NBN Discussion

[dfcatch]

Are you sure you won't be getting fibre? Perhaps my statement was a bit too broad, but there aren't many cases where people who can currently get ADSL2+ (particularly ADSL2+ faster than 12Mbps) won't be getting fibre. Also, if this is the case are you sure you'll be losing your copper phone line / ADSL2+ service? The Telstra/Optus migration deal definitely covers anyone within the fibre footprint, but I'm not certain either way re people covered by wireless / satellite?

Anyway, yes of course if you can currently get 12Mbps+ ADSL2+ but won't be getting fibre then the NBN isn't such a good deal for you! You may think differently after another 5-10 years of wear-and-tear on your copper phone line that Telstra aren't maintaining properly though, I would add.

As I said above, personally I wish the NBN was pushing the fibre footprint out further than they are, which would likely solve your problem (and said problem for anyone else in your situation). This is unlikely to happen anytime soon though, given how feral the opposition (and compliant sections of the media - I'm looking at you Murdoch press) have become about feasibility studies / economic returns / etc though. When did everyone forget that the government is here to provide services, not run for-profit businesses? :-(



Sure, me too - I like facts



What about the whole NBN-is-an-invesment argument though? i.e. it's not a matter of NBN or <Insert Government Service You Most Think Needs More Money Here>, but rather it's NBN and <Insert Government Service You Most Think Needs More Money Here> (partially funded by profits from the NBN no less!).

And re facts vs rhetoric / emotion, I honestly think I've stuck to facts during this debate? Some have been absolute facts (my rant about the technical benefits of fibre, Telstra / Optus migration deal and its impact, etc), some have been predictions but still based on known facts (NBN being an investment, it's business case, predictions about social/economic/whatever benefits of the NBN, etc) - I can't think of a single place where I've been relying on an emotive "argument"?

Your argument against the "Murdoch press" is one that stands out like dogs balls

 

[wafliron]

Note the batteries in the power backup units are expected to last up to three years (shelf life) - after which they would be replaced at the subscribers expense.

Where did you hear that (the 3 year figure)? I can't find a definitive answer, but 3 years sounds too short to me. The backup batteries are sealed lead-acid units, which typically have a life-span significantly longer than 3 years (and don't just go from fine to dead overnight - they slowly degrade). While I wouldn't call it a proper reference, the NBN "user guide" (http://www.nbnco.com.au/assets/documents/nbn-user-guide_2.pdf) seems to support this - page 10 mentions a 5+ year lifespan for replacement batteries. I'll also add that these batteries aren't expensive - you can buy one for less than $20 right now, and you would think they'll get cheaper as demand for them grows.

All that being said, I do think they've got this part of the rollout wrong. The battery backup should be optional as most people don't need it (I certainly don't), so they're wasting a bunch of money installing batteries in every house. They could then use the money saved to include replacement batteries as part of the monthly fee for those who actually need them.

True that, they are supposed to last up to five hours in the vent of a power failure.

For the sake of clarity, I will add that the batteries are rechargable - so while they last ~5 hours in the event of the power failure they are not "dead" and need to be replaced after 5 hours of use, they will recharge themselves once power is restored and have another ~5 hours of power available if the power fails again.

Your argument against the "Murdoch press" is one that stands out like dogs balls

Thanks for the feedback I would counter by saying that The Australian and various other Murdoch papers have a long history of biased / inaccurate reporting around the NBN - both extensive reporting of things that are just plain wrong, and a strong bias towards negative reporting of the NBN. It's hard to even find examples of positive reporting, even around announcements that are... positive. It's fine for a newspaper / journos to report things as they see them, of course, but opinion should stay on the opinion pages and I would expect beyond that at least a measure of balance / accuracy in their reporting.

All that being said, I'm heading OT here and suspect I may not be helping my case anyway - so point taken

Your right, they are just opinion pieces,

Don't twist my words. I never said they are opinion pieces, nor are they. They are articles reporting facts - what they don't do is report the numbers supporting said facts.

the fact is the science has got to the point that wireless has no issues beating the speed on offer by the hard wired NBN, without the infrastructure cost,

Once again, this is just plain, flat-out wrong. Given your stated experience in the area I cannot understand why you keep repeating stuff that is just factually incorrect.

The facts in this area are:

1) The latest generation mobile standard (LTE), which is just at the beginning of being rolled out, is capable of a maximum downstream rate of ~300 Megabits per second per user. This maximum rate is achieved using the largest type of antenna, with perfect reception, with no congestion in the cell-tower area (extremely rare) and using a 20Mhz chunk of spectrum (four times more than 3G uses, so the max users per cell-tower is four times lower than 3G if you want to achieve high LTE speeds). Real-worldspeeds will be order of magnitude slower than these maximums, as they always are with mobile broadband.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP_Long_Term_Evolution#Features

2) In March 2010 point-to-point fibre set a new speed record of 69.1 Terabits per second (69,100,000 Megabits per second) - approximately 230,000 times faster LTE is capable of in perfect conditions, based on a result now almost two years old.

Reference: News Release 100325a

3) The type of fibre techology the NBN is using (G.984 GPON) is capable of a maximum downstream rate of 1 Gigabit per second (1,000 Megabits per second) per user, roughly 3.3 times faster than LTE can offer in perfect conditions, and many more times faster than LTE will offer in real-world conditions.

Some people may find this 1 Gigabit per second figure confusing as the fastest NBN plans announced to date have offered only 100 Megabits per second: the NBN actually supports 1 Gigabit per second connections right now, and this speed can be turned on for no cost - it's just a "flick a switch" upgrade.

Reference: http://www.nbnco.com.au/assets/documents/product-overview-fibre_1_03_final.pdf

4) The next generation of GPON (G.987 XG-PON) is already finalised (in fact, it was finalised in 2010) and is already in use in some parts of the world, and offers approximately four times the total bandwidth of G.984 GPON. Therefore it would be logical to assume it will offer maximum downstream data rates of ~4 Gigabits per second (4,000 Megabits per second) per user, roughly 13.3 times faster than LTE can offer in perfect conditions, and many more times faster than LTE will offer in real-world conditions.

It's also worth specifically noting that the time between the GPON and XGPON standards being finalised was only 2 years - so GPON got 4x faster in only two years. Wireless doesn't even come close to that sort of upgradability, especially without using lots more spectrum in the process.

Also, as an aside, if anyone is wondering why the NBN chose to use the older standard (G.984 GPON) rather than the newer standard (G.987 XGPON), it's most likely due to the fact that the newer standard hadn't yet been finalised when NBNCo was deciding on the technical specifications for the early part of its rollout. However, both GPON and XGPON can operate at the same time over the same piece of fibre-optic cable, so at some point in the future (most likely in the next couple of years) the NBNCo will switch to rolling out XGPON instead, which only requires a XGPON-supporting fibre termination unit at each end of the fibre-optic cable (so it's an incremental and cheap upgrade, even for areas which have already had the older standard installed).

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10G-PON


So, what this all adds up to is the exact opposite of what you just said: fibre is still far-and-away faster than the latest and greater wireless standards and offers far greater upgradability (both what has been historically achieved, and looking into the future). Not to mention that we haven't even touched on wireless' many other issues: congestion, lack of / running out of free spectrum, higher latency, drop-outs, requirement to have an (easily interruptable) strong signal to achieve high speeds, etc.

the issue has been spectrum availability for the telcos to make it happen, and that has just changed with it now being freed up, or just purchased in the case of Optus, who just spent $230 M on a very nice chunk that used to belong to Austar etc.

More spectrum is being freed up soon via the shut-down of analog TV, but that is not some panacea for the spectrum problem. The spectrum available now plus what is being freed up soon is not even close to enough to support our current bandwidth needs, let alone what we'll need in 5, 10, 20 years time - at least not without building a ridiculous number of new mobile cell towers, with the associated intrafrastructure cost, aesthetic problems, etc.

I must say this whole "wireless is a better choice" argument bemuses me. Apart from the long list of clear, factual and unambiguous reasons why this isn't the true, doesn't everything think that if it were true the government / NBNCo wouldn't be rolling out a wireless solution? Why on earth would either of these two entities want to spend more money on fibre, go through the political heartache around defending this choice, etc, if it weren't the right solution?

Point to multi point gigabit wireless is two years away, we have had point to point for some time already,

If you're going to make a grand statement like that then please provide a reference / link.

I don't know of any long-range multi-user ("point to multipoint") wireless technology - either in-use or anywhere close to real-world implementation - with bandwidth anywhere close to that, nor can I find anything after some extensive Googling. Possibly you are talking about microwave links, but as I'm sure you know these aren't practical for large-scale residential deployment - microwave requires large transmitters, high-powered equipment and line-of-sight between both ends of the connection.

and with wireless, it cannot be attacked with a backhoe, whilst its already providing 99.9999 SLAs.

If that's one of the main arguments you can come up with for wireless then you really are struggling: apart form the fact that most of the NBN's fibre is being strung from power poles (no backhoe problem), how much of an issue is this right now for our copper phone network? Answer: barely worth mentioning. Yes, it happens sometimes... but then it gets quickly fixed, normally with the costs passed on to whoever was stupid enough to cut the lines.

 

[markis10]

The facts in this area are:

1) The latest generation mobile standard (LTE), which is just at the beginning of being rolled out, is capable of a maximum downstream rate of ~300 Megabits per second per user. This maximum rate is achieved using the largest type of antenna, with perfect reception, with no congestion in the cell-tower area (extremely rare) and using a 20Mhz chunk of spectrum (four times more than 3G uses, so the max users per cell-tower is four times lower than 3G if you want to achieve high LTE speeds). Real-worldspeeds will be order of magnitude slower than these maximums, as they always are with mobile broadband.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP_Long_Term_Evolution#Features

Why compare a mobile standard with a fixed fibre solution, the world is much bigger for wireless than that, take the blinkers off!

And no its not the old analog TV spectrum we are talking about, its 2.3GHz which previously was used for ENG, wikipedia is a poor source for references but one thats often used by people not familiar with the topic at hand, so it has a place I suppose. As far as a reference to point to multipoint high capacity wireless, I refer to one of the best authoritive sources you can get, the IEEE, as for the government wasting their money, whos backing the CSIRO on their point to multipoint research in the wireless space:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fiel5%2F5419385%2F5421566%2F05421832.pdf%3Farnumber%3D5421832&authDecision=-203

Don't twist my words. I never said they are opinion pieces, nor are they. They are articles reporting facts - what they don't do is report the numbers supporting said facts..

Perhaps you need to slow down on the google research and reading Wikipedia and actually examine what you are quoting and referring, I have always found opinion pieces are filed under the opinion section of the ABC website, as is the case with your references:

 

[wafliron]

Why compare a mobile standard with a fixed fibre solution, the world is much bigger for wireless than that, take the blinkers off!

I'm well aware that there are a variety of (fixed) wireless standards beyond LTE/other mobile standards - I even talked about them in this thread, less than a page ago. I'm talking about LTE here because as of right how LTE is the fastest long-distance, multi-user wireless standard available, and is also the "alternative" most often offered up instead of fibre. Not to mention that you yourself pointed to Optus purchasing a chunk of 2.3Hhz spectrum as part of your reasoning that wireless was a better choice than fibre, and guess what that spectrum is going to be used for? Mobile!

And no its not the old analog TV spectrum we are talking about, its 2.3GHz which previously was used for ENG,

Which doesn't change the underlying fact that there is not even close to enough spectrum available - including what is available now and what is being freed up over the next few years - to support out current data requirements over mobile wireless networks, let alone what we will need in years to come. And that whilst any extra spectrum is welcome, 2.3GHz, being quite high in the frequency range, is going to suffer from more problems with range / interference than mobile users are already used to.

wikipedia is a poor source for references but one thats often used by people not familiar with the topic at hand, so it has a place I suppose.

I would beg to differ - Wikipedia is a fantastic source of information as long as you bear in mind that it's not the be-all-and-end-all, and ensure you check where the info on Wikipedia is coming from (which I do for any serious research). Not to mention that if you're going to get up on your high horse about it, you might want to try explaining where the inaccuracies in what I posted / the linked Wikipedia articles lie - so far you're continuing to employ the "la la you're wrong I can't hear you" defence.

And as for "often used by people not familiar with the topic on hand", I don't pretend to know everything there is to know about wireless, but I am fairly well versed on the topic. You are obviously claiming to be better versed on the topic than I, which could be the case, but you've yet to provide any evidence to prove it.

I have always found opinion pieces are filed under the opinion section of the ABC website, as is the case with your references:

Again, stop twisting my words. I never linked to those ABC articles as a "reference", I linked to them as they provide a clear and eloquent explanation of the issues with wireless-as-an-alternative-to-fibre. The fact they're filed under "opinion" on ABC's website doesn't change the fact that they're reporting on factual information.

As far as a reference to point to multipoint high capacity wireless, I refer to one of the best authoritive sources you can get, the IEEE:

IEEE Xplore - Sign In

I'm gratified to see you've finally posted a reference to try and support the wild claims you've been making... but seriously, that's it? A single two-year-old research paper, hidden behind a paywall so that we can't really examine what the researchers did and what they found?

Where is all the coverage of this revolutionary wireless standard? I can't find a single reference to a commercial application of the technology described in that research paper - strange, for something that (if widely and commercially viable) would be about to revolutionise telecommunications. Where are the vendors offering equipment to support it? Where are the field trials? Where are the telcos trumpeting the next generation of wireless technology about to take the world by storm? etc, etc.

Even we accept the abstract from that single paper at face value and assume the technology is in fact "two years away" (which there is zero evidence to support), I'd also point out that based on what little info the abstract provides we:

1) don't know what the range of this wireless technology is

2) don't know how many users it supports

3) don't know what sort of equipment it requires (size / type of antennas, transmitting / receiving equipment, etc)

4) don't know if/how it suffers from congestion / interference

5) probably know that it requires line-of-sight between the antennas (they say it uses "wide angle beams" but only in the context of coverage areas)

6) importantly, don't know whether the claimed 800 Megabits per second is per user, or shared bandwidth for all users within each "tower's" coverage area. Based on the way the abstract is worded I suspect it is the latter, but obviously we can't know this for certain without access to the full paper. Either way, you're looking at a best case of this hypothetical future wireless standard offering less bandwidth per user than the current (5 year old) GPON standard the NBN is using and ~5 times less bandwidth per user than the most current (2 year old) XGPON standard that the NBN is easily capable of supporting, and a worst case much, much worse than this if the bandwidth is shared.

Sorry, if you want to mount a substantive argument that wireless is superior to fibre than you're going to have to do much better than that.

 

[markis10]

Head over to Whirlpool if you want substantive arguments, there's 8 years of them at least with some by me tagged as a rep, at the end of the day this is a frequent flyer website after all .

 

[wafliron]

Head over to Whirlpool if you want substantive arguments, there's 8 years of them at least with some by me tagged as a rep

What's your Whirlpool username? Despite the fact that I disagree with you, I'm still interested in what you have to say (and which company you work for!).

PS: You're still not providing any evidence to back up your claims, nor refute mine. I'm not trying to be argumentative here, just pointing out that you're clearly passionate about this topic as well (albeit on the opposite side of the debate to me) and you need to provide evidence if you want people to take your opinion seriously...

at the end of the day this is a frequent flyer website after all .

True, but we are posting in an "OT" sub-board And there's no harm in bringing a discussion about a critical piece of infrastructure to a new audience, if they're interested... no one here is forced to read this.

 

[markis10]

need to provide evidence if you want people to take your opinion seriously...
.

LOL, this is the playground, 'for non serious talk', hence the whirlpool suggestion.

 

[serfty]

Note the batteries in the power backup units are expected to last up to three years (shelf life) - after which they would be replaced at the subscribers expense.

Where did you hear that (the 3 year figure)? I can't find a definitive answer, but 3 years sounds too short to me. The backup batteries are sealed lead-acid units, which typically have a life-span significantly longer than 3 years (and don't just go from fine to dead overnight - they slowly degrade). While I wouldn't call it a proper reference, the NBN "user guide" (http://www.nbnco.com.au/assets/documents/nbn-user-guide_2.pdf) seems to support this - page 10 mentions a 5+ year lifespan for replacement batteries. I'll also add that these batteries aren't expensive - you can buy one for less than $20 right now, and you would think they'll get cheaper as demand for them grows.

All that being said, I do think they've got this part of the rollout wrong. The battery backup should be optional as most people don't need it (I certainly don't), so they're wasting a bunch of money installing batteries in every house. They could then use the money saved to include replacement batteries as part of the monthly fee for those who actually need them.

...

Three years come from this piece of pro speak: Australian Communications Consumer Action Network - National Broadband Network: Guide for Consumers (See page 24)

For the sake of clarity, I will add that the batteries are rechargable - so while they last ~5 hours in the event of the power failure they are not "dead" and need to be replaced after 5 hours of use, they will recharge themselves once power is restored and have another ~5 hours of power available if the power fails again. ...

hmm who's clarity? Surly most perusers of this thread would be aware.

In any case, that document has a specific level of credibility and it states 3 hours.

FWIW, the battery spec. looks little different to that for many motor cycles ... still have R on my Vic. licence ...

 

[wafliron]

Three years come from this piece of pro speak: Australian Communications Consumer Action Network - National Broadband Network: Guide for Consumers (See page 24)

In any case, that document has a specific level of credibility and it states 3 hours.

FWIW, the battery spec. looks little different to that for many motor cycles ... still have R on my Vic. licence ...

Thanks for the link. Happy to defer to the document you linked, although I suspect they're just being conservative and stating a minimum. I've dealt with lots of sealed lead-acid batteries in my time (in Uninterruptible Power Supplies for computer equipment) and I'm struggling to think of a single case where a battery has only lasted 3 years... most last 4+, and I've seen plenty last 5+.

hmm who's clarity? Surly most perusers of this thread would be aware.

Maybe... maybe not... I figure it can't hurt to clarify

 

[markis10]

Well the NBN will now cost $4.6B more than forecast, and at least those battery units are no longer mandatory, but the good news is the government will now get a return of 7.1% on their investment, which from memory is about what QF shareholders have earned over the past 10 years, however QF pays tax now while the NBN wont have its first bill until 2027, ohh, and it will take 6 months longer than forecast!

 

[777]

Missed this whole debate but i've been an NBN Guinea Pig at my home and my office all year. All i can say is: I don't know how i ever lived without it. The only downside is that i can no longer tolerate the third world internet when i'm on the road.

 

[Paddy55]

Bring it on!

 

[simongr]

No indication of when it might hit my area...

 

[serfty]

There's an area installation/rollout guide online:

http://www.nbnco.com.au/rollout/index.html

 

[simongr]

Yep - and I get this for my post code:

We have not commenced work on the NBN in your area just yet.

Then look around suburbs close by and the closest one is showing as three years from now... And that is for the last work to commence

 

[wafliron]

Well the NBN will now cost $4.6B more than forecast, and at least those battery units are no longer mandatory, but the good news is the government will now get a return of 7.1% on their investment, which from memory is about what QF shareholders have earned over the past 10 years, however QF pays tax now while the NBN wont have its first bill until 2027, ohh, and it will take 6 months longer than forecast!

Thanks for posting, I'd missed the news. Glad the battery backup units are are now optional - was such a dumb decision to make them mandatory in the first place.

Missed this whole debate but i've been an NBN Guinea Pig at my home and my office all year. All i can say is: I don't know how i ever lived without it. The only downside is that i can no longer tolerate the third world internet when i'm on the road.

Lucky you I can't wait for the rollout to really get moving... as soon as a decent chunk of the population get to experience the NBN I can see the general sentiment towards it shifting very, very rapidly (as per your experience). That's not to say the public's sentiment towards it is all that bad now (it's already net positive)... but it will take more than current support levels to avert the Libs trying to scrap it.

Yep - and I get this for my post code:

We have not commenced work on the NBN in your area just yet.

Then look around suburbs close by and the closest one is showing as three years from now... And that is for the last work to commence

Bear in mind the rollout will take 8 years to complete... if you get it in 3 years you'll be doing better than the average!

 

[serfty]

... in mind the rollout will take 8 years to complete... if you get it in 3 years you'll be doing better than the average!

if you get it after three years then there would have been a complete reversal in indication by either the public or the likely next federal government.

Posted on a wing and a prayer ...

 

[wafliron]

if you get it after three years then there would have been a complete reversal in indication by either the public or the likely next federal government.

Reversal by the Libs, yes, but not by the public - the majority of the public support it (admittedly not by a large margin). Unless you meant public opinion with regards to the probable next federal government...

 

[simongr]

The majority of the public support it? Really? Did I miss a referendum on the topic?

 

[amaroo]

The majority of the public support it? Really? Did I miss a referendum on the topic?

Unfortunately we did - It was called Kevin 07

FWIW I'm firmly of the belief that the NBN will be as successful as Kevin.