I’m writing this in the plane as we head back to Melbourne from our NZ holiday. At the time of writing we still have a caretaker Govt. Whatever the outcome of the deals with the independents, it looks like the mandatory ISP level filter is dead for the moment. I don’t think it is ultimately dead though as the Internet represents a real threat to governments of all persuasions. They cant control the message. Even if the ALP is successful in forming a minority Govt I think the RC classification review will be a very low priority and the implementation of a filter even lower. So for the moment the filter is dormant. As Thomas Jefferson tells us though, “The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance”
My intuition is telling me we’re more likely to end up with an Abbott Govt. With everyone talking about the importance of stability in Govt for the last 24 hours, there seems to have been a lot of soul searching, navel gazing and finger pointing over the ALPs poor showing in the polls. Maurice lemma, Anna Bligh, Graham Richardson etc all seem to be playing blame games. That hardly screams stability. In reality though, it will be the 3 (4) independents that will will give their support to one party or another to form a minority Government. My guess is they will want to go with a mob that at least appears more stable. I say “appears”, as we still have Malcolm Turnbull waiting in the wings for Tony Abbott to stumble.
This brings us to the NBN. At least two independents come from rural electorates where bandwidth sucks. They naturally want a better deal for their constituents in telecommunications. As I have previously written, the ALP NBN proposal was certainly technically superior to anything the Libs were offering. However that doesn’t mean I think it is a good idea. Tony Abbott is now talking about reviewing the bandwidth proposal that they took to the election. Oh goody policy on the run.
Here is what I don’t think is getting enough analysis with the ALP NBN though. We’re told that the public purse must be opened to the tune of 43bil dollars. Then on top of that individuals will of course have to pay subscriptions. In 5 years time Senator Conroy tells us that it will be then sold off and privatized. Now presumably we won’t get back what we paid for it, because as all my colleagues keep telling me, private industry can’t/won’t fund it in the first place. So industry has said it is not cost effective to do this roll out. However in 5 years time we will have a new wholesale bandwidth private monopoly. We’ve paid Telstra 11bil or so for access to their pits/ducts. Why would this new monopoly maintain services that are unprofitable? Their not going to invest in something that comes with a bunch of caveats that force the new owner to support unprofitable parts of the infrastructure. 
Do you have underground power in your street? Then you probably don’t have cable TV. You will instead have satellite TV available. The reason for this is that it was much more cost effective for Telstra/foxtel to service these areas via satellite rather than get their coax into the pits that they own. Sure cable to the home would have been much better. More services, bandwidth etc but the real money is in entertainment for the masses not high speed bandwidth. I am the biggest fan of all the bandwidth you can eat but let’s be sensible. Rural Australia needs fast reliable telecommunications. Heck my office is 300 metres from the exchange but I can’t get any new digital lines. Lets focus on doing that. No one will want to monitor their dishwashers online as Senator Conroy has ridiculously claimed. We’ve had that technology for ten years! In Europe many power companies already read their customers meters remotely and they don’t need fibre to the home to achieve this. They do it over the existing power network. The technology to put these same chips into your appliances has been available for the same time frame but electronics manufacturers have not used them as there is no demand at the consumer level.
Then we’re told it will allow people to telecommute. Telecommuting isn’t about bandwidth, it’s about business processes. I telecommute myself some mornings. We have contractors in various countries around the world. They also telecommute. We don’t need 1gbps to do it. I’d love to hear Senator Conroy explain how all these employers around the country are going to let their employees work from home as soon as they get fibre and magically take cars off the road. It is of course, a nonsense.
As much as I appreciate the demand, we need to focus on rolling out technologies like WiMAX which can be deployed faster and cheaper. Sure it’s not going to be as fast as fibre but most homes and businesses don’t need 1gbps. Having said that though, just last week the new WiMAX standard was being finalized with theoretical speeds of 1gbps. Yes they’re only theoretical but 5 years ago the theoretical speed for WiMAX was around 50mbps. So that is a 20 fold improvement in five years. What will be the speed of WiMAX when the 1gbps NBN is being sold off in 2015? 20gbps? Let’s also not forget the real growth in bandwidth demand is in wireless, smart phones, ipads, net books etc. Fibre to the home isn’t going to help you when you’re down the street, on the bus or in your car.
If we insist on raiding the public coffers for telecommunication infrastructure shouldn’t we be applying more due diligence than just “woooohooo fibre to the home! Yeah baby!” because at the moment that seems to be the main argument. Let’s not forget also that this policy is from a government that has shown nothing but contempt for the Internet industry. Now we’re meant to believe they’ll be magically wonderful in rolling out a new massive infrastructure to support it. There is no business case to show how or when this will cease to be a drain on the public purse. I’m hoping the libs don’t get into a bandwidth bidding war.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for a great post! 1gbps sounds great, but the reality is that at $43billion is just too much too pay at the present time. (If my memory is correct, when this was first floated in 2007, the cost was going to be somewhere in the range of $4 – $6billion).
The government also trotted out the fact that the technology could be used for medical purposes etc. These facilities already exist in a lot of areas, and the government would be better off concentrating on extending this capability than building a whole new system.
As far back as 1999, when I was working in a government building in a regional area of NSW, high speed internet was available to the government departments based there.
It was also available to the local university, and I would expect, to the local hospital.
As for Mr Conroy’s filter, if we have a Labor/Greens coalition it probably won’t get off the ground due to the Greens opposing it!
My bet is that whoever gets the Gong (as Mr Katter puts it) will be receiving a poison chalice. I think that another election is likely within 12 months, and more than like it will be a double dissolution once the Greens get the balance of power in the senate.
Thanks again for a great post, and the chance comment!
Allan
This is something Conroy so keen on yet his best arguments for it are complete nonsense. That really doesn’t fill me with confidence.
Alright, 1Gbps is stupid. Why do we need that much bandwidth?
The truth is we don’t. But that is not what the NBN is about. And this is the problem with ALP, they tend to follow their lobbyists in blind faith. That is why the ACL could push a filter, why AFACT can push data rentention, etc.
Take solace in the fact that NBNCo will not be run by these blind puppets then, as Labor may push the policy, and provide the money and mandate, but that’s about it.
And while we’re on the subject of money, it is $26 billion of public money, over 10 years. Or to put that in prespective, around 1% of tax revenue for the period. If LNP took on the NBN, with no modifications, according to their budget, they would still make a surplus.
But that’s a minor issue. Let’s get back to the why. The why is complex, and as such ALP have left it be. They assume that if they trout 1Gbps the public will be impressed and greedy. Of course, that isn’t true. That us why you wrote this post isn’t it?
FTTP, and I use FTTP, not FTTH, because it includes commerical premises in the definition, is not about bandwidth. It is about raising the bar.
The bar is very low. Pair-gain, RIMs, line-length, contention, cell density, backhaul congestion. All these factors mean that everyone, even those in the well serviced metro areas, can get anything from 30Mbps, to less than 30kbps. And there is no way of knowing what.
The NBN will ensure everyone gets at least 25Mbps on a fixed line connection. It will also provide a very good backhaul for wireless for those in remote areas, and those who wish for convience over relibility and speed.
So Wireless? What’s wrong with it? Nothing, really, except the laws of physics. Contention means that as more users try to connect to a cell, the less speed everyone can get. That is why they always quote “peak speeds” for Wireless. The only way to overcome this is to reduce the number of users per cell, which generally means more cells. Now unless you want a tower on every street corner, wireless will always perform badly. No matter how much the technology improves.
The final thing is business. Do you know how much a commerial fibre connection currently costs in the CBD? And then while you’re at it, how much is rent in these areas. So if you do data intensive work, you will need to pay tens-of-thousands of dollars a month in order to get that bandwidth.
And let me clarify, intensive, in most cases, means more than 1Mbps upload. Try doing an online backup with that upload, and you will begin to understand why businesses need the NBN. Small business from the shed out the back will be easier with the NBN, espically in the IT industry.
The NBN isn’t perfect, and no, not everyone needs FTTH, but it is still our best bet. The LNPs current policy will just be more of the same we have now, which looks fine on the outside, but really isn’t.
ALP don’t really get what it is they are trying to sell here, so please, ignore tje bandwidth bidding war. This isn’t the problem that needs fixing.
Thanks for that – I have posted an update
My response is here http://jimboot.com/nbn-google-net-neutrality-the-free-market