[AusNOG] AAB Statement

[Paul Brooks]

  On 3/09/2010 9:24 AM, James Spenceley wrote:
>
>> Please let me know if I've paraphrased the proposal correctly - you want to make the
>> spectrum available for a reasonably-good wireless network that reaches almost
>> everywhere (satellite for the rest)  - a broadband fixed wireless
>> safety-net-of-last-resort - providing ubiquity, but not extremely high speed.
> Bingo, with the only other major point being that we need to do that now and fast, so that those who don't have a broadband service (or a cost effective one) can get it.
That ticks one of my main boxes for years, which is that it is more important to get 
affordable broadband connectivity to those that are out of DSL and HFC range and 
simply can't get anything else, before giving faster broadband to those that already 
have a reasonably fast connection. Better if you can do both at the same time though!

Fibre can do this to 30 - 60km. Wireless can do this too. DSL in any form, including 
FTTN cannot, copper attenuates too quickly, and there is no magic VDSL2+++ technology 
in the wings to fix it.  I've lost track of the hair pulled out correcting people 
pointing to the recent DSM3/vectoring trials which trumpet '500Mbps over copper', and 
conveniently ignore the fine print that these things work to a range of a few hundred 
metres at best, and require 6-10 parallel pairs to the same location, and require the 
eradication of ULLS and wholesale access since it only works if every copper loop is 
driven from the same DSLAM line card - any money spent bandaging copper network to 
deliver broadband is pissing it up a wall.

>> Leave the commercial market to provide better connectivity and compete with this new
>> wireless network however they choose - DSL, cable, higher-speed fixed and mobile
>> wireless, fibre, just as happens now. And because the wireless network isn't trying to
>> provide the fastest speeds, and doesn't have to serve every house but only those that
>> can't get anything else, it shouldn't have the scalability problems that most
>> commentators point to when comparing wireless with fibre - the end-point density in
>> urban areas is actually relatively low on average, only having to serve isolated
>> clusters, so you don't need too many towers.
>> Is this right?
> Correct, nicely paraphrased :-)
However, this is not the same as Bevan outlined yesterday - which was that (a) the 
wireless would be deployed to be reasonably fast (aka "world leading", "best possible 
service"), and mobile, with all the variability and performance degradation that this 
entails. I envisaged a fixed wireless deployment - LTE-TD or similar, to a 
house-mounted or indoor antenna, with guaranteed/engineered capacity in the 5 - 10 
Mbps range, 5 - 10 ms latency, and ideally symmetric. Leave mobilty and hand-held 
devices to the already competitive commercial mobile networks.

I suspect this is one of those aspects that needs to be fine-tuned in further 
debate/design :-)

Most commentary has seen this as being similar to the Coalition proposal, due to the 
use of wireless - which is odd, because much of the coalition policy was about 
spending money removing pairgains an dpresumably augmenting filled RIMs - and there 
isn't enough proposed to do that.

In reality, this is a wholesale only open access network, just like the original NBN 
plan - its just a lower performance NBN, for a lower price.
Same long term structural fix to the marketplace encouraging non-discriminatory 
behaviour, which the coalition plan to fund vertically integrated operators doesn't 
address.

> What I have come to understand in the last few days, is that I am incredibly scared of a government controlled monopoly on every service (phone, internet, paytv etc) to every house in the country. Couple that with NO visible business plan, NO end user pricing, NO treasure costing , NO industry consultation on the plan itself but with a plan to rip out any form of competitive network, I'm starting to think we missed something here and just focused on how 'cool' it'll be to have Gbps to every house.
To be fair, I'm not convinced the bit about ripping out all forms of competing 
infrastructure is real. Certainly its been floated in the implementation study, but 
thats just a bunch of accountants floating ideas to bolster the business case, with no 
requirement to be lawful - and a lot of those recommendations, includign the one about 
extra taxes for cherry-pickers, seem to violate all sorts of ACCC anticompetitive 
laws. Just because the implementation study says someting, doesn't mean the government 
will, or even legally can adopt the recommendation even if it wanted to. Telstra being 
paid to migrate customers from the copper network to the fibre is a strange one, but 
I've seen no requirement for Optus HFC or TransACT, for example, to do the same, nor 
any requirement for, say, the mobile phone networks to stop providing data services. 
As for the Telstra copper - well, you'll remember back in 2004 Tony Warren told the 
Senate that the network was at '5 minutes to midnight', and only had another 10 - 15 
years left in it anyway. The copper network isn't being forced to be ripped out, 
according to telstra its falling down around our ears anyway, and by the time the NBN 
is finished being deployed itwon't need to be ripped out, it will have corroded itself 
away!


As for 'how cool it'll be to have Gbps to every house', I am incredibly disappointed 
at how badly we, who should know better, have been at articulating the benefits of 
better broadband connectivity. Its not about downstream, and the focus on 'we don't 
need Gbps yet' is so myopic its breathtaking. Every single argument about whether we 
do or don't need 100Mbps or 1 Gbps or whatever is entirely aimed at downstream 
capacity - which is great for entertainment, but little else.

What we need for the national broadband networks - whatever the technology - is a 
focus on upstream capacity, getting closer to symmetric connections, and widespread 
end-to-end QoS. Then we'll have a network that can be relied on, and be used for 
contribution and productivity and advancement of the country and global wellbeing - 
and the downstream capacity will come along for the ride. While the debate is framed 
about Mbps downstream, all we're talking about entertainment, and I'm stuffed if I 
want my taxes used to build a faster entertainment network whether its fibre, wireless 
or wet string. A network that can do 10 - 20 Mbps symmetric is far more useful than 
one that can go 100M down, and only 2 up.


Leaving aside the cost and whether it should be built from private or public fiunds 
for a moment I still support fibre, as the end goal, from a technology perspective. 
And I suspect most people do as well - its not the technology people are debating, its 
the pricetag.
Its not about 100Mbps, or 1 Gbps - its about 'enough'. 'Enough' - in both directions - 
that the link speed isn't the bottleneck, and you no longer need to think about access 
link capacity and can worry about something else to achieve whatever your aim might 
be. When you buy a car, you don't really look at the highest number on the speedo 
dial, because its a given that the car will always be able to inherently go faster 
than you are ever likely to want to achieve in practice because of other factors - 
speed laws, corners, traffic control lights, braking capacity or just other traffic. 
Most people doing 120 on the freeway don't sit there thinking 'my car can do 240 - 
what a waste of car capacity', thats a given, they worry about optimising somethign 
else, or just cruise along listening to the music. Thats conceptually what I want to 
achieve with broadband - link speeds that are high enough that you can forget about 
the ceiling, as you will never get close to the ceiling in practice - and its not 
considered wasteful if you aren't running the link at redline.
> If the NBN is really that good and is really that cost effective, then let it compete with copper base and HFC/FTTN based services, If people all *really* need 1gbps and will pay for it, then the market will decide and those 'inferior' services will die all on their own.

As for the cost, Australians spend over $18 billion per year on gambling, through 
which the Government pockets $4.9 billion in taxes - every year 
(http://www.austgamingcouncil.org.au/images/pdf/2009_10_Database/db%202010%20web%20chp%201.pdf)
If we're prepared to spend that sort of cash on pokies and nags, spending between $2 
billion to $4 billion a year for the next 10 years on ubiquitous fibre infrastructure 
that can  deliver  2 Gbps to each home today, and 100 - 400 Gbps symmetric to every 
home in 15 years - whether we need it today or not - and save much the same sums being 
spent propping up the copper network - doesn't seem so unreasonable to me.

P.

-- 
Paul Brooks               |         Mob +61 414 366 605
Layer 10 Advisory         |         Ph  +61 2 9402 7355
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