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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."
I'd like to apologise for the ill-informed comments from the "Aussies" above who think that Australia's current telecommunications infrastructure is "good". When areas 5kms from the cities CBD can't get broadband because of the incumbant telco, or are forced to use wireless that drops out when it rains, or aren't in the big three cities so there is no chance of broadband delivered by the cable network, or ... Problems that probably affect every other first world nation where warped conservative, fascist ideology has driven communications infrastructure deployment.
The NBN is already delivering benefits. They've significantly altered the backhaul networks around Australia so anyone who doesn't live in Sydney or Melbourne have the chance of receiving ADSL at a competitive rate (for the non-Aussies, and people who live in Sydney/Melbourne, Australia is more than just those two cities). They've managed to get the incumbant telco to agree to seperate their wholesale and retail arms and hand over infrastructure to NBNCo. More importantly they are actually building infrastructure that will be used for generations and will offer a return to successive Governments.
The Coalition's plan is to sell off what has been built already (because private industry can do it better, the same private industry that sat on their hands for the last 20 years..) to deploy wireless to some places (and do nothing about the gouging which the private companies do with wireless data whilst offering blistering fast speeds of up to 12Mbps) and a combination of FTTN/DSL/Cable to marginal electorates. Spending anywhere from $11 - 20b in the process.
There's still hope that someone will pull a Julia on Abbot and stick Turnbull back in the top spot.
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.
They back-stab by being voted in on a conservative platform by their electorate, and then jumping ship to back the Labor party.
You mean slipper ?
Coalition practically drove him out of his party, blame the elected coalition MP's for that.
No, I meant Oakeshott. More detailed response on your other post.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
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.
From what I've heard of Australian broadband, I expect a 1000Mb/s connection to be very cheap. It will, however, come with a 3GB/month cap, with a $10/GB charge for overage...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Several issues but the key word would have to be
"jesus"
Yep, I've already replied so I can't moderate here. Please mod this up, the "wifi will save us" people are embarassing to deal with. It's .... mind boggling how dense those people are.
I'm surprised one of them made it here to slashdot, I'd expect them to be on yahoo answers or something.
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
it is at current dsl prices
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
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>
She was elected exactly the same way every other PM was elected.
One thing the last few years of Australian news reporting has taught me, is that damn near the whole country has NFI how our political system works. Scary stuff.
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
And private industry has historically been less effective in Australian telecommunications due to the dirty great monopoly of Telstra - which is just being replaced by the dirty great monopoly of the NBN.
Telstra was a monopoly in both the wholesale and retail sector. With this they could simply move the wholesale costs of services for competitors to just below that of their retail service offerings with their retail arm having to pay none of the wholesale costs, just overheads of a traditional retail business.
This is the current 'price squeeze' under investigation by the ACCC, again.
The NBN is a wholesale only network.. I fail to see how they could abuse a monopoly position in this manner... other than perhaps rising wholesale prices directly but lets be honest the government isn't as greedy as Telstra which, is saying something. Additionally every RSP that's using the network will make a fuss if the price rise was unjustified.
Also it's bloody YOUR not you're
You forgot the repeated failure of the Australian people to actually be able to spell the name of one of the major political parties.
It's LABOR not LABOUR.
LOAD ".SIG"
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
People need to stop reading junk off the net to justify an argument ... Maybe once upon a time in the last 200 years someone somewhere in Australia used the term tinny to describe a beer ... 99% of Aussies will think your talking about a boat if you use the term tinny.