Labor vs Liberal NBN

[Stewge]

Update your Wi-Fi mate. I run gigabit ethernet throughout my home but use an Apple Airport Express as the Wi-Fi hotspot ( disabled the old G junk on my Billion router). I get 11MB/s max transfer rate over Wi-Fi to my NAS and ~45MB/s reads from the NAS over ethernet (limited by the HDD in the NAS.

The issue we have is a long, thin house with the main living room on one end and bedrooms on the other with the kitchen smack in the middle (lots of appliances to kill signals). With all the walls in between it's just not possible to get a good signal in both ends of the house, so bedrooms get the wifi AP and stuff tends to be cabled in the living room. If I sit next to the AP it'll pull 100mbps fine, but considering we have cables everywhere it's not worth the effort as even then, it doesn't touch gigabit for speeds across LAN.

[macca_779]

The issue we have is a long, thin house with the main living room on one end and bedrooms on the other with the kitchen smack in the middle (lots of appliances to kill signals). With all the walls in between it's just not possible to get a good signal in both ends of the house, so bedrooms get the wifi AP and stuff tends to be cabled in the living room. If I sit next to the AP it'll pull 100mbps fine, but considering we have cables everywhere it's not worth the effort as even then, it doesn't touch gigabit for speeds across LAN.

That much speed drop would give me the shits. Why not just buy an extra access point and plug into one of the ethernet points where the signal is degraded.

[lumina ss]

Nobody is talking about the fact that nbnco is a company that is expected to return the principle, 30 plus billion plus interest to its public and private investors. It may be cheap now but how long before the investors want a return. I can see it going the same way as electricity. And let's face it the government is quacking on about the boost in the economy, how will the economy benefit from light speed porn gambling, Facebook and pirate media cause lets face it that's what most of the bandwidth is currently taken up by. I would love it, my adsl is only quick enough for hd Netflix but not quick enough for the new 3d library. I'm getting sick of having 3d Tvs and not being able to stream 3d content. But once again how will me telling foxtel to shove it and streaming all my pay tv out of the US help the Australian economy.

Do we really need it or is it just a case of wanting a flash new toy?

[feistl]

how will the economy benefit from light speed porn gambling, Facebook and pirate media cause lets face it that's what most of the bandwidth is currently taken up by.

Well i work for government libraries, our main internet link is $1900 a month for 30mb/30mb unlimited with Telstra. We've just commissioned another site which is an additional $1600 a month for a 20mb/20mb link. We also have 6 load balanced ADSL2 unlimited links for public usage ($1000 month) and a backup Telstra ADSL2+ link ($330/month). So just to run library services, we are paying $4830 a month ($58k a year).

With NBN we could do the same for less than $10k a year. Many many other small/medium businesses would also benefit greatly with higher speed/cheap links. There is also a large number of people who could work remotely providing they had decent internet links (Obviously not all, but there is demand for it).

Either way, when you consider how much money is "spent" (Not Invested) in services like health, roads, welfare etc, INVESTING money in a fibre network is a good idea and we can afford it.

[lumina ss]

That's the whole point, "we" are not investing, NBNCO share holders are investing we are just the punters who will be paying there return on investment. Fibre to the home is not the same ascfibre to the business. If a business, and I'm not talking about mum selling knitted baby booties on line, can't afford 5 g for a cable hook up, should they be in business. If I had a real need rather than a real like for warp speed Internet the cost of cable back to the node wouldn't bother me, but the average punter will think he's on a good thing with wire back to the node and unlimited downloads for something similar to what they pay now. I think people have confused want with need in the domestic enviroment

[kevin101]

Do we really need it or is it just a case of wanting a flash new toy?

Ask any business, education department, health department etc etc that rely on a fast Internet connection to be able to carry out daily routines this question, I'm sure you will find it will be more than a new toy.. For a lot yes straight up it would be a new toy you can't deny that at all, but you have to look at how deep it REALLY goes before making assumptions like this.

[lumina ss]

I'm not making assumptions, most business's and branches of government that need warp speed Internet probably already have it, so what are we really talking about here. I'm wondering just how much of the NBNCO bandwidth will be sold to government bodies. If what your saying us true the government will save a lot of money at the expense of joe blog having to pay more for his new toy. Are we finding the real benefit of the NBN, cheap warp speed Internet for the government and there mates with joe public paying of the loan. I'd better start drawing diagrams on the basement wall and put a security system in I think I'm paranoid

[feistl]

That's the whole point, "we" are not investing, NBNCO share holders are investing we are just the punters who will be paying there return on investment. Fibre to the home is not the same ascfibre to the business. If a business, and I'm not talking about mum selling knitted baby booties on line, can't afford 5 g for a cable hook up, should they be in business. If I had a real need rather than a real like for warp speed Internet the cost of cable back to the node wouldn't bother me, but the average punter will think he's on a good thing with wire back to the node and unlimited downloads for something similar to what they pay now. I think people have confused want with need in the domestic enviroment

Firstly, NBN prices will be regulated by the ACCC. They wont hike their fees up after the project is complete.

Secondly, NBN will be available to small/medium businesses who currently cant get "business" fibre due to location/cost. You'd be surprised just how many businesses are trying to make do with ADSL2 connections (and all the drop out/contention issues that go with it). The idea of having access to a 100mb/40mb fibre connection for less than $1000/month is a holy grail (Especially when you consider these sort of plans will be in the $200-300 mark, not $2000-3000 as it is currently).

Plus, if Telstra is spending over $1bn maintaining copper (and this is going up), effectively home users are paying for this each year. If the NBN costs $40bn, you could say that we would be paying that over the next 40 years just to maintain the copper network. (And at current rates its going to be a lot more than $1bn/year in the not to distant future).

Telstra should never have been privatised. Becuase they were (and have a monopoly), there is no real incentive for them to run fibre (hence they havnt).

[lumina ss]

Electricity and fuel prices are subject to oversight by the accc as well and we all know how we'll that works. God help us if we get bandwidth parity pricing they' probably tie us to the average data price in Senegal.

[Stewge]

I'm not making assumptions, most business's and branches of government that need warp speed Internet probably already have it, so what are we really talking about here. I'm wondering just how much of the NBNCO bandwidth will be sold to government bodies. If what your saying us true the government will save a lot of money at the expense of joe blog having to pay more for his new toy. Are we finding the real benefit of the NBN, cheap warp speed Internet for the government and there mates with joe public paying of the loan. I'd better start drawing diagrams on the basement wall and put a security system in I think I'm paranoid

This is completely not the case. You'd be surprised at how utterly crap internet speeds are in businesses and even vital services like hospitals (in particular). Working with doctors in multiple VIC hospitals, I can tell you it even gets to the point where walking around with a Telstra 3G dongle is superior to the WiFi which then goes off to crazy bonded dsl crap.

Schools and universities are another big one. Most regionals (and not even that far out from the city centres) don't have good connections. I know for a fact that in Ballarat, prior to NBN, practically everyone relies on ADSL2 or the locally provided HFC network (run by transact/iinet which is of very limited reach/availability). Ballarat Uni even went so far as to setup a point-to-point microwave link to Omniconnect in Melbourne as the backhaul costs are simply too high. The side-effect of this, is that any fibre/HFC networks that do exist (in non-NBN areas) are privately owned meaning there are no options for other providers and no control over pricing.

It's not surprising to find people charged thousands per MONTH for even piddly 10/10 or 20/20 connections. Seems absurd that many businesses are in that situation and I sit at home with a connection several times faster, massively more reliable (fibre doesn't simply "drop-out" from signal quality) and I pay the same (if not less) in a YEAR that they pay in a MONTH!

[Micks]

Some seem to overlook the NBN being used solely for internet, that's not the case will also upgrade our existing Cable TV, phone, Fax & Internet services! Presently I use one carrier for my phone and another for my internet. I require fast internet
& use cable. If & when I have Fibre will have more choice of carriers/price on my services.

[Paul K]

Think of emergency surgery at a hospital and being able to swap 3 d scans in real time with a specialist in another country in real time.
Or a mica specialist needing to intervene surgically with a patient. They are some of the useful outcomes happening from fibre.
The oppositions scheme is just a mismatch that will line Telstra and their share holders pockets.
It will keep Australians in the dark ages and I don't have any love for either parties yet the NBN will make me choose Labour.

[Plenty]

My question, will you vote for Gillard based purely on she has a better internet system?

YES I will

[Micks]

Kinda glad MT is a Lib cause he really is a poor alt for a communications minister & appears to be more Abbotised each time he speaks!

[Evman]

With regards to the NBN and "what speeds we need now" you're looking at it entirely wrong. ENTIRELY wrong. The internet is evolving at an incredible rate. 5+ years ago video streaming wasn't really necessary because all we really did was look at pages/pictures. Now you can stream (just) 1080p video in most locations, but a lot of locations don't have speeds fast enough to manage even that though. To think that the internet and its use will remain as is for 5/10/50 years is incredibly short sighted. Fibre has the potential to last us that long, if not longer. At the moment we'd use one frequency of light for data transmission. When that "runs out" we can use second frequency and instantly the throughput is doubled. Do it again, tripled. Current technology can reliably distinguish over 100 frequencies on what would be a mainstream system. Future technology may be able to distinguish 100/1000/10000 times that. The potential for fibre is beyond current comprehension. You could theoretically get the entire volume of global internet traffic through one fibre line if the transmitter and receiver could distinguish enough frequencies.

As I've said, if the history of the internet is anything to go by we haven't even conceived of the ways it'll be used in 5-10 years. Think about that statement. We haven't even thought about the ways it'll be used. There may be a technological advancement that fundamentally changes everything for all we know (think about the new tech constantly coming out utillising WiFi in brand new ways for instance).