Interestingly we actually had 2 announcements on the NBN last week.
First there was a business focused announcement.
NBN Co to spend $700m on 240 'business fibre zones' across Australia
By Ry Crozier on Sep 22, 2020 7:03AM
Unveils three-year construction, rezoning package.
NBN Co is set to spend as much as $700 million creating 240 “business fibre zones” across Australia where every business in the area can get a fibre connection at “CBD zone wholesale pricing”.
The announcement, made a day before the release of the next NBN corporate plan, means “nine in 10 businesses will be able to order high-speed fibre broadband” from NBN Co, according to the government.
Having businesses located within ‘fibre zones’ removes one of the last pieces of complexity in NBN Co’s business offering.
As it currently stands, NBN Co zones business premises as either A, B or C, and this impacts their ability - as well as their cost - to have fibre deployed.
As iTnews has previously reported, NBN Co uses a ‘black box’ algorithm to determine if a business or collection of business sites qualify for free or deferred cost fibre.
No one outside of NBN Co really understands the mechanics of how the algorithm reaches its conclusions, creating uncertainty for retail service providers as they try to sign businesses up to NBN deals.
That will change considerably once 90 percent of businesses are incorporated into “business fibre zones”.
“Businesses will be able to access premium-grade NBN business fibre services at no upfront build cost to their retail service providers,” Communications Minister Paul Fletcher confirmed.
NBN Co added: “NBN Co is pleased to announce today that when an internet retailer places an order for enterprise ethernet, for an estimated 90 percent of business premises in the national NBN network footprint, we will not charge the retailer for building the fibre.
“Plus, if an internet retailer signs up for a three-year Enterprise Ethernet plan, we will not charge the retailer an upfront connection cost.”
The 700,000-plus businesses in the zones also qualify for the cheapest zoned pricing.
Lots more here including the affected regions:
Second we had a consumer announcement a day or so later.
NBN push for fibre to the home
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Sep 23, 2020 – 12.01am
The NBN Co will spend $4.5 billion over the next two years to provide almost 10 million households and businesses with the option of high-speed fibre connections, in a change of political direction by the Coalition government.
Years after building a controversial system which mostly used copper to connect homes to fibre nodes in the street, the government will announce on Wednesday an upgrade which will devote $3.5 billion to laying high-speed fibre cables down streets past homes.
Householders looking for vastly higher web speed will be able to have their homes connected by fibre to the network free of charge. They will, however, pay higher prices for their broadband plan, in line with the $149 a month paid by consumers already connected directly by fibre.
These prices will continue to be set by retailers.
On Tuesday, NBN Co announced a similar plan for business. At a cost of $700 million, about 1.4 million businesses would be eligible to have fibre rolled out to their premises free of charge. It will spend an additional $300 million improving internet services in the regions.
The three initiatives – businesses, households and the regions – add up to a $4.5 billion investment in faster services. The money will be borrowed.
The government will badge the upgrade as a recession-busting infrastructure initiative that should create 25,000 jobs, including 16,600 in industries such as construction, engineering, project management, transport and retail trade.
With more people working from home, the government also forecasts the upgrade will boost GDP by $6.4 billion a year by 2024. It will also boost the NBN's attractiveness should the government choose to privatise it.
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, who will unveil the full plan on Wednesday, said the upgrade would also boost NBN Co's internal rate of return from 3.2 per cent to 3.7 per cent "and add significant value to this critical national asset".
Lots more here:
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/nbn-push-for-fibre-to-the-home-20200922-p55xxv
Of all the commentary I have seen I found these two pretty good.
First:
We’re finally getting the NBN we wanted all along
After all the political infighting, the Coalition has belatedly decided a gold-plated NBN is better than copper after all.
Paul Smith Technology editor
Sep 23, 2020 – 12.00am
The announcement of a fresh $4.5 billion investment in the nation’s broadband infrastructure is a moment that countless Australians have been howling in frustration for since the Coalition tore up Labor’s original plans for a majority fibre to the premise network, back in 2013.
Under the stewardship of Malcolm Turnbull as communications minister and Tony Abbott as prime minister, the government decided that a copper and HFC (cable TV infrastructure) laden multi-technology-mix would be both cheaper and more quickly deployed than the fibre network it frequently described as “gold-plated”.
Plenty of political water has flowed under the bridge since then however, and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher now feels confident enough to suggest that gold-plated is better than copper-plated, and that a full fibre network was part of the plan all along.
Under the new plans, 75 per cent of households will have access to one Gigabit per second (Gbps) speeds by 2023, which is light years ahead of what customers on fibre-to-the-node plans can currently achieve.
In a bid to avoid the political bogy-word “backflip” the government will now furiously reject any suggestions of hypocrisy, and use the unforeseen COVID-19 pandemic as proof that it has been right all along.
“The 2013 decision by the Coalition to roll out the NBN quickly, then phase upgrades around emerging demand, has served Australia well. It meant the NBN was available to almost all Australians when COVID-19 hit, giving us high-speed home connectivity when we needed it most,” Fletcher said in announcing the new plan.
It is an argument that looks solid on the surface, but is often rejected when telco experts – rather than politicians and journalists – get involved in the conversation.
The premise that Labor’s NBN would not have been advanced enough is hotly disputed by some in the sector, who point to advances in techniques, such as shallow trenching for fibre-optic cables that mean the original rollout could have dramatically accelerated. In reality, we will never know.
Anyway, there is no doubt that Wednesday's announcement is a positive one, which will hopefully allow Australians to stop casting an envious eye overseas at the far superior internet available on our doorstep in New Zealand and elsewhere.
To be fair, the NBN has performed admirably during the lockdown, enabling most businesses and workers to keep operating from homes, without the additional headache of crawling speeds.
However, it has had to drop its prices to ISPs and haggle with the likes of Netflix to reduce the quality of their streams in order to guarantee it keeps working properly.
It is not a sustainable situation, and it is good news that this new direction is being taken.
In reality, the NBN was not completed in 2020, a stop-gap solution was reached, and the NBN will be completed in 2023.
More here:
https://www.afr.com/technology/we-re-finally-getting-the-nbn-we-wanted-all-along-20200922-p55y5i
Second:
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of iTWire.
Wednesday, 23 September 2020 10:39
Coalition's fibre backflip no Damascene conversion
While many people are rejoicing over the Coalition Government's backflip on its NBN policy and its announcement that it will spend to get fibre delivered to up to eight million subscribers in all, nobody should for a moment think that this is some Damascene conversion.
No, it is just that NBN Co fears it will soon become irrelevant in the overall scheme of things as private companies come up with their own offerings to gain customers, ignoring the NBN altogether.
It was laughable to see this statement from Communications Minister Paul Fletcher: ""From the outset, the plan set out in our 2013 Strategic Review was to get the network rolled out as quickly as possible – and then deliver upgrades when there was demand for them."
Really? So the Coalition had this cunning plan? This is a mob that specialises in announcements, and announcements about announcements. It then tries to drive home the mantra that it is focused on outcomes. Sure. And I am focused on becoming the king of Jordan.
But then Fletcher cannot tell Australians the truth, that this entire backward-looking policy — remember Richard Alston's comments about people wanting broadband so they could look at porn easily? — is driven by ideology.
Now, however, after the government has sunk $29 billion into the NBN and owns what may well become a white elephant, he has had to get up from his slumber and react.
Lots more here:
https://itwire.com/open-sauce/coalition-s-fibre-backflip-no-damascene-conversion.html
So overall I think we can say that:
1. The NBN Co does see that there is a real demand from some for fast internet and that their lunch may be eaten by 5G technologies especially where people are presently on the much less than ideal NBN connections (HFC and FttN)
2. It seems this sudden policy change is driven by a desire to protect the NBN’s penetration and revenue rather than a sudden ideological shift regarding the value of the NBN although the pandemic has offered real support for its value!
3. The Government / Minister does not really grasp how the service levels of the NBN need radical improvement. My connection (NBN / Optus) has been down for intervals of 10 minutes or so up to 10 times in the last week. It has all seemed to be the NBN and not the Optus modem which seems pretty reliable.
4. I think a price point of $150 for a Gigabit connection with unlimited data is too high given 100/40 is typically about $75 per month.
5. I am really pleased that we mostly have the choice for a really fast connection if we really want it!
David.
1 comment:
Seems to have a lot in common with the ADHA's intention to "improve" the MyHR and its infrastructure.
https://conversation.digitalhealth.gov.au/industry-briefing
Except there's one big difference. Many people want better internet, hardly anyone even knows about the MyHR let alone what, if anything, it can do for them.
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