Judge Labor’s NBN By Results, Not Promises
For the past five years Labor’s message on broadband has been ‘trust us’. In that time barely 5000 Australian households have actually received better broadband. The National Broadband Network is up to a year behind the targets in its own Corporate Plan published in December 2010.
Today’s three-year rollout plan announced by NBN Co and the Government is a duplicitous and ham-fisted attempt to conceal that failure.
The rollout ‘plan’ does not contain a forecast of how many households and businesses will actually be able to connect to the NBN fibre by 2015. Nor does it contain a forecast of how many households and businesses will actually be connected. Yet these are the only numbers that matter.
Labor’s spin is instead intended to make everyone feel a winner: 3.3 million premises will be in areas whee work on the NBN fibre network “is planned to commence” by 2015. [1]
What does that mean?
Does it mean that these premises are in a suburb where NBN has actually dug some trenches by 2015? Suburbs where it has painted a few lines on the footpath in one street? Or merely suburbs where NBN Co hopes it might be able paint a few such lines by 2015?
Once again, Labor’s real message is ‘trust us’.
Australians wishing to determine whether or not they should trust this Government on broadband would be well-served by looking at its record and the NBN’s performance so far. There is no indication more than a fraction of the premises claimed will be connected by 2015:
- On 30 June 2011, there were 18,243 premises across Australia where construction was complete and the premises could connect to the NBN fibre network. [2]
- On 31 March 2012 there will be 18,900 premises across Australia where construction will be complete and the premises can be connected to the NBN fibre network. [3]
- Therefore over the past nine months NBN Co’s fibre rollout has reached 657 additional premises –just over 3 per working day.
To reach the 30 June 2012 rollout targets in its current Corporate Plan, NBN Co needs to pass a further 137,000 premises in the next three months – which is about 2090 per working day. [4]
Again, using the NBN Co’s own figures, on 31 March 2012 there will be 18,900 premises which can actually connect to the NBN fibre, but a further 249,600 premises “where work on the network is expected to commence” by the same date (which appears to mean they are in areas where some work has been done).
If we applied that same passed-to-commence ratio achieved up to now to the 3.3 million homes and businesses where work will be underway June 2015, then only about 250,000 premises would at that time actually be able to connect to the fibre network.
That would compare to a forecast of 4.2 million homes and businesses passed by fibre by June 2015 in the current NBN Co Corporate Plan. [5]
In reality NBN Co will presumably do better than that – but by how much? And is achieving a small fraction of your publicly stated performance targets good enough? For this Government, it probably is.
[1] NBN Co (2012) ‘NBN Co Fibre Rollout Plan: Detailed Commence Work Dates from 1 April 2012 to 30 June 2015,’ released 29 March 2012, p.6.
[2] NBN Co (2011) ‘2010-11 Annual Report,’ p.12.
[3] NBN Co (2012) ‘NBN Co Fibre Rollout Plan: Detailed Commence Work Dates from 1 April 2012 to 30 June 2015,’ released 29 March 2012, p.6.
[4] NBN Co (2010) ‘NBN Co Corporate Plan 2011-2013,’ p.15. This shows a target of 156,000 for FTTP premises passed in brownfields and ‘greenfields build’ areas (counting 4000 premises in Tasmania which were not included in these headline targets). The plan forecast that FTTP would reach a further 165,000 premises in ‘Build-Operate-Transfer greenfields sites by 30 June 2012. This target was abandoned when the Government changed its NBN policy in greenfields areas.
[5] Ibid. p.134.
15 Responses to “Judge Labor’s NBN By Results, Not Promises”
Malcolm
What about the coaliiton LIE of opel or have you deliberate forgotten about that, hoping people continue it be gullible and believe the lies you sprout
promised OPEL would be rolled out by 2009 OPEL never existed , but instead was giving money to singtel- optus and enabling optus exchanges
Malcolm,
Ah, but they are connecting people. That’s the point. This is an outstanding infrastructure. You are backing yourself into a big political corner with this one. You know that they NBN will deliver the next boom from the Australian economy. I myself will be forming an agricultural software business that will be enabled entirely by the NBN. If all goes to well it will be bringing in a few million to my rural economy of Horsham within this decade.
Everyone knows your playing this one for political reasons, not policy reasons.
The NBN will be worth every dollar of the $70 billion. Even if it cost $200 billion and took 20 years, it would still easily be worth every dollar. The NBN will create trillions upon trillions of dollars for Australia over the next 50 years. Just look at the online trends and the amount of money buzing around our slow cables today.
And stop with the rubbish about the NBN being slower than wireless. You know that once you get the cable connection its easy peasy to upgrade the hubs and that’s where all the speed comes from. From point to point latency, fibre will always kick the arse out of wireless. The physic of light and air make this so.
So please, either dump your current stance or dump your party. Your political stance on the NBN policy does you a disservice.
Yours faithfully
Carl Sudholz.
[...] But what really gets my got are the Liberal MPs. Constantly banging on about how the NBN isn’t the way to do, and that Labour are not capable of delivering it. Malcom Turnbull as shadow communications spokesman is the worst of them. [...]
http://youngconservativeau.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/nationalised-broadband-network.html
My thoughts on the matter:
I too believe the NBN is a positive reform and would appreciate alternatives offered by the Coalition, not mere criticism. Surely the amount of connections were slow because of the agreements that needed to be made with Telstra to free up their infrastructure. This delay was caused by the ba decision to privatise this public infrastructure in the first place.
This is expensive infrastructure without a cost benefit analysis. If there had been a compelling business case Australian & offshore Telco’s would have been lining up to build it.
For the ordinary home users few extra benefits can be envisaged, faster online games, quicker gambling do not impress as benefits.
Some edcuation & medical services may obtain some incremental benefit over what they currently use but how much benefit, over how much cost has not been quantified. $200 billion would be a scandalous waste of taxpayers money with only an incremental befit over what Ecommerce is already achieving today.
Those businesses & customer who want it already use the internet so no benefit to them other than speed, revenue can only be increased by charging them more.
When I ask my son about his homework he’ll always tell me about how much he has started.
When we get to discussing how much he has finished the truth of his progress emerges.
Come on Malcolm, they say they’ve started work on 249,600 premises by 31 March, 2012. They’ve committed to getting places done within 12 months of starting work, so we’ll have 250,000 done before the next election, let alone 2015!
Yes indeed, an expensive infrastructure without a cost benefit analysis.
I note the Education Minister, Peter Garrett, in a SMH article today (by Anna Patty) saying it is ludicrous to cost a [education] model that is yet to be agreed or tested … $5bn education bill, we’d better run a ruler over that. $30bn+ NBN bill, don’t need the ruler (just trust us)!
Keep up the good work Malcom!
Malcolm, Even with all it’s shortcomings to date actions speak louder than words and we never saw any action during the LNP’s time in office. All we hear now is empty rhetoric on stopping the NBN without producing a viable costed alternative. That being an option that would provide the same level of service to all Australians.
[...] far there’s really only just been time for straight reportage from the launch and set-piece criticism from the opposition. It’ll take a few days at least, perhaps even a week, before analysts have done real analysis [...]
Would anybody with some common sense agree to upgrade avery suburban roead to a 4 lane highway irrespective of its usage?
This amnalogy is what the NBN is aiming to do in its present form: OVERKILL pure and simple
I was led to understand that the cabling would be largely underground. Could somebody then explain why in a number of suburbs, particularly in the inner suburbs, we are seeing a multitude of thick cables hung low across narrow streets, with primitive looking junction boxes to connect them. Apart from the disgusting destruction of trees across the city to accomodate these cables, they are asking for trouble as they are low and easily reached by vandals. They look like a backward third world cheap solution, and not state of the art equipment for the future of ‘our nation going forward’. What is the Oppositions solution?
belinda
that is the electiricy
[...] he now has little choice but to sit back and watch as NBN Co moves on outside of his control. His statement after Labor’s announcement confirms that he has all but given up any hope of influencing the [...]