Why the Coalition’s NBN plan is superior – and why it will be better for the bush too.
Reading through Stephen Conroy’s transcript from Meet the Press yesterday, I was struck by how he continues not to engage in any of the real issues surrounding the NBN.
So I thought I should repeat a few key points.
1. The Coalition is not going to destroy or (as Conroy alleged) sabotage the NBN. On the contrary we will complete the national broadband network and do so sooner, cheaper and more affordably for users.
2. Why can we do it sooner? The NBN is proposing to connect 93% of Australian premises to fibre optic cables. This is a very labor intensive and expensive exercise. Which is why, as at the end of May, there were only 3,700 premises in Australia connected to the new fibre network. It is proceeding at a snail’s pace. While there is every reason to believe that the NBN Co is poorly managed and could do the job a lot more efficiently, nonetheless the fact remains that fibre to the home is a slow process. For example the experience even in the USA is that it takes one technician day per premise to achieve a cut over from the existing copper service to fibre. And that is after the fibre has been lead into the premises. Telstra has had a similar experience in its South Brisbane fibre roll out.
The argument in favour of FTTH of course is that it is the ultimate technology and so it is worth waiting for. But even if it offers the maximum potential bandwidth, if a different technology can deliver all the bandwidth households require now and can do so in a fraction of time it makes much more sense to deploy it.
Think of it this way – if you are in an outer suburb of Sydney or Brisbane and your broadband speeds are somewhere between nothing and not very much, and you have the choice of getting fibre to the node and 50 mbps in a year or two OR wait up to a decade or more for FTTH and 100 mbps plus, what are you going to have? Its obvious. Ten years is a very long time to wait for a broadband upgrade.
And of course the tragedy of the NBN as designed by Labor is that there are thousands of households which could have had their broadband upgraded by now with fibre to the node had the Government not resolved to go down the slowest and most expensive upgrade route.
3. Why can we do it cheaper? Fibre to the node, around the world, costs between 1/4 and 1/3 of fibre to the premises. That is the experience in North America and Europe. And in Australia with very high labor costs the differential would likely be even more.
4. Why will it be more affordable? Obviously if NBN Co’s network is completed at lower cost then there will be less sunk capital to service and hence it does not have to charge as much to get a return. But additionally, we will seek to ensure that wherever possible there are no barriers to compete with the NBN and competition, even if it is only in limited areas will bring pricing pressure on the NBN Co.
5. What about the bush? Conroy said that we would not cross subsidise the bush. We are committed (and with the vast majority of rural and regional members why would we not be?) to ensuring that people in regional and remote Australia can access broadband at equivalent prices to folk in the cities. But rather than establish a monopoly and seek to overcharge the cities to subsidise the bush, we will ensure that support for the bush comes from a clearly defined subsidy so that everybody knows the actual cost of ensuring equality of access.
6. But in the context of the bush, let us consider two other aspects where the NBN Co’s plan actively works against the interests of rural Australians. First, as we know, the fibre to the home network is designed only to go to larger communities, of 1000 premises or more. Now that seems to be under revision at present, but there are certainly hundreds of small towns where there will be no fibre to the home and broadband services will be delivered only by fixed wireless. In many of those communities fibre to the node can provide very high broadband speeds and at modest cost. Where there is an existing exchange it becomes “the node” and is connected to the fibre backbone and then those premises reasonably close to the node (1000 metres or less) would be able to get very high speed broadband over a fixed line without the need for the fixed wireless. Additional nodes can be deployed where appropriate and cost effective. It won’t work for everyone in rural Australia but it would mean that a lot of people who under the NBN plan won’t get fixed line fast broadband will get it.
7. The second aspect where the bush has had a raw deal from the NBN Co relates to the fixed wireless service. The logic of fixed wireless is that there are a percentage of premises (about 4% on current plans) which are not suitable (by reason of distance) for fibre to the premises but are closely settled enough to be able to have a fixed wireless service as opposed to satellite which is ideal for the more remote areas. Consistent with its desire to own and control every element in the service, the NBN Co acquired the wireless spectrum to deliver broadband in these areas and is in the process of building its own network of towers – this part of the plan is running behind schedule too I might add. A better approach would have been to go to the three wireless telcos (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone) and invite them to tender to provide fixed wireless broadband in the relevant areas and to nominate how much subsidy they would need to do it and describe how their investment in new towers would enhance their existing mobile wireless service. There are at least three reasons for this being a better approach. First, it would mean the Government would not be directly involved in running the service. Second, it would mean it would be delivered a much lower cost to the taxpayer and Thirdly, and most importantly, it would mean that as a collateral benefit the investment in fixed wireless would result in an improvement in mobile wireless services. And the most common complaint about telecom services in the bush is poor or patchy mobile coverage. Now it is likely too late to take a more rational approach to the fixed wireless piece – time will tell. But it is certainly possible with fibre to the node to deliver wireline broadband services to many more people in the bush than would receive it under Labor’s plans.
60 Responses to “Why the Coalition’s NBN plan is superior – and why it will be better for the bush too.”
Not sure if privatisation will fix anything for the bush, remember when Howard privatised telstra? I do not think the bush benifited at all.
Too Far for Optic Fibre? You Idiot.. This isnt Copper!
On 6 July 2012, Tony Abbott said Australia doesn’t need the NBN. Make up your mind!
Privatisation has not done anything in the past and would not do anything going forward either. Why waste time and money on this when there is already a perfectly good plan in place?
I have always respected your opinion but in this case you are so far from right it isn’t funny.
This policy jeopardises a massive improvement to infrastructure in this country.
Although you boast about it being cheaper and quicker to deploy FTTN, it will be still need to massively upgraded in the near future, where FTTH won’t.
Please don’t unfairly treat the majority of Australians just for your petty political needs. Remember that your job is to provide a better way for all Australians not limit it.
The original requirement was always for regional areas – which can be done with subsidies or seed capital. The cities can be left entirely to private enterprise.
Unfortunately Andrew, unless you want the government to CONTINUALLY subsidise regional and rural areas ad infinitum for broadband, with the subsidies getting bigger every year due to copper needing replacement and stretching the current technology beyond what it is comfortable handling to provide faster and better service, this is not a viable option.
The NBN addresses this by “subsidising” the regional areas via charging a few dollars extra to the city dwellers to ensure the regional folks don’t get charged $150/month for the same level of broadband.
And all this without actually costing the budget billions of dollars a year on subsidies, as it is paid for from borrowings and then the users pay the loan back….what isn’t to like about this approach as compared to yours?
I feel that this is your view rather than your party’s view. Abbot is a dinosaur when it comes to technology and he will never commit to what you have said above – which is still far less than what labor is doing. Leadership challenge?
I have FTTH at the moment. If I download a burst of data it often will disconnect and drop out. I’ve rebuilt my wiring / hardware to rule out local technical issues. I’ve changed resellers twice to isolate that it’s not resellers fault. I’ve had the whole saler come out and test the lines and they’ve come back and said it was the reseller and of course the reseller state’s its wholesaler. I’ve complained to the TIO and its been over a year or so and still no accountability or resolution other than “well it’s fibre and we’re still figuring it out as we go” responses.
I’m not sure why we are investing in FTTH when right now those of us who have it aren’t really getting what we had hoped it would be? sure when my uptime is not in disconnect or down they are fast, well as fast as most sites that cap at 500kb/sec speeds are anyway…
The problem i see for FTTH is that having multi-wholesale ownership mixed with single reseller accountability whilst seeing the resellers put up terms / conditions that they aren’t responsible for uptimes / maintenance issues caused by wholesaler(s) essentially causes a red-tape filled vortex of stupidity where the consumer is left to pay the monthly bill for lack of service that borders on a Trade Practices Act breach.
Its been 1.5 years since i’ve had FTTH and i’m yet to see the upside.
You’re on Opticomm FTTH in a new estate though (based on your comments on Whirlpool http://whrl.pl/RcVq0N ) … that’s not the same as NBN FTTH.
It’s like making a comment on Telstra’s 3G network based on the performance of Vodafone’s network.
Scott, I would assume you think ALL FTTH is made equal?
That is not true. Opticomm or Internode etc (the ISP) may not be able to provide the same level of service and support, because on their scale of FTTH it is too costly to do so. I would speak with your wholesaler as it would appear you have network issues not consistent with that of faulty equipment internally in your home. This is likely to be a faulty switch at the OLT in the cabinet or the NTD on your wall.
I am sorry you have received poor service with FTTH to date, but the fact is there have been few complaints on NBN FTTH. Most are centred around the fact that, as you say, many sites have artificial download limits on speed. However, to suggest that ALL sites in general have bandwidth limits of 500kbps is ludicrous- youTube for a start can go to 2.5Mbps for a start. Quickflix, Bigpond and many other video sites have higher. Sites that only use text don’t NEED higher bandwidth, as anything above 500kbps for them is overkill. Heavy graphic sites usually handle well into the Mbps for individual connections.
Part of the reason these servers may not be able to handle much beyond a certain level (and I would say it’s more like 5Mbps, not 500kbps- I’ve no idea where you pulled that from) is because 50% of the population don’t get much if any more than that….so why over provision? This will change under the NBN, because people will expect it. As it stands now, if you design a page optimised for FTTH speeds (20Mbps+) only a fraction of people will be able to use it effectively and the other 90%+ will be frustrated by how long it takes to load at their slower speeds.
Network speeds are only as fast as their weakest majority- in this case less than 5Mbps.
Given current polling the Liberal party may well be in power within 15 months. So it is important for them to have a sensible NBN policy rather than simplistically and stupidly be deniers.
This approach argues on the basis of cost, time and competition. I think there is a possible social dimension to add.
Promote putting the NBN nodes into community Centres – business Centres, council offices, libraries, schools, possibly even pubs for entertainment Centres!!!!
This. Oils have electoral appeal especially in regional communities.
Correction last sentence “This could have…”
Australia is in a boom, we may never again get this chance to spend the money on a much needed internet upgrade. FTTN is no good, just to go New Zealand and use their internet and find out for yourself. If the Coalition said yes to the ALPs NBN plans that would pretty much guarantee a victory.
It seems to me that anything that is going to take anything more than five years to build to build is going to be obsolete before it’s finished. The talk of bandwidth as an absolute is shortsighted.
The ALP’s plan for the NBN is similar to the building of freeways and bridges. They are too narrow and congested to be suitable within a few years of completion. What we see as impressive speeds today will be seen as slow before the NBN is completed under it’s current configuration.
Is no one else sick of hearing Labor promises of what they will do in 2015, 2016 etc? They won’t be in office! They can promise whatever they like!
David, fibre is capable of an order of magnitude (and more) faster speeds than the 100Mbps roll-out speed. Yes, it will eventually become obsolete, but not for many decades at predicted growth rates, by which time there will be another (hopefully cheaper) technology available.
The coalitions FTTN broadband plan is the one that will be obsolete before it is complete. 50Mbps is a fanciful target for FTTN and is susceptible to the same issues that plague DSL now (crapped out copper lines, degrading performance with distance etc)
You may be able to argue a case against the NBN on the basis of cost but technically, it is the only currently feasible solution going forward.
You said that anything that will take more than five years to build will be technologically obselete by the time it’s built. But fibre optic cable was first commercialised in the 1970s, and despite more than 40 years of ongoing technological research, is STILL unsurpassed in terms of transmission speed. Fibre ain’t going to be outdated any time soon.
Conceived on the back of an envelope, a monopoly wholesaler, really really huge costs, billions paid to decommission existing infrastructure, snowballing delays in deployment, slow take-up, and all supported by an incompetent and inept government. A classic recipe for disaster. Pity none of them will be around to be accountable when the folly of it all is widely recognised.
So tell me Steve who is going to pay for the upgrade of the copper network? It can’t gone for ever and FFTN is only a stop gap because again the copper network still needs to be upgraded sooner or later.
Indeed. Telstra said _10 years ago_ that its copper network was at “five minutes to midnight”. That was from Telstra’s Manager of Regulatory Affairs, Tony Warren, in 2003. The Age reported at the time, “He described ADSL as the “last sweat” of revenue Telstra could wring out of the 100-year-old copper wire network.” — and this is the network Malcolm wants to rely on for Australia’s broadband for the next 10 years.
Scott Barnes says:
July 23, 2012 at 12:40 pm
I’d say you have one of the other companies FTTH Service, not NBN, because NBN is a regulated Company (Does the equipment boxes have NBNCo written on it?).
So I suggest you might want to get your facts straight first before claiming it’s FTTH fault or whatever.
What Malcom is suggesting is Fibre-to-the-Node system where it is basically the people complaining on the RIM systems now, will be more vocal when Malcom here installs FTTN, because there is no improvement over the last mile (which is still copper).
There is a reason why Malcom says it’s cheaper, because like all things cheap, you get cheap thrills.
To your comments about getting things fixed, what Malcom is doing is going to be ALOT WORSE (PRE-DSLAM days).
Thank you for your comments Mr Turnbull.
However I am already in the position you mention.
“you have the choice of getting fibre to the node and 50 mbps in a year or two”
Telstra in their recent upgrades of TopHats, effectively provide FTTN in my area. However, this is ONLY provided by Telstra. There is no competition, or alternatives.
Except of course, Telstra Cable (HFC) running down my street. Again, there are no alternatives, or competition. I do not have any choice in regards to Internet Service providers, or services. If I want high speed, it is Telstra, or nothing.
I would rather wait for a commercial offering from one of the other RSPs on the NBN, preferably my current ISP Internode, who provides excellent service, and have a good track record (with me) in dealing with issues, unlike Telstra.
“wait up to a decade or more for FTTH and 100 mbps plus, what are you going to have? Its obvious. Ten years is a very long time to wait for a broadband upgrade”
The country as a whole, has been waiting more than ten years for open competition, and value for money internet. Privately owned (Telstra) infrastructure will not offer that, as their only aim is to provide a return to shareholders.
Graeme – are the copper lines suddenly crumbling with age? My house is over 60 years old and its (underground) copper lines are perfectly fine (good reliable ADSL speeds even 2 kms from the exchange).
You may argue that only FTTH is future-proof enough to provide the speeds people need, but momentum is growing behind an array of technologies which promise to do the same on decades-old copper networks. Technologies such as vectoring and line-bonding promise to boost commercial VDSL2 speeds close to 100Mbps at a fraction of the cost compared to FTTH. Alcatel Lucent last year successfully ran data down several hundred metres of copper at 1000Mps – a perfect solution for operators to provide FTTH speeds to homes without digging up gardens and concrete paths and re-wiring homes. By the time the NBN rollout is complete, cheaper more effective technology will already have surpassed it.
lol Steve yea right mate I read this crap all the time just shows how ignorant some people are and will swallow the party line on.
Nothing is going surpass Fibre in our life time. The copper in Australia is failing just ask Telstra themselves how much it costs to keep the network patched up.
Cheaper is not always better!
Steve- You’ve been listening to Mr Abbott too much- NBN will not be digging up ANY gardens/walkways/roads etc. They are using EXISTING cable infrastructure, like Telstra ducts, pits and exchanges, to avoid JUST that.
To suggest that cheaper, more effective technology will be available in less than 10 years is heresay AND not based on what the entire industry predicts.
Technology evolves- it doesn’t jump. We do not yet know teh limits of fibre, nor are we likely to see them for some 10 or 20 years at least and these limits are likely to be FAR above what you’d use, as an ordinary consumer, on a day-to-day basis.
Or tell me, are you one of these who believe wireless is the saviour technology of the internet?? We’ll all have as much speed as we want, wherever we are, with no reception issues, 100% reliability and it’ll be cheaper than owning a landline??
Pull the other one….
Yet more baseless statements and very little fact. You are continuing to make wild claims in regards to performance of FTTN but provide zero detail on how you will achieve these speeds.
Perhaps you should be including the “UPTO” nomenclature with your FTTN spiels because real world performance data shows advertised speed is a far reach to actual speed. Every single customer is going to receive a different performance experience and yet is going to get charged the same price. Even if two users are on the same ISP and plan the distance from the node will have a visible impact on what level of service you actually receive.
Hypocritical to be playing the non-transparent subsidy card when any xDSL technology has to be advertised with the “UPTO” statement to avoid being non-transparent on achievable service levels.
I would also like to see you clarify how exactly you are going to deliver FTTN sooner? Contract renegotiations, CBA, network redesign, supply chain changes. Unless you expect Telstra to run with this by themselves. If you had been keeping an eye on the TopHat program you might have noticed Telstra are struggling to meet their own schedule miletsones for a measly 900 nodes, let alone the proposed 50,000 to 75,000 new nodes required for FTTN.
Despite the fact that these modifications are merely updating existing nodes, let alone installing new ones, running power and back-haul.
I’m sorry Mr Turnbull, you are most likely going to join a list of Liberal under-achievers in regards to ICT. I hope you are proud to be joining the likes of Alston, Coonan and Smith.
– New Liberal motto: Planning for infrastructure that has a clear and costed roadmap to handle future capacity, hell no, short term political gain ftw!
How long do you expect FTTN to provide an acceptable level of service to consumers? Looking at other jurisdictions where they built FTTN years ago, they are already starting the transition to FTTH. Following the Liberal plan will result in consumers/taxpayers having to pay for two networks to be built rather than one. First we’ll have to pay for the already obsolete Liberal FTTN network. Then we’ll have to pay to build FTTH. Why not skip FTTN and go straight to FTTH saving costs in the long run? Alternatively, is it possible to do a bit of both simultaneously? Upgrade the areas that will be last to get FTTH with FTTN now and continue working on FTTH everywhere else?
Mr. Turnbull, you are again misleading the Australian people in a number of ways:
“1. The Coalition is not going to destroy or (as Conroy alleged) sabotage the NBN. On the contrary we will complete the national broadband network and do so sooner, cheaper and more affordably for users.”
Your definition of sabotage is very light here. The NBN is a NATIONAL Broadband Network. What you are talking about and happily admit to is that SOME people will get increased services. Not everybody. Why Mr. Turnbull? Why are some Australians more important than others?
“Which is why, as at the end of May, there were only 3,700 premises in Australia connected to the new fibre network.”
This is disingenuous Mr Turnbull. You yourself are on the Senate Committee which saw more than 16 000 premises connected at the end of June. And I would assume that number has almost doubled by now seeing as the NBN has JUST started full commercial rollout- hence why it has “taken so long”- much of the regulatory framework and trials had to be done BEFORE rollout could commence, as is prudent. You quote the lower number in May because it suits your purposes better, the same way you look at the 9 month delay of proof the schedule is slipping already, when NBNCo. have only JUST started commercial rollout.
“For example the experience even in the USA is that it takes one technician day per premise to achieve a cut over from the existing copper service to fibre. And that is after the fibre has been lead into the premises. Telstra has had a similar experience in its South Brisbane fibre roll out.”
Have you asked NBNCo. how long it takes to cutover for them Mr Turnbull? You have mentioned this point several times in the past few months, but you appear to never allude to how long it takes NBNCo. to do so? I believe it takes 2 people around 2 hours, that is in fact HALF a technician day. But I would be willing to ring NBNCo. and find out- would you, so as not to mislead us?
“3. Why can we do it cheaper? Fibre to the node, around the world, costs between 1/4 and 1/3 of fibre to the premises.”
Indeed it does Mr Turnbull, as you have stated, mainly because of labour saved through not running fibre right to the premises. However, what you regularly allude to as a primary saving, using existing infrastructure, works in countries like the US and Europe because the INCUMBENT rolls these technologies out. If you are suggesting Telstra do this, you are advocating a return to prices on broadband BEFORE the ACCC regulated for ULL access, which would see us relegated to Telstra ONLY monopoly once again. At least NBN monopoly is a government controlled, heavily regulated monopoly….look how well that worked out with Telstra? If you are suggesting NBNCo. could build the FTTN- again, you mislead on cost. It may very well cost 1/3 to build FTTN to 93% of premises (although again Mr Turnbull, you have not said you will roll out to 93% of premises and you keep dodging questions asked as such) however, you do NOT factor in payments to Telstra for duct usage and exchanges leasing, nor payments for Telstra for USING their copper, rather than bypassing it as the NBN does. This would, as many analysts predict, already make the cost difference between a FTTN Coalition plan and the NBN negligible. And Australians end up with a network that WILL need upgrading, as you yourself have stated, in the near future.
“We are committed to ensuring that people in regional and remote Australia can access broadband at equivalent prices to folk in the cities.”
Once again Mr Turnbull, you mince with words. Notice elsewhere you allude to “High-speed/very high-speed broadband” and yet here, we are back to just plain “broadband”? Why? Because you know your plan CANNOT achieve the goal of high-speed/very high-speed broadband in regional/rural areas because of the limitations of copper and VDSL technology in distances beyond 1km, which MOST regional areas are well beyond, even WITH multiple nodes. So you will relegate these regional Australians to “broadband” for “equivalent costs” while those in the cities get much higher speeds, better reliability AND more quotas, “for the same price”. How is this “equality” in broadband Mr Turnbull?
“Consistent with its desire to own and control every element in the service, the NBN Co acquired the wireless spectrum to deliver broadband in these areas and is in the process of building its own network of towers…”
Mr Turnbull, you are deliberately skewing circumstances to suit your argument. NBNCo. have as much right as any company to buy spectrum license. Would you complain when Telstra do the same? Or Optus? NBNCo. have spent a paltry amount compared to the major mobile players, because they only require small amounts to service a comparatively small number of people. They are not breaking any laws by “controlling” this spectrum. Why is it you believe they are doing something ethically wrong by wishing to provide to all Australians a decent and reliable level of service on broadband? You allude to such in your next sentence:
” A better approach would have been to go to the three wireless telcos (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone) and invite them to tender to provide fixed wireless broadband in the relevant areas and to nominate how much subsidy they would need to do it and describe how their investment in new towers would enhance their existing mobile wireless service. ”
This is not feasible Mr Turnbull, because to provide the same reliable level of service from fixed service wireless as NBNCo. will provide (limiting number of people on towers) the Telco’s would have to do the same. This limits revenues, which means higher subsidies are required to ensure “profit”- something NBNCo. does not need from wireless users, as it “profits” modestly on regional and urban fibre to 93%. Your subsidies would amount to exactly the same cost and a regulatory nightmare which would be costly and bureaucratically ridiculous to maintain, when the same can be achieved more easily, for the same cost, through NBNCo.
Your arguments are recycled and have been proven incorrect over time Mr Turnbull. The Australian people WANT the NBN- even your Coalition supporters have a majority in favour of it. The money does not affect the budget- roads, hospitals, education, as your leader would have us believe; the money is borrowed and only the cost of the interest (that which is not offset by government bought bonds maturing in the same period) is paid by the taxpayer- around $4 Billion over the life of the loan. The loan will be paid back, by the USERS of the NBN, which will be all those who want a fixed line connection.
Your arguments around overall cost in your plan being “cheaper to the taxpayer” are disingenuous and irrelevant- the taxpayer is not paying $27 Billion. Your arguments that we can use existing infrastructure are pointless therefore in that context- as your arguments for using it are mainly based around cost. And those based around time are ALSO now irrelevant, because by the time the Coalition gets in, has control of the senate, renegotiates contracts and starts their “rollout” the NBN will be able to be completed in almost the same time, with a much better outcome.
Please Mr Turnbull- open up a dialogue with your party and people about the possibility of KEEPING the NBN in full- I know for a fact you would have a considerable number of votes swing to you directly on the guarantee of continuance of the rollout in full AND seeing, as I have already explained, the budget will NOT be affected by the rollout, you have no reason to have the fiscally conservative against your position.
Please Mr Turnbull- your ideas in other spheres including environment, economy and society are progressive and forward thinking; why can you not be so in telecommunications, YOUR portfolio?
Ah it’s great to see the coalition are still lying to folk about the NBN!
Wake up Malcolm, your proposal is more of the same and our BB is crap by world standards!
And seriously, how many networks do we need, we only have 1 set of power lines and multiple generators and retailers so why should the Australia’s comms network be any different!
The “last mile” infrastructure is a natural monopoly and it’s about time you woke up to that fact!
You also need to realise that businesses in australia want FTTP, not your rubbish FTTN solution!!!
Think of the future and throw your pathetic, out of date idealogical views into the dumpster where it belongs!!!
One of the key things about any telecommunications network is the consistency of service — if everybody has access to the same speeds, then they can rely on two-way communication with people at those speeds. This is why the plain-old-telephone network works so well: everyone can be sure they can make a phone call to each other and the sound quality will be the same across every phone line.
The same applies to broadband. If some people only get 1 or 2 Mbps upload speed, then services across Australia are always going to be set up for the lowest common denominator. Even people with really fast broadband upload speeds will only be able to use services that are practically set up for people with slow speeds.
This is the situation today, with the mish-mash of broadband technologies out there, and it will be the same under Malcolm’s plan, where everyone will be getting different broadband speeds depending on how good the copper line is going into their house, or whether there’s Optus or Telstra HFC cable in their street, and so on. There’ll be no consistency, so the “network effect” will not be achieved.
Im happy to wait for FTTH and I’m happy to pay for it. I don’t want your half assed option.
Mr Turnbull,
I hope you read this, though you probably won’t.
I just hope anyone that happens to read your blog, takes five minutes to read the comments.
The replies speak for themselves.
If anyone wants further information on the NBN, google NBN myths, or just google the NBN. You will find forums and discussions that cover many of the falacies that are unfortunately coming out of certain Liberal party members mouths.
And the un-truths that you are spruking here.
Sad really.
And I was always a Liberal fan. At the moment, I will gladly vote Labor.
On the side; Whoever wrote this, put in the word labor, when they were referring to workload, which should have been spelt, labour.
Again, sad really.
Sincerely
Anthony Wasiukiewicz
Dear Mr Turnbull,
I have to wonder if you ever get around to reading all the comments here on your blog and on your youtube channel each time you post about what a Coalition government will do about our communication’s infrastructure.
You continually talk up the Coalition’s FTTN policy, which will eventually cost us a lot more money in the long run. The level of understanding about the NBN and about fibre optic networks that you and the Coalition demonstrate is just ridiculous.
Typical Liberal Party policy of failing to provide infrastructure – underspending to provide for ‘private enterprise’ to ‘ compete’ to make money.
Ruining the NBN will be the equivalent of leaving it to ‘private enterprise’ to build roads after the government provides a tarred road to the centre of town.
Why do Liberals want to cut instead of build ?
The country needs infrastructure to help build a future. Not to do things on the cheap.
Do I have a deal for you!
My mother always warned me about snake oil sales men and that is what Malcom sounds like.
I’ll comment more fully later, but in the mean time, the CEO of MyNetPhone, Rene Sugo, doesn’t give your “plan” much credit:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/431389/coalition_nbn_cheaper_no_says_mynetfone_ceo/?fp=4&fpid=78268965
[...] started the ball rolling with this piece, outlining his position on the [...]
[...] Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull published this article on his website in response to an appearance made by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy on Channel Ten’s [...]
More FUD, Malcolm.
1. Not sabotage? The NBN will deliver FTTP to 93% of Australians, and LTE and satellite will deliver uncontended 12 Mbps bandwidth to the last 7%. You DO plan to sabotage both these deliverables in favour of copper. Fail.
2. Sooner? By 2015 NBN satellite and LTE wireless are done, and by 2018 NBN fibre will be complete to all under-served areas and also the entire HFC footprint, leaving only those whose existing services are so fast they were last in line for FTTP. Your FTTN rollout will not begin until 2014 or 2015, and will not be complete by 2018. Fail.
3. Cheaper? Really, and to cheaper to whom? FTTN is simply ADSL with extended reach, so you are talking about spending billions to expand ADSL coverage, still constrained to upload speeds useless for offsite backups and large file exchange, compared to the off-budget FTTP that repays its own construction cost. Billions taken from government spending on important areas, and households denied the savings already seen on NBN fibre replacing phone, ADSL and pay tv bills. Fail.
4. More affordable? There is no sunk public capital in the self-funding NBN project, so your argument fails because it claims you are sinking less. Fail.
5. No cross subsidy? But you then describe your version of a cross subsidy. Except that the bush will still see awful services. The economic benefits to cities, government service provision, and families of efficient regional broadband have been articulated elsewhere. Charging a flat rate that raises the 85% of city services by a mere few percent to deliver to 100% delivers those benefits to city and country, and to the nation. Fail.
6. NBN bad for the bush? No. The NBN delivers far better services to the bush than your vague promises. We wil first see small towns getting better ADSL as $100,000 DSLAM installations are released from large towns and redeployed at negligible cost to upgrade small town exchanges. Some towns will find themselves upgraded to fibre through third-party funds to upgrade them during the ten-year rollout. Others will join the FTTP party shortly afterward. None will be better off under coalition plans. Fail.
7. No need to own everything? NBNCo does not own the mobile phone networks, nor the copper in non-fibred areas. But infrastructure competition on the fibre and LTE wireless is ludicrous and costly, as we saw in the 1990s when Telstra shadowed Optus’s HFC rollout, which has incidentally never been extended since. It makes no more sense than encouraging two competiting electricity supplies per street, or two sets of sewers. Fail.
Your delaying tactics since 2010 have cost us over a billion dollars in additional parliamentary resources and hotel and travel expenses. They delayed the final Telstra agreement until March 2012. They imposed provider-of-last resort duties on NBNCo for large greenfields sites. How do you live with yourself? The coalition lost regional Australia to Labor and independents in 2010 on broadband policy, when it should have romped home. A large cross bench vote will occur again in 2013 unless the coalition adopts the FTTP NBN solution, and this could deliver another hung result. You are not acting in the interests of the country nor your party. Fail.
[...] Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull published this article on his website in response to an appearance made by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy on Channel Ten’s Meet [...]
I don’t usually get all that involved in politics but I would normally lean towards the Liberals. The NBN is the only reason I will vote Labor at the next election. I wish you guys would listen to what the people are actually saying.
They haven’t learnt anything from their last election lost have they.
FTTN (aka VDSL) won’t deliver 50Mbps in a pink fit. I had BT Infinity when I lived in England and the MAXIMUM advertised speeds were 40Mbps/10 Mbps. I got 38/8 and was told that this is about as good as it gets.
FTTN will never be a suitable NBN delivery mechanism. The LNP coalition is mortgaging the future of Australia for short term political points.
As a life long Liberal voter you WILL lose my vote if you continue with the FTTN option.
What makes me so intensely angry about this is the blatant lie that you continue to repeat, Mr Turnbull. You claim that you “….will complete THE national broadband network and do so sooner, cheaper and more affordably for users.” You will decidedly NOT. *THE* NBN – and I have specifically capitalised the definite article – is a network designed and being constructed with some very specific objectives. To paraphrase ‘We use the definite article in front of a noun when we believe the reader knows EXACTLY what we are referring to’. We do. *THE* NBN includes fibre to the premises for 93% of the Australian population. An upgradeable path to virtually any realistic download – AND upload – speed we may require. Upload speeds that will allow – at last – the use of true cloud computing. I could go on but other posters to this article have already rebutted your comments. *NONE* of these specific objectives would be met with your version of *A* national network. Your constant use of weasel words to try and convince the public that you will complete *THE* NBN is a blatant lie – and I cannot believe you do not know it. There is a world of difference between *THE* NBN and *A* NBN as you describe it. Your shameless hypocrisy and contempt of the Australian public do you a great disservice. Your constant lying merely makes you appear more foolish each time you repeat it. We really do deserve better from our elected representatives!
Let me comment pont by point:
1.
Saying you will “complete the NBN but do it faster and cheaper” is a terribly misleading statement. If broadband were roads, it would be like saying you’ll “complete Labor’s 6-lane freeway sooner and cheaper” by scrapping the 6 lanes of asphalt and finishing the “freeway” as a dirt road.
2.
To continue the above analogy, of course it’s faster to build a dirt road than a 6-lane freeway.
FTTN is an already obsolete technology. Countries you once held up as prime examples of FTTN have all begun abandoning it. New Zealand, Singapore, the UK, Germany have all moved to the same FTTH model as our NBN. The former Chief Technology Officer of British Telecom recently described FTTN as a “huge mistake”, advocating FTTH instead. http://delimiter.com.au/2012/04/30/fttn-a-huge-mistake-says-ex-bt-cto/
3.
FTTN might be cheaper in the short term (assuming you can get Telstra to give you access to their copper, which certainly isn’t a foregone conclusion). But as you yourself often admit, FTTN is a stopgap on the way to FTTH. That means that the FTTH will have to be paid for eventually anyway, and it will no doubt be a higher cost in the future. A higher cost on top of the billions of dollars spent on your (already obsolete) FTTN.
Oh, and labour costs are no higher in Australia than in countries where FTTH has been (or is being) rolled out, such as the US, UK, Germany, or Japan.
4.
I will guarantee that your FTTN won;t result in cheaper pricing. While FTTH does have a higher capex, that cost in the case of the NBN is essentially being paid by the high-end users. The NBN’s 12 and 25Mbps speeds are subsidised by the 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1000Mbps speeds. Your FTTN plan won’t be able to charge extra for such speeds because they won’t be available.
5.
The cost to the budget of providing a transparent subsidy will be higher than the cost of other users providing a city-rural cross subsidy, because you’ll be subsidising down to a lower price. ie: Say the cross subsidy model provides a monthly price of $40. But the real cost for a city service might be only $25, while a rural cost might be $140. The cross subsidy brings the price to $40.
However, under your policy, the city price might really be $25, and you are promising a rural subsidy to deliver “city pricing” in the bush. Therefore, your subsidy for the bush would have to drop their price to $25. Obviously the cost to the budget will be considerably more than the built-in cost of a cross subsidy to deliver $40 nationwide pricing.
BTW, will you also be removing the cross-subsidy on water, power, sewer, gas and Australia Post services? Or is it only the NBN cross-subsidy you don’t like?
6.
The fibre actually goes to all towns with >1000 premises, PLUS all towns with >500 premises that are located along the fibre transit route.
The rest of this point is completely misleading. Rural exchanges already have fibre to the exchange. The NBN’s fixed wireless will outperform most copper options for most rural people. Especially once the 25Mbps option begins.
7.
You are missing the entire point of the fixed wireless service.
Fixed wireless services a prescribed number of users. This is how it can deliver a consistent, reliable service to those users. If, instead of this, you contracted a mobile carrier to improve their service (along with subsidising their prices), home users would still have to deal with the atrocious peak time contention that goes along with a mobile network, especially in towns when there is a major event occurring (try to use your mobile broadband in Tamworth during the country music festival).
Oh, and what a subsidy it would be! You can currently get an NBN 4G.LTE fixed-wireless service with 400GB of data for $64.95 a month. That same 400GB of data on a Telstra 4G/LTE network costs a whopping $600 a month. So, to subsidise that down to your “city comparable pricing” would mean a charge to the budget of $540 per user, per month. Given that NBN Co expect 400,000 users on the fixed wireless network, the potential charge to the budget for your transparent subsidy could be $216million per month. That makes the $1.3bn total cost of rolling out the NBN fixed wireless network of seem like a bargain, huh?
1: changing the NBN, as proposed by MT, is sabotage and it no longer becomes a genuine National Network
2: FTTN is unlikely to be completed sooner as it will take the Lib Gov at least 1 year to renegotiate a deal with Telstra (took labor gov 1.5 years and some pretty severe threats around 4G spectrum). so say the libs get in Nov 2013, they wont have a Telstra deal to use the copper till June 2015. say the 60% FTTN roll-out takes 5 years (vs 10 for FTTH) and it’s going to finish in 2020 which is pretty much bang on when the 93% FTTH roll-out is due to be finished!
3: of course the FTTN component will be cheaper when you look at it in isolation (17billion according to Citigroup for 60% FTTN) – it’s a much smaller roll-out with less manual labour. However when you add in all the other factors such as a modified Telstra Deal (add at least 8 billion to current Telstra deal as Telstra value their network at 25Billion) and you have a worse solution with no Fixed Wireless and no new Satellites for $36Billion dollars – essentially same price at the FTTH + FWTH + SatBB NBN!!!
And that doesn’t even begin to account for the upgrade costs later on to FTTH or the economic damage to our countries businesses caused by the Libs being so pig headed and short sighted!!
4: a patch work quilt of redundant and expensive to maintain copper based systems will not be more affordable because they cost more to maintain – MT is dreaming on this one. Not to mention that the Labors NBN subsides itself for rural customers, MT’s version will need massive ongoing subsidies for the bush from tax payers money!
5: I’ll repeat Labors NBN subsides itself for rural customers, MT’s version will need massive ongoing subsidies for the bush from tax payers money! Labors NBN will always be cheaper for Rural customers because the massive customer base makes rural cross subsidies viable.
6: FTTN is best in high density cities, trying to apply FTTN to small towns is economically irresponsible as you’ll have small numbers of customer per node and need lots of nodes to keep the cable lengths under 1km. Many of these really small towns will get far better services from Fixed Wireless 4G towers than ADSL can provide due to the ancient rotting copper PSTN network that is in even worse condition than what city users have!
7: great idea, lets add in extra costs and complexity to the fixed wireless network by having 2 or 3 wireless operators, different equipment vendors (Telstra use Ericsson, Optus use Huawei), different provisioning systems, different technical support arms, different frequency spectrum’s, extra middle-man margins and different ideas as to what a working service is and so on!
The logic of this idea is simply astounding, imagine being a rural customer and calling up your preferred ISP for a BB service. basically you have your ISP reselling and NBN service which is really a resold Telstra/Optus Service and when something goes wrong you’ll get a real mess with 3 different companies involved and the customer being taken for a ride!! What a stupid idea!!!
Summary: While MT “may” have 1 or 2 facts floating around in his response, the general ideas behind his arguments are entirely lacking in logic and foresight – I for one am really disappointed that the Coalition wont man up and do what is best for this country and support the NBN as is with NO significant changes.
If the Libs do get in and do do what they say they will, Australia will have lost a major opportunity as a nation to drive the next generation of economic activity and increase our national competitiveness!!!!
Just two simple question.
Why have a blog with responses from members of the public, if you are going to totally disregard their comments?
Why do you persist with what has been and still is obviously a poorly received policy?
Vital national infrastructure does not belong in private hands. Telstra has proved that.
Hey Malcolm,
Big fan, it’s just a shame you are not the liberal leader. So much better than Abbott.
How about you respond to some of these obviously leftist critisim and provide some facts to back up your plan. I’m sure we’d all love to read it. Hell, you might even pick up some votes.
Randy.
Yea Randy just because we are pro the NBN and can see its the best plan going for all of Australia we must be “leftist”.
How about you learn a bit more about the NBN and then compare the two plans instead of blindly following the leader here.
Yes, us NBN “fanboys” are all lefty, pinkos, poffos, lessos, commos, you name it whatever the right wingnuts say.
Because someone thinks the NBN is a great idea does not make them leftists or whatever name that the right wingnuts say.
Mr Turnbull.
I would urge you to read and very carefully consider this article.
http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2012/07/26/3554003.htm
These are the factors you need to address and to give very clear and factual responses to. Not the spin and half-truths you have provided above. And until you do then ‘policy’ is nothing more than an election strategy and you will certainly not win over those who have any understanding of the technology.
Perhaps your next blog entry will be a point by point discussion of Mr Chirgwin’s article ??
We’ve put our own rebuttal up at Compare Broadband, at http://bit.ly/LOFfCy . Our whole business model relies on the fact that people find the current regime too confusing, and even we’re for a saner approach.
Malcolm with Respect
The points have ben reasonably adequately covered.
My issue is with the Headline/Title
It is instinctive to be primarily influnced by the headline which colours the evaluation of the remainder.
In my Opinion it is the principle of “The Big Lie” that is being demonstrated, and we all know thee proponent and master artist in that, he even wrote a book including that and similar principles I see being applied in relation to THE NBN and other areas by yourself and your compatriots.
It is your mirror you look into when you shave
I thought better of you than that.
This has to be the biggest load of garbage I have ever read. Who exactly is advising you? Malcolm, surly you are not this simple minded.
The private sector and infrastructure competition will of course deliver the best and cheapest result for the nation and the consumer.
That is why the Greenfield providers such as Opticomm have risen to the challenge and fibered up all the Metropolitan Black spots and B/Band underserved areas , haven’t they????
You mean to tell me they haven’t, that can’t be so , your whole ideology can’t be that flawed can it?
So how are you going to achieve this Private Sector involvement and on what basis, ?
Obviously you will need to throw Billions of Taxpayer Dollars at them (make it sound palatable by calling it incetivisation )
Then What?
Do they operate as a vertically integrated monopoly, wholesaler on a reseller basis as with Telstra on their fibre and Top Hat (FTTN) areas.
To be an open wholesaler under the auspices of the ACCC they will need more taxpayer subsidies as the customer base will be split.
So Tell us more about haw it will actually all work in practice in the real world rather than that naive rarefied ivory tower ideological fantasy land
Check out the pricing on VDSL currently, available under Business plans from most isp’s, 8/6 at approx 300-400/Month plus something generally over $1,000 to install, higher speeds cost more.
So FTTN ADSL2+ may be similar price, but what will we pay for VDSL?
To be honest IMO the whole Coalition response and the responses of the majority of the anti brigade is so dog in the manger , smacks of FTTP is too good for the peasants. FTTN with an expensive customer pays upgrade path to FTTP for the worthy who can afford it.
Completely missing all the valuable benefits for the nation for the next few decades and more
The launch video of the Google Fiber service is definitely worth watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHLIZh0PHg
Just as the rest of the World moves to fibre, Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition want to drag us back into the past with a rotting copper network. What a disgrace.
Have you noticed that when you get home of an evening that the internet is SSLLOOOWWW.
All the kids get on the internet, on to Face book, calling or SMS.
That’s because it is over prescribed!!! Too many people for too fewer lines & lack of bandwidth, that’s drinking water pipes for irrigation!! Or sucking a thick shake the a 2mm straw!!
One of the main aims of the NBN is if you have say, a 3000 home estate, you will have 3000 lines for all, as of an evening, most everyone’s internet is running simultaneously. With land lines you might have 10% in use while the internet is connected by 98% of customers. The area might have 3000 lines in to the exchange and only 1000 out.
NBN wants 3000 in and 3000 out per exchange. This way there is no congestion. Have you ever tried to make a phone call on a competition line that records your details!! Then have to wait 30min to get through!!
The fixed wireless & mobile phone towers suffer this worst of all.
The NBN Fixed wireless only, that means no mobile phones on these towers, infrastructure will allow 3000 lines in and out!!
The percentages are approx only.
[...] week, Turnbull published an article on his website in response to a television appearance made by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy several days [...]