Malcolm Turnbull has admitted his government is presiding over a muti billion dollar lemon. In what should have been state of the art internet for all Australia, the Coalition Government in its wisdom chose to use out dated technology in the form of copper phone wire to connect the NBN to consumers, both residential and business. What a disaster the government has created, instead of going with Labors choice of the more advanced fiber optic cable, which would have done the job, the choice of old copper wire is unfortunately not up to the task, and unable to deliver the necessary internet speed required. The Governments NBN disaster is costing billions, and for what? The worlds most expensive ‘lemon'. Malcolm Turnbull as Communications Minister before becoming Prime Minister, was the engine driver in charge of the train as it headed for an almighty crash. The only words of comfort Turnbull could offer the poor suffering Aussie taxpayers who are footing the bill for the governments incompetence was this bit of gobbly goop; "As I often used to say, (I don't know who to) in the words of the Irish barman when asked for directions to Dublin, 'If I were you I wouldn't be starting from here'" If you were going to Dublin you certainly would not be asking Turnbull for direction, you would end up in Mongolia!

Australia's train journeys don't start from here but in the basket case next to Malcolm's SSM and Quick Death agenda. Money is shooting out of Treasury for reports , studies and photos of real fast ones.
Taiwan High Speed Rail is a high-speed rail line that runs approximately 349 km at 300km/h.
Japan 2,765 km of lines with maximum speeds of 320 km/h .
Australia's operate at a high of 160 km/h in passenger service and are a wreck for OH&S regulations and to boost funding for highway car-wrecks which are imported.

Yep if the Liberals had an ounce of sense they would of scrapped Rudd/Gillards idiotic plan for nbn. Why Liberals thought they needed to fund such an idiotic promise defies belief. The next trainwreck will be NDIS. The debt piles up while the education system continues to decay but at least we can say Gonski. Drain the swamp!

runner - The NDIS is not the next train wreck it is a current one.

Juliar Dillard, remember how important it was to have it, where is she now she won't even come out and support it, because she knows it is an extremely expensive train wreck.

You can't expect anything governments do to be much good. They cannot even attend to their core responsibilities,let alone business where profit is the motive for success.

Just as Turnbull stuffed up worse than the man he accused of being no good, he has buggered up the NBN that he rubbished Labor for. Even so, he is still blaming Labor for the crurrent situation, which is a big rough after he has had 'control' going on for one and a half terms in government

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), has some broadband infrastructure, including fiber optic links between major institutions. Kim "Surfer" Jong-Un is willing to talk to Malcolm but not that Julie woman with expert advice on solving political enemies of the net .

I think we need to run apprenticeships in the back blocks of China, to be educated into poverty, “Chinese style”.
Can this Country be run into the ground more successfully than it currently is?

Dear Paul,

I watched the Four Corners program on the NBN on
Monday evening. It certainly is a complex issue.
Malcolm Turnbull apparently changed the plan for
the NBN to incorporate a range of obsolete and
second-rate technical solutions, which are causing
problems today. Here's a link that better
discusses the issues involved:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-24/nbn-squabbling-wont-help-anyone/9079172

Under Labor, the NBN plan was pretty good. But they did make three fairly big mistakes:
1) They planned to make a profit and set it up for eventual privatisation rather than letting the full benefits flow through to the customers (though the latter strategy would've been much better for the economy).
2) They failed to consider taking advantage of the existing HFC infrastructure.
3) They failed to consider FTTB even when it would've brought substantial savings.

There was also a fourth mistake, though it was purely political: when cost overruns occurred, they rightly tried to resolve the issues even though doing so caused substantial delays. But they failed to adequately inform the public about the reasons for the overruns and the delays.

And because of that mistake, the opposition managed to fool a lot of the public, including many on this thread, into thinking there was far more wrong with the NBN then there actually was.

Then the opposition became the government and set about ensuring there was as much wrong with the NBN than the public thought - and more!

Not everything they did was bad - they did approve FTTB. But that was really the only improvement. Their buying the HFC networks should have been a good move, but they paid so much for that (considering the condition it was in) that it negated the cost advantage.

And of course they wasted billions of dollars of public money on FTTN. That was worse than all the other bad decisions combined, and arguably worse than discontinuing the NBN.

All but the most rusted-on fans of the Liberal Party know that FTTN is a white elephant, and the vast majority of the problems are Turnbull's fault.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Philip S and runner,
Do you regard every project as a train wreck if there are any implementation problems? Because UIVMM the NDIS isn't doing too badly. AIUI it's on budget and has started to make disabled people more productive.

Thank you Foxy and Aidan, your posts are certainly on the mark. Turnballs needs to fess up and admit as Communications Minister his decision to favour his old buddy boy Murdoch's over rated, and over priced, Foxtel network was a costly political decision, do we need to wonder why. The taxpayer is left billions out of pocket for what is a very poor service.
Labor did make mistakes, but nothing that was going to deliver the inadequate NBN the government is guilty of foisting onto Australia.

Dear Paul,

I'm not sure how they are going to get out of this mess.
And how much it will eventually cost to correct it.
But it certainly needs to be fixed. Also having "cowboy"
installers doing the work does not help either.

cont'd ...

Dear Paul,

I forgot to add - the fact that if New Zealand can implement
the NBN successfully - why on earth can't Australia?

If you haven't already got NBN, just wait until the internet breaks down, as it often does, and you not only lose your ability to use computers, but you will not be able to watch TV or use your telephone, either. Everyone will need a mobile phone for emergencies whether they want it or not. No more landlines, folks. Even if you don't have TV or a computer, you will be stuck with a you-beaut, state of the art, VOIP (Voice Over Internet Phone) telephone. A wonderful thing, modernity and 'advancement'.

Hi Foxy, you have asked the $64 question, or should I say The $30 billion question.

How they are going to get out of this mess.
And how much it will eventually cost to correct it?

Maybe Money Bags Malcolm will personally foot the bill, but some how I don't think so. I suppose we'll just have to pour more money into NBN, and keep Rupert happy at the same time.

I expected Shadow to pop in and tells us how badly Labor did with the NBN, and what a fantastic job his mob have done since taking over. Could even throw in a few links to his favorite news outlet Murdochs's 'The Daily Telecrap' for a bit of unbiased comment. Perhaps he's gone all shy.

Galah'd (as Obama called her), what a long-rolling disaster. She paid herself more than US President Obama too!

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/gillard-snubs-senate-order-on-nbn-20101118-17y0t.html

Galah'd and her treacherous Sidekicks, the Greens and 'whatever she says' Shorten was part of the crew,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFELLK8htKM

Wasted years, chaos and the birds are still coming home to roost.

ttbn,
Considering the exorbitant amount the telcos charge for landline services, using VOIP actually works out cheaper even when you include the cost of getting a mobile phone for emergencies.

And there are no plans to switch off the free to air service yet, so you can still watch TV if your internet breaks down.

Labor's NBN was designed to fail, and its flaws were apparent right from the point when Krudd and comrade Conjob worked the Ponzi scheme out on the back of a cigarette box. The problems the NBN is having today is that in order to fulfil its mandate to make a profit, it has to charge the retailers appropriately, and the result is that the retailers in order to keep customers are not buying enough bandwidth for peak demand.

The single biggest mistake the coalition made was not to flog the whole project off to private enterprise as the NBN business model was already in the toilet by 2013 with massive cost blowouts, and construction at only at about 5% of target at the time.

The whole point of making the NBN a separate company was to keep the fact that Labor intended to blow another $70bn of taxpayers' money off the books. This was only possible if the new company was going to be financially viable and using estimates that no respectable organisation would touch predicted a 7% return on revenue by vastly underestimating the installation costs and using wildly optimistic revenues.

The main cost blowouts were due to the vastly underestimated cost of the final FO cable from the kerb to the house, and the fact that fibre optic networks are dependent on battery backups in emergencies, which added at least a cool $30bn to the cost.

The overestimation of the revenues came from
1 the assumption that the majority of users would sign up for the more expensive 100Mb/s package, which was never going to happen:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10838
2 The rapid growth of wireless internet capacity and lower costs that take customers from landlines
3 Pirate networks that target low-cost high margin users in building complexes that undercut the NBN.

Finally, the claim that Fibre to the house is superior is complete bollocks especially since 90% of the NBN customers are purchasing the 25Mb/s plan which the FTTN can easily deliver.

On the NBN, which he says works very well at his place, Cory Bernardi hits the nail on the head when he says that Prime Ministers and senior ministers want to leave a 'legacy' item as a monument to themselves. It is too hard for them to balance the books, keep the country safe, and do the things they were elected to do, so they borrow billions to throw at “poorly considered projects” to get their names on a “brass plaque”.

I thinks that that is fair comment, and applies to both the idiot Prime Ministers, Labor and Coalition, who have been involved in the NBN.

Shadow, the claim that FTTH ISN'T superior is complete bollocks! On financial terms alone it's better, as it's much cheaper to operate, much cheaper to maintain, and won't require the next generation to replace it. And copper wires are just as dependent on batteries in emergencies as fibre optics are - except that being less reliable, the copper wires are less likely to be used in emergencies.

Additionally there are some big non financial benefits: it's much more reliable, and future needs can be met as soon as the customers are ready rather than having to wait for a costly network upgrade. And these technical advantages are extremely important. With FTTH if I pay for 100Mb/s I know I can get that speed in all weather. With FTTN I can't be sure. And I currently don't really have a need for 100Mb/s so I'm not willing to pay the extra cost, but I don't expect that to always be the case.

But NBNCo are charging too much for fast internet that doesn't actually cost them any more than the slower speeds. If they reduced the charge, far more people would use it.

_________________________________________________________________________________

ttbn,
How low would interest rates have to be before you'd consider infrastructure provision to be more important than "to balance the books"?

Dear Ttbn,

You already described the real problem - it's not about bandwidth (those who want/need more bandwidth, could simply have used two or more copper lines in parallel).

«If you haven't already got NBN, just wait until the internet breaks down, as it often does, and you not only lose your ability to use computers, but you will not be able to watch TV or use your telephone, either. Everyone will need a mobile phone for emergencies whether they want it or not. No more landlines, folks. Even if you don't have TV or a computer, you will be stuck with a you-beaut, state of the art, VOIP (Voice Over Internet Phone) telephone. A wonderful thing, modernity and 'advancement'.»

Exactly, and since I consider the sending of electromagnetic waves that pierce through other people and animals to be immoral, I don't have that emergency option.

I did however talked with a wiring guy and was assured that they can arrange something, with a strong battery backup and other equipment, so I can retain my existing phone. It could cost me about $2000, but it should work on the dark day when those bastards reach my suburb.

Nothing of course will work once this internet is hacked - and it will, sooner or later, be hacked to the point of being unusable.

Aidan,

You clearly know sweet bugger all about networks. Copper is by far cheaper to install and maintain, and copper can transfer power as well as data. Phones do not need power from the home and can rely entirely on the tiny amount of power transferred from the switchboard, whereas phones on FO require power from the house and battery back up in case of failure, so much so that fire and lift services will accept copper as a secure backup, but not FO, and where copper is not available will require secure FO with battery back up AND a wireless redundancy. FO cables are also far more fragile, and if hit by say a spade the fibers will break and generally the entire cable will have to be replaced, whereas copper can withstand a fair amount of abuse with no failures.

At work, while we get our internet via fiber, the internal network is copper and runs at 1000 Mb/s. The failing with copper is that the further you go the slower the data transfer, so while 1000Mb/s is possible up to 200m at 1km it is 200Mb/s, 10km it is 20Mb/s etc. For older type phone cables, the starting speeds are slower, but the same general rule applies.

My suburb has not been upgraded, but because I am within 2km of the hub, I get 25Mb/s which is certainly all I need, switching to NBN would simply increase the price of the internet by 100%. The whole point of FTTN is to reduce the distance of copper from say 10km to less than 500m which in most cases will deliver 100Mb/s and save $30b.

According to the all knowing Shadow Minister <<Copper is by far cheaper to install and maintain>>. but that is at odds with what the NBN chief executive Bill Morrow admitted before the Senate Estimates Committee; copper technology was more expensive to maintain.

"NBN Co revealed it had purchased 15,050km of copper cable from Australia, Brazil and Turkey, and the National Broadband Network may still require more of the old technology previously used to connect landline phones." One expert likened the investment in copper wire to investing in steam trains, must have been thinking about Malcolm's train wreck.

Money Bags Malcolm and his incompetent government don't have a problem "splashing the cash" on NBN when it comes to their mates. In the latest bit of largesse from MBM to the high flyers at the NBN $109 million in bonuses and other goodies has been paid out to show the taxpayers appreciation of what a fantastic job the NBN is turning out to be.

Yuyutsu,

I don't have a mobile either. I'm too busy dodging zombies on the footpath, with their heads down, texting or whatever it is that they do with the damn things. They are a menace to pedestrians and motorists.

How do you feel about having to pay $2,000 for something that you already have and have paid for? The NBN, mobile phones - all the 'advances', are just there to screw more money out of people who already have spend a lot on stuff they don't need in the saturated market. Have to keep the rich getting richer!

Shadow Minister,

Yes. Doing away with copper was moronic. We have to rely more on electricity, which is become less reliable, less available and more expensive by the day.

Shadow,
I clearly know a lot more about networks than you. Copper is a bit cheaper to install, but a lot more expensive to maintain. The main problem isn't getting hit by spades, it's corrosion.

Copper does have the advantage that the battery backup can be at the other end, but it's still needed.

I have already acknowledged that FTTB is an adequate solution. Once you're in the building you can use proper digital cables (as many as you need for the capacity) rather than having to rely on modulation to get the digital signals through the phone cables.

What plan are you on that switching to NBN would double your costs?

FTTN may reduce maintenance costs compared with FTTE, but they're still significantly higher than FTTH. FTTN has the extra step (and the significant extra power consumption) of modulating the signals.

My battery 'back up' failed and had to be replaced the other day. No problem with the internet itself, no power outages - just the back up. Seems we need backups for the backups!

Paul, Aidan,

The maintenance of new Fiber networks is less expensive than the maintenance of existing old copper networks but more expensive than new copper networks. You only have to look at buildings and businesses where 99% of new networks within the businesses are copper.

Copper wires in cables are covered by a sheath of PVC which is extremely corrosion resistant happily lasting 50yrs or so with the main problems coming from the connection boxes corroding, which can happen just as easily with FO.

As far as battery back up is concerned, one battery backup in the node that feeds 100 houses is far cheaper than 100 smaller battery units in each of the houses. Also modulation went out with the last of the 56k modems, it's all digital and far faster now, with the digital signal occurring at a higher frequency which can be filtered out for audio.

In short copper and fibre both are modern systems of communication with advantages and disadvantages over the other. The choice depends entirely on the application.

I have 2 copper phone lines, one 45 years old, & the other 26 years old. Both are about 150 metres long. Neither have given a moments trouble in their life, & both are totally adequate for the speeds available, or likely to be available from the NBN in my lifetime.

My previous property had a 600 metre long copper phone line underground, now 60 years old, & still working perfectly.

As with much the idiot did, we will be paying for this K Rudd stuff up, long after he is dead & buried. When you get fools involved with technology you get disasters. Hell he still probably thinks CO2 causes global warming.

Dear Ttbn,

«How do you feel about having to pay $2,000 for something that you already have and have paid for?»

To tell the truth, I feel relieved that I can keep my phone at all.

The other day, when I made enquiries about it, the call-centre representative was actually located in South Africa, so when I explained my problem she said: "come to live here, in South Africa we still have copper phones and will continue to have them for at least 10 more years".

So I feel lucky that I don't need to move to South Africa and can get away with keeping my phone for only $2,000. Other people have bigger problems, like health problems that cannot be fixed even for $1,000,000.

Shadow,
Modulation certainly didn't "go out with the last of the 56k modems". Broadband modems are still modems. Modulation on multiple ultrasonic frequency bands is still modulation. And though the digital signal can be filtered out for audio on ADSL, that's not suitable for VDSL - hence the loss of the old phone service even where they're using FTTN.

The reason 99% of new networks within businesses are copper has nothing to do with the maintenance costs. It's mainly convenience. Plus most computers don't have optical ports, so there would be the extra expense of converters each end and it would still be limited by the speed of the metal ports on the computers.

And I ask again: What plan are you on that switching to NBN would double your costs?

Aidan,

Yes ASDL is still modulation. I am on a package for $70 that gives me 1TB of data per month and get nearly 25Mb/s.

Cont,

The reason that businesses use copper is not just convenience, it is that the cost of installation, the cost of network switches, and maintenance is far lower (optical links fail too) and that for short distances FO is no faster, and cannot carry POE.

That is the reason why FTTB is far better and cheaper and why FTTN works and is vastly cheaper. For long distances, FO is better, which is why fiber is preferred to the nodes.

Shadow. in what carriage of Malcolm's train wreck were you riding in. I think you're in the CABOOSE!

Shadow,

So where did you get the idea that "switching to NBN would simply increase the price of the internet by 100%"? In reality, for the same price you're paying now, you can get unlimited data on the NBN - see https://www.iinet.net.au/internet-products/broadband/nbn/

I have already acknowledged the sense in using FTTB. But FTTN is a ludicrous false economy. Not only is there a costly extra modulation stage (which I'm glad you now admit exists) but there's still significant reliability issues due to water ingress. And it's likely to prove itself totally inadequate for future needs.

Dear Aidan,

«And it's likely to prove itself totally inadequate for future needs.»

So you promote neediness?!

If I don't need it today, why would I need it tomorrow?

I am happy with just a simple phone line, plus even a dialup service to do my banking, perhaps an OLO comment here and there.

So what if you could get unlimited data on the NBN - you might as well have them drill another hole in your bottom!

The whole thing was a disaster from the outset, aimed among other things to bring the bush into line with the cities. What a joke.

Anyone who thinks it is affordable to provide a network spanning hundreds of km between users, just so that user can have fast internet is quite simply living in a fantasy world, and this was always the problem from the get go. Its like starting a service station in an area that has no roads, it would be destined to fail.

The reality is, stupid people will continue do stupid things, and get away with it because their actions don't effect them personally and, they are not accountable for their actions.

The real victims are those who rely on 100% of their income just to survive, and the pollies don't fall in to this category and there in lies the problem.

One can only dream of where we might be now if not for the debacle that started some ten years ago, which started the downward spiral, a spiral that I wont see a return from, and seriously doubt my kids will, perhaps even my grand kids.

So much for the change we had to have. apparently!

Aidan,

If your idea of suggesting just about the cheapest solution from the least reliable supplier, then no it doesn't work.

I get 3MB/s or 25Mb/s all the time and can stream 3x 1080p Netflix videos simultaneously whilst my son plays interactive games at 7 pm which is the peak period, as my supplier is not buying limited bandwidth as does NBN retailers. So I get better than the $119 package that iinet offers on NBN. 2-5Mb/s would not meet my needs at all.

FTTN saves about $30bn over FTTH and delivers the same reliability and nearly the same speed. Future upgrades as required can take complete the FTTH by installing fibre from the node to the home as and when needed over the next decade or two at roughly the same cost.

Dear Rehctub,

I have no problems with the bush.

If the whole idea was to give them access to the internet, then why not do just that? Why punish the rest of us and take away our phones?

I believe that Juliar's objective was ideological and deliberate to proliferate the internet and increase people's dependence on digital technology so that government can control us better. She certainly considered analogue lines dangerous for government because they are harder to monitor.

Y, to connect just 4 properties where I have land in the bush will take 15 to 20 km of cables. that is not value for money, I'm sorry.

Dear Rehctub,

It is my understanding that people in the bush do get something from the NBN, this way or the other - perhaps satellite, whatever. They get it anyway, but why should the rest of us suffer who were always happy with the connection that we already have?

Y, its call UNACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENTS gambling with OUR taxes.

Too many policies these days are actually 'thinking out loud' where they act now then think about it. The CSG retention issue is another such case.

The bottom line is that while ever we choose our politicians from the scrap heap, (those who don't make the cut in the corporate world) we are going to continue seeing our taxes wasted, because if nothing else the past ten years have proven that regardless of the level of incompetence, they are not only unaccountable, but they get rewarded in the process with 'set for life' pensions.

It's a slippery slop we are on and I have no doubt we have past the point of no return as I just can't see how we will ever redress our out of control cost of living, or repay our debt.

Remember, we have not yet felt the true impact of loosing our car industry. That, along with the tax which hunt on multi nationals has the potential to plunge us even deeper into no return land