Terribly frustrating to have a government that is as terribad as this but doing something as good as the NBN. The coalition really do need to support the NBN instead of being against it “just cos” or spruiking ridiculous notions that wireless is just as good as fiber/fibre everywhere.

The NBN is this generations POTS rollout, it makes me wonder if they were rolling out the phone system these days if the coalition would be against that and insist that people would be able to make do with telegrams.

Dilandach said :

Terribly frustrating to have a government that is as terribad as this but doing something as good as the NBN.

Cognitive dissonance much?

Anyway JB, the map is “within 3 years”, and that pdf says work will commence between April this year and 2015. Looks to me like it will definitely be starting soon.

I’m pretty naive, but it’s a pity they don’t just buy TransACT which is already in place for almost everyone? Or they could at least ‘rent’ some of it’s bandwidth for a couple of years while they got their cables put in place.
Instead, it just sits there basically doing nothing……

Dilandach said :

The coalition really do need to support the NBN instead of being against it “just cos” or spruiking ridiculous notions that wireless is just as good as fiber/fibre everywhere.

I don’t remember the Libs claiming wireless was ‘just as good as fibre’. Far as I can tell their position was about balancing fibre and wireless, and that we don’t need the expense of fibre rolled out to every home. I tend to agree given the rate at which people have dumped fixed line services in favor of wireless technology, and the relatively low NBN uptake in the first areas connected.

That being said I am looking forward to having fibre at my doorstep, however living in an area with underground services I highly doubt it will reach me by 2014.

aidan said :

Dilandach said :

Terribly frustrating to have a government that is as terribad as this but doing something as good as the NBN.

Cognitive dissonance much?

Both sides are overall bad, but you’ve gotta choose one.

aidan said :

Anyway JB, the map is “within 3 years”, and that pdf says work will commence between April this year and 2015. Looks to me like it will definitely be starting soon.

Pretty sure they stuff marked for “within 1 year” and “within 2 years” will be going first.

As to the network, as a monolithic government owned infrastructure for communication it’s pretty much at odds with everything the internet is supposed to be.

Because it’s not like we don’t have:

– a goddawful history of censorship in this country, or

– plans to regulate even the smallest of blogs, or

– a recent example of media restrictions being used to allow the Government to crush resistance to its policies oppressing some of the most vulnerable people in the world, or

– plans to filter the internet based on secret lists of banned content.

So yeah, government owned internet provision for Australia. We can’t say it’s not part of the same old story, but it’s not as much of a forward step as you’d hope.

Does anyone know what will happen with Casey? It does not seem to fall within any of the shaded/planned areas. I’m aware that Ford and Bonner have Transact fibre, which might be why they’re also not in any of the plans, but Casey does not have Transact Fibre. Will I be stuck with Telstra copper for the next 10 years?

dpm said :

I’m pretty naive, but it’s a pity they don’t just buy TransACT which is already in place for almost everyone? Or they could at least ‘rent’ some of it’s bandwidth for a couple of years while they got their cables put in place.
Instead, it just sits there basically doing nothing……

Last I heard was iinet snapping up transact and its network.

dpm – iiNet just bought TransACT. Also, I’m not sure the fibre being rolled out for NBN is the same as the TransACT cabling in place already.

Also, even though there are only 7 primary suburb listings, they seem to encompass ALL surrounding suburbs too. The interactive map has Wanniassa listed for March 2014.

we will commence work in your area from Mar 2014 in phases with last work scheduled to commence in Dec 2014*

“It appears outside of Gungahlin and Mitchell we’re all going to be waiting until 2014.”

Sorry JB it’s 2015+ if you add in the 12 month completion times

johnboy said :

So yeah, government owned internet provision for Australia. We can’t say it’s not part of the same old story, but it’s not as much of a forward step as you’d hope.

I don’t have a fear of a big brother operation running on the NBN infrastructure (not much more than already exists in major ISPs and content providers) but I don’t like the proposed censorship list or any ability for government to cut off or restrict access. Their responsibility should end with the deployment of infrastructure.

It is the impossible choice, take the NBN, have a world class network and the risk that censorship is just around the corner. Don’t take the NBN and assume that censorship isn’t on the table but suffer from falling behind in the tech stakes.

At the moment it will take legislation to implement filtering. Once the government owns the network it can happen with a nod and a wink.

johnboy said :

At the moment it will take legislation to implement filtering. Once the government owns the network it can happen with a nod and a wink.

The Government will not be pushing data to end users. NBN is not a service provider. Unless the Government decides to implement a system that works the same as the Chinese one does, it’ll take a lot more than a nod and a wink to filter traffic to end users – it’s the ISPs who need to implement filtering mechanisms. Not the NBN.

Jungle Jim said :

dpm – iiNet just bought TransACT.

Yep, I was aware of that. I suppose my question is: why did iiNet buy it, if in ~3 years there will be a full NBN cable rollout? What will it then be used for? I suppose the same as now – zip?

Just watch for the terms and conditions of connecting to the NBN.

ownership is control, and the history of censorship in this country does us no credit.

thatsnotme said :

johnboy said :

At the moment it will take legislation to implement filtering. Once the government owns the network it can happen with a nod and a wink.

The Government will not be pushing data to end users. NBN is not a service provider. Unless the Government decides to implement a system that works the same as the Chinese one does, it’ll take a lot more than a nod and a wink to filter traffic to end users – it’s the ISPs who need to implement filtering mechanisms. Not the NBN.

Saying NBN doesn’t control the tap isn’t much good when NBN controls the pipe to the dam.

Dilandach said :

Terribly frustrating to have a government that is as terribad as this but doing something as good as the NBN. The coalition really do need to support the NBN instead of being against it “just cos” or spruiking ridiculous notions that wireless is just as good as fiber/fibre everywhere.

The NBN is this generations POTS rollout, it makes me wonder if they were rolling out the phone system these days if the coalition would be against that and insist that people would be able to make do with telegrams.

This isn’t similar in the slightest, you have high speed internet access available RIGHT NOW, and have had so for YEARS. The NBN is a guaranteed internet infrastructure for all houses, it isn’t a dramatic increase in speed. The worst part? It won’t be completely operational until years from now, it costs 43+ billion dollars, and we now have asbestos-like glass fibers under every single property in Australia that will cause the future generation a massive headache. But hey, at least you don’t have to rely on telegrams champ.

c_c said :

thatsnotme said :

johnboy said :

At the moment it will take legislation to implement filtering. Once the government owns the network it can happen with a nod and a wink.

The Government will not be pushing data to end users. NBN is not a service provider. Unless the Government decides to implement a system that works the same as the Chinese one does, it’ll take a lot more than a nod and a wink to filter traffic to end users – it’s the ISPs who need to implement filtering mechanisms. Not the NBN.

Saying NBN doesn’t control the tap isn’t much good when NBN controls the pipe to the dam.

Look, I’m not saying that I’m not worried about what the Government may or may not do when it comes to internet filtering etc, but to suggest that the NBN suddenly gives them a back door to slip in whatever nefarious reforms they like is just laughable. The NBN is controlled by legislation, and it would take a change in that legislation to implement something like mandatory internet filtering. It would still require the ISPs to implement the filtering – it’s not like we’ve got this one huge pipe that sucks down all of our off-shore data, giving the Government a practical gate they can whack a bloody great filter on. Add to that the fact that the overseas links are not Government owned.

Again, I don’t trust the Government when it comes to censoring the internet, but I also don’t believe having the NBN in place makes it any easier to implement their plans.

thatsnotme said :

c_c said :

thatsnotme said :

johnboy said :

At the moment it will take legislation to implement filtering. Once the government owns the network it can happen with a nod and a wink.

The Government will not be pushing data to end users. NBN is not a service provider. Unless the Government decides to implement a system that works the same as the Chinese one does, it’ll take a lot more than a nod and a wink to filter traffic to end users – it’s the ISPs who need to implement filtering mechanisms. Not the NBN.

Saying NBN doesn’t control the tap isn’t much good when NBN controls the pipe to the dam.

Look, I’m not saying that I’m not worried about what the Government may or may not do when it comes to internet filtering etc, but to suggest that the NBN suddenly gives them a back door to slip in whatever nefarious reforms they like is just laughable. The NBN is controlled by legislation, and it would take a change in that legislation to implement something like mandatory internet filtering. It would still require the ISPs to implement the filtering – it’s not like we’ve got this one huge pipe that sucks down all of our off-shore data, giving the Government a practical gate they can whack a bloody great filter on. Add to that the fact that the overseas links are not Government owned.

Again, I don’t trust the Government when it comes to censoring the internet, but I also don’t believe having the NBN in place makes it any easier to implement their plans.

Have to check that legislation carefully, there is such a thing as delegated legislation, which may vest the necessary power in the Minister or ACMA without the need to change the Act.

johnboy said :

Just watch for the terms and conditions of connecting to the NBN.

ownership is control, and the history of censorship in this country does us no credit.

johnboy said :

At the moment it will take legislation to implement filtering. Once the government owns the network it can happen with a nod and a wink.

The NBN infrastructure itself doesn’t give the federal government any more or less ability to implement internet filtering. They will still need to legislate to force ISPs to operate internet filters.

fragge said :

Dilandach said :

Terribly frustrating to have a government that is as terribad as this but doing something as good as the NBN. The coalition really do need to support the NBN instead of being against it “just cos” or spruiking ridiculous notions that wireless is just as good as fiber/fibre everywhere.

The NBN is this generations POTS rollout, it makes me wonder if they were rolling out the phone system these days if the coalition would be against that and insist that people would be able to make do with telegrams.

This isn’t similar in the slightest, you have high speed internet access available RIGHT NOW

Not everywhere and no where near the speed that is required for future generations. The limit of what can be pushed through the copper lines has been reached. Its not future proof by a long shot. It would be exactly the same as saying a 9600bps connection from the early 90s is going to be enough for the 2000s and beyond. What you may think is highspeed right now is medium to low speed when looking at the rest of the world and where technology is going.

fragge said :

The NBN is a guaranteed internet infrastructure for all houses, it isn’t a dramatic increase in speed.

It certainly is.

fragge said :

The worst part? It won’t be completely operational until years from now, it costs 43+ billion dollars, and we now have asbestos-like glass fibers under every single property in Australia that will cause the future generation a massive headache. But hey, at least you don’t have to rely on telegrams champ.

Perhaps you should really investigate what optic fiber is and how your association of it with asbestos is quite laughable. If it were even remotely true we’d have been seeing the effects of this fiber optics related asbestos for many years already.

As a person with underground services that Transact decided to skip because it was going to cost them too much, I’m glad the NBN is being built. Although I do fear that It may take a lot longer to do the underground serviced houses…. I’m sick of my ADSL1 service. My only saving grace is i’m at least close to an exchange.

According to the new roll out maps on the NBN website…. the very northern end (new section) of Watson is now included in the work due to commence in the next 12 months (Pink shaded area)!

Anyone know any more about this?
I’ve emailed NBN… to confirm.

I always suspected Canberra wouldn’t be getting NBN across the city until the last stages of the rollout… Labor can’t afford lots of bad media about this – so can you imagine the news stories – saying Pollies were looking after themselves here in Canberra, before ‘normal everyday Australians’ across the country!

But yes despite that phrase… many of us in the ACT are stuck behind old / bad technology and can’t even get ADSL2/2+ yet – and no sign of NBN either it seems

cool Monash is going to be connected soon. once that happens, the rest of the rollout can take forever!!

That’s END 2014 before they START work – there’s absolutely no firm commitment other than Gungers. By 2016, how up-to-date will the technology be?

They are rolling out to every one of the 6 independent’s electorates. Funny about that…

Read the fine print suckers! It’s all nonsense. “Work commenced” is just how they’re describing that they’ve done some basic design work and are ready to begin consultation and planning! And the map is useless – zoom in and the boundaries demarcating who will get NBN coverage conveniently (for Gillard & Conroy) disappears.

“These maps show the estimated likely coverage areas based on our rollout schedule, which may change following more detailed planning and design work.”

“Work commenced refers to the date that NBN Co has completed the Network Design Document for a locality and signals the beginning of our engagement with your local community and council that leads into the detailed design and field inspection work in your area. A rollout map showing the planned coverage area of the fibre or fixed wireless footprint in your community is issued within a month of work commencing.”

“* The boundary identifying areas where work is to commence within one and three years is indicative only. This boundary will disappear as you zoom into the map. “

I-filed said :

That’s END 2014 before they START work – there’s absolutely no firm commitment other than Gungers. By 2016, how up-to-date will the technology be?

As up to date as any other rollout started now.

And once you’ve got the fibre in the ground upgrading the routing is comparably easy (just like they’ve kept the speeds on the copper network going up and up.

the problem isn’t the engineering, it’s taking what’s supposed to be interconnected networks and having on great big one prone to a single point of failure.

johnboy said :

I-filed said :

That’s END 2014 before they START work – there’s absolutely no firm commitment other than Gungers. By 2016, how up-to-date will the technology be?

As up to date as any other rollout started now.

And once you’ve got the fibre in the ground upgrading the routing is comparably easy (just like they’ve kept the speeds on the copper network going up and up.

the problem isn’t the engineering, it’s taking what’s supposed to be interconnected networks and having on great big one prone to a single point of failure.

o.O

Okay, that one is interesting. What has routing got to do with speeds on a copper medium?

Also, how do you figure that there’ll be a single point of failure?

As for by 2016 how good will the tech be? I honestly suggest you look up how optic communications work. As a very simple explanation, you have bundles of glass or plastic tubes (yes those pretty little christmas decorations with the light coming from the end of the strands are optic fiber). Lasers or Diodes at one end and sensors at the other of each strand. The only limit is the speed of light itself with the limit of what fiber optics can do for data transfer rates not even begun to be reached yet. It’s been used for decades already. I did read somewhere that someone had achieved 100 Terabits/sec transfer. Technology changes? You don’t dig up the optics, you change what is on each end.

What have they been using for submarine cables between countries since the late 80s? Optic fiber. Its not a technology that is near end of life nor going to be replaced for the foreseeable future. Wireless no matter how good it gets is nowhere near as good as fiber for a variety of reasons. Copper is end of life, its reached the limit of what can be pushed over it. We’ve already pulled the rabbit out of the hat in regards to keeping copper for that little bit longer.

Seriously, it doesn’t take much to do just a little bit of research on NBN/FTTN(H) that doesn’t include what a luddite such as Alan Jones or some other cranky ass baby boomer craps on about that doesn’t have a clue. Speak to anyone in the industry, an honest to god IT engineer. No, not the guy at Harvey Norman that’ll give you a swell deal on a HP Printer or that guy down the road that’ll fix your windows 95 boot problem.

This isn’t something that is being done for the current generation or the next, its something to last.

dpm said :

I’m pretty naive, but it’s a pity they don’t just buy TransACT which is already in place for almost everyone?

TransACT isn’t in place for “almost everyone” and most of it’s subscribers are on networks nothing like the NBN. Their VDSL network is antiquated, except for the small percentage upgraded to VDSL2. The ADSL2+ network is no better than every other ISP in town. Their FTTH network IS just like the NBN – but only services a couple of Gungahlin suburbs.

dpm said :

why did iiNet buy it, if in ~3 years there will be a full NBN cable rollout?

Mostly (but not entirely) to get the subscribers. Scale is important with the NBN.

Read some Whirlpool about it.