Fraudband

[DaS Energy]

Labour members latest attempt at going into business is costing $Billions and returning zip. Broadband is supposed to be a profit making company yet all it is is Labours attack on the free market, and its us goons the punter forking out the coin for their idiocy not Labours you beaut broadband business!

[Rorschach]

Remember when we were all telling Monkey Boy.... there's been no cost benefit analysis.... ?

Productivity Commission slams NBN planning

Summary: The Productivity Commission has slammed the former government's planning of the National Broadband Network project for failing to conduct a cost-benefit analysis.

By Josh Taylor | March 13, 2014 -- 06:23 GMT (17:23 AEST)

The man who headed up the Department of Communications when the NBN was still in its planning stages has now said that the planning of the project should have included a cost-benefit analysis.

Last year, the Productivity Commission was tasked by Treasurer Joe Hockey to review the government's role in building national infrastructure and the costs, competition, and productivity issues associated large infrastructure projects.

The Productivity Commission's draft report, released today, stated that there were many examples where inadequate project selection led to costly outcomes for users and taxpayers, and highlighted that the lack of a cost-benefit analysis for the NBN is one such example.

"An Australian government example is the decision by the previous government to proceed with the National Broadband Network without doing a thorough analysis of its costs and benefits," the report stated.

The commission said that all analysis of the project was focused on how best to implement the government's policy objective of fibre to the premises, rather than considering the merits of different options.

"Rather than conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the project, the government commissioned an Implementation Study (released in May 2010), which was a detailed examination of the NBN project. The study was concerned with how best to implement the government's stated policy objectives, but did not evaluate those objectives," the report stated.

The report states that through making public cost-benefit analyses for projects, it improves the transparency behind government decisions, and strengthens the incentives for decision makers to focus on the overall net benefits of a project.

The Implementation Study, conducted by KPMG and McKinsey consulting firms, was heralded by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy as proof that the then-AU$43 billion fibre-to-the-premises project was achievable and viable, and would be completed in 2018.

The 2010 study was conducted following the appointment in 2009 of Peter Harris as the secretary for the Department of Communications. Harris left the department to head up the Productivity Commission shortly before the September 2013 election.

ZDNet asked the Productivity Commission whether Harris accepted some level of responsibility for the planning around the NBN in his time as the department secretary. However, the Productivity Commission did not respond by the time of publication.

Since then, NBN Co has subsequently stated that due to delays in the negotiations with Telstra and the competition regulator's decision to force NBN Co to connect out to 121 points of interconnect, the NBN would not be finished until 2021. NBN Co's strategic review conducted after the election has estimated that the current project would not be completed until 2024.

As one of the six NBN reviews commissioned since the September election, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has now appointed a panel of four experts to conduct a cost-benefit analysis into broadband and the regulatory environment for the NBN. The panel is due to report back to the government in June.

The sixth NBN review announced last week will also examine the advice provided to the former Labor government between April 2008 and May 2010, when the Implementation Study was released.

The Productivity Commission is accepting submissions on the draft report until April 4, 2013.

[DaS Energy]

"As one of the six NBN reviews commissioned since the September election,"

The other five, please!

[Rorschach]

Monk/geooooorge crapping on over there and refusing to apologise or answer a simple IT tech question.
he has a new sock too... it is so pathetic watching him squirm around it.

[Rorschach]

Rollout shambles in NBN’s first state
ANNABEL HEPWORTH THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 26, 2014 12:00AM

THE National Broadband Network rollout in Tasmania — which Labor promised would be the first state fully connected to lightning-fast internet services — has been “so shambolic” and failed “so abysmally” to meet its targets that urgent political intervention is needed.

The Weekend Australian can reveal the state’s peak IT business group, a longstanding supporter of Labor’s original “Rolls-Royce” NBN, has warned there is “no realistic chance” the project will be completed by the end of 2015, as once promised by former communications minister Stephen Conroy and NBN Co.

The Tasmanian ICT sector peak body, known as TASICT, says the process for connecting new customers to the optic fibre network is failing.

The warnings have national significance as the NBN Co prepares a new corporate plan for the entire $41 billion project to give effect to the Coalition’s promise of a “multi-tech nology mix” to deliver the project sooner and more cheaply.

A devastating strategic review found cost blowouts and delays had plagued the nation’s biggest infrastructure project, with “significant queues” in connections and disputes over construction-related contracts.

Tasmania is considered a testbed for the national rollout of high-speed broadband, with Senator Conroy having said it would provide “valuable learnings” for the wider mainland build. The Coalition has not put a deadline on the Tasmanian project. But the office of Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said yesterday that the rollout had started again at the end of last year after being “completely stalled” under Labor.

The NBN Co said it now had commitments to “fibre” as many Tasmanian premises this year as had been passed in the previous five years — but the rollout would not be achieved “by continuing to set heroic targets”.

In a submission obtained by The Weekend Australian, TASICT says that without “urgent political intervention, the project will continue to fail Tasmania” and laments that the project has been used a “political tool” by all major parties.

“The first-mover NBN advantage once trumpeted as an economic saviour for Tasmania, is gone,” the submission says.

The submission was written by the group’s executive officer, Dean Winter, who ran as an ALP candidate for the 2012 Tasmanian upper house seat of Hobart.

It also warns that Tasmanians “now wonder if they will ever get the NBN”.

“Business has lost enthusiasm for the project ...

“Tasmania, already dealing with an inadequate communications infrastructure, faces lengthy delays to ever see the project completed.”

The submission says the rollout is still not back on track, but backs Mr Turnbull’s move to trial the use of overhead cables on Aurora’s power poles as potentially faster and cheaper. and a way to have more direct fibre connections. It also says telephone and internet service providers — who sell the NBN to homes — are frustrated by “the lack of certainty about which technology will be used, the slow pace of the rollout and the failing process for connecting new customers to the network”.

Under the rollout, the NBN is connected to a utility box on the outside of a home or business. People who want to switch their phone and internet to the NBN contact a retail service provider, who makes an appointment for an NBN installer to put in equipment.

But the submission says the connection process in Tasmania has been “farcical”.

Customers were being hit with long wait times between ordering and connecting to the NBN and there were estimates up to 50 per cent of appointments with customers are being missed by NBN contractors.

“There is anecdotal evidence that some of these appointments are being ignored because contractors arrive at the appointment, identify a difficult or time-consuming job and make an assessment it is not worth the rate being offered,” the submission says.

Last year an asbestos shutdown delayed the project. Also, there were disputes ­between Visionstream — lead contractor on the island — and subcontractors over pay. While there were 20,065 premises passed by the NBN by June 1, 2013, the rollout all but came to a complete halt over the following months.

By December 2, there were 32,271 passed. For the week to April 21, there were 36,117 brownfields passed. In December, Visionstream said it was accelerating its rollout of fibre to more than 200,000 premises.

The TasICT submission says it was clear by June last year there were significant “issues” in Tasmania, but these “were never dealt with by the government of the day”.

“In fact, they were completely ignored and the rollout had almost stopped by September 2013. It was hoped these issues would be addressed by a new government and the rollout could get back on track. To date, this has not happened.”

Yesterday, Mr Turnbull’s spokesman said since the rollout started again at the end of last year, more than 4000 extra premises have been passed in brownfields areas. Visionstream had been issued with build contract instructions for 17,000 premises, while advanced planning was under way in areas with a further 19,000.

“With premises already passed that brings the number of homes and businesses committed to NBN fibre by the end of the year to about a third of premises in the state,” Mr Turnbull’s spokesman said.

NBN Co spokesman Andrew Sholl said construction standards were being improved so homes were connected at the same time that fibre was rolled down the street and existing infrastructure was being incorporated into the network.

Before the federal election, TasICT lobbied for Labor’s fibre-to-the-premises model to stay on the island, rather than the Coalition’s model that uses Telstra’s copper for the final few hundred metres to homes.

TasICT has made its comments in a submission to a private bill proposed by Tasmanian ALP Senator Anne Urquhart that would force the NBN Co to provide only FTTP to at least 200,000 premises on the island. The group opposes the bill.

[Neferti]

Labour members latest attempt at going into business is costing $Billions and returning zip. Broadband is supposed to be a profit making company yet all it is is Labours attack on the free market, and its us goons the punter forking out the coin for their idiocy not Labours you beaut broadband business!

I have NBN so I don't give a rats ass

Where do you live to be so useful to the ALP?

[Neferti]

Monk/geooooorge crapping on over there and refusing to apologise or answer a simple IT tech question.
he has a new sock too... it is so pathetic watching him squirm around it.

Monk hasn't a clue. He now says he has ADSL2+ ... when did that happen?

Last I heard he was whinging about having to use Wireless as there was NO Way "they" were going to upgrade the local Exchange, or something because of "something" (can't recall the name but you will know what I mean). Monk is LYING through his teeth, as usual.