As flagged by Wozza, Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has announced that Brisbane will have super-fast broadband within four years.
No unsightly lines hanging from telegraph poles, no digging up streets, company i3 Asia-Pacific plans to put a fibre connection up the sewage pipes.
Brisbane is set to become the nation’s first city to have super-fast fibre optic broadband running through its sewage pipes.
Work on the fibre optic network would start in early 2011 at no cost to ratepayers, Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman announced on Thursday.
As to the NBN:
“We wish to have no disagreement with NBN (but) as the mayor of Brisbane and as a person serving one million people in this city I want them to get this infrastructure now,” Mr Newman told Brisbane reporters.
Mr Newman said he had approached NBN officials about adopting this technology, whereby fibre optic cables are fed to homes through sewerage pipes.
The NBN officials told him that they already had a deal with Telstra but that he was welcome to go ahead with his plan, he said.
“NBN has said consistently that as long as you have an open access fibre infrastructure, they won’t come in on the top of you and I hope that would be the case,” Mr Newman said.
Speeds will be up to 100 megabits per second. The cost, free to rate payers, will be a mere $600 million. I think that means into your home via a route other than through the toilet seat.
If we assume 400,000 dwellings that makes the cost $1500 per household. I’m assuming that people on 5 or 10 acres at Upper Brookfield will miss out, because I can promise you they don’t have sewage lines. Poor buggers, they don’t have mobile phone coverage either.
The cost for a consolidated urban area doesn’t seem to me particularly cheap, and I do think it will affect the economics of the national NBN roll-out, which involves a cross subsidy to the remoter areas.
I knew it wasn’t smart to do the RARAs first!
But the notion of a cross subsidy seems to have escaped Malcolm Turnbull:
Yesterday Mr Turnbull said that Mr Newman’s proposal showed there was adequate private sector interest to build such networks. ”If this is feasible, why is the Commonwealth taxpayer picking up the tab?” he said.
As has the distinction between fast and super-fast broadband:
Mr Turnbull, the opposition communications spokesman, told a conference in Melbourne on Wednesday that ”the majority of Australians already have access to fast broadband”.
And as Stephen Conroy noted:
Brisbane’s proposal had not been subject to either a cost/benefit analysis – or a detailed implementation study
If you wish you can listen to an interview with 4BC’s Michael Smith. I haven’t done it because on past experience Mike Smith makes me vomit.
The last substantive post on the NBN is here.
Shame that Google have already patented the technology: http://www.google.com/tisp/
Are you sure the google site is not having you on? I note their Q&A solution to blockages: “If you’re still experiencing problems, drop eight mints into the bowl and add a two-liter bottle of diet soda.”
But there’s enough shit on the internet already!
Thanks, I’m here all week. Try the fish.
This sheds new light on “fibre to the home”.
I could do this all day. Really. Sorry.
“Are you sure the google site is not having you on?”
Nana Levu, what do you mean? There is absolutely no sign, there, that google are taking the piss.
Will it mean that we will need a plumber the next time we have a DoS attack?
Ok, it’s all a bit thin on detail, and yes there is the matter of areas not covered by the sewerage network, but I can’t blame him for wanting to do something that might get us moving faster. Let him flesh out the idea and see where it goes, never know, might be a good thing yet.
That was Soundbite Malcolm. Serious Malcolm understands it all right (see my comment on the previous NBN thread).
This “cherry-picking” by Campbell highlights the risk of establishing pricing equity through uniform pricing across a monolithic organisation. Low-cost users can potentially opt out of the NBN and so avoid contributing to the cross-subsidy. Similar problems arose with Telstra pricing too.
It may be better to have explicit Federal subsidies, as with the existing Australian Broadband Guarantee Subsidy.
Checking the i3 website reveals that what they’re offering is a “dark fibre” network, that is, the City of Brisbane will lease the optic fibre in the drains from i3. So that $600 million cost only covers the first lease period. If that.
Which raises an interesting question – what happens to free broadband in Brisbane if the council doesn’t renew the lease?
company i3 Asia-Pacific plans to put a fibre connection up the sewage pipes.
No shit?
Jokes aside, what’s the lifespan of sewerage pipes in Brisbane? I know some parts of Sydney have cracked *water* pipes but have not been able to find anything quickly about our sewer pipes.
Gummo Trotsky, I believe it’s being offered wholesale to ISPs – I haven’t seen a suggestion that it’s “free” to rate payers, per se. Still, the proposal is awfully light on detail.
Jokes aside? Jokes aside?
‘i3 lays cable in sewer’
‘Skid marks as broadband rubber hits road’
@8 and @11,
There is no free lunch.
Campbell says it’s free to ratepayers: ie the council is not subsidising it.
That must mean that it is paid for by users: probably directly, but possibly through advertising.
It is not “free broadband”.
Nick,
Misread the “no cost to ratepayers”, I guess. Should be “no cost to council” with i3 rolling out the cable, then looking to lease it to someone or other.
I blames the insomnia.
Gummo, to be fair, the press releases etc seem to have been written by someone with no grasp of what’s actually going on.
Anyone care to bet that the rates will rise,Newman all ready I believe has problems with his cross city tunnels,when I left Brisbane about 5yrs ago rates were over 1000 then.
chookie @ 10
the brisbane sewer pipes are in a very bad state indeed. i suspect that this scheme will reveal serious cans of worms (!) if it goes along, and will cost considerably more because of that. they’re saying they are gonna run 9500km of cable through sewage pipes….thats assuming they actually know where all the pipes are
“Gummo, to be fair, the press releases etc seem to have been written by someone with no grasp of what’s actually going on”
Wow, something new!
Well, I guess that this is one way to find out. Presumably (I’m guessing), they lay the fibre by sending “pigs” trailing fibre down the pipes.
Cameras, GPS and remote communication would be needed to ensure the pigs don’t get lost. So, the entire sewerage system could be mapped out.
How exciting! A cyber-saviour doth walk amongst us. Brisbane will become the Cloacal Cable Capital of the Southern Hemisphere. Be world’s best practice in a couple of years, No Worries Newman will see to that!
Naturally, people will want to delve into the precise costing mechanism of such uber-innovation but how will we ever be able to find a way to thank Lord Mayor Campbell enough going forward?
And what garb will WHS insist upon for personel charged with repairs and maintenance of network infrastructure during and after “flood events”, as they are now called?
Simply pay defecators* at strategically placed points in the city to swallow tracking devices which will be excreted into the system!
*Not defectors, they can’t be trusted.
@21,
Now that’s a fascinating idea. I wonder if it’s been done before? (I mean the tracking. The swallowing/defecating bit sounds rather unnecessary)
I imagine it has. There is probably a blog dedicated to it somewhere.
It also suggests a process where the cable is laid in a downstream – rather than upstream – direction. I wonder if that is what is planned? In which case, since “all rivers run to the sea” mapping may not be so important.
Lots of questions come to mind:
If sewers could have been used why did TRANSACT in Canberra not use them? Ot did they actually use the sewers but not tell the sensitive people of Canberra?
Why not pilot the scheme in one area to see how it works rather than commit the whole of Brisbane? And if laying cables through the sewer is so cheap why not Brisbane City Council do it themselves rather than pay a British company to do it? Or why not offer the contract for tender rather than going along with the first company to come in with the smart idea? Is the idea of running cables through a sewer subject to patent?
Nanu – transact already had access to all of the underground power conduits. No need to use the sewerage
the cherry picking problem will prove interesting for the nbn long term unless the government legislate them a monopoly (much like aus post have over letters under a certain weight)
I’m on 15 acres at Upper Brookfield. Does that mean I’ll be getting it?
No answer required, Brian… it’s more than enough for Upper Brookfield to have got a mention on your august blog.
Telstra maintains a public phone box down at the (2 teacher) school as a vestigial remnant of their community service obligations, seeing as how we don’t have mobile phone coverage. Tradespeople, couriers and the like, who seem unable to find any residence in the absence of street lighting, paved footpaths and fancy kerbs, go into panic mode when they realise their mobiles don’t work. They drive past the public phone several times before eventually giving up and driving back to the showground where there is a mobile phone tower conveniently located in a valley, and ringing up for further instructions. Apparently people cannot recognise a public phone box any more, and when cut off from mobile reception behave like Evil Roy Slade when deprived of his gun belt.
So where is the cry of manufactured outrage from the Liberal Party and NewsCorp regarding a cost benefit analysis for Newman’s latest scheme that in the end will cost the Council and ratepayers like me millions more than direct funding?
Sorry, I forgot Newman is in the Liberal Party.
I guess it is lucky that Gough sewered the cities.
Clem Jones sewered Brisbane. He always ran on the sewers.
PinkyOz, I love a post that can be taken two ways. I think it’s great that Campbell has lifted the NBN vs Telstra debate to a new level, above the bog standard.
I think it’s great that Campbell has lifted the NBN vs Telstra debate to a new level, above the bog standard.
It’s certainly been execrable thus far.
@ Andrew E: There could be wee problem with this plan
Not sure if I am the first but I would like to claim authorship of new term within the data networking industry. We have had “dark fibre” for a while & this is well understood. I would now like to add “Brown fibre” to the lexicon of telecommunications.
Should be self explanatory but I hope nobody flushes my idea.
2353 @26: I too noticed the lack of stomach-churning commentary from News Limited, although as the post notes there have been some low rumblings from Malcolm Turnbull’s office.
Are the pipes going to big enough for the increased number of downloads? Will Steven Conroy be providing a special filter for them to clean out the filth?
This is a private investment , not a public investment. Whether i3 have done a CBA is a matter for them. There is no reason for the Council to do a CBA.
The frightening thing about Newman is that he actually does things. He would never fit into the Tony Abbott team.
Main problem is that he sees things as civil engineering problems. So we have tunnels instead of smarter traffic lights etc.
We all know god is a civil engineer because nobody else would locate a waste disposal zone in an entertainment area. So it is no surprise that he is combining sewerage disposal with the internet. Trouble is it is not the civil engineers who have to clear sewers that block because of crap catching on fiber optic lines.
Did Gough do a CBA for the sewers? I don’t think so.
Ken: So Gough got thrown out because he wasted money sewering the western suburbs?
This is a joke, is it not??
Top marks to Enemy Combatant@20. I could scarcely contain myself when I saw the comment about Brisbane as the “Cloacal Cable Capital”.
Love this topic and the posts it has created. I’ll bet Mr. Crapper never imagined the end use of his creation.
Holy shit. Did not know that Mr Crapper was a real person. The things you learn etc etc…
Didn’t realise so many round here fell so quickly into toilet humour.
Trevor: let’s just hope it isn’t used to transmit viruses.
Sure that could have been word-smithed to be funnier, but meh.
I can’t remember which thread it was when someone was asking for an NBN map, but I just found one.
The Internet is just a series of sewerage pipes. It’s not just something you dump something on.
But how will Mr Smith’s filter work?
They are adjustable in increments of microns Bernice. All remotely controlled from Conroy’s office. I pity the poor folk who have to clean the filters.
Do eels relish fibre and all that shit?
The alligators will chew the cables.
Sort of reminds me of a deal that Melbourne City Council did with Optus to allow them to build structures on the footpaths around the city as ‘information hubs’ that housed Optus mini-towers for their mobiles at street level. Sounded fantastic.
The Council was keen, said it was kosher, so local CBD business said OK as well. The structures – a couple of metres in diameter – were meant to be wired up as interactive booths for visitor information etc. maps, weather, tickets etc. Terrific.
What happened. OK, Optus got their street level mobile towers. The hubs are there on the footpath. The interactive stuff was never connected and they just have ordinary maps stuck behind perspex covers. Yep, you could have seen it coming. But it is a shame when it happens that way again!!
Getting back on topic though!! The thread reminds me of an Australian movie masterpiece “Sir Les Patterson saves the World” made in late eighties. Watching it at Hoyts on a Saturday night in the first week of release, the audience suffered though it and the only jokes that got a laugh were.. the fart jokes. Yes, you can’t get between an Aussie and his/her obsession (!!) with flatulence and associated material.
Prospective investors will no doubt be bouyed that
“No Worries” Newman & Associates have patented their “Dark Fibre” option which is expected to take NBN competitors by storm-water channel, ditch, drain and rampart.
—————
Cheers, mediatracker.
I’ll wait for the NBN thanks. Campbell’s shitnet doesn’t stack up.
Hmm, gives new meaning to “laying a cable”
@24 Chris.
That was not my experience: TransACT were not given access to other organisation’s infrastructure and went it alone. At least that was the case in 2001 when my suburb became one of the first to be connected. All other utilities in the suburb are underground and so TransACT brought in some impressive machinery that drilled a horizontal channel less than a metre below the surface and extracted the earthen core. It then feed in a continuous length of PVC conduit to house the cables/fibre. It was quick, efficient not very loud and did not necessitate the digging up of front lawns and gardens or the cutting up of footpaths.
It was a different story in 2009 when Telstra and the electricity authority came through about six months apart to replace their respective sets of 45 year old wiring which was degrading badly. This was when we discovered to our great surprise that both the telephone and electricity wires and cables had not been laid in conduits but directly in the ground about a metre down. The upgrade operation made the suburb look like an open cut mining operation for almost 12 months, as they dug trenches through front yards with bobcats to lay separate lengths of PVC conduit and cut sections through concrete paths with diamond wheels. The landscaping looked like a perfunctory afterthought and has left potholes in front yards and uneven pathways.
It seemed like a master stroke when the government got Telstra to agree to sell its network to the NBN but you had better hope that Telstra used conduits in your area and/or that NBN use underground drilling in established areas. Let’s hope too that Telstra have not pulled a swifty and sold the NBN a network of cables buried directly in the ground and now entwined with root systems and largely stripped of its covering shield.
All jokes aside the sewers idea may well be a great piece of divergent thinking even it if necessitates running a narrower conduit for the fibre through the wider sewer pipes. I would like to know more about the proposal.
Tosca – I believe that TransACT did have access to all the power conduits (they’re pretty much owned by ActewAGL I think) , but if your suburb didn’t have any and the cables were laid straight into the ground that would explain why they had to tunnel. I went to a few talks by TransACT people and they explained how they used the conduits created for the existing power network. As you say there’ll be similar problems for the NBNco as well.
In most other areas I think they’ll just be running cables from the poles to the houses in the air if there’s no conduit available and other wires are already there.
Ambigulous @ 39, it may be funny, but I think you’ll find it’s not a joke. The thing about Newman is, as John D says, he does stuff.
Not so long ago they found that the City Hall needed repairs if it was not going to eventually fall down. Problem was it would cost $300 million to fix. Newman said the Brisbane ratepayers simply don’t have that kind of money.
It’s being fixed. No probs. I’ve no idea who is paying. Probably you are.
Hal9000 @ 25, I don’t know how long you’ve been there, but I’ve been going out there since 1992. These days I go there about 4 days a week. I’ve never seen a 15 acre lot, but I do work on one that’s 50 acres. It’s behind that fruit tree farm (actually custard apples) you can see up on the left, no. 748, I think.
Possibly over 10 years ago Telstra wanted to build a phone tower on that hill just past the church on the left, just past the produce store. The local greenies protested because they didn’t want the pure air of Brookfield polluted by electronic waves. To my surprise Telstra backed off, so there is still lousy coverage
Brian @55 – that’d be the de Jongs’ or the Macleods’ old place I imagine. Mine is the cream Queenslander with the silver roof atop the ridge intervening before the high tension power line.
They built it. It’s there, despite the protests. But the ridge called Ballards’ Hill prevents signal getting to Upper Brookfield. They’d need to put one on top of Mt Mermaid to get coverage to the whole area, and there aren’t enough subscribers to be worth it.
The exchange is where the tower is, and I’m at the edge of the range of ADSL2+ from that exchange. I can get mobile coverage from the edge of the verandah, but the tower it picks up is Calamvale, or Acacia Ridge. On a night like tonight with low cloud, you can occasionally pick up Kenmore, but never Brookfield. Move away from the verandah and you get nothing. I reckon the Hall Trust could make some serious income renting out the hall to corporate trainers on the basis that there is no mobile coverage. It’s just like being out in the wilderness, or back in time…
Hal9000, Macleod’s, definitely. They tell me you can get mobile coverage at the grid or on the water tank up the hill. In my experience the mobile coverage cuts out 100 metres past the “Upper Brookfield” sign.
I’ve put up another post on Conroy’s session on local radio. I’ve decided to refer to Campbell Newman’s little scheme as “sewernet” for convenience.
With a continually increasing population, water will become a huge problem for Brisbane. As we begin to feel the effects of Peak Oil, the delivery of water (and sewerage services) will also become a problem.
Unfortunately for Campbell, in the not too distant future, more and more homes will be installing waterless, sewerless, COMPOSTING TOILETS.
I wonder if he’s thought of that?
Oh kika, you’re not pooh-poohing his idea are you?
Yes, I am.
Brisbane will become the butt of even more jokes.
Well, as long as no-one tries to gove you the bum’s rush.
*give*
The sewer pipes won’t close over if they’re not being used for their original purpose. Have you done a CBA on these toilets, kika?
Kika@59 – in most houses a lot more than just toilet water goes down the sewer pipes. So widespread adoption of compost toilets (which I think is pretty unlikely) won’t change the requirement for sewerage lines.
It depends on the model of phone. Some cut out 100 metres before it. Back in the bad old analogue days, before they brought in the new improved digital service, we used to get reception everywhere just fine.
They were the days Hal, suitcase full of batteries..Gummo @ 44 the RWDB manual in action! Very funny.
Yes, the hand-held ones were bulky. No technology, other than satellite, since then has equaled analog coverage, however. I have a cousin in western NSW who laments how, 20 years ago, he could go out mustering sheep on his motorbike and if he fell off and broke an ankle he could phone for help. Not any more.
It should also be remembered that the analog network – paid for by publicly-owned Telecom Australia – was thrown away for no other reason than to promote competition among providers. There wasn’t enough spectrum available to have more than one analog cellphone provider, you see. So a vital tool used by hundreds of thousands of Australians was sacrificed on the altar of telecommunications policy. Michael Lee was the responsible minister.
That would have come in handy, too, for someone working alone on acreage in Upper Brookfield who happened to fall and break a leg or even get bitten by a snake!
I would guess that the number of simultaneous calls you can fit into the same amount of spectrum is higher with the new digital network. So its not just about encouraging competition, but is an example of prioritising the requirements of the majority in the cities over those in regional areas.