Labor said it thus the coalition will never endorse it nor allow NBN to do it under any circumstances.
7 Likes
Every state government has optical fibre assets. The extent of those networks no doubt varies state by state, but none is fully utilised.
4 Likes
Just one more example of the lack of vision and strategic thinking in our national “leadership tank”. No shark’s there?
A proper liberalised view would have enabled every small rural community to make it’s own decisions on how to best serve their community. Throw them the funding equal to the average rural spend per customer the NBN Co has committed to. And let the community fund any shortfall. While it sounds a lot like the technology choice program, this is neither the intent nor how that program is working. The option came too late and has not been promoted before any other NBN commitments were made.
Such a missed opportunity! Ripping out the copper area by area and 100% replacing it in the same ducts with fibre must be much less expensive for even small groups of consumers. In particular if done in one go and also perhaps an acceptable short term disruption given the end benefits. After all even the NBN Co admits that if it is critical we need a mobile as back up.
4 Likes
If by “community” you mean the broad national populace generally via fed govt funding, then yeah sure. Conversely if you meant each individual town, village, farm etc [which i suspect you did], then FFS, no way! We are not Merka & should never strive to be, nor negligently lazily slide into merkanism. No [further] IT balkanisation for Oz thank you very much. Individual communities must not be [further] victimised & discriminated against for their heinous crime of daring to exist in non-CBD locales.
4 Likes
How many communities, especially remote ones, have expertise rather than populist sentiment in many things, especially high technology that requires long term planning. None in this government either, but that is another topic.
5 Likes
The majority of do-it-yourselfers (outside wireless) do no more than trenching. B4RN in England uses microducting and blown fibre. Assembling microducts is like plastic plumbing, so the skill level isn’t terribly high. Fusing is a skill but, according to someone who’s done it, one that can be learnt off youtube. Fusing cable is an order of magnitude more difficult than single fibres.
Meanwhile, NBN Co says they can’t tell us the full range of costs for FttP. They’ll happily reveal the most expensive, that supports the government’s agenda, but the cheapest? That’s a secret.
5 Likes
… I did not mean so much ‘doing it’ as I meant knowing what to do. eg. I can imagine a random community debating the decision of costs versus benefits of fibre versus the fabled 5G versus HFC and so on, and what the alphabet things meant.
No, not really. Not unless they brought in some consultants (another topic !) or a local had the requisite expertise to discern the differences.
4 Likes
If you are a true liberal - my suggestion is that the current Federal Government has not lived up to it’s core values by taking a less over bearing approach in how the NBN is being delivered.
Both in what it is currently delivering and in how it has not approached delivery the NBN is also failing as many on the more liberal side of the political spectrum, as it is those on the more socially progressive side (full govt ownership and equal service outcomes).
As to communities having more input or the knowledge, part of not living in a big city is about local community. Many local communities with good help are far more capable of solving their problems than some design engineer in Sydney etc working on a an agenda driven in Canberra. These communities rarely get a go for many politically motivated reasons. Debating the merits or implementation of such a notion at this time may be hypothetical. It will become more critical in the future as communities and government seek to undo the second and third class outcomes they have been burdened with.
There will be a cost to do so. Vis a vis the mobile phone tower funding program. Only ten or more times the cost and pain.
I share the angst of steffie5904 in that the outcome which ever way you might see it is far from equitable.
With a notionally equal NBN budget for every household to be serviced, those in FTTP/B areas get a much superior outcome and service compared to the 20% or more on Skymuster, Fixed Wireless or the end of a long FTTN run.
I don’t desire to pay extra, that may be the reality!
2 Likes
That’s the difference between equality and equity. Australian tradition favours the latter. It’s also why the private sector fails.
Governments can spread the load. Profit-driven businesses won’t. They’ll only serve the most profitable markets.
6 Likes
…then you never need to say sorry, or have compassion, nor a social conscience.
…then you know the price of everything, yet the value of nothing [& to be perfectly fair, TLs actually aren’t that much chop even on the “know the price” part; they just pretend to].
…then an opportunity for a genuine nation-building future-proofing social-equity national IT infrastructure project is actually instead merely an opportunity for more political bastardry & prejudiced short-term myopia.
Dog spare us from TLs.
3 Likes
It’s a Given. 
I live in a rural area, have ADSL that should do 12Mb/s on a good day, and will be thrown off that to a more expensive and potentially slower FW at perhaps only a 6Mb/s outcome with the NBN. But not till 2020!
Worse that I live in a low spot and have forest and hills in the line of sight of the planned towers so I may yet get a promotion to Satellite. And true to it’s word, because my ADSL shares duct with the VDSL of nearby FTTN customers my ADSL will still be cut off!
In this I am politically agnostic. All I see is compromise and some absurd contradictions in policy and technical outcomes. I would be happier to have been left as I am once the local exchange was connected to fibre to remove backhaul limitations. No more no less.
Neither the current Federal Government nor Opposition has a solution. The Federal Opposition is also keeping a low profile and being very quiet about what it would do to fix this!
I’m open to all practical suggestions on the how we fix this technicallyand financially? I hold little hope either side of the Federal Parliament has the answer?
5 Likes
Or you could band with your neighbours and create your own RSP that purchases bandwidth off a major RSP and use a Ubiquiti, Ruckus, Aruba or similar network to supply you all.
The shared costs would be a bit higher than using the NBN supplied connections to your premises but not too much higher. Speeds attainable could be in the 400 Mbps to Gbps range depending on what you spend your dollars on.
https://www.xclaimwireless.com/
Our old Wireless internet provider might help you get some ideas of what is possible:
Dan McKenzie
Clearstream Broadband
PO Box 233 Fernvale
Queensland 4306
http://www.clearstream.com.au/
ACCAN also have some suggestions of Wireless providers on their site (@gordon may also find some possible useful links)
8 Likes
Thanks Grahroll,
Now for the homework and some door knocking.
5 Likes
This could have gone on the TIO thread, but it relates to NBN implementation issues, so here it is:
6 Likes
“We estimate from analysing our own data that at least 18 per cent of the fixed wireless network is currently experiencing what we define as severe congestion,”
They planned that well. 
The tower that provides my service is showing signs of congestion. It was commissioned in January.
7 Likes
Will we “rue the day” ? 
6 Likes
A former News Corp executive as CEO of NBN. What could possibly go wrong? 
8 Likes
While this is not a complaint about NBN service some of the industry reading I have been doing is advising that TPG and Vodaphone are perhaps going to merge with talks about the merge being confirmed by both companies. TPG has in the past acquired several ISP/RSP businesses eg iiNet. I am not yet aware of how this merge might change the businesses but I hope it doesn’t come with a poorer service outcome for any of both companies clients.
Ahh the New Daily has added an article about the discussions and even from the reading of that it is still unclear what the merger will mean for their businesses eg name changes, corporate structure, IT systems.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2018/08/22/vodafone-tpg-merger/
2 Likes
Amazing… According to the ACMA’s Residential households and business survey, “During their switchover to the NBN, 40% of businesses were left without either their phone or internet service, or both, during connection, with potentially major impacts on their businesses”
I suspended one clients website for not paying their account… they were allowed to put an injunction on via the Supreme Court which cost me a 3 year legal fight and the funds to go with it, yet NBN Co can get away with stopping 40% of businesses from operating, sometimes for over a month, and that’s not a problem. Time for a citizens audit of the “civil” laws in this country.
3 Likes
Your web hosting service (?) is obviously not an LNP flagship company protected by legislation.
It is a lengthy read and I admit to not going into it all with eyeballs fully engaged, but their iron clad obligations they cannot avoid appears to be limited to reporting to government. 
3 Likes
