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Landmark Steps Forward For Australia's NBN
angry tapir writes "After two years of protracted negotiations Telstra, the Australian Federal Government and the NBN Co have come to definitive agreements on the structural separation of Telstra and the use of its network assets in Australia's 1Gbps National Broadband Network (NBN). Australia's second largest telco, Optus, has also reached an $800m agreement with the NBN Co for the migration of its hybrid coaxial cable (HFC) customers to the fibre-optic-based NBN."
100Mbps It's just capable of 1Gbps for later upgrade.
Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
Even if it didn't actually go faster on paper, there's currently a lot of people on marginal infrastructure. Copper lines that were laid 20 years ago and have been slowly corroding ever since which are adequate for voice but were absolutely never intended for ADSL2+.
If you've been in a group in an online game with an Australian and he's randomly disconnected, we're sorry. A lot of us access the internet over a wet piece of string.
For those that don't understand the significance, Telstra own the "last mile" copper and HFC network in Australia (Optus own a small chunk of HFC too as mentioned above.) If you want wired internet access from anyone, you generally have to pay Telstra (directly or indirectly.) As you'd expect they've used their postion to unfairly advantage their own internet service, while delaying competitors from access to exchanges to install DSLAMS, gouging competitors for access to the copper network,etc.)
The deal means NBNCo can use Telstra's cable ducts, pits and poles to initially rollout fibre everywhere. it also means maintenance of Telstra's crappy and aging copper phone network will be handed to NBNco soon. Theoreticallly all the existing ISP's paying Telstra for access to the copper network will start paying NBNCo, instead, Because NBNCo are barred from offering retail internet services, in theory access to the network should be a level playing field.
Eventually they'll rip out the existing copper phone network, so we'll just have the optical cable.
My understanding is the NBNCo network will be a 'common carrier'; eg they provide the layer 1/2 network, any internet / cable TV / telephony / other data provider can buy access to the network and deliver internet / TV / telephony / data services over that network.
It's the same model we use for water and power in Australia, eg the power generation company doesn't own or maintain the wires in the street, and isn't responsible for connection to your house. NBNCo are supposed to operate at the same level, providing teh pipes/trucks only, if you will.
According to the pollies NBNCo can't filter the network it at the wholesale, common carrier level. We'll wait and see.
Adam Internet, Internode and others are touting 25 to 100 megabit connections, 100GB/month data at $60/month, which is significantly more expensive than the equivalent over ADSL/copper phone lines. You can buy these right now in areas that are connected (new suburbs that were prewired in South Australia, eg Lochiel Park, LightsView, etc. ) Prospect, Aldinga and other initial rollout sites in Australia will also be able to get fibre internet over this service shortly.
The basic connect will increase price of urban connection by 100%
Slow the connection down to 10Mbps
Limit the amount you can get on the basic contract to 10% of common urban deals
Then place extreme contention ratios at the exchange so you will be lucky to get 1Mbps
And they included a half-billion dollar exit clause, which will seriously deter any subsequent government from trying to stuff it up. :)
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
Sacrificing modpoints to say this:
...providing broadband services with initial speeds of up to 100 megabits per second (mbps), rising to 1 gigabit per second (gbps) in 2012, and with the capacity for further upgrades in the future...
Taken from NBNCo's Overview PDF.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
This project is a total abomination produced by a government so inept its leader is the most reviled Australian Prime Minister of all time.
They have agreed to pay Telstra and Oputs $12 billion to retire their copper networks when really they should have just let the carriers wear the decline of those private assets.
When the government goes to SELL the NBN (which they must do down the track) who will they sell it to? Since Australia will absolutely not allow foreign ownership of critical infrastructure your choices are small and my vite is Telstra. Therefore we've just paid Telstra $12 billion to eventually re-establish the SAME @#$@#$! monopoly over NBN fibre that they have always had (to our significant detriment) over the copper network. Since in my opinion only Australian companies will be allowed to bid for the NBN you will see exactly the same farce that was perpetrated by the NSW government when they sold the state power generation assets at an insanely low price.
Will someone please invade my country... PLEASE!!!
It used to be that Slashdot wasn't saturated with non-stories from Australia until into the weekend.
This doesn't bode well for a Slashdot anybody but Aussies can be bothered to visit.
Selling the infrastructure the first time was the stupid mistake that meant we had to have an NBN in the first place. The majority of it is really what Telstra had planned to roll out around 2000. Instead since the mid 1990s we've had not much other than patches to keep the decaying network going and links to new mobile phone towers.
It was insane to sell it in the first place (as was obvious before and demonstrated now) and it will be no more sane to sell the necessary replacement. All that would be gained is some short term benefits for flown in management while the taxpayers and shareholders bleed money - just like the last time.
See the post above about what Internode is selling now for NBN sites and it's IPv6 as well. On the old system my workplace is paying more than $600 per month for 2M/2M so I can't wait for the NBN to get the internet out of Telstra's greedy hands.
Stop being so lazy then and submit some stories from where you live.
Idiot, take a look at the link you just posted. Note the rel="nofollow" attribute. That means that search engines will ignore it. You have not cleverly got 'Diss' associated with your service in search engines, you've just posted something showing that you are semi-literate (not a great advert for an essay-writing service: if I were to pay someone to write my essays for me, I'd want them to write ones that had a chance of passing).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
By my calculation Conroy just spent $521 on behalf of each man, woman and child in Australia ($11.8B / 22,643,653 people) to buy an aging copper network run by Telstra: a privatised monopoly phone company with a crappy record for innovation, value or customer service. In exchange for this I get to pay almost exactly what I currently do for the same Internet service I already do through a new monopoly. If I am unlucky, it will be even slower. What is the point of this? Telstra must be laughing their asses off.
By law I can't even buy my internet service direct from the new monopoly. I must go through a "provider" who will add a 100% markup. And for what? What a complete waste of money.
Has the Optus CEO properly considered the real value of the cable network? Are the mobile sections of Optus using network capacity that is provided by the fixed line and cable part of Optus without putting that on their balance sheets? The cable infrastructure is not legacy; it includes some really good, up-to-date infrastructure. In any event, I look forward to my NBN connection, although sacrificing the cable infrastructure may be less of a good deal than our CEO thinks.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Now, when the power goes out, so will your landline
Actually, the user's end has battery backup.
One government-sponsored monopoly to another. Everyone suffers.