Labor Blog

14 Comments

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  RobinWhittle from Rosanna , Vic Saturday, 21 August 2010, 19:21

  What I wrote has not been deleted or censored. Newlines and more than one space in a row are removed by this blog software, so it all appears as a single paragraph. I wrote for Australian Communications magazine from 1994 - 1998: http://www.firstpr.com.au/telco/articles/ and until 2008 for Paul Budde Communications. - Robin Whittle

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  desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Thursday, 19 August 2010, 18:19

  Here are Mr Whittle's comments, they survive in Mr Conroy's, "building the future" 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

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  desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Thursday, 19 August 2010, 17:19

  I believe Robin Wittle's technical comments on the NBN SHOULD HAVE BEEN KEPT. He writes for a communications magazine. I think to preference the comments by Sangerer, who has IT experience, just because he is more supportive of NBN than Mr Wittle, is blatant censorship. It is only reasonable that voters be presented with more information than the ALP party line. Mr Wittle had legitimate reasoning for why he considered the ALP's guestimate of $43 Billion being light on. He predicted it would cost a lot more. Mr Wittle is highly concerned about the Internet filter and these comments have been kept to appear as though you have not censored everything. It can hardly be said that you have many people visiting this site, so to censor someone who has experience, just because he is against the NBN is contemptible. I HOPE MR WITTLE RETURNS AND RE-POSTS HIS VIEWS.

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  sangerer from Albert Park , Victoria Thursday, 19 August 2010, 03:19

  It is truly sad to see that the people who are commenting on the NBN have little understanding of the technology, and never actually built or managed a network. So let me add my 5 cents worth as an IT, multimedia, network designer engineer of some years experience. The nonsense of filtering is certainly a worry, especially since it is absolutely unacceptable to legislate the nanny state when any fool can set their internet security, privacy and content settings from the IE Tools / Internet Options menu. Any other browser on the market will allow you to do the same and the settings can be password secured by any responsible parent. In addition, most computers sold today come pre-installed with a product called Norton Internet security or similar product. Guess what! These products actually have a Parent Control feature. So for S. Conroy to fall prey to the religious nut bags and actually contemplate an internet filter is not only very silly, it is an attempt to introduce legislative parental responsibility. Why not ask prospective parents to sit for a license test to ensure that they actually have the right stuff to become parents in the first place while you are at it! So no, I do not agree with the internet filter because it is a pointless waste of resources and merely reinforces issues that many teachers will tell you about. A lot of parents these days will look for any excuse to blame anyone other than their own engagement with their kids for their kids behaviour, their activities and their conduct towards others. Call me old fashioned, but I spent a lot of time teaching and in executive / consulting roles at University, TAFE and even a couple of brief stints in the secondary sector to know this from firsthand experience. The other thing that truly dismays me is the level of book, video, film and games censorship in this country. I really do not understand how stuff that is classified as G or PG in Europe can be classified as M or MA in Australia. Maybe we suffer from the cultural leftovers of the Puritan movement even though the majority actually deserted the sinking ship and left for the US in the 17th century. Either way, the separation of Church and a State begun by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the 8th century might well be regarded as a work in progress. --->So let’s deal with the misconceptions about the NBN. It is true that we could have had a world class fibre optic network much sooner if Howard had not sold Telstra and Costello conned a few suckers to pay $7 for Telstra shares when the old copper and crappy switching facilities where really only worth half. So if people are complaining about the NBN you might consider that the cost of it today is actually to half sale price of Telstra under Howard. Since I was also on the G3 industry panel that advised Senator Alston not to sell the G3 spectrum because the Howard Government was never going to realize the asking price of $750 million plus in 2007-8, it should not surprise anyone here that the final sale price was $350 million. So here we have it ladies and gentlemen. We advised Howard not to sell Telstra until the optic fibre backbone was built because Telstra would have been worth 10 times the sale price of approx. $50 billion. We also advised that before Telstra is sold the government should implement proper third party access legislation. Even then the government should consider retaining the optic fibre backbone and lease the bandwidth in order to earn revenue for the nation. ----->So what happened to the money from the Telstra sale. A fair bit of it went into pork barrelling. A large chunk was spent in Tasmania to buy an agreement with a certain facist Senator from that state. A fair chunk was put into a national future fund which was used in the Liberal party war chest in successive elections and I believe Mr Costello is still associated with the fund even though there is little left of it. Not that you or I will ever get access to the future fund, ooohhhh no. You got to be and old aprty hack from way back. What happened to the G3 bargain give away. Well, the $350 million was spent on subsidizing petrol when Howard was facing another election. In short, ladies and gentlemen. This country does not have an internet facility such as Finland or Korea because the liberals sold the assets that rightfully belong to the Australian people. They have squandered the surplus to prop up successive pork barrelling exercises prior to every election fought by the Howard government. The so called surplus that was inherited by Labour in 2007 was a token amount to the billions the liberals wasted. It is ironic that this nation is now facing the prospect of paying almost the same amount for the NBN that Howard got in selling Telstra. It is ironic that this Nation is also facing the prospect of building a completely new electricity grid because the private companies that own it have not maintained it adequately ( are getting sued for negligence in Victoria) and have not upgraded it to be compliant with international renewable energy standards. In the same vein, Telstra has wasted years fighting third party access without bothering to upgrade its network in order to take advantage of the vast volume of data traffic we can expect from the smart grid implementation. ----->So here are two distinct cases where privatization has utterly failed to deliver the long term benefit to the customers and to the nation as whole. Here are two cases that deliver a very strong argument that suggests that a nations key infrastructure assets deliver a greater return to the nation if they are owned by the people. Outsourcing the O&M can always be done. After all, the government doesn’t have to run it as long we as a nation own it.

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  RobinWhittle from Rosanna , Vic Wednesday, 18 August 2010, 21:18

  I was mistaken to state that the ALP Internet censorship policy applies to R-rated material. It applies to "Refused Classification" (RC) material (http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/Classificationpolicy_Classificationlegislation), the full description of which is too long to quote here. The RC criteria includes "Detailed instruction or promotion in matters of crime or violence." - which would seem to include military, self-defence or boxing instructions. . . . . So if there is a discussion forum on euthanasia, and someone posts instructions to it on how to commit suicide, then the forum could be classified RC, with the result that all ISPs would be required to block access to the forum. Likewise any generally non-RC site which someone contains even a little RC material. . . . . The ALP's policy has changed quite a lot, as Irene Graham points out: http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2010-August/089117.html . She wrote: "From mid 2008 to mid Dec 2009, there was absolutely no doubt that the ALP's policy plan was to mandatorily require ISPs to block adults' access to some MA15+, and all R18+ and X18+ material." - which is the source of my mistake. . . . . Internet communications involve much more than the equivalent of watching movies or reading magazines. The Net supports two-way and group discussions of all sorts of matters, privately and in public. Government's don't usually regulate private conversations, including those which take place by phone or by letters in the postal system. The Net is like the postal system - extremely flexible and used for all sorts of public and private purposes, far more than any one person or organisation could understand or anticipate. . . . . The trial of the filtering system worked only with websites (HTTP and HTTPS). However there's nothing in the ALP's policy which limits it to HTTP traffic. The policy could just as easily be applied to FTP, streaming media, peer-to-peer file sharing, instant messenger, email and voice and video conferencing. . . . . So many of our important private, group and public discussion occur via the Net. We shouldn't vote in a party with a policy of censoring our Internet communications. - Robin Whittle

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  RobinWhittle from Rosanna , Vic Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 17:17

  There are 39 policies listed at this site, but the most significant and unpopular is not mentioned - Internet censorship. Benjamin Franklin's 1755 statement: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. The ALP Internet censorship policy is such a serious threat to our democratic freedoms that there's no way I can vote Labor. I have never voted other than Labor, but I will be voting for the Coalition and the Greens ahead of Labor on Saturday. Mandatory filtering by ISPs of all websites (not yet email, instant messenger?) which contain material which is "R rated" or beyond goes far beyond banning child pornography, which is already illegal. The intention is to prohibit Australian adults from communicating regarding material which is "wrong" [1] [2], or which "instructs in matters of crime" and the like. Voting for the ALP is voting for Internet censorship to the point of attempting to make all Internet communications (web at least) safe for children [3]. This is impossible, of course, and any attempt to do so would destroy the freedom of communications which adults in a democracy must have. It is wrong to be complacent about this, thinking the Greens and Coalition will block it in the Senate, or because this sort of policy is unconstitutional in the USA, where their First Amendment has meant the mid-1990s US government attempts at Internet censorship were quickly found to be unconstitutional. The ALP has betrayed its progressive roots with this Internet censorship policy. This is the sort of policy we expect from Family First, the DLP or the right wing of the Liberal party. This is the ALP's new Stalinism: "The government knows better than we do what we should communicate about. The government knows that spending $43B of our taxes in an attempt to make the NBN is better for us than than spending less on broadband and more on preventive health and education." The Coalition rejects mandatory ISP filtering because it is wrong in principle and practice. Internet censorship is like banning or burning books. It must be rejected, and that means rejecting the ALP. More details and links: http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2010-August/089091.html - Robin Whittle, Melbourne. P.S. Full marks to the ALP allowing these comments on at least some pages of this site, but if all the above appears as one paragraph, then my line breaks have been filtered out! [1] http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/optional-internet-filters-unite-coalition-greens-20100816-126yi.html [2] http://www.alp.org.au/federal-government/news/transcript--craig-emerson,-interview,-abc-%281%29/ [3] http://www.alp.org.au/federal-government/news/transcript--craig-emerson,-interview,-abc/

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  desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Sunday, 15 August 2010, 12:15

  Fairdeal 101, I'm glad your interested in FACTS. Perhaps you can tell me where Stephen Conroy got his 3 AMIGO'S from? Do we know anything about their provinance, their track record? Now that the NBN is costing $54 Billion----how many $54 Billion projects have they run before to successful completion? What is their Industry record and Due Diligance and the rest? Its all very well to see Installers waxing lyrical about having a job on Q &A AND nerds-----none of these people care about the cost, because they are not paying for it. They are not paying the cost of failure----WE ARE!

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  desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Sunday, 15 August 2010, 12:15

  Fairdeal 101, I'm glad your interested in FACTS. Perhaps you can tell me where Stephen Conroy got his 3 AMIGO'S from? Do we know anything about their provinance, their track record? Now that the NBN is costing $54 Billion----how many $54 Billion projects have they run before to successful completion? What is their Industry record and Due Diligance and the rest? Its all very well to see Installers waxing lyrical about having a job on Q &A AND nerds-----none of these people care about the cost, because they are not paying for it. They are not paying the cost of failure----WE ARE!

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  desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Sunday, 15 August 2010, 11:15

  FairDeal 101, It must be Stephen Conroy's ventriloqist doll? HAS HE NOT READ THAT IN REMOTE LOCATIONS IT WILL BE covered by the NBN’s **wireless service**, rather than its FTTP network. People in Cities, already have these functions, 4G and the technologically advanced wireless that China and Asia are working on will be even better than NBN and flexible to boot. What is wrong with putting more doctors in remote areas. What is wrong with real communities. Only Stephen Conroy and his ventriloquist doll's drool over virtual reality, most of us would prefer real communities, real doctors--------AND LESS MEETINGS! If you want a white elephant mindset--- stick with-----Stephen Conroy! Get excited about fibre to the node. Charge every person in Australia $4,000 for a Dinosaur. The future is with wireless, flexibility is good, when systems are down, which they will be from time to time. So much has been deleted from these boards. Some one said, putting in another International server would improve our internet mor than the NBN.

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  desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Sunday, 15 August 2010, 11:15

  Where has that picture of that earnest, not so young man, Stephen Conroy gone-----deleted like Kevin Rudd's picture? The two wannabee messahia's who turned out to be pariah's

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  FairDeal101 from Korweinguboora , Victoria Sunday, 15 August 2010, 11:15

  Why is it that we see so much spin and no facts! I am a swinging voter in a regional area and have never been so disgusted in my whole life with the dumbing down of the election debate by both the media and the parties themselves. Journalists for the most part seem to be inumerate and incapable of adding any analysis to policy press releases announcements. So I have done some digging myself, because all I want to know is what is really what! For example, whilst most people know that the government’s NBN is a water canon compared to the coalition’s water pistol in terms of broadband capacity, how many of us know what this means in practical terms. Here is a list of things that can be done under the NBN BUT NOT UNDER THE COALITION PLAN: • Remote diagnosis and medical treatment from experts (no need to move to major cities to get treatment or diagnosis in many cases). • Interactive remote learning from some of the best educational establishments in the world. • Remote business conferencing instead of expensive and time consuming travel options. • Working from home in real time! • Remote energy use monitoring and control. • Unrestricted access to e-commerce across the globe. • Fast movie downloads (and anything else). • Real time e-shopping with better product information. • Real time e-counselling. • Real time e-tutoring. • Real time e-tech advice. • Rejuvenation of remote “discarded mining towns” with the potential for full access to a massive range of educational and business services, better medical services and the opportunity to thrive after the mines are long gone. The same applies to the whole of regional Australia. • Real time farming advice with high definition video. • High tech farming. • High Definition interactive TV • Unlimited access to the best computer gaming across the world. • High-definition webcams. Even the best webcams are around 2mbs, which makes for the choppy image we are accustomed to. It would be nice to have HD webcams, and pull the feed up on a wide-screen TV. The applications for this are many. You can envision multi-screen HD conference calls. You can also go into 3D webcams. • Cloud computing - Connect to supercomputer clusters. The computing power of your desktop should not be defined by the hardware in your office. Say you want to have 100Gb of RAM?...You can have that by connecting to server farms. Needless to say, any town or city that does not have a high speed broadband network will not be able to participate in the activities of the many global companies that are likely to establish “cyber meeting rooms” as an essential part of their business. It will be much faster and more efficient to do business (have ever wondered how much the costs of waiting for your credit card transaction to take place add up to at the check out?) The coalition’s so called plan is to spend $6Billion dollars propping up an inefficient PRIVATE MONOPOLY which will merely struggle to keep up with growing demand –net result no change from now and no Government ownership (yes, all the benefits will go to Telstra). At the end of the day that money will be down the drain and in 5 to 10 years time peple will be screaming for what Labour are doing now. There is nothing faster than the speed of light and the NBN will be the best available for many years to come and will have the excess capacity to accommodate additional growth. Other important considerations from a national perspective are that the NBN is far more energy efficient (it consumes far less energy than wireless) and greatly reduces the need for people to travel for meetings or work or medical advice etc. With climate change and Peak Oil issues it is a big plus. This cannot be done under the coalitions plan. The other thing that bugs me is that the total cost of the system is always quoted as $43Billion when the real cost to Government is far less – total $26 Billion. However, this is an investment. At the end of it the Government will own one of the best Broadband networks on the planet, and will either be receiving significant revenue from it or will be able to sell it for a large proportion of the investment made. The bonus is that Australia will have overcome what has been recognised as its greatest problem since the beginning European Settlement – the Tyranny of distance! In comparison, the Paid Maternity leave scheme proposed by the coalition will cost an additional $26.4Billion over the construction phase of the NBN. (It also gives up to $75,000 to some women and only $10,000 to most of them, but that is another story). The bottom line for me is that I will be able to run my business from home, expand it to international customers and the value of my property will increase significantly. Bring it on!!!

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  desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Sunday, 15 August 2010, 11:15

  I just discovered this morning, that while the Mining tax was being "negociated" by Gillard, sic, see Chaser, WE CANberra, Stephen Conroy, "negociated" an $11 billion deal with Telstra, to make them walk away from their copper wire roll out of their broadband. That means the S43 nbnco deal is worth $54 billion and rising. There is no fixed price contract, no business deal---------its just, whatever it comes too. Don't worry its only money-----your money! As the World goes mobile and wireless and Australians dump fixed line rental on phones, the ALP commences a mega fixed line broadband which will be out moded in a blink of an eye, it will belong in Jurassic Park. One does not even have to say, who trusts Julia Gillard or who trusts Kevin Rudd-----This is about trusting Stephen Conroy? Stephen Conroy, Stephen Conroy?-----Internet filter Stephen Conroy-----say no more---!

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  cheeseypie5555 from Perth , Western Australia Sunday, 15 August 2010, 04:15

  I do believe the NBN is dumbest thing to come out of labour...except for the mining tax. Next thing we know ALP reveals they're actually in favour of communism. Moving Australia foward....just so it can sit between North Korea and China. :D

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  desertflower from RESERVOIR , VIC Saturday, 14 August 2010, 17:14

  There were plenty of commentators bagging the NBN when it went to cabinet the night before it was announced on April 7, 2009. However, the Gillard Government has been getting clean media passage of the “high tech, wizz bang, faster than a speeding bullet” message. This is largely a fantasy, with most economists saying it is a white elephant. No other country is putting in fixed lines at tax payer’s expense. China and Asia are technologically advancing wireless and the 4G technology will be ready in Four years. The plan was based on conversations between Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and the then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, over a couple of days flying between Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane. It appears to have been devised, specifically as, a last ditch effort vote winner, because it appeals to ”Boy’s own Manual”, nerds, tech heads and the jobless tech staff who have been shed from Telstra It was approved without any cost-benefit analysis or even a rudimentary business case to support it. Telstra for example, would not take it on because it does not stack up economically. It will be technologically overtaken before people have a chance to buy the NBN Box, pay for their house to be re-wired and pay $120.00 per month to subscribe? It is going to cost $4,000.00 per person in consultant fees and trenches dug? All of this is Government revenue? This is money NOT going to indigenous disadvantage, NOT going to people with disabilities, NOT going to Hospitals and Infrastructure. eHealth will be in rural areas, and those users will be covered by the NBN’s wireless service, rather than its FTTP network. As the article, linked below says, why not employ more doctors or up-grade existing nurses with training. The ALP could do a lot of sensible things with $43 billion. Read: One poll-driven economic disaster — NBN — remains from horrific Rudd era http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/07/14/one-poll-driven-economic-disaster-nbn-remains-from-horrific-rudd-era/