One of the impacts of the NBN broadband strategy (previous discussion here and follow the links from there) is that the Telstra infrastructure is replaced with the NBN infrastructure. The Coalition’s model saw future infrastructure as contestable, with more than one player competing.
A number of firms would have a stake in this outcome, so the relevant commercial interests would be expected to back it. Now they have ganged up under the moniker of The Alliance for Affordable Broadband and issued a manifesto for a $3 billion plan.
In summary, what they are proposing is fibre to schools, hospitals and businesses, 4G wireless to 98% of the population and satellite form the rest.
Computerworld are not altogether impressed and have asked 20 questions.
The Business Spectator says we should have a proper debate.
More information for the three amigos to ponder.
Latency,latency,latency.
98% on 4G? Line of sight? A tower every 2 km then? Shifting the cost of utilisation to the individual consumer with the need to hang an antenna on your building?
Redundancy of the tower transmitter within what 7 or 8 years? Seems to me this proposal is about beefed up mobile phone access far more than useful access for anything else.
Then there’s who part of the proposal:
Small keen startups or struggling mid size – nothing wrong with their concern that the wireless network is no longer the centrestone of the telecommunication tiara but this proposal is not anything other than of use to mobile phone service providers.
Latency,latency,latency. Flash crash. Latency.
Bernice, you are exactly on the money.
Wireless is total bullshit. Like you say towers every 2 km and an absolutely massive power bill to run them. Slow as a wet week and huge latency no-where to go in terms of speed.
One can understand certain cosseted academics not understanding the implications of really fast broadband, but the rest of us do.
Huggy
There’s a lot of telcos who do still support the original NBN proposal. A bit naughty of the new people to call their proposal NBNv3 which will add to the confusion.
Brian – I think that its important to note that they’re not saying that 98% will only have wireless access – under a different point they also say – FTTP or FTTN where its justifiable under commercial returns or social equity. So I guess that would mean many city areas plus marginal electorates
The other thing to note is that the difference here we’re talking about is mostly about the last mile. They’ll have to roll out the core of the fibre network to support their wireless network
I don’t think this is really fair. There’s a lot of people out there who work-on-the-move or travel for work a lot that would gain from better wireless coverage for their portable devices (everything from phones to laptops).
Chris, I’d agree that portable device wireless access is important but in terms of new forms of economic engagement and emerging technologies, it’s still about mainframe, optic fibre and grunt. Apps, programs, websites aren’t developed on PDAs, smartphones, netbooks, tablets- but for them. Grunt. Need grunt, want grunt. The need to gain high speed access to cloud computing will burgeon – wireless cannot provide anything like what we will need to be part of that. And its not about faster youtube downloads – its going to increasingly be about to access software. Without real time access, you’re delivering your economy to irrelevant second tier territory.
Bernice, you are exactly spot on again.
The moment we have really fat broadband the access to really powerful software will explode as will the power and variety of same.
Our biggest cost at the moment is for CAD, FEM and other high end applications that we actually buy and then use for about 10% of our time. We pay out about many thousands of dollars pa for stuff that is essential, some of which we use a lot and some of which we use only occasionally.
A model where we could access all sorts of really powerful software tools only when we need them would massively increase our productivity and reduce our costs.
Also there would be a powerful incentive for software developers to produce huge suites of integrated programs that could be accessed by any-one.
Put on the 3D glasses and walk, fly or drive through department stores, museums; access vast visual data bases. There is no limit. Wireless? they are joking.
I know why the cosseted academics cringe in fear of real broadband, they know that it will be all over for the halls and cloisters; the virtual bogan masses will take over. Ha ha ha.
Huggy
There are 3 separate issues in the NBN debate which are easily confused.
The first is technological: is fibre better than wireless, etc.
The second is commercial: should NBN be provided by a regulated monopoly or by infrastructure-based competition etc
The third is distributional: should the same service be delivered to everyone? Should charges be cost-reflective or be equalised?
Labour’s proposal is (respectively): fibre, regulated monopoly, equality. The coalition model and this new alliance model is (from what I can see): unclear, unclear, unclear.
But maybe I am missing something.
have these mid-size telcos been investing lots in wireless over the last 5 years to avoid competing directly with Telstra’s fixed-line broadband, and see the NBN making their investments worthless?
Or is it purely an attempt to destabilize negotiations? It’s not as if the NBN was announced yesterday – they’ve had plenty of time to suggest alternatives.
There will be an ongoing need for wireless based links to mobiles and computers. What the minnows is talking about is an add-on, not an alternative.
Dave@6
But isn’t that really the point? The ALP believes it knows the answers (although it has provided no basic cost/benefit analysis to explain the reason for its belief) and wants to lock the countyrt into those answers at a cost of $43 billion which we all know will almost certainly be much more.
Frankly, I prefer lack of clarity if the corollary is leaving room for manoevre as technology and market preferenbces change.
The record of Governments in picking winners is dismal, and this is one of the most expensive attempted picks on record.
I know why the cosseted academics cringe in fear of real broadband, they know that it will be all over for the halls and cloisters; the virtual bogan masses will take over. Ha ha ha.
Huggybunny: I can’t see much opposition to the NBN from academics – cosseted or otherwise. Some academics may not use the Internet, but I’ve never heard a principled objection to faster broadband speeds. When they’re trying to research, download PDF or PSes, or communicate with other academics, quicker is better.
DAOOSG,
It’s not about the Academics use of the Internet its about the expansion of the virtual university (see the Indian model)http://www.ptuonline.com/
Gone will be the days of poncing,pronouncing and pontificating to privileged pupils; it will be the $75:00 degree for students you never meet in real life.
The present service is adequate for most research but not for interactive lectures to thousands of on-line students.
Oh I see a brave new world. Yippee
Huggy
Still see some of those microwave (line-of-sight) towers around, that were the communication bees kness in the 60s-70s. Are they used for anything now??
Wozza,
I agree with you. Labour has a clear policy, but an unclear justification for that policy.
The coalition and the Alliance simply have unclear policies.
I made the point about the “three issues” to provide a framework for unpicking the proposals. For example, the Labour party appears to believe that the best way to have a regulated monopoly is for the government to build the network itself, and the best way to achieve equality is to have a single technology serving everybody. I’m not sure that either belief is true.
The ALP believes it knows the answers (although it has provided no basic cost/benefit analysis to explain the reason for its belief) and wants to lock the countyrt into those answers at a cost of $43 billion which we all know will almost certainly be much more.
What? the $43 bn was a worst case scenario, and we all in fact know that it will cost LESS.
Anyway, since you accept Dave’s basic analysis, lets go through it and see why Labor have chosen the way they have:
1. Is fibre better than wireless? Every expert and the laws of physics all say yes.
2. (not commercial Dave, but economic) Is a well-regulated monopoly best? Given the past fifteen years experience in Australia, the answer must surely be a resounding yes.
3. Equity/distribution: I disagree with Dave, I think Libs are as clear as Labor here, there’s little difference, they are both proposing to support uneconomic bits of regional Australia, just as we have done since time immemorial, and as many countries have done. Speaking as a regional Australian, I can’t complain, but I don’t see any distinction between the two proposals here. Though I would say, stringing wireless towers across the country wouldn’t please me.
Hmm, sounds like we have 2 infrastructure problems that fit under the one banner, where we have two systems that are inadequate for the requirements of the user but are not economically viable to upgrade.
Which probably means a coherent broadband initiative by the government which prioritises on the basis of need rather then economics might do the job. In that sense the ALP is closer but not there, with the Libs just having trouble getting over the costs versus the benefits.
Probably investments in both of the tabled policies on both sides will do it, with a little scaling back here and there, but I’ll leave it to those with a better grasp of both the technology and the economics of a rollout.
Wozza @ 9, as wilful says, $43bn was the worst case scenario, the upper bound of $38-43bn. The public funding cost limit as best I can make out was $26bn. If you consider that over 20 years, as you should, or even over 8, it’s not huge. Then as Huggy said you have to consider operating costs.
Wilful, a well regulated monopoly is the same sort of concept as a benign dictatorship.
The main problem the communications sector has currently is that there is still a large hangover from the Telstra monopoly. I find it hard to conclude that the lesson from this is that we just need a different monopoly. And you entirely ignore in supposedly addressing “economic” issues consumer preferences, let alone the possibility that they might change and that a solution flexible enough to accommodate such change might be necessary.
What people want has never of course figured highly in the Left’s mindset, since the Left knows better what they should want and imposing that is clearly the morally better course of action.
As for the technology argument, I take it you are convinced that the laws of physics preclude any technological advances beyond the current proposal which might provide a better way in , say, a decade, than $43 billion (and how you work out it will be less is beyond me; when did you last see a major Government infrastructure project delivered under budget?) of cost-sunk one-type infrastructure. And that is not an argument for doing nothing for a decade; it is an argument against all eggs in one basket.
And for uthe mpteenth time on various threads, let me repeat that this is a damn silly argument that neither of us should bother with until the Government provides a cost-benefit analysis that can inform it. It won’t of course, because it clearly doesn’t have one. This does not deter the true believers, but it should deter the even slightly open-minded.
I see. And just who is going to supply the forgotten 2% with all this miraculous satellite coverage …. will it be available only to those with an income of two million dollars or more per annum …. and will it happen before or after the turn of the century?
Don’t cook your carrier pigeons just yet ….
Charlie @12 the crows of Australia say thank you.
Actually I think they were sold off along with the much mourned CDMA equipment. Imagine that, a network that allowed you to make calls…. sigh.
Wilful, a well regulated monopoly is the same sort of concept as a benign dictatorship.
I’m sorry, that sort of neo-liberal pseudo-economic dogma really doesn’t fly with reality. Never has, but it’s been thrown into stark relief recently. Standard economic theory accepts natural monopolies where they occur.
What people want has never of course figured highly in the Left’s mindset, since the Left knows better what they should want and imposing that is clearly the morally better course of action.
This capitalisation of the word left is amusing. A bit childish though. And I don’t identify as left, capitalised or no.
We democratically elect governments based on their policies. You could call it ‘imposing’ if you wish, but it’s no more imposing than public health, compulsory education, road tolls, etc etc etc.
I take it you are convinced that the laws of physics preclude any technological advances beyond the current proposal which might provide a better way in , say, a decade, than $43 billion
Far more qualified, more expert minds than me (and you, I am sure) have very clearly asserted that fibre is the technology to back, and that wireless has inherent limitations that cannot be gone around. It makes sense to me, there is limited bandwidth, and a host of competing uses.
(and how you work out it will be less is beyond me; when did you last see a major Government infrastructure project delivered under budget?)
Here. Here. Here.
(Maybe it’s just a Victorian thing).
not an argument for doing nothing for a decade; it is an argument against all eggs in one basket.
Sure sounds like one, in effect.
And for the umpteenth time on various threads, let me repeat that this is a damn silly argument that neither of us should bother with until the Government provides a cost-benefit analysis that can inform it. It won’t of course, because it clearly doesn’t have one. This does not deter the true believers, but it should deter the even slightly open-minded.
Oh I do agree (apart from the silliness about “true believers”). The only problems are (and I don’t think they should be enough to stop this being released), cost-benefit analyses are quite limited, many of the benefits are not yet in existence, are speculative but genuine, and the currently retarded, backwards, adversarial and partisan media that Australia is beset with wouldn’t allow a fair discussion of the merits or otherwise of some quantitative numbers.
Graham bell, well actually NBN Co. say that the last few percent will be on subsidised satellite services.
My folks got in on OPEL – it is really pretty awful, huge latency, hard to distinguish from dial up.
I will be reliant on 3G in six months. Not looking forward to it.
@18, yes, satellite broadband is very, very expensive. You need to be a millionaire to pay for it.
Bernice @19, did you like cdma? I loathed it and much prefer digital.
Jane, I live in gully / gorge country. CDMA gave us and emergency services a network that worked – we now dread every bushfire season as RFS, Police, etc etc lumber about unable to communicate with each other, at times with their own area base, and less often with HQ in Sydney.
It’s not just not possible for 3G or Next G networks to work on our topography. Apparently RFS has similiar issues in the Blue Mts + Illawarra.
Wozza, please explain how the government is to conduct a rigorous cost-benefit analysis on a project which will transform the delivery of communication in ways we are only loosely able to imagine.
Put another way, of what utility would a CBA of the Internet have been in 1990?
Wozza, the laws of physics say that directing information via light down a pipe is orders of magnitude faster and less energy intensive than spreading the same information all over the place with a radio wave.
There is constant improvement of fibre optics including coding the information into the dark spaces, basic fibres will last for a very long time.
Wireless consumes a lot of energy, is intrinsically slow compared with fibre optics and definitely has no-where to go in terms of basic physics.
Huggy
Wozza @ 17:
There, I’ve fixed that for you.
huggybunny, it’s a laser versus a lightbulb.
There’s only three companies on that list of any note: PIPE, AAPT and EFTel.
PIPE(TPG)’s interstate fibre backhaul has been awesome in providing the only real competitive alternative to Telstra/Optus. The iiNets and Internodes etc would be nowhere without them, and we’d all be paying a lot more for our broadband in 2010.
Unfortunately, they’ll never be capable of providing the level of service the NBN seeks to (else what was to stop them bidding for NBN 1.0?), and so are fairly enough pissed their domestic fibre will become superfluous in the next 10 years. At the same time, their heavy investment in international submarine fibre should only benefit from the NBN.
AAPT have been viciously and outspokenly against the NBN from day one…one of the very few(?) telcos that wants Telstra to remain vertically integrated. EFTel? Be surprised if they’re not heavily reliant on/bought into PIPE too.
The rest are either fixed wireless startups, who shouldn’t see the NBN as any kind of threat as it’s only complimentary to their business, but I’m sure would love to see major fixed wireless subsidies from the Government…Vocus, a recent startup on the back of direct investment from PIPE, and….come off it…W(ho)TF are HALEnet?? At least their MD has the lack of temerity to call himself an ‘MD’, and not a ‘CEO’…
Self-interest, self-interest, self-interest. And I guess you can’t blame them for trying.
But as Chris noted – cheeky to call it NBNv3, when it’s not even a national wireless network.
The third link is the synchrotron. I was under the impression that that was a year late and $50 million over budget.
If you’re suggesting that Victoria does it better you’d have to explain the Spencer St redevelopment ($1 billion for a wavy roof!) and Myki.
I’m not saying the private sector is any better mind you – pretty much any large project risks turning into a giant financial La Brea tar pit.
Josh
There have been a squillion threads about the NBN and cost/benefit analysis. Try this one, especially the last third or so of it, where Labor Outsider comprehensively whupped the asses of the innumerate and the “oh, cost-benefit is just something for boring old accountants and we true visionaries should rise above it” brigade.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/06/22/the-telstra-nbnco-deal/
Well there you go Stephen, your impressions were wrong, the Synchrotron was on time and budget. Glad I could help. Wozza challenged me to find ANY public projects that were on time or budget. It would be easy to find examples from both the public or private sphere of projects that weren’t either of these things, but that wasn’t the point.
No I can’t explain Myki either. It’s the reason Brumby has lost my vote.
Wozza, I presume you refer to his coments at 135 and 143.
In neither of them does he answer my question (fair enough, not clear that it was put in that thread).
I am very aware of what CBA is, and what it can and can’t do. I agree with LO about it potential utility but also note that it’s only useful when you can reliably put a price on the benefits and when you can agree on the appropriate discount rate for long-term benefits. That why, for example, CBA is generally considered of limited use for climate change mitigation and adaptation (just look at the forests of papers for and against Stern’s calculations on that point).
My arse feels decidely un-whipped.
From 2001 to 2003 the budget increased from $157M ($100M gov) to $206M ($157 gov).
http://download.audit.vic.gov.au/files/psa_may1204_report.pdf#65
Although the report says that there were “no cost over-runs” at that point. I think, if you took a less charitable view, when someone says they’re going to build something for $157M and it comes out at $206M that’s not on budget (not too bad though).
Back on topic, I’ve gone from thinking the NBN was a bit of a waste to being excited about the possibilities of 1GB speeds. It could be one of those things where quantity has a quality of its own.
Bernice, I live in the sticks, but with a distinct shortage of hills and gullies, so my experience is different from yours.
Business Spectator: Testing Turnbull’s NBN mettle
“AAPT itself has 24 strands of fibre running along the eastern seaboard – but uses only two because of the lack of demand. It has written off $900 million of the $1 billion it invested in laying that fibre.”
Ok, AAPT’s opposition makes more sense now. They couldn’t sell it the first time around, and now it’s completely worthless. They’re much worse off than Pipe.
It’s a terrible article. Bartholomeusz grossly contradicts himself in the very next paragraph:
“Why duplicate/strand/make redundant/devalue existing infrastructure that is capable of delivering profitable and fast-enough services if there is the demand for them?”
3 paragraphs later:
“Most of the cost of the NBN will be in bringing the network close to premises and then connecting them. In that sense – where the bulk of the money is spent – it will be mainly a consumer network.”
Indeed – which means Telstra’s existing backhaul along the eastern seaboard is more than adequate for NBNCo, and that’s not where the money is being spent. Why pay for or subsidise duplicate/redundant – let alone grossly devalued/unprofitable infrastructure?
To get an instant feel for these guys, this is really worth watching: KGB TV: Paul Broad (AAPT CEO)
“We [Powertel/AAPT] were probably the last one to attempt to build fibre to the most profitable parts of the Australian market. Not even thinking about rural or the outer metro areas. We attempted and built fibre to the most profitable parts. We couldn’t make it work”.
Does Paul Broad have the faintest clue what he’s saying? It’s no surprise at all he’s either never read the McKinsey/KPMG report, or it’s completely beyond his understanding.