NBN Discussion

[RAM]

And the major difference:

Chorus has been building the NZ government's ultra fast broadband project which was 57 per cent complete at the end of last financial year, but unlike the NBN it does not have any sort of mandate to provide service to people in rural areas.

This para from the article really does make me wonder;

Chorus says speeds like this allow the equivalent of uploading 25 high resolution images to Facebook in under five seconds; downloading 25 MP3 songs in a second or streaming ultra-HD movies to 40 different devices simultaneously.

Apart from very few entities - who realistically needs to be able to stream 40 simultaneous HD movies to their home at once?

Video is many times more bandwidth intensive than audio or data. HD video many times normal video. A good example to look at is Bloomberg which has provided video via their terminals to EVERY terminal around the world since the mid 1980s, along with over a million financial functions and up to 50 years of data available for analysis by those financial functions.

Cost/benefit does not seem to stack up - businesses in NZ and Aust can pay for high speed services or dedicated lines to achieve super-high bandwidth - and not that many bother to pay for it (as a % of all businesses).

The Pay TV operators (also big donors to both parties Australia-wide) save so much by not having to spend the capital to improve their existing cable soon to become wholly run by the NBN at the taxpayers' expense.

Lots of spin but few real-world benefits from the high speed.

The adverts showing a school class on a video link - has been going on in Australia since Aust Sat was set up.

 

[moa999]

Chorus says speeds like this allow the equivalent of uploading 25 high resolution images to Facebook in under five seconds; downloading 25 MP3 songs in a second or streaming ultra-HD movies to 40 different devices simultaneously.
Apart from very few entities - who realistically needs to be able to stream 40 simultaneous HD movies to their home at once?
.

I do tend to agree.. a 25 down connection would happily stream a few HD streams (generally 6-8Mb/s)
although would be limited if Quad-HD/8K ever takes off.

But its also a question that if you are building a network for 5/10/20 yrs -- to what speed should you design it to minimise future costs versus higher upfront costs.

The new Australian NBN will 'strand' a large number of people at 25-100 on FTTN.
Those on short FTTN/FTTB runs can get upgrades via G.FAST and XG.FAST protocols, but it doesn't work on runs over 300m or so.
And obviously those on FTTP have more easy upgrade paths.
On HFC upgradeability will depend on final network design but DOCSIS3.1 should provide decent speeds

 

[RAM]

I do tend to agree.. a 25 down connection would happily stream a few HD streams (generally 6-8Mb/s)
although would be limited if Quad-HD/8K ever takes off.

But its also a question that if you are building a network for 5/10/20 yrs -- to what speed should you design it to minimise future costs versus higher upfront costs.

The new Australian NBN will 'strand' a large number of people at 25-100 on FTTN.
Those on short FTTN/FTTB runs can get upgrades via G.FAST and XG.FAST protocols, but it doesn't work on runs over 300m or so.
And obviously those on FTTP have more easy upgrade paths.
On HFC upgradeability will depend on final network design but DOCSIS3.1 should provide decent speeds

Trouble is that less than a fraction of a per cent will ever require more than the ability of 1 HD movie at a time.

Is it really the role of the tax payer to provide High Definition TV/video streaming for people's leisure time? Personally I'd prefer a bit more accounting for the billions thrown at various Govt schemes that seem to have next to no accountability for delivering value/outcomes for the tax payer.

Talk of 'future proofing' are anachronisms as the ability of tech to be predicted accurately is just as successful as the foreign exchange or stock market prediction industry.

Almost by definition the NBN will be either doomed to failure or see a further nationalisation of the Telco space. Groups like TPG can arbitrage the huge cost inefficiencies being piled into the NBN.

There are limited funds in the 'magic pudding bucket' and critical basic infrastructure such as bridges and railway are being neglected in Australia nearly as badly as the US. The US now has regular dam failures for example.

So many lobbyists and so many knee-jerk spending promises...

 

[drsmithy]

But its also a question that if you are building a network for 5/10/20 yrs -- to what speed should you design it to minimise future costs versus higher upfront costs.

You don't. You design it to easily scale. Which means fibre.

The lie perpetuated by many is that there's meaningful savings in building NBN infrastructure that's fast enough for today vs building NBN infrastructure that scales to orders of magnitude greater, over its the lifetime.

 

[TheRealTMA]

You don't. You design it to easily scale. Which means fibre.

The lie perpetuated by many is that there's meaningful savings in building NBN infrastructure that's fast enough for today vs building NBN infrastructure that scales to orders of magnitude greater, over its the lifetime.

Anything less than 100Mbs is not broadband. The throttling of Telstra customers to 2.5 upload is absurd. Takes us 15 minutes to upload new versions of our software to our CDN servers. Just C**p. Was in the Douro valley hotel earlier this year and they had symmetrical 100Mb speeds on wifi.

 

[drsmithy]

Trouble is that less than a fraction of a per cent will ever require more than the ability of 1 HD movie at a time.

Is it really the role of the tax payer to provide High Definition TV/video streaming for people's leisure time? Personally I'd prefer a bit more accounting for the billions thrown at various Govt schemes that seem to have next to no accountability for delivering value/outcomes for the tax payer.

Talk of 'future proofing' are anachronisms as the ability of tech to be predicted accurately is just as successful as the foreign exchange or stock market prediction industry.

Almost by definition the NBN will be either doomed to failure or see a further nationalisation of the Telco space. Groups like TPG can arbitrage the huge cost inefficiencies being piled into the NBN.

There are limited funds in the 'magic pudding bucket' and critical basic infrastructure such as bridges and railway are being neglected in Australia nearly as badly as the US. The US now has regular dam failures for example.

So many lobbyists and so many knee-jerk spending promises...

It is amusing to see someone, on the one hand insist something will never happen, yet only a few sentences later assert predicting the future is all but impossible.

"The taxpayer providing video streaming" is a disingenuous straw man. The taxpayer is providing basic and critical telecommunications infrastructure.

 

[drsmithy]

Anything less than 100Mbs is not broadband. The throttling of Telstra customers to 2.5 upload is absurd. Takes us 15 minutes to upload new versions of our software to our CDN servers. Just C**p. Was in the Douro valley hotel earlier this year and they had symmetrical 100Mb speeds on wifi.

You touch on the key feature of a real broadband system, which upload, and sorely lacking from all the fraudband alternatives because their proponents first and foremost want a solution that is really only useful for centrally-managed consumption.

 

[RAM]

It is amusing to see someone, on the one hand insist something will never happen, yet only a few sentences later assert predicting the future is all but impossible.

"The taxpayer providing video streaming" is a disingenuous straw man. The taxpayer is providing basic and critical telecommunications infrastructure.

Basic telco infrastructure does not match 40 HD videos simultaneously.

As a fund manager who has run the numbers on many companies and managed to never invest in one that went under - it is quite easy to analyse a business vs a macro variable such as the stock market in total or an exchange rate.

The analogy seems to have escaped you.

An unsustainable debt load placed on a company that faces continuous capital spending on technological upgrades due to a competitive market place is a matter of running the numbers.

Remember that no State or Federal Treasury has ever predicted a single recession in Australia's history. The lack of a published business case for the NBN was no accident, a bit like the lack of a business case for the NSW CSELR project which is costing over $2bn, cutting public transport peak capacity by close to 65%, total transport capacity by nearly 45% and increasing traffic congestion by at least 20%.

All figures which I produced and took to the State Auditor General in 2014 to request an investigation into the project. The results of which will be released in the next few weeks despite attempts by Macquarie St to shut down the investigation.

Seems figures not adding up nor matching claims are not just a Federal issue. Pity that one of the major consortium partners has either been convicted of bribing Govt officials or MPs, or is currently facing numerous criminal court cases (four alone in the UK) for such activity. Hard to find a single transportation project they are involved in that has not been prosecuted for bribing Govt officials or MPs - on every other inhabited continent but Australia.

Yet the NSW Govt stated they had not been investigated let alone charged for ANY transportation projects, and awarded then the NW rail as well as the CSELR. 3 days after the CSELR win they were fined approx AUD1.1bn by the US Gov thanks to 48 hours of a very senior person wearing a wire in meetings with his co-collaborators.

Amazing what a little number crunching and research can uncover about Govt projects where the spin does not match the reality.

 

[RAM]

Anything less than 100Mbs is not broadband. The throttling of Telstra customers to 2.5 upload is absurd. Takes us 15 minutes to upload new versions of our software to our CDN servers. Just C**p. Was in the Douro valley hotel earlier this year and they had symmetrical 100Mb speeds on wifi.

So as a business you need a fast service, how does that translate to every household in Australia needing that service?

If it does not make financial sense to burden the entire country when solutions are available (at a cost) for most companies to purchase higher bandwidth. The Bloomberg solution works in every country of the world regardless of their telco infrastructure and has done since the mid 80s.

Bloomberg has not invested hundreds of billions to achieve that outcome across the world btw.

Solutions exist however they often do not line the pockets of the donors that drive the outcomes.

Looked at the cost/benefit vs donations for ethanol recently?

OR the anti-mining tax campaign by the big miners back in 2010?

 

[drsmithy]

Basic telco infrastructure does not match 40 HD videos simultaneously.

A basic 4G cellular connection can make a single phone call a month or it can transfer a hundred megabits of data per second.

Same infrastructure.

If you were installing permanent cellular infrastructure today would you bother putting in any less than 4G capable equipment ? Of course not.

 

[TheRealTMA]

So as a business you need a fast service, how does that translate to every household in Australia needing that service?

If it does not make financial sense to burden the entire country when solutions are available (at a cost) for most companies to purchase higher bandwidth. The Bloomberg solution works in every country of the world regardless of their telco infrastructure and has done since the mid 80s.

Bloomberg has not invested hundreds of billions to achieve that outcome across the world btw.

Solutions exist however they often do not line the pockets of the donors that drive the outcomes.

Looked at the cost/benefit vs donations for ethanol recently?

OR the anti-mining tax campaign by the big miners back in 2010?

I know i'm wasting my breath but there is only one financial plan that makes sense, "Do it once. Do it Right. "Do it with Fibre" ALL other plans will cost the country far far more in the short to medium term and we will lag behind other countries...

 

[Hvr]

I know i'm wasting my breath but there is only one financial plan that makes sense, "Do it once. Do it Right. "Do it with Fibre" ALL other plans will cost the country far far more in the short to medium term and we will lag behind other countries...

Oh too true.

 

[whatmeworry]

I know i'm wasting my breath but there is only one financial plan that makes sense, "Do it once. Do it Right. "Do it with Fibre" ALL other plans will cost the country far far more in the short to medium term and we will lag behind other countries...

Yep and we are already behind NZ... However it is probably too late for most areas with Malcolm Turnbull's Frankenstein NBN which will have to replaced with Fibre in 10-15 years time.

Broadband v wireless is a bit like Trains v Airplanes.

 

[moa999]

Not really. For most people in Australia the max speeds they can get on 4G LTE are much faster than whatever broadband solutions they have.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Not really. For most people in Australia the max speeds they can get on 4G LTE are much faster than whatever broadband solutions they have.

Sorry, technically not correct.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Sad that our erstwhile senator Conway will no longer be fighting the good fight for the NBN, nor asking telecos to wear their underpants on their heads when they come to see him.

Good idea, not well implemented, but I'll wear red ones on Sunday at drinks in memory!

 

[amaroo]

Sad that our erstwhile senator Conway will no longer be fighting the good fight for the NBN, nor asking telecos to wear their underpants on their heads when they come to see him.

Good idea, not well implemented, but I'll wear red ones on Sunday at drinks in memory!

Wonder if the AFP raids turned those red undies - brown

 

[drron]

Basic telco infrastructure does not match 40 HD videos simultaneously.

As a fund manager who has run the numbers on many companies and managed to never invest in one that went under - it is quite easy to analyse a business vs a macro variable such as the stock market in total or an exchange rate.

Sorry to go off topic but what I really miss investing in is companies that you know will go broke.Amazing guaranteed profits.
Sounds stupid but 2 examples.First Waltons taken over by Alan Bond.They had convertible notes that ranked higher than most debt if it went under.He had 80% of them.Obvious to me that was the way he would get his money.So I stood in the market offering 0.5cents above what was obviously his order.Picked up enough to be the second biggest holder.All bought 6-12 months before conversion at less than 50% of conversion rate.Not only did I get the full repayment but 2 interest payments as well.Not long after down Waltons went.
Second was a little WA timber company Whittakers.Similiar story but family owned.Though I only got to 5th largest holder of the CNs there.

 

[RAM]

Sorry to go off topic but what I really miss investing in is companies that you know will go broke.Amazing guaranteed profits.
Sounds stupid but 2 examples.First Waltons taken over by Alan Bond.They had convertible notes that ranked higher than most debt if it went under.He had 80% of them.Obvious to me that was the way he would get his money.So I stood in the market offering 0.5cents above what was obviously his order.Picked up enough to be the second biggest holder.All bought 6-12 months before conversion at less than 50% of conversion rate.Not only did I get the full repayment but 2 interest payments as well.Not long after down Waltons went.
Second was a little WA timber company Whittakers.Similiar story but family owned.Though I only got to 5th largest holder of the CNs there.

You are right it can work some times.

Many times however the debt and CNs are worthless. The administrators and liquidators fees gouged over many years see nothing repaid to debt holders.

Some of the best/worst examples were the borrowings of the mortgage trusts in the late 80s through to 1991 - a number are still awaiting payment today.

But opportunities certainly arise however as a fund manager with substantial funds under mgmt (and credit constraints placed by clients) the opportunities in distressed debt are very limited. It does open up opportunities for the individual investor provided you do due diligence in a big way. In 2007/8 the Australian subs of US/EU companies facing issues had their short term debt (secured by Australian assets) go to yields in the low 20% range.

For 4-6 months if you had the cash, and picked wisely, the returns were phenomenal.

Similar with US property. Post 2000 built brick and tile 3brm homes on 1,000 sqm lots in top quartile school districts with 12 month to 24 month leases in areas with historically highest employment rates within US could be purchased for under USD35,000 on rental yields (after fees/local taxes) also in the low 20s.

Some 'entrepreneurs' got into the act pushing properties to Aust investors but did not research the school areas, employment history etc - and left many Aust investors with houses in 'undesirable' locations.

 

[RAM]

Yep and we are already behind NZ... However it is probably too late for most areas with Malcolm Turnbull's Frankenstein NBN which will have to replaced with Fibre in 10-15 years time.

Broadband v wireless is a bit like Trains v Airplanes.

You do realise that all mobile phone networks/systems link in to a fixed line backbone?

A mobile call to Germany does not get transmitted wirelessly all the way to Germany - just to the nearest ring of towers and then its into a copper, fibre or hybrid cable system through to Germany.