No More NBN

[Super Nova]

This white elephant is going to fail to deliver. When Labor lose the election they will blame the new government for NBN failure. Watch and see. Also note the importance of Wireless.

Article in full.

The NBN in 2013Paul Wallbank Published 8:10 AM, 20 Dec 2012

With the National Broadband Network (NBN) four years old and the rollout firmly underway, 2013 is going to be the year NBN Co, the company charged with building the project, proves whether it’s up to the challenge of building one of Australia’s biggest infrastructure projects.

Some of the challenges on NBN Co's plate in the New Year include- regulatory approvals, overcoming design difficulties and meeting a demanding installation deadline – all of this with the distraction of a federal election campaign that promises to be a bitter and vindictive affair.

There’s no denying the fact that the NBN’s progress so far has been slow to date and along the way NBN Co has had to deal with design difficulties, poor mapping data and excruciatingly slow access negotiations with Telstra. In fact, negotiations with the ACCC over the Special Access Undertaking (SAU) continue to drag on and are expected to be settled midway through next year.

Race against time?

While the regulatory issues drag on, there remains the civil engineering challenge of getting fibre in the ground. NBN Co’s amended 2012 business plan puts the project six months behind the projections that were made just two years earlier, with just over half the original 1.2 million premises expected to be passed by July 2013. As at the end of September a third of the revised target of 660,000 for this financial year has been met, leaving 440,000 premises to be passed over the nine months to July 2013.

That’s a lot of premises but as NBN Co’s contractors - Silcar and Service Stream- confidently pointed out at the recent NBN Realised conference it can be done and similar targets were met during pay TV rollouts in the 90s.Key to meeting construction targets will be delivering working designs to the contractors and so far NBN Co has lagged behind on this front, blaming the quality of data given to them by various providers.

NBN Co high command is confident that the design problems have been sufficiently overcome and with the plans now rolling out, keeping these designs flowing is going to be critical in 2013.

MDUs and uptake

While designing and rolling out the fibre are two challenges, connecting the customers remains of paramount concern. Also behind schedule is the contracts for the Multi Dwelling Unit (MDU) connections – connecting apartment blocks, industrial complexes and office towers to the fibre network.

NBN Co’s request for proposals for the MDUs closed in June 2011 and the delay in awarding contracts is going to hurt the take up rates for the project as people within office parks and unit blocks will simply not be able to connect. Failure to address this contractual delay is going to affect the project’s work flow and consequently construction costs as contractors will have to return later to complete works that pass apartment blocks and industrial parks.

Access to buildings is also going to be a challenge as negotiating with individual building owners will be cumbersome. However, building managers and landlords intent on disruption may want to note that both Mike Quigley and communications minister Stephen Conroy made it clear at the release of the 2012 business plan that “frustrated premises” will be on their own when the old copper telephone network is removed 18 months after NBN connections go live.

Hardline on towers

This hardline attitude has also been shown towards communities resisting wireless towers as the Golden Plains Shire in Central Victoria found out. After rejecting NBN Co’s plans to build a tower in the shire Quigley warned that the district was potentially at risk of missing out on having wireless services altogether.

In reply the then Golden Plains Shire mayor, Cr Geraldine Frantz, rejected the idea that the local council was being obstructionist, instead blaming the company for not consulting with the community on the tower’s location.

“NBN Co’s claims that they have taken the time to adequately engage with the community and that it cannot proceed with the Napoleons fixed wireless facility are simply not correct,” Frantz said in a statement.

It’s an incendiary issue and there is ample potential for things blowing up in NBN Co’s face, mainly because hard luck stories from the bush during an election year won’t be appreciated by the Gillard government. So community consultation on the wireless towers and other key infrastructure is going to become critical in 2013.

Who gets fibre or wireless is going to be an issue as well, with many communities earmarked to have wireless connections campaigning to have the faster and more reliable fibre service. Outback Queensland’s McKinlay Shire Council is an early agitator for fibre connections as they lobby to connect the town of Julia Creek.

We can expect more remote communities in 2013 to be asking for the faster services and NBN Co will have to find a mechanism to negotiate cost agreements with state and local governments to provide this option to districts that fall outside the company’s criteria for providing fibre connections.

Getting connections to outback towns is one of the many issues both the minister and NBN Co will have to consider in the noisy and distracting run up to the 2013 election. With the unfortunate politicisation of the project, there will be countless management distractions with various real and confected issues and cheap point scoring during the campaign.

Life after the election

Should the Labor party lose the election there will be major changes to the NBN as an Abbott government attempts to reduce the scope of the project and install a new executive regime at NBN Co.

Chris Coughlan of communications consultancy firm Telsyte says, “Any significant change in policy, such as the use of Fibre to the Node (FttN) would result in up to a four year delay due to review processes, revised legislation drafting and implementation, and renegotiation of the Telstra and Optus NBN contracts.”

A four year delay to a project that is already running late would be a blow to many Australian businesses and communities. So there is a lot at stake here and NBN Co needs to clearly demonstrate that it can deliver the project on time and within budget.

A Labor victory brings its own complexities. If the Gillard government is able to orchestrate a win - and it could happen - expenditure is going to come under pressure as mining revenues expected in last year’s budget fail to materialise. The NBN is going to be one of many areas that will come under federal budget pressures.

At a state level, the attempt by the NSW Government to overcharge for electricity pole access is an early harbinger of many more attempts by state and local governments to wring much needed revenue out of NBN Co.

Even without the distractions of various governments, 2013 is going to be the year that the NBN starts to deliver on its promises. For the management of NBN Co, their reputations will be built or lost depending on whether the project meets its targets.

[Super Nova]

NBN Co counts as ''passed'' premises where cable has been laid in the street but a house is yet to be connected.

According to figures released by NBN Co, the company expects to pass more than 50,000 premises next month. NBN Co predicts a rapid acceleration of the rollout, from close to 100,000 premises in March to about 150,000 in April.

In May, the company hopes to pass more than 200,000 premises, reaching 280,000 in the final month of the financial year.

So they misrepresent the progress and claim number of properties passed... this doesn't equal connected. What a farse.

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull was quick to dismiss NBN Co's definition of ''premises completed or under construction''.

''Construction begins according to the NBN Co without anyone even putting a crowbar into the ground. It begins 'when NBN Co issues contract instructions to its contractors for a Fibre Service Access Module', so essentially at a planning stage,'' he said on his website.

Playing with definition to misrepresent.... classic....

In August The Age reported that the cost of the nation's biggest infrastructure project had blown out by $2.9 billion over the next 10 years with the deadline pushed back by six months.

The blow outs haven't even started yet... watch... hold onto you taxes.... they are going to be vapourised by NBN.

At the time, Mr Quigley and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said construction costs would rise 3.9 per cent to $37.4 billion and the deadline for rolling out the high-speed internet connection to Australian homes had been pushed back to June 2021.

Is that all... get real.

Higher labour costs, longer network distances and future upgrades to wireless and satellite broadband equipment have pushed up the cost. Operating expenses - primarily staff costs - have jumped from $3.7 billion to $7.8 billion, while savings have been made in other areas.

Is that all...

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/governm ... z2JMAJkgH3

[Super Nova]

NBN basket case.

Looks like the libs have the right idea here.

The Coalition will accelerate the NBN roll out and continue to ''over-build'' it as planned by the federal government while promising to do a ''full cost-benefit'' analysis, says Malcolm Turnbull.

Speaking to a gathering of technology journalists on Queensland's Sunshine Coast on Tuesday, the opposition communications spokesman extolled the benefits of broadband to the economy but continued to criticise the government's decision to roll out fibre-to-the-premises where he insisted alternative and cheaper technologies might suffice.


This is the problem, the NBN is just happening too slowly.
Malcolm Turnbull
He said a Coalition government would perform a cost-benefit analysis to determine the best technologies to use in the deployment of ubiquitous broadband.

The chairman of NBN Co, Harrison Young, has previously said the Coalition's preferred ''mix of technologies'' plan could increase the long-term costs and fail to deliver key policy targets.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/governm ... z2LLrMQKqK

[Neferti]

I wonder whether Monk has NBN at his place yet. He posted a while back that he saw "workers" rolling out cable in his street .... or something. Once Monk gets the NBN then I presume that his Twitterblog will attract a lot more people? Or will they just disappear faster?

[Super Nova]

I wonder whether Monk has NBN at his place yet. He posted a while back that he saw "workers" rolling out cable in his street .... or something. Once Monk gets the NBN then I presume that his Twitterblog will attract a lot more people? Or will they just disappear faster?

The funny thing is that once he gets NBN to his door he will notice no difference unless he is using 2 cans and a string now.

Waste waste waste.... contracts that will cost too much to change committing future governments to this grand scheme.

I look forward to seeing all you PAers in Aus post so much faster here once NBN is in so I can remotely see the value it has delivered.

[Neferti]

The funny thing is that once he gets NBN to his door he will notice no difference unless he is using 2 cans and a string now.

Waste waste waste.... contracts that will cost too much to change committing future governments to this grand scheme.

I look forward to seeing all you PAers in Aus post so much faster here once NBN is in so I can remotely see the value it has delivered.

These days you either download games or play them online and the people I know who do that have no problems with their current ADSL2+ connection. Same people download porn and don't have a problem with that either, I presume.

As far as using the NBN for your GP/Specialist to give a diagnosis online, can't see that happening. Last time I saw my GP he had a new little gadget (slightly larger than a remote control) to take your Cholesterol level with (pricking a finger to get a spot of blood) and he farted around for 10 minutes or so, even referring to the 200 page Manual (in 20 different languages) and still couldn't get it to work. I was in fits laughing at him. He ended up printing off a proper sheet to take to the local Pathology Dept. Geeze. His excuse was that his Nurse usually uses the gadget and she was away. He can at least print stuff off his computer, so that's an improvement, since it is printed and not in Doctor scribble. Can't see him being technical enough to diagnose your ills over the Net, and doubt that this particular GP would want to ... he is one of those doctors I call pro-active .... orders blood tests before writing out a prescription if you present with new symptoms. The type of GP I like.

[Super Nova]

With telecommuting in question and increases in mobile performance.... NBN looks more like a waste of money as I predicted.

1) Telecommuting
Yahoo's head of human resources Jackie Reses sent out a memo on Friday telling remote staff they must be working in the office by June and if they had an issue they could quit.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/busines ... z2LtT4otfG

2) Superfast phones
Huawei, a Chinese company that recently became the world's third-largest maker of smartphones, calls its new flagship product "the fastest smartphone in the world" and wants to use it to expand global awareness of its brand.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/m ... z2LtWIupgv

[Neferti]

I want to hear what Aussie, Skippy, Monk and Mantra say about this ALP expense and how wonderful and cheap they think it will be.

Monk has already said that "they" are about to start digging up his street. I saw this happen, way back with the natural Gas installation. It is IN the street but to get it from the curb to the house is many thousands of dollars ..... ditto with NBN ..... have you got LOTS of cash lying around doing nothing, Monk?

[Aussie]

I want to hear what Aussie, Skippy, Monk and Mantra say about this ALP expense and how wonderful and cheap they think it will be.

Monk has already said that "they" are about to start digging up his street. I saw this happen, way back with the natural Gas installation. It is IN the street but to get it from the curb to the house is many thousands of dollars ..... ditto with NBN ..... have you got LOTS of cash lying around doing nothing, Monk?

It would not matter, in your case, Naffy, what any of us said. Do you understand there is a difference between 'node,' and 'home?'

[Super Nova]

Look at this argument. The bewilderment of what the f..k is this much bandwidth can be used for is is this article. It can be apllied to NBN.

In my mind it raises two issues:

1. NBN is a waste of money in providing universal increased bandwidth that has not purpose.
2. Is the approach of Google making NBN obsolete before they start. Australia will have a second rate NBN because the world will have moved on before they finish rolling it out.

Either way... bad bet.

Google Fibre is totally awesome, but it's also completely unnecessary.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/d ... z2NspsS3LY