[AusNOG] iiNET Network Engineer

[Mark Smith]

On 2 September 2015 at 13:18, Mark Delany <g2x at juliet.emu.st> wrote:
>> The NBN seems to be following what I understand is the historical
>> pattern of voice networks in the US.
>
> There is one big distinction, which is the decoupling of the access
> from the services on top.
>
> Using your Telco analogy, the phone companies owned the access pipes
> (copper) which they used or conflated to claim exclusive rights to
> provide the service (phone calls) on top.
>

That's where I don't think you understood my point about PSTN networks
not being application specific.

The service telephone networks provide is not "phone calls". The
service people are gaining by using the phone network is provided by
the entity at the other end of the communications session - which
might be the service of a relative listing to your tails of woe, or
the service of arranging to have a pizza delivered.

A phone call is a network specific concept, just as an IP packet is
network specific concept.

If PSTN networks were involved in services, they'd be parsing the
words you're saying during the phone call. In other words, they'd be
involved in the conversation, rather than just carrying it, remaining
oblivious to what is being said.

Voice networks carry sound that sounds like human voices. There isn't
any verification that it is actually a human voice - otherwise we
would never have been able to use the PSTN network to carry data via
MODEMs, by making the data sound like human voices.

If you consider that the service the network provides is the elements
or units of communication, then NBN is doing no different to what the
PSTN was doing with phone calls being the service - the NBN forces you
to use Ethernet frames, so the Ethernet frame service and the
underlying fibre to deliver it are bound together just like you're
saying PSTN networks bound together the copper/fibre etc. cables and
the phone call "service" that operates over it.

If the NBN isn't involved in services, then it shouldn't be specifying
Ethernet framing, and shouldn't be specifying service speeds. It
should have been a layer 1 network - dark fibre or similar in the
ground, delivered to useful geographical locations, so that the
devices attached to it defined what capabilities you got from it, and
you were in a position to choose those capabilities by choosing the
devices.


> Of course there was only one service to start with so that distinction
> didn't seem important at the time. But it got set in historical
> cement.
>
> Telcos where more than happy for internet access to followed that
> model - since they still owned most of the access. That is, if you
> owned the pipes you had the exclusive right to provide the service
> over those pipes - ie connectivity.
>
> As we know, regulation was needed to break that coupling in most
> markets to try and introduce competition.
>
> There-in lies the big difference with NBN. It clearly delineates
> access from service so that service is a competitive playing field
> from day one and critically important: wthe access provider cannot
> compete in that market. This is the argument for keeping access as a
> boring wafer-thin margin business that is run as a utility. To ensure
> a level playing field in the riches of the services above.
>
> You can bet though that as soon as you privatize NBN, the new owners
> will be working every angle, funding every lobby group and pushing
> every incoming government to gain the ability to compete on services.
>
> Why?  Because that is where the margins are and that is where they can
> - over time - regain an unfair advantage. Even if the next ten
> governments say no, you only need one to say yes.
>

So the elephant in the room is wireless.



>
> Mark.
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