NBN Business case released!

[Jovial Monk]

Not all tho Telstra has a lot of backhaul.

[Jovial Monk]

I didn’t see 4Corners last night, but will look at it later. IT News carries some discussion of it, incl stuff not in the actual program but on the website.

The NBN alternative.

AAPT chief Paul Broad has argued the Government could have structurally separated Telstra for less than the $36 billion cost of the National Broadband Network by buying it back.

Broad told the ABC's Four Corners program that the structural separation of Telstra had "driven much of the [NBN] agenda... right from day one."

"Telstra's market cap is, I think, probably $32-$33 billion," he said in an interview that did not make the final cut of the program but was published by the ABC online.

"They [the Government] could have bought it, structurally separated, sold all the bits back and incrementally rolled out fibre to the areas [of Australia] that demanded it."

Broad said he had "no argument" with the Government spending taxpayer dollars to roll out fibre into broadband blackspots "in the bush".

"It's a very good idea, [and] if that's what we want to spend taxpayer dollars doing, OK," he said.

But Broad took issue with the Government taking areas that the private sector was happy to roll out fibre infrastructure to.

"I happen to think the market's delivering up really good outcomes," Broad said, when quizzed about how far the private sector was willing to go to deploy broadband technology to Australians.

"The market is the cornerstone of change. Technology is driven by clever people coming up with clever ideas, not by governments rolling out big infrastructure programs.

What a heap of shit! I have been stuck on pair gain for years, so much for the fucking market! I take issue with that last para as well, it is completely incorrect. Big government programs (think Apollo, moon landings and, lets face it, war) drive lots of technological progress—computers finally became practical due WWII for example.)

However, Broad's view was isolated by others, including from NBN Co and Optus.

"It's just simply too expensive for a private company to build this type of nationwide network," NBN Co chief Mike Quigley said.

"Will they build in specific areas where they can make money? The answer is yes. Will they build it nationwide? The answer is no."

ACCC commissioner Ed Willett added: "If you're looking at the greater part of Australia, that infrastructure works best as a natural monopoly. If you go outside the CBDs you don't have to go very far and the economics of the natural monopoly characteristics prevail."

An interview with Internode chief Simon Hackett also did not make the cut for the final program, but featured Hackett talking about the cost of the NBN project.

"It is a very expensive network [but] I think for its stated amount of money it's remarkably great value," Hackett said.

"It's cheap compared to the road system and we've all absorbed that cost and decided it was good.

"There is a reasonable argument that it may run over time and over budget, however, and thats not based on anything about this project in particular - it's merely based on the past history of massive government projects.

A huge program over ten years could well hit problems that slow the roll out and make it more expensive. But in the case of the NBN it could be that things happen that will boost its revenue as well.

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/254136,br ... lstra.aspx

[Jovial Monk]

Optus also said that “select” business customers would be invited to join a separate pilot; however, the spokesman was unable to shed further light on that aspect of the pilot program.

Vodafone Australia said in October last year that its trials of femtocell technology were already underway.

The company planned to roll out femtocells under the ‘Expand’ brand name to consumers at some time in 2011.

“Vodafone has already commenced discussions with existing medium enterprise and large corporate customers for the deployment of femtocell technology,” a spokesman said.

“Vodafone is working directly with its business customers to provide the most appropriate in-building solution, tailored to specific business requirements.”

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/254138,op ... cells.aspx

As confidence tricks go femtocells would have to be right up there! Put one of these in your home or business and you can get charged for using your mobile phone or iPad and eat into your fixed internet data cap! Not bad eh?

It also shows that “wireless” communications rely very, very much on a wired infrastructure! and what was that about “mobility” Deepshit?

[Super Nova]

It also shows that “wireless” communications rely very, very much on a wired infrastructure! and what was that about “mobility” Deepshit?

Obviously wireless relies on wires between base stations or points of wireless presence. That how it works.

What is this about an internet cap. Here in europe you purchase access with no cap. Surely the NBN will not charge based on caps. That is the old way of charging for it.

The biggest cost in comms is the last mile. Wireless can help reduce the cost by not running wires or fibre for that last mile.

NBN is going to blow it's budget..... do you think it will delivery it's promise to budget? Can you answer this one question.

[Jovial Monk]

Here is a good summary of the 4c show:

Stephen Long was on the panel of The Drum yesterday and he gave what I thought was a succinct summary of where the issue lies with the NBN. He understood that wireless spectrum is not sufficient to replace fixed-line broadband (The big myth is that we can do without having a good, high-quality, fixed-line broadband network, we can do it with wireless.). He pointed out that the uniform access and [wholesale] pricing required NBNCo to be a monopoly, (If you think that this is essential technology, this is how we have to do it, and that's where the debate should really be.)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/04/11/3188432.htm (around the 26min mark).

I am very impressed that he, as an economics focused journalist, gets the technical picture, and is able to cut through all the other irrelevant chaff. I must catch that 4 corners report that he did. He obviously did lots of research.

Then they interviewed Turnbull, and he came out with all the usual untruths:

—South Korea doesn't use FTTH (someone should tell him that what he is describing is FTTP, and is so close to FTTH that some people call them FTTH/P, but no one ever confuse it with FTTN. Besides, FTTP is only useful for MDUs, so is he advocating that Australian suburbs tranform into high-density living like South Korea?)

—wireless mobile broadband usage is increasing and will make fixed-line broadband irrelevant. (Please someone show him the statistics that fixed-line broadband currently carries 10 times the traffic of wireless broadband.)

—No one will need higher speeds. History and trend be damned. We have enough speed to support high res video now, who needs more speed. Anything you can do with 100Mb/s you can do with 10Mb/s. (By that argument, we don't need bitumen roads either. Who needs more speed?)

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-re ... ?t=1677830

Simon Hackett:

Where to find them (and a number of other comments that didn't make the cut)...

Start here:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/natio ... d-network/

...then scroll down to 'the great debate', and under many of those pictures in a block, you'll find various takes on 8 issues – and some of those include comments recorded with me at the CommsDay summit in Sydney a week or two ago.

[Jovial Monk]

SN, wireless is crap, quick to be congested, high latency, affected by weather etc.

There is no reason the NBN can’t be brought in on budget, the trials will provide useful info.

Caps will be brought in everywhere. We probably suffer more here because of bloody Telstra.

[Super Nova]

There is no reason the NBN can’t be brought in on budget, the trials will provide useful info.

There are plenty of reasons.

1. The budget is flawed
2. It is a major programme with major risks
3. It is a monopoly so they can charge us to recover their costs
4. Government programme historically run over

Do you think they will deliver on the promise and meet the budget?

[Jovial Monk]

You forget the NBN will also bring in revenue. Video over IP will bring in rivers of gold into the NBN coffers. This is also not being run by a govt Dept but NBN Co which has very experienced people running it.

As it starts being rolled out in volume other benefits are rolled out as well. People can be sent home instead of the nursing homes with gadgets available now to send BPs, ECGs, blood sugar readings etc to the relevant clinic, saving big bucks out of the health budget: we may well be the only country able to look after all our elderly very well without blowing the health budget sky high.

Even if the NBN budget blew out (not saying it will) then who the hell cares?

[Jovial Monk]

You need to look at the revenues as well.

[Super Nova]

Even if the NBN budget blew out (not saying it will) then who the hell cares?

It will increase revenue by different future usage but the price of these service will reduce as they become commoditised. That is the trend. That is why the telco's are suffering and need to climb the food chain. Commodity services are not big revenues compared to the cost of supplying them. So there is a risk.

The carbon benefits are there and reduce office space costs forthe businesses are real but how real will they be. People need face to face communitication. Not all jobs are sitting behind a computer.

I care. If the NBN blows out it's budget we will all have to pay. It could have an adverse effect on the long term viability as Australia tries to ride on the back of information technology.

To say "who cares" highlights how little you value the viability of NBN as a really enterprise. A failing company that has a monoploy has no choice but to penalise the who community with high prioces for essential services.

It is not a good enough aurgument. "Who cares" is the view of someone who knows it will blow out but wants to argue technology for technolgy sake. I am concerned that the objective is pure but the implementation is poor. How this is managed is key.

I guess you now agree it could become a big white elephant.