[AusNOG] NBN Co CEO Quigley Speech 20100818

Darren Moss Darren.Moss at em3.com.au
Thu Aug 19 17:26:13 EST 2010


I agree, where is the business case?

Does every home actually need FTTH ??

At first I thought maybe Mr Abbott was way off the mark, but after thinking this through (mainly the cost) perhaps they have a valid point - for now.

I agree with fibre to business / DC / hospitals / schools / high concentration of users, but I think it's going to be overkill + a waste of money to fibre up for home use (yes I would like fibre in my home, but no I don't need it).

This notion of clinical treatment over webcams on the NBN is a load of rubbish.

$43B is very large sum, and that's only what we know now. What happens if it turns in another pink batts/BER/Solar panels exercise ???

Why not put the money into hospitals, aged and health care (face it, we are all going to need it at some stage) and focus on the services our community really needs.




Regards, 
 
 
Darren Moss
General Manager
Australia and New Zealand
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-----Original Message-----
From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Tim McCullagh
Sent: Thursday, 19 August 2010 5:08 PM
To: Andrew Oskam; Jason Ashton
Cc: Stephen Carter; Skeeve Stevens; ausnog at ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] NBN Co CEO Quigley Speech 20100818

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Oskam
To: Jason Ashton
Cc: Stephen Carter ; Skeeve Stevens ; ausnog at ausnog.net

>  But my question is -
> What would you have us do?

Build a business case and address areas of need.

>What do you have to offer that doesn't have Australia using a dying 
>copper network

I see this comment regularly and I just wonder how many people are in a positon to make that statement.  I would suggest not many.  In fact it probably comes down to less than 1000 australia wide that would have enough of an understanding of the network and the issues to make it, and I doubt to 
many of them would be on this list.   The copper network is not dying and 
for many and probably the majority of internet users is will provide solutions that meet their needs for many years into the future.  The funny thing about the statement that the copper is dying is that some of the oldest cables still have the same transmission properties thay did when they were installed.  In many cases dying refers to technical obsolecense such as transmission loss and the like.  As someone that maintained copper for a long time, I can tell you that many of the issues with the copper network have more to do with maintenance practices than the cable itself.  Many of the technical limitations can be overcome by moving fibre to nodes further into the network and taking one step at a time, rather than trying to take a leap of faith to the first solution that has been proposed.

> and being controlled by the Telstra monopoly?

The solution to that is regulation.  In saying that, if we want to see investments in upgraded fixed line networks then the carriers need to be able to recover a return on their investments.  All the whinging about Telstra quite frankly is a bit over the top.  If Telstra was ripping customers off then why is it that there are not competing networks being rolled out and why does Optus offer ADSL services where it already owns a HFC network?  Where is the incentive for Telstra to upgrade its network when 
LSS payments are as low as $2.50 per month.   That is just something to 
think about.   At the end of the day any investment whether it is Telstra or 
NBNco or others needs to get a return to justify the capital outlay. 
Installing a DSLAM should hardly be classified as infrastructure.  In essence they are the replacement of dial ports.  The only real differnence is that they need to be installed in exchanges or close to exchanges so as to minimise line loss.

> I find the suggestion that we make do with what we have unacceptable.

I find the solution to spend $7500 per home passed unacceptable to (based on 
tassy).   We need to find an affordable solution NBN isn't it.  A business 
case would be a fine start

>  I also find it unacceptable to suggest people use wireless as if it 
> were a fixed-line service.

No one is suggesting that, but consumers are speaking with their wallets and 
are doing it now.   In fact I recon that is probably more of a problem.  The 
wireless networks will degrade.

> Wireless is great and all - but let's be serious here. It simply 
> doesn't cut it.

I am not sure that is correct.  It may not cut it for some of us, but for many it does provide a solution


>  We can't sit here with our hands behind our back as copper draws closer 
> to it's demise.

I doubt that the necessary upgrades will not happen.  Based on the same 
changes since the dial days.  There is still a lot of research going into 
copper.

> but apparently we can't allow the govt to lay the foundations for a better 
> network for the future. So what can we do?

There needs to be a business case and a pricing model relaesed so that 
consumers can decide whether they want to pay more for their internet for 
the additional benefits it will provide.  As long as night follows day any 
FTTH network will cost more than the current ADSL offerings.  The proof is 
in the currently released pricing for the tassie offerings. The proof can 
also be easly arived at by bringing up any loan repayment calculator and 
working out what the payments would be on $7500 per month over 20 to 40 
years.

> In my experience - the bag is full of those want faster speeds, there's 
> those that want a stable connection, and then you have those that want ANY 
> form of a connection.

In my experience speaking with end users their primary focus is on how much 
it will cost and how much they can fit into their budgets.   It is the same 
argument with pay tv etc.  In fact most would like paytv but because of 
their budget priorities a lot choose not to.  The same applies to broadband.

regards

Tim 

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