model may have been redundant before it could be finished given all the problems, and the cost so huge we'd not have been able to afford the next generation solution.

The old network was crumbling, and the next gen technology not ready, so the current nbn solution seems about right. If wireless doesn't become the immediate future then we can upgrade connection points to full fibre, and if it does then the interim solution at least serviced a larger area and didn't totally cripple the economy.

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

I've always wondered why they didn't just pour the billions of dollars into making the mobile network the nation's main internet service instead of this so called NBN. 4G speeds are apparently 10 times faster than the Nbn so the technology is already there and is available to most areas already. Telstra claim they can theoretically reach 1 Gigabit per second with their 4G LTE network. I like the sound of that and it would have to be cheaper than laying physical fibre in the ground wouldn't it?

I think the Nbn was redundant before the first piece of fibre was ever laid.

[hujsh]

Re: Nbn

I think GS's point is the ALP need a kick up the arse and a near death experience in seats like Gellibrand and Maribyrnong in order to remind them who their natural contstituency (geez that's a hard word to spell, thank god for spellcheck) is. And that maybe the only way they get some infrastructure built in their electorates is to stop just mindlessly returning Labor members to parliament after parliament.

I'm happy to be corrected though.

Yep I understood that. I was just saying that there's two directions the arse can be kicked in.

[Greystache]

Re: Nbn

I've always wondered why they didn't just pour the billions of dollars into making the mobile network the nation's main internet service instead of this so called NBN. 4G speeds are apparently 10 times faster than the Nbn so the technology is already there and is available to most areas already. Telstra claim they can theoretically reach 1 Gigabit per second with their 4G LTE network. I like the sound of that and it would have to be cheaper than laying physical fibre in the ground wouldn't it?

I think the Nbn was redundant before the first piece of fibre was ever laid.

I get most of my knowledge from the tech infrastructure planning division at work, so it's by no means the only opinion that could be right, but the view is the technology isn't advanced enough yet to service en mass, and won't be for a number of years. Cables in the ground aren't likely to be the future, and work that's being done now will probably be thrown out soon, but in the mean time it serves a purpose. It's also been architected to be further enhanced in the future if the technology doesn't become redundant and we want to commit to it longer term.

The analogy I've heard used is nbn is like installing a really good new steam engine into an ocean liner because diesel engines aren't quite ready to do the job yet. There are people who are campaigning to build the greatest steam engine ever made because other countries have one, while others are arguing let's just buy an engine off the shelf that will adequately transport people to where they need to get, and when diesel is ready we'll replace the entire outdated fleet. In the transition period people will whinge that they could've got from Norway to Iceland in an hour less than it takes to get from Australia to NZ, but they also probably don't even travel.

[Bornadog]

Re: Nbn

I've always wondered why they didn't just pour the billions of dollars into making the mobile network the nation's main internet service instead of this so called NBN. 4G speeds are apparently 10 times faster than the Nbn so the technology is already there and is available to most areas already. Telstra claim they can theoretically reach 1 Gigabit per second with their 4G LTE network. I like the sound of that and it would have to be cheaper than laying physical fibre in the ground wouldn't it?

I think the Nbn was redundant before the first piece of fibre was ever laid.

I don't trust Telstra one little bit with technology.

5G is already available but not really rolled out at this stage making 4G eventually redundant, but no matter what, you can't beat cabling compared to anything wireless. Good example is at football stadiums, how easy is it to get on the internet at say Etihad - slow and frustrating, especially trying to upload a photo for example.

Of course Cabling is changing rapidly as well, ie the type of cables available.

At 39th in the world for broadband speeds, we are a disaster, all because of politics.

[Axe Man]

Re: Nbn

I don't trust Telstra one little bit with technology.

5G is already available but not really rolled out at this stage making 4G eventually redundant, but no matter what, you can't beat cabling compared to anything wireless. Good example is at football stadiums, how easy is it to get on the internet at say Etihad - slow and frustrating, especially trying to upload a photo for example.

Of course Cabling is changing rapidly as well, ie the type of cables available.

At 39th in the world for broadband speeds, we are a disaster, all because of politics.

I'm no expert but as far as I understand one of the major problems, regardless of whether we are talking about wireless or wired, is capacity (or bandwidth or whatever the correct terminology is). Wires/cables aren't better than wireless if there isn't sufficient capacity for users.

Perfect example is at my house. I'm in a new estate which is outside the NBN network. A private provider runs fibre to each house in the estate. However there is some sort of issue with the capacity they are providing and therefore residents have experienced poor speeds, despite having the ideal connection. Hearing of this I have not yet paid the $400 to connect to this network, instead I paid about $100 for a wireless connection through a local ISP. I can see the antenna from my front door and it provides a stable and reasonably quick connection. For me at present wireless is a far better option all due to capacity.

[Bornadog]

Re: Nbn

I'm no expert but as far as I understand one of the major problems, regardless of whether we are talking about wireless or wired, is capacity (or bandwidth or whatever the correct terminology is). Wires/cables aren't better than wireless if there isn't sufficient capacity for users.

Perfect example is at my house. I'm in a new estate which is outside the NBN network. A private provider runs fibre to each house in the estate. However there is some sort of issue with the capacity they are providing and therefore residents have experienced poor speeds, despite having the ideal connection. Hearing of this I have not yet paid the $400 to connect to this network, instead I paid about $100 for a wireless connection through a local ISP. I can see the antenna from my front door and it provides a stable and reasonably quick connection. For me at present wireless is a far better option all due to capacity.

No doubt all the right equipment needs to be put in.

The more I hear about the NBN or situations like yours, gives me no confidence in organisations, governments or anyone knows what they are doing in Australia when it comes to internet, IT projects or anything technical.

[Greystache]

Re: Nbn

I'm no expert but as far as I understand one of the major problems, regardless of whether we are talking about wireless or wired, is capacity (or bandwidth or whatever the correct terminology is). Wires/cables aren't better than wireless if there isn't sufficient capacity for users.

Perfect example is at my house. I'm in a new estate which is outside the NBN network. A private provider runs fibre to each house in the estate. However there is some sort of issue with the capacity they are providing and therefore residents have experienced poor speeds, despite having the ideal connection. Hearing of this I have not yet paid the $400 to connect to this network, instead I paid about $100 for a wireless connection through a local ISP. I can see the antenna from my front door and it provides a stable and reasonably quick connection. For me at present wireless is a far better option all due to capacity.

Without going into too much depth. Despite what some people will tell you, or what some section of the media push, the government/Australian people own the infrastructure of the NBN, and the telcos/ISP's purchase capacity at wholesale rates and then sell it on to households for use at retail rates. The capacity is usable download/upload which you correctly called bandwidth.

The NBN has massive capacity to deliver bandwidth, but when NBN was dreamed up it wasn't positioned as an infrastructure building project, but an an infrastructure building business. So instead of allocating the funding as infrastructure capital and adding it onto the national debt, it was allocated as investment capital meaning it would need to be paid off. To do this they charge the telcos for capacity and pay down the costs, making it look on paper like the government built NBN for free. However, the cost of building NBN is so high that NBNCo charges telcos really high wholesale rates to recover the investment, and because consumers aren't prepared to pay huge sums for NBN, their profit margins are squashed compared to ADSL2+.

To try to make money, instead of charging customers more for their NBN plans, the telcos purchase less capacity from NBNCo than they should, and try to run with the absolute minimum capacity they can get away with. Most of the time it's fine, but when there's a spike in peak demand the telcos don't have enough capacity to cover it, so speeds slow down dramatically or we even get outages. All telcos do this. An example will be when Game Of Thrones drops on a streaming service and everyone logs on at the same time to watch it.

The orginal plan of fibre to the premises everywhere would've made the project conservatively 4 times more expensive than what is being rolled out (and realistically probably a lot more), and the issue of recovering costs vs. customers being willing to pay, vs. telco staying in business would've been far worse than it is now. The original planning for NBN was a mess, from the original plan, to likely future technology disruptors, to the way it was funded, to the cost estimates, to the roll out plan. It was another Myki, over promise what it will do, underbake the real cost by about 90%, make headline grabbing announcements, then once it's started tell people it's too late to turn back and it's all someone else's fault.

It's hard to see how it's going to be resolved. Neither government party are now going to take the hit and write off a massive amount of the cost of building NBN and add it onto the national debt, especially after it was originally promised to effectively cost nothing. One side will be accused of creating a debt that the other side would've made magically vanish, and the other side aren't going to wear the cost after they promised it for free. They also can't make NBNCo lower wholesale costs, despite actually being effectively a government business because they'll go broke and will need to be bailed out by government money, and telcos aren't going to wear more costs or they'll be in financial difficulty, and customers won't pay more. So effectively we have a 4 lane freeway that we're only using 2 lanes of, because the other 2 cost too much to use, and at the same time have people whinging that the freeway should have had 8 built. Meanwhile building an airport and flying between the end destinations is probably going to be the eventual solution anyway. It's a mess!

[Twodogs]

Re: Nbn

Without going into too much depth. Despite what some people will tell you, or what some section of the media push, the government/Australian people own the infrastructure of the NBN, and the telcos/ISP's purchase capacity at wholesale rates and then sell it on to households for use at retail rates. The capacity is usable download/upload which you correctly called bandwidth.

The NBN has massive capacity to deliver bandwidth, but when NBN was dreamed up it wasn't positioned as an infrastructure building project, but an an infrastructure building business. So instead of allocating the funding as infrastructure capital and adding it onto the national debt, it was allocated as investment capital meaning it would need to be paid off. To do this they charge the telcos for capacity and pay down the costs, making it look on paper like the government built NBN for free. However, the cost of building NBN is so high that NBNCo charges telcos really high wholesale rates to recover the investment, and because consumers aren't prepared to pay huge sums for NBN, their profit margins are squashed compared to ADSL2+.

To try to make money, instead of charging customers more for their NBN plans, the telcos purchase less capacity from NBNCo than they should, and try to run with the absolute minimum capacity they can get away with. Most of the time it's fine, but when there's a spike in peak demand the telcos don't have enough capacity to cover it, so speeds slow down dramatically or we even get outages. All telcos do this. An example will be when Game Of Thrones drops on a streaming service and everyone logs on at the same time to watch it.

The orginal plan of fibre to the premises everywhere would've made the project conservatively 4 times more expensive than what is being rolled out (and realistically probably a lot more), and the issue of recovering costs vs. customers being willing to pay, vs. telco staying in business would've been far worse than it is now. The original planning for NBN was a mess, from the original plan, to likely future technology disruptors, to the way it was funded, to the cost estimates, to the roll out plan. It was another Myki, over promise what it will do, underbake the real cost by about 90%, make headline grabbing announcements, then once it's started tell people it's too late to turn back and it's all someone else's fault.

It's hard to see how it's going to be resolved. Neither government party are now going to take the hit and write off a massive amount of the cost of building NBN and add it onto the national debt, especially after it was originally promised to effectively cost nothing. One side will be accused of creating a debt that the other side would've made magically vanish, and the other side aren't going to wear the cost after they promised it for free. They also can't make NBNCo lower wholesale costs, despite actually being effectively a government business because they'll go broke and will need to be bailed out by government money, and telcos aren't going to wear more costs or they'll be in financial difficulty, and customers won't pay more. So effectively we have a 4 lane freeway that we're only using 2 lanes of, because the other 2 cost too much to use, and at the same time have people whinging that the freeway should have had 8 built. Meanwhile building an airport and flying between the end destinations is probably going to be the eventual solution anyway. It's a mess!

Well explained.

One question I meant to ask from earlier when you were talking about running copper or fibre from the node to the premises. Would it make sense that while they are connecting the copper that they could connect the fibre at the same time? Or is the fibre what's going to become obsolete and all the connections will be wireless.

[Bornadog]

Re: Nbn

Well explained.

One question I meant to ask from earlier when you were talking about running copper or fibre from the node to the premises. Would it make sense that while they are connecting the copper that they could connect the fibre at the same time? Or is the fibre what's going to become obsolete and all the connections will be wireless.

Copper is already there, it's your telephone lines. Probably the single most stupid decision by any government regarding technology