Poor Get Poorest NBN Service

Various/The Conversation, CC BY-ND

In "Three charts on: the NBN and Australia’s digital divide" (The Conversation, June 21, 2017), Schram, Baum, Fisher, Harris, Friel and Frereman show that socio-economic disadvantaged areas of Australia have been missing out on the faster fiber National Broadband Network (NBN). These areas get the slower wireless, hybrid fibre or satellite service. Even when location was taken into account (as wireless and satellite are primarily intended for low population densities) the same effect was found. However, why this may be the case: due to deliberate discrimination by NBN Co., an effect of the technology, or the way the existing infrastructure was built, the authors do not mention. Perhaps this will be in the peer reviewed publications of the research to come.

This is not quite the broadband for social good which  Roger Clarke and I envisioned in 1994.

NBN Pork-barreling Worked

Research by Alizadeh and Farid (2017) found that pork-barreling by Australian politicians over the National Broadband Network (NBN) worked. Voters who received early access to high speed broadband rewarded the party which provided this with their votes:

    "An analysis of the voting behaviour in the 2007 and the 2010 Federal elections shows a pattern in which the ALP held seats were the key beneficiaries of the early NBN rollout. Moreover, the results suggests that the Coalition held safe seats were the least likely to receive the infrastructure. Diverse sub-patterns across the three states of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria have been discussed in details. However, the overall findings remain that the selection process for the early NBN rollout was skewed up for potential political gains.

    The paper then moves to the second question on whether the targeted infrastructure provision worked and swung votes for the ALP in the following 2013 Federal election. The analysis of the voting in the NBN early rollout areas versus the rest of the country shows a clear difference. While the ALP experienced an overall heavy negative swing across the nation and lost the election, the negative shift was highly mitigated in the NBN early release sites."

    From Alizadeh and Farid, 2017.

I suggest the lesson from this is: when proposing tech policy, find some aspect which offers short term political gain. Making appeals to the national interest and long term benefit is of little relevance to politicians aiming to win the next election. So how do we make changes we think need to be made to Internet policy appealing to voters in the short term and so therefore appealing to politicians?

Reference

Alizadeh, T., & Farid, R. (2017). Political economy of telecommunication infrastructure: An investigation of the National Broadband Network early rollout and pork barrel politics in Australia. Telecommunications Policy, 41(4), 242-252. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2017.02.002

Time to Virtualise the NBN?

Sorensen and  Medina in "The End of Australia’s National Broadband Network?" (June 2016) deliver what some describe as a scathing assessment of the NBN. The Coalition Government first set out to build a copper broadband network for cities and terrestrial wireless for regional areas in 2007. Then a new ALP government canceled the contracts for the copper broadband, and also abandoned its own hybrid policy (2007), instead switching to FTTP fibre for cities. A later Coalition government then adopted the ALP's previous FTTN hybrid policy, scaling back the FTTP. This is hardly the first case in which a project is in difficulties due to political indecision.

The parts of the NBN which the politicians did not tinker with have gone well: the wireless for regional areas and satellites for remote. In my view the debate over FTTN v FTTP for homes in the city is of less importance, due to mobile broadband. It may not be worth installing fibre or copper for broadband to homes, as it is not homes where the consumer now wants the broadband, but on the mobile device in their hand.

References:

Coalition: Australia Connected: Fast affordable broadband for all Australians, Helen Coonan, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Media Release 80/07, 18 June 2007: https://web.archive.org/web/20070621082132/http://www.minister.dcita.gov.au/media/media_releases/australia_connected_fast_affordable_broadband_for_all_australians

ALP: New Directions for Communications - A Broadband Future for Australia – Building a National Broadband Network, March 2007: https://web.archive.org/web/20070606203548/http://www.alp.org.au/download/now/a_broadband_future_for_australia.pdf

Sorensen,  Lucia Gamboa &   Medina, Andrew. The End of Australia’s National Broadband Network?, Tech Policy Institute, June 2016. https://techpolicyinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Sorensen_Medina_TheEndofAustraliasNationalBroadbandNetwork.pdf

FTTN in Canberra

Alexandra Back at the Canberra Times newspaper asked me about the VDSL2 upgrade iiNet is offering in Canberra. This is an upgrade to the more than decade old Transact Fiber to the Node (FTTN) system, with faster modems. It is similar to the FTTN system proposed for the NBN by the current government, but the Canberra system is superior as the copper cable used was laid especially for FTTN and is not old telephone cable.

 "ANU adjunct lecturer Tom Worthington says the Canberra system has the advantage because there is new cable installed to homes, whereas for the NBN the plan is to re-use old phone cables". From  "iiNet offering VDSL2 in Canberra to compete with NBN", by Alexandra Back, Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times, December 29, 2015

Digital Inclusion at the National Library in Canberra This Friday

Helen Milner OBE, CEO of the Tinder Foundation will be speaking at the Canberra Digital Inclusion Manifesto Workshop, 10:30am, 30 October 2015 at the National Library of Australia. This will be followed by a public lecture by Helen on "Leaving no one behind: Can Australia be truly a digital nation? Stories from the UK", at 1pm.

"In Australia, there are 3.7 million people who have never used the internet. On top of this, many Australians who do have internet access, are not confident enough to do the basics. To become a truly leading, inclusive and global digital nation we need everyone to become confident internet users by 2020."

I suggest an aspect of digital literacy which needs to be addressed in Australia is the data use of on-line applications. This particularly impacts remote users of the NBN Interim Satellite Service, with the so called "Data Drought". Users find their small data allocation is soon used up on day to activities, so that their children then can't access on-line education. This will remain a problem even with the new

ps: The Tinder Foundation is a UK not-for-profit organization helping with digital literacy and access for the community. Not to be confused with Tinder the dating App. ;-)

a not-for-profit social enterprise that makes good things happen with digital technology. Established in December 2011 as a staff-owned mutual, our 40-strong team supports a network of 5,000 local community partners and works with hundreds of national organisations. - See more at: http://www.tinderfoundation.org/about#sthash.6yNlAjnp.dpuf

a not-for-profit social enterprise that makes good things happen with digital technology. Established in December 2011 as a staff-owned mutual, our 40-strong team supports a network of 5,000 local community partners and works with hundreds of national organisations. - See more at: http://www.tinderfoundation.org/about#sthash.6yNlAjnp.dpuf

a not-for-profit social enterprise that makes good things happen with digital technology. Established in December 2011 as a staff-owned mutual, our 40-strong team supports a network of 5,000 local community partners and works with hundreds of national organisations. - See more at: http://www.tinderfoundation.org/about#sthash.6yNlAjnp.dpuf

First Digital Australian PM

I agree with Al Blake that "Australia's new PM 'gets IT'" (Online Opinion, 16 September 2015). On Monday night I was at an event on digital copyright at Parliament House. Mr. Turnbull was not there (he was busy getting elected nearby), but would have been at home in this forum.

The Digital Transformation Office (DTO) is an interesting experiment, but it is a bit early to see how it goes. My preference would have been for DTO to be in the Department of Finance which has more experience working with other departments on practical implementation of IT.

The current government's mixed-mode NBN is a clever political approach, as the mix of technologies used for delivery can be changed depending on how well they work, what they cost and what other priorities there are.

Al Blake's call for the ICT industry to rise to the challenge is timely. But to deliver a "connected, technologically literate and effective Australia" we need other industries involved, key to this being the education industry and the creative industries. Otherwise all the NBN will doing is acting as a virtual mega-container ship: importing overseas content and services, then sending ship-loads of cash overseas to pay for the imports.

Service industry jobs are now open to on-line competition from overseas, not only accountants and lawyers, but also university lecturers (and soon school teachers). The solution is not to lower a virtual trade barrier, but to skill up our workforce, so they can compete on-line.

Planning to Use Broadband in Australia

In "It’s time for politicians to get technical" (AFR, 3 January 2014), Paul Smith writes about how broadband might be used in Australia. Amongst many others,  I get quoted about the effect on regional employment:

 Tom Worthington, an adjunct senior lecturer at the Australian National University’s school of computer science, also believes the advent of high-speed internet may not prove to be the boon for regional Australian living that many imagine.

He says while better broadband will allow those in regional areas to access services online, this may also result in a loss of face-to-face services.

In other words, while you will be able to consult a doctor, accountant, lawyer or teacher online more easily, you may not be able to see one in person, as they will have moved to the city or to another country.

Australian Broadband Report

The Australian Department of Communications released a Broadband Availability and Quality: Summary Report, 23 December 2013. The report found 91% of Australian premises have access to xDSL and 28% other high speed broadband fixed connections. In this report "availability" is a synonym for geographic coverage of premises and "qualify" for broadband speed. The report did not look at the affordability of broadband, which should be a factor in availability, nor does it look at reliability or latency. The issue of latency is one for satellite links and some terrestrial wireless links, where the data takes a long time to transit the network making some real time applications unworkable.
The report found the major issue with access and quality were regional areas and some pockets in urban areas. One option I suggest which could be used to address this is are 4G wireless networks. Rather than build a completely separate fixed wireless network which was the policy of the previous government, I suggest supplementing the 4G networks of the mobile phone carriers.
Curiously the DOC version of the report at 1.4 Mbytes is about five times as large as the PDF version. This is due to one image of a tag cloud being stored in the wrong format. The image is a 1.2 Mbyte JPEG file, when converted to PNG format it reduces to 180 kbytes (with no loss of quality). As I pointed out previously, on its own broadband will do little to benefit Australia. What is also needed is training in how to make use of computers and telecommunications. In this case it appears that staff at the Department of Communications have not been trained in how to format documents correctly.

Availability

The total of this section exceeds 100 per cent because the majority of premises have access to multiple broadband technologies.

• Approximately 9.9 million premises (91 per cent) have access to fixed line broadband services delivered via xDSL technology.
• Approximately 3.1 million premises (28 per cent) have access to a high speed broadband platform (defined as including fibre-to-the-premises, fibre-to-the-node, hybrid fibre coaxial networks and fixed wireless networks).
• Approximately 8.8 million premises (81 per cent) have access to 3G mobile broadband services and about 6.4 million premises (59 per cent) have access to 4G services.
• All Australian premises are covered by satellite broadband, although there is a ceiling to the capacity of these services and therefore not all premises can access a service.

Quality

• Approximately 3.1 million premises (28 per cent) have access to peak download speeds of between 25 megabits per second (Mbps) and 110 Mbps.

• Approximately 7.1 million premises (65 per cent) are in areas that have access to peak median download speeds of less than 24 megabits per second over the copper network.

• About 0.7 million (6 per cent) premises are unable to get access to a fixed broadband service.

• Of premises with access to xDSL broadband services over copper, about 3.7 million are located in areas with an estimated peak median download speed of less than 9 Mbps, and 920,000 in areas with an estimated peak median download speed of less than 4.8 Mbps.

Wireless Broadband for the Community

The take-up rate for the NBN in Tasmania was reported to be 38.5% after three years. The previous government was not too worried about the NBN take-up rate, as the copper network was to be switched off, so consumers would not have much of a choice. Does anyone have statistics for the take-up rate for high speed broadband in other countries?

One option I suggest for Australian urban areas is to combine 4G wireless mobile services with wireless broadband. This could complement FTTN and FTTP. The existing mobile service has limited capacity, but could service moderate home use. The service could be exp[anded by installing picocells on the same fibre used for FTTN and FTTP. Roaming could be enabled to allow a subscriber to any mobile company to use these cells. Also a lower tariff, comparable to wired services, could be offered for those using the wireless service "at home".

Using mobile broadband would create a virtual NBN at low cost. Rather than have to build an extensive wired network and home there were customers, the existing mobile network could be used and then cells added as demand increases.

With advances in 4G the mobile broadband service could carry 4K TV. The advanced HEVC codec allows compression of a HD TV at 6 Mbps and 4k TV at 12 Mbps to 30 Mbps. This could be carried on a 4G LTE-A network, using the Multicast-broadcast single-frequency network (MBSFN) option.

However, many of the community services envisaged for home broadband do not need high speeds. Instead they need trained staff and well designed applications. As an example  home health care is mentioned as a use for the NBN. But a person's vital signs (body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate) would only need about 10 bps to transmit.  More sophisticated monitors require more bandwidth, bit still far short of broadband, such as such as electrocardiography at 4 kbps.

But the greatest benefit from home health monitoring is likely to come from checking on the patient's general level of activity and asking them how they are. Advice to doctors, commissioned by the Department of Health recommends a minimum of 640 x 480 Video, with a minimum throughput on the link of 384kbit/s should be available, which far less than high speed broadband.

On-line education is also an application often given for home broadband. But while students like rich multimedia, this does not necessarily improve learning. The report "Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies" from the US Department of Education found that video does not improve online learning.

There can be considerable public benefit from broadband without running it to each home. Community centres provide not only a way to consolidate technical services, but also provide experts in health and education. Australia now has free Internet access in public libraries, which is an underrated achievement.

Internet in libraries builds on the library's traditional role providing access to information and literacy. Universities and TAFEs are turning their libraries into learning centres, with computers in place of books. They are keeping the staff to help the students, not only work the computers but with finding, using and creating information. The Gungahlin Town Centre Library in Canberra is a good example, where the one building accommodates the public library, a school library, a TAFE campus and broadband connected community rooms. This could be extended to provide support for university students as well.

Wireless Broadband for Regional Australia

Gabrielle Chan reports in "NBN trounced by regional offering from locals with an eye for enterprise" (The Guardian, 16 December 2013), about wireless broadband being offered in the town of Harden in New South Wales.

South Western Wireless Communications is offering broadband from $19.95 a month. But the customer has to purchase the Customer-premises equipment (CPE) and it is not clear what frequencies (licensed or unlicensed) are being used.

I get a mention in the article with my likening the of ALP and Coalition broadband proposals as being like the choice between a Lexus and a 10-year-old Camry and suggesting what younger customers want is wireless broadband.

The distinction between fixed wireless and mobile broadband is now largely one of business model, rather than technology. Ericsson were contracted by NBN Co. to provide a 4G / LTE TDD for fixed wireless rural broadband. The base stations and protocols used are essentially the same as for mobile broadband. The difference is that the customer receives the service via an antenna fixed to their home or business, rather than via a mobile device.

Both ALP and Collation broadband proposals have aimed at fixed location home and small business users. Also these have assumed a high density of new users served by new fibre into each home or terminated at new equipment cabinets in each street connecting the last few hundred metres of copper cable.

The major cost with FTTP is running the cable from street to the home, with FTTN, is installing new optical cabinets  in the street and reconnecting all the copper cables to it. However, an alternative would be to install the optical fibre in the street and then only connecting customers as they require a service. For FTTN, this would require rugged miniature waterproof optical modems, which could be installed in existing pits and cabinets. When a customer ordered a service, the technician would open the pit in the street outside the house and place an optical modem in it. This would be plugged into a fibre cable and power. Copper cable can be used for up to 1 GBPS, but limited to a distance of about 100 m. So each modem need only be designed to provide service to about eight to sixteen homes.

If the customer wanted FTTH, this would require a cable to be run though the existing conduit, or more likely, a new trench and conduit laid, at the householder's expense.

FttN+P Implementation for Australia

In "The Lexus and the Broadband Network" I likened the choice between the ALP's  FttP National Broadband Network (NBN) and  FttN Coalition Broadband Policy to be like the choice between a new Lexus and a ten year old Toyota Camry car, with the kids wanting a scooter (wireless broadband). The Coalition won the election and so the Fibre to the Node (FttN) option is the one which is to be implemented, but will have elements of the ALP's NBN Fibre to the Premises (FttP, sometimes called Fibre to the Home FttH) in it. The current fiber which has been installed will not be removed. So perhaps the new approach might be termed FttN+P.

An on-line petition proposes "The Liberal Party of Australia: Reconsider your plan for a 'FTTN' NBN in favour of a superior 'FTTH' NBN". To ask a government, which just won an election, to reverse part of its platform is at best a waste of time and may be counter-productive, reducing the chances of getting FttP.

Even if the government thought FttP a good idea, they couldn't be seen to be admitting their previous policy was wrong. Pressure via a petition for FttP would have the effect of requiring the government to defence its policy and thus limit its ability to provide FttP (even where the Government thought it a good idea).

A better strategy would be suggest the FttN policy be "enhanced", without admitting this is a reversal. Some new term, such as FttN+P could be invented, indicating Fibre to the Node, plus Premises (in some locations). The exact meaning of this would be kept vague, so it could cover both roll-out of just fiber in new green-fields sites and the option of fibre in some FttN installations.

Benefits of Hight-Speed Broadband for Australia

The report "Benefits of Hight-Speed Broadband for Australian Households" (dated 30 July 2013) by Deloitte Access Economics estimates the benefits of high-speed broadband to the average Australian household be $3,800 per year by 2020. This would apply to the ALP's  National Broadband Network (NBN) Fiber-optic network or the hybrid fiber/copper Coalition Broadband Policy.

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, released the report during the federal election campaign. It is unusual for a government department to release a report on such a politically sensitive topic during the "caretaker" period of government. However, the report does not favor the ALP or Coalition.

The report suffers from a number of deficiencies. It refers to "smart-phones", which the NBN is not designed to support. The report claims that households will benefit from greater choice and competition from e-commerce and online services and greater employment opportunities through teleworking. However, it does not count the cost of greater online access to the Australian market of overseas companies and the off-shoring of Australian jobs made possible. Clearly there will be economic benefits from reduced travel costs and social benefits from better access to education online.

The report does not make clear how high-speed broadband, will provide benefits over lower speed broadband. I teach university classes via the Internet, but because my students could be anywhere in the world, on slow and unreliable Internet connections, I don't assume high-speed broadband. The students find this form of education very worthwhile. My course scored a perfect five out of five for student satisfaction last semester, beating most on-campus courses. Clearly if all my students had high-speed broadband I could use it, but it is not clear to me that this would greatly improve the student's education. As the consultants state in their report it is not a cost-benefit analysis, nor does it compare current broadband with high-speed broadband. The consultants have done a reasonable job within the brief they were given. However, it is questionable if the consultants should have accepted the brief and the report does not provide useful information on which to base decisions.

Benefit	Amount
COMMUNICATIONS > SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT & SOCIAL MEDIA	$74
E-COMMERCE > TRAVEL SAVINGS, CHOICE	$565
ONLINE SERVICES > ENTERTAINMENT	$269
TRAVEL SAVINGS > E-HEALTH, E-EDUCATION, E-GOVT	$217
EMPLOYMENT > TELEWORK, TRAVEL	$634
PRODUCTIVITY > LOWER PRICES, BETTER QUALITY	$1,930
TOTAL	~$3,800

Figure i: Benefits of broadband for households — a national framework

From: "Benefits of Hight-Speed Broadband for Australian Households", Deloitte Access Economics for DBCDE,  30 July 2013

Contents

Contents 3

Tables 4

Figures 4

Executive Summary 5

CHAPTER 01
INTRODUCTION 7

1.1 Outline of this report 7

1.2 High-speed broadband in 2020 8

CHAPTER 02
BENEFITS OF HIGH-SPEED BROADBAND 9

2.1 A national framework 9

2.2 Transition to the 2020 digital economy 14

2.3 Technology differences 15

2.4 Costs of participation in the digital economy 16

2.5 Social impacts 17

2.6 Environmental impacts 18

CHAPTER 03
BENEFITS OF BROADBAND FOR AUSTRALIAN HOUSEHOLDS 19

3.1 Older age household — single person over 75: 21

3.2 Young student aged less than 25: 23

3.3 Single professional in well-paid employment — aged 25+: 25

3.4 Couple, double income with no kids: 27

3.5 Couple household, one income, two kids: 29

3.6 Unemployed, aged 21: 30

3.7 Couple household (empty nesters), aged 65+: 33

3.8 Household of two — carer/disability: 34

3.9 Single parent household with BABY: 36

3.10 Household with a single person: 38

CONCLUSIONS 41

Appendix A References 42

Appendix B Regional data 46

Appendix C The value of leisure time 48

Limitation of our work 48

Broadband Choices for Australia

My "The Lexus and the Broadband Network" analogy was picked up by Australian Science Media Centre and is quoted in "Rural areas to lose in Coalition internet plan, says expert" (Toowoomba Chronicle, 4th September 2013). Expecting more queries from the media on this, I thought I had better summarize the main points of the options offered by the parties. The ALP's  National Broadband Network (NBN), is well known, the Coalition Broadband Policy less well.

Both parties propose a model where different retailers can market essentially the same wholesale product. Cable will be used in the city (fibre for ALP and hybrid for Coalition), fixed wireless in rural areas and satellite in remote areas. The NBN is planned to be completed by 2020 at a cost of  $44B, Coalition by 2019 at $30 billion.

The ALP offers 1 Gbps, Coalition 50 Mbps, on twentieth the speed. But this is only on the cabled networks, the wireless networks will be 25 Mbps (realistically 12 Mbps) and satellite 12 Mbps (realistically 1 Mbps). The NBN fiber system has potential for faster speeds, the hybrid network less so.

Charges for the NBN are around $50 to $100 per month. The NBN wholesale access prices start at $24 a month for 12 Mbps. For the Coalition alternative they are likely to be similar. This has little to do with the cost of the network or technology, but more to do with competition.

Both the party's policies assume one network where the only competition is between retailers offering essentially the same product. But in reality these retailers will be competing with the mobile phone companies selling wireless broadband, currently "4G", at up to 100 Mbps (more realistically 1 Mbps).

ps: I wonder what my former tutors at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba make of this.

The Lexus and the Broadband Network

Political commentators in Australia are struggling to explain the difference between ALP and Collation broadband proposals to the voters in nontechnical language. The ALP proposes continued roll-out of Fiber To The Premises (FTTP) for the National Broadband Network (NBN), whereas the Collation wants to use mostly Fiber To The Node (FTTN). My suggested analogy is: Should you buy a new car or fix up the old one, or "The Lexus and the Broadband Network".

The Lexus and the Broadband Network

The ALP FTTP proposal is like the car salesman offering you a new Lexus: sure it is expensive but it will be fast and reliable and last a long time. The Collation's custom auto centre says your ten year old Toyota Camry (copper cable) is mechanically sound, it just needs some new parts (FTTN) and will be much cheaper. Your kids say they don't want an uncool Lexus, or an old Camry, they want a cool Italian Scooter (Wireless Internet). You tell them they will grow out of the scooter in a few years and then want a real car, to which they reply "Whatever". ;-)

ps: In my view, if the government, whoever they are, want to save money, they could prioritize fibre roll-out in greenfield sites and areas with no, or poor broadband.

We have had TFFN in Canberra for just over a decade, with the Transact system. If you have power poles handy, and the citizens don't mind more overhead wires, it is a cost effective system. Also it works okay in new buildings. My apartment building has a fibre optic node in the basement and twisted pair copper to each unit. But if you are going to the trouble of putting new cables underground, then they might as well be fiber-optic, as most of the cost is in digging the trenches.

The areas with copper phone and Pay TV cable could be left for last, where it is working okay. This would be a slight change to the current government's NBN FTTP to achieve cost savings proposed by the opposition. Installing new FTTN should only be done on a limited scale, where the copper cable is new enough to be kept, but so far from the exchange that higher broadband speeds are not possible. The FTTN should be done so it can be upgraded to FTTP later.

NBN Household Assistance Scheme

Some devices which rely on an analog phone line, such as medical pendants and security alarms, may not work with the NBN. Previously the Australian Government provided financial assistance to aged pensioners and people with disabilities to have their TVs converted to digital. I suggest the Household Assistance Scheme (HAS). scheme be extended to the NBN. Under the NBN Household Assistance Scheme, those on an Age, Disability or Service pension would have the cost of connecting thier medical pendants and security alarms to the NBN paid for. This would include any additional or replacement equipment and installation.

GovCamp 2013

Greetings from the GovCamp and GovHack organizers meeting. We are in one of the community meeting rooms at the Gungahlin Library, just behind the Canberra NBN Hub.

Optical Network Architectures

Greetings from the 8th International Conference on Computer Science and Education (ICCSE 2013) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where Professor Wen-De Zhong is speaking on "Optical Network Architectures". This is a hot topic in Australia, with the national political discussion of the merit of the ALP's National Broadband Network fiber to the home and the rival hybrid fibre to the node from the Liberal Party. The professor pointed out that FTTH was increasing at 25% annually in Asia Pacific, which leads the world in implementation of the technology. He discussed BPON, EPON, and GPON. Hybrid optical/copper systems were not discussed.

Coalition’s Proposed Alternative to the NBN

The Australian opposition have released "Fast. Affordable. Sooner. The Coalition’s Plan for a better NBN". This proposes halting the roll-out of the NBN Fibre to the Home in Australia and using Fibre to the Node instead. We have had TFFN in Canberra for just over a decade, with the Transact system. If you have power poles handy, and the citizens don't mind more overhead wires, it is a cost effective system. Also it works okay in new buildings. My apartment building has a fibre optic node in the basement and twisted pair copper to each unit. But if you are going to the trouble of putting new cables underground, then they might as well be fiber-optic, as most of the cost is in digging the trenches.

If the government, whoever they are, want to save money, they could prioritize fibre roll-out in greenfield sites and areas with no, or poor broadband. The areas with copper phone and Pay TV cable could be left for last, where it is working okay. This would be a slight change to the current government's NBN FTTH to achieve cost savings proposed by the opposition.

NBN Digital Hub Gungahlin

Greetings from the NBN Digital Hub Gungahlin, at the ACT Public Library in Gungahlin (just across the corridor from the CIT Learning Centre Gungahlin). There are series of community rooms equipped with high speed wired and wireless broadband. There are also some large flat screen displays on wheels, with Apple computers attached and wireless keyboard for presentations. There are white-board walls. The furniture includes individual chairs equipped with desks. Also there is some colorful plastic children's furniture. The overall look is of a high-tech primary school classroom. I am taking part in a meeting for GovCamp 2013.

NBN Providing Wireless for Regional Areas

In "What reporting of the Brunswick NBN survey didn’t tell you" (Commsday, 5 March 2013), Geoff Long looks at a study of early NBN first-release sites carried out by Melbourne and Swinburne Universities (Broadbanding Brunswick: High-speed Broadband and Household Media Ecologies: A Report on Household Take-up and Adoption of the National Broadband Network in a First Release Site, Dr Bjorn Nansen, Dr Michael Arnold, Dr Rowan Wilken, Dr Martin Gibbs, Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, 2013). While the researchers study concentrated on take-up of the NBN Long suggests there should be more research on why 20% of households have no Internet access at all, which is a good question. However, it was not clear to me from the study report if households where residents had one or more  smart phones or tablet computers with broadband wireless built in where counted as connected. If not, then the number of connected households would be greatly under-reported. The popularity of wireless devices might make the concept of "household" connection largely irrelevant, much as mobile phones has lessened the need for a home fixed telephone lines. Previously the number of telephone lines per 1,000 population was used as a measure of the communications access of a country, but this is now largely irrelivant.

 Long also suggests that the study shows that there is no urgency for urban areas to upgrade to fibre. This seems a reasonable conclusion: in urban areas which have good access to Internet via ADSL or cable, this is not a compelling case for fibre. In fact the latest take-up rates for NBN nationally show that of the 34,500 subscribers, 70% are via satellite or terrestrial wireless in regional and remoe areas, with fibre in urban areas being the minority. Also the issue of take-up in the city is not really an issue as the NBN will have an effective fixed line monopoly: the plan is to eventually remove the copper cable, so that if you want a fixed line it will have to be NBN fibre.