@Shadow Minister: However, the new higher 4g and 5g frequencies are able to provide far higher bandwidths and connections per tower.

Higher frequencies do carry more data, but once you raise the carrier frequency above 2.4 GHz it gets stopped by walls, leaves and even rain. Currently the Optus and Vodafone 3G networks use 2Ghz, and I suspect that is as high as they are likely to go.

The other thing we can do is carry more data at a given frequency. The limiting factors aren't antenna design, amplifier design, or anything like that. The radio signal is digitised, feed into a computer, reduced to base waveforms using a Fourier Transform, then analysed to within an inch of their life to extract the data from the noise. The limit to this is the amount of computing power we can throw at the problem. Computing power is in turn now limited how many watts we can devote to it. Those watts come from a phone battery.

A consequence is recent increases in speed have been driven by Moore's Law. Those increases are just about over. The absolute limit is determined by Shannon's Law, and as we get asymptotically closer to that limit the CPU power required to get further increases goes through the roof. Thus the 1G Ethernet cards ran cool, but when they 10Gb cousins were released they dissipated 45 watts, which is getting towards the limits of what todays silicon chip can dissipate in air without melting. This is why they could not fit 4G technology through the door. They needed the mains to power it, and if they shrank it, it would melt.

The bottom line is we are within a factor of 10 how much we are every likely to wring out of wireless. Given even with the 10 fold improvement a single wireless cell, which must be shared by at least 100's of homes, can't carry as much as a single fibre can deliver to 1 home. Nor can it do it as reliably. Once you understand that, the problem Ziggy was alluding to becomes obvious.

Rstuart,

I have a 10yr old Daihatsu that I use to commute to work. It is not pretty nor fast, but has aircon, a reasonable music system, most of the comforts, is efficient and reliable, and gets me to work, squash, and golf.

I would enjoy to sell it for peanuts and buy a porsche, but rationally I would get little additional real benefit, and I have far better things to spend my money on.

The NBN is like buying everyone a porsche to drive in the city at 60kmph. For 90% of the people the benefit is imaginary, and the extra $40bn or so that connecting homes via fibre could be well spend on hospitals, schools, police etc.

I have no problem with installing fibre to new homes, as the labour costs mean that this is only slightly more expensive than copper, but taking out copper lines that meet the requirements of 90% of users is extremely wasteful.

Dear Rstuart,

The analogy of a bulldozed suburb is inappropriate: what stops the copper cables from being laid side-by-side with the NBN fiber-optic cables other than an arbitrary politically-based government prohibition?

The internet is a volatile media. It's a fashion, it keeps changing, it is far from being defined, it is prone to faults, sabotage, viruses, censorship, spying; some of its components are not even in Australian control and many of its components are so complex that Australia cannot manufacture them on its own, should the supply of spare parts be blocked for whatever reason, including blackmail against Australian sovereignty. Phones on the other hand have existed for over a century, they are an essential service, their electronics is much simpler, and it would be a serious mistake to lay them on a sick bed.

Let the data-hungry get what they want, but there is nothing on the technical side to prevent an entrepreneur from providing an old-style analogue phone service to homes that will still work on a rainy day once the internet (and associated mobile services) collapses. The tunnels are already dug in the ground, so there should be no disturbance to traffic, but the current government would simply not allow it. I wonder whether the real reason is that they want to able to control our communications as in Syria...

Shadow Minister,
The copper leg I was referring to was the one from the Modem within the building itself, not from the Exchange.

We already effectively have FTTN now, with most CMUXs and RIMS connected to Exchanges via fibre. That's how you get those blistering ADSL2 speeds.

It's funny how people somehow think they are "entitled" to a telephone service and in whatever form they decide.

It's a privately owned asset now and it's take-it-or-leave it.
It's certainly not a "right".

This wouldn't have happened if Sol was still around. He would likely have just dumped all those low-profit rural customers by now and concentrated on the high profit areas.

Yes rache,

Installing fibre to the nodes is the correct way of doing, which no one denies. I get those high speeds on ASDL through copper lines from the exchange.

I can already watch HDTV over the net if I so chose, however, 99% of what I do does not even require 1Mb/s.

@Houellebecq: Do you think that policy should be developed in such a manner

It's the old fable of the sausage factory and the law, Houellebecq. I accepted a long time ago it wasn't just a fable. So no I don't think policy should be developed in such a manner. But I do accept it has been that way since time immemorial, and no matter who I vote for it ain't going to change.

@Houellebecq: do you think this is just a lucky case of getting it right

Yep. Howard sold Telstra at a valuation of $24 Billion, and 5 years later Gillard bought Telstra's primary asset for $9 Billion. If the federal government hadn't somehow managed to get those poor schmucks, the Telstra shareholders to wear that multi billion dollar depreciation, this would not be happening. And your right, I do not believe for a second either Howard or Gillard thought it would pan out this way. It's just dumb luck for those of us who didn't purchase those Telstra shares.

@Houellebecq: And you never answered my query about selling it off.

I'm trying to pretend it's not going to happen. You're not helping. More seriously, if they could cook up some way of making running the NBN a competitive affair I'd be all for selling it off. I just don't see how that is possible. Maybe we could so what my local council does with rubbish removal - ie they lease the running of that business out to the lowest bidder every few years.

I think it is not unreasonable to hope that when the time comes, the Labour party won't be able to bring itself to sell off the NBN. It will be entirely for the wrong reasons of course, but I'll take my sausage regardless of how it is made. The Liberals on the other hand have shown themselves to be up to selling off a monopoly, even their claim to fame is supposedly understanding how business operates.