NBN and the empty lot

[OICURMT]

Just can't help myself... I was looking to see then the NBN would be available in my area (due July 2014) and noticed a purple "NBN ready" area north of Adelaide... in fact there are a lot of them...

However, zooming in reveals them to be empty lots. I assume that homes will go in eventually, but honestly, should the NBN be wiring up existing homes first? :shrug:

I understand the ease of installation sans homes, but this seems like they area laying a lot of fiber in empty lots just to say they've laid a lot of fiber. Note this years expansion to the south, I guess they'll have the empty lot done within 12 months (according to the NBN schedule).

Question: If it takes them 12 months to install in an empty lot, when will I "really" get service in my area :question:

OIC!

[tlgerdes]

Mmmm.

While the NBN "seems" like a good idea, your point is very correct. They are still building the backend infrastructure to support the organisation, they dont want lots of customers because they cant handle lots of customers.

My big gripe is that my area is not on the 3 year roadmap, and because the NBN changes its mind as often as the wind direction, no ISP is going to invest in any new infrastructure that could be obsolete within 5 years (This is part of the plan to make the NBN work financially).

Either give it everyone at the same time or dont give it at all. Not the Orwellian "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" state we have now.

[LewisM]

I am a political atheist, but this is just yet another blow hard promise.

No hint of NBN in 3 years here. Still on a copper rim. We'll sit on ADSL 1 here forever most likely.

[mithrandir]

There was a list the other day - think it was in the SMH - that said Castle Hill would be NBN'd in the next year, or two at most. But:


does this mean the whole suburb?
those bits with underground power and telephone?
those bits not with underground power and telephone?
the few bits of infill not yet subdivided?

I'm not holding my breath.

[chrisp9au]

Google Earth suggests that the map data and imagery is dated January 2010, 3 years old.
Might be worth checking?

Cheers :thumbsup:

Chris

[gary]

Indeed, it is an estate by the Fairmont Group called Parkwood, some 5 minutes
to the Golden Grove village. There are 102 allotments including house and land
packages for sale. See http://www.realtysa.com.au/land-for-sale/parkwood-golden-grove

A quick estimate is that the estate covers only an area of approximately 0.039 square km.

By comparison, only 3.8km away is an area of Adelaide that would be approximately
20.7 square km that has fibre construction underway. (See attached image)

When one considers the enormity of the project, much of which involves
Australian workers physically getting their hands dirty and deploying cables
through trenches in nearly every suburban street and then installing network
terminations in homes and businesses, it boggles the mind as to what a tremendous
physical undertaking it is alone.

I think if anyone is Adelaide today were to go outside and dig for 5 minutes in their
garden in today's heatwave, they would know what I mean. :thumbsup:

[OICURMT]

Yep that would explain the slow progress... digging by hand... :P

[gary]

Through the deal with Telstra, much of the cabling will now go through the Telstra
trenches where they exist. However laying cables in a street is still a very labour
intensive process. The cables have to usually be hand fed through and are then
terminated at the street level to Fiber Distributing Hubs (FDHs). From there
they go to a Premises Connection Device (PCD) which is installed
on the outside of the house and then to a Fibre Wall Outlet and then to
the Network Termination Device (NTD), powered by a dedicated wall mounted
Power Supply Unit (PSU) which requires its own GPO outlet.

Further upstream, there is an enormous amount of infrastructure in creating the
network itself, including the construction of purpose built facilities throughout the
country that provide the points of interconnect.

It is what we call "Big E" Engineering. One of the largest deployments on the planet.
So it will take quite a time.

Here is a video that shows one aspect of urban street installation -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwvw1uv7dcQ

[turbo_pascale]

If you want more recent aerial photography, and the ability to look at past images of the same location on a timeline, have a look at http://www.nearmap.com/

It is free for non commercial purposes. You do not have to create an account.

[mithrandir]

Apparently not.

[icytailmark]

every building in australia will need to be connected with fibre. Telstra has been ordered to decommision the copper network.The government has ordered all new homes being built will need to have FTTH installed. Alot of people dont believe we need this network,however we are lagging behind many developed countries when it comes to broadband. This technology is actually very old now. USA has had a Optic fibre network for over 10 years now. Thats how far behind we are.

[RickS]

The USA has some Telcos installing some fibre to homes but there's still much more copper. There are countries that are mostly fibre-to-the-home but the USA isn't one of them...

[Paul Haese]

Clayton Bay in SA is not ear marked for ever having the NBN. What happens to us? No telephones either. Satellite is available but is quit frankly crap from what I hear from locals. It would be nice if every building will have this in the future. However, I am not holding my breath.

It does say on the NBN site that our home in Adelaide is going to be rolled out in the next 12 months. That will be interesting but not really where I want it.

[gary]

The NBN Rollout map shows for around Clayton Bay itself that the "NBN is coming",
but not started yet.

However, 27km away in Victor Harbour construction of the fibre network has already
commenced and 9.5km away, fibre construction will begin in a year.

I can see that there is a road called the Strathhalbyn-Goolwa Rd which is part of the
area that is scheduled to start construction in a year and that that road which passes
through nearby Currency Creek and around the bay to Clayton Bay might be
a natural path for it to take.

To put your situation in some perspective, I had no idea where Clayton Bay
was until I Googled it. I am sure it is a really nice corner of Australia,
but I had never heard of it. :) I live 22km from the Sydney Harbour Bridge in
a city with a population of 4.6 million people and I have identical rollout status
as you do, as do millions of others on the upper north shore of Sydney, but like
you, there are rollouts taking place not too far away across vast sways of Sydney.

I can walk to the top of my street and around the block and see the skyline
of Sydney, including clearly making out landmarks such as Sydney Tower.
I can see the fireworks over Sydney Harbour from the top of the street at New Year's.
But despite us being only 35 minutes drive to the CBD of one of the largest cities
in the southern hemisphere, we don't even have reliable NextG coverage in our street.

Like you, we are equally anxious to get the NBN because we have suffered for many
years with a deteriorating copper network in our area that will often see our phones and
internet connection offline for several weeks a year.

So take heart, the good folk of Clayton Bay share a common interest in
getting connected as we do here in our corner of Sydney. :)

[doppler]

In my suburb in Mackay QLD there are new subdivisions going up all around 1000's of new houses all with NBN conectons. I thought yay soon for me too. Net went down .... again so telstra tech came to check lines. I asked him about the new network..... he said dont hold your breath new houses are govt mandate to go in first, old networks last, he said maybe 5 years if I am lucky. :(

[gary]

Specifically, in developments of 100 or more premises, NBN Co acts as what is
termed the provider of last resort. But in such a situation, the developers and property
owners are responsible for the trenching and ducting and they are free to use any
fibre provider they want, providing it meets the specifications. In the instance they
choose NBN to act as the provider of last resort, NBN will install the fibre and perform the backhaul
back to the point of interconnect.

In the case of 100 or less premises, Telstra acts as provider of last resort and will
still usually install copper.

In both instances, the developer meets the cost of installing fibre-ready or
copper-ready pit and pipe infrastructure and transfers ownership to either NBN
or Telstra.

The idea was for large developments it would be wasteful to lay copper just
to replace it a few years later and for the attraction of fibre to give some
impetus to the building sector.

In the Sydney Morning Herald very recently, there was an article highlighting
that the strategy is working. Many buyers perceived purchasing a new house
in a development where fibre was already installed to be a major tick in the box.

The good news is that if you are seeing greenfields developments that are
scattered around the area where it is going in, it means that the backbone of
the fibre network must also be in place.

[Barrykgerdes]

In our area there are no poles. Everything is underground in ducts. There is even an empty duct (Optus) under the footpath in our street.

As far as I can work out the water/sewer/recycled water and electric use the same basic duct system. Telstra has one for the phone lines and Optus has the unused duct.

Barry

[mithrandir]

It's all underground here as well Barry, except Optus has cabled the area. They have not done it for a while, but every couple of months either a Telstra/Foxtel or Optus cable seller would knock on the door trying to get us to sign up. Since we don't have enough time or interest to watch all the free digital channels why would we want more stuff to not watch?

This will probably contribute to NBN being in no hurry because we could choose to use cable broadband, and my ADSL2+ is over the 12Mb/s considered to be "adequate".:rofl:

[Paul Haese]

Unfortunately that area is Goolwa which is about 34 km via road. It is not near Clayton Bay. I heard some time ago that the NBN will not go to Clayton Bay and that satellite or dial up is all we will have. I think it is more likely that all of Sydney will be connected many years before we get connected. ;)

[Barrykgerdes]

Yes Andrew, we get those people trying to sell foxtel regularly. My standard answer is "why pay for something I don't need" and the secondary answer is " come and see me when you run a cable down the street"

I don't get real ADSL2 the maximum I get is around 7Mb/s but that is fast enough for me. A 1GB download takes about an hour. I don't stream video or download movies and only use about 6 GB of my 50GB allowance.

Barry

[gary]

Hi Paul,

The NBN architecture covers 100% of the population.
It consists of fibre optic, fixed wireless and satellite.

The current estimate is that 93% of premises will get service by fibre.
4% would be by fixed wireless. 3% by satellite.

Keep in mind that the fixed wireless is a LTE/4G architecture that is
different to a mobile 4G network. With the fixed network, a premise is
given a fixed chunk of 12Mbs bandwidth so that the download speeds will
remain constant across the link.

Likewise, the upcoming Long Term satellite service uses different
technology to the legacy Optus Interim system which had been optmized
for broadcast television and telephone delivery over a large footprint area.
The new Ka-band satellites are optmized for digital broadband delivery
and will provide 12Mbs connection speeds once parked in orbit.

So as things stand today, your area at Clayton Bay will be connected to
the NBN but the NBN web site has not specified yet which of the three
technologies will be deployed. The fixed wireless and satellite services will
be rolled out faster than the fiber network. Fibre optical rollout throughout
Australia is currently estimated to be completed around 2021.

When one considers that the Overland Telegraph stretched 3500km
between Adelaide and Darwin, then even back in 1872 when it was
completed, the engineers would have looked at your 34km and said,
"that's nothing!". :) A remarkable endevour considering the first car
would not be invented until 1885 and the first plane not until 1903.

Probably the greatest thing that came out of the telegraph systems
that were built between the self governing colonies in the mid and
late 1800's was that the prosperity and uniity they provided was a major
impetus to the idea of the states becoming federated to form the nation
we now call Australia. So really what is taking place with the deployment
of the NBN today is a continuation of a process that started here in the
1850's. On a personal note, I happen to be a descendant of the father
of Australian federation, but that's another matter. :)

In any case, I hope you don't have to wait too long! We're eager to go today.

[strongmanmike]

It is refreshing to follow your posts here Gary :thumbsup: your breadth of understanding of this enormous national project is obvious and is in stark contrast to a rather large number of people...including the member for Wentworth ;)

Mike