JackTheLad

Business parks or hubs can be built in less centralized areas, with some government subsidy. All we need then is just fast internet connections to the hubs.

Mrs JTL

silver

Like Japan, the US, Korea, Greenfields in Australia, the sewer systems in the UK etc.. you mean.... take a look ... http://www.dslreports.com/r0/downloa...51/Ranking.jpg

Its about peak speed.. not everybody uses all the bandwidth all the time. Some people will peak some of the time same as ADSL. Core bandwidth is being consistently upgraded as well as data usage increases. You will get better download speeds otherwise why would there be a gradual move to these technologies. It removes the access bottleneck. The government have done a little bit of research before spending $42bn and so have the other telcos in the other countries.


DSL is limited to the physical characteristics of copper twisted pairs. With DSL in most countries there is a move to VDSL (BT Infinity) which takes fibre to the cabinet (closer to your home) this reduces the length of the copper line. This somewhat of halfway house to getting to FTTH and GPON technologies.

If your really interested also google DOCSIS3.0 and look at the network architecture changes that this introduces to achieve high throughputs (reduction in coax sharing and increased penetration of fibre delivery).

Backhauled over fibre.
Different contention issues and somewhat worse for average throughput (shared spectrum), effected by Atmospheric issues and much higher contention issues (shared spectrum), unless you end up with a single transmitter for every user terminal. Then its really expensive and you'll end up with fibre to your home to deliver the connection to the 4G transmitter sitting in your living room.

Wireless is not better than wired, you trade off throughput and reliability for flexability. If the government could have done it with 4G do you think they wouldn't have.


So the couple of hundred million with connection to POTS services in the US is smaller in terms of network build and this was 50+ years ago? Then there is India and China..

Now the issue and economics of value for money and uses are a very different discussion and you'll see different projections on that.

The main arguments aren't about if fibre (it is globally recognized that it is) is better or not, its about economics, realized benefit and how and when we get there.

lapin_windstar

Yes, exactly. And saying that doesn't also mean that the Cth ought to build just as fast a connection to every town in the middle of nowhere.

Vash the Stampede

$43 billion including $17 billion from the private sector. Cost to the taxpayer is therefore $26 billion, not $43 billion. So that's not "about $15,000 for every single tax payer."

Maybe not now, but we're more likely to be connecting at a maximum of 100Mbps anyway, which leaves plenty of headroom for extra bandwidth a few decades later, when it's really needed. The most important thing is to have the infrastructure in place.

Lucky you. Many of us who live in metro suburbs but still can't even get ADSL1 speeds, let alone ADSL2+.

No it won't. ISPs have a vested interest in keeping their costs down and their profits up. They'll force us to stay on copper for as long as possible, while places like the UK are already enjoying 50Mbps fibre connections at a fraction of the cost we're paying for ADSL2+.

There's so much wrong with these two paragraphs, I hardly know where to begin. A lot of people in rural areas have no choice but to remain where they are because they can't afford to move, and their livelihood is literally bound up in the land. You won't be paying $15,000 for farmers to watch movies on laptops; you'll be paying a hell of a lot less so that the entire nation can enjoy a future-proof national broadband network.

Did you make this much fuss when Telstra was rolling out ADSL2+? Did you ask why we couldn't all just stay on dialup?

I think it's absolutely fantastic, and well overdue.

IvanM

To me this is needed. It comes down to value for money and private cannot finance this economically. The NBN will add to Australia's competitive advantage. The question is whether it will add to it as much as it costs the taxpayer. No one knows and no one knows the true cost of build.

This is not just about farmers is woop woop but about business and consumers in suburban cities whose only mistake was to move too far from a Telstra exchange. DSL takes copper to its limit. No one has come close to the limit of fibre.

Fibre also gives an amazing quality of comms that allows remote medical operations, real time trading and a myriad of other non consumer applications that DSL and wireless cannot deliver. I know from working over comms from areas like the Pilbarra, remote QLD and less harsh places such as Port Stephens and other tourist destinations. It maybe quaint for a foreign tourist to be charges $30 for an awful link but for local business it makes life difficult.

HD Porn instantly at home is just a bonus.

Sherlock Holmes

I'm fairly close to woop woop. I have ADSL+2 now. It works just fine. Others more remote around here can get satelite with govt rebates. Whilst it has taken a bit of a while to get here, it's here now. Not sure I need it to be any faster. And as PaulandNic point(s) out, there is the contention issue.

NedKelly

If Telstra wanted to expand it's range for DSL it could do so easily with a simple repeater. Telstra know this but have no interest in installing this as they are able to sell a more expensive wireless rort or you go without. Because they make millions from an inferior wireless service they have no incentive to provide anything better at a lower cost. Fibre may be a nice idea but there are cheaper and quicker ways of getting broadband to the areas currently without. Good communications is a necessity and since Telstra are deliberatly making it difficult the government should take away their monopoly on copper. Don't ask me how.

ozzieeagle

The Internet and its uses are still in it's infancy. There are applications coming that we wouldnt have imagined and when they do arrive will probably change our lives.

I would imagine that the first major change will be access to every overseas TV network, which is probably not the best use for this technology. Medicine could be a major benefit of this technology.... who knows top surgeons overseas could possibly use it to operate on people here via robotic devices etc.

15 years time, I belive people will see this rollout as very necessary. There is no way that copper will cope with the bandwidth demands that are coming.

Personally I'd rather see the money go towards a decent Eastern seaboard water grid, or even a nationwide train network.... however I suspect that 43 billion would only cover a very small percentage of both of those.

I've read some reports that copper degrades faster than optic fibre as well, so I'm wondering about the contradiction in these conduits.

lapin_windstar

Future-proof? Is any technology futureproof, let alone data transmission technology that's changed unrecognisably multiple times over the past thirty years?

Unfortunately, IMO you fall into the Labor trap of reasoning: "there are good reasons why in some cases the Cth should subsidise/lead investment in improving net access to some areas to some degree" is true but it has been used as the justification for "world's fastest internet for everyone everywhere in the whole country, yay NBN!".
The technology is already in place for this - the problem is licensing and advertising. If ITV pays NBC for 30 Rock, it only gets the right to broadcast it in the UK, not in Australia, because that would eat into Channel 7's rights. And the Daily Mail and Hovis don't want to pay ITV for advertising spots that are going to be promoting their product to 250,000 viewers of whom only 200,000 are actually in the UK.

This is why satellite packages are filled with crap rolling news channels: there are no programmes, so there's no licensing problems, and the few advertisers that they do have are global brands that don't mind a regional audience.

IvanM

Fibre has always been ahead from its first implementation. Existing subsea fibre installations have been upgraded with newer termination technology adding multiples of data capacity. Fibre is a gift that keeps on giving. Copper may have some additional capacity but not in the areas poor quality copper where the NBN is most needed.
Not a labour trap. Governments the world over, including the US, have built infrastructure for the common good where it would be too risky for private to raise the enourmous finance needed.
NBN is about more than consumer needs however it will give us access to many more media providers. The key though is legislation of internet media. Stephen Conroy is less than visionary here with his desire to filter and censor.

I see the need for NBN. I want to see the economic modelling.

soapy©

if they removed the caps my broadband would be fine

lapin_windstar

1) Fibre may well be the best technology now - I have no idea or interest. I'm just questioning the description "future-proof". Do we not risk a lot if we commit ourselves to a behemoth public investment across one of the biggest countries of earth when the underlying technology is changing so quickly? It could be like building a massive telegraph network in 1948, or a national telex network in 1988...no?

2) I agree that there are times that the government should invest some of our money in some projects some of the time but I think that any project that says it's going to deliver the best possible result to everyone everywhere is by definition being too ambitious and is glossing over the underlying justification that ought to exist for each dollar of investment.

mulben

NBN in theory is good - but , the devils in the detail......

Budget papers have it as an Investment (not a cost ) with a nominated
15% return on capital.

originally was meant to be paid from the issue of infrastructure bonds and a mix of private investment.( didn't happen GFC and all that )

now its fully funded by the Govt. and they are still showing it as having a return on capital. Not Possible

Tasmania only has a minimal sign up - too expensive , so a subsidy will be borne by the Tax payer .

Without a proper economic model the cost is totally unknown...........

IvanM

I want to see good numbers from an independant authoritative source. In Australia the metro masses subsidise the woop woops.

IvanM

The Three Amigos brought in by Howard played such an antaganistic game with both governments that something had to be done. The NBN is the gun to Telstras head that made them hand over access to backhaul at a reasonable price.

Telstra was flogged to maximise its sale price and not its return to Australia. Will NBN sold in the same manner by whomever is in power at the time.