On-line: NBN Petition

[deanm]

"AN internet petition set up by a Liberal-voting student to save Labor's national broadband network (NBN) has become Australia's largest ever online petition."

"The NBN petition calls on the incoming coalition government to scrap its plans to create a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) network in place of Labor's existing fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) approach."

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/one-name-every-35-sec-on-nbn-petition/story-e6frfku9-1226716828065

Sign up!

http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/the-liberal-party-of-australia-reconsider-your-plan-for-a-fttn-nbn-in-favour-of-a-superior-ftth-nbn

Dean

[lazjen]

Done. It's a pretty good summary of the situation on the site as well.

[icytailmark]

signed it cheers

[astroron]

Done via facebook :)
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Larryp]

Done!

[gary]

Thanks Dean,

An extended family member who also happens to be an engineer and who
also feels strongly about the wisdom of deploying FTTH over FTTN forwarded
me the link late last night and I signed it then. :hi:

Best Regards

Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Fax +61-2-9457-9593
wildcard@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au

[cybereye]

Done.

[mithrandir]

Done.

[GTB_an_Owl]

done

[Ric]

All signed

[gary]

A colleague wrote me today who is a volunteer with the Rural Fire Service (RFS)
in a rural area just to the north of Sydney.

Yesterday he logged into the RFS system to download the situation map for
a fire in the area.

He reports that the 1.7MB map took more than one hour to download.

Obviously the RFS servers were busy with the fires taking place in Sydney's
west, but when one considers the state has experienced far more serious days
then it is a concern if it is up to the task.

[sheeny]

Signed.

Even if the chance of getting fibre instead of satellite is Buckley's.

Al.

[chiaroscuro]

Thanks to the other thread on the NBN, I feel a bit better informed about it all.
Petition signed.

[bobson]

Done!

cheers

bob

[Forgey]

Done!

[bojan]

Done.

[peterl]

Done!! :)
Peter.

[AdrianF]

Done

Adrian

[tlgerdes]

Not Done!

[strongmanmike]

Boooooooo :lol:

[Steffen]

Yes Trevor, down with the NBN! And while we're at it, let's burn down the remaining observatories as well, they are so not commercially viable!
:screwy:

Cheers
Steffen.

[MrB]

Perhaps Trever didn't sign simply because he didn't like change.org's TOS or Privacy Policy?
I didn't sign simply because I couldn't be bothered reading them, but moreso because I don't think the Lib's are going to give a rats about a petition.

[Steffen]

If that turned out to be the case I would offer my unreserved apology. However, going by how this whole debate is unfolding (not just on IIS), I'm not holding my breath.

Cheers
Steffen.

[Barrykgerdes]

not done
I don't sign petitions (even for money)

Barry

[multiweb]

Generalisation + tantrum. :lol:


I reckon. :)

[bobson]

Everyone knows (I hope?) there are good and bad policies from all political parties. So many times we could see good policy been refused just because its coming from opposition party. Then the same policy would be presented again later on from party that refused it when they were in power only to be refused now from party which originally presented the policy. This is crazy! How many times they say we need bipartisan agreement because its in Australian interest for all Australians regarding what party they voted for? But sadly this never works and real losers are Australians not the politicians and their parties.

cheers

bob

[Moon]

Not done! Where is the non state owned monopoly option?
I want Google fiber (https://fiber.google.com/about/).

[tlgerdes]

The NBN wasn't going to hit my place anytime before 2019 (more likely 2020). That meant no infrastructure spend by any ISP in the mean time in my area. With the Libs option I get something new by 2017.

[GTB_an_Owl]

say's Who? Trev

NBN or the Libs?

geoff

[gary]

As at May 2013, we were scheduled for FTTH connection at Mt Kuring-Gai for
June 2016.

Nobody knows yet what the rollout schedule for the current government is because
there is no schedule in place.

However, an article by Lucy Battersby in the Sydney Morning Herald on Septermber
4th this year quotes Malcolm Turnbull as saying that Australia's largest cities
where there are pay TV cables have "pretty good service now".

The article goes on to say that "The Coalition would delay fibre-to-the-node upgrades
in cable areas until the 2017-18 financial year, according to its policy paper."

Article here -
http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/no-nbn-for-you-under-coalition--yet-20130903-hv1m1.html

And that is much slower fiber to the node via large ugly cabinets in the street in front of
thousands of unlucky residents homes that require power lines running down
to them from the power poles, not passive super high-speed, ultra reliable
fiber to the home.

The language of the electrical engineering profession is full of technical terms,
acronyms and jargon but when I search my vocabulary the only expression that presses
forth in my mind is "a dumb mistake".

Gary Kopff
Member Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 35 years

[tlgerdes]

The liberal party states

"The Coalition’s plan to transform the NBN will see:
· Download speeds of between 25 and 100 megabits per second by the end of 2016 and 50 to 100 megabits per second by 2019."

The "current" NBN stated that I am not on their forward estimates for servicing.

I am halfway between the Sydney CBD and Parramatta, 12km each way.

FTTN would put a node within 500m of my house and the copper is pretty good here, so I should would be better off with that. For the next 10 years at least. Then, once that is serviceable, they can then work out the future logistics to FTTH.

It is not as though FTTN is a waste of money, they have to put that in regardless of FTTH or FTTN, it is the last 500m that everyone is quarreling about.:screwy:

[wasyoungonce]

Ask Mr Turnbull what the projected upload speed will be with FTTN ...4~6mbps (http://techau.com.au/turnbull-finally-admits-his-nbn-upload-speed-will-be-4-6mbps/).

Petition signed and email sent to Mr Turnbull on this matter asking why Foxtel (Murdoch) and Telstra hold such sway in the coalitions FTTN plans. Rhetorical question I know, they are the major foxtel shareholders who do not want competing business that could occur with FTTH.

Sad day when the top end of town overrides the needs of the public.

In my case I have my optical fibre RIM 400m away and pair-gain system to the house. I can only ever get ADSL1 on this unless Telstra do a Top hat upgrade (which they stopped and won't) or I get FTTH. It took years to get the RIM upgraded now looks like years to get better than ADSL1. Many many other estates are in the same situation as me.

[Rick Petrie]

Yep, signed

[gary]

Hi Trevor,

If you walk out your front door and look up, do you see the Optus or Telstra broadband
pay TV cable in the street? The one that carries Foxtel?

If so, that is what Malcolm Turnbull pointed up to as far back as February and
effectively said "that is your fast broadband connection we promised". :rolleyes:

In any case, your street already has it and in other words, you are suppose to go
out to Optus now and sign up for their 100Mb premium speed pack or the
equivalent offering from Telstra.

If you live in an apartment and it doesn't have an Optus or Telstra cable, then
you are out of luck. You will need to stay with ADSL2 indefinitely.

As Turbull said, “You wouldn’t be overbuilding the HFC [Optus/Telstra cable network]
areas in the near term because they’re getting very good service already."

Here is the paragraph out of "The Coalitions Plan for Fast Broadband And Affordable NBN" dated April 2013 -



Here is the link to the document -
http://lpaweb-static.s3.amazonaws.com/Policies/NBN.pdf

In other words, that paragraph is saying that we will just start calling the
Optus and Telstra HFC pay TV cables, that have been ubiquitous in all the
major Australian cities for years, part of the NBN and that you go sign
up with Optus or Telstra.

Not so much of a "transformation" of the NBN but more a case of "do nothing".

But pretty slick in selling something old and already in existence as new.

You might get FTTN at a much later date.

In our own case here in the northern Sydney suburb of Mt Kuring-Gai, if we ever
do see FTTN, it will now definitely be several years later than what our rollout
schedule had been for the much faster FTTH. We have gone backwards.

Article here dated 18 Feb 2013 in the Business Spectator -
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/2/18/technology/turnbulls-hfc-folly

[mithrandir]

I wanted to quote from Gary but IIS has decided to tell Firefox it can't, so I'll cut and paste.

Here Optus and Telstra cable are both underground, and ADSL2+ works. If it wasn't for the salespeople coming around from time to time you'd never know cable was available.
In Glenhaven (about 4Km as the crow flies) you have a choice of Bigpond cable, 3G wireless, satellite or nothing. I'd like to stay with my current ISP but there is no infrastructure they can use to provision me.

NBN claims to be coming to Glenhaven in the next year, but if cable is supposed to be an NBN service (and hence no fibre to be laid) will Telstra be forced to wholesale to other ISPs, and then will we be able to get static IP addresses?

[tlgerdes]

And is that a problem? What applications/requirements do you see for greater than 5Mbps upload? And don't say HD video, because a correctly encoded 1080p H.264 stream can be had for under 3Mbs.

[bobson]

bob

[The_bluester]

Working from home for one thing.

All going well I will have an NBN fixed wireless service after Thursday next week. That will get me around 5Mbit/sec upload, that in turn will make working from home relatively feasible. I have done it a couple of times in the past but have been badly hamstrung by my beautiful 0.5Mbit/sec upload rate on DSL.

At least I will go from almost unworkable to reasonably so. The download rate will help a lot too, but when I try to send a few meg CAD file via a net based secure mail system it is painful. The time taken to attach files is terrible as the system first has to download them to my local machine from my office via VPN while simultaneously uploading it to the mail system via the even slower upload rate. The uploads impact on the downloads by tying up the upload bandwidth and slowing down outgoing requests and the whole lot seizes up. Getting a 5Mbit/sec upload rate will speed things along significantly, but should my mother (Who I share a rural property with) need to upload a magazine file (Print publishing and large files) at the same time we both may as well go have lunch.

Unless you buy hook line and sinker the line that the NBN is just an entertainment delivery system, sub 10Mbit/Sec upload speeds are not going to cut it for very long at all. They will look great on delivery (So long as they deliver in the time frame they promise, something I am VERY skeptical of) but by the time it is finished they will look very sickly indeed. the internet was a one way street 15 years ago with thousands of content producers serving up to millions of content consumers but it becomes less so with every passing day and low upload speeds hamper it more and more.

Saying that 5-6Mbit/sec upload is enough and using a current application to justify that is to ignore the entire history of technology.

Regards the HFC networks, Optus don't want to sell it, my sister spent a time on Optus HFC recently and had to do some hard talking to get them to sell it to her, then some more when she turned out to be the rear unit on a block of two. Only saved by the high pitched roof on her house and being on the low side of the road opposite the pole the service drop came from. If you are in a block of flats then you have no hope as Optus gave up on MDUs years ago. Telstra, can't answer that one, but plenty of "Passed" hoses marked as unserviceable there too by all reports. The libs plans are going to perpetuate pot luck connectivity for entire suburbs based on the fact that 20 years ago Optus and Telstra chased each other down the streets with technology that was pretty flash at the time.

[tlgerdes]

I didn't say there wasn't any, I asked what are they? So 99.9% of use cases there is no current requirement. It is not to say there wont be in 10 years time.

How far has technology come in the last 10 years, for copper based communications. Everyone said 56K was as fast as you can drive a line, then someone invented ADSL. ADSL was as fast as you can drive a line, then came ADSL2,.... then ADSL2+,.... then Annex M, now VDSL,......

Same was said with Ethernet, now we are drive Ethernet at 100Gbs. Same for Optics, that one almost bankrupted Corning when they found the put optical splitters on a fibre.

Don't judge future technology by what you can do with todays technology.

As the old proverb says, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"

Qui-Gon Jinn: Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: But Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future.
Qui-Gon Jinn: But not at the expense of the moment.

[The_bluester]

Ethernet is irrelevant though to the point of this discussion. Try pumping 100Gb/s over ethernet cables of a couple of hundred meters in length and see what happens.

It is also not really valid to compare current DSL speeds to dialup. The basis of the technology is different. Dial up was cramming as much bandwith as possible into a voice architecture. If you ever wondered why 56K was the limit for a dial up modem, it was not really the case, 64K would have been, but we had to follow the bigger market so we only got 56K. A voice channel on the POTS network is 8 bits at 8Khz giving a 64Kbps data rate, that would be the max for a dial up modem and is limited by the technology placed on the ends of the copper pair, not by the pair itself (In a perfect world, obviously lots of people had copper in poor enough condition to prevent seeing connection speeds as fast as 56K) the reason we got 56K not 64 is that the larger markets used 8 bits at 7khz for a voice channel rather than the 8 bits at 8khz we do which gets you 56kbps, not 64 (I may have the figures the wrong way round there and 7 bits at 8khz, but you get the picture)

From there we have moved on from the termination equipment being the limiting factor to the line being the limiting factor. They can't just magic away the fact that a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand meters of copper pair has limited bandwidth. It is about maxed for ADSL flavours and VDSL is going to be right on the bleeding edge of it's abilities to deliver the Libs plan to a significant portion of the population assuming good quality copper. Most of the other magic bullets proposed by the liberals over the last couple of years are pair bonding variants where they use multiple pairs for simultaneous transmission that is aggregated at the ends. Given how many housholds struggle to get one pair in good enough condition and suitable architecture for DSL, how are they going to get multiple pairs?

You also can not use the increases from up to 1500K to 8K to up to 24K connection speeds to say how much copper technology has improved as they have been driven by commercial considerations as much as technical ones. The last in particular relating to the switch on of ADSL2+ which Telstra has a history of not doing in any given exchange until a competitor installs a DSLAM there and enables it first even though the equipment in the exchange may already support it. The original 1.5K to 8K "Increase" was the dropping of imposed limits by Telstra rather than improvement in DSL technology.


The fact remains that even if built on time and on budget an FTTN plan is going to be struggling to meet demand by the time it is finished and will by design, impose limitations that really do make it into an entertainment delivery medium with content producers at one and and passive consumers at the other. It is like setting a 40KMH speed limit on the hume freeway with a speed camera every 500M to ensure it is adhered to and saying that you obviously do not need a higher limit as everyone is doing 40. Except that in this case there would have to be a dedicated lane for a lucky few who have a 110KMH limit and theothers will be going at varying speeds depending on how lucky they were.

Given that it will be struggling to meet demand by the time it is finished, why waste billions of dollars on an obsolescent network that will be up for replacement in a fraction of the timeframe that its initially somewhat more expensive, vastly technically superior, already available and already started alternative would be?

I have thought pretty long and hard (As I work in the industry) about the design complexities of FTTN and and from a pure design perspective it is more difficult to achieve than FTTH. FTTH you design from scratch and put the network where you need it. FTTN you are constrained by the existing network, you need to hit a certain number of homes per node with a maximum distance between node and home in the nhundreds of meters and have to examine the existing copper network, which was built on the assumption of voice services which could be run over tens of kilometers without major problems and try to find somewhere to put nodes that will both service a reasonable number of homes AND not be too far away from any of them.

I can see significant amounts of copper network having to be hauled out and replaced with new copper in our future either to remedy poor quality or insufficient cable capacity.

[Paul Haese]

Love reading about the squeals and groans. If you can't download video and your illegal movie downloads at 26mbits a second then there is something wrong. Current speeds are less than half of that in general depending on load. In the end everyone will want mobile internet because that is the way people are going. There are more important things to address like health, education and paying off a massive debt to get wound up over if you can get 100mbits per second over the internet.

I will not be signing any petition. Besides anyone knows that petitions never work. Try writing a letter to your local member with a pen and paper and sending that via post. You will get a lot more done by doing that. Petitions get looked at and then deleted. Letters have to have a response by the local member.

[The_bluester]

I would not describe what I have written as squeals and moans. And you can take veiled accusations about piracy and keep them. Like almost everyone connected to the internet I would have to admit to holding some content not gained by "traditional" means, however I have a pretty vast library of content that I bought and paid for thank you very much and everything else is very much in the minority. If I would buy more content downloaded over the net if I had a faster connection rather than going out and buying a DVD is open to question. Most of what I have downloaded is stuff that I can readily record from FTA TV but until recently could not do with any reasonable quality.

And I have not signed the petition because I agree that petitions are not worth the paper they are written on, and this one is not even on paper.

When the opponents of the NBN, and/or proponents of the new model can demonstrate how equity funding (Relying on an eventual payback with a return to attract investors) can be used to build hospitals or public schools or other similar COST only infrastructure then the "Get the priorities right" calls will start to hold some weight with me. But good luck getting someone to buy bonds to finance a non profit model. I regard public hospitals as non profit only from one point of view myself. They create plenty of poifit, but those profits end up spread around society in an intangible way that you can not really put a dollar figure on and certainly can not round up and give back to investors.

In the mean time we still just see variations of "Get your priorities straight", "Expensive waste", "25mbps should be enough for anybody" and "People are all going mobile"

Regards the "Explosion" of mobile data, do people realise that phone data plans are included in these figures? Try getting a plan without data included nowadays. And regardless of that, show me someone with a fixed line at home who does not have the whiz bang smartphone swing over to a home wifi network when they get home for reliability, speed and cost reasons? And any other time they can find an open network too.

[tlgerdes]

I am happy for anyone to have FTTH. Just don't expect me to pay for it for you.

I am a IT teleworker for 60% of the week. I am currently building a network virtualization lab in a datacenter across town, pulling down images ISO images from a site in the USA, hosting teleconference calls and running webex training sessions across Asia Pacific region, all across my current 9/1Mbps link.

The other 40% I am a mobile IT consultant. Yes, working for an international IT organisation is a 24/7 job :lol:

[wasyoungonce]

It's a problem when it is touted as an alternative to FTTH when FTTH min upload will be 10x more.

Its a problem when Turnbull failed to mention this right until late in election time so it cannot be absorbed by the community.

Its a problem because I will never even get that speed with the coalitions plans due to the RIM infrastructure in our estate (and as with many other estates) and guess what my upload speed is...? Its a problem as the only way off this is FTTH, we have no HFC cable either.

No soup for me!

edit:
regarding petitions. Well I petitioned Telstra way back 2002/03/04 to get out RIM upgraded to ADSL minimux. Luckilly I knew it was an integrated RIM that could be upgraded! Finally Telstra did something about it after much pressure, letter writing, letterbox drops etc etc. Telstra wanted to sell me satellite....meaning modem phone thru net and satellite down. What a croc.

So eventually petitioning worked. One of the things I asked Telstra was why don't they look it as a business opportunity. Problem was Telstra was so hell bent on saying no they cannot see past their nose.

In our case unless the pairgain is removed I/We will never get speeds approaching the coalitions FTTN.

[The_bluester]

Refer again to the equity funding model. And assuming that once the nature of the change sinks in, the government is able to use the same model to fund the new plan and you still consider that you are paying for it, you will pay two thirds as much for the community to get a fraction of the result. If they can not make the quity funding model fly and have to pay for it out of taxes then we really WILL pay for it out of our tax money. If it does not fly and they don't do that either and just throw the doors open to the conservative holy grail of "infrastructure competition" then we will pay in subscriptions, and then again in tax money handed out to induce carriers to not utterly ignore the less profitable areas.

[tlgerdes]

So do you need 10x more, or do you want 10x more?

I want a Ferrari, don't need one, but I want one never the less.

So you have fibre to the RIM now, OK, if they replaced the RIM with new infrastructure that gives a better last mile experience over the existing copper, and triples your speed at 1/3 the cost, would that satisfy your requirements?

If I was Telstra I wouldn't upgrade anything until I had certainty from the government that whatever I spent on infrastructure upgrades, along with forecast revenues and profits, was going to be repaid regardless.

They run a business, not a charity. The Telstra charity disappeared in 1995.

Seems as though everyone needs new tyres on their car, but would rather replace the car, than the tyres, even though they cant really afford the a new car without going deeper into debt, and don't actually know how much it is really going to cost them.

I built a new house recently, I could have done it 10 years ago, but back then I would have had to borrow 100% of the cost, and sacrificed buying new cars and private school education for my kids. I decided to wait 8 years, saved 70% of the money myself, bought and paid off 2 new cars, 2 overseas holidays, furnished my new house, sent my kids to private school and only borrowed the final 30%, of that 30% 2 years on I only have 10% mortgage value against my home. Careful planning with requirements and money has reaped dividends for my family, instead of stress.

[wasyoungonce]

Trevor...I would be happy with ADSL2+ but I will not get this on a RIM as telstra stopped top hat roll outs and the coalition NBN will not better my current infrastructure without removing the pair gain...which will not happen...period! They (Telstra re: top hat) stopped this due to their foxtel interests.

Funny thing when campaigning Telstra to upgrade the RIM. I found the infrastructure project manager for our estate. He said that Telstra told him what infrastructure was required for the estate and they installed this...which was minimum spec required. Telstra knew this at the time so did the manager (edit: this is the way it was done back then, around 1994~6, and I suspect still is).

1995 was Telstra name change...but government still held many many shares till 2007 (http://www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/company-overview/history/telstra-story/) and T3. Telstra was then in a position of market domination (1995 ~2004 and still is). The reason I started petitioning was due to Telstra going to Yarraglen (15klms away) and installing ASDL infrastructure free as part of the incumbent government's "broadband for the bush" deals.

Meanwhile back at Lilydale, a suburb of Melbourne...no soup for you, stuck on dial up @18.5K...yes Tesltra petitioned the government & senate (way back) to lower their copper transmission obligations for voice carriage to 18.5kbps min speeds.

So if I didn't petition I would still be stuck on 18.5Kbps, like many many others on RIMs. (edit: our RIM services 450 houses or so and has one minimux servicing 96 homes with ADSL1), the rest...no soup (no ADSL) for you. Is this fair to them?

Sometimes the government has to step in and fix things and this is one of those times. I see the FTTH NBN the way of the future, a basic right for infrastructure just like dams, hospitals, schools etc.

[The_bluester]

To put a different car spin on it. Because it is not the first time the rolls royce/Ferrari comparo has been raised.

If you were a family of mother, father and one child but had quadruplets on the way, if you knew that it would be almost completely worthless when the birth came, what logic would there be in buying a Barina when you KNOW that in a few months you need a Tarago? Sure the Barina will do the job right now, but you just KNOW you are sinking depreciation into something that is not going to do the job in the future and will not return the money you put into it.

[JohnH]

+1 on that - home or mobile 90% of the time. Work with India and China - a lot - desktop sharing/conferencing/whiteboarding moving reasonable large files around. NBN is not required here nad by the way will not improve performance as the bottleneck is in the intercity and international links - not the local hop to the ISP which is that will be super fast with FTTH. It's an 8 lane on ramp to nowhere for now...

[strongmanmike]

Absolutely and anyone who says otherwise is really no different to those in the 1920's who lambasted the designers of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for having 6 lanes assigned for cars :shrug:...since when the bridge was opened in 1932, New South Wales had a total car pool of about 10,000 and a population of only about 1 million. In 2013, over a million cars pass over the bridge a week, from a city population of nearly 5 million and growing at over 65,000 a year.

Designers, builders AND governments need to have vision for the future.

Mike

[JohnH]

Nice anology but the bridge is hard to upgrade (so they built the tunnel) whereas FTTN can become FTTH as and when required/justified (or you can pay to connect if you want it now) so this is not an either or choice. This is more like you having a quad width driveway while the bridge is left at 2 lanes. Oh yes, even worse, you HAVE to have your driveway upgraded - even if you only have one car....

[tlgerdes]

FTTH won't solve the problems that business requires for global competition. Latency is the killer for next gen realtime apps, current 250-300ms to US or Europe won't be solved by last mile fibre.

[strongmanmike]

Guess it depends on how you see it. To me, and most others, fibre to the home is like making sure the Sydney Harbour Bridge had 6 car lanes and 4 train lines from the get go in order to handle Sydney traffic well into the future. The Coalitions fibre to the node plan is like building 8 lanes of road and 4 train lines to the bridge and then deciding on a 2 car and 1 train line Bridge to take everyone across...just to hopefully save a relatively small amount and finish it a little sooner. This is totally irresponsible management in my opinion.

Mike

[gregbradley]

Done

Greg.

[tlgerdes]

the 8 lane road, 4 trainline is to your street, then you get the 2 lane, 1 train driveway to yourself

[strongmanmike]

:doh: I give up....

:prey:

[bobson]

Health and education would have most benefits from NBN besides many other advantages for business in general.

bob

[gary]

Hi John,

Thanks for the post.

I myself have 35 years continual experience in the field of professional computing.

Could you possibly share with me what your best estimate of your own
internet bandwidth requirements were 30 years ago?

Could you also possibly share with me, with respect your own usage, what you
would have regarded in terms of bytes as being "a reasonably large file"
30 years ago and what you regard as a reasonably large file in your work
today?

Alternatively, could you possibly recollect what your hard disk storage requirements
were 30 years ago and what they approximately might be today, including
any stored in "the cloud"?

If your experiences are anywhere like most Australians, I am sure your requirements
for bandwidth, storage and computing speed will have exploded during this period.

For many IceInSpace readers, their bandwidth and storage requirements 30 years
ago may have been zero.

Cisco have a web site that provides their own forecasts for networking
in key regions of the world here -
http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/sp/vni/vni_forecast_highlights/index.html#~Country

In Australia they currently estimate that peak Internet traffic will grow 2.9-fold from
2012-2017, a compound annual growth rate of 24%.

In 2012, they estimate Internet traffic in Australia was 282 Petabytes per month
but will grow to 650 Petabytes per month in 2017.

They estimate that Australian Internet traffic in 2017 will be equivalent to 85x
the volume of the entire Australian Internet in 2005.

They also estimate that in 2017, the gigabyte equivalent of all movies ever made
will cross Australia's IP networks every 8 hours.



That is incorrect. The primary bottlenecks are in the last mile.

The Australian city links already have a fiber backbone.

According to Southern Cross Cables who operate a network of 28,900 km of
trans-Pacific submarine fiber optic cables including links between Australia and
the United States, current available bandwidth capacity between the two countries
is in excess of current demand.

In their own words, installing successive generations of transmission technology to
each end of the cables has been comparatively easy and inexpensive.

For example, in 2008 each of their cables had a capacity of 120 gigabits/s.
By the end of 2012, by upgrading the transmitters, each had a capacity of
1000 gigabits/s (1 terabits/s).

Best Regards

Gary Kopff
Mt Kuring-Gai NSW 2080
02 9457 9049

[tlgerdes]

Spoken like a true champion

[Ausrock]

It's been an interesting thread...........seeing the various comments from those who appear to believe they are entitled to the highest available speed service to those who are more than able to exist with what is currently available to them. Seeing those who appear to have difficulty in differentiating between what they truely need and what they want.

There's no argument that some businesses would definitely benefit from an optimum service but the reality is that the vast majority of users don't need more than the best service currently available.

[strongmanmike]

Oh visionary stuff that :prey2: thank god we have progressives or we would be still living in caves :lol:

[Ausrock]

Oh for goodness sake...............you obviously confuse want with need :shrug:

I just started to type a lengthy explanation of what I meant but have wiped it as it's obvious some people just aren't capable of seeing beyond the end of their 'scopes.

[strongmanmike]

No, not at all, I just think if Australia is gong to be upgrading infrastructure to move to the next era of telecommunications it should be done properly, first time, it's as simple as that :)

[Steffen]

You are way off the mark. After so many posts explaining what the NBN is about you're still reducing the argument to some people wanting "faster downloads".

My street is served by Bigpond cable and I have a choice of 30 or 100Mbps. I don't think the NBN is important just because I want faster downloads for myself. :screwy:

Cheers
Steffen.

[Ausrock]

Mike, that's how I approach most things I do and if you doubt me I'm happy to put you in contact with the guy who started the company I work for........I've been pissing him off for five years bacause of my approach :D...........but one thing I've learnt is that there are circumstances where the time (ie; cost) to do something properly just can't be justified..........so, as I said, the vast majority of internet users, (who unless I'm very mistaken are within the domestic market), don't really need optimum speed and it's a crap shoot as to when, if ever, they will. A business with high usage and reliance on fast internet communications is a different story BUT let them pay a premium for the facility/service and don't pass it on to the average user.

[tlgerdes]

1)how do you know what properly is?
2) it is not the first time

You are basing your ideas of what we are doing for the next 100 years, on what people are doing yesterdays with today's limited technology.

I'm sitting in a hospital bed this morning, writting this on my phone. NBN ain't going to improve either of those outcomes.

As Ausrock says, some people need it, some people just want it. I'm strange (yes, you have been telling me for years), I'm in the former group, but I don't want it. My needs have changed dramatically in the last couple of years in a more greatly mobile world.

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Trevor
Don't waste too much time in a hospital bed. I have things for you to do:P;):lol:

Barry

[tlgerdes]

All good, should be out by lunch.

[Barrykgerdes]

I wonder how many of the internet users waiting for door to door NBN who have signed the petition don't have a fixed phone line and only use Iphones or Ipads (or eqivalent). These people won't benefit much from the expensive part of the roll out.

Further, if you have dropped your land line service to base all your phone service on mobiles I am sure you will be charged an exorbitant fee to reconnect.

I don't expect wireless services to be much better than DSL because of lack of bandwidth in the RF spectrum even when we get "5G" + services that have much shorter ranges

Barry

[multiweb]

Obviously people are getting pretty emotional when it comes to the NBN. There is heaps of literature about pros/cons, costs, how it will be paid. The people who want it vs. people who don't need it. TBH the election was passed with a mandate. The majority applies. No petition is going to influence that. It's a minority. Right or wrong you guys can argue till the cows come home. No point getting agro about it. Go back under the stars and have a deep breath. Life goes on. :)

[tlgerdes]

All good, should be out by lunch.

[strongmanmike]

Can't agree with that :) Well over half of the electorate didn't vote for the Liberal or National party, so the two of them combined don't have a mandate to legislate at their whim, just rather they simply have enough seats together to form a government, the parliament as a whole now legislates on the basis of weighing up competing ideas and concerns given they were all elected by portions of Australia. So, a petition may well be a useful component of that no matter how small by affecting minor parties for example.

The Labor party was elected on a clear platform to introduce a price on carbon after the 2007 and even the 2010 election too but the Coalition (and Greens) continually blocked its proposed legislation and then with the help of the conservative media the coalition successfully ran a massive overblown baseless scare campaign on what became known as the Carbon Tax, a cost of living neutral arangement. The saddest thing is this campaign has resulted in many people doubting even the need for what is probably much more important legislation by telling them BS and rubbing shoulders with rubbish science for their own political gain.

So petition away, no matter how futile it may seem :thumbsup:

Mike

[JohnH]

Of course the the backbone links are faster than the local links. On paper. Those links are shared though and the performance in real world use use does not match the theoretical capacity because it is either saturated or throttled to prioritise commercial traffic. In practice this means those links are the bottleneck.
I routinely have to access servers in the USA, China, India and find those slow compared to access in Sydney even Perth is poor, a faster last mile will not help this. Most client companies I work with cannot rely on this and have to buy MPLS links to get stable, reliable performance over long distances.

Gary,

My point is that this is NOT a choice between fast internet and nothing it is a choice of fast soon or faster later. FTTN is fast FTTP is faster, both have the same backbone. FTTN deployment does not prevent those who want the extra speed now paying to get it. Schools, Hospitals, government offices and most businesses would get FTTP most households probably would not. Once the services are there to justify the cost the local links for domestic use these could be installed by the ISP/Telcos the end user pays for the link via line rental fee as part of your plan, now you get the capacity you need when you need it not via a compulsory tax funded AU$2500 charge now.

[multiweb]

Whatever floats your boat Mike :rolleyes: Seriously mate, go out and do some imaging. Relax. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

One could say take some of your own medicine Marc, you post much more than I do :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

I got plenty of dark skies, check the deep space forums. :)

[Paul Haese]

Actually that is bollocks. Labour only got 43.4 percent of the vote and the libs got 36.7 percent of the primary vote. No one has had a mandate under your terms of logic here. The declaration if a mandate by the libs is equally as valid in both instances.

Australians have been convinced that having a super fast Internet is better than one that is faster than the current one. We don't need to have super fast at home. We need fast. Businesses need super fast but even video conferencing will still be very good at 26mbits. We don't have enough money to go around at present. Our massive debt is testament to that. You have to have a scaled back version of very fast Internet. Cost benefit approach. Not want we want and can't afford approach.

[Peter Ward]

I was going to say nothing here ( my thoughts on infrastructure priorities are posted elsewhere ) ...but..

Steuth!....

...even the sharks wouldn't swallow that one. My electricity bills went decidedly northbound ( I won't mention refrigerant gas prices ) , with zippo compensation for the impost.

[strongmanmike]

Hello Paulie how are you? :hi: I think you got that mixed up :question:

So we disagree?...what's new :lol:

[AndrewJ]

Gday Gary

In the mid eighties, i was a project engineer on the construction of the first LNG train in Karratha.
We used a Compaq PC that ran at about 6MHz with a 100MB hard drive
and tape backup.
The Novelle networking system used to link about 6 PCs ran inside the 640k of memory.
That 100Mb had the operating system and all our engineering partslists and systems, as well as work orders and progress.
I cant imagine anything sitting in 100MB anymore due to the bloatware mechanisms used these days.

Andrew

[Peter Ward]

Indeed. Sloppy code is almost the norm these days. It's no coincidence that many off the retired science team from Voyager ( now in interstellar space :thumbsup: ) had to be consulted to get its teeny but still useful systems to still phone home.

BTW... For speedy execution Losmandy Gemini system was programmed in Assembler :eyepop: . A dark art indeed :)

[AndrewJ]

Gday Peter



Or was it programmed in C and then "tweaked" in assembler

Andrew

( who patches the Meade firmwares by manually manipulating the machine code hex files created from the assembler code :thumbsup:
Ie i fight at times to rewrite stuff in order to save one byte of free space )

[Paul Haese]

Those figures Mike are from the 2007 election. No one party has had 50 percent of the primary vote since 1954. Therefore no one has had a clear mandate from primary vote.

[Peter Ward]

Definitely assembler. Rene Goerlich was still writing the original Gemini code while staying with us in Sydney....he was rather fond of Redback beer, which seemed to help keeping the code flowing :)

BTW Rene wrote much of the machine code for IBM mainframes...

[AndrewJ]

Gday Peter



No wonder he drank :P

Andrew

[RobF]

NOT signed.
We should vote out Labor too, and sort this mess out.

Wait - we did! :D

[gary]

Hi Peter,

Early in my career I swallowed the Red Pill and have been much deeper than that. :)

For example, one of the projects I was the manager on was the design and
implementation of a 32-bit microprocessor.

Starting with a blank sheet of paper, a first-cut of the architecture was a simulation
down at the register level, which also included the first iteration of the instruction
set, pipeline and caches.

Concurrently the code generation back-end of a C-compiler and assembler
was written which produced assembler and machine code for our first iteration
of the instruction set.

A series of target applications were compiled and the generated code run on
the simulator. What is referred to as profiling.

The designer has one foot in how efficient the instruction set is on the software side
and another foot in how it is most efficiently implemented on the hardware
implementation side.

Trade-offs abound.

What was of particular interest were aspects such as pipeline stalls. Whenever
a branch instruction is executed it can dramatically affect pipeline performance.
There are several methods with how to best deal with the problem, some of
which are compile-time schemes.

Profiling the execution of the applications thus provided clues as to
where improvements could be made. The instruction set was changed, the
pipeline altered and the cache sizes and architecture tuned, at the same
time being mindful that this then has to be implemented to fit on to a single
semiconductor die for the right price.

This particular device was then designed at the gate level.

Earlier than that in my career I had designed digital devices down at the
semiconductor transistor level.

That's a long way down the rabbit hole.

However, in turn, guys I worked with had been much deeper than that.

For example, before I had worked for him, my previous boss, an Aussie,
had earlier in his own career conceived, researched and implemented
semiconductor devices down at the quantum level.

Based on a prediction of his boss, he discovered the "quantum well".
They filed the patent for the first quantum well laser.
Useful if you want to build a CD or DVD player.

My boss went on to play an important part in the invention of what was then the
world's fastest transistor. The High Electron Mobility Transistor or HEMT
is fabricated in gallium arsenide (GaAs). They happily run at over 600GHz.
If you have a satellite dish on your roof there is one in there. They are deployed
in some mobile phone base stations. They are at the heart of radio telescopes and
there are some on-board spacecraft that have left the solar system.

Later and again before I worked for him, my boss was the manager of a semiconductor
research lab. One of the people he hired came to him as a postdoc. My boss
outlined to the postdoc what the team had been up to and sketched on
his whiteboard (he loved to use his whiteboard) some semiconductor structures.
As a result of that conversation, the postdoc made what he described in his
Nobel Prize acceptance speech as "a casual, almost trivial observation, which,
however, turned out to have big impact." The three lab workers in the team
discovered the fractional quantum Hall effect which won them the 1998 Nobel
Prize in Physics.

One afternoon I walked into my bosses office and he was staring at his whiteboard.
He said to me, "You know, I spent a great deal of my career thinking about things
in the first dimension".

He was alluding of course to his earlier involvement in the conception of
semiconductor devices using quantum confinement techniques. When he said
it I thought to myself that I can get my head around the third dimension and
the second dimension but I smiled and asked him "How on earth could you spend
all day just thinking about the first dimension?". He just smiled back.

He had clearly been down the rabbit hole much deeper than me.
What he had been involved in seemed like a dark art to us and it was
so mind-boggling, mathematical and abstract that all we could do was be in awe of
the people that burrow down that far.

But sometimes when we were giving our boss progress reports on what we were
doing much further up the hole at the hardware/software level, he would say,
"You know, you guys are really smart". Coming from someone who had
been so deep down the hole, that made us feel pretty good! :)

Peter, I guess if I were to get to sit where you do, I might look around the
cockpit at the instrumentation and at some level of abstraction have an
appreciation of, say, how the voting mechanism might be implemented
in hardware/software on the multiple redundant flight computers (research into
fault tolerant computer systems was my first paid job). My previous boss
might look around and seeing the light emitting from the LEDs have some
deep appreciation of how they work at the quantum level.

If an LED were to stop operating in-flight, you of course have an appreciation that
it is an electronic device that uses a quantum effect, but you don't need to know
exactly how it does that at the quantum level. You intimately understand what
the LED was meant to indicate and can instantly make a decision as to whether
you can obtain the same information but my some other annunciator.

As the rest of us look around and imagine how various sub-systems might
work at the levels of abstraction of which we have knowledge, we rely totally
on you to get us rolling and into the air and most critically, we rely on your
skill, training, intelligence and calmness to get us back down if something might
go wrong. :)

In other words, we'd all be saying you are a pretty smart guy! :thumbsup:

It is interesting when you look around at the modern world and see
how complex it is. It requires many levels of specialization and
we rely on each other in complex ways.

Like most of us, I am unashamedly passionate about Australia and really
believe if we all keep pulling on the rope in the same direction we can
achieve even greater things.

I am also unashamedly passionate about the role science and technology has
played in getting us to where we are today. When the culture of our forebears
embraced the scientific and industrial revolutions all those years ago,
they helped set us up pretty nicely.

It is a trajectory that we would be silly to abandon.

You can divide the world into two camps of guys. If I had been lucky enough
to be present at Kill Devil Hills in 1903 watching the Wright Bros. take that
first flight, I am the type of guy that would be among those bellowing out "Go! Go! Go!".
But unfortunately there would always be some guy up the back laughing at them
and calling out "Crash. Crash.. Crash." When they only flew 37m, the same
guy would have no doubt made it clear to the rest of us that it was "useless".

Later when Kingsford Smith crossed the Pacific, the same guy would have declared with authority,
"That's good enough. We need do no more. Any more is a waste of time and money".

Like the man said, I guess we choose to do these things not because they are easy,
but because they are hard. :thumbsup:

Best regards

Gary Kopff
Mt Kuring-Gai NSW 2080
Phone: 02 9457 9049

[Octane]

I have said this before, and, I'll say it again: Gary, I love your posts.

H

[blink138]

just....... wow gary, a brilliant orator..... bravo!
you win and game over!
pat

[Steffen]

Indeed!

[andrew2008]

Mandates:lol: Would you like to know what Tony Abbott said about mandates in 2007?

"Nelson is right to resist the intellectual bullying inherent in talk of "mandates". What exactly is Rudd's mandate anyway: to be an economic conservative or an old-fashioned Christian socialist? The elected Opposition is no less entitled than the elected Government to exercise its political judgment and to try to keep its election commitments."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/promises-to-keep-in-opposition/2007/12/04/1196530675473.html

[andrew2008]

+1

[kinetic]

:thumbsup:

Yep, great post!
Terrific insight and perspective....

Steve

[AndrewJ]

I think part of Garys post indicates the game is never over.

Most people here would think all of these things are dark arts,
as many have no need or desire to understand how anything electrical/electronic works under the hood,
even though our lives rely more and more on them.

Even 50 years ago, not many people would have driven a car into the outback without basic knowledge of the car and how to fix it,
because if you couldnt fix it, you may actually die.
Today, no one cares let alone understands the basics of their cars, as its so complicated that a screen now tells you something isnt working and calls a tow truck for you. :P

I always associate ( what appears to be ) our current general attitudes to science/engineering to the starting of the age of the priests in ASIMOVs Foundation series.
Ie exceedingly few people really know how anything works, and they live in their own highly specialised black holes.
Some people know how to use the systems and promote themselves as the resident icons/priests/masters, by wrapping it all in magic.
and the rest are lemmings.
For this future to come true, we will need FTTH so the priests can feed us our lifes requirements without ever needing to leave their temples.
Still gunna need lots of little white delivery vans tho :P

Andrew

[bobson]

Great post Gary!
We ought to learn from history.

cheers

bob

[strongmanmike]

Perhaps you skimmed my post :shrug: I think you are confusing my use of the word "platform" with mandate? :) The labor party made it clear it wanted to take action on climate change and introduce some sort of price on carbon during the 2007 and 2010 elections hence my use of the word platform, just as the Coalition campaigned on a desire to repeal the Carbon Tax platform, this doesn't mean they have any sort of mandate now and that other parties should simply let them legislate as such just because they won enough seats to form a government...

I just think it is a HUGE shame that one of the other platforms the Coalition ran on up to this election was to downgrade the original and best vision of the NBN. Small consolation I guess is that it is better than their original policy, that of no NBN at all!!

Mike

[strongmanmike]

This piece of brilliant and unambiguous, oratory takes me back to this scene from Liar Liar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jQP0Y2T2OQ) particularly from about 1:40 on the tape ;)

Mike

[Hagar]

Mr Sidonio, amazing how you manage to use words like mandate, majority and now a new one, Platform to meet whatever requirement you have at the time. The reality is that neither party have an honest majority or mandate but the umpire has spoken (you and me) we have voted for the other bloke because we were sick to death of the one we had, in fact your party seemed to be sick of the one you had. So the other bloke is now at the wheel. Lets see what happens, who knows they cant be any worse. They will at least try to ditch the carbon tax which is currently one of two taxes or imposts we are expected to pay for in our electricity bills. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about the renewable energy certificate system.

Better not forget.:shrug::shrug::shrug::eyepop ::eyepop::eyepop::shrug::shrug::shr ug::rofl::rofl::rofl::D:D:D:P:P:P:P :P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P: screwy::screwy::screwy::screwy::scr ewy::screwy:;);););););):hi::hi::hi :

[The_bluester]

I have been away for a couple of days, but I think that this is a point that really deserves a counter point of view.

Yes the bridge is hard to upgrade, in fact so is FTTN. The designs for FTTN and FTTH are fundamentally different in many ways and they would need to expend a heap of time and money planning for a future upgrade to FTTH, various parts of which are going to conflict with design aspects required by FTTN. Also required would be truly MASSIVE amounts of redundant fibre for the FTTN build, or a stupid and wasteful future FTTH network with power sucking electronics scattered throughout the countryside rather than a PON built with limited electronics and transmission gear per area and splitter cabinets everywhere.

An FTTN build does not lend itself at all naturally to future upgrade to FTTH, it lends itself most naturally to future complete replacement by FTTN. And no matter what the naysayers say, the future will be uncomfortably close to practical completion of the libs plan.

[andrew2008]

You got compensation for the carbon tax. Which they will keep, despite no carbon tax:screwy:It is the way just about every economist believes best to lower emissions.
And instead of higher electricity, companies will be raising costs to pass on there share of the parental leave scheme. Let us know if you are better off in 3 years:rofl:

Mining tax was bad policy.

[Hagar]

Andrew, seems you know a lot about me. I worked 60+ hours a week and was not entitled to any compensation yet someone who sat on their arse and enjoyed my working for a living did get compensated for a tax I was paying.
I am sure in 3 years I will be better off and I am sure in 3 years the country will be in a better situation financially as well.
I'm sure my retirement income will be more stable than it is today.

When you are nearly 60 and have worked for 42 years, eared a good income and payed as much tax as I have and retired and supporting yourself, then perhaps you can make an educated assessment of the situation and reasoning I base my statements on.

By the way I worked in the electricity industry for 42 years and watched as one of the biggest electricity generating companies in this country made a killing on the Carbon Tax. I have traded electricity for the past 15 years, have seen the introduction of an electricity market system, the changes, the introduction and workings of the Renewable energy certificate program and the introduction of the carbon tax and only the carbon tax equated to a huge number of extra staff (we pay for them all one way or another)to manipulate and manage a so called simple tax. What would an economist know about carbon emissions other than how to make a buck out of it? If there wasn't a dollar in it neither a broke government of big electricity companies wouldn't be interested in it.

I just watched an interesting news article where fruit growers in the Goulburn Valley are grubbing out their fruit trees. It appears government support for our own industry and growers is scarce yet we are unable to increase the cost of imported fruit as we might offend the countries sending us their fruit. Are we borrowing from them as well?
Oh sorry I forgot we are the lucky country. How long will we stay lucky? Soon we will be lucky if our children and grand children can get a job.

Enough of my rant.

[strongmanmike]

Any-waaay... :rolleyes:

If the petition doesn't work we can hope and pray the Coalition can be rolled in 3 years and we can have FTTH back on the table :prey: lets get to it guys keep spreading the good FTTH NBN word :thumbsup:

Hallelujah! :lol:

[Paul Haese]

:rofl::rofl::rofl: Labour back in 3 years, yeah sure. Maybe after the third term of the coalition. Then there might be some money in the bank to spend again.

[strongmanmike]

Bunkum, come'on Paul be a true believer! You won't be settling for second best with your automation setup will ya? ;) So it's FIBRE TO THE HOME "Give me an F, give me an I, give me an...." :P :rockband: :cheers:

Ah politics.... :thumbsup:

[Steffen]

Oh dear. It seems like the coalition has painted itself into a corner there. People will be marching on Canberra with torches and pitchforks if their energy bills don't come down very soon, and the land of milk and honey does not materialise really quickly.

Cheers
Steffen.

[Hagar]

You just keep praying Mike. Religion wont do you any harm.:P:P:P and my internet will still be more than adequate.

[Steffen]

You do realise that making a surplus is the most incompetent thing a government can do. It means they're overtaxing. If they run out of things to spend money on they should lower taxes. The reality is, a diligent government will never run out of things to spend money on, not in our lifetimes anyway, not as long as our economy is facing towering structural problems.

Cheers
Steffen.

[michaellxv]

Gary wrote the longest and most interesting post I have ever read ALL the way through. And I agree with him 100%

I had given up on the NBN months ago when the election result was obvious to all. But despite the arrogance of the new government I still hold some hope that people with vision will prevail.

[strongmanmike]

Oh Thanks Cranky'ol Father Hagar :prey: :lol:

[strongmanmike]

Hallelujah and Amen to that brother :thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

Man that is funny. Clayton will not be getting fibre to the home ever. It is not going to be serviced by the NBN because the township is too small. If we are lucky there will be wireless. When I go to the NBN map there is not even a remote date for when and if construction would begin. I contacted NBN Co just out of curiosity and was told there are no plans to service our little township. That is what will happen to a lot of tiny towns around Australia. So for now I am happy with ADSL on site and I don't mind the ADSL2+ at home.

Keep wishin Mike.

[Paul Haese]

Sure Steffen. Keep thinking that. Lucky the Howard government was incompetent then, otherwise we would have been in real trouble when the GFC hit.:lol:

[blink138]

ha ha paul you say that like the howard government knew what was around the corner with the GFC and that is what the pack of monkeys in there at the moment have us believe....... however the fact is that brittany spears would have given us a surplus during that time if she was our PM
good luck not good management!
pat

[Steffen]

Or maybe not. Rather than sucking a pile of money out of the economy and having it do nothing it could have been invested in direly needed structural changes, infrastructure, education, health – you know, all the things it was eventually spent on. The things that governments are meant to spend money on, and for which they collect taxes in the first place.

BTW, as you probably also know, there wasn't really a surplus, just left-overs from an unprecedented sale of "table silver" (privatisation of public assets).

Cheers
Steffen.

[strongmanmike]

Oh I will...

Viva progressive non conservative politics, I'll fight for it if it means we can get worthwhile things for our country and minimise discrimination based on wealth or class and against pretentious people who complain about their electricity bills going up less than the cost of a service on their Ferrari :rolleyes: :fight:

So:shrug:... we are just different, all good :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

Whoaa......:nerd:

[strongmanmike]

He's right Marc, there's a time and place for everything :)

[multiweb]

Of course but seriously?... :shrug: The previous surplus gave a lot of spending money to the Rudd/Gillard gvt. Regardless of what they used it for, don't bite the hand that feeds you. The govt is not a non profit charity. We need funds to function and keep our options open.

[Retrograde]

Actually it was at the expense of on-going revenue as the $27b odd surplus was partly achieved by selling off $72b of money-making assets.

Don't hold your breath for the Libs FTTN rollout. They don't really believe in it & their plan hasn't even been properly costed. My bet is it will be quietly shelved after the 'commission of (fr)audit' as a thank-you to the media companies that helped propel the Libs into office as fast broadband is a serious threat to electronic media's business models (which are under a great deal of pressure already).

I signed the petition but doubt it will do much good.

[Hagar]

I wouldn't say cranky, not yet anyway, maybe a better choice of words would be realistic, honest, sensible and the list goes on.:P:rofl:;):lol::P:sadeyes::mad2: :shrug::help:

[Hagar]

Steffen, Better we have a small surplus than be in debt so deep we cannot afford the repayments let alone make the purchases and spending the country needs to continue. Your not Greek are you?

[Barrykgerdes]

I think this useless polarized discussion has been going on for too long and will make too many enemies so I have made a list of all those for and against.:P:lol::thumbsup:

Those who don't agree with my views (unstated) had better prepare yourselves. I am going to organize a fleet of floodlights and fog generators and will be around to ruin your night's viewing of the sky so you will all be able to find another more important thing to complain about.;):P:rofl:

Barry

[Paul Haese]

enjoy the drive Barry.:P:)

[The_bluester]

Actually that is just plain wrong, it is a testament to how poorly the previous government explained the scope of the project. There is (Was. I make no assumptions of any sort under the new government except that we have to wait and see) NO town in Australia which was to not get the NBN, the service delivery method might have been fixed wireless and might have been satellite based, but it was still coming. And the fixed wireless was supposed to be completed sometime in 2015. Similar for the permanent sat connections, the NBN birds were supposed to launch in 2015 as well IIRC.

When NBN say "No plans" they meant "Not planned yet" Fixed wireless also pops up very quickly. I stopped looking for a couple of months knowing that I would not be on fibre anyway due to location (It would cost a couple of hundred K to connect us and even a fibre booster like me knows full well that it would be wasteful) When I stopped looking we were not on the rollout plan at all. A couple of months later I looked again and we were "under construction" for fixed wireless and a week after that it was RFS (Ready For Service) So long as the signal strength gods smile on me we will have a fixed wireless connection on Thursday this week. We have trees between us and the tower but otherwise good LOS and are only a couple of KM away. Unlike rolling out fibre, the fixed wireless sites go up very quickly (A couple of months) after construction begins.

[Paul Haese]

Since you know so much about our situation here in SA. Take a look at South Australia around the northern and eastern part of lake alexandrina. I have contacted NBN Co and they said there is no plan at all to have a connection there. Don't tell me I am wrong if you don't actually know about my situation mate!

[RobF]

Good plan Barry. We better get the IIS TOS changed so religion, politics AND NBN are limited topics ;)
I think we all want superfast broadband, but there'll always be conflict over how to allocate scarce financial resources.

[Peter Ward]

An interesting read Gary..... I must admit to have been amazed watching Rene load revised hex code into the Gemini EPROMS and debug the software....but suspect we are going off at a tangent .. :)

FTTH will deliver best bandwidth compared to FTTN , the problem I have is: to what end?

I currently have cable, that delivers 34mbs most times, the bottleneck more often than not being the servers rather than the pipeline. I'm not inclined to want to pay even more for, depending what plan you are on, a slower service ( not all NBN products will be 100mbs)

For most users, high bandwidth will only deliver entertainment ...but if the current crop of TV shows is anything to go by.....they can shove it. I fail to see how getting entertainment over fibre will make the nation more productive.

To tear up perfectly serviceable cable or copper links just so we can *all* have optical fibre is brain dead stupid policy to me. NBN Co. have consistently failed to meet roll-out targets by an order of magnitude, begging the question, to actually have the system delivered what will the ultimate cost be? How many bridges, dams, thorium power plants ( :) ) hospitals, dual carriage ways, nurses, doctors & engineers could be built/trained for the same spend?

I'm not anti-NBN....I just think there are better things to spend a significant part of my wage - that I have no say in loosing every payday through taxation (along with many others)- on at the moment.

[Peter.M]

Don't suggest that Peter, nuclear power is scary so Australia should never invest in it. :scared:

[Octane]

Hey. Breaking Bad is awesome.

H

[LewisM]

Someone call the RSPCA.

Poor horses. Poor poor horses. Flogged to death.

[Peter Ward]

Google " Thorium power " Australia has mountains of the stuff. I'd be happy to start a new threat on that old chestnut :D

[LewisM]

Fraudian slip? :)

Is that a threat or a promise to start a thread on alternate energy sources involving atomic physics? :)

[Peter Ward]

:lol: *thread*. No Freudian slip...I'm always fighting my iPad's autocomplete and spelling.

[LewisM]

Same as my old man - as I am sure you know a certain airline uses iPads for EVERYTHING from ops manuals to crew scheduling etc. He hates it, but then again, he's not far from 70 :) He always comments the FMS is 1000 times simpler than a ruddy iPad :) :rofl:

[The_bluester]

What they have told you is wrong, simple as that.

93% connected by fibre, approx 4% by fixed wireless and the remainder who can not be feasibly hit by fibre or fixed wireless to be connected by the permanent satellite service. That adds up to 100%. What some muppet in a call centre may or may not have said is not relevant here. Just look up the NBN website for yourself. A pertinent link below to save you some time.

http://nbnco.com.au/about-us/our-purpose.html

I felt strongly enough that Australia needed a reset of telecommunications policy and infrastructure and that the NBN model was the best on offer that I changed from a pretty secure job with a telco to a less secure one in a company doing significant work for NBNco to get amongst it. I know more than probably 95% of people in Australia do about the project.



If a direct link to an NBN co page stating figures that add up to 100% does not settle it in your mind that it was to have been delivered to your area under the old plan, so be it. As of the election you might well have become right. Only time will tell now.

[tlgerdes]

Have you talked to any bankers lately? They knew it was coming from as early as 2003, it was only a matter of time. The US subprime market had holes in it since Bill Clinton legislated it into existance. As if you couldn't see that one coming, they were just hoping some miracle of government would keep the economy moving forward long enough. Even Peter Costello said post 2007 election about the dark clouds on the horizon.

[AndrewJ]

So why didnt they really do anything about it????
( And that includes the pollies )
Maybe they just kept quiet because they know profit can be made
from boom or doom, and stable just isnt profitable???
The more money moves about and the more unstable it is,
the more chance for them and their mates
to five finger discount a bit along the way without being caught.
What i want to know is why after 10 years of boom, we are still in deficit with nothing much to show for it.
At least the full FTTH NBN will give us an infrastructure to build on,
( that private industry run by bankers would never approve of )
assuming those in charge have enough vision to accept that they
are just building a skeleton that may not in itself be cost effective within a single parliamentary term.


Andrew

[tlgerdes]

These twin questions are related, and brings us bank to our discussion topic. Everyone thinks the river of gold never ends and will just keep flowing to provide us with all we need.

6 years ago our government had no debt, and someone saw the river of gold flowing and thought they were rich and it would never end, they built there lifestyle around it, then watched the river dry up.

If the government had spent their surplus 6 years ago to build the NBN I would have applauded them. The problem was they spent the surplus 10 times over thinking the river of gold would never end. Now we just can't afford it. Our own belligerence has led is to this point, we have to live within our means and be conservative with our economy else we will be the next Greece or Spain.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Trevor

I fully agree we are living ( well ) beyond our means
and our heads will be pulled in for us in the near future
but re

i must fully agree with several earlier posters,
that the only way the libs "balanced" the budget
was to sell the family silver.

They sold a lot of it under dubious circumstances ( ie 2nd Telstra )
to mum and dad Australia, and arent we paying for it now,
( and for a long time to come ).

The overall debt from that era is still there, just now a big chunk of it is directly with the people, vs the Govt.

Ie "We" ( Australia ) still went into debt during that time.

Both sides are as bad as each other.


And to get it back onto topic, just imagine if everyone did get the NBN whilst we can still afford it. The poor will be able to get their telemedicine and or TeleLaw at half price from a call centre in India :D
Be good to see those professions get a bit of "competition" from overseas like everyone else.

Andrew



All i would say to that is, if was a good idea then, its a better idea now.
The fact they wasted money on other stuff first doesnt negate that.

[avandonk]

All I can say is enjoy your twisted pair last mile NBN! It is the obvious choice as the proletariat do not know any better.

I have Telstra HFC and on a good day on my shared line I can get 30Mb/s.

The upload speed is appalling at 1.3Mb/s. For this I pay $99 a month.

It is all sad really!

Bert

[Hagar]

This is all a crock of s***T. Anyone would think you are all going to roll over and die if the NBN doesn't go in.
Get a life and go outside without your smart phones, Ipads and laptops and now even smart cameras which need an internet connection. If the internet isn't fast enough for you to down load several GB of porn then just have another beer and it will eventually happen.
Go tell someone who is on an organ transplant list how dreadfully important the internet is and funnily they wont give a continental.
I still find it difficult to believe that so called educated people on this forum used the NBN as the basis of their vote in this election. In fact it is disgusting that our society has sunk to such trivial crap.

[The_bluester]

Again, when someone can find an equity funding model (Which requires a financial return to work) to build a public hospital or operate an existing one I will start to put some weight on that one. And the "Faster porn" line is going to get from me the disdain it deserves. It did when Richard Alston trotted it out about a deacde ago too. Actually it earned more than that when he said it, more like ridicule and he did not remain comms minister for a great amount of time after that. Not that his replacement was a whole lot better.

Are you going to argue so stridently against the libs model too? Because on your own logic you should. They plan use the same sort of funding model to spend about two thirds as much to build a vastly less capable network that from your point of argument you must regard as unnessesary too and better "Spent" on hospitals.

Edited to add, it is a bit like arguing that you should not borrow money for an investment property because you have power bills to pay on the one you have now, and they are only going to get bigger.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Hagar



I wouldnt go quite that far :D
I just think that if they dont at least try to do it properly up front,
it wont happen.
Ie i live near where Burke, Toorak and Tooronga Rds meet the Sth Eastern clogterial.
When i bought my house, the road was a 2 lane arterial with traffic lights.
For political expediency, when Kennett wanted to flog it off to private industry, he put bridges over the arterial to sweeten the deal,
but wouldnt stump up enough to go over the rail at the same time.
I guess there was no immediate return on capital.:shrug:
Now, like a lot of other rail crossings, it is a nightmare that will cost 10x more to fix than it would have to have done it properly.

Andrew

As for organ transplants, i thought that the problem there was donors.
Its only if you are half dying that getting into a hospital is a problem.

[blink138]

you must consider the wait for porn download "foreplay" do you hagar ha ha!
you are just as myopic as our new government and i, nor anybody else i know voted on this one issue so a tantrum on a public forum is not called for in my opinion
pat

[The_bluester]

And I am gonig to officially bow out of the discussion.

This is not so much a debate as to the merits of competing models or even need for an overhaul of national infrastructure. It has gone the way of most NBN discussion I have seen, which is a debate mostly on ideological grounds that has over the years largely been informed by the opposition of the then opposition. You can bet your bum that if they had still seen it as an election issue they would have found a way to roll over on it while saving face just like school funding and disability care.

From here, all I can say is that I will consider myself lucky to have garnered a badly needed upgrade in infrastructure in my own instance (Pending a good radio signal survey on Thursday) which will make a whole lot of things that we do easier and more productive, and that piracy and porn do not feature at all prominently in our digital lives. I just hope that when they almost inevitably break the NBN pricing model I can afford to maintain the connection. The people who may or may not receive anything or may wait further years I have pity for, but there is not much I can do about that from here. The votes were cast and we will now get whatever it is that the government decide.

[Peter Ward]

You learn in Philosophy 101, that in seeking to determine whether a statement is true, simply find an exception to the statement.

According to the Huffington Post (and many other sources):

25 percent of all search engine requests are for porn
35 percent of all Internet downloads are pornographic

...you have your head in the sand if you think of porn as not being a part of the digital lives of *many* :rolleyes:

[avandonk]

I want to see pron in all its 4k splendour. None of this 720i low level stuff.

I reckon that most of the people flying around the world are just out to have fun! We should make sure all the planes are back to the 110 knots cruise of the DC3. This will stop or at least slow down all the decadence!

I can still remember when only 'nice' people could afford a car and chauffer!

If what people want is the pap on free to air commercial television I will not make any further comments about content for others.

Bert

[Kunama]

I don't often agree with Hagar, but I do today ! 8 pages of this banter back and forth is not going to change Tony's mind on this one.

It might be time to look for some clear skies.

Bert, I think we might be getting too old for "4k splendour"

[avandonk]

I just got new glasses and I want to test them to the limit! My father warned me about going blind.

Bert

[Kunama]

You might need some "anti-fog spray" !

[The_bluester]

I know I was bowing out but the last couple of posts have been entertaining enough to come back in for a moment.

Porn downloads don't feature as a reason for me wanting better than 2.5/0.5 mbit/sec but I'd don't speak for all! But the argument that it is all people want extra speed for is just so silly that it has to be ridiculed! The even sillier thing is that people actually do believe it!


Porn at 4K, what a scary thought!

[tlgerdes]

Displaying it isn't so much the problem, it is just that most of it isn't recorded in that format.

As for flying around the world, it is a hoot! Even when you don't get up the front of the plane. Couldn't stand it if it took 2 days to get to Singapore, then I would have to back the NBN :lol:

[Hagar]

All this banter about my wording of porn. It could be interesting to see how many of you are sexual predators if we could get something like the iphone application Derrin Hinch had on 60 minutes last night. This sort of thing does matter.

As for The coalition policy. It's all crap easier to fill the holes in internet service with a decent satellite or 3/4G service. Put the whole dam thing in the private sector and watch the price go up but the service improve. It's called competition and whats more it works.
User pays. Download your porn and pay dearly for it.

I don't want either of the 2 networks.

[avandonk]

Build it and they will come!

Bert

[avandonk]

Hagar my HFC internet is fast enough to watch doco's at full HD on utube in real time. There are many more sites that offer video at this high quality such as Vimeo. It is not about pron. It is not about me or you.

It is about future uses we have not even invented yet because the bandwidth is inadequate for most Australians especially out in the bush.

The simple law of Physics is that one optical fibre can theoretically transmit a million times more data than ALL the radio frequencies. The current real world number is only about 300,000 times this bandwidth. This limit is only governed by the devices on the ends of the optical fibres. These can obviously be easily upgraded. All the talk of 3G and 4G being adequate is just absolute rubbish.

Yes 3G and 4G will work if you have a tower on each and every street corner all connected by optical fibre. Yes your mobile voice/data is mainly carried by fibre. Not 'wireless'!

Bert

[Peter.M]

But people would have you believe that were better not going with the NBN because we cant miss what we never had. Sound argument, we should have never built cars, because you wouldn't miss them if they never existed.

[Peter Ward]

Humm.... I like that line of reasoning !

(curse you Walter Raleigh! )

[Peter.M]

Very clever.

[The_bluester]

Not just your wording Hagar. I am not kidding when I say that a former comms minister made that statement, it was around the time of the introduction of ADSL when uptake was poor due to ridiculous prices but people were making noise about actually wanting it. Thanks in good part to out policy settings of competition and letting the market decide. I would argue your point that competition is the cure for all our ills. 20 years of it has left us with high prices and piss poor connectivity everywhere except where the "competition" has cherry picked a big profit area and lovely anti competitive tricks from the incumbent. Competition policy for anything but mobiles has been a bit fat failure in Aus and the big T still makes the great majority of ally he profit in the industry.

And if you would like to get all sorts of reasonable people's noses out of joint, intimating that we might be sexual predators because we actually want a broadband connection that works quickly and reliably is a pretty good way to do it.

Whichever network gets built, no one will be forcing you to have a connection to it. If you don't want it, vote with your feet.

[Hagar]

Whichever network gets built, no one will be forcing you to have a connection to it. No, but I will still be expected to pay for it with my taxes If you don't want it, vote with your feet. What run like hell, just hide in the bush, maybe you mean kick a pollies backside. which one?

:eyepop:

By the way I just fully re read these post and found this glimmer of rubbish.

I felt strongly enough that Australia needed a reset of telecommunications policy and infrastructure and that the NBN model was the best on offer that I changed from a pretty secure job with a telco to a less secure one in a company doing significant work for NBNco to get amongst it. I know more than probably 95% of people in Australia do about the project.

Nothing to do with a better salary or being closer to home or anything like that. You are doing this out of the goodness of your heart. BS
We should maybe vote you in as a polly, as it seems you care more than the rest of them do.

[iceman]

Well the 500 mentions of pron in this thread will be sure to block it from government and school website filters.

While it's been mostly civil, it goes to show why discussing politics is at least frowned upon and discouraged. It only takes one person to come in and stir up the nest and you end up with the same few people bantering back and forth.

It's been fun while it lasted but I think it's time to move on from this thread.