Extending the Social and Economic Benefits of Australia’s Broadband Networks: Action in the time of COVID-19

As Peter Gerrand has outlined in an earlier blog, the NBN Futures Project has moved in recent times from conducting the physical NBN Futures Forums to preparing discussion papers as the initial means to open up issues. The first of these discussion papers, Extending the Social and Economic Benefits of Australia’s Broadband Networks: Action in the time of COVID-19, is available here in pdf format...

Extending the Social and Economic Benefits of Australia’s Broadband Networks: Action in the time of COVID-19 (Summary)

Extending the Social and Economic Benefits of Australia’s Broadband Networks: Action in the time of COVID-19 [Summary of a Discussion Paper prepared by the NBN Futures Group. The full discussion paper will be posted separately on the TelSoc Broadband webpage.] Principal Author: John Burke     Achieving the full social and economic benefits of broadband networks and delivering measurable value to...

The NBN Futures Project

The NBN Futures Project Summary: The NBN Futures Project, initiated by TelSoc members in February 2019 (latterly renamed the TelSoc Broadband Futures Group), aims to develop policy options by early 2021 for the post-rollout NBN, to help meet Australia's needs for broadband infrastructure in the following decade. The project team has run three public forums to date and generated ten peer-reviewed...

How to fix the NBN pricing model

Dear Bill, The NBN pricing model is in urgent need of repair.  In this letter, we offer our thoughts on how an overhaul of the pricing model can solve a number of problems facing the NBN.  We argue that the volume of data transferred should be the basis of wholesale charges for the NBN, not the bandwidth provided to the user.  We also argue that all users should have full access to the bandwidth...

The NBN Blame Game

NBN Co is rapidly coming to the realization that it has a PR issue on its hands.  Many NBN retail customers are complaining about the quality of their service, and what is particularly frustrating for many customers is that it is not clear who to blame.  Do they blame their retail service provider (RSP) for not buying enough assess bandwidth via the CVC charge, or is it the fault of the limited...

The True Cost of FTTP

The True Cost of FTTP Rod Tucker   In a recent blog, NBN Co attempts to justify why NBN Co is rolling out fibre to the node (FTTN) rather than fibre to the premises (FTTP).   NBN Co says that FTTP is too expensive for Australia, claiming that Australia is not on a level playing field with other countries that have FTTP.    But NBN Co?s commentary is misleading, and omits a number of key facts.  A...

The Utility of Broadband

I don't agree that international comparisons are not relevant. Australia needs to develop critical infrastructure like water delivery, electricity, broadband, etc. not only as social services, but also to enable a vibrant economy (please note I consider all of these as "utilities", including broadband). It DOES matter that we are competitive internationally in broadband and one way to measure...

The Tragedy of Australia's National Broadband Network

Rod Tucker's article appears here, in the March 2017 issue of TelSoc's journal, the Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy. 

Pot calling kettle black

Let's cast our minds back to 2013. In the election campaign Malcolm Turnbull, as communications spokesman, said that the then proposed 3 technology NBN would cost over $90 billion. When asked after the election why they used that number, Turnbull and Fletcher admitted that they just made the number up! But they promised, their Multi-Technology Mix would deliver 25Mbps downloads and would be...

The NBN ? more lies leading us from bad to worse

Republished with permisssion from: http://www.budde.com.au/News/#The-NBN-?-more-lies-leading-us-from-bad-to-worse I am sure that I am just as frustrated as most Australians ? especially as month after month, year after year, it becomes clearer that what I, along with others, have been saying since 2011 ? that a cheaper and faster NBN such as the Coalition Government is trying to install by...