NBN Discussion

[cgichard]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Except that on the current copper network there has already been much consolidation, whereas many of the would-be NBN providers are total newbies.

 

[drron]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Wafliron I defer to your technical knowledge.
The problem is finance-Why wont the NBN have their business plan reviewed by the Productivity Commission.
Also some of the financial benefits are overstated.The savings that some say are possible in Health are unrealistic.In 2005 before the Morris Inquiry into Bundaberg hospital the DG of QLD Health admitted 60% of salaries went on Non-clinical staff.The number certainly has not fallen since then.I guarantee the NBN will not do anything about that problem.There are many other changes occurring in medicine that will almost certainly have more effect than the NBN.
Teleconferences-I have been involved in those in Tasmania pre and post NBN.Really have not noticed any difference.
And saying that public servants,politicians will be able to teleconference instead of travelling to conferences really doesn't take human nature into account.
And I will admit my bias(for Moody's sake) in saying I do not regard Government's financial predictions as very accurate.

 

[drsmithy]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

I agree that it is infrastructure, we just disagree on the cost and the way it has been justified, politics aside. As do a lot of people whom have posted here before.

Two questions. Whom do these retailers buy access and capacity from? What other alternative providers will there be?

Unless I am mistaken - they all will have to buy access and bandwidth from the NBN.

Or put it another way. Hypothetical - "the government recently announces a ban on commerical arlines flying from Sydney to Melbourne, only Qantas is allowed to fly this route, but you can buy a ticket SYD-MEL from any travel agent in australia that you want. Whichever you choose you will end up on the exact same Qantas aircraft."

Is that your definition of competition?

Would you argue that there's no competition in trucking or couriering because roads are publicly funded infrastructure ?

 

[eastwest101]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Point out just one other country that has a similar geographical size and population density to Australia where privately owned fixed-line telecommunications competition is working on a national scale, and you can make this argument - otherwise it's just a red herring (I'll give you a hint: there aren't any).

Canada for example.

 

[Skyring]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

First off a bit of a disclaimer, I haven't read the whole thread but am pro NBN, I already have it hooked up at my house and it is brilliant, but more so I believe it is a great forward thinking project for Australia.

What are you using it for? Medical teleconferencing, remote education tutorials?

 

[phred505]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

That's precisely why I don't want to be forced into it by losing my copper telephone connection in less than a year's time.

If this was to happen then your service provider's charges will significantly rise to absorb the high cost of maintaining the copper network. The existing copper network (particularly in ducts) is in most cases over 60 years old and needs replacement. The copper connection to your house is sure to be riddled with old joints (from previous repairs) which further precludes high speed internet (ADSL). As for reliability of supply, well, that is in the lap of the gods.
Even if the copper pair was replaced with new wire, it would still not be possible to push the speed beyond more than a few Mb/sec. Copper is excellent for analogue carriage of voice but not for high speed beyond a few hundred meters.

 

[serfty]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Meh ... in 10 years time I am thinking there will be no need for any physical connection at all to attain useful streaming capacity.

 

[777]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Meh ... in 10 years time I am thinking there will be no need for any physical connection at all to attain useful streaming capacity.

Clearly the "thinking" in this case does not involve physics.

 

[Mal]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Clearly the "thinking" in this case does not involve physics.

Google balloons is an interesting idea. While not practical yet, I still think there is potential. And who knows what will be developed in the next 10 years (a massive time in IT) to provide data coverage over the air.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Clearly the "thinking" in this case does not involve physics.

I've stayed out of politics discussion on here until now but this NBN thread has peaked my interest.

I am generally right-wing voting (surprise! from WA, LOL) but I hope the NBN sees its way through now that it is so far a long contractually. I did not necessarily agree with it at the start however now it has begun, in my opinion it should be seen through to completion. The benefits are wide ranging and not just limited to faster movie downloads. I am yet to use an NBN connection personally but I would see some productivity gain from it and many others would too, such as in tertiary education for a start.

I personally think it is somewhat naïve to expect wireless connections to provide appropriate future bandwidth for our needs. As 777 points out, it really is not feasible due to reasons outside technical innovation. Fibre on the other hand is very solid and theoretically is as fast as we would ever need, with appropriate upgrades in the future as better technology becomes available for installation at node sites.

 

[serfty]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Clearly the "thinking" in this case does not involve physics.

Depends on your definition of useful streaming capacity.

Mine is different to yours I guess. So be it.

YMMV ...

 

[markis10]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Depends on your definition of useful streaming capacity.

Mine is different to yours I guess. So be it.

YMMV ...

1Gbps is already possible via wireless, that would be useful.

 

[777]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

1Gbps is already possible via wireless, that would be useful.

And 1. how much spectrum does that use relative to the amount of available right now? 2. Do you propose at more than one person be able to download at that speed?

The basic problem with wireless is that any given speed/spectrum then needs to be divided by the number of simultaneous users because they run it across multiethnic connections. The only way to get gigabit wireless is to have a high speed fibre network linking highly localized base stations.

Has anyone noticed how awesome wireless speeds are for the FIRST users? They always look great. Then as the number of users go up it grinds to a halt? Anyone tried Telstra 3G in Melbourne in the last 12 months? That used to be awesome its been unusable lately. Starting to notice 4g getting choked in some areas already.

 

[markis10]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

And 1. how much spectrum does that use relative to the amount of available right now? 2. Do you propose at more than one person be able to download at that speed?

The basic problem with wireless is that any given speed/spectrum then needs to be divided by the number of simultaneous users because they run it across multiethnic connections. The only way to get gigabit wireless is to have a high speed fibre network linking highly localized base stations.

Has anyone noticed how awesome wireless speeds are for the FIRST users? They always look great. Then as the number of users go up it grinds to a halt? Anyone tried Telstra 3G in Melbourne in the last 12 months? That used to be awesome its been unusable lately. Starting to notice 4g getting choked in some areas already.

Thats on a contention ratio of 1:1 using 1/200000th of the available spectrum in the 60-90GHz band (a 6gbps link using 8 PSK (phase shift keying) modulation and achieving 2.4 bit/s/Hz spectral efficiency has been developed).

We are talking about 10 years time and MAN topologies (2.5km user foot print), bit different out bush but of course so is the NBN

 

[777]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Thats on a contention ratio of 1:1 using 1/200000th of the available spectrum in the 60-90GHz band (a 6gbps link using 8 PSK (phase shift keying) modulation and achieving 2.4 bit/s/Hz spectral efficiency has been developed).

We are talking about 10 years time and MAN topologies (2.5km user foot print), bit different out bush but of course so is the NBN

Interested in a technical link to the technology you're talking about?

Will bet London to a brick that fibre optic technology will be many orders of magnitude faster still by that time. You know, physics again and all that.

(actually *current* research lab fibre optic speeds are a petabit per second (a million megabit per second) over 50km fibre lengths).

 

[markis10]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Interested in a technical link to the technology you're talking about?

Will bet London to a brick that fibre optic technology will be many orders of magnitude faster still by that time. You know, physics again and all that.

(actually *current* research lab fibre optic speeds are a petabit per second (a million megabit per second) over 50km fibre lengths).

Wireless Communications is the link, fixed speeds will possibly always be faster, but what is the use of speed if you cannot use it? Moores law is probably fairly apt when it comes to being mapped in bandwidth advances both wired and wireless, but just like the processors it originally applied to, one day we will have more speed than we need!

 

[serfty]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

...

Will bet London to a brick that fibre optic technology will be many orders of magnitude faster still by that time. You know, physics again and all that.

(actually *current* research lab fibre optic speeds are a petabit per second (a million megabit per second) over 50km fibre lengths).

That's of no real interest to me. I'm only referring to "useful steaming capacity".

My reference to that today was in response to copper conduits requiring maintenance and the likely non requirement for any physical connection in ten years time making such observation moot.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

You don't know what you may or may not need in terms of bandwidth in to the future...just as the capacity of wireless increases, so will the applications that make use of this....and so on and so forth.

 

[serfty]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

You don't know what you may or may not need in terms of bandwidth in to the future...

I'm currently quite happy with the 15-20 Mbps I currently enjoy with ADSL. Is something going to happen to take this away?

 

[drsmithy]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

I'm currently quite happy with the 15-20 Mbps I currently enjoy with ADSL. Is something going to happen to take this away?

Well if you want to stream 4k video in 10 years it won't be sufficient.