Labor Blog

Broadband for regional Australia

Tony Mooney posted Thursday, 19 August 2010

On Tuesday 17 August, the Prime Minister was in Townsville, as local construction began on the National Broadband Network – the beginning of the roll out of the NBN on the mainland.

This is part of the first release stage of the construction of the NBN, constructing the NBN in various different regions around the country part of the full rollout.

This is great news for approximately 3,000 homes in Aitkenvale and Mundingburra, who’ll be the first in Townsville to be connected to the new Network.

With all the political arguments going on, I just wanted to lay out the facts on the NBN, and what this will mean for communities like Townsville.

People have been asking me how long it will be from the time we start construction to when homes will be able to connect. After twelve weeks of construction, NBN Co will be working with retailers to provide services as soon as possible.

Importantly, residents and businesses need to consent to being connected to the network and then retailers provide retail services to those who connect.

Still, Federal Labor believes people will connect to the NBN and sign up for its services once they see the benefits – as an indication, in Tasmania, around half of all premises have already indicated they will take a connection.

There’s been quite a bit of misinformation about future prices of the NBN for households. As a guide, while wholesale prices are still subject to ACCC consideration, down in Tasmania, where the network is already up and running, there are already retail prices as low as $29.95 per month for 25 megabits per second service and $59.95 per month for 100 mbps.

The National Broadband Network is a crucial piece of infrastructure to benefit the Australian people for decades to come. At Federal Labor’s campaign launch, the Prime Minister announced significant reforms to Medicare to keep pace with the health care reforms that will arise out of access to superfast broadband. Check out Health Minister Nicola Roxon’s blog for more: http://alp.org.au/Blogs/ALP-Blog/august-2010/breaking-down-the-barriers-to-healthcare/

Federal Labor believes the NBN will be the driver of economic growth in this new century in a similar way to railroads and automobiles were in the previous two. Local businesses here in Townsville will be able to better compete equally with not just big cities like Brisbane and Sydney, but internationally too.

On Saturday, Australians have a clear choice. Tony Abbott has repeatedly said he will scrap the National Broadband Network.

Cutting the NBN would be a devastating blow for communities like Townsville. It would represent lost access to healthcare, lost access to education, lost jobs and lost business opportunities for the future.

While Federal Labor’s approach would enable Australia to compete with Singapore and South Korea, Tony Abbott would consign Australia to the digital scrapheap.

Leaving Townsville in the digital dark ages, like the LNP’s Ewen Jones would, and preventing future economic growth and jobs is something I cannot stand for.

Townsville isn’t the only local community that would benefit from the NBN – what would the NBN mean to yours?

For more information on the rollout, including coverage maps, head to www.nbnco.com.au.

Tags: broadband, Herbert, Mooney, NBN, Townsville

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12 Comments

sangerer from Albert Park , Victoria Friday, 20 August 2010, 13:20

As far as the Conroy filter is concerned. I do not agree with the filter or indeed censorship for reasons already posted. It is not the responsibility of the government to legislate parental responsibility. As far as other monitoring of internet traffic is concerned it is important to note that under the telecmmunications act the ISP's are already liable for the publication of certain materials. The police is monitoring the network for illegal activity and so is ASIO, the FBI and CIA and other government organizations around the world. Please do not forget that the internet is neither free nor a completely anarchic system where people can do what they want. Monitoring of illegal and criminal or the intent of these activities is an ongoing work in progress. What everyone is upset about is the notion that Conroy's filter turns passive monitoring activities into public policy and therefore legislative fact. It is this that everyone is concerned about rather then the private information gathering that is going on around the world. The notion that a democratic country can legislate access restrictions such as China and other countries around the world is what is troubling here. I agree that this is something that must be resisted at all costs becasue it is unacceptable in a democratic and (notionally) free society. It is also a waste of money. If Conroy really wanted to monitor internet traffic inside and outside Australia then this is already done with exisiting collaborative agreements at intergovernmental military, security and policing levels. The US government has also built an unrivaled internet monitoring capacity sincve 9/11 that is causing serious issues for civil libertarians and privacy lawyers. These capacities are in place just as much as the agreements between governments to share information. What is more important is what motivates Conroy's filter. Is it the religous right and their concern for the morality ( whatever that is ) of the nation. Is it an attempt to extend the powers of the rediculously conservative censorship board who already restrict the publication of books, films and other media that are freely available in more nelightened countries. The puritan revolution was a 17 century phenomenon and in my view the shift to moral paternialism during the last few years is a more serious concern then any internet filter. No modern nation needs the 21st century equivalent of the inquisition.
GLaDOS from Aperture , Science Friday, 20 August 2010, 12:20

NBN is good :). Censorship filter is bad :(. Please drop filter. Forget your blocking of RC content. Imagine what the Libs will block with it if they get back into power in the future. You can't guarantee what future governments will and won't censor with that infrastructure and it'll be as simple as a few mouse clicks instead of a multi-million dollar project.
Friday, 20 August 2010, 11:20

comment on blog is good
stararaja from Sydenham , VIC Friday, 20 August 2010, 11:20

I am very sorry for Mr. Kevin, I understand we all very angry but we must vote for ALP otherwise if Liberals come we will go back to stone age with broadband, and other thinks. Message for Mr.Kevin voters, we have no choice but to Vote for ALP ONLY. GO ALP :)
Friday, 20 August 2010, 11:20

comment on blog is good
Friday, 20 August 2010, 11:20

comment on blog is good
sangerer from Albert Park , Victoria Friday, 20 August 2010, 03:20

I agree with Robins technical analysis of the task as well as the general cost analysis to the premises. Whether the purchase of access to Telstra ducts will allow for the cables to pass through is clearly an issue since the old copper network will probably be used to run the smart gas, water and electricity grid. There are probably other Third Parties who might be interested in the old copper network. As I see the project unfolding I believe the fibre optic network rolled out now by Labour will probably only fund the high speed connections to the exchanges. It is at the exchanges that the real work will really need to be done with Ultra High Speed optical Fibre Switches with power amplification features. The switching capacity from 640 gigabits to over 1 terabit per second is where the real gains will occur. http://www.physorg.com/news2776.html The current Cisco 1200 terabit system is based on the 12016 GSR and OC-192c/STM64 and is scalable to 5 terabits per second using 10 gigabit card interfaces. http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/fspnisapi3663.html Since Telstra has been struggling for some time to upgrade its exchanges and has chosen what some industry insiders call a lesser switch manufacturer in order to save money, the issue of network reliability and stability when it comes to connecting the NBN with the Telstra’s and Optus’s of the world will remain to be seen. It is not likely that the $43 billion will afford the duplication of new exchanges throughout the country, so the NBN rollout will in the end need to connect to the existing networks in order to achieve the 97% coverage. It is important to remember that a significant amount of fibre has also been put down by Telstra and Optus and others. As such, all existing wireless / satellite services should also benefit, when the existing fibre is connected with the NBN. If the debate is about the phrase optic fibre to every home, then I agree that this would probably be inconceivable in a short time frame. Laying 2 core inside a home and installing high speed switches and routers in a domestic premises when CAT 6 will do gigabit over Ethernet easily would probably be overkill. If we are talking about delivering a superfast backbone with a significant upgrade to all exchanges as well as the building of some new optic exchange layers, then the money is worth spending. It is worth spending because the leasing of the backbone bandwidth alone should deliver a reasonable return on the investment over time. If the backbone remains in public ownership and the O&M is outsourced to Third Parties under the Third Party Access legislation in the pipeline, then the nation has the best of both worlds. It must be remembered that Telstra has not had its eye on the ball for years and they could have done a great deal in upgrading, extending and replacing its ancient copper network to a much greater extend then it actually did. That is, if Telstra management had bothered to develop a business model for the 21st century and beyond instead of wasting time on retaining a monopoly on band width without extending its capacity rapidly.
desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Thursday, 19 August 2010, 21:19

Obutters, The long piece I copied and pasted here was not my own, correct------> it was a well contructed comment from a person who posted here yesterday. As the days pass the threads track down and it would seem are no longer visited. Since, the lead in articles are all partisan spin and hard sell, it is useful to have the views of people in the Industry or at least knowledgable on it. I have posted articles from the time of the April passage of the NBN bills because people in the know, felt free to comment then. Currently, there are few prepared to put their heads above the parapet because they fear, falling out with who ever wins the election. I personally have no expertise in this area but don't fear falling out with anyone, so, I have given these articles an airing. I'm boosting Mr Whittle's post for him because I'm a good Samaritan.
hurtling from North Perth , WA Thursday, 19 August 2010, 21:19

a Ranga... or a Wingnut. An acute intelligence... or an athletic immaturity. A proven negiator... or a pious naysayer. A national curriculum or a curriculum for nationalists. Nurture... or negativity. Tried... or try hard. A Julia... or a joke. A Gillard... or a gimmick. The choice is clear.
Obutters from Sydney , NSW Thursday, 19 August 2010, 18:19

@desertflower I've been scanning this blog for a few weeks now and it's these long, nonsensical rants like yours that completely ruins any chance of a normal discussion. You can't just cut and paste other words and use them as your own. Now secondly, if you don't like the NBN you have a choice- you can vote for another party that won't implement it. Go comment on the Liberal blog and give your expert advice to them - they probably need it. In short: Get lost.
desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Thursday, 19 August 2010, 18:19

MR WHITTLE originally posted in Steven Conroy's thread: Here is a discussion of the NBN, independent of the ALP's Internet censorship policy debacle which overshadows it. Please see what I wrote about this today in: http://www.alp.org.au/blogs/alp-blog/august-2010/help-spread-the-facts---national-broadband-network/ "There are 39 policies listed at this site, but the most significant and unpopular is not mentioned - Internet censorship." . . . . I have been writing about telecommunications since 1992, for Australian Communications Magazine and more recently (until 2 years ago) for Paul Budde Communications. This is my viewpoint - unrelated to Paul Budde's. . . . . In an ideal world, we could have fibre to every home, school, office and factory. The way to do it is a passive optical network, such as GPON, 10Gbps EPON or Wavelength Division Multiplexing WDM PON. For some up-to-date info on these: http://www.chaffeefiberoptics.com/nwsltr/ftthprismv7n2a.pdf . . . . Where this is not possible, 3G or other wireless technologies can be used, but this is difficult over long distances, and there is very limited data carrying capacity compared to fibre. . . . . Where wireless is not possible, a geostationary satellite link can be used. However, this involves very high costs, limited total bandwidth for the whole country, even lower upstream rates, and long latency due to the distance to and from the satellite data in both directions must take. The satellite is 36,000km away, so that is 0.24 seconds delay each way for data between the NBN network's satellite station and the user's satellite station - half a second latency in total. There are a very limited number of geostationary slots. The satellites cost billions and last 10 years or so. So this can never be a mass-market form of broadband connectivity. . . . . PONs are clearly the way to go, and NBNCo has chosen GPON, with 2.8GBps downstream (towards the homes which share the fibre) and 1.2Gbps upstream (from the homes). Multiple fibres branch out from the extremely complex and expensive "Fibre Access Node" (FAN) and can travel for a few tens of km to a splitter, where the fibre is effectively split multiple times to create a 16 fibre, or perhaps 32 fibre tree - with one branch going to each home, office, etc. There are supposed to be 700 FAN sites for Australia (http://delimiter.com.au/2010/06/24/alcatel-lucent-wins-up-1-5-billion-nbn-contract/ ) . . . . These long fibres, and most or all of the splitters and branches, need to be installed all at the same time, not incrementally over the years to come. Extra fibres are needed to allow for denser buildings, and so more homes and offices. The fibres require no power. Each fibre carries downstream data to the ONTs in each of the the 32 or so homes on a 1490nm infra-red wavelength, with encryption per ONT. The ONTs are coordinated so they take it in turns driving 1310nm light on the fibre back to the FAN, for upstream data. ONTs have Ethernet ports and perhaps a phone port. For reliable phone operation, each ONT needs a substantial a battery backup system. . . . . Its a great way to do things, but this is not 1Gbps per customer. There's 2.4Gbps downstream shared between 16 to 32 customers, and 1.2Gbps upstream. 10G-EPON and WDM improve on this, but at still higher cost. . . . . These fibres will generally not fit in existing street ducts, which were built for a 50 pair copper phone cable, and frequently now have a similar sized, but much stiffer HFC coaxial cable in them as well. Both these cables are about as thick as our thumbs. . . . . So there will need to be directional boring along many suburban streets, with costs of $1k to $2k per house passed, in ordinary 1/4 acre block densities. The splitters need to be in pits or "fibre distribution hubs": http://www.nbnco.com.au/content/upload/files/NBN001_concept_paper_final.pdf. The branch fibres to each home can't necessarily be placed in an existing duct, so there may be trenching or directional boring to each house. In the house, the fibre can't be bent sharply, because the light leaks out - so it is tricky to get it to the location of the ONT. . . . . Data carriage in the "backbone" to each FAN can be made quite reliable via redundant fibre paths. However, from the FAN to the homes, there is no redundancy, so be careful with backhoes. Stringing these cables from power poles is possible, but that is less reliable due to lightning, falling trees, vehicle collisions etc. . . . . How can the cost of this, to 10 million homes, be under $43B, since some fraction of that must go to the backbone, wireless and satellite? There's no proper basis for this figure. . . . . It would be great if we could all have GPON, but we can't all get 1Gbps downstream. Even if we could, there's no way any ISP could offer services with such data volumes at affordable rates, for global Internet access, since the cost of getting data across the Pacific, and from Asia, is so high. . . . . Its a mistake to think all this could be done for $43B. This sort of massive expenditure would have to be at the expense of other vital priorities such as health, welfare, education, renewable energy research etc. Most people having fibre is a luxury we can't afford. DSL is fine for most purposes. The only thing fibre does better is support high quality video streaming. Why spend tens of billions of dollars for the benefit of couch potatoes? . . . . So far, the NBN is an undemocratic white-elephant-to-be from the ALP - an outfit which couldn't safely handle the installation of pink batts! If the ALP is voted in again, this will be official government policy, along with a gravely undemocratic Internet censorship regime. Australia must avoid giving a mandate for this Stalinist censorship and for this profligate waste of taxes on a network which would be great, but which we don't need and can't afford. . . . . Structural separation for Telstra and some government support for broadband in the bush? Sure. Then we won't be wasting money we desperately need for preventive health, education, youth support, Medicare rebates for Social Workers and Family Therapists, and for developing 24hr a day, heat-storing, solar thermal power stations on a massive scale. . . . . - Robin Whittle
desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Thursday, 19 August 2010, 18:19

I am transposing Mr Wittle's comments to this new broadband site, because the top threads are more likely to be viewed. There are 26 comments currently in the thread with Steven Conroy's photo on it. These should be read by interested parties. Most Regional areas will not get fibre to the node according to all commentators. There are many links in my posts in the thread with Steven Conroy's photo on it. If they survive---there is censorship here. Most regional areas will get wireless. Those remote areas, where e-health is spoken of, will be doing this on wireless. There is a lot of misinformation being put about by the ALP, IT IS IMPORTANT TO READ THE COMMENTARY THAT CAME OUT, JUST AFTER THE ALP put their bills through Parliament in April,2010. Also, THERE WILL BE SIGNIFICANT COSTS BORN BY THE HOME OWNER. The cost of subscribing will be in the vicinity of $120 per month. Whether Rural folk will be charged for the wireless at the same rate as the fibre, I don't know? Mr Wittle's comments follow: in the next post.