back to article Turnbull: NBN won't turn your town into Silicon Valley

Australia's Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has again unloaded on his predecessors in government, saying the swift planing process for the National Broadband Network made it “the riskiest and most complex project the Australian Government has ever attempted to carry out. In a speech delivered yesterday to the …

  1. marky_boi

    I call Bulls*&$

    The population is savvy enough to fully understand the concept of build it once do it right. This utter gall of this man to peddle crap just burns me. He wants to foist a crappy mix of technologies on us that will need upgrading as soon as it is laid for 3/4 the cost... go the extra and be done with it. We have had YEARS of unsuccessful competition outcomes. I work from home and would welcome a proper fibre to the house connection SO I CAN USE THE FULL UPLOAD SPEED.... Turnbull get that???? Wanker!!!

    1. aberglas

      Re: I call Bulls*&$

      Turnbull is not the Wanker here. The language you use is completely inappropriate.

      As to your upload speeds, that is a pricing decision not a technical one. Telstra does not want you to be able to run a data center on a home plan. There is no technical reason why upload speeds could not be faster, and indeed Internode is a bit faster. Nor that the bandwidth could not be allocated dynamically according to use.

      And that does not require a $40 billion investment in unnecessary technologies to achieve.

      1. pdf

        Re: I call Bulls*&$

        Upload speed is absolutely limited by technical implementation. For ADSL2+, G.992.5 Annex M is the absolute best you can do for upstream throughput, according to spec - this is what Internode use. It provides a theoretical maximum of ~3mbps, and that drops off very rapidly with distance.

        Your feigning knowledge is completely inappropriate. Stop spouting FUD to support your political agenda.

      2. marky_boi

        Re: I call Bulls*&$

        ADSL - Asymetrical <<<< see that bit . that's the design standard. You cant just decide one day to suddenly increase the upload, the designed standard wont allow it.

        Hard to use Internode when the suburbs is served entirely by a sea of Telstra CMUX/Tophats with no parent # within 15-20 km. I am tired and sick to death of the political football this has become. and most of all by ill-informed technically illiterate defenders of the MTM regurgitating half truths from Whirlpool or worse still the songsheet of the current government. My language is consistent with the Australian vernacular of describing a person in whom you have no respect.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I call Bulls*&$

      Let me guess...youre a labor voting bogan from qld who believes everything KRudd and Juliar say...

      Plonker!

      If knew any less about technology you would be able to operate your Foxtel

      1. marky_boi
        Megaphone

        Re: I call Bulls*&$

        Actually I work in the Industry,lead a very comfortable life and am no Bogan. I do NOT run a datacentre. I manage a large stable of linux servers that generate an excessive amount of income for my company. I actually connect on 900m of 0.40 CU connected to a tophat CMUX @ 19mbps UP and .7mbps DOWN. Uploading a 40Meg+ file back to my office is painful. I can't run a videoconference from my house not enough uplink speed for the video. VDSL will do close to bugger all for my situation, yet 1 km away from my house NBN in the correct implementation is working just fine. By calling the previous PMs by an accepted LNP nickname it's clear to me where your voting intentions lay. Whining the NBN costs are too much actually supports the argument that if you are going to spend 3/4 of the original $, may as well do the right thing and fit the fibre to the house. Your competition gods you worship have not done the right thing for other suffering users less fortunate than me and delivered a service that is less than usable. I actually think the government did the right thing, set the agenda by amortising the costs over a long period. The snowy river scheme and the sydney harbour bridge had similar outrage, yet today they are a benefit to society. Benefits of the NBN include: no ongoing upkeep of CU. Weatherproof network, less network nodes (less power used) fair go for ALL aussies with access to similar speeds regardless of location, AND a base network that can be upgraded by JUST swapping out the hardware for a speed uplift. Telstra has done these speed uplifts for YEARS with the same fibre, try and do that with a MTM fraudband. People like you would still have us lighting our houses with kero and driving horses with a flagman in front to not scare pedestrians and drawing water from a well in the backyard. I'm sure next you will also claim the earth in flat too. The FTP concept is correct and future looking and I actually had faith in Turnbull to delivery a fair and just outcome, he has instead deferred to the mad teaparty zealots in the party... for the record I come from a family that had older members long departed who knew Bob Menzies as a family friend and they (still living ones) have been small l Liberals all their voting lives. The extreme lurch to the right dis-quietens them, so much so, they are looking at independent conservative candidates fo the next election. so, before you decide to call names, produce a cogent rebuttal and play the ball and not the man in typical LNP anonymous coward fashion. my assessment of Turnbull is based on his performance as communication minster, he makes Helen Coonan look like a MENSA candidate in comparison.

        1. mathew42
          Mushroom

          Re: I call Bulls*&$

          > I manage a large stable of linux servers that generate an excessive amount of income for my company.

          So you are expecting the rest of Australia to reduce the costs of running your business?

          > VDSL will do close to bugger all for my situation, yet 1 km away from my house NBN in the correct implementation is working just fine.

          I have a suggestion for you: MOVE! If fibre NBN delivers the benefits you claim, then the increase in productivity should easily cover the moving costs.

          1. marky_boi
            FAIL

            Re: I call Bulls*&$

            some people certainly show technical ignorance... "" I manage a large stable of linux servers that generate an excessive amount of income for my company. "" ever heard of VPN into your CBD based company then SSH into CBD based servers???? What person would setup a fleet of servers at home??

            Literary skills and comprehension are not your strong point are they. As I said, and will repeat , I am happy enough with my speeds but feel for those stuck on failing copper and at distances too far for usable internet.

            I also repeat for your comprehension. VDSL is not a step forward, short tails are required for good speeds, having distance and large numbers of VDSL services put you back to ADSL speeds.

            The NBN should be forward looking and be upgradable, MTM is not. Again, playing the man not the ball, stick to the topic

        2. Stewba
          Pint

          Re: I call Bulls*&$

          I usually read long comments expecting to get a big long rant that makes no sense ... I'm a bit dissapointed to find you have nailed it ;)

          The only thing I could possibly add, is that all of the plans that were reviewed in Turnbull's own review were better than cost neutral (ie they all made a return) ... Turnbull just did what he usually does and followed the money. Whenever you read/hear someone spouting about cost, then they haven't even read the reviews for the systems they are talking down

  2. Winkypop Silver badge
    FAIL

    More LNP bullshit

    Agree with the above. I smell a political strawman.

  3. Michael Xion

    One simple point

    Irregardless of all the political shenanigans and technical arguments in favour of different roll-out methodologies, I'd like to make one point.

    I am currently on ADSL2+ and have a consistent 9mbps download speed. I'm quite ok with that, it suits my purposes adequately, for now. What does not suit my purposes is the crappy 0.7mbps upload speed. My understanding is that piss-poor upload speeds are pretty much universal unless you are on HFC or similar. The result of this asymmetry is that I cannot backup data to an off-site location or indeed reliably send image attachments to emails above a relatively small size.

    For my thinking, what WILL make a difference is a high speed broadband rollout that allows everyone who wants to be both a creator and a consumer. At the moment ADSL (which is what most people have) is locking us into a nation of consumers. To grow a modern economy (ie not just digging shit out of the ground and selling it off), we need the upstream bandwidth to be able to produce and distribute. I am not confident that the MTM will have the congestion-free bandwidth to do that.

    I'm sick to death of people trotting out arguments along the lines of 'we don't need FTTP because people will only use it for downloading movies'. Bullshit. I can already stream HD movies from Netflix over my current ADSL2+ quite comfortably. What I can't do is upload anything I produce back to the internet.

    1. jobst

      Re: One simple point

      I agree with the speeds, its enough and if you need more you can always get (at a higher cost) FTTP. However, FTTN has a massive problem - the last mile is copper, ALL of the problems I have (I look after a few premises using ADSL2) happen in the last few hundred meters of the connection close to the premise the ADSL connection is installed - this will not go away.

      On top of that you have extra devices required that you do not need for a "direct" fibre connection - you still need extra ADSL devices for EACH connection.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: One simple point

      " for now " <-- This is the very important keyword. Having 56kbps was a luxury and considered excessive back in BBS days. In late 90 / early 2000 having cable internet and able to download 20 Mb file in 50 seconds was considered very fast (http://web.archive.org/web/20001208023000/http://www.optushome.com.au/speed.html) .

      We need the infrastructure for future , and not for now.

    3. aberglas

      Re: One simple point

      The Asymmetry is mainly just a pricing policy. The do not want you to run a data centre while only paying for home broadband. Internode offer 1mbs upload I believe.

      You are lucky, my exchange has no other competition so Telstra limits it to 0.38 mbps. Tried to VPN into it the other day, very painful.

      I do not think that there is any technical reason why you could not get 9mbps upload speeds (not at the same instant as 9mps download etc.). It could not be that difficult to allocate the bandwidth dynamically depending upon load. It is just not done.

      Building a completely new fibre to the home system is not the cheapest way to address that problem! Incidentally, the NBN plans are also Asymmetric, for the same pricing reasons.

      1. pdf

        Re: One simple point

        Stop spouting absolutely nonsense on a topic you clearly have no idea about.

      2. Michael Xion

        Re: One simple point

        Yes, and iinet are offering 50/25 for $75 per month which is $15 per month less than I'm currently paying for ADSL2+ at 9/0.7. If i could get those upload speeds I'd be happy. To be honest, I'd be happy to split the difference with Telstra and go for 4.5/4.5.

    4. Fluffy Bunny
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: One simple point

      You have one good point. You want more speed. Great. Now go call an ISP and give them your credit card number and they will do it for you. Stop sucking money out of taxpayers wallets.

      1. Michael Xion

        Re: One simple point

        Would if I could. I'm on a rural exchange and Bigpond is all I get. My point was less about my needs than about moving Australia away from being a consumer to a producer of internet products. I'm well aware that Telstra throttle my upload speed for their own reasons, but the fact remains that the copper architecture is not capable of supporting high bandwidth for both up/ down for multiple premises.

        I would happily go with a different provider for a higher up/down speed as it would likely be cheaper than what I am getting now ($90 per month for ADSL2+).

      2. sanity hazard

        Re: One simple point

        <cut> Stop sucking money out of taxpayers wallets.</cut>

        And you want your kids to go to a public school when there is a perfectly good full fee paying one down the road? Why should my tax dollars pay for that? I am not having kids, so why should I pay for yours? And don't get me started on roads! Why do us tax payers have to pay for all these roads we never use? Why is the tax payer in VIC paying for roads in WA they never use?

  4. jobst

    extra costs

    The sad side of this story (that the taxpayer has to fund) are the extra costs for the biased report Turnbull has created, the costs trying to sell this to us, the costs changing the infrastructure and going the other way and the costs keeping up the copper network.

    1. Fluffy Bunny
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: extra costs

      The cost of "keeping up the copper network", as you say, are nothing compared to the costs of ripping out all that working cable and replacing it with fibre.

      1. melts

        Re: extra costs

        god you have no idea

        "The cost of "keeping up the copper network", as you say, are nothing compared to the costs of ripping out all that working cable and replacing it with fibre."

        so remediation works for copper, which will be ongoing as copper ages, is what but wasted money if your end game is FTTP? Telstra are doing what they need to do as a public company and bending the Govt over for access to copper that will be ditched in 10-15 years. Why you could possibly support this is fucking nuts - or you're a Telstra shareholder. Between gaining access and the ongoing upkeep cost which hasn't been reported at all - but hey lets have another report on labors FTTP - this copper network is going to be the most expensive part of the MTM, eclipsing all only to be binned in a decade.

        Turnbull has already admitted FTTP is the end game, and this MTM is to get things up and running faster. However as someone in an area that is getting NBN this political bullshit has stalled the rollout. There are locations that are NBN enabled that can't get the lead-ins down for 4,5,6 months, and I've been told it's the uncertainly for jobs thinning staffing, so noone on the ground do the work.

        So MTM is doing nothing positive. NOTHING. NOT A DAMN THING. but you'll act as though you're saving money, even though labor underwrote FTTP with bonds, taking it off the budget and meaning not a damn cent of our taxes were paying for it, if it got to making a profit at least. Now though we are destined to pay Telstra for a copper network they were largely gifted from the govt, its almost as if this whole thing has been a corporate welfare scheme. I'm sure MTM won't run at a profit so this will come out of the budget in coming years too. BUT THE BIG SCARY NUMBERS ARE LESS BIG IF YOU LISTEN TO MALCOM, right?

  5. mathew42
    Facepalm

    Bringing a sense of reality to a beautiful dream

    > "Bringing a sense of reality to a beautiful dream is never going to invite popularity"

    Labor over promised on the NBN, highlighting 1Gbps connections on fibre when the reality is they were planning for 50% of connections on fibre to be 12Mbps (47% in April 2013), meaning that many would have connections slower than HFC, 4G and even a large number of ADSL2+ connections. They oversold the benefits like distance education and medical consultations, when the reality is that these consultations would be conducted in a hospital or clinic and that it would be much cheaper to run fibre from the closest exchange to the hospital. Labor failed to invest in the areas of greatest need first - suburbs established in 1970s and later where Telstra skimped on infrastructure.

    Like so many of Labor's policies the concept was laudable, but the implementation was incompetent and underfunded.

  6. JJKing

    I read an article some time ago about British Telecom and it was valued at about the same amount as the copper wire in the system. So fluffly bunny, your argument doesn't hold water. Telstra gets the Govt payment for leasing their conduit and then collects again by selling the copper it pulls from said conduits. Also makes the street views a little better with fewer wires hanging off telephone poles.

    Optic Fibre future proofs the country for the future; the TWO main words here are COUNTRY and FUTURE. I wonder how many poo pooed all that wasted money on copper lines for the telephone system when the telegraph was "more than good enough for me". I keep reading about clowns who say 25Mb/sec is more than enough for me. It is AT PRESENT. What about 15 years from now? Just think back 15 to 20 years and 56k was sufficient for the average user.

    I want optic fibre and NOT some shared media that becomes slower when more people connect.

  7. Pompous Git Silver badge

    A real life NBN experience

    My rural home was connected to the NBN via fixed wireless back in March. Until about a month ago, my ISP couldn't provide any faster than 2.5 Mb/s DL speed. They have, much to my relief, managed to bring it up to somewhat less than 10 Mb/s. The cost of the copper doesn't go away as some commenters have stated since that remains in place to provide the telephone service. It's just the ADSL that will become unavailable in a few months time.

    About a third of my neighbours cannot access the wireless tower due to the hilly nature of the district and they have been told they will need to use satellite. I have a neighbour already on satellite that he has had since before we had ADSL and it's not even as fast as ISDN! I also have a neighbour on ADSL2 who has a faster DL speed than my "superfast NBN" connection.

    And for you dyed in the wool ALP supporters, what I have was the original ALP NBN Plan: ten percent of the bandwidth I had on my ADSL1 connection at twenty percent higher cost. The $600 NTU with three redundant ethernet ports may have somewhat to do with the cost blowout of Labor's very ill-conceived NBN Plan. And FWIW I was an ALP branch secretary for several years. I just never let my politicz get in they way of commonsense.

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