So Gungahlinistes, enjoying your NBN?

2604 said :

You make it sound like gold-plating is always the way to go with infrastructure. But there have been literally dozens of instances through time of over-investment in infrastructure – from canals to railways to the Concorde to TransACT in the ACT – where either the demand wasn’t there or the technology in question was rapidly superseded. Most relevantly, there was a glut of undersea data cables laid in the late 1990s which were huge loss-makers and that capacity only started getting soaked up when hundreds of millions of people in China and South East Asia started accessing the internet.

I don’t see anyone arguing for a dual carriageway between Perth and Adelaide, even though it would make the driving experience that much better. The demand isn’t there and there are more convenient alternatives. Likewise, it makes no sense to build the NBN if the capacity is unlikely to get used up and if the evidence is that people will choose alternative technologies. Even if (as you argue) ADSL gets maxed out in ten years’ time, mobile broadband is getting faster and better all the time and with the proliferation of mobile devices, is surely the way most people will choose to access the internet in the future.

Oh god, not the mobile broadband argument again… If everyone chooses to move to a purely mobile broadband future, you can look forward to either towers from horizon to horizon, or speeds that would make it virtually useless.

If you want to truly understand this, read through this article:

http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2012/06/14/3524848.htm

It’s based on a Cisco report that monitors data usage over time, and makes predictions for the future. It’s proved to be reliable in the past, if anything on the conservative side.

One key prediction, is that between 2011 and 1016, our mobile broadband demands will increase 18-fold.

General IP traffic (ie, all traffic regardless of how it’s delivered) will increase 4-fold over the same period.

I don’t think it’s fair, or accurate, to describe the build method of the NBN as ‘Gold Plating’. Gold plating in the electricity industry is referring to an overspend on infrastructure to be able to manage the extreme peaks reliably. Given data trends globally and overseas, the capabilities and capacity of the NBN is going to be what is required to service our normal needs – let alone any extreme peaks.

Jethro said :

2604 said :

Gungahlin Al said :

The precious irony of these words and your nom de plume…

I think Steveu is spot on, and you sir/madam should read and apply your handle. We’ll soon wonder how it could ever have been doubted. But alas, it is often the way when a topic gets caught up in political spinning…

I love how any criticism of the government building the NBN is dismissed as narrow-mindedness brought about by a Liberal scare campaign, rather than the result of critical thinking about what the government is trying to achieve with the NBN and whether there are better ways of going about it.

OYM is absolutely right. Existing download speeds are fine for probably 95% of users. The slow take-up of NBN services reflects this. The remaining 5% are outliers who should locate their enterprises where existing high-speed services exist, until alternatives such as wireless broadband catch up.

Spending $36 billion to service the needs of such a small proportion of the population is insanity and has a huge opportunity cost. We could fund Gonski and the NDIS with that much money, with enough left over to build enough transport infrastructure to provide productivity benefits that would make any productivity improvements from the NBN pale into insignificance.

I don’t think you understand how the NBN is being funded. The government will borrow money to build the infrastructure. This loan will be paid off over the course of a few decades. The yearly repayments (principle plus interest) come from the revenue received through user payments. Projections are that these will be enough to pay back the loan and generate some return on top of that. In effect, if NBN subscriptions meet projections, it won’t actually cost taxpayers a cent. The big caveat of course is whether revenue meets projections. nonetheless, when the NBN is paid off the government will own a multi-billion dollar asset. Not to mention the productivity gains and opportunities for new businesses and industries.

Funding Gonski , while a valuable thing we should aim to do, isn’t the same type of spending. Government debt to fund education or health doesn’t come with a cash return to pay off that investment.

The projections were that NBN would generate a 7% return on investment if its subscriber targets were met. That’s just over one percent above the long-term bond rate. As we all know, the subscriber targets have not been met. The government never instructed NBN Co to meet a 7% ROI, or any ROI target at all. Also, NBN has confirmed that it sets its pricing to meet the market (ie to be close to the cost of an ADSL or other broadband connection), rather than setting its pricing to recoup the costs of building the network.

Gonski funding should improve education levels – at least that’s what your former AEU colleagues would have us believe – which should result in more educated, better-earning citizens paying higher taxes to the government.

Jethro said :

2604 said :

Gungahlin Al said :

The precious irony of these words and your nom de plume…

I think Steveu is spot on, and you sir/madam should read and apply your handle. We’ll soon wonder how it could ever have been doubted. But alas, it is often the way when a topic gets caught up in political spinning…

I love how any criticism of the government building the NBN is dismissed as narrow-mindedness brought about by a Liberal scare campaign, rather than the result of critical thinking about what the government is trying to achieve with the NBN and whether there are better ways of going about it.

OYM is absolutely right. Existing download speeds are fine for probably 95% of users. The slow take-up of NBN services reflects this. The remaining 5% are outliers who should locate their enterprises where existing high-speed services exist, until alternatives such as wireless broadband catch up.

Spending $36 billion to service the needs of such a small proportion of the population is insanity and has a huge opportunity cost. We could fund Gonski and the NDIS with that much money, with enough left over to build enough transport infrastructure to provide productivity benefits that would make any productivity improvements from the NBN pale into insignificance.

I don’t think you understand how the NBN is being funded. The government will borrow money to build the infrastructure. This loan will be paid off over the course of a few decades. The yearly repayments (principle plus interest) come from the revenue received through user payments. Projections are that these will be enough to pay back the loan and generate some return on top of that. In effect, if NBN subscriptions meet projections, it won’t actually cost taxpayers a cent. The big caveat of course is whether revenue meets projections. nonetheless, when the NBN is paid off the government will own a multi-billion dollar asset. Not to mention the productivity gains and opportunities for new businesses and industries.

Funding Gonski , while a valuable thing we should aim to do, isn’t the same type of spending. Government debt to fund education or health doesn’t come with a cash return to pay off that investment.

Whilst I understand where you are coming from in regards to the income from NBN can go directly to paying off it’s debt. However funding Gonski is an investment for the Government, well future Governments. The better educated we are as a nation the higher the output we can contribute to the nation. We can find further efficiencies, develop new and exciting technologies and back on topic develop new industries that are supported by the NBN. All of this means more dollars for all and more tax dollars for the Government. I for one am happy to pay for the NBN rollout for future growth and am happy to pay for Gonski for future growth.

Gungahlin Al said :

Fair ’nuff Mothy. Winding back.

Solidarity: Nicholls is hooked to the Hall exchange I believe, rather than the Crace one the rest of us are through. I don’t recall what the issue was with Hall, but there are delays, as mentioned by NBN Co at a recent GCC meeting.

Guess Casey was on the cusp of development – too soon to NBN to be bothered with Transact (like Crace has). Ultimately it will all be done and worth the wait – being still way ahead of most of the rest of the country.

The Springbank Rise side of Casey is TransACT, the other side copper.

Postalgeek said :

gazket said :

NBN will be all good until there is a blackout. then it’s useless.

Well spotted. That’s why I’ve never bought into all that other crap like lights, fridge, TV, heater, hot water system, router, computer, mixer, and power tools. Exactly the same design flaw. I don’t know how they get away with it!

gazket said :

NBN will be all good until there is a blackout. then it’s useless.

Are you saying you have a UPS set up on your current modem? What happens when you have a blackout now?

Except with NBN they provide you with a UPS to keep your modem powered up for a short time period.

Solidarity said :

Aaand looks like Casey doesn’t get it now or anytime soon anyway

Guess i’ll quit my yammerin’

Springbank Rise is wired with FTTH with TransACT exactly the same speeds available as NBN. You may struggle with a wireless internet service other than Telstra there too. Just sign up with TransACT and get on the information Autobahn.

Ozi said :

Look, that’s fine if you don’t understand how infrastructure works, or have any concept of the patterns writ large in computer tech history over the last 50 or so years.

However, for the rest of us, it is fairly straightforward. Imagine a highway: instead of building one lane each way to meet the current traffic needs and then, at considerable cost, adding an extra lane each way in ten years time when traffic volume increases, you INVEST in a four lane highway from the outset. Higher initial cost, but it means you don’t need to go and duplicate it down the road.

In much the same way, I agree that at the moment 95% of people are happy with ADSL speeds. However, I very much doubt that when there are more people using far more data heavy products in ten years that ADSL will cut it. In fact, I’m sure that in even 5 years time the existing copper will be unable to handle the load.

You make it sound like gold-plating is always the way to go with infrastructure. But there have been literally dozens of instances through time of over-investment in infrastructure – from canals to railways to the Concorde to TransACT in the ACT – where either the demand wasn’t there or the technology in question was rapidly superseded. Most relevantly, there was a glut of undersea data cables laid in the late 1990s which were huge loss-makers and that capacity only started getting soaked up when hundreds of millions of people in China and South East Asia started accessing the internet.

I don’t see anyone arguing for a dual carriageway between Perth and Adelaide, even though it would make the driving experience that much better. The demand isn’t there and there are more convenient alternatives. Likewise, it makes no sense to build the NBN if the capacity is unlikely to get used up and if the evidence is that people will choose alternative technologies. Even if (as you argue) ADSL gets maxed out in ten years’ time, mobile broadband is getting faster and better all the time and with the proliferation of mobile devices, is surely the way most people will choose to access the internet in the future.

2604 said :

Gungahlin Al said :

The precious irony of these words and your nom de plume…

I think Steveu is spot on, and you sir/madam should read and apply your handle. We’ll soon wonder how it could ever have been doubted. But alas, it is often the way when a topic gets caught up in political spinning…

I love how any criticism of the government building the NBN is dismissed as narrow-mindedness brought about by a Liberal scare campaign, rather than the result of critical thinking about what the government is trying to achieve with the NBN and whether there are better ways of going about it.

OYM is absolutely right. Existing download speeds are fine for probably 95% of users. The slow take-up of NBN services reflects this. The remaining 5% are outliers who should locate their enterprises where existing high-speed services exist, until alternatives such as wireless broadband catch up.

Spending $36 billion to service the needs of such a small proportion of the population is insanity and has a huge opportunity cost. We could fund Gonski and the NDIS with that much money, with enough left over to build enough transport infrastructure to provide productivity benefits that would make any productivity improvements from the NBN pale into insignificance.

I don’t think you understand how the NBN is being funded. The government will borrow money to build the infrastructure. This loan will be paid off over the course of a few decades. The yearly repayments (principle plus interest) come from the revenue received through user payments. Projections are that these will be enough to pay back the loan and generate some return on top of that. In effect, if NBN subscriptions meet projections, it won’t actually cost taxpayers a cent. The big caveat of course is whether revenue meets projections. nonetheless, when the NBN is paid off the government will own a multi-billion dollar asset. Not to mention the productivity gains and opportunities for new businesses and industries.

Funding Gonski , while a valuable thing we should aim to do, isn’t the same type of spending. Government debt to fund education or health doesn’t come with a cash return to pay off that investment.

Ozi said :

However, for the rest of us, it is fairly straightforward. Imagine a highway: instead of building one lane each way to meet the current traffic needs…..

…In fact, I’m sure that in even 5 years time the existing copper will be unable to handle the load.

Traffic needs – can’t even imagine what they will be. But they will grow exponentially I would expect. Anyone counted how many Internet connected devices you have in the home? We have heaps, can only expect this to increase.

I think that for the better part of a decade and a half Telstra has neglected its copper network, that was laid well before I was born (I suspect this will beqcome more and more apparent as the NBN starts using the telstra conduits that we paid handsomely for). It makes sense to upgrade the infrastructure and replace the copper anyway.

Doing it properly the first time around, and thinking for the future makes sense.

As for illegal uses that ppl may use the NBN for (eg. Movie downloads) I suspect it will be moot point anyway as streaming services from overseas become more predominantly used, and people avoid the “Australia tax”, and start (reasonably legitimately) using paid services for entertainment.

I’m glad my friends in gunghalin are getting some reprieve from the RIM city Telstra built out there.

gazket said :

NBN will be all good until there is a blackout. then it’s useless.

Well spotted. That’s why I’ve never bought into all that other crap like lights, fridge, TV, heater, hot water system, router, computer, mixer, and power tools. Exactly the same design flaw. I don’t know how they get away with it!

2604 said :

I love how any criticism of the government building the NBN is dismissed as narrow-mindedness brought about by a Liberal scare campaign, rather than the result of critical thinking about what the government is trying to achieve with the NBN and whether there are better ways of going about it.

OYM is absolutely right. Existing download speeds are fine for probably 95% of users. The slow take-up of NBN services reflects this. The remaining 5% are outliers who should locate their enterprises where existing high-speed services exist, until alternatives such as wireless broadband catch up.

Spending $36 billion to service the needs of such a small proportion of the population is insanity and has a huge opportunity cost. We could fund Gonski and the NDIS with that much money, with enough left over to build enough transport infrastructure to provide productivity benefits that would make any productivity improvements from the NBN pale into insignificance.

Look, that’s fine if you don’t understand how infrastructure works, or have any concept of the patterns writ large in computer tech history over the last 50 or so years.

However, for the rest of us, it is fairly straightforward. Imagine a highway: instead of building one lane each way to meet the current traffic needs and then, at considerable cost, adding an extra lane each way in ten years time when traffic volume increases, you INVEST in a four lane highway from the outset. Higher initial cost, but it means you don’t need to go and duplicate it down the road.

In much the same way, I agree that at the moment 95% of people are happy with ADSL speeds. However, I very much doubt that when there are more people using far more data heavy products in ten years that ADSL will cut it. In fact, I’m sure that in even 5 years time the existing copper will be unable to handle the load.

So yes: the NBN is expensive and at this point offers “too much” of a good thing for an average consumer. However it is a smart investment in the future. I think this “internet” thing might even catch on.

Gungahlin Al said :

The precious irony of these words and your nom de plume…

I think Steveu is spot on, and you sir/madam should read and apply your handle. We’ll soon wonder how it could ever have been doubted. But alas, it is often the way when a topic gets caught up in political spinning…

I love how any criticism of the government building the NBN is dismissed as narrow-mindedness brought about by a Liberal scare campaign, rather than the result of critical thinking about what the government is trying to achieve with the NBN and whether there are better ways of going about it.

OYM is absolutely right. Existing download speeds are fine for probably 95% of users. The slow take-up of NBN services reflects this. The remaining 5% are outliers who should locate their enterprises where existing high-speed services exist, until alternatives such as wireless broadband catch up.

Spending $36 billion to service the needs of such a small proportion of the population is insanity and has a huge opportunity cost. We could fund Gonski and the NDIS with that much money, with enough left over to build enough transport infrastructure to provide productivity benefits that would make any productivity improvements from the NBN pale into insignificance.

gazket said :

NBN will be all good until there is a blackout. then it’s useless.

The internet component of the NBN will be just as useless in a blackout as ADSL is right now. As others have mentioned, everything else in your house that’s required before you can use the internet will be without power as well – not least your ADSL modem.

As far as the telephone component, you have an option to have a battery backup installed when you get your NBN connection (for no additional cost I believe) which will let you retain voice services over your line.

gazket said :

NBN will be all good until there is a blackout. then it’s useless.

Hey just like our power lines lets get rid of those too!

gazket said :

NBN will be all good until there is a blackout. then it’s useless.

Right. And because your router and computer will also require power, I doubt you’ll even notice.

For what it’s worth, as a young person I’m all for it. The people here who say they don’t need fast internet connections are not the norm, at least in my age group. I’m looking forward to it replacing the patchy service we get here in Tuggers. The flip-side is, by the time it gets rolled out here I’ll probably have moved elsewhere.

krash said :

I will be getting the NBN and it will be a 100/40 plan from my ISP which will cost me about the same as my current ADSL plan does. Only bonus is that the second ADSL connection in the house used by bandwidth hogs can be switched off.

.

I looked at iinet’s packages and taking up NBN with the phone/modem at 100/40 I would be $20 per month better off than Telstra line rental and the TPG package with the same download limits

OpenYourMind said :

My problem with the NBN is the enormous amount we’ve spent on something that provides little benefit…imagine what we could have done with that much money eg. fast trains, public dental health care scheme, give childcare a really big boost etc. Is better TV in the home more important than these kind of things.

The thing to remember here is that it is largely financed through debt that will be paid back by the people using the NBN. Using debt to finance free public health schemes or to subsidise child care wont work because you wont be generating enough income to pay the debt off. It might work for fast rail, but connecting the whole country with fast rail would cost significantly more than the NBN and the ticket prices would be downright criminal to pay that sort of project off. You would be better off lobbying for more convenient and cheaper ways to get to the airport.

One major benefit I’ll personally gain is the ability to work from home or remotely by connecting into work over the NBN. I’m largely out of the office most of the day anyway so the $10,000+ pa my work pays just so I have some floor space to put a desk would be a massive bonus to them. Plus it would mean that they could ride out the downturn in work without having to lay off further workers (we already lost 10% in 2012 and looking like we will need to shed a further $10-15% in the coming years). I have to log every productive minute I’m working anyway for work to bill our customers, so it isn’t like I can just sit at home browsing RA and Youtube.

The exciting bit about the NBN isn’t the download speeds it is the upload speeds for me. Plus the capability to increase both upload and download speeds in the future if you are on FTTP NBN. I think that technology that takes advantage of high upload speeds could be a big winner for future Australian IT start ups.

NBN will be all good until there is a blackout. then it’s useless.

I’d like to know from Gungahlin NBN users if the *reliability* of the NBN is moreso than that of ADSL. The higher bandwidth and speed is of course a given. Any dropped connections, latency issues etc?

OpenYourMind said :

steveu said :

As much as I hate to say it labours NBN policy is pretty much worth every cent. I suspect that whilst people can speculate future uses I think in 10 years time we still wouldn’t have thought of the new things to do with the network- in other words, I think the potential there is huge and beyond most concepts we can speculate on today.

I don’t think it’s worth every cent. Sure, having extra bandwidth will be great for schools, companies etc. But for the home user, there’s really no strong selling point. The biggest selling point I’ve heard is hi-def television – not exactly something to bet the Aussie farm on. My problem with the NBN is the enormous amount we’ve spent on something that provides little benefit…imagine what we could have done with that much money eg. fast trains, public dental health care scheme, give childcare a really big boost etc. Is better TV in the home more important than these kind of things.

I work in IT and I understand the benefits of big bandwidth. I just don’t get any real tangible benefit to our country by installing fibre to the home. I get that our copper network is struggling and for some it’s crap, but plenty of people already have more than sufficient service with ADSL. I’m on a $30 a month plan with unlimited download. The ADSL speed is more than sufficient. Some of the other possibilities I’ve seen touted for NBN such as consultations with doctors could easily be done over ADSL, hell, I’ve seen that sort of thing over decent 3G.

The precious irony of these words and your nom de plume…

I think Steveu is spot on, and you sir/madam should read and apply your handle. We’ll soon wonder how it could ever have been doubted. But alas, it is often the way when a topic gets caught up in political spinning…

I live in Palmerston and I’m going to be getting the NBN in the next few weeks (doing some additional network wiring in the house at the moment). ADSL was bad around here until about 3 or so years ago, when Telstra upgraded the “RIM” I’m on. I haven’t had lag issues since and I’ve been gaming and downloading in relative bliss since. Only thing is that uploads are hopelessly slow and uploading anything big is usually one of those, “do over night while not using computer” type of thing. Forget about using cloud based backup services.

I will be getting the NBN and it will be a 100/40 plan from my ISP which will cost me about the same as my current ADSL plan does. Only bonus is that the second ADSL connection in the house used by bandwidth hogs can be switched off.

Now, can anyone with the NBN in Gungahlin please give me the important numbers.

http://www.speedtest.net numbers please 🙂

e.g.. with my 8Mbit ADSL connection I’m getting 7.01Mbps down and 0.33Mbps up with 23ms ping to the internode server in Canberra. Just for giggles, pick a US server to test the bandwidth to or even a swedish one.

Also, could an NBN connected person do a Traceroute to 72.5.213.44 and give me the last hop ping? That would be great.

steveu said :

As much as I hate to say it labours NBN policy is pretty much worth every cent. I suspect that whilst people can speculate future uses I think in 10 years time we still wouldn’t have thought of the new things to do with the network- in other words, I think the potential there is huge and beyond most concepts we can speculate on today.

I don’t think it’s worth every cent. Sure, having extra bandwidth will be great for schools, companies etc. But for the home user, there’s really no strong selling point. The biggest selling point I’ve heard is hi-def television – not exactly something to bet the Aussie farm on. My problem with the NBN is the enormous amount we’ve spent on something that provides little benefit…imagine what we could have done with that much money eg. fast trains, public dental health care scheme, give childcare a really big boost etc. Is better TV in the home more important than these kind of things.

I work in IT and I understand the benefits of big bandwidth. I just don’t get any real tangible benefit to our country by installing fibre to the home. I get that our copper network is struggling and for some it’s crap, but plenty of people already have more than sufficient service with ADSL. I’m on a $30 a month plan with unlimited download. The ADSL speed is more than sufficient. Some of the other possibilities I’ve seen touted for NBN such as consultations with doctors could easily be done over ADSL, hell, I’ve seen that sort of thing over decent 3G.

As much as I hate to say it labours NBN policy is pretty much worth every cent. I suspect that whilst people can speculate future uses I think in 10 years time we still wouldn’t have thought of the new things to do with the network- in other words, I think the potential there is huge and beyond most concepts we can speculate on today.

Solidarity said :

Yeah but the thing is that there were big promises that the NBN would make Australia leaders when it comes to internet and all that. Paying $20 a month for a 12mbit connection is crazy talk in some countries.

Are you for real?

NBN will be awesome. Working from home will not be laggy. Working from home will be better than in the office. And I will realistically be able to work the hours i want. And I get connected (in Nicholls, thanks to rubbish internet in Palmerston) in the next three months! WOOOO

Meh, mucked up my tagging in that last post. The 2nd last paragraph should be in italics as well.

Chop71 said :

Gungahlin Al said :

rosscoact said :

It will cut costs to the consumer .

That’s what I’m talking about. Brand new opportunities.

Cut costs to the consumer????? how/where???
Also remember someone is paying the $40 Billion, so I can’t see how it is cutting costs.

I am a fan of super fast internet, but don’t feed me bullshyt and say it is cheaper …..
Nothing that costs $40 Billion will ever be cheaper to the taxpayer and/or end consumer.

Selective quoting much??

The original ‘cut costs to the consumer’ quote was actually:

We’re kicking off a medical monitoring business in the next month or so that will be based in Gunners and is made possible by the NBN.

It will cut costs to the consumer and government and provide far superior outcomes to people on medical and social delivery. This type of technology and service delivery will make the $40 billion cost of installation look like chickenfeed.

The statement was quite obviously referring to the business, not the NBN itself.

Not bothering with NBN. I am happy with my 3G wireless where I get 6GB for $29 a month. Plus an extra 2.5GB on my mobile phone.

Not against the NBN, it’ll be great for many businesses but it aint for me.

Chop71 said :

Gungahlin Al said :

rosscoact said :

It will cut costs to the consumer .

That’s what I’m talking about. Brand new opportunities.

Cut costs to the consumer????? how/where???
Also remember someone is paying the $40 Billion, so I can’t see how it is cutting costs.

I am a fan of super fast internet, but don’t feed me bullshyt and say it is cheaper …..
Nothing that costs $40 Billion will ever be cheaper to the taxpayer and/or end consumer.

Well – by being Government owned the taxpayer essentially will end up getting a return on its investment of 7 percent (unless you read the AFR and Australian…in which case it’s a pipe dream). I would figure it would generate some kind of commercial return at some point and in which case it will be national infrastructure that has and is paying for itself.

Not to mention if you live in a regional area its the only way you’re going to get decent standards of broadband – period.

Solidarity said :

Yeah but the thing is that there were big promises that the NBN would make Australia leaders when it comes to internet and all that. Paying $20 a month for a 12mbit connection is crazy talk in some countries.

And it will make Australia leaders – but just because we will compare well in terms of connectivity, it doesn’t immediately follow that we must also compare well in terms of price. Comparing prices here, with a rollout that is spread over tens of thousands of km’s, against places like Singapore, Japan or Korea with vastly higher population densities, is just not realistic.

We also have the disadvantage that a large percentage of the content we access is hosted overseas – so our ISP’s also have to pay to use the submarine cables that connect us to the rest of the world. Prices to access data across them have come down in recent years, as new cables have come on line and more competition has been introduced, but it’s still more expensive for an ISP to bring in data hosted in the USA than it is data hosted in Sydney. That’s a big part of the reason why truly ‘unlimited’ plans – rather than ‘unlimited *’ – have never really taken off in Australia.

I’m hoping that once the NBN is in, and we have a lot of people with fast connections, that more and more content will be available locally, leading to decreased costs on ISP’s.

Meanwhile, the Japanese are paying $15 for a single sirloin steak… That’s crazy talk to me.

Gungahlin Al said :

rosscoact said :

It will cut costs to the consumer .

That’s what I’m talking about. Brand new opportunities.

Cut costs to the consumer????? how/where???
Also remember someone is paying the $40 Billion, so I can’t see how it is cutting costs.

I am a fan of super fast internet, but don’t feed me bullshyt and say it is cheaper …..
Nothing that costs $40 Billion will ever be cheaper to the taxpayer and/or end consumer.

Solidarity said :

Paying $20 a month for a 12mbit connection is crazy talk in some countries.

And what country do you live in?

I wonder if congestion for people who are stuck on ADSL for a while longer will decrease, as traffic is moved across to the new network?

thatsnotme said :

Solidarity said :

I guess mobile broadband it is, or just live without the internet at home which I have done for a while now. House is in Springbank Rise, move in shortly. Was kind of hoping the NBN meant no line rental and no premiums for a “naked” plan. Guess not. Ah well.

What are you talking about? A standard NBN plan is a naked plan. No line rental? So you expect your connection to the network to be free?

Even current ADSL “naked” plans include line rental – it’s just a more hidden component. When you’re on a naked plan, your ISP still has to pay money to Telstra to provide a service over the copper running to your house. It’s just a piece of copper without the voice component activated. The NBN is exactly the same thing – except it’s fibre instead. ISP plans include the fixed fee they need to pay to NBNCo to provide a service over the fibre, plus their own costs to deliver the data

Exetel have a plan at 12Mbps down / 1Mbps up, with a 50GB data limit, for $35 a month.

In comparison, the cheapest ADSL plan I can find costs $9.99 a month. To access it, you would need to be also paying line rental, so add another $25-30 a month on top of that.

Your desire to have a $20 a month plan is never going to happen – not under the NBN, or any other alternatives. If you want internet at home, you need to accept that the price you have in mind is completely unrealistic.

Yeah but the thing is that there were big promises that the NBN would make Australia leaders when it comes to internet and all that. Paying $20 a month for a 12mbit connection is crazy talk in some countries.

rosscoact said :

We’re kicking off a medical monitoring business in the next month or so that will be based in Gunners and is made possible by the NBN.

It will cut costs to the consumer and government and provide far superior outcomes to people on medical and social delivery. This type of technology and service delivery will make the $40 billion cost of installation look like chickenfeed.

That’s what I’m talking about. Brand new opportunities.

We’re kicking off a medical monitoring business in the next month or so that will be based in Gunners and is made possible by the NBN.

It will cut costs to the consumer and government and provide far superior outcomes to people on medical and social delivery. This type of technology and service delivery will make the $40 billion cost of installation look like chickenfeed.

Solidarity said :

I guess mobile broadband it is, or just live without the internet at home which I have done for a while now. House is in Springbank Rise, move in shortly. Was kind of hoping the NBN meant no line rental and no premiums for a “naked” plan. Guess not. Ah well.

What are you talking about? A standard NBN plan is a naked plan. No line rental? So you expect your connection to the network to be free?

Even current ADSL “naked” plans include line rental – it’s just a more hidden component. When you’re on a naked plan, your ISP still has to pay money to Telstra to provide a service over the copper running to your house. It’s just a piece of copper without the voice component activated. The NBN is exactly the same thing – except it’s fibre instead. ISP plans include the fixed fee they need to pay to NBNCo to provide a service over the fibre, plus their own costs to deliver the data

Exetel have a plan at 12Mbps down / 1Mbps up, with a 50GB data limit, for $35 a month.

In comparison, the cheapest ADSL plan I can find costs $9.99 a month. To access it, you would need to be also paying line rental, so add another $25-30 a month on top of that.

Your desire to have a $20 a month plan is never going to happen – not under the NBN, or any other alternatives. If you want internet at home, you need to accept that the price you have in mind is completely unrealistic.

Gungahlin Al said :

…Was looking at a job vacancy today with Canadian science communications video production group Minute Physics that could be based anywhere – as long as you have a really good connection…

Last week I was talking with a business in Adelaide who is in an area already connected to NBN – his business is a new web television network. Inconceivable business model on ADSL.

Those are the sort of opportunities NBN will open up. It is not all about movie downloads.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand much faster pr0n!

Why do people always forget to say that? 😛

Unless, of course, “movie downloads” is a euphemism. 😉

Fair ’nuff Mothy. Winding back.

Solidarity: Nicholls is hooked to the Hall exchange I believe, rather than the Crace one the rest of us are through. I don’t recall what the issue was with Hall, but there are delays, as mentioned by NBN Co at a recent GCC meeting.

Guess Casey was on the cusp of development – too soon to NBN to be bothered with Transact (like Crace has). Ultimately it will all be done and worth the wait – being still way ahead of most of the rest of the country.

Aaand looks like Casey doesn’t get it now or anytime soon anyway

Guess i’ll quit my yammerin’

Gungahlin Al said :

From the Alan Jones school of “who needs facts when you can just make s*** up”.

iinet: http://www.iinet.net.au/nbn/nbn-plan-residential.html
$50pm NBN base account, plus $10 for voice. Stuff all difference from your $35pm copper line plus base web access $30: http://www.telstra.com.au/internet/home-broadband-bigpond-elite-plans/

Oh wait – that’s ACTUALLY CHEAPER… And faster. And better.
Now, you were saying?

Easy Al, easy. Some people still look at it as an Internet service, and fail to make one of the knowledge leaps you’ve taken for granted being close to the issue for a while – that the NBN will deliver BOTH phone and Internet services.

Will admit that penny only dropped for me lately when I was looking at a plan I’d be happy with and was dismayed at the $75-85 per month cost before I realized I should be adding my line rental on home phone ($30 per month) to my internet cost ($50 per month).

Target on shopping was 200gb download allowance and still tossing up between 25/5 and 50/20 speeds.

Gungahlin Al said :

Solidarity said :

There are no plans for light users, I want to pay $20 a month or less for enough data to browse a few pages here and there, unfortunately they’re all megapseed 200GB plans for $70 a month. I don’t want to pay that.

From the Alan Jones school of “who needs facts when you can just make s*** up”.

iinet: http://www.iinet.net.au/nbn/nbn-plan-residential.html
$50pm NBN base account, plus $10 for voice. Stuff all difference from your $35pm copper line plus base web access $30: http://www.telstra.com.au/internet/home-broadband-bigpond-elite-plans/

Oh wait – that’s ACTUALLY CHEAPER… And faster. And better.
Now, you were saying?

Also just released the irony in your first line to that reply.

I guess mobile broadband it is, or just live without the internet at home which I have done for a while now. House is in Springbank Rise, move in shortly. Was kind of hoping the NBN meant no line rental and no premiums for a “naked” plan. Guess not. Ah well.

Gungahlin Al said :

Solidarity said :

There are no plans for light users, I want to pay $20 a month or less for enough data to browse a few pages here and there, unfortunately they’re all megapseed 200GB plans for $70 a month. I don’t want to pay that.

From the Alan Jones school of “who needs facts when you can just make s*** up”.

iinet: http://www.iinet.net.au/nbn/nbn-plan-residential.html
$50pm NBN base account, plus $10 for voice. Stuff all difference from your $35pm copper line plus base web access $30: http://www.telstra.com.au/internet/home-broadband-bigpond-elite-plans/

Oh wait – that’s ACTUALLY CHEAPER… And faster. And better.
Now, you were saying?

I don’t have a home phone. Why would I pay for a home phone when I pay for a mobile phone? Cheapest is $50 a month for 10GB/10GB at 12mbps… More than i’m willing to pay.

wah wah wah I want cheap internet and the gummint isn’t doing everything for me wah wah wah

Solidarity said :

There are no plans for light users, I want to pay $20 a month or less for enough data to browse a few pages here and there, unfortunately they’re all megapseed 200GB plans for $70 a month. I don’t want to pay that.

From the Alan Jones school of “who needs facts when you can just make s*** up”.

iinet: http://www.iinet.net.au/nbn/nbn-plan-residential.html
$50pm NBN base account, plus $10 for voice. Stuff all difference from your $35pm copper line plus base web access $30: http://www.telstra.com.au/internet/home-broadband-bigpond-elite-plans/

Oh wait – that’s ACTUALLY CHEAPER… And faster. And better.
Now, you were saying?

Roundhead89 said :

Gungahlin Al said :

The event is for the symbolic turning on of the Library’s NBN connection. The PM was supposed to be there but a late change means Sir Tim Berners-Lee will be doing the honours. It is due to start at 10:30, although I hear he may be challenged to get there by then as he was giving a keynote in town moments ago.

The NBN crews have been incredibly busy all over the place, working through Xmas to boot. Hanging out for my letter…

Was looking at a job vacancy today with Canadian science communications video production group Minute Physics that could be based anywhere – as long as you have a really good connection…

Last week I was talking with a business in Adelaide who is in an area already connected to NBN – his business is a new web television network. Inconceivable business model on ADSL.

Those are the sort of opportunities NBN will open up. It is not all about movie downloads.

Written and spoken by a Greens member with colleagues who prop up the Labor government.

Written by a Gungahlin resident who’s put up with crap Telstra service for years and desparately wants to see this installed – for us and all the nation, rather than be skewered into a half-done mess by Abbott. You can disagree about whether the solution is right, but don’t be questioning my motives.

Jerk. Hiding behind anonymity jerk.

Roundhead89 said :

Gungahlin Al said :

The event is for the symbolic turning on of the Library’s NBN connection. The PM was supposed to be there but a late change means Sir Tim Berners-Lee will be doing the honours. It is due to start at 10:30, although I hear he may be challenged to get there by then as he was giving a keynote in town moments ago.

The NBN crews have been incredibly busy all over the place, working through Xmas to boot. Hanging out for my letter…

Was looking at a job vacancy today with Canadian science communications video production group Minute Physics that could be based anywhere – as long as you have a really good connection…

Last week I was talking with a business in Adelaide who is in an area already connected to NBN – his business is a new web television network. Inconceivable business model on ADSL.

Those are the sort of opportunities NBN will open up. It is not all about movie downloads.

Written and spoken by a Greens member with colleagues who prop up the Labor government.

But there is a lot of truth in this. My ideological stance is provide tools to people to be creative and create business. This idea of saving coal miners jobs etc etc, is only a patchwork fix for an economy, that needs to diversify. The notion of throwing money out to people isn’t as productive.

I used to think that an unemployed person had access to training, surely funding the re-education of an unemployed person is better than, continually funding their welfare…. Yet the system doesn’t seem to work like that…

Still I can only hope if the coalition wins they’ll continue the NBN as is rather than put in a federal government version of the GDE one lane highway.

Solidarity said :

There are no plans for light users, I want to pay $20 a month or less for enough data to browse a few pages here and there, unfortunately they’re all megapseed 200GB plans for $70 a month. I don’t want to pay that.

The problem is $20 a month doesn’t cover the connection costs. A quick search on http://www.whirlpool.net.au shows there is a $35 plan with exetel and $39 plan with internode. But as suggested if you don’t need it then a wireless/3G solution would be fine.

The thing is there are plenty of applications that will soon use the infrastructure.

Gungahlin Al said :

The event is for the symbolic turning on of the Library’s NBN connection. The PM was supposed to be there but a late change means Sir Tim Berners-Lee will be doing the honours. It is due to start at 10:30, although I hear he may be challenged to get there by then as he was giving a keynote in town moments ago.

The NBN crews have been incredibly busy all over the place, working through Xmas to boot. Hanging out for my letter…

Was looking at a job vacancy today with Canadian science communications video production group Minute Physics that could be based anywhere – as long as you have a really good connection…

Last week I was talking with a business in Adelaide who is in an area already connected to NBN – his business is a new web television network. Inconceivable business model on ADSL.

Those are the sort of opportunities NBN will open up. It is not all about movie downloads.

Written and spoken by a Greens member with colleagues who prop up the Labor government.

Solidarity said :

There are no plans for light users, I want to pay $20 a month or less for enough data to browse a few pages here and there, unfortunately they’re all megapseed 200GB plans for $70 a month. I don’t want to pay that.

Absolute bollocks.

Was connected on Wednesday (after NBNCo equipment failures meant return tech visits). Speed is fantastic and our plan is $90/month which includes 200GB download without peak times plus all home phone calls bar international and 1300 numbers, with the first 6 months half price.

There’s other cheaper plans than that. Helps if you don’t MSU

Solidarity said :

There are no plans for light users, I want to pay $20 a month or less for enough data to browse a few pages here and there, unfortunately they’re all megapseed 200GB plans for $70 a month. I don’t want to pay that.

If you don’t care about speed and volume, then get a wireless card.

Solidarity said :

There are no plans for light users, I want to pay $20 a month or less for enough data to browse a few pages here and there, unfortunately they’re all megapseed 200GB plans for $70 a month. I don’t want to pay that.

+1

johnboy said :

Senator Humphries is noting the ISPs are getting paid $108 to sign customers up.

Might be worth asking for a cut!

That’s a fair cut from 511,000 to 54,000
Al?

There are no plans for light users, I want to pay $20 a month or less for enough data to browse a few pages here and there, unfortunately they’re all megapseed 200GB plans for $70 a month. I don’t want to pay that.

$4.50 a month off of a 24 month contract (assuming the ISP’s pass it through). Big deal. Prices start at $49.95 a month.

Abbott confirmed coalition policy is to retain the NBN, but as a FTTN network yesterday.

http://delimiter.com.au/2013/01/31/abbot-confirms-coalition-fttn-policy-hints-turnbull-will-be-comms-minister/

So that’s what taking over the NBN and getting it done sooner and at less cost means – i.e. doing half the job.

The event is for the symbolic turning on of the Library’s NBN connection. The PM was supposed to be there but a late change means Sir Tim Berners-Lee will be doing the honours. It is due to start at 10:30, although I hear he may be challenged to get there by then as he was giving a keynote in town moments ago.

The NBN crews have been incredibly busy all over the place, working through Xmas to boot. Hanging out for my letter…

Was looking at a job vacancy today with Canadian science communications video production group Minute Physics that could be based anywhere – as long as you have a really good connection…

Last week I was talking with a business in Adelaide who is in an area already connected to NBN – his business is a new web television network. Inconceivable business model on ADSL.

Those are the sort of opportunities NBN will open up. It is not all about movie downloads.

It’s soooo FaFaFAssttt that my miiiiiiind is overloading my fiiiiinggggers and I keep typing too muccch at once and then my thoughhhhhts come out as a bluuuuurrrrr and als;dkfj;alkjsd ;klasjdf lkjasdeiihja dsfasjerasdfiasdkfj alksedjrlkaje asdflkjads flkajer;iasoduifiox vfioadfoijaseoir jaoisdfj oaisdf and then I have to slow down agaaaain to caaattcch up and then iasdlkfja;lksdjf;laksdjf;lk jae;jkr sda;fi j;it happens all over again.

What a ride this NBN thingy is!

Phew….