Australian Broadband Battles - A Warrior's Account (original) (raw)
Related papers
Deployment costs of rural broadband technologies
Telecommunications Journal of Australia, 2009
One effect of the NBN plan will be to shift the 'digital divide' from the current unhappy contrast between dial-up access versus entry-level ADSL or ADSL+2 Internet access, to a new divide between 100 Mbit/s for the privileged 90% versus 12 Mbit/s for the more geographically isolated 10% of the population. The latter speed is so much better than most Australians have ever experienced, that few are yet concerned about the continuing disadvantageous asymmetry. Yet over the past 50 years, community expectations have shifted from having no TV whatever to B&W TV to colour (broadcast analogue signal) TV to digital TV, as a means of sharing mainstream community experiences (and not just those sporting events protected under 'no siphoning' legislation). By the time the NBN has been fully implemented, we can confidently expect that many online applications, including IPTV, will have grown in functionality to demand better than 12 Mbit/s user bandwidth-to the detriment of those on the wrong side of the digital divide. With this in mind, a very recent technology breakthrough permitting the range of FTTP to extend to 60 km offers a reduction in the expected 90:10 broadband imbalance to perhaps a 95:05 ratio or better. A paper by John Ellershaw et al in this issue demonstrates that if at least 20 Mbit/s user bandwidth is demanded for reasons of social equity, FTTP can be a cheaper solution-using aerial OF cable for the 'last 100 metres'-than terrestrial wireless access, out to that 60 km limit. SETTING THE WHOLESALE PRICING One of the first commercial problems for 'NBN Co' to solve will be setting the wholesale pricing. As the Federal Government is underwriting the whole investment, and is implementing the network as essential national infrastructure, there is no overriding need for the wholesale pricing to be set at a level that would give the government a direct commercial return on its investment-any more than for its investments in national roads and railway infrastructure. But it will be motivated to set the maximum price consistent with rapid take-up by its retail customers-Australia's more than 100 licensed carriers. John de Ridder's paper in this issue proposes a wholesale pricing strategy for the NBN that not only reconciles broadband investment incentives with affordability but also provides a partial solution to the net neutrality problem.
The importance of Net Neutrality to the digital economy
Telecommunications Journal of Australia, 2009
One effect of the NBN plan will be to shift the 'digital divide' from the current unhappy contrast between dial-up access versus entry-level ADSL or ADSL+2 Internet access, to a new divide between 100 Mbit/s for the privileged 90% versus 12 Mbit/s for the more geographically isolated 10% of the population. The latter speed is so much better than most Australians have ever experienced, that few are yet concerned about the continuing disadvantageous asymmetry. Yet over the past 50 years, community expectations have shifted from having no TV whatever to B&W TV to colour (broadcast analogue signal) TV to digital TV, as a means of sharing mainstream community experiences (and not just those sporting events protected under 'no siphoning' legislation). By the time the NBN has been fully implemented, we can confidently expect that many online applications, including IPTV, will have grown in functionality to demand better than 12 Mbit/s user bandwidth-to the detriment of those on the wrong side of the digital divide. With this in mind, a very recent technology breakthrough permitting the range of FTTP to extend to 60 km offers a reduction in the expected 90:10 broadband imbalance to perhaps a 95:05 ratio or better. A paper by John Ellershaw et al in this issue demonstrates that if at least 20 Mbit/s user bandwidth is demanded for reasons of social equity, FTTP can be a cheaper solution-using aerial OF cable for the 'last 100 metres'-than terrestrial wireless access, out to that 60 km limit. SETTING THE WHOLESALE PRICING One of the first commercial problems for 'NBN Co' to solve will be setting the wholesale pricing. As the Federal Government is underwriting the whole investment, and is implementing the network as essential national infrastructure, there is no overriding need for the wholesale pricing to be set at a level that would give the government a direct commercial return on its investment-any more than for its investments in national roads and railway infrastructure. But it will be motivated to set the maximum price consistent with rapid take-up by its retail customers-Australia's more than 100 licensed carriers. John de Ridder's paper in this issue proposes a wholesale pricing strategy for the NBN that not only reconciles broadband investment incentives with affordability but also provides a partial solution to the net neutrality problem.
The open Internet: what it is, and why it matters
Telecommunications Journal of Australia, 2009
One effect of the NBN plan will be to shift the 'digital divide' from the current unhappy contrast between dial-up access versus entry-level ADSL or ADSL+2 Internet access, to a new divide between 100 Mbit/s for the privileged 90% versus 12 Mbit/s for the more geographically isolated 10% of the population. The latter speed is so much better than most Australians have ever experienced, that few are yet concerned about the continuing disadvantageous asymmetry. Yet over the past 50 years, community expectations have shifted from having no TV whatever to B&W TV to colour (broadcast analogue signal) TV to digital TV, as a means of sharing mainstream community experiences (and not just those sporting events protected under 'no siphoning' legislation). By the time the NBN has been fully implemented, we can confidently expect that many online applications, including IPTV, will have grown in functionality to demand better than 12 Mbit/s user bandwidth-to the detriment of those on the wrong side of the digital divide. With this in mind, a very recent technology breakthrough permitting the range of FTTP to extend to 60 km offers a reduction in the expected 90:10 broadband imbalance to perhaps a 95:05 ratio or better. A paper by John Ellershaw et al in this issue demonstrates that if at least 20 Mbit/s user bandwidth is demanded for reasons of social equity, FTTP can be a cheaper solution-using aerial OF cable for the 'last 100 metres'-than terrestrial wireless access, out to that 60 km limit. SETTING THE WHOLESALE PRICING One of the first commercial problems for 'NBN Co' to solve will be setting the wholesale pricing. As the Federal Government is underwriting the whole investment, and is implementing the network as essential national infrastructure, there is no overriding need for the wholesale pricing to be set at a level that would give the government a direct commercial return on its investment-any more than for its investments in national roads and railway infrastructure. But it will be motivated to set the maximum price consistent with rapid take-up by its retail customers-Australia's more than 100 licensed carriers. John de Ridder's paper in this issue proposes a wholesale pricing strategy for the NBN that not only reconciles broadband investment incentives with affordability but also provides a partial solution to the net neutrality problem.
Telecommunications Journal of Australia, 2013
After the launch of the Liberal and National Parties (LNP)’s ‘fast broadband and affordable NBN’ policy on 9 April, the broadest areas of difference between the major parties’ NBN policies are fairly clear, and are summarised in the introduction to this article in a simple table of comparisons. However in the lead-up to the federal election in September 2013, there is huge and often bitter controversy over the potential benefits and disadvantages of each policy. To provide some enlightenment on the implications of the competing policies, TJA has assembled an NBN Policy Panel of four experienced commentators, ranging in their political sympathies from ‘centre left to centre right’ – and none of them uncritical supporters of either policy. Their disciplines span the engineering, economics and marketing of broadband telecommunications.
The National Broadband Network
Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, 2018
We provide a bottom-up analysis of broadband availability in Australia without the NBN and with the NBN. For Australia without the NBN, we have assumed that broadband availability, in terms of access speed, would have continued to evolve; in particular, we have assumed that all DSL access would have been enhanced to ADSL2+. For Australia with the NBN, we concentrate on the Multi-Technology Mix version now being deployed in the fixed-line footprint. The NBN can make a difference both in terms of the geographical availability of broadband access and in the maximum access speeds provided. We consider both these aspects for the period after the current NBN has been fully deployed. Our analysis is based solely on publicly available information and census data from 2011. We find that the NBN will extend fixed-line broadband availability only marginally. In terms of access speed, we find that a further 17% of the population will have access to 10 Mb/s downstream and a further 65% of the po...
Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, 2016
On 22 June 2016, Mike Quigley, the founding CEO of NBN Co, gave an address to TelSoc on his insights into, and predictions for, the Australian National Broadband Network (NBN). This article provides a brief summary of his presentation and a commentary on some of the issues raised. Mr Quigley contended that, if there had not been a hiatus and change of direction after the election of the Coalition government in 2013, the rollout of the NBN would have been completed by December 2021 within a peak funding of $45 billion, broadly in accord with NBN Co’s plans from September 2013. A major part of the original plan was for fibre to 93% of existing premises within the fixed-line footprint of the NBN. He noted that the replacement of the fibre plan in 2013 with a multi-technology mix had slowed deployment. He showed that the Coalition’s assertions while in opposition about the cost and take-up of the NBN had not proved true up to December 2015. Mr Quigley’s critique also raised a numb...
Broadband Access 1 C Economic Analysis of Broadband Access for Australian Rural and Remote Areas
2012
978-1-4244-2603-4, Library of Congress 2008904865. Copyright © 2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. For technical support please contact Causal Productions (info@causalproductions.com). The 2008 Australasian Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference 7-10 December 2008 • Adelaide, Australia
High-level stakeholders' insights on readying Australia for Next Generation Broadband
industry to explore (a) what changes might occur in each sector once next generation broadband (NGB) is widely available and (b) what action is needed to prepare for these changes. Most participants expected NGB to have a positive and profound effect on business and daily life in Australia. However, Australian organisations had been slow to engage with the opportunities offered by NGB. They were also concerned that certain groups could get left behind through digital divide.