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Thursday 29 March 2012

Nationalised Broadband Network: hypocrisy, rip-offs, failures

The $36,000,000,000 government-run broadband programme, has been branded the most-expensive in the world by the influential journal, The Economist. This comes on the day the NBN roll out moved into ''high-gear'' according to Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
But on the day Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Communications claimed ''It's become an essential utility, like electricity or water'', the Government revealed 11 seats would miss out on the ''initial'' roll out. If the NBN is as essential as water, which is essential to life, why does anyone miss out?
Interestingly, 10 of those seats are held by the Coalition. One of them, Mackellar, on the North Shore of Sydney, adjoins Warringah, Tony Abbott's electorate, which is to be part of the roll-out. How strange that the NBN could go to Tony Abbott's electorate, but not an adjoining seat.

Pork-barrelling and political point-scoring?

18 comments:

  1. It seems that on one hand you criticise it for being too big and expensive, but then also complain that it isn;t being rolled out everywhere within 3 years. Which would massively add to the cost.

    You can't have it both ways.

    I should also point out that the Economist have been widely criticised for a litany of demonstrable errors in their calculations. For example, they understate the number of premises covered by about 3 million, and understate the maximum speed of the NBN by 900%.

    Even allowing for the errors, they don;t say it's the "most expensive" (since Japan's cost US$47bn and SK's cost US$53bn), but they say it has the highest portion of Government investment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So essentially it is the most expensive to the taxpayer.
      The points I make about the roll-out, particulary in Mackellar are valid.

      Delete
  2. They aren't having it both ways, they are pointing out the hypocrisy in the government. It's a fair question to ask.

    And in asking they put forward a credible reason as to why it isn't going to those particular seats and showing the governments claim as to how essential it is to be like everything else from the ALP and that's pretty much a lie.

    And while the NBN is Pork-barrelling and political point-scoring it's a lame version of it. Not too many people want it. No surprise really. It costs more to use and won't live up to its promise. Just like the ALP in that respect.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jeremy et al,

    The NBN doesn't come at an "expense" to the taxpayer, since it provides a positive return on investment. It is funded through the issue of infrastructure bonds, which are repaid (including the interest) by revenue from the users of the network. Whether you are a taxpayer or not is beside the point. Big users will subsidise small users. Non-users won't contribute at all.

    Also, you missed my point I think. The economist stuffed up their maths. Their "cost per household" figures "lost" 3 million connections, making them rather inaccurate.

    It is "essential infrastructure" for everyone, but you can't roll it out everywhere at the same time. There are 13,000,000 connections to make, which is why it will take at least 10 years. Some areas will be first, and some will be last. Personally, I'd rather see all the metro areas of Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane left until last, since at least they at least have access to decent cable internet, unlike the vast majority of the country (Thanks to 11 years of the Coalition "leaving it to the private sector").

    It doesn't cost more to use the NBN than current ADSL+phone services, even for higher speeds than ADSL. Exetel, for example, already offer a 12/1Mbps (Equiv to typical ADSL2+) NBN+phone service for $35 total per month or 25/5Mbps for $37 per month. Try and get that on copper! Even higher NBN speeds are often cheaper than ADSL. In my case for example, for the same $100 per month as I pay now for a phone and ADSL2+ (at 13Mbps) with 200GB data, I can get the NBN at 100Mbps with 1000GB of data, plus a phone. Both prices are from iiNet.

    But of course, those higher NBN speeds aren't available on copper at any price.

    As for "credible reasons", it isn't rocket science. The ACCC ruled last year that the NBN must use 121 points of interconnect and it ruled the location of those points. They did this based on submissions from Telcos about the locations of their existing transit networks and on the locations of Telstra exchanges with sufficient space to house an NBN POI. Logically, the rollout must start at those points and fan outwards. And that's exactly what it does. Feel free to compare the ACCC POI list to the rollout maps and check for yourselves.

    "Not too many people want it".
    That's a good one. According to every piece of research done on it (several annual surveys by Essential Media, one by Swinburne University), a huge majority of Australians want the NBN. There has never been any research published that shows otherwise.

    The adoption of all new technology (no matter how good) is relatively low at the beginning. The Internet itself, Broadband, iPods, laptops, tablets, smartphones, GPS devices etc. Every single one of these had tiny sales/takeup in their initial years, but are now massive successes and taken for granted. The NBN is no different, although it's well ahead of the standard curve. After just 5 months of availability, the average takeup on the NBN mainland sites is over 20%. Compare that to the takeup of ADSL which was just 3% after 18 months. Looking back to 2002, would you have said that "not many people want it", and slammed the rollout of ADSL as an "unnecessary waste' based on a 3% takeup after 18 months?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was just thinking to myself, Mr Young Conservative, that I admire someone so young who is passionate about their views, even though I may disagree with them.

    Then, you deleted my comment which factually debated your points and those of Jeremy.

    Take it from me, you're far better off publishing posts you disagree with and constructing a strong opposing argument, rather than simply deleting the stuff you disagree with.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your comment is above. What are you talking about?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There was another reply, quite long, which disappeared after about an hour.....

      Delete
    2. I didn't delete it. Feel free to post it again.

      Delete
    3. I've just checked the spam folder. For some reason it was there. I've marked it as not spam (see above)

      Delete
  6. The NBN is not in the category of 'new technology', it is updated technology. When the updates for the Ipads and smartphones etc. came out people were rushing to get them and happily paying exorbitant, not so for the NBN which is still falling behind. Probably due to concern that the project wasn't costed, consulted on, has various blowouts and isn't living up to it's promise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. another pig ignorant comment from a NBN/Govt bagger who does not actually understand how the NBN will work.

      Please explain to us all Jeremy how the "NBN is falling behind"? Or how it "ïsn't living up to its promise"?

      no answer? didnt think so.

      Delete
  7. The NBN and the 'BS' that's needed to make it work.

    http://ozcomedy.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/nation-bankrupting-network.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. This comment from the Telegraph was on an article about a second airport but sums up the NBN perfectly. "International airports are a Federal asset, if JuLiar and Labor weren't welded to their disastrous NBN at a cost of $50 Billion we could have new airports with high speed rail links to East Coast cities and lots more. Instead we will have high speed access to YouTube and our social security departments - what an absolute joke."

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/barry-ofarrell-blindsides-his-own-mps-over-second-sydney-airport/story-e6freuzi-1226321637190

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There was 10 years under a coalition government to implement 1) More Airports 2) High speed rail 3) Fast broadband, and they had more than $50billion in the bank. Do you remember what they gave us? It was tax cuts. Would you agree that the time to invest in the future is when you have $50billion in the black? But alas, this never happened. Hindsight is 20/20, but only if you open your eyes. PS, I'm a usual Liberal voter.

      Delete
  9. And for Anonymous who expects a reply before he's finished writing, looks like I'm wrong on the NBN falling behind, after all they keep extending the finish date and are now are always ahead of schedule and living up to the NBN promise. (Just take no notice of the low take-up or that ALP seats just happen to be connected before others...)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The ALP seats argument isn't really accurate. There was a trial sight that was in an independant seat. The rest of the roll out is pretty well balanced. Maybe one or two sites extra that are Labor seats. You can dig up the data. It's there.

      In saying that, if you were trying to win votes, wouldn't you install it in Liberal seats first?

      Kind of a null and void arguemnet

      Delete