yeah well i called the NBN company and asked them if the fixed wireless drops out during storms and and confirmed that they definately do, especially if you are on the distance extremity of the tower, we get loads of lighting strikes around our area......my brother has sat and his drops always and he whinges constantly about how shit it is......[/quote]

And who is his provider for satellite?

NBN also told me that my connection was going to be ready during the trial period and it took them 18 months, so don't believe everything they say.

99% of their call centre employees know jack shit about what they're installing.

If you really want to get decent information go to the Whirpool forums.

-PB

10Gbps over copper has a max range of like 15m lol.

-PB

And....

I mean thanks for the share lol but there's nothing in the presentation that i didnt known already.

Why on earth should govt be in the "control over telecommunications infrastructure" game to begin with? FFS there was a good reason why telstra was sold off. Telcos are not a govt department...

The only way to maybe make FTTH viable would have been to let Huawei do it with foreign labour...

Because it wasn't the sale of Telstra as a telco/ISP that was the problem, it was the sale of all of the Telecom exchanges and hard copper lines ffs.

Telcos != physical infrastructure.

Australia should be following the model of Europe whereby Internet is classed as a utility no different to power, water or sewerage.

As for Huawei and Chinese slave labour, yeah that would go down real well with the Coalitions plans for Visas.

No thank you.

FTTN is not the solution, its only a stop gap for FTTH.

This as noted, is all under the provisor that Telstra don't hold the Government to ransom on buying back their shit old copper services.

-PB

You're talking about the same Europe where they are still utilising copper as part of their network...kinda selective citing of the model...

Internet is a little different to water, sewerage or power. Telco infrastructure and retail is best left to a market with perhaps some subsidy and investment in dollar terms as the coalition policy will still deliver. But not in ownership or ongoing...the govt should not be involved in anything the private sector can deliver. With the exception of providing some funding, which is different entirely to ownership. NBN will be sold off either way.

And yeah unfortunately no major party has the gonads to go for Migrant Labour despite it making perfect sense for nation building project, especially if u are offering a place in the nation they are helping to build. Wouldnt be the first time ...this country is built on Migration...


Edited by blacka: 19/4/2013 05:57:05 PM

There is no money to be saved by the coalition plan.

The NBN build is off-budget because it will generate a return to the government.

Secondly, the money being spent on the NBN itself, even if you don't consider the return it makes, if you divide that by the say, 15 years the NBN will be in place for, the money spent per year is minuscule compared to other elements in the budget such as defence, welfare, roads and health.

If people want the NBN they will buy services over the NBN and that is the equivalent of 'paying 5k if they think it is worth it' over the course of the lifetime of the network.

In fact, it is quite likely there is going to be a significant cost to the budget, because Telstra will not sit back and allow the Coalition to steal it's copper network (note: the last mile copper is NOT owned by the Government, it is owned by the fully private company Telstra) for free. The NBN side stepped this by paying Telstra (and Optus) sums of money to rent the ducts and transfer customers over, but NBN does not own the copper itself, which NBN needs to own if they were ordered to switch to a FTTN build.

Their plan not only fails to take into account the cost of buying the copper from Telstra, but also the huge, 700 million to 1 billion a year in maintenance that will continue to plague the copper network.

Edited by macktheknife: 19/4/2013 06:45:31 PM

The Howard Government was the most profligate Government in our history.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/hey-big-spender-howard-the-king-of-the-loose-purse-strings-20130110-2cj32.html

Not only did he waste the mining boom, he also instituted a huge number of middle class welfare programs that are costing this country billions of dollars in vote grabbing entitlements that middle class people do not need, and helped fund the spending spree by selling billions of dollars in Government assets.

But of course, people like you live in a world where only private corporations have any value, a world of bailouts, obscene CEO salaries and a corrupt banking industry, a nation where huge multi-nationals are paid multi-millions in 'subsidies' but are still allowed to privatise their profits while any losses are socialised for the taxpayer to fund. No wonder there is such a backlash against the private sector and the neo-conservative 'free market' capitalists.

Just because something is 'off budget' there is still money being saved...the difference between the two is substantial and to assume the labor network will be worth that much more than the coalition version...enough to cover the difference...is debatable.

And thats not even getting into the issue of cost overruns which are always going to be more affected in the 'last mile' component of the labor plan.

The NBN makes assumptions about how many would want that extra bit that would cost the 5k. And chances are those estimates will be generous to say the least, because after all they have an interest in making the case for the FTTH model. But hey under the coalition plan it is user pays so why not let the market decide and then we'll truly know. Of course that may go against the generous projections of how many people would actually make use of the extra capability of full fibre.

Telstra's hand in this has been a little over exaggerated in terms of the likelihood of them playing hard ball. Thats a big assumption that will only play out over time. The copper network was going to be junked so to presume that Telstra will value it that highly is once again debatable. They'll deal with whomever is in govt post election, all before that is conjecture.

You've got no idea what my views are ...on that last paragraph in particular .... :lol:

I have a lot more of an idea about the banking industry and the structural issues surrounding currencies and lending than u most likely ffs! Im very much against bank bailouts and the attached moral hazard. "People like me"....rofl...

You're trying to group me in with the Libs on every issue just because i support them for having a low debt mindset and keeping our government closer to within its means than Labor would. I dont support either party on most of these issues, but the Libs are the classic lesser of two evils on economics.

The attempt to group neo conservatives with free market capitalists is also VERY misguided. Most neocons are crony capitalists. Seriously most people do not even know what real capitalism is.

And yeah in a way i agree with u on middle class welfare although it does in a sense represent a tax cut of sorts as the 'welfare' belonged to these middle class taxpayers to begin with. But its based often on social policy as its given to breeders over others. I take issue with that. :p

Lol. The highest speed the NBN offers now is the one most taken up. 100/40 is at just under 40% of the total takeup. There are as much people on the highest speed as are on the lowest speed. :lol:

And what part of Europe are you referring too? My friend has lived in Czech Republic and Belgium and travels regularly to England and back and every little country shack town he has stayed at has 100+mbps FTTH.

As for private sector delivering such infrastructure, how has that gone so far with Telstra and their monopoly? :roll:

Why should the Government not have a controlling share in such a service? Do they not have the power over other utilities (albeit at a State/Local level)?

And yes NBN will be privatized one day, that was always the plan, but so was the Government having a controlling stake in it so that Telstra 2.0 doesn't happen.

-PB

But how many actually make real use of it? And how many of them would do just as well on the speeds on the coalition alternative? Are they paying the true cost of it? Its heavily subsidised the extent to which is not even known yet and wont be until the full rollout is done.

They take the higher speed as it is there and they dont have to pay the real cost of it. The real cost being the difference between the two schemes, overall.

If they were having to pay for it, less would. For most users it is excessive for what they need, even if they are on the higher speed.

And PB...there are countries still using fibre with copper in Europe which is where the coalition has modelled its plan on. You can cherry pick locations that have full fibre and do not. There are examples of both obviously.


Edited by blacka: 19/4/2013 08:38:19 PM

Also Blacka do some research on what other countries that have taken up FTTN are doing; they're upgrading or already have upgraded to FTTH.

And yes, they had FTTN too, all of 10+ years ago.

We are behind the times in so many ways.

I understand that you are a Coalition Patriot, but their plan is bad and a waste and even trying to defend it is pure lunacy.

They can be right on whatever other policies they may introduce, but FTTH will be a failure.

-PB

The cost of rolling out full fibre here is higher than in Europe isnt it, or should that not be a factor? And thats just based on the estimated cost. The coalition have a good point on the likely vs actual cost of the thing based on the experience so far. And im not a 'coalition patriot' more a case of lesser of two evils for me.

Get the Chinese out here to do it...should have been the plan from the start. Cheaper and quicker, switch our migration program across to cover the workers for a year or two. If the economic impact of the thing is whats claimed, the loss of employment from it wont be an issue.

Ummm no it doesn't.......it has very short distances, but the copper technology is improving, they have copper performing well above 10gbts however distance is a real issue.....

i didn't mention copper being able to run 10gbts as an alternative to FTTH in the context of the NBN.....

just explaining that copper is not some slow speed 50 year old archaic solution, it's been around for 100 years for a very good reason, and if you look at the rise of Fibre you will see that over the past 5 years the termination and construction of the new generation fibres has been all over the place, from OM1 to OM2 to OM3 fibre to singlemode,multimode,blown fibre,plastic fibre,ST,SC,LC connectors to kleeve and polish to fusion to crimp and pigtails...so like someone said before if they implement the wrong physical layer it may no perform as well as expected.......there are pro's and con's all over the shop and both sides of the divide have vested interests and biased opinions...........i wonder what is being done to protect fibre in high frost/ice/snow area's???

QUESTION: who installed and paid for the 20mgbts cable network that is currently serving a large % of the population?????

Sorry bat but now you're just throwing terms out there and showing the evolution of fibre technologies, not copper.

There is nothing on the horizon to suggest that copper will be able to support such a bandwidth over any reasonable distances.

As for "100 years for a very good reason", that is just a silly statement to begin with.

We have only been utilizing copper networks to push decent amounts of data for the better part of 20 years now, if that.

Copper phone networks like the 50 year old lines that I described before were never designed (nor did designers ever know) that something like the Internet was going to be run on them.

If anything, technologies like Ubiquiti's AirFibre will be possible solutions once they remove the factors of small load interference.

I'm not trying to fight the whole Copper vs Fibre fight with you Batfink, merely trying to make people realise that FTTH is not the viable solution.

It could of been made by any political party, Labour or Coalition or even the Greens, doesn't matter who suggested it, it's not the way forward.

I also suggest people spend time reading things like this to get acquainted with how things are going.

-PB

That dastardly private sector? :-k

Maybe its the cost of labour here that makes it unfeasible to do on a wider scale now. Only gubbiment can afford to meet our over inflated wage costs here for large projects it seems. Unionism more generally prices this country out of a lot of private sector driven investment.


Edited by blacka: 20/4/2013 08:42:23 AM

Well and truly.

I don't know what it's like down south, but up North it literally takes MONTHS to get a small section of road redone.

And at a cost of millions of millions of dollars.

Most of which is probably the outsourced cost of traffic control etc.

-PB

Ofc but I am still waiting to see who the Coalition used to get such information to make recommendations/policies on.

Sure as shit wasn't Turnbull.

Reason I ask is because I am also yet to see any ISP, Telco Operator (other then Telstra ofc) or any other reliable person of the industry come forward in support of FTTN.

-PB

Drift to socialism...when its only gubbiment that can meet the labour and regulatory burden...we are really in a bad state in Oz when u analyse public to private sector employment.

Wont end well if the public coffers dry up for whatever reason...a rude shock in store imo once folks realise how limp the private economy here is...maybe foreign capital will save us, they do own a lot of our natural assets. But yeah it'd have to be under a very different IR framework.

don't you mean FTTN????

Da.

-PB

thought so.....

we there is little doubt that FTTH is a preferred solution.......however to me i don't see it's the government job to deliver the entire package at tax payers expense....

If the Private Sector could deliver FTTH or even FTTN, they would have done it.

They refused.

The stagnant Howard era of communications infrastructure is why the FTTH NBN has been created. The only thing that was done was the ridiculous duplication of the Telstra and Optus HFC networks, until both realised they were going to lose money on it, and they both stopped their roll-outs.

If they weren't 'making use of it' then why would that take it? They had the option of clear speed tiers and have chosen to take up the best tier. These high speed takeup rates are far in excess of what the projected takeup was in the NBN corporate plan, and if they continue and extend to the 250, 500 and 1000 speeds, it will hasten the drop of wholesale rates.

The coalition alternative is garbage, and despite Turnbull talking about how his plan will do xyz speed next year, and xyz speed in 2019 and so on, he can't guarantee anything. He can attempt to guarantee a minimum or a maximum, but the facts are that the speeds are heavily contingent on how far the person is away from the node, and the state of the copper wiring between the node and the home.

And don't forget, his FTTN plan will never do 100.

Even with the vectoring technology, and vectoring is still subject to massive fluctuations in speed depending on distance from the node, quality of the copper and if the lunchbox plastic bag repairs that many telstra copper connections were fixed with can keep the rain out, and often require bonded pairs that don't exist in the Australian network.

And it will never do 1000.

It will never do 10000.

It will never upload anywhere near as fast as a FTTH build will.

The real cost isn't the difference between schemes, it's the cost of paying for the FTTH through their monthly fees. Which they are doing.

For most users it is excessive.

But that's the good thing about the NBN. If you think it's excessive, don't buy it. It will provide a huge range of speeds that range from ultra high quality business level SLA point to point connections, down to Joe Farmer in the outback on the Satellite, to 'family of 4' with a 100 speed shared between a dozen devices, or a home office using 250/100.

Then in 5 years when it's not excessive, the NBN will be there. It will be there in 10 years.

It will be there in 20. 30. 40. 50 years. Perhaps even longer.

And the final nail in the coalition coffin, is that we have to go to FTTP eventually anyway. Turnbull recently said his plan could cost as much as the NBN FTTP build anyway!

I get everything both u and PB are saying about the advantages of full fibre and agree, but like batfink i dont see its the govt role to pay for it either

Rather than just saying "the private sector had their chance" etc u have to look at the underlying reason why the private sector couldnt...and thats the cost of such a labour intensive rollout makes it unfeasible...the cost of wages and otherwise is too high here. Now this is a serious warning sign for our country when so much reliance is on govt to pay for something like this. It isnt just the size of the country that made nbn unviable for the private sector.

Also i dont know that u should be counting nails in any coffins in a broader electoral sense...the alternate nbn for the libs is not going to swing votes much at all, especially nothin close to turning around the huge gap based on polling. We will pretty well have a coalition govt come september unless the long campaign bores people into forgetting how much they dislike the current mob. So FFTN it is...

Best u can hope for is the libs bring in some foreign labour to get the full fibre option in for lower price. Would be some benefit of using it as a reason to rework the IR laws for major nation building projects. Id love to see this beyond nbn...unions and red tape are pricing Australia out of maximising its potential, especially in the current global eco climate.


Edited by blacka: 20/4/2013 07:28:03 PM

So what do you have to say about the Coalition government policy of spending $30 billion, plus whatever it costs to buy the Telstra copper ($10 to $20 billion), plus whatever the cost to maintain the copper as an ongoing concern rather than decomission it after 18 months in FTTH areas (Around a billion a year) for a massively inferior (maximums being 40 times slower in downloads, and 160 times slower in uploads) end-product?

By your logic they shouldn't do anything and the $30+$??+$?pa = ?? + Eventually replacing FTTN with FFP = $??? is an even worse plan.

This is shifting the goalposts. Instead of arguing the merits of the two plans, you are arguing the merits of over-arching economic policy on the role of Government.

Its not shifting the goalposts....in the Real World cost and who pays is a factor in any decision...if u are a labor supporter its no surprise u might need this explained ;)

Some people think govt is a magic honey pot of money which it isnt. Full fibre is obviously better but that is not the whole debate.

The coalition are in a position where they cannot unravel the whole thing as contracts are signed to too far a point. But they are utilising it to be able to upgrade the fibre backbone, sensible without going all the way.

Its a moderate and cost saving approach which the oz public will accept...this is not going to break their poll lead, count on that. They dont care about the upload speed difs that is for sure and the downloads will still be increased well past what they are used to. And importantly capacity will be greatly enhanced by effectively multiplying exchanges by 60 odd thousand with the nodes. Thats a big issue in many areas, even basic availability of adsl.

To suggest the coalition plan will cost more is ridiculous...your assumption on the sale price of copper (which was going to be junked) plus maintenance on the last mile of copper is debatable. I could also suggest that the labor plan may end up costing up to double the projections but then apparently cost is no factor in this public sector led economy. We'd be better off as a nation dealing with the issues that lead to it not being viable for the private sector to take on this role, like the Labour Market and IR.

Tony Abbott warns Gillard government over key appointments before September 14 poll

EXCLUSIVE: Steve Lewis and Jessica Marszalek
News Limited Network
April 21, 201312:00AM

Abbott says Coalition could overturn appointments

Labor's jobs for mates

TONY Abbott has warned Julia Gillard against racing to appoint Australia's next Governor-General before the election and is threatening to overturn key Labor appointments if the Coalition wins power.

In a dramatic escalation of pre-poll tensions, the Opposition leader plans to directly raise his concerns over Australia's head of state with Ms Gillard, amid fears Labor wants to lock-in a raft of "jobs for the boys"- style appointments.

An investigation by News Limited can reveal an unprecedented number of one-time Labor MPs and union officials have been appointed to key Commonwealth agencies and statutory bodies, often on lucrative salaries.

At the same time, former Labor Victorian premiers John Brumby and Steve Bracks have been touted as candidates for one of Australia's high-profile overseas posts, Consul-General in New York. The plum role comes with an annual base salary of around $250,000 and luxurious living conditions in a $25 million apartment on the East River.


A large number of former State MPs wiped out in the most recent NSW and Queensland elections have received generous appointments to Commonwealth boards, including former NSW Minister Verity Firth, ex-Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, ex-West Australian Premier Geoff Gallop and one-time Deputy Victorian Premier John Thwaites.

News Limited does not suggest that any of the appointments were made without merit.

John Howard was attacked for appointing a number of like-minded conservative warriors to Commonwealth boards during his 13 years in office but seasoned Canberra observers say the Gillard Government is "without peer".

The Opposition believes this process will accelerate but is warning that an incoming Coalition government could overturn key reappointments, including the heads of the Australian Electoral Commission and Screen Australia.

There are high-level concerns that Ms Gillard would like to anoint the next Australian head of state before voters go to the polls on September 14.

Senior Coalition sources believe the Government is sifting through a raft of names for the vice-regal position, even though Quentin Bryce's current term finishes in March 2014.

Mr Abbott yesterday issued a blunt warning to Ms Gillard as the Prime Minister was revving up Labor Pary faithful at the Victorian ALP Conference.

"The Coalition is concerned at the Gillard Government's increasing practice of making government appointments now that will not even commence until after the September 14 election," a spokesman for Mr Abbott said.

"Quite properly, appointments to government positions that will commence after the next election should be the responsibility of either a re-elected Gillard Government, or a new Coalition Government.

"We want to make it very clear that while notnecessarily reflecting on the merits of putative appointees, should it be elected, the Coalition expressly reserves its rights to reconsider any appointments that will commence after the September 14 election."

The latest stoush between the Coalition and the Government comes amid speculation the Government will shortly announce a number of important diplomatic posts, including the role of Consul General to New York.

That position has been filled in the past by Liberal figures, including former South Australian Premier John Olsen and long-time Senator and John Howard ally, Michael Baume.

Mr Brumby, who once employed Ms Gillard as his chief of staff, said the position was "not on my agenda" although he has discussed the possibility of taking the role with business colleagues.

Mr Bracks, who currently holds a number of senior board positions, has also been touted as a potential replacement to Phil Scanlan, whose term expires in September. He was unavailable for comment yesterday.

The Coalition and business have been highly critical of recent appointments to the Fair Work Commission, including former ACTU President Jeff Lawrence, who will earn up to $425,000 in remuneration as a vice president.

But other appointments have been made with little fanfare.

Just weeks ago, former NSW Minister Verity Firth was quietly appointed to the board of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care while former ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope was given a lucrative job as Administrator of Christmas and Cocos Islands a role that brings an annual salary of $226,340.

John Thwaites, Victoria's deputy premier between 1999 to 2007, has been well looked after, being appointed Chair of the National Sustainability Council last October, adding to his role as Chair of the Australian Building Codes Board.


https://sslcam.news.com.au/cam/authorise?channel=pc&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.heraldsun.com.au%2fnews%2fnational%2ftony-abbott-warns-gillard-government-over-key-appointments-before-september-14-poll%2fstory-fncynkc6-1226625047282