Hi, at work I am involved in an upgrade of dedicated connections between Interstate offices. It is a very tiresome process involving new copper cables to the premises etc. We acquired a company in Tasmania. Their speed is very very very slooow (I could read the websites for them so slow are they appear in their browsers), and for a "decent price" I may get 1M download / 256k upload speed. Not more. My boss emphasises how important it is to have better connectivity. Anyway, my boss is a staunch Liberal supporter. As soon as I mutter the word NBN he goes through the roof (duck;-) Regards Peter
Hi Peter
at work I am involved in an upgrade of dedicated connections between Interstate offices. It is a very tiresome process involving new copper cables to the premises etc.
We acquired a company in Tasmania. Their speed is very very very slooow (I could read the websites for them so slow are they appear in their browsers), and for a "decent price" I may get 1M download / 256k upload speed. Not more.
My boss emphasises how important it is to have better connectivity.
Anyway, my boss is a staunch Liberal supporter. As soon as I mutter the word NBN he goes through the roof (duck;-)
Peter, you can handle this very diplomatically and correctly. In terms of stated policy, the Liberals don't actually oppose the NBN. They just want to do it cheaper using a variety of existing technologies. So they're arguing the how, not the whether. (of course that's already a major change from early on, and the results are still crap in tech terms, but heck you can't teach a dinosaur how to dance in a mere few lessons!) Anyway, if your staunch Liberal boss wants faster connectivity, then using NBN as the keyword is a perfectly valid thing as it refers to either. Basically "whatever gets built". Perhaps the site in Tas already has NBN access, in which case it can become a nice example of how FTTH works out well. If your boss is unhappy with the speed/connectivity/quality that a Liberal/Coalition network might deliver, then that is something for him to consider, in general or in the context of his business. Seems worthwhile. You don't need to point that out to him, that indeed is going to agitate. As a business owner and techie, I regard the current govt's NBN as a pretty cheap infrastructure investment. We can debate technical details as well as mishaps on the ground in terms of deployment progress, but the basis is quite workable and the rest is upgradeable. Others may have a different view, which can be valid from their perspective. In discussions, I find it has been valuable to point out that it's basic infrastructure just like roads, electricity and water, not an optional indulgence for consumer purposes. It is an enabler of other activity, and just like a road it pays for itself in terms of benefit for society. The economic benefit is clearly there, but it's mainly indirect. The direct costs are actually tiny in comparison. Imagine comparing it with a city that doesn't have a sealed road to it. This tweaks people's perspectives, which often changes other aspects of their opinion without specifically having to argue those points. Yes it's costing a lot of money to build. Indeed it will. Let's do it as quickly as possible. Regards, Arjen. -- Exec.Director @ Open Query (http://openquery.com) MariaDB/MySQL services Sane business strategy explorations at http://upstarta.com.au Personal blog at http://lentz.com.au/blog/
On Thu, 23 May 2013, Arjen Lentz <arjen@lentz.com.au> wrote:
Imagine comparing it with a city that doesn't have a sealed road to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram#Cargo_trams Actually you could design a city without any roads into it. You could have trains and cargo trams delivering goods to local areas and then have small cars and trucks taking the goods from the nearest tram stop to the home or business. One plan I saw for cargo trams involved the tram carrying a small truck that could deliver cargo around the block. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
On 23 May 2013 12:07, Arjen Lentz <arjen@lentz.com.au> wrote:
They just want to do it cheaper using a variety of existing technologies.
It is not clear that Liberal plan will be cheaper. I have been led to believe that contracts for Labours plan have already been signed, and would need to be renegotiated. This would in turn mean persuading companies like Telstra to accept the new model. Presumably at significant cost, and significant delays. Not to mention costs of maintaining the aging copper network. -- Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au>
Exactly. It’s Myki all over again. Might be cheaper to complete NBN and recover costs by privatising it. Regards Slav From: luv-talk-bounces@lists.luv.asn.au [mailto:luv-talk-bounces@lists.luv.asn.au] On Behalf Of Brian May It is not clear that Liberal plan will be cheaper. I have been led to believe that contracts for Labours plan have already been signed, and would need to be renegotiated. This would in turn mean persuading companies like Telstra to accept the new model. Presumably at significant cost, and significant delays. Not to mention costs of maintaining the aging copper network. -- Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au> "This e-mail and any attachments to it (the "Communication") is, unless otherwise stated, confidential, may contain copyright material and is for the use only of the intended recipient. If you receive the Communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete the Communication and the return e-mail, and do not read, copy, retransmit or otherwise deal with it. Any views expressed in the Communication are those of the individual sender only, unless expressly stated to be those of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited ABN 11 005 357 522, or any of its related entities including ANZ Bank New Zealand Limited (together "ANZ"). ANZ does not accept liability in connection with the integrity of or errors in the Communication, computer virus, data corruption, interference or delay arising from or in respect of the Communication."
Might be cheaper to complete NBN and recover costs by privatising it.
According to the measurements conduced the costs will be recovered - as they are always with public infrastructure externailties - by the improvements to the economy. http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/351653/nbn_101_economic_argument/ On a user-pays basis the NBN itself won't recover its costs until 2040 at least. http://www.afr.com/p/technology/nbn_co_won_recover_costs_by_defends_jEFzvoTE... HTH HAND, -- Lev Lafayette, mobile: 61 432 255 208 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt
On Thu, 23 May 2013, "Pidgorny, Slav (GEUS)" <slav.pidgorny@anz.com> wrote:
Might be cheaper to complete NBN and recover costs by privatising it.
It would be cheaper to complete the NBN and make an operating profit on it rather than scrapping it. I believe that they have spent a lot of money on hardware that isn't yet connected, rented office and DC space that isn't yet used, and signed expensive contracts with Telstra that would require exit payments. http://www.afr.com/p/technology/nbn_co_won_recover_costs_by_defends_jEFzvoTE... But I don't think that they should aim to make a profit. From the above link (thanks Lev) it's costing $37.4G and has to give a return of 7.11%. So if they were to just give a 7.11% return directly on $37.4G that would mean an annual profit of $2.7G. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/as.html The CIA says that the Australian population is 22,262,501, that means that the NBN needs to make an average profit of $120 per annum for each Australian resident to give a 7.11% return. That is assuming of course that the initial investment was interest free and assuming that the startup years when a fraction of the country is covered didn't have to make a 7.11% return. If the NBN was accounted for in a similar manner to any other business venture then the initial investment would have an interest rate attached and a higher return would be needed at a later date to cover the opportunity cost of investing in government bonds or other things. Now a $120 per annum profit on each Australian resident for Internet access isn't the problem. The first problem is that the NBN only provides fixed service (home/office fiber and wireless to locations where fiber can't be run). So the money that is spent on mobile phones (which is probably the majority of money spent on comms) isn't going to the NBN. The second problem is that the NBN is going to the household not the person. http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quic... According to the ABS there are on average 2.6 people per household, so that takes the per household profit requirement to $311 per annum ($26 per month) if every single household in Australia signs up. If the profit is to be $26 per month then how much would the NBN have to charge? When I attended a presentation on the NBN they were talking about the router having 4 ports for 4 different services. They had the idea that you might have an ISP, a hospital, and a cable TV company using different ports. I can't imagine someone paying the $24 per month fee they were discussing for cable TV when TV over IP could be done on the ISP channel. $24 per month for medical equipment would be a great deal for a very small portion of the population, but the majority are well enough not to need such things. I expect that the average number of ports used by NBN customers will be something very close to 1, maybe 1.01. I don't think that the NBN would get a 1.08 average port usage needed to make $24 ports give a $26 revenue, let alone what might be needed to make a $26 profit (maybe an average of 2 ports). Also I don't think that the NBN will ever get near 100% population coverage. If nothing else a significant portion of the population can have their Internet needs covered by a Kogan 3G connection for $299 per annum. The numbers just don't work, the NBN will never recover it's costs. We just have to accept that the money was invested in making Australia a more educated and technologically advanced country. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Any monies spent on FTTN instead of FTTP / FTTH will be wasted monies. The operational costs of the liberal FRAUDband will be significantly higher and we still have to use that old and unmaintained copper. Do it once, do it right, do it with fibre!!! NBN using fibre to the premise is an essential service these days. Abbot it too much of a luddite to understand and Mr Turnbull is full of bull, he is a business man, and not anywhere near a techo that he seems to get credit for. And yes, we may be able to get by without roads, but for most it is completely unpractical. We can also get by without electricity over transmission cables by generating all we need at home, but when is that ever going to happen? Cheers A.
participants (7)
-
Andrew McGlashan -
Arjen Lentz -
Brian May -
Lev Lafayette -
Petros -
Pidgorny, Slav (GEUS) -
Russell Coker