The front cover of The Daily Telegraph today shows why Rupert Murdoch and the company he controls, News Limited, is campaigning aggressively against the National Broadband Network.
The NBN opens a new channel of access to content, a new channel of influence, a channel that would compete with Murdoch’s newspapers. The NBN challenges his position of extraordinary influence.
The cover of The Daily Telegraph newspaper today shows how News Limited uses its influence. Instead of news on the front page we have a shrill piece telling us how to vote.
A completed NBN roll out reduces the influence of front covers like on The Daily Telegraph newspaper today. This would be good for democracy in Australia.
It would be a mistake to read this blog post as supporting Kevin Rudd. This post is about how a news organisation controlling 70% of Australia’s newspapers is using its position of influence to drive the election result it wants. I’d prefer to see news on the front page of my newspapers.
NBN Fiber to the House and Business is essential for an open vibrant media. It will also kill Fox’s monopoly on this country for cable and satellite.
As to Kevin Rudd a lady who lost her son in the pink bats put it nicely Ï just wish he would go away”.
The Opposition NBN Plan is completely unacceptable though it suits Rupert Murdoch fine as it does not threaten Cable or Satellite.
Is the NBN a vote changer?
As a communications engineer who has designed and installed national communications systems for the past 30 years can I just say a few things;
1. the NBN is just the internet
2. FTTH is a rolls Royce solution and the time taken to roll this out nationally will, IMHO, hurt us
What is wrong with the NBN being the Rolls Royce solution? There are tons of good applications for this when it is complete. Australia needs to invest in infrastructure which leads jobs for the future not the past. Everytime the government bails out another dead industry it drives me crazy.
Here is the NBN rollout for my area on NSW South Coast from the NBN site. Technology can change a hell of a lot in this time period. I have seen a couple of articles on the 5G network Samsung are trailing in Korea and is just as fast if not faster and no holes underground and cost is comparable.
Fibre | Construction to commence within three years – we will commence construction in your area from Dec 2015*.
It is estimated that the average time from construction beginning to NBN services being available is 12 months.
Brett,
To try and diminish the NBN as “just the internet” is to completely misunderstand what “the internet” is and what it will become in the future.
Its a pipeline for all content in every sector of the country. It is the single most important infrastructure project in a generation.
The NBN (FTTH) will last us decades. Yes, it takes longer to roll out in the short term.
However the LNPs solution (FTTN) will last a significantly shorter amount of time and at some point in the not to distant future it will need a significant upgrade to FFTH, at which point the long to med term costs and implementation time blow out way beyond Labor’s “Rolls Royce “.
Gregg, Any current wireless solution has been shown to be a dud in its application in Australia. The physical and practical limits on wireless are well documented. It is not a solution.
I don’t care about the time it takes to bring Australia best practice connectivity. What I care about is that we get it and thereby create a more democratic country.
I’m no expert so i wont comment on the virtues of FTTN over FTTH. But with cost’s now estimated to blow out to $60 to $110 billion,roll out slowed to a crawl, small subbies pulling out because the large engineering firms with the government contracts are underpaying them and work halted in numerous location due to asbestos in the pits the roll out of the NBN is an unmitigated disaster for which we may all end up paying very dearly.
Probably cost less than the flatscreen TVs funded with the baby bonus etc.
Steve,
If anyone expects what is possibly the largest infrastructure project in the nation’s history to roll out without any increased costs or delays they are kidding themselves.
The only source I can see claiming the ridiculous cost blowouts that you mention is Malcolm Turnbull. I have not seen one independent review that supports such claims.
For the size of the project the NBN is doing relatively well both in terms of budget and rollout.
Id note that even if there were colossal cost blowouts the NBN would almost certainly still be worth it.
There is no doubt in my mind the NBN is a no brainier. And I am sure I read that when South Korea went down there path for internet access they were thought mad for the infrastructure spending. Yet It made them what they are today and I laugh when the leading lights are thinking of wireless that is a fail solution the facts are there to read. As for the cost blow-out.
Money is printed everyday
Jarryd
Show me an up to date independent review which doesn’t expect it to blow out to a cost in this range.
I know nothing about the relative merits of the technologies, timing, or its benefits to democracy. All I know is that the costs are off budget and pitched as an investment that the government will recover when it sells it off, presumably to a monopoly provider. So at the instant that the government sells the asset, the resulting profit or loss will be added or deducted from whatever the governments debt is at that time. Or if the government decides not to sell it, the full cost will hit the budget and the governments books. I actually see the merit in having the Rolls Royce, but jingos I hope they’ve got the numbers right. its one of those things where I don’t know enough about the merits of the investment, but am a bit frightened by the scale of the risk. Id hate to see 10 years of $30B deficits added to the current government debt, and then have the NBN lumped on top of that.
Steve,
I’ve not been able to find any recent in depth independent review – only reports repeating Turnbull’s words.
James,
I personally don’t believe the government should sell it off. Its a piece of national infrastructure and a monopoly – there is no good reason to throw it to the market.
The economic benefits of the NBN are incredibly hard to determine. It would be like trying to determine the benefit of telephones or highways as people were only starting to use them. That said, NZ done an extensive cost-benefit analysis of FFTH (which they are now building) and it showed an expected benefit so large that it would pay for Australia’s NBN!
About the front cover of the newspapers, I recall being quite disturbed by News Ltd’s blatant push to VOTE FOR KEVIN ’07 back in the day. Just as disturbing is the influence the media has, no matter how much they flip-flop to suit their own agenda. Where does one get the actual facts these days???
Wendy following a good cross-section of newsmakers and independent thinking journalists on Twitter is a good start.
An interesting take from yesterdays Fairfax Financial Review.
“The first election of Australia’s post-resources boom era marks the end of a decade of rising national prosperity. Now the money has run out. The economy is in trouble. And the dysfunctional politics of the past three years must end. Under both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, Labor has shown itself to be structurally unfit to govern.”
It seems that all forms of media and media owners openly promote opinions.
James while I disagree with their view – the government was functional, they achieved more change (NDIS, child abuse royal commission, education funding reform etc) than the Howard years – they ran their opinion as opinion and not as a front page news item.
The worst gov every.a waste of money by the time it is fully up and running it will be out dated. Why is the U S NOT going with this .Love how the labor lovers come out defend anything
id like a rolls Royce to, but I cant afford one!!! I think that is the question that needs asking. I might be more inclined to agree with the cost of the NBN if labor hadn’t wasted all those other billions of dollars teht we had in the bank.
The NBN is essential and I am sure it will be worth it. I suspect there were similar concerns back in the day over the cost of the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
Labour and Liberal wasted cash, no doubt about that. The Howard baby bonus payments and the first home owners grants were a waste supporting big business.
DR they are doing it in the US as Cities or Towns. US State & Federal as well as Big Business have all failed to produce so now it is Town and City Councils or otganisitions based on Towns or Cities and these networks are generally thriving.
Unfortunately Mark it was on the front page of the AFR, duly observed as the Editorial. Its the view of the editor of the newspaper and its on the front page of the paper. My point is less about the content or the view, and more of the point that I have raised here before, and that is that all media, including the public broadcaster, is biased and has been since the invention of the printing press. I’m reasonably sure that our democracy was healthy and vibrant before the advent of the internet, and probably television and radio before it. The salient point is the one you make and that is to get a balanced view of whats happening in the world it is best to derive your news and views from a range of sources.
DR,
The US is installing fibre on an ad-hoc basis. But it’s not that great of a comparison, because the internet infrastructure in the US isn’t best practice.
I’d note that the US is ranked 8th in the world for internet speed while Australia is ranked 40th. That’s appalling.
The overwhelming consencus from the tech industry is that fibre is the right long term solution. It’s upgradable to MUCH higher speeds than it will initially use without replacing cabling. It is designed to last decades.
I think news has 33% of Australian newspapers not 70% They just have more readers around 59%
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/a-pressing-case-for-standing-up-to-rupert-murdochs-bullying-20110901-1jo2i.html
I guess there is 2 sides to every story.
Recent political commentary has perpetuated a long-standing myth that News Corp Australia owns 70% of Australian newspapers.
News Corp Australia owns or co-owns 33% of all ABC and CAB audited newspapers in Australia.
News Corp Australia newspapers are popular – over half the adult population of Australia chooses to read a News Corp Australia newspaper each week. This means that News Corp Australia has a 59% share of newspaper circulation.
All of this ignores television, radio and the myriad of online news sources which offer more diversity in opinion than at any time in history.
Garry,
A 59% share of circulation is still massive. Why shoud we allow any company to have that level of influence?
The media play a significant and important role in politics. This is why they should be held to a higher standard by an independent body.
59% of Newspaper Circulation then there is Magazine TV and Fox, suddenly just 59% of Newspaper circulation is not quiet so Benin and all offer the same opinion as the News Limited Newspapers. Fox has a monopoly and naturally News Limited wants to keep it. The NBN will allow others to compete, I believe a good thing.
Jarryd
How do you regulate circulation? We have media ownership laws that regulate what media in what areas a company owns but circulation is a product of consumer demand. Are you suggesting the government of a democracy legislates what percentage of each newspaper title its citizens must purchase?
If FTTH is much more expensive than FTTN
and the Libs think “user pays” for the last
link from the node to the home and it saves billions of dollars – wouldn’t that be
a good, practical solution to this problem.
Nobody in their right mind would object to the NBN but why would people want access to it if they are simply not using it.
The highest no. of baby boomers are now coming through as ageing people in our country and a lot of them wouldn’t give a fig about FTTH. Why spend unnecessary dollars when we don’t have the need?
Lib/Labour – it doesn’t matter really but surely fiscal policy does matter in this global economy.
Who of us can afford to keep spending if
the income is not available to spend.
I think govt. should have to spend within their means and the pie is being reduced by companies closing doors – manufacturing reducing and people losing jobs (less tax for the govt).
I am old but I still remember my father saying “earn a pound and spend 19/6d – result happiness” but “earn a pound and spend a pound and sixpence – result unhappiness”
He was born in 1914 (nearly 100 years ago) but I think it was a good adage to live by.
Surely running government is just the same as us running our businesses and
the above still applies.
“The highest no. of baby boomers are now coming through as ageing people in our country and a lot of them wouldn’t give a fig about FTTH. ”
I think you are wrong about this. Sure they don’t care about the technology and geek aspects but they do care about the benefits, if they are told them. For example, Facebook is massive among older people as a way of keeping up with their kids and grand kids. Now imagine if Facebook was extended so now you can see and talk to your grand kids on your 42 inch TV in HD (not some crumbling low def window). This is a simple example of which there are thousands.
I have been using the Internet in this country since the days when “using the Internet” meant dialing up a Unix box with a terminal program and I have been following the IT industry in this country for nearly as long (and been a participant in that industry for the last 5 years or so) and I firmly believe that the Fiber NBN is a GOOD thing for this country.
Simon Hackett (founder of Internode and general all-round expert on the state of the internet in this country) has had a lot to say about why FTTP is better than FTTN and on ways to reduce the cost of the FTTP network.
His blog posting here
http://simonhackett.com/2013/07/17/nbn-fibre-on-a-copper-budget/
has a LOT of good things to say about how you can ditch the “Rolls Royce” features and still get an FTTP network that will continue to serve this country for decades to come.
June,
The simple fact is that if we install FFTN now, then at some point (by most calculations in the not too distant future) we will have to upgrade to FFTH. Doing it in two separate stages is vastly most expensive and will cost tens of billions more in the long run. It’s like building a single lane road today, only to be forced to upgrade it to a triple lane highway in 10 years. Long term planning is essential for infrastructure.
FTTN is actually inadequate for many existing applications!
Steve,
Not at all. We have competition laws that can dictate the market share of businesses. There is no reason that we should not extend this to media acquisition.
But what I’m actually referring to is laws that regulate media bias and truth in journalism (to a limited extent). We need to recognise the ability of the media to manipulate the public by ensuring that they present news in a more fair and balanced way.
Jarryd,
Given that HD TV can be easily broadcast using a mere 10Mbps (and less using different compression techniques but I have been generous in my allocation) I’d be keen to know what else, the average home, could be demanding of its Internet right now that renders 20Mbps obsolete.
Brett,
The LNP are suggesting initial speed at 12Mbps (somewhere up to 25Mbps after 5years). So your essentially limited in that you ‘ll be able to stream to two TVs at best. It’s pretty commonplace for our house to be using 3.
One of the biggest drawbacks of FFTN is the upload speed. It’s only a fraction of FTTH. Such speeds severely limits applications such as cloud storage, virtual computing, video calling and a range or high-bandwidth commercial applications.
The rate at which demand for increased data and bandwidth are rising makes FFTN an already outdated technology. We’ll chew through its limitations in no time and have to outlay far more capital to upgrade to FFTH in a relatively short amount of time.
Jarryd, I meant that if I want FTTH then I should pay for the distance of FTTN to
FTTH (not the government). This would
ensure that only people who desired it would apply for it and they would have to pay for it much as they have to pay to have gas mains brought into a property or
sewerage pipes connected (I think developers have to pay for that not the govt).
That is what I envisaged would save the govt (us effectively) the huge cost of every house receiving FTTH whether they want it or not.
I might be missing something here but would like to know the difference and how
it would affect the man/woman in the street.
Jarryd,
Well then you should upgrade to fibre – but Im not going to suggest that the taxpayer fund that. 90% of households will be delighted with 20Mbps and 5 as an upload.
June,
You are correct.
The largest expense of any communications system roll out is a thing called “the last mile” often taking up to 1/2 the total cost of the project. Connecting every home to fibre is very expensive and a waste of capacity.
Brett, June,
The cost of getting fibre connected on an ad-hoc basis is prohibitive and will likely be limited to large organisations and big business.
While most households will be happy with 20Mbps INITIALLY – this won’t last. At some point the entire network will have to be upgraded. It’s more cost effective to do it now.
FFTH is essentially a network with the capacity to be upgraded at any point in the future with ease and little cost.
If we don’t install FFTH we also place a barrier to new technologies that require the extra speed. How can people take up any new tech that requires FFTH if there isn’t a network to support it.
Let’s be clear here, all indications are that the cost benefits of the NBN for the economy are enormous. The network is not a financial black hole – it will pay for itself. When have we ever benefitted from half-arsing major infrastructure?
I think I can speak with some authority since I have had the NBN for over a year. And I run eLearning sites as part of my business, so I actually use it as intended.
The Gvt should build the roads in the suburbs (FTTN) ]
The Resident should build their driveway (FTTH)
If you can’t justify paying a couple of grand for the last few metres, then you probably don’t need what the NBN brings – because watching HD videos on YouTube does not warrant BILLIONS of dollars of taxpayers money.
Students or the less privileged can still access NBN if they must (or want to bring the world some amazing innovation) via public places like libraries – for free.
We sent a man to the moon on dial-up internet, so NBN is not the critical piece of infrastructure we need.
Kids in year 10 can’t read and write properly and that will become a bigger bottle neck than a 20MBs port…
Rant over
We sent a man to the moon on dial-up internet, so NBN is not as critical a piece of infrastructure we think we need.
The trouble with your thinking is it is today not tomorrow where you will fall way short of our minimum requirements and that will be residential usage as well as business. You only need to look at PC history to see the learning curve needed. Faster no we are OK.
Dennis,
Using the NBN does not make you an authority on it anymore than pressing start on the microwave makes you an electrical engineer.
The capacity of the NBN is not designed to just just be adequate for current use, its intended to be used for decades during which FFTN will inadequate. Take a look at the exponential rate at which the demand for data has grown over the last 10 years.
We either spend a lot building FFTH now, or spend ever more building it later. Long term, it’s not an either or proposition.
This country needs a serious advantage boost into the 21st Century. The NBN will bring a heightened level of increased productivity to this country, without which we won’t even get close to being in the mix of future leading countries.
I agree it is the most important and vital infrastructure undertaken in decades.
It’s hardly even visionary, more so, the benefits and need for speed are as plain as the nose on your face to use an old saying.
The benefits to education in the regions, to industry, to science, to medicine, IT, other research and yes to entertainment and possibly even democracy are enormous.
The job needs to be done properly and not some half-baked effort that merely takes it to the end of the street.
Turnbull’s stance on this has always surprised me, but I guess if the 2 noise polluters Abbott and Rudd were removed from the equation, then he might be free to have a different position.
It’s almost lamentable that these two are the best that can be found to be potential leaders of this country.
Perhaps the headline should have read
‘Which fool do we vote for’
Worth reading!
News Corp Australia vs the NBN – is it really all about Foxtel?
Jarryd,
You constantly make the (incorrect) assumption that your IT needs must be paid for by the taxpayer.
Construction of a fibre skeleton is a no brainer and was well advanced in any case. Should YOUR needs demand more than 20Mbps then feel free to pay for that, in the same way as you pay for pay TV.
You also assume that the taxpayer will have to upgrade to a FTTH later, I don’t agree with that assumption either. People will upgrade as they need. If you want a pool you pay for it, if you want solar, you pay for it, if you want additional TV channels with pay TV you pay for it, if you want 100Mbps you can pay for that too.
As the years pass more and more people will upgrade, costs will fall, as they always do. Assuming the tax payer will upgrade is a flawed assumption.
Brett,
I make no such assumptions.
You’re making the argument that people will upgrade as they need. This ad-hoc approach is both costly and largely unfeasible. It doesn’t allow economies of scale to be take advantage of, nor does it allow for costs to be spread. It will restrict fibre only to those who can afford it – hardly the vision of a progressive and equitable society.
If one pays for infrastructure on an ad-hoc basis, all your end up with is individual people finding a slow long term upgrade of the network. That upgrade to FFTH remains the property of the NBN. This is an incredibly inefficient way to build infrastructure.
It is not an assumption that the taxpayer will have to upgrade to FFTH at some point in the future. The demand for data continues to grow exponentially and applications continue to be developed that require more bandwidth. 20Mbps isn’t adequate for long term future application. The internet has been been mainstream for around 10-15 years. In that small period of time we’ve managed to push copper to it’s limits. There is no point investing in another network that only serves another 15 years.
The “user pays” argument fall flat on it’s face for many pieces of infrastructure. Roads, healthcare, education, and a whole range of services are subsidized on a collective basis by the government.
Jarryd,
You did not read my entry well at all. Read it again, slowly. Your entire response is off the mark.
Brett,
You post assumes that the tax payer won’t upgrade, that the cost of installing fibre on an ad-hoc basis will fall significantly and that not having FFTH as the predominate connection will not be a barrier to the adoption of new tech.
The cost of installing fibre on an ad-hoc basis will not fall significantly enough (or at all) to be affordable to the majority of the population. A major component of installation is labour and that will only continue to rise. The cost of fibre may or may not decrease. Economies of scale would say that it would be cheaper to purchase fibre in bulk than on an ad-hoc basis.
If FFTH is not available on mass it provides a barrier to market entry by applications that require the bandwidth. People won’t take up a product on a large enough scale if the infrastructure to make it work isn’t there. The infrastructure has to come first. There’s no reason for people to buy cars before roads are built.
If the taxpayer doesn’t upgrade an FFTN network we’ll be left behind other countries that already have FFTH. It will hurt us economically. You miss the point that an FFTH has more collective economic value when its available to everyone.