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Australian National Broadband Network Releases 3-Year Plan
New submitter pcritter writes "The Australian Government has just announced the 3-year roll-out plan for its ambitious National Broadband Network. The plan details 3.5 million premises (30%) across the country to be connected to the NBN by mid-2015. A map is available showing coverage areas. The plan represents a major milestone in the NBN project, which aims to connect all of Australia with high speed broadband by 2021, with the 93% of the population on fiber to the premises (FTTP) of speeds up to 1000Mbits, and the rest on fixed wireless or satellite."
Pointless.
Most of the country has O.K. network coverage, the problem is in the rural areas where ANY net access is thin, so they are pushing this into the high density area - at increased customer cost, where it's not actually needed.
Does it include the coalitions plan to scrape it when they are returned to power at the next election?
Now if they gave the people 1000Mbits at current adsl prices, then we could sing and dance about this. The crazy thing is that there is no real benefit for the people, the cost of broadband will still be the same as what people pay now for the lowest bandwidth (adsl equiv) entry to the NBN. In fact it will probably cost more for the people, we have to pay for this with taxes as well. This is just one big pork barrel project.
Please, any non-Aussies reading this story, do not judge our nation on our Prime Minister's elocution in that video. We know. We're sorry.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
The summary is wrong (isn't it always) -- essentially nobody will be getting 1Gbps on the NBN, at least not for the first decade or so. The fibres are rated at 2.5Gbps downstream, but they're split, so each house will be getting 100Mbps maximum. I certainly haven't heard of any ISPs offering more than 100Mbps, so even if the fibre can physically transmit more than that, you can't buy it as a service.
Apartment complexes can receive a dedicated fibre with more than 100Mbps capacity, but that's till split up between the apartments, the difference is that the splitter is on the premises. I think this caused a lot of confusion, because some of the logical diagrams showed a 1 Gbps fibre going to a building, and journalists didn't notice that only 100Mbps connections were going to each apartment.
One interesting issue with the NBN is that while we're going to have plenty of bandwidth, our latency to most services is still terrible. America is 200ms away, and there's not a lot in the English-speaking corner of the Internet that's closer. I hope Google, Amazon, and Microsoft start building data centres locally, or the upgrade will be largely unnoticeable for anything other than video streaming.
I got a first post, mate - chuck me a tinny!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
For some suburbs named in the plan (i.e. Weston, ACT) detailed planning doesn't commence until September 2015 and homes in the suburb cannot expect to actually have an active connection until September 2016. The roll out has been poorly planned in that it overbuilds many suburbs where coaxial cable running at 100Mbps is available now, while ignoring areas where ADSL is unavailable and people are relying on 3G wireless. Take up rates in the small number of suburbs where the NBN has been built of about 14%. The reported highest rate is 29% for for Willunga, SA and second is Kiama, NSW at 26%. The government has promoted 1000/400Mbps connections, but NBNCo are predicting in the Corporate Plan (page 118) that only 1% will connect at that speed in 2026. Unfortunately 50% are predicted to connect to the network at 12/1Mbps, even when it costs only $5 a month for 25/5Mbps. In Australia we have quotas, which start at 10GB and reaching 1TB on current NBNCo plans. Unlike countries where speed is used to limit connections, it would cost NBNCo zero to provide the full speed to all customers and deliver a return from people using more data. RSPs (aka ISPs) will be charged $20Mbps for CVC to connect to the network. The other challenge is that the mobile network operators are progressively rolling out 4G services which reviews have stated are providing 30/10Mbps in many locations. This network will be a direct competitor for low usage customers (e.g. 50% connecting at 12/1Mbps who won't pay $5 extra for 25/5Mbps). Unfortunately it appears that technically we are building a first class network, while political decisions mean that speeds and actual usage will be third class.
Everyone knows that the best way to have the fastest wireless and internet service is to have a free market system. I mean, my free market AT&T service is spectacular giving me at least 2kbps (at least when there is no one else on the network), which is perfect for... well.. Wireless is VERY expensive to do and people in the US could never afford 1000M anyway. Also, the US is WAY to large for 1000M wireless internet... Oh, and having 1000M wireless internet wouldn't be safe anyway because of... terrorists..
The point is everyone knows that a free market system where private enterprise blazes the way is always the best path to prosperity. I mean its like American and stuff...
(Brought to you by the American Telecom Industry)
I struggle to understand the value of 1000Mbits FTTP when the government is ruthlessly trying to censor the Internet. Don't get me wrong, I think that this is a great plan in theory (and practice, if it happens), but I can't help but feel that the entire endeavour is somewhat devalued by the Australian executive's policies on web censorship.
Sure, it's no Iran or China on the international censorship scale, but it is pretty poor for what is considered a 'Western' nation.
No, it doesn't.
Most of the country has slow, horrifically overpriced ADSL, which is patchy even in some urban areas. The Telcos were not and are not doing anything about it. The government stepping in is exactly what was needed.
I don't know why so many Australians are complaining about this network. I've seen many countries waste money in much worse ways. Just look at the USA spending hundreds of billions of dollars for things half the people don't agree with and not batting an eye (wars, military bases, foreign aid, social security). Just a few years ago with this bailout thing, whoops, a few trillion dollars spent in bailouts and QE. Take a look at Indonesia and the Philippines, just a random example, where tons of tax dollars just go to politicians pockets through corruption and ridiculous useless programs.
Adding a high speed network for your country sounds not so bad. Australia's networks suck as it is - expensive, slow and tiny bandwidth caps all over the place. Why not? Now you just need to attract companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Akamai to setup large installations in Australia to make good use of that network!
Seconded to previous poster, my parents live in the 'burbs in Sydney on the border of two exchanges and can't get ADSL, so no, this isn't a complete waste.
Targetting higher value areas where they are going to get a large take up and get income to support the roll out is also a good business decision.
CSIRO is building the technology to do NBN for rural. It's called Ngara:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/380377/csiro_pushes_digital_dividend_face_nbn_spectrum_buyout/
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
I'm in a regional (not rural) district and every suburb here has ADSL2+ connectivity. If you can't get ADSL2+, you can still get the pricey ADSL1 8Mbit through Telstra or Telstra wholesaler.
Even though I get 13Mbit~ at a good price, fibre is still very necessary as we're already starting to push the limits of what's available to us today. What I try and explain to people is that this is infrastructure that all communications will pass through for decades to come. It's one of the first times in my life where I can think of the Australian government really being ambitious with infrastructure development. The applications for this will be huge, it's much more than just triple-play. There's the possibility for telemedicine, telesurgery and of course, more telecommuting than ever before.
In 6 months they'll be starting NBN roll-out in my neighbourhood, and I'll be able to get 100/40 for what I think is a reasonable price that will only fall in the years to come.
As one of privileged I get at best 1.5Mb with serious crc error counts over my ADSL2 connection with daily dropouts (usually at the most important times) - that's the best my line can do and I'm in the nice dense suburbs. Thanks Telstra.
I beg thee, bring fiber to my house please.
Never happened. True story.
And who could forget, advanced teledildonics.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Exactly, I'm on the Wacol exchange about 10k from the Birsbane CBD - at the end of 4k of wet copper. Lucky to get 1.8mbs and thats dodgy. NBN work is starting this year, should be connected by this time next year. Can't wait - naked DSL and VOIP finally!
where phonelines disconnect when it rains.
Just in case people think the OP is joking - they arent. Happens to me regularlly and I live close to the Brrisbane CBD
The actual goal is to ramp up within 2 years to 5,900 premises a day based on 250 working days a year. This equates to 1.5 million premises a year. This is 0.2 million less a year than the HFC rollout in Australia in the 1990s. You can find this information on page 78 of the NBNCo Corporate Plan.
The NBNCo press release contains some key wording missing from the news article: Construction to be underway or complete in areas containing over 3.5 million homes and businesses in 1500 communities in every state and territory. Underway means that NBNCo have started detailed planning for the area. For some suburbs named in the plan (i.e. Weston, ACT) detailed planning doesn't commence until September 2015 and homes in the suburb cannot expect to actually have an active connection until September 2016. So the actual figure will be significantly less than 3.5 million able to connect in June 2015.
Well played Sir!
for a reason, and it's not just his name or that he attended seminary school.
Read up on his actions as Health Minister, where he fought to block the drug RU486 (a friend of a friend died as a direct result), and Parliament had to vote specially to restrain him. Religious beliefs should not become national policy.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
They said it would be offered on application. It's not a standard consumer plan, that's all. Dedicated fibre links are available too. And the fibre is "rated" for far higher than 2Gbps - it's capable of terabits/second. There's already a planned upgrade path to 40Gbps.
Latency is an issue, but caching can help many things, and fibre shaves off 20-40ms compared to ADSL.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
How do you get that many people with the proper licensees to do the work? In Victoria they will 48 months of training. What your proposing is sort of like getting 9 people to make a baby in a month.
Foxtel has about 1.6 million customers (two cable boxes in a house count as 2) after 17 years of building their network. I don't think they did 1.5 million in a year. Be careful about "pass" rates and connections. Also don't forget to count the ones using satellite as well. There might not even be 1.5 million premisses hooked to HFC in Australia right now.
If you're on the NBN next year, you will be using Fibre, not Naked DSL.
Do'h! of course you're right ::hangs head in shame::
There is a -1 score?
There was an unknown error in the submission.