So
many problems we face today are because of the joint Liberal-Labour
privatization of Telstra and their subsequent anti-competitive practices
(such as the line-renting scandal) which in my opinion have hobbled Australian
communications networks for almost 2 decades. Internet speed is more
important than you might think. It has been proven in multiple academic
papers that there is a direct correlation between internet speed and
economic growth.
We now live in a world where the Liberal Party gifted Foxtel (half owned by Telstra) $30 million of taxpayer dollars with no strings attached. They don't even care how overt they are. Telstra sold their shitty copper lines back to the government-owned nbn at the original 2011 price ($11 billion) they paid to install them in the first place. Apparently this now inferior and deteriorated technology HASN'T LOST ANY VALUE AFTER 7 YEARS.
We already have one of the highest concentrations of media ownership in the world, and when you take into account the erosion of media ownership laws ("two out of three" rule, and the ">75% rule") by the Liberal Party and you've got yourself a poorly reported situation, clear and present corruption, and a barely passable network.
The current status of the nbn as I understand it is as follows: 1.2 million homes set to recieve HFC connections downgraded to fibre to the node. 3 million homes are poised for HFC connection and 370,000 have active connections. NBN has put a freeze on new connections since November 2017, with a 6 - 9 month further delay. These are HFC connections, yes that 1990's technology, not modern hardware. Better than fibre to the node, but still.
Current plan as I understand it:
A $49 billion budget consisting of:
Basically, a joke of epic proportions. The biggest and most important infrastructure project in Australia's history, reduced to technology that puts us 50th worldwide. Our average internet speed is 11.1 Mb per second, compared to South Korea's number one placing with 28.6 Mb per second. Their peak is >100 Mb, which ours is capped at.
One crux of this, is that it is not in the best interest of a content delivery service such as - okay exclusively Foxtel, for the nbn to succeed. Foxtel are only now branching into a passable streaming service (after many years, which still performs poorly considering other alternatives). The streaming (a global gold standard of media delivery) business model which is now obtainable by millions, is put at risk with poor internet connectivity. The conspiracy theorist in me connects dots here that probably don't exist, but it's interesting to think about nonetheless. This may be once again, more anti-competitive behaviour through political influence, though I've read no direct evidence of this. I don't know if there has been any corporate meddling that has sabotaged/influenced the development of the Liberal Party nbn, but I would like to see this investigated. Obviously, apply Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". Most likely it was a 'hold the party line' type situation from the Liberals I suppose.
Even after all this, the Liberal Party's dismantling of a fully-functional and respectable fibre network plan (fibre to the premise - although also not ideal) is paired with the unjust pointing of the finger at the Labour Party, for their apparent monumental fuckup. That's right, the Liberals are blaming Labour for the Liberal Party's fibre to the node network plan.
Here's my prediction for the future: Both major parties will play on how poorly the nbn company has/is being managed, and should be privatized to let the free market *cough monopoly* sort things out and EFFICIENTIZE IT. Then we're truly in a bad place. The Akamai CEO is on record saying how even if the nbn is updated, congestion will slow it to a crawl due to the nature of the network. But hey, at least we're ready for the ever-expanding population, expected to breach 37.6 million by 2050, right guys? Guys?
We shouldn't be selling the nbn company. We shouldn't let that happen. I don't think our communications infrastructure can handle another blow from a privately-owned monopoly. We're 50th. We're 2nd in healthcare worldwide, 50th in internet connectivity.
I wrote this from a Telstra/nbn broadband connection. We pay for 100Mb per second and get ~ 40Mb during peak. That's good compared to many others, no doubt. But still, one might think, albeit allegedly: fuck you Telstra.
Below is a link with some good nbn alternatives not relying on the nbn network: https://www.lifehacker.com.au/…/five-viable-alternatives-t…/
Bunch of sources I used, and interesting reads:
We now live in a world where the Liberal Party gifted Foxtel (half owned by Telstra) $30 million of taxpayer dollars with no strings attached. They don't even care how overt they are. Telstra sold their shitty copper lines back to the government-owned nbn at the original 2011 price ($11 billion) they paid to install them in the first place. Apparently this now inferior and deteriorated technology HASN'T LOST ANY VALUE AFTER 7 YEARS.
We already have one of the highest concentrations of media ownership in the world, and when you take into account the erosion of media ownership laws ("two out of three" rule, and the ">75% rule") by the Liberal Party and you've got yourself a poorly reported situation, clear and present corruption, and a barely passable network.
The current status of the nbn as I understand it is as follows: 1.2 million homes set to recieve HFC connections downgraded to fibre to the node. 3 million homes are poised for HFC connection and 370,000 have active connections. NBN has put a freeze on new connections since November 2017, with a 6 - 9 month further delay. These are HFC connections, yes that 1990's technology, not modern hardware. Better than fibre to the node, but still.
Current plan as I understand it:
A $49 billion budget consisting of:
- FTTP to 2.4 million premises, or 20% of the network.
- HFC to 3.3 million premises, or 34% of the network (let's be honest, this is going to fall over time as more are put onto FTTN)
- FTTN/B to 4.5 million premises, or 38% of premises.
- FTTC to 700,000 premises from the HFC footprint.
- Satellite to 400,000 rural and remote premises.
- Fixed wireless to 600,000 premises in regional areas.
Basically, a joke of epic proportions. The biggest and most important infrastructure project in Australia's history, reduced to technology that puts us 50th worldwide. Our average internet speed is 11.1 Mb per second, compared to South Korea's number one placing with 28.6 Mb per second. Their peak is >100 Mb, which ours is capped at.
One crux of this, is that it is not in the best interest of a content delivery service such as - okay exclusively Foxtel, for the nbn to succeed. Foxtel are only now branching into a passable streaming service (after many years, which still performs poorly considering other alternatives). The streaming (a global gold standard of media delivery) business model which is now obtainable by millions, is put at risk with poor internet connectivity. The conspiracy theorist in me connects dots here that probably don't exist, but it's interesting to think about nonetheless. This may be once again, more anti-competitive behaviour through political influence, though I've read no direct evidence of this. I don't know if there has been any corporate meddling that has sabotaged/influenced the development of the Liberal Party nbn, but I would like to see this investigated. Obviously, apply Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". Most likely it was a 'hold the party line' type situation from the Liberals I suppose.
Even after all this, the Liberal Party's dismantling of a fully-functional and respectable fibre network plan (fibre to the premise - although also not ideal) is paired with the unjust pointing of the finger at the Labour Party, for their apparent monumental fuckup. That's right, the Liberals are blaming Labour for the Liberal Party's fibre to the node network plan.
Here's my prediction for the future: Both major parties will play on how poorly the nbn company has/is being managed, and should be privatized to let the free market *cough monopoly* sort things out and EFFICIENTIZE IT. Then we're truly in a bad place. The Akamai CEO is on record saying how even if the nbn is updated, congestion will slow it to a crawl due to the nature of the network. But hey, at least we're ready for the ever-expanding population, expected to breach 37.6 million by 2050, right guys? Guys?
We shouldn't be selling the nbn company. We shouldn't let that happen. I don't think our communications infrastructure can handle another blow from a privately-owned monopoly. We're 50th. We're 2nd in healthcare worldwide, 50th in internet connectivity.
I wrote this from a Telstra/nbn broadband connection. We pay for 100Mb per second and get ~ 40Mb during peak. That's good compared to many others, no doubt. But still, one might think, albeit allegedly: fuck you Telstra.
Below is a link with some good nbn alternatives not relying on the nbn network: https://www.lifehacker.com.au/…/five-viable-alternatives-t…/
Bunch of sources I used, and interesting reads:
- http://www.afr.com/…/akamai-ceo-warns-nbn-wont-fix-internet…
- https://www.theage.com.au/articl…/…/05/28/1022569769445.html
- http://www.abc.net.au/…/telstra-fined-185m-for-anti-…/922796
- https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-changes-to-austr…
- https://www.itnews.com.au/…/telstra-hands-over-copper-hfc-i…
- http://www.abc.net.au/…/nbn-malcolm-turnbull-labor-…/9076324
- https://www.ericsson.com/…/new-study-quantifies-the-impact-…
- http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/…/WDR16-BP-Exploring-the-Relat…
- https://www.gizmodo.com.au/…/giz-explains-every-nbn-techno…/
- https://www.choice.com.au/…/c…/articles/nbn-rollout-q-and-a… to the node
- https://www.gizmodo.com.au/…/nbn-shifts-1-million-premises…/
- https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-australias-level-o…
- https://www.akamai.com/…/q1-2017-state-of-the-internet-conn…
- http://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/…/surplus-was-due-to-h…/
