The NBN was one of the key issues of the recent federal election and ended up swaying two out of three of the independents to give Labor power. Since then, it’s become a somewhat tedious battle of the ridiculous between Conroy and Turnbull. But given that it’s going to be the backbone of our information economy for decades to come, we should be paying attention to what’s happening with its development. So welcome to the new weekly wrap-up of “What happened with the NBN this week?”
Perhaps the biggest NBN story of the week was this Crikey article by Bernard Keane laying the smackdown on The Australian‘s completely made-up story of Korean-Japanese IT billionaire Masayoshi Son criticising the NBN. Instead of claiming the NBN is a “waste” and “stupid”, it turns out the Masayoshi Son was referring to the concept of keeping a copper network in the ground. You can watch the video of the comment here, but make sure you check out the Crikey piece too.
After their click-whoring headline about the NBN costing up to $400 per room to install, Georgina Robinson at the SMH had a great article answering some of the common questions about the NBN. Especially interesting is Conroy’s statement that he can’t ram the filter down our throats at the fibre level – it’s an ISP level thing.
David Braue over at ZDNet had a great article entitled “Abbott ‘no Bill Gates’… but is Turnbull?” arguing against Malcolm Turnbull’s stance that 12Mbps is good enough for most Australians. It’s an insightful and well-argued piece that gets to the crux of the problems with the Liberal solution: “Turnbull is arguing for the status quo: woeful upload speeds that limit home and business users’ participation in emerging online economies”
The CSIRO has developed a new wireless tech that’s capable of bringing 50Mbps speeds to the 4 per cent of Aussies who won’t be able to get fibre with the NBN, according to Stuart Corner at ITWire. With the amount of spectrum it takes to broadcast a single analogue TV channel, they have demonstrated 12Mbps symmetrical throughput, and they claim that with the spectrum offered by four analogue channels they’d be able to offer 50Mbps. Of course, it’s not going to happen until the analogue spectrum is available after the 2013 switch-off, and even then it’s not guaranteed to be used for wireless broadband.
And finally, apparently the NBN is on a hiring spree, with an average of three new jobs hitting their job store every day, according to Hamish Barwick at Computerworld.
Matt L
Friday, November 5, 2010 at 4:41 PMHopeless, telstra are absolutely ridiculous, It took them a whole week to tell me there are no ADSL ports available in Miranda (Sydney) and my only option was mobile internet… For a business which relies on broadband, this is absolutely crippling!
In terms of infrastructure, the Australian government and Telstra needs to let go of their “That’ll do” attitude and do some fucking work.
Joey
Friday, November 5, 2010 at 5:10 PMI totally agree! not enough work being done.
we have not been able to get ADSL because we are “to far” from the exchange yet we are 10 minutes down the road from a university and 5 minutes from a school who both have super fast internet! I can’t wait until we will be able to get internet! I rely on internet everyday for uni and work. Bring on the NBN!!
Abz
Friday, November 5, 2010 at 6:29 PMHey Joey, you wouldn’t happen to live on the Gold Coast would you? Your situation describes mine to a tee! In fact I live in what was initially being touted as the silicon valley of south east QLD, the technology centre of the Gold Coast etc etc… and I tell you what, I am still only on an ADSL1 connection!!! Shocking!
BTW – I Live in Varsity Lakes for the record!
Travis New
Friday, November 5, 2010 at 9:08 PM@Matt L
Telstra are not going to invest much if anything else into ADSL as it will be redundant within a VERY short time period. Also Telstra is re-creating their business to rely less and less on traditional PSTN/ISDN/Copper networks for the overheads.
@Joey
Just because you are 5min from the exchange for example doesn’t mean anything. The developers of your suburb could’ve built the area in a spiral pattern the length of the copper to you premise may be a few KM over the usable range.
Andre
Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 2:08 PMLet’s be a little realistic. Both the university and the school are probably using fibre and not copper for their internet connections. 10 minutes at 60 km/h is 10 kilometres which is also a massive distance when it comes to ADSL. Even 5 kilometres from the exchange means you are unlikely to get ADSL. Exactly how far are you from the telephone and exchange and is that the reason you can’t get connected?
TJ
Friday, November 5, 2010 at 10:11 PMWords cannot describe how dissatisfied I am with Telstra’s service, problem is there are no other providers in the (relatively remote) area I work :(
Dominic Trinajstic
Friday, November 5, 2010 at 4:56 PMcan’t wait for the day the analogue signal is switched off around the nation, and CSIRO gets the go-ahead to turn the white space into a sort of “internet broadcast” space.
Isn’t google trying to get that done in the US?
matt
Friday, November 5, 2010 at 5:28 PMNice work Giz! this should be good, not necessarily interesting, but important to know.
try to keep it fair too. while I desperately want the NBN, its important to know if they are going about something wrong.
I would also be interested in any support projects the Gov has going on in order to create genuine uses for the massive upgrade.
Richard Ure
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 12:50 PMFor as good an idea as our network permits, go to http://www22.verizon.com/Residential/aboutFiOS/Overview.htm# and click the FiOS effect button.
Elephant Fresh
Friday, November 5, 2010 at 6:25 PMSweet bastard the whole debate around this issue has been infuriating. Constant spin and misunderstanding from both sides (but especially the coalition, who seem to lack even a basic understanding of how people use the internet). Also, Telstra must burn.
Simon Reidy
Friday, November 5, 2010 at 8:11 PMGreat to see such comprehensive coverage Nick. And I’m glad Gizmodo has taken such a positive stance supporting the NBN.
It’s crystal clear that The Australian are running a deliberate scare campaign, and spreading so much misinformation, in order to brainwash the general public into thinking its’s a “giant waste of tax payers in money”. In reality I believe the NBN is essential infrastructure that will last decades, giving us the bandwidth to build a whole new way of life.
I take it everyone has seen nbnexplained.org? It’s a good link to give newbies who are don’t understand what the NBN is all about.
Zane
Friday, November 5, 2010 at 8:18 PMFor a country that doesnt even have a decent railway network, roads that are constantly congested, i would have thought the 43billion would be better for more critical infrastructure that would not be outdated and undervalued soo fkin fast.
China have been posting massive monetary imputs into thier rail network, all of europe, america and India too, as it is atransport backbone that needs to be established before energy prices escalate to a point where it would cost an enormous amount of growth to australia. One thing about rail is it is relatively future proof, in that the energy required to use it can be various from completely artificial nuclear(provided it passes sanctions) to totally green electrical to fossil fuels of any sort, to bio diesels and other new technologies.
Hard cabling is quickly being outdated, and technology we are seeing on a micro scale will soon lend itself to macro sclae technology. We all loath lines wires and cables, yet here we put all our eggs in this one basket seriously asks why?! there are better investments for Australias future right now than the quickly developeing communications and technology front. Wait for it to settle and invest in the secure and stable option once tests prove so.
Matt
Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 11:25 PMI think the problem isn’t that it could be better spent elsewhere it is that even if the money was allocated to road and rail infrastructure nothing would get done. Where I live was recommended to have a rail line 40 years ago but nothing has been done about it (original proposal for the 12km of extra track was made in 1969).
Richard Ure
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 12:55 PMBetter eCommunications will probably help with shortcomings in other means of communicating. And be greener to boot.
Gareth
Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 12:12 AMThis is a great idea… I hope this will become a regular segment to read?
Nick Broughall
Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 10:00 PMThat’s the plan!
WTW
Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 9:18 AMSee: http://www.nbnnews.info/what-happened-with-the-nbn-this-week/
Yip, linking back to you! :) Great round up Nick.
Feel free not to publish this comment as It’s got a link in it if you prefer. I was really just giving some support and a heads up of our existence.
Matt
Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 2:47 PMGreat article Nick,
I work at an ISP in support.
Day to day I see the downfalls with the current infrastructure and all its problems and If Tony had his way and we went wireless it would be worse.
Do not get me wrong as I believe having wireless internet is necessary but at the end of the day it is a shared connection from a local tower and as this becomes more popular congestion during peak times does as well.
Bring on the Fibre, I know it will cost a lot but installing new infrastructure all of Australia wouldn’t be cheap. At least I know what my Tax payer dollars are being spent and it is something that is worth it.
I believe the Government needs to sell the idea to its Citizens in regards to actual cost to the end user, usability, upgrade-ability, lifespan and wipe out any lies and myths fibre discriminators have been spreading.
Des
Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 7:13 PMDoes it surprise anyone that The Australian would twist words to fit their agenda? They’ve been the mouthpiece for a particularly nasty brand of right-winger for a long time.
Simon Reidy
Monday, November 8, 2010 at 2:13 PMThat’s very true, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them be quite so blatant and out in the open about it before. They’re not even trying to hide it.
David Shears
Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 12:56 AMI live Masayoshi Son’s answer to the growing demand for wireless access in portable devices. He said that wireless demand is is outpacing bandwidth exponentially and that the only way to offload that demand is a fixed wired (fibre) network that operates in buildings. Meaning that when you arrive at your home, or your office or the coffee shop you hold your meetings at, you get off of the public wireless network and connect (seamlessly) to the local wired network of the building you are in. This means more wireless spectrum for everyone because less users are on the mobile networks.
This solves the how many towers would you need to service all wireless broadband users? A question mind you that Neither Abbott nor Turnbull can answer. The actual answer is Millions. Put wifi everywhere and you will have more wireless bandwidth than anyone could possibly need. Brilliant!!