How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

If you posed the question &quot;Who in the world would be the worst possible person to decide on how to construct a nationwide high speed computer network?&quot;, the you might come up with a list that included Tony Abbott.<p>I genuinely believe that Tony Abbott really didn&#x27;t even understand what purpose the Internet serves, apart from email and playing games - he saw it as some sort of frivolous discretionary spend - definitely not anywhere near as important as roads and mines and coal.<p>It&#x27;s an absolute tragedy for the nation that the original plan was changed by such ignorant luddites as Tony Abbott.<p>They made such an incredibly huge fuss about the cost, but only a month or two back they handed a $23 billion corporate tax cut over to companies and it barely made the newspaper.<p>I can tell you in no uncertain terms that I have not an atom of respect for any of our politicians.<p>Off topic, to me all part of the same story is my absolute quivering rage that we are literally giving away our natural resources for nothing or close to nothing whilst every litre of natural gas that can be sucked out of the ground is shipped to other countries.<p>Meanwhile the politicians ride around in helicopters, leech the taxpayer blind with their kingly entitlements and are genuinely surprised when there is outrage about it.<p>Seriously it is time for a citizens revolution. We need to take the country back from these idiots.

The government who changed away from FTTP is the more conservative (and pro small government) of the two major parties. As such, although I disagree, I can see why they may argue that it is not the governments responsibility to deliver broadband infrastructure and that private industry should pick up any slack.<p>However they didn&#x27;t argue this.<p>They stuck with the concept of a nationally funded broadband network, but one which was sub-par on almost every metric except cost. This just doesn&#x27;t make any sense to me, especially because they tried to sell it to the public by suggesting that things like &quot;Why invest so much in fibre when it may be surpassed by another technology in the near future&quot;. There was also a lot of clever wording around how their version would be &quot;delivered cheaper, faster, etc than the alternative&quot; - I have no doubt these words were chosen because it sounds like the data rates themselves would be faster, whereas they actually meant it the build could be completed faster.

The biggest issue with the whole project wasn&#x27;t the abandoning of FTTP and move to MTM but the locking in of 2010 prices for the foreseeable future via a ridiculous CVC charge that only existed to turn a profit.<p>The founder of one of Australia&#x27;s largest independent ISP&#x27;s Internode (and later NBNco board member) Simon Hackett put it very well in 2011 where he showed locking in a arbitrary $20 charge per megabit hobbled the network.The whole profitability revolved around charging more for faster speeds&#x2F;more data in the future.<p>Every other technological advance gave users faster for cheaper whereas this network would only work if people paid more. Cut to the future and now you&#x27;ve got competition from 4G cellular data at the low end and private companies providing private fibre&#x2F;wireless networks at the top end. The whole pyramid is coming crashing down so much that the government has had to introduce a new broadband tax ($7.10 per month) to subsidize it.<p>And even the tax won&#x27;t solve the problems because the CVC usage charge still exists and the business case still resolves around charging more in the future. In about 5 years when they realize what a stuff up it&#x27;s been we can only help they write it all off and we can go back having affordable fast internet like the rest of the world.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;simonhackett.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;07&#x2F;commsday-w-and-dc-hackett-2013.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;simonhackett.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;07&#x2F;commsday-w-...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.internode.on.net&#x2F;2011&#x2F;07&#x2F;21&#x2F;nbn-retail-pricing-pressure-points&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.internode.on.net&#x2F;2011&#x2F;07&#x2F;21&#x2F;nbn-retail-pricing-...</a>

I have a personal perspective on this. Around 2014 or so, I + some of Australia&#x27;s top physicists designed and quickly prototyped some tech to lower the cost of the NBN rollout bigtime. Our approach revolved around self install fibre + a far greater use of wireless.<p>I contacted 15+ people in senior leadership at NBNco, all of whom are still on my LinkedIn. No matter how hard I tried, we couldn&#x27;t get a meeting with NBNco execs to demo our tech.<p>I took it to the local tech press here to get some positive coverage and they told us repeatedly how &quot;stupid&quot; we were. We wrote comments on the now PM (then Communications Minister)&#x27;s blog and chatted to his people. Zero interest. At that point they&#x27;d been at it for ~7 years, spent billions and had pretty much nothing to show for it. Nada.<p>Last year, an academic completely unaffiliated with us testified at a parliamentary committee into why the existing approach has been such a boondoggle. As a remedy, he suggested our exact approach. He also copped it from the tech press.<p>Here are a couple tweets from that period between me and an online tech pundit. This Renai LeMay fellow runs Australia&#x27;s most influential tech site, it&#x27;s very very popular with Australia&#x27;s politicians:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;renailemay&#x2F;status&#x2F;705523306699423744" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;renailemay&#x2F;status&#x2F;705523306699423744</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;renailemay&#x2F;status&#x2F;705528311330385920" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;renailemay&#x2F;status&#x2F;705528311330385920</a><p>Such is the life of the serial entrepreneur. This is the typical bs that we have to put up with. I folded that company up pretty fast. Idea tested. NEXT.

I was born and raised in Australia, I left for Japan just as the NBN was beginning to roll out.<p>It&#x27;s an absolute disgrace how much it has been butchered. I have thoughts about returning occasionally, but going from 2 GB&#x2F;s unlimited for Aus$ 40 ish a month, back to those speeds and prices is a major factor for me staying here.<p>It is a massive quality of life difference to have amazing internet.

As an Australian, I think it can be summed up by two reasons.<p>1. All large scale infrastructure rollouts are difficult and subject to problems and blowouts.<p>2. It was made a political issue. New government decided to make major revamps for no reason other than it was different to the previous government so they could use it as an election issue.

I&#x27;m lucky enough to live in an area where I can get ~70-80Mb&#x2F;s down and ~30-50Mbps up VDSL2 for a (by Australian standards) reasonable price.<p>My suburb, unfortunately, hasn&#x27;t been NBN-ified - but we still have a VDSL network courtesy of TransACT, the broadband provider that was created when the ACT Government decided to start laying FTTC fibre around Canberra back in the 1990s.<p>There&#x27;s a lot of talk of locally-driven &quot;municipal broadband&quot; in the US, but very little in Australia. I expect that&#x27;s mostly because local governments in Australia are far less powerful than in the United States (which, for the most part, I&#x27;m actually okay with) and wouldn&#x27;t be able to raise taxes and spend them on broadband projects. The Australian Capital Territory, of course, is a special case - a local government with state-level powers, who already owned an electricity network when they decided to go into FTTN as well.

The NBN is a tale of geography. If you live in the CBD mainland capital city you will get good coverage. Even that it&#x27;s patchy. If you live more than 30km out access get mostly worse. If you live in the bush, the best you&#x27;ll get is crappy satellite or your own jury rigged antenna to the nearest town.<p>If you were lucky enough to a) live close to the city b) have telephone poles c) live near a telephone exchange and were chosen by Telstra to get FTTN before the change of government you can get 100Mb+ access. [0] Otherwise you are out of luck.<p>This is largely a political issue that could be fixed by leadership. Australia has weak leaders of both sides of the political spectrum.<p>Market forces are supposed to fix this problem according to our learned leaders, but it won&#x27;t. Australia is big, really big and we needed a federally funded optic fibre solution to the country even if it cost a lot.<p><pre><code> Here&#x27;s my version of NBN... Exchange-&gt;fibre-&gt;POTS https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flickr.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;bootload&#x2F;tags&#x2F;pots </code></pre> Using technology developed during the early 1900s.<p>[0] Relative has NBN fibre to the node.

Australian here.<p>I was recently forced from my ADSL2+ service over to the shiny new HFC system. My quality actually degraded - although my bandwidth increased, my latency is off the charts, especially in peak time. I contacted my ISP to see if I could go back to my ADSL2+ service and they flat out said no.<p>The future is bleak.

Yeah, shit&#x27;s fucked. To be fair though, it&#x27;s not like Labor would&#x27;ve delivered on their promises either.<p>Honestly the whole thing smells very strongly of a money-making racket on the part of Telstra (how much money did the CEOs profit from the privatisation only to sell their 100-year-old waterlogged copper back to the government?).

&gt; Average speeds have more than doubled since 2013, according to Akamai, but other countries are connecting their populations faster, meaning Australia’s lag with the rest of the world has grown.<p>The article is very light on numbers. It would be nice to actually see solid metrics around speeds and costs across the whole of Australia.

The actual answer: it was directly sabotaged by the Liberal National Party (the conservatives), at the bidding of Rupert Murdoch, who <i>really</i> doesn&#x27;t want Australian internet not to suck.<p>Basically, Tony Abbott got in in 2013 and the shitty version of the scheme was put into place.

Do we have any examples of successful, nation-wide, high-speed Internet rollouts by governments (for countries roughly size-wise comparable to Australia)?<p>It&#x27;s an honest question, because I&#x27;m not familiar with any.

Currently I pay AUD$79 per month for the privilege of 1.4mbp&#x2F;s down and 100kp&#x2F;s up. My area is slated for the NBN, albiet HFC (using old coaxial) to commence building in 2019. Bloody bonza, mate.

For people actually sad about the NBN: this mentions that people who want 1Gbps &quot;will have an upgrade option&quot; (I think they said it something like that). This was from Feb 12 this year.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.abc.net.au&#x2F;radionational&#x2F;programs&#x2F;downloadthisshow&#x2F;nbn&#x2F;8276824" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.abc.net.au&#x2F;radionational&#x2F;programs&#x2F;downloadthissho...</a>

An entirely predictable shambles. This money should have been spent on Australian skills and content, not on installing damn cables and routers. Let the market decide how to meet demand for content delivery -- education and social investment are far better places for governments to place these sorts of long bets. I saw this coming a mile away and have a long list of poo-pooed complaints on social media to this effect.

At least the South Australian goverment is doing something to alleviate issues of the NBN in Adelaide. Launching 10 gigabit internet across key areas in the CBD.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gigcity.com.au&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gigcity.com.au&#x2F;</a>

In the UK we mostly have FTTC and copper to our property. I&#x27;m in London admittedly, but I get 220Mbps&#x2F;20Mpbs solidly, so copper isn&#x27;t all bad <i>if</i> you have fibre running to a cabinet that&#x27;s close to you.

Related: Hosting in Aus is ridiculously expensive too <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10985137" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10985137</a>

Hilariously, the conservative government currently in power made the following election campaign promises [0] [1] in 2013 (the election where they won government):<p>- <i>Every household and business to have access to broadband with a download data rate of between 25 and 100 megabits per second by late 2016.</i> [We&#x27;re currently trailing Kenya]<p>- <i>Key prices for a Coalition NBN will be capped nationally, ensuring Australians in metropolitan and regional areas alike can obtain services at fair prices.</i> [For the low low price of $80 a month, on a 24 month contract, you can get 25Mbps&#x2F;5Mbps from our two largest telcos: Telstra &amp; Optus] [2] [3]<p>- <i>&quot;...unshackle the competitive telecom market that Labor tried to stamp out, and reduce the cost of the NBN to prudent levels.&quot;</i> [Because of the NBN wholesale cost structure and network inter-connect structure, our retail ISPs are rapidly consolidating. We&#x27;re likely to have three left standing by the end. To be fair, the latter wasn&#x27;t the current government&#x27;s fault.]<p>- <i>They would complete the network roll-out at 2&#x2F;3 the cost of the previous plan.</i> [The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated in December 2016 that the total network cost will be $49 billion. However, the current government did make the <i>entirely unsubstantiated and unquestioned</i> claim that the $44B plan for FTTP was actually going to cost $90B.] [4]<p>So, things seem to be going to plan so far. The worst part about all this is that everyone seemed to eat this shit right up at the time. Even Australia&#x27;s tech so-called &#x27;journalists&#x27; were all going on about how the Coalition had presented a &#x27;credible alternative&#x27;.<p>We deserve this, because we&#x27;re stupid.<p>[0] PDF of election document: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.communications.gov.au&#x2F;file&#x2F;315&#x2F;download?token=8OjaNaNc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.communications.gov.au&#x2F;file&#x2F;315&#x2F;download?token=8O...</a><p>[1] HTML cached version: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webcache.googleusercontent.com&#x2F;search?q=cache:Ih8ycWOkmRkJ:https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.communications.gov.au&#x2F;file&#x2F;315&#x2F;download%3Ftoken%3D8OjaNaNc+&amp;cd=2&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=au" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webcache.googleusercontent.com&#x2F;search?q=cache:Ih8ycW...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.telstra.com.au&#x2F;broadband&#x2F;nbn&#x2F;nbn-plans" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.telstra.com.au&#x2F;broadband&#x2F;nbn&#x2F;nbn-plans</a><p>[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.optus.com.au&#x2F;shop&#x2F;broadband&#x2F;home-broadband&#x2F;plans?bt=FBB&amp;tl=FTEL#Plans" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.optus.com.au&#x2F;shop&#x2F;broadband&#x2F;home-broadband&#x2F;plans?...</a><p>[4] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.news.com.au&#x2F;national&#x2F;nbn-cost-blowout-to-impact-budget&#x2F;news-story&#x2F;2db99cc39d5f9b337e9c8cdba64671eb" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.news.com.au&#x2F;national&#x2F;nbn-cost-blowout-to-impact-b...</a>

Can anyone from New Zealand comment on whether the same problems exist there? It&#x27;s even more geographically isolated so I&#x27;d expect that to be the case, but who knows.

The NBN was almost always going to end in failure, as the biggest impediment to Australian internet is the lack of overseas links, and the cost of using these links.

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;isthenbnfastyet.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;isthenbnfastyet.com&#x2F;</a>

So they promoted the guy who screwed up the project, Malcolm Turnbull, to be Prime Minister.

Country is a basket case politically, lowest calibre of politician I have ever encountered. A profound paucity of talent across the board and absolutely no end in sight to the endless stupidity.<p>You can think of the shit infrastructure, crap attitude in general, and intellectually bankrupt waste that make up the political class as the many layers of tax on any high cognitive business in Australia.<p>Coal is the future apparently. Don&#x27;t even get me started on the racists.

It&#x27;ll be fine.

It&#x27;s about $5000 in tax per household to fund a $38B rollout, and you don&#x27;t get a choice. That&#x27;s the unfunded half-ass costed guesstimate which was largely skewed by politicians to make it look better. Why not let people choose to spend $5k on fibre if they want?<p>The majority of connections opt for 12 or 25mbit anyway, sorry couldn&#x27;t find url for nbnco statistic.<p>Technically, dropping billions on fibre in this day and age is stupid given that so much (vast majority) of the population is already in areas that can get faster IP (over 100mbit) from LTE, wireless technology is the future, imagine if it was spent on LTE sites.<p>Many people use the argument only fibre can do it, when that&#x27;s just intellectual dishonesty about different types of layer 1.<p>4 million of Australia&#x27;s households (roughly half) already have HFC that when upgraded will do gigabit.<p>It is illegal to compete with NBN.<p>The NBN was unfunded in its commitment. The same party implemented a $20b&#x2F;year national disability insurance scheme which was also not funded. All these arguments saying it was bungled, but only the hollow commitments of the unionist&#x2F;socialist party that implemented this were bungled. A lot of the angry people also don&#x27;t pay a lot of net tax either which is the usual narrative of the ALP.<p>So it wasn&#x27;t properly costed or funded, all these great things that party promised in power, but they still lost the next election anyway, so the people spoke.<p>Also NYT is fake news. :)