How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

150 points by bootload 8 years ago | 182 comments
  • andrewstuart 8 years ago
    If you posed the question "Who in the world would be the worst possible person to decide on how to construct a nationwide high speed computer network?", the you might come up with a list that included Tony Abbott.

    I genuinely believe that Tony Abbott really didn't even understand what purpose the Internet serves, apart from email and playing games - he saw it as some sort of frivolous discretionary spend - definitely not anywhere near as important as roads and mines and coal.

    It's an absolute tragedy for the nation that the original plan was changed by such ignorant luddites as Tony Abbott.

    They made such an incredibly huge fuss about the cost, but only a month or two back they handed a $23 billion corporate tax cut over to companies and it barely made the newspaper.

    I can tell you in no uncertain terms that I have not an atom of respect for any of our politicians.

    Off topic, to me all part of the same story is my absolute quivering rage that we are literally giving away our natural resources for nothing or close to nothing whilst every litre of natural gas that can be sucked out of the ground is shipped to other countries.

    Meanwhile the politicians ride around in helicopters, leech the taxpayer blind with their kingly entitlements and are genuinely surprised when there is outrage about it.

    Seriously it is time for a citizens revolution. We need to take the country back from these idiots.

    • jpatokal 8 years ago
      For HNers wondering who the hell Tony Abbott is, he's basically the Australian equivalent of George Bush (Jr): conservative politician and former prime minister who's, let's say, not known for his grasp of the finer details of policy.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Abbott

    • tray5 8 years ago
      >Seriously it is time for a citizens revolution. We need to take the country back from these idiots.

      Couldn't agree more. I've yet to meet a single fellow Aussie that has anything but disdain for politicians from any party. Labor, Liberal, Greens, One Nation doesn't seem to matter, they're all a pack of self serving con artists, and unless the major political parties take a serious look at themselves over the next few years, this is exactly what they're going to be dealing with. Especially as Millennials take their first steps into adulthood in a country that does nothing but tread on them and dismiss them as nothing but avocado loving morons that don't know how to make it in "the real world".

      • pjc50 8 years ago
        Can I suggest that if all the politicians seem to be bad, the problem might be located somewhere else? Namely the Murdoch-dominated media?

        He's been bad enough in the UK, but it seems like he has even more control in Australia.

        • tray5 8 years ago
          Nope, haven't watched Murdoch's media since the absolute rubbish involving their absolutely disgustingly biased election coverage a few years ago. According to Murdoch, the Liberals and co can do no wrong and everyone else is the problem! Haven't let that trash into my house in a long, long time. But it's a culture of disrespect and arrogance across the board from nearly every politician. Bunch of bastards the lot of them, especially since Trump has come up in America and we have spastic chumps like Hanson try and ride the wave of populism (thank god they're way waaaay too incompetent and divisive to truly capitalise on the anger at the system, their ugly policies will die out)
          • fliptables 8 years ago
            >but it seems like he has even more control in Australia

            He started out here, no surprise that his stuff dominates.

          • jamesrcole 8 years ago
            I think there's lots of contributing factors. Not just the politicians. We should remember a lot of what the politicians say and do is driven by what will help them get re-elected -- i.e. by what the populace in general thinks is important.

            (I am not saying "oh it's not the fault of the politicians, it's the fault of the populace" -- see my opening sentence that I think there's a lot of contributing factors. And each of these can go several layers deep).

            • Khaine 8 years ago
              For most voters, faster internet isn't one of their top concerns. Depending on the voter demographic it is more likely:

              Young People * Housing Affordability * Uni Fees * Centrelink * Employment * Climate change

              Middle Aged People * Super * Eduction * Health * Taxation * Infrastructure

              Old People * Pension * Health

          • Clownshoesms 8 years ago
            I agree (and probably made it on to a list or two). Our government agencies don't even need a warrant to see our call/web/email metadata now. Even the RSPCA can access it.
            • the6threplicant 8 years ago
              Imagine if Labor won.

              * A robust FTTP that would be paid back nicely, and

              * A carbon tax that would now be an "emissions trading scheme" doing it's part to reduce carbon emissions.

              • andrewstuart 8 years ago
                Yes but they didn't win. Instead they squandered government on in-fighting and backstabbing.

                Truly Kevin Rudd can be credited with remarkable vision for proposing the NBN in the form that he did and it is a great pity it did not come to conclusion.

                Labor/Rudd/Gillard/all the shadowy Labor background figures gets the blame for the "true" NBN not happening because they just could help themselves fighting and grasping at the crown.

                • nnethercote 8 years ago
                  Er, what? Labor came up with the idea of the NBN and started it. The Coalition then stopped building it properly and switched it to the watered-down version when they gained power. The Coalition deserves the blame here.
              • dalbasal 8 years ago
                I recently listened to a Tyler Cowen interview where he (briefly) mentioned trying to measure consumer surplus of internet services, part of the wider difficulty economists face in trying to quantify the value of the internet to people. He likes to play the contrarian.

                The default method of measuring consumer surplus is measuring (using econometric black magic) the difference between how much people would be willing to pay for something and how much they actually paid. IE, if you would have paid $17 (but not $18) for a burger but it only cost $12, you accumulated $5 of surplus. By this measure, the internet (home usage) is not very valuable. If prices of (eg your mobile data plan) go up by $15, many people would pass. That implies the user surplus (for those people) is less than $15. Overall, the traditional economics analysis of personal internet access looks similar to cable TV or other "frivolous discretionary spend."

                I don't really think you can sum up the internet in this way. The broader cultural impacts of internet access seem far more interesting than cable TV, to me.

                • juststeve 8 years ago
                  yeah nah, she'll be right mate, why don't ya have another stubbie and watch the footy.
                  • fliptables 8 years ago
                    Bloody game's finished and it's still buffering...
                  • fit2rule 8 years ago
                    >Seriously it is time for a citizens revolution. We need to take the country back from these idiots.

                    Nothing can be done until Australians demand Constitution reform. This is the crux of the problems with Australian politics - its Constitution is absolutely atrocious.

                    • cyphar 8 years ago
                      The fact we don't have a Bill of Rights (or even an equivalent to the First Amendment) is ridiculous. But on the plus side we stopped with the ridiculous gun-toting crap 20 years ago, so some parts of our constitution are more reasonable than other countries.

                      One of the more worrying issues is that the Governor-General (and thus by proxy the Queen of fucking England) has vito power over our laws.

                      • Khaine 8 years ago
                        We don't need a bill of rights. I have never had anyone give me a convincing argument on why a bill of rights is needed.

                        Also, its veto, not vito and the Governor General's reserve powers are a check on the Government. In the history of the Commonwealth of Australia these powers have been used twice: 1) On 13 May 1932, when the Governor of New South Wales Sir Philip Game dismissed the Government of New South Wales. 2) On 11 November 1975, when the Governor-General of Australia Sir John Kerr dismissed the Commonwealth Government.

                        In both cases an election was held very soon afterwards and, again in both cases, the dismissed government was massively defeated by popular vote.

                        I really wish they would teach better civics in schools.

                        • fit2rule 8 years ago
                          Its worse than you think. The Australian Constitution is highly racist. One set of laws for whites, another for the natives. This should be the first thing we fix.

                          Then of course, there's the fact that Australia is a British dependency. This needs to go. Australia is not a sovereign state - it is a colonial property. Yes, even still today.

                          The Constitution also doesn't protect the Australian Parliament as a democratic institution. It doesn't address, nor protect, the Australian environment. Equality: not guaranteed, at all, by the Constitution.

                          There are just so many things wrong with it.

                        • d_t_w 8 years ago
                          Neither Britain or New Zealand have written constitutions, I'm not convinced that Australia's is the problem at hand, though I guess it could be that a poorly written one is worse than none at all.
                          • benjoffe 8 years ago
                            Which parts of the constitution do you think are bad?
                        • Veratyr 8 years ago
                          I don't think you can really blame this on Tony Abbott. Malcolm Turnbull was the communications minister and is now the prime minister and he seemed to be the one driving his copper bullshit.

                          I hate Abbott as much as anyone but Turnbull seems like the real problem.

                          • 8 years ago
                          • pserwylo 8 years ago
                            The government who changed away from FTTP is the more conservative (and pro small government) of the two major parties. As such, although I disagree, I can see why they may argue that it is not the governments responsibility to deliver broadband infrastructure and that private industry should pick up any slack.

                            However they didn't argue this.

                            They stuck with the concept of a nationally funded broadband network, but one which was sub-par on almost every metric except cost. This just doesn't make any sense to me, especially because they tried to sell it to the public by suggesting that things like "Why invest so much in fibre when it may be surpassed by another technology in the near future". There was also a lot of clever wording around how their version would be "delivered cheaper, faster, etc than the alternative" - I have no doubt these words were chosen because it sounds like the data rates themselves would be faster, whereas they actually meant it the build could be completed faster.

                            • taneq 8 years ago
                              A friend and I have a theory that the rollout was deliberately train-wrecked by the Liberal party to avoid Labor getting the long term political kudos for having started the project.
                              • tray5 8 years ago
                                >The government who changed away from FTTP is the more conservative (and pro small government) of the two major parties.

                                There is no Australian political party with any momentum that is pro-small government. The Liberals just like making themselves and their friends rich, but they don't have any strong ideological backing. Especially considering 90% of Aussies are pretty content with the level of government involvement in stuff that would send shivers down the spines of most yanks.

                                • cyphar 8 years ago
                                  It's a shame since the Pirate Party does have somewhat of a presence here (they even had a representative in my electorate). :/
                                • ccakes 8 years ago
                                  FTTP or FTTN aside, aiming for 93% coverage in a country as sparsely populated as AU was a terrible idea to start with.

                                  I understand the need to support rural areas but the the majority of the initial budget was to cover non-metropolitan areas and while the govt has been messing this up, private industry (TPG, First Path etc) managed to cover huge swaths of the population with little-to-no government assistance.

                                  • spangry 8 years ago
                                    This gets repeated a lot, but people seem to forget that a large part of the continent/island [?] is inhospitable desert. Our population distribution looks like this: https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-4afe2e7cc5078f81d6a999...

                                    About 60% of the population is clustered in 4 cities [0] and we're one of the most urbanised countries in the world [1].

                                    [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Australia#Cities

                                    [1] https://infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/pab/soac/ & http://theconversation.com/density-sprawl-growth-how-austral...

                                    • discodave 8 years ago
                                      That's actually not the problem. Australia has a similar percentage of people in cities and large towns as somewhere like the US.

                                      The low population density of Australia makes backhaul and overseas transfer of data more expensive, and the last 2-5% of people might be very expensive to get. But the original goals of the NBN were well thought out and modeled properly.

                                      • nl 8 years ago
                                        private industry (TPG, First Path etc) managed to cover huge swaths of the population with little-to-no government assistance.

                                        Hu? You mean how they used copper put in place by telco incumbent Telstra, most of which were built when it was government owned? And how they relied on government mandated access to the copper lines to enable that?

                                        Or are you talking about the small private fibre rollouts? Because they don't cover "huge swaths of the population".

                                    • stirlo 8 years ago
                                      The biggest issue with the whole project wasn't the abandoning of FTTP and move to MTM but the locking in of 2010 prices for the foreseeable future via a ridiculous CVC charge that only existed to turn a profit.

                                      The founder of one of Australia's largest independent ISP's Internode (and later NBNco board member) Simon Hackett put it very well in 2011 where he showed locking in a arbitrary $20 charge per megabit hobbled the network.The whole profitability revolved around charging more for faster speeds/more data in the future.

                                      Every other technological advance gave users faster for cheaper whereas this network would only work if people paid more. Cut to the future and now you've got competition from 4G cellular data at the low end and private companies providing private fibre/wireless networks at the top end. The whole pyramid is coming crashing down so much that the government has had to introduce a new broadband tax ($7.10 per month) to subsidize it.

                                      And even the tax won't solve the problems because the CVC usage charge still exists and the business case still resolves around charging more in the future. In about 5 years when they realize what a stuff up it's been we can only help they write it all off and we can go back having affordable fast internet like the rest of the world.

                                      https://simonhackett.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/commsday-w-...

                                      https://blog.internode.on.net/2011/07/21/nbn-retail-pricing-...

                                      • spangry 8 years ago
                                        Yep Hackett called it right. He put his money where his mouth was too: he sold his ISP to iiNet/iiBorg (who were subsequently consumed by TPG) and got the fuck outta dodge. It's a pity; Internode was possibly the best ISP in the country.
                                        • voltagex_ 8 years ago
                                          Internode's sort of okay still. TPG routes are slower though. I have unlimited FTTP NBN, static IPv4 and a v6 /56 for $110 a month.
                                          • spangry 8 years ago
                                            Man, that's pretty nice. Looking at the TPG plan page I'm guessing that's at 100/40? What's bandwidth contention like? I know TPG cop a bit of flak on whirlpool, but for the 2 or so years I had ADSL with them I never had a problem...

                                            When you say v6 /56, does that mean you can have 4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 addressable hosts? [I don't CIDR gud...]

                                      • grizzles 8 years ago
                                        I have a personal perspective on this. Around 2014 or so, I + some of Australia's top physicists designed and quickly prototyped some tech to lower the cost of the NBN rollout bigtime. Our approach revolved around self install fibre + a far greater use of wireless.

                                        I contacted 15+ people in senior leadership at NBNco, all of whom are still on my LinkedIn. No matter how hard I tried, we couldn't get a meeting with NBNco execs to demo our tech.

                                        I took it to the local tech press here to get some positive coverage and they told us repeatedly how "stupid" we were. We wrote comments on the now PM (then Communications Minister)'s blog and chatted to his people. Zero interest. At that point they'd been at it for ~7 years, spent billions and had pretty much nothing to show for it. Nada.

                                        Last year, an academic completely unaffiliated with us testified at a parliamentary committee into why the existing approach has been such a boondoggle. As a remedy, he suggested our exact approach. He also copped it from the tech press.

                                        Here are a couple tweets from that period between me and an online tech pundit. This Renai LeMay fellow runs Australia's most influential tech site, it's very very popular with Australia's politicians:

                                        https://twitter.com/renailemay/status/705523306699423744https://twitter.com/renailemay/status/705528311330385920

                                        Such is the life of the serial entrepreneur. This is the typical bs that we have to put up with. I folded that company up pretty fast. Idea tested. NEXT.

                                        • nl 8 years ago
                                          I'm sure your technology is great, but I suspect you aren't seeing it through your (potential) customer's eyes.

                                          If you seriously don't understand why that solution could never have been politically feasible then to be honest it isn't surprising you were ignored.

                                          Additionally, did you really suggest that people should be able to dig their own trenches and plug fibre in themselves? You do realize that does nothing to make you seem credible, right?

                                          • grizzles 8 years ago
                                            We suggested and could show that the tech can be completely plug and play, and support any logical network topology. There is no installer risk because power doesn't run over optical fiber. It's a big misconception that you need specialized installers. You don't. And it's the labor cost that is responsible for biggest chunk of the expense in building a country wide broadband network.

                                            As I said in the linked tweet, you could hire the handyman down the street to do it, or you could pay the major contractor Ericsson 100X as much per property to do it. If they somehow screw up plugging something into something else, it just doesn't work - it doesn't affect the integrity of the network at all.

                                            In my opinion, it's the existing approach that lacks credibility. It's corporate welfare. That's why Australia's broadband lags behind Turkey, Poland, Mexico, and many others even though it's a much richer country per capita than all of those.

                                            The funny thing was when we came onto the scene the most interest we got was from Ericsson, with some email discussions and heaps of their people showing up on my profiles, etc. That was flattering but apparently they needn't have worried about us spoiling their cash cow. I can understand their paranoia. Life must be sweet when you own 100% of the purported supply.

                                          • eng_monkey 8 years ago
                                            I feel your pain. It is extremely difficult in Australia to get interest in anything related to innovation. I have had surreal experiences when dealing with companies and particularly Government. They will do anything to boycott something that resembles change, particularly if it affects the the way they work, or of course that might expose their incompetency.

                                            Australia is not a place to live unless you work in health or in a trade. Scientists and engineers (engineering is not even understood in Australia, usually being associated to things like infrastructure or maintenance) are screwed.

                                            • grizzles 8 years ago
                                              I'm immune to it now. My motivation in writing about this is because from a public policy perspective I'm convinced that our approach was the correct one. I like to keep the idea alive for those who come after us. I just hope they have more luck with it than we did.
                                            • decryption 8 years ago
                                              Do you have any promo/marketing material you can share? I find the concept of self-install fibre (trench and all!) pretty wild and to be honest, practically ridiculous. I'd love to know more about what you had in mind.
                                              • grizzles 8 years ago
                                                Sorry, the company doesn't exist anymore. Our marketing didn't focus on the self install angle for residences, but it did for business. In either case, it's logically no different from hiring any worker to do it. Basically our pitch was, you can reduce the install cost to whatever the minimum wage is. Deploying the physical topology of an NBN can be designed to require 100% unskilled labor. Maybe the problem was that it would create too many jobs. *joke
                                                • decryption 8 years ago
                                                  Ahh, that's fairly different to regular punters doing it themselves. If you pitched it as a self install method vs a cheaper way for contractors to do fibre installs (the #1 reason the Libs gave for the MtM), I can see why people were confused.
                                            • marak830 8 years ago
                                              I was born and raised in Australia, I left for Japan just as the NBN was beginning to roll out.

                                              It's an absolute disgrace how much it has been butchered. I have thoughts about returning occasionally, but going from 2 GB/s unlimited for Aus$ 40 ish a month, back to those speeds and prices is a major factor for me staying here.

                                              It is a massive quality of life difference to have amazing internet.

                                              • Smerity 8 years ago
                                                As an Australian now living in San Francisco paying $55 per month for 100/100 (WebPass, which would be the same price but 500/500 or 1000/1000 if I moved to a newer building), I have the exact same feeling.

                                                When I journey back home and stay with my parents, it is impossible to get work done. Latency is the first killer - it'll never properly be solved if you're working with remote systems in the US or Europe - but then upload speeds slowly rip at your soul. Download speeds and quotas are no picnic either of course.

                                                That Australia didn't end up with a future proof fibre to the home system given the amount of money spent is an absolute disgrace. I get angry every time I have to discuss it.

                                                I wanted to move back to Australia sooner than later - and the FTTH NBN promised interesting start-up and other opportunities - but given it has been relegated to a copper backwater those plans are on indefinite hold :(

                                                I usually point people to the Australian government debate regarding copper wire over iron wire from 1910 as an anachronistic comparison.

                                                https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/06/parliament-arguing-about-...

                                                • gaelian 8 years ago
                                                  > but then upload speeds slowly rip at your soul

                                                  I know the feeling. I'm relatively lucky in that I live somewhere that has had VDSL for some time and my download speed is adequate, if not ideal. But my upload speed is atrocious, in fact actually slower now than it was in past years (before my ISP got bought out by a bigger ISP) and my ISP will not guarantee any particular upload speed for my connection. I make use of a cloud-based backup service to mitigate the possibility of local disk failure and it's just painful.

                                                  You hardly hear anyone talking about upload speeds in Australia. It's as if cloud-based services aren't really a thing and we're back in the early 2000s.

                                                  > That Australia didn't end up with a future proof fibre to the home system given the amount of money spent is an absolute disgrace. I get angry every time I have to discuss it.

                                                  I know this feeling as well. :) It is a massive lost opportunity that the country will be paying for in more ways than one for decades to come.

                                                • icelancer 8 years ago
                                                  I work in Australia from time to time on a project. It is superior in every way to the United States for my use cases except for Internet, which keeps me on the West Coast of the US. It's that bad. I'd love nothing more than to move there, but not if the Internet is that terrible.
                                                  • tp3z4u 8 years ago
                                                    I can't deal with the 400ms latency. That and the rest of it is why I left and never went back. It's a tech backwater :( So much for Turnbull's 'ideas boom.'
                                                    • daemin 8 years ago
                                                      I used to have decent ADSL2+ while living in Inner Suburb Sydney, I got close to 20mbit/s. Now I am living in Poland and have 250/20 unlimited for less than a third of the price.

                                                      The whole NBN project just irritates me at how it has been mis-managed, by both of the political parties.

                                                      Yes, Labor included since they could have sped things up by having Fibre to the basement for most apartment buildings in the cities, and then upgraded those lines once the other build out had been completed. Also for having the rollout happen along political lines (as has been alleged).

                                                      Still most of the blame I assign to the Liberals, since it seems they want to make a shambles out of this for political reasons, and also so they can sell it to some other company in the near future.

                                                      • ytta 8 years ago
                                                        Just a bit of curiousity - how exactly did you wind up in Poland? Working on a start up?
                                                        • daemin 8 years ago
                                                          Working as a Video Games Developer.

                                                          Also Polish by birth and wanted an easier way to travel around Europe.

                                                      • MichaelGG 8 years ago
                                                        How do you wire up or use 2Gb/sec at home? Do you get a GigE switch and connect separate devices? Multiple wireless APs? TenGigE?
                                                        • moronicalox 8 years ago
                                                          He has to be talking Gbps, not GB/s right? Right?! I might move to Japan.
                                                          • marak830 8 years ago
                                                            Gb, damn autocorrect haha.
                                                      • craigvn 8 years ago
                                                        As an Australian, I think it can be summed up by two reasons.

                                                        1. All large scale infrastructure rollouts are difficult and subject to problems and blowouts.

                                                        2. It was made a political issue. New government decided to make major revamps for no reason other than it was different to the previous government so they could use it as an election issue.

                                                        • shakna 8 years ago
                                                          > All large scale infrastructure rollouts are difficult and subject to problems and blowouts.

                                                          Some of the utter incompetence involved in the actual rollout was astounding.

                                                          Telstra's crews had to reinstall the lines under the main road of my town 4 times.

                                                          Twice it was installed on the wrong side of the road, and once it was unshielded.

                                                          6 months of traffic jams instead of 1 month.

                                                          • flukus 8 years ago
                                                            > New government decided to make major revamps for no reason other than it was different to the previous government so they could use it as an election issue.

                                                            The worst part was the nationals. In 2007 they were bitching that it needed to be fiber, by 2010 they were saying copper is the future.

                                                            • beedogs 8 years ago
                                                              Not just copper. 100-year-old waterlogged copper. We prefer our transmission lines to be well-aged down here.
                                                              • IntelMiner 8 years ago
                                                                Let's be fair here, the Nats are a bunch of spineless cowards who'd rather play follow-the-leader with the Libs than represent the bush

                                                                Even though they'll be career politicians, because nobody will vote anything other than Nationals in those electorates, there's much more money to be made in a life of lobbying afterwards

                                                              • shard972 8 years ago
                                                                To say they changed it for no reason is omitting the state of the roll out at that time. The budget was already blowing out beyond 2x the cost, they were behind on their revised down goals, they missed wireless numbers by 90%.

                                                                The only positive thing they could tout at the time was pass by numbers which ignores the hardest part of the roll out, connecting fiber to each and every house.

                                                                You can argue that the last mile problem should have been tackled head on in the NBN and it was a mistake for the liberals to not, but to say that they did it for "no reason other than it was different to the previous government" is just simply wrong.

                                                                • flukus 8 years ago
                                                                  > The budget was already blowing out beyond 2x the cost

                                                                  According to partisan figures that were often repeated but never justified. I don't doubt it would have blown out, world class infrastructure would have been worth it at twice the cost. Instead we have the current NBN who's costs have blown out just as much to delivery 20th century infrastructure.

                                                                  • shard972 8 years ago
                                                                    > According to partisan figures that were often repeated but never justified.

                                                                    I mean if you pretend that the $30~ billion paid to telstra had absolutely nothing to do with the NBN then yea you can avoid the 2x figure but I still have no idea how you can say the two things are completely unrelated.

                                                                    > Instead we have the current NBN who's costs have blown out just as much to delivery 20th century infrastructure.

                                                                    How? It's fiber for over 95% the connection with plans already been tested to allow people to complete the line to their house with fiber if your willing to pay for it. That's a lot better than what was available in 20th century.

                                                                    I don't see the big problem with having the government do the entire backbone and lines close to the houses and allow people to fund the final hop if they want to.

                                                                  • imron 8 years ago
                                                                    And now the budget is still blowing out, only we have shitty infrastructure that's going to be obsolete almost as soon as it's installed.

                                                                    The Liberals messed this one up (note to Americans, in Australia the 'Liberals' are the conservatives).

                                                                    • shard972 8 years ago
                                                                      > And now the budget is still blowing out, only we have shitty infrastructure that's going to be obsolete almost as soon as it's installed.

                                                                      How will to be obsolete? Everything upto the node is fiber so if it was made obsolete it also would have been obsolete under the original plan.

                                                                      If your talking about the copper, we aren't digging it up and replacing it with copper. It's just going to stay there a bit longer until it gets upgraded by the user themselves or possibly a another roll out down the line.

                                                                      What part of the roll out gets wasted? The cabinets they roll out can still handle FTTP, so I don't know what you think will become "obsolete".

                                                                      • thanksgiving 8 years ago
                                                                        The liberals might have got the final nail in the coffin but nbn fate was sealed the moment they decided Telstra should have anything to do with the project at all.

                                                                        Edit fate not gate

                                                                  • ajdlinux 8 years ago
                                                                    I'm lucky enough to live in an area where I can get ~70-80Mb/s down and ~30-50Mbps up VDSL2 for a (by Australian standards) reasonable price.

                                                                    My suburb, unfortunately, hasn't been NBN-ified - but we still have a VDSL network courtesy of TransACT, the broadband provider that was created when the ACT Government decided to start laying FTTC fibre around Canberra back in the 1990s.

                                                                    There's a lot of talk of locally-driven "municipal broadband" in the US, but very little in Australia. I expect that's mostly because local governments in Australia are far less powerful than in the United States (which, for the most part, I'm actually okay with) and wouldn't be able to raise taxes and spend them on broadband projects. The Australian Capital Territory, of course, is a special case - a local government with state-level powers, who already owned an electricity network when they decided to go into FTTN as well.

                                                                    • bootload 8 years ago
                                                                      The NBN is a tale of geography. If you live in the CBD mainland capital city you will get good coverage. Even that it's patchy. If you live more than 30km out access get mostly worse. If you live in the bush, the best you'll get is crappy satellite or your own jury rigged antenna to the nearest town.

                                                                      If you were lucky enough to a) live close to the city b) have telephone poles c) live near a telephone exchange and were chosen by Telstra to get FTTN before the change of government you can get 100Mb+ access. [0] Otherwise you are out of luck.

                                                                      This is largely a political issue that could be fixed by leadership. Australia has weak leaders of both sides of the political spectrum.

                                                                      Market forces are supposed to fix this problem according to our learned leaders, but it won't. Australia is big, really big and we needed a federally funded optic fibre solution to the country even if it cost a lot.

                                                                         Here's my version of NBN... Exchange->fibre->POTS 
   https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/tags/pots
                                                                      Using technology developed during the early 1900s.

                                                                      [0] Relative has NBN fibre to the node.

                                                                      • simonrobb 8 years ago
                                                                        I live five minutes' walk from the Melbourne CBD, and we have no indication NBN is going to be rolled out here any time soon.
                                                                        • bootload 8 years ago
                                                                          I did say patchy.
                                                                          • 8 years ago
                                                                          • jpatokal 8 years ago
                                                                            Err, no, you don't? Most of central Sydney is on ADSL, NBN has been rolled out primarily in new housing developments way out in the boonies.
                                                                            • robryan 8 years ago
                                                                              Yeah very strange how they have done the rollout. Surely they would have been better off rolling out to densely populated inner suburbs first. Cover the most people and get those most likely to take up the service initially.
                                                                              • boyter 8 years ago
                                                                                It was part of the deal Julia Gillard made to form a minority government. The NBN had to prioritise regional areas first.
                                                                              • bootload 8 years ago
                                                                                Interesting with Sydney. Highest density of fibre into the country and the reason google has their Aus HQ there. Be interested to find out just how much of Aus capitals w/o NBN access.
                                                                              • victorhooi 8 years ago
                                                                                This isn't necessarily true.

                                                                                I live in a new housing development (Zetland - Postcode 2017).

                                                                                I tried to get NBN installed last week with Internode, one of our ISPs.

                                                                                They said it was possible, they told me to be at home - I took half the day off WFH - then they ring me halfway saying, whoops, it's not actually connected for your building...err...we'll get back to you about the NBN.

                                                                                I'm still waiting to hear back.

                                                                                My parents are told it will be available between April-June 2017 - yet apparently they haven't even started planning it for their area yet. So they somehow hope to design, plan and roll it out in the next 30 days? I call bollocks.

                                                                                • sumedh 8 years ago
                                                                                  > a) live close to the city b) have telephone poles c) live near a telephone exchange and were chosen by Telstra to get FTTN before the change of government you can get 100Mb+ access.

                                                                                  I check all those points but no NBN for me :(

                                                                                  • bootload 8 years ago
                                                                                    I feel your pain, the rollout was interesting. Wonder if the NBN rollout in Melbourne related to electorates?
                                                                                    • Khaine 8 years ago
                                                                                      Yes the original rollout specifically targeted regional areas and at risk electorates (for labor)
                                                                                  • pentae 8 years ago
                                                                                    My family lives in the wealthy eastern suburbs of Sydney. My mother can only get ADSL and it caps out at around 3.5Mbit. She can hardly have a skype call. They say she won't be able to get NBN until at least 2020.

                                                                                    I live in Northern Thailand and have 100/30 uncapped fibre for about $70 a month. I've got a friend who has gigabit and he lives out in some rice fields and its all dirt roads.

                                                                                    • spacehunt 8 years ago
                                                                                      > If you live in the CBD mainland capital city

                                                                                      Actually just had a look at NBNco's rollout map; both Melbourne and Sydney's CBD are blank.

                                                                                      • Clownshoesms 8 years ago
                                                                                        I was pleasantly surprised my place had FTTN (100/50 I think I can get if needed). Absolute boondocks of Tassie, mostly agricultural/tradesfolk I'd guess. Seems odd but I'm glad they did.
                                                                                    • botbot 8 years ago
                                                                                      Australian here.

                                                                                      I was recently forced from my ADSL2+ service over to the shiny new HFC system. My quality actually degraded - although my bandwidth increased, my latency is off the charts, especially in peak time. I contacted my ISP to see if I could go back to my ADSL2+ service and they flat out said no.

                                                                                      The future is bleak.

                                                                                    • cyphar 8 years ago
                                                                                      Yeah, shit's fucked. To be fair though, it's not like Labor would've delivered on their promises either.

                                                                                      Honestly the whole thing smells very strongly of a money-making racket on the part of Telstra (how much money did the CEOs profit from the privatisation only to sell their 100-year-old waterlogged copper back to the government?).

                                                                                      • shusson 8 years ago
                                                                                        > Average speeds have more than doubled since 2013, according to Akamai, but other countries are connecting their populations faster, meaning Australia’s lag with the rest of the world has grown.

                                                                                        The article is very light on numbers. It would be nice to actually see solid metrics around speeds and costs across the whole of Australia.

                                                                                        • davidgerard 8 years ago
                                                                                          The actual answer: it was directly sabotaged by the Liberal National Party (the conservatives), at the bidding of Rupert Murdoch, who really doesn't want Australian internet not to suck.

                                                                                          Basically, Tony Abbott got in in 2013 and the shitty version of the scheme was put into place.

                                                                                          • runeks 8 years ago
                                                                                            Do we have any examples of successful, nation-wide, high-speed Internet rollouts by governments (for countries roughly size-wise comparable to Australia)?

                                                                                            It's an honest question, because I'm not familiar with any.

                                                                                            • znedw 8 years ago
                                                                                              Currently I pay AUD$79 per month for the privilege of 1.4mbp/s down and 100kp/s up. My area is slated for the NBN, albiet HFC (using old coaxial) to commence building in 2019. Bloody bonza, mate.
                                                                                              • fliptables 8 years ago
                                                                                                I'd take HFC over FTTN. Last time I lived with DSL I enjoyed the same kind of speeds you're getting and three visits from Telstra minions came out to "sorry, nothing we can do". I'm in no hurry to play that phone-line lottery again.
                                                                                                • andymurd 8 years ago
                                                                                                  I feel your pain as I pay about the same for 1.1mbps down. I can't get any faster speeds (I checked when I worked for Internode) and speed drops whenever it rains.

                                                                                                  I once tried to follow the Udacity course on Tensorflow, but could not download a 10GB that was needed for one of the exercises. Download kept failing and restarting and eventually I killed it after 8 days. Utterly shameful.

                                                                                                  • ajdlinux 8 years ago
                                                                                                    ADSL? I would imagine you could go somewhat cheaper than $79 given it would be hard to exhaust a high-quota plan at those speeds...
                                                                                                  • i336_ 8 years ago
                                                                                                    For people actually sad about the NBN: this mentions that people who want 1Gbps "will have an upgrade option" (I think they said it something like that). This was from Feb 12 this year.

                                                                                                    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/downloadthissho...

                                                                                                    • boyter 8 years ago
                                                                                                      Unless you are on FTTN which will comprise more than 60% of the network and are only guaranteed up-to 12 mbit for the coexistence period and 25 mbit after. Unless you happen to be connected to a node less than 50m away (most will be over 400m) there is no chance your connection will support that option.
                                                                                                      • i336_ 8 years ago
                                                                                                        -_-

                                                                                                        Wow :(

                                                                                                        This is insane. We're getting laser beams, and they're literally going to be worse than cable!

                                                                                                        I wonder if NBN Co would agree to do a FTTH setup if I covered the fiber and installation.

                                                                                                        Hmm. They might, but then I could be stuck with a $200+/mo Internet bill...

                                                                                                        Shakes head ...this is just infuriating, how completely this has been mis-sold and bungled.

                                                                                                        • boyter 8 years ago
                                                                                                          There is a technology choice program to upgrade to FTTP which was promised to cost less than $5000. A quote costs a non refundable $600 and the estimates I have seen have all been in the tens of thousands of dollars. About 20 people have taken the option so far.
                                                                                                      • Neeek 8 years ago
                                                                                                        That doesn't really help the business side of things though. Collaborating across state requires just as meaty an upload pipe.
                                                                                                        • i336_ 8 years ago
                                                                                                          Mmm, that's true. :/

                                                                                                          If you have such requirements, I'm genuinely curious what they'd come back with (solution/$-wise) if you told them what you needed.

                                                                                                          (My current awareness of commercial internet is that you can currently get 500Mbps SLA'd fiber for $499 in urban Sydney. Yay? Not so much.)

                                                                                                      • verytrivial 8 years ago
                                                                                                        An entirely predictable shambles. This money should have been spent on Australian skills and content, not on installing damn cables and routers. Let the market decide how to meet demand for content delivery -- education and social investment are far better places for governments to place these sorts of long bets. I saw this coming a mile away and have a long list of poo-pooed complaints on social media to this effect.
                                                                                                        • suspectdoubloon 8 years ago
                                                                                                          At least the South Australian goverment is doing something to alleviate issues of the NBN in Adelaide. Launching 10 gigabit internet across key areas in the CBD.

                                                                                                          http://gigcity.com.au/

                                                                                                          • antihero 8 years ago
                                                                                                            In the UK we mostly have FTTC and copper to our property. I'm in London admittedly, but I get 220Mbps/20Mpbs solidly, so copper isn't all bad if you have fibre running to a cabinet that's close to you.
                                                                                                            • noir_lord 8 years ago
                                                                                                              Up in Hull they went FTTP instead FTTC, I can have gig internet at home, they finally did something right, its not cheap but it's not expensive for what it is either.
                                                                                                            • mingabunga 8 years ago
                                                                                                              Related: Hosting in Aus is ridiculously expensive too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10985137
                                                                                                              • spangry 8 years ago
                                                                                                                Hilariously, the conservative government currently in power made the following election campaign promises [0] [1] in 2013 (the election where they won government):

                                                                                                                - Every household and business to have access to broadband with a download data rate of between 25 and 100 megabits per second by late 2016. [We're currently trailing Kenya]

                                                                                                                - Key prices for a Coalition NBN will be capped nationally, ensuring Australians in metropolitan and regional areas alike can obtain services at fair prices. [For the low low price of $80 a month, on a 24 month contract, you can get 25Mbps/5Mbps from our two largest telcos: Telstra & Optus] [2] [3]

                                                                                                                - "...unshackle the competitive telecom market that Labor tried to stamp out, and reduce the cost of the NBN to prudent levels." [Because of the NBN wholesale cost structure and network inter-connect structure, our retail ISPs are rapidly consolidating. We're likely to have three left standing by the end. To be fair, the latter wasn't the current government's fault.]

                                                                                                                - They would complete the network roll-out at 2/3 the cost of the previous plan. [The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated in December 2016 that the total network cost will be $49 billion. However, the current government did make the entirely unsubstantiated and unquestioned claim that the $44B plan for FTTP was actually going to cost $90B.] [4]

                                                                                                                So, things seem to be going to plan so far. The worst part about all this is that everyone seemed to eat this shit right up at the time. Even Australia's tech so-called 'journalists' were all going on about how the Coalition had presented a 'credible alternative'.

                                                                                                                We deserve this, because we're stupid.

                                                                                                                [0] PDF of election document: https://www.communications.gov.au/file/315/download?token=8O...

                                                                                                                [1] HTML cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ih8ycW...

                                                                                                                [2] https://www.telstra.com.au/broadband/nbn/nbn-plans

                                                                                                                [3] http://www.optus.com.au/shop/broadband/home-broadband/plans?...

                                                                                                                [4] http://www.news.com.au/national/nbn-cost-blowout-to-impact-b...

                                                                                                                • swrobel 8 years ago
                                                                                                                  Can anyone from New Zealand comment on whether the same problems exist there? It's even more geographically isolated so I'd expect that to be the case, but who knows.
                                                                                                                  • Khaine 8 years ago
                                                                                                                    The NBN was almost always going to end in failure, as the biggest impediment to Australian internet is the lack of overseas links, and the cost of using these links.
                                                                                                                    • ParadisoShlee 8 years ago
                                                                                                                      http://isthenbnfastyet.com/
                                                                                                                      • Frogolocalypse 8 years ago
                                                                                                                        So they promoted the guy who screwed up the project, Malcolm Turnbull, to be Prime Minister.
                                                                                                                        • flukus 8 years ago
                                                                                                                          His mission was to screw up the project, he succeeded and got promoted.
                                                                                                                          • i336_ 8 years ago
                                                                                                                            The lead singer in Midnight Oil sung "How do we sleep / While our beds are burning" in 1987... and in 2009 the same person (Peter Garret), in his position as Minister for Environment Protection (among other things), was the driving force behind a home-insulation scheme that was found to be the cause of 224 house fires.

                                                                                                                            You basically have to have a humorectomy to be able to follow Australian politics. Otherwise you go crazy from too much cracking up.

                                                                                                                            --

                                                                                                                            Some qualifying info to add some substance so this isn't just hyperbole and commentary:

                                                                                                                            - IIRC, what was happening is that the installers weren't being paid enough, and they were nailing the insulation haphazardly without identifying where the 240V lines ran underneath the batts so they could dodge those areas with their staple guns. Said insulation batts had foil on them. So sparks flew where wood met aluminium and exposed/partially-shorted wiring. Even more tragically, four installers were also electrocuted (AFAIK/IIUC) by live foil on the batts during installation.

                                                                                                                            - Mr Garret was actually really mature about the situation and took full responsibility, stated that he wasn't fully informed about various risks, and did raise issues about safety multiple times that were not listened to. So there's that.

                                                                                                                            Some random sources/articles I found:

                                                                                                                            http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/peter-garre...

                                                                                                                            http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/peter-...

                                                                                                                            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Garrett

                                                                                                                            • flukus 8 years ago
                                                                                                                              > was the driving force behind a home-insulation scheme that was found to be the cause of 224 house fires.

                                                                                                                              House fires went down statistically. The absolute number of fires was higher because more homes were getting insulation, but fires per insulated home went down.

                                                                                                                              The real cause is business efficiency, hiring cheaper workers and not training them properly. You can't hold the government responsible for every grunt a private business hires. You don't hear the current lot taking direct responsibility for the recent shooting in our offshore detention facilities.

                                                                                                                              Edit - in hindsight it's a perfect example of how "fake news" isn't a recent problem.

                                                                                                                              • i336_ 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                >> was the driving force behind a home-insulation scheme that was found to be the cause of 224 house fires.

                                                                                                                                > House fires went down statistically. The absolute number of fires was higher because more homes were getting insulation, but fires per insulated home went down.

                                                                                                                                Oh. I didn't know that. So you mean this occurred after the installation...?

                                                                                                                                > The real cause is business efficiency, hiring cheaper workers and not training them properly. You can't hold the government responsible for every grunt a private business hires.

                                                                                                                                Absolutely, yeah. I was trying to get at that idea but didn't quite articulate it. (Thanks.)

                                                                                                                                > You don't hear the current lot taking direct responsibility for the recent shooting in our offshore detention facilities.

                                                                                                                                Indeed :/

                                                                                                                                (I have to admit I honestly just don't understand why the offshore detention system has to be the way that it is. But this is largely due to my ignorance of the various variables and difficulties of the situation.)

                                                                                                                              • Khaine 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                Actually to be really truthful, that program was driven by Kevin Rudd. Everyone at the Department of Environment was scared of the PM's advisors and did what they said.

                                                                                                                                Peter Garret basically covered for Rudd

                                                                                                                                • Frogolocalypse 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                  What did any of that have to do with the NBN?
                                                                                                                                • mmerlin 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                  How Malcolm butchered the NBN:

                                                                                                                                  https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/04/nothing-malcolm-but...

                                                                                                                                • d_t_w 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                  Country is a basket case politically, lowest calibre of politician I have ever encountered. A profound paucity of talent across the board and absolutely no end in sight to the endless stupidity.

                                                                                                                                  You can think of the shit infrastructure, crap attitude in general, and intellectually bankrupt waste that make up the political class as the many layers of tax on any high cognitive business in Australia.

                                                                                                                                  Coal is the future apparently. Don't even get me started on the racists.

                                                                                                                                  • dang 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                    Please don't post nationalistic rants here. I get that this one is probably the clean-up-our-own-house kind, but that subtlety doesn't work on the internet.
                                                                                                                                    • d_t_w 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                      This is the place to comment on the article about how political incompetency hobbled Australia's broadband, right?

                                                                                                                                      I understand if you are Australian and find the criticism uncomfortable, but it's a fair reflection of my experience.

                                                                                                                                      My intent wasn't to suggest X is better than Australia, rather to inform the readership of HN that the political paralysis and ineptitude in this country is in no way limited to a single broadband project.

                                                                                                                                      • dang 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                        Right, and I get that your intention was positive, but "basket case...shit...crap" doesn't count as "inform", and it's only by chance that you didn't provoke aggrieved responses, a.k.a. flamewars. The thread went far off-topic as it was.
                                                                                                                                      • Danihan 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                        Do you know what nationalism is? Because this doesn't seem to be it by any standard definition..
                                                                                                                                        • dang 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                          Grandiose rants about nations are close enough for internet purposes.
                                                                                                                                      • d_t_w 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                        Do you want to hear a funny joke by the Australian Prime Minister?

                                                                                                                                        The "cartoon that united Australians" - Malcolm Turnbull, PM, 2017 (his comment, he's not the cartoonist)

                                                                                                                                        http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/53a5099c7991c37bb152ddf53...

                                                                                                                                        Funny one, isn't it.

                                                                                                                                        • stirlo 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                          It should be noted that comment was made at the artists funeral and is not complete. The full quote is 'cartoon that united Australians in defence of freedom' referring to freedom of speech

                                                                                                                                          https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/17/turnbull-lauds...

                                                                                                                                          • d_t_w 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                            Out of interest, do you think the extra context ameliorates the Prime Minister's proud defence of base racism?
                                                                                                                                          • beedogs 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                            Thankfully, the unhinged racist who drew it just shuffled off this mortal coil. He had many more which were just as terrible as this.
                                                                                                                                            • flukus 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                              The cartoon wasn't racist, it's your own bias that makes you think it is.
                                                                                                                                          • 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                            • aaron695 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                              > Don't even get me started on the racists.

                                                                                                                                              Skipping the Scandinavian-ish countries name a place less racist?

                                                                                                                                              France? Asia? US? Africa? UK? India?

                                                                                                                                              This discussion is about broadband not sure why you felt the need to Segway to this pointless point.

                                                                                                                                              • d_t_w 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                                Luckily Australia is almost exclusively powered by excuses and whataboutery, not many people know that.

                                                                                                                                                My comment added some context about one of the main protagonists of the story, I'm comfortable it's cromulent. If not, please, take my internet points.

                                                                                                                                            • ordbajsare 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                              "Australia was the first country where a totally national plan to cover every house or business was considered,"

                                                                                                                                              GOVERNMENT!! FUCK YEA!!

                                                                                                                                              • cylinder 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                                It'll be fine.
                                                                                                                                              • dibbsonline 8 years ago
                                                                                                                                                It's about $5000 in tax per household to fund a $38B rollout, and you don't get a choice. That's the unfunded half-ass costed guesstimate which was largely skewed by politicians to make it look better. Why not let people choose to spend $5k on fibre if they want?

                                                                                                                                                The majority of connections opt for 12 or 25mbit anyway, sorry couldn't find url for nbnco statistic.

                                                                                                                                                Technically, dropping billions on fibre in this day and age is stupid given that so much (vast majority) of the population is already in areas that can get faster IP (over 100mbit) from LTE, wireless technology is the future, imagine if it was spent on LTE sites.

                                                                                                                                                Many people use the argument only fibre can do it, when that's just intellectual dishonesty about different types of layer 1.

                                                                                                                                                4 million of Australia's households (roughly half) already have HFC that when upgraded will do gigabit.

                                                                                                                                                It is illegal to compete with NBN.

                                                                                                                                                The NBN was unfunded in its commitment. The same party implemented a $20b/year national disability insurance scheme which was also not funded. All these arguments saying it was bungled, but only the hollow commitments of the unionist/socialist party that implemented this were bungled. A lot of the angry people also don't pay a lot of net tax either which is the usual narrative of the ALP.

                                                                                                                                                So it wasn't properly costed or funded, all these great things that party promised in power, but they still lost the next election anyway, so the people spoke.

                                                                                                                                                Also NYT is fake news. :)