NBN take up = 16%

[IQSRLOW]

I oppose the nbn because it is a waste dipshit. You however wouldn't care how much it cost in any case. $500Bn? You would still be sucking liebor dick

[Jovial Monk]

Broadband: getting faster but still too slow


Why our broadband speeds are too slow

Broadband speeds have jumped 20 per cent during the past eight months according to a report based on thousands of consumer experiences, but experts warn that Australia still falls well short of its peers internationally.

Regional areas also still lagged well behind Australian cities, based on the 10,000 real-life speed tests captured by online broadband comparison website, Broadband Expert.

It said average rural speeds of 4.29Mbps compared negatively with the 5.28Mbps enjoyed by city dwellers and also revealed that Optus broadband networks were faster than Telstra's BigPond by an average of almost 1.5Mbps.

“A 20 per cent increase in average speed in such a short period of time is an impressive result. However, it's important to remember that regional Australia is still being left behind,” said Rob Webber, commercial director at Broadband Expert.

The Broadband Expert calculates average UK and US broadband speeds at 5.93Mbps and 5.75Mbps respectively.

According to telecoms analyst, Paul Budde, the figures released by Broadband Expert, are indicative of current trends in the market.

“I think the trend is correct. Yes we are making progress, but at the same time we are still way behind some of the leaders in the market and the gap between us and others is actually increasing."

However Budde said the real speeds of the average Australian were likely to be substantially lower than those highlighted by Broadband Expert, with the majority (50 to 60 percent) of broadband users sitting at between 1.5 to 2mbps.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/broadb ... 16rqt.html

[Guest]

I just tested my speed and got 8.48 Mbps. http://www.ozspeedtest.com/bandwidth-test/ I am not sure how reliable that is though.

[Jovial Monk]

It depends on time of day (idle or peak use etc) and distance from exchange or tower. What was your upload speed? Try repeating that test about 5.00pm on a Friday and 4.00am Sunday morning. Sounds about right for ADSL. hmmm try that with an overseas server, can do that easily with speedtest.

[Super Nova]

Monk

We are arguing from different perspectives.

I know NBN is a good and sound piece of technology.

I argue that it is not a cost effective solution the way it is to be funded and implemented. It is a hammer to crack a nut.

I do not see the benefit to the ecconomy for such a large broadband pipe being available to every house. Broadband improvements can be delivered more cost effectively.

NBN also assumes that their is no alterative in the future. I accept a network backbone needs to be fibre but do not accept that no other more cost effective mean should not be considered to connect the houses to the network. Copper can do this. Wireless can do this. It would save a lot of money and still deliver the broadband base needed for domestic use. It is over engineering. It is a gold plated solution (one of my first posts). gold plated rolls royce solution. Great solution technically. I am not arguing it is a poor technical solution. I just don't see it as value for money the way they intend to implement it.

Now NBN juts fo the major urban centres could be argued as been reasonably cost effective... however everywhere else.... no way.

[Jovial Monk]

Well, I have shown wireless sucks, to use FTTN with wireless for the last mile is fricking ridiculous and the copper is not in a fit state and has other problems.

So, for major centres the NBN is the best and cheapest option. You have not shown that it isn’t, you have been utterly ridiculous in fact!

Yes, remote farmhouses or small hamlets will need to rely on fixed wireless or satellite, that is a given.

If you look at the take up rates, 45% in Tassie, 54%+ in Townsville, 77% average and 85% in Amidale. People see the sense in it.

Not only that you are very wrong about the ease of upgrading 1/10/100 etc Gbps speeds:

One of the spare cables between the FDH and the end user premises is designed to utilise such new equipment cost effectively since the the capability exists to install the 10GPON system to operate simulatenously with the 2.5GPON system. The 2.5GPON and 10GPON systems use separate fibres. Upgrades can occur to single customers at one time, meaning that it is not necessary to upgrade all the end user equipment on a particular 32-port customer fanout. This means that network upgrades can be performed in a quick, easy and efficient manner without the need to install extra fibre cabling.

http://nbnexplained.org/wordpress/what-will-it-deliver/

IPTV, cloud computing, video phone calls all demand the NBN because only the NBN ticks all boxes: ubiquitous, symmetric, high bandwidth. It is also quite independent of distance from tower or exchange, something neither copper nor wireless can claim. OF lasts longer than copper wires. Then the eHealth benefits, benefits for business, for hospitals, for govt Departments and agencies etc etc etc.

[Super Nova]

IPTV, cloud computing, video phone calls all demand the NBN because only the NBN ticks all boxes: ubiquitous, symmetric, high bandwidth. It is also quite independent of distance from tower or exchange, something neither copper nor wireless can claim. OF lasts longer than copper wires. Then the eHealth benefits, benefits for business, for hospitals, for govt Departments and agencies etc etc etc.

I hope you are right and the benefits to the ecconomy outweight to costs.

Let's see what happens a little later when the elephant start to go to a lighter shade.

I see signifcant arguement for why the technology is the best but little on the value for money arguement.

I would like to drive around in a rolls royce, a very reliable car that meets my current and future wants however i can get from A to B in my Ford. It is fit for purpose and mets my needs. The roller only meets my wants.

[IQSRLOW]

The roller only meets my wants.

You are talking to a South Australian. They have only ever been about memememememememememe

They contribute little to the national economy. Some do, but old retired whiners in SA like JM are the reason Paris and the EU are in the state they are in. These useless fucks would like us to be in the same mindset.

Raise the retirement pension and cultivate a fucking riot while sitting behind your keyboard collecting your pension because you ran a failed business and never planned

[IQSRLOW]

Then expect the govt to supply you with cheap internet access at whatever cost to the rest of us so you can continue your dribbling spastic antics online at taxpayer expense

[Super Nova]

To be honest Monk, the horse has now bolted.

This is an interesting view point. Clearly NBN and the way the money is being spent was not the optimum way to go. However the policial leadership of labor have taken us down this path. telstra should have been split. That is what they have done in many european countries.

Can’t you just hear the cries for the Government to do something about broadband, fix the problem, replace the infrastructure, it’s just like building highways, the private sector will never do it, natter, natter natter?

The difficulty with this argument is that it sets up a false dichotomy. Yes, the copper needs upgrading. But it simply doesn’t follow that the only way to upgrade Australia’s broadband infrastructure is through the Government funneling money into the sector with a gigantic firehose.

Thankfully — as with all false dichotomies — there is a third option.

The truth is — as Malcolm Turnbull has been at pains to point out, to his peril — that the private sector has stood willing and able to replace and upgrade vast chunks of Australia’s ageing yet still very functional telecommunications infrastructure for some time– as long as that ever tricky requirement falls into place – regulatory certainty.

Regulatory certainty in the context of Australian telecommunications at the moment basically means just one thing: Restraining Telstra from flexing its massive annual cashflow muscle to crush minnows like Optus, iiNet and TPG whenever they roll out their own infrastructure.

The nervousness in the industry on this issue stems from the debacle witnessed the last time someone tried to build a next-generation fibre network to replace the copper. At the time, it was common to see Telstra trucks mapping out where Optus had laid its HFC cable and then laying its own rival infrastructure in the exact same place.

The duplicated rollout meant neither could get full benefit from their HFC rollout.

And yet it does not follow in 2010 that the only way to get mythical regulatory certainty in the Australian context is for the Government to force the telecommunications industry into a negotiated ceasefire by plonking down billions of dollars of its own money to upgrade the copper – buying Telstra off in the process.

A far more elegant situation would simply to be to — as the telecommunications industry has been calling for for ten years, and is still calling for (hello Optus) — separate Telstra into wholesale and retail companies.

By truly structurally separating Telstra, the Government could create a situation where Telstra’s wholesale division is finally incentivised to best serve the needs of other telcos like Optus and iiNet – instead of playing a shadowy game where it keeps them close and its own brethren in its retail arm even closer.

Telstra has already demonstrated its interest in replacing its copper infrastructure with fibre. In fact, it was then-chief executive officer Sol Trujillo who first proposed the idea, in a rather more limited form, back shortly after he was first appointed in mid-2005.

To separate the company into divisions that do not conflict as they currently do is a logical step, and the kind of minimalist intervention in a competitive market that makes sense in a Government context.

Or, rather, it’s not a minimalist intervention at all – it’s a radical one that could only be seen to be minimalist in the context of the incredibly large NBN policy, which has already started to reshape the entire telecommunications sector, reducing the number of competitive players as companies like iiNet bulk up with acquisitions in preparation for the fibre rollout.

To be honest, I don’t know why Telstra hasn’t been split before now, but I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that the NBN policy — which has more or less set the framework for the narrative in the sector since Labor was first elected in November 2007 — was never designed as a solution to the telecommunication sector’s woes.

It was actually designed as a populist election policy to help Kevin Rudd take power in a general election.

Source: http://delimiter.com.au/2010/09/20/cost ... dichotomy/

"It was actually designed as a populist election policy to help Kevin Rudd take power in a general election."

That's the sad bit. the debate is not about should we have NBN (or something like it) it is the way it is being roll-out funded by the tax payer. This will end in tears.....