back to article Netflix fail proves copper NBN leaves Australia utterly 4Ked

I ran into my friend Tom the other day. He’s worked at the intersection of media and technology pretty much from the beginning. When there’s a launch of a new media tech that promises to change the world, Tom’s always in the front row, taking notes. At the end of last year, Tom received an invite to Netflix’s Australian launch …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yes, without super high def entertainment there is nothing to do.

    We've spent a billion getting faster TV so our masses can sit glassy eyed watching low rent moronic tv shows, keeps them off the street I suppose. Since you don't have it, I'd see that as an investment in your future, perhaps your citizens will go and invent, or think, that is a fairly rare skill these days.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yes, without super high def entertainment there is nothing to do.

      Great for you, I'd like to shift data between my home and my workplace faster than a cyclist with a 32GB USB stick.

      How fast is that exactly? Home to work for me on my bike is an hour, roughly.

      (32*8*(1024**3)/3600.0) / 1000**2 = 76.35497415111111

      So if I take a 32GB USB stick to work, I get 76Mbps. Great, except the two hour round-trip time. Good luck running SSH over that.

      Not everything in the world revolves around the "entertainment" industry you know!

      1. DainB Bronze badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Yes, without super high def entertainment there is nothing to do.

        Why limit yourself to 32GB stick, let's give cyclist 1TB SSD and calculate how much bandwidth you'll need. Or how about ten 1TB drives ?

        Unlike network speed bandwidth of cyclist can increase almost infinitely, so your calculations are pointless.

      2. John H Woods Silver badge

        Re: Yes, without super high def entertainment there is nothing to do.

        "Great for you, I'd like to shift data between my home and my workplace faster than a cyclist with a 32GB USB stick." -- Stuart Longland

        I agree - but, to be fair - I cannot remember a time when connected bandwidth, for anything over line-of-sight, was greater than sneakernet. You could carry 20TB of SSDs in a cycle pack without breaking a sweat - you could get a bike to 50Gbps no problem. A van full of LTO5 tape going 100miles is, what, 1000Gbps? A 747 full of Blurays going 3000 miles must be over 200,000Gbps. (Latencies being about 2-3 hours and about 6-7 hours, I'd guess.)

        When thinking about, for instance, cloud backup and restore, you have to bear in mind that a 1 Gigabit/sec link is still only about 10TB/day fully soaked.

        1. Gartal

          Re: Yes, without super high def entertainment there is nothing to do.

          Yes, but you are deliberately missing part of the equation. Every time you change your mind about what you want, regardless of the 747 full of LTO's it entails another trip and the round time for that is poxy

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Yes, without super high def entertainment there is nothing to do.

          I agree - but, to be fair - I cannot remember a time when connected bandwidth, for anything over line-of-sight, was greater than sneakernet.

          Where the Internet kills me is latency. As I said, try running a SSH connection over that "link". I'd like to be able to do Useful Things at reasonable speed. Useful Things that means I want to be able to upload a truckload of workplace-related data to a site that's about 10km away from me.

          At the moment, I can do it, but it's a 3 hour turn-around time. Being able to do this in tens of minutes would be nice. Tens of seconds would be great.

      3. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Yes, without super high def entertainment there is nothing to do.

        "So if I take a 32GB USB stick to work, I get 76Mbps."

        Bandwidth and latency are 2 entirely different things.

    2. kyza

      Re: Yes, without super high def entertainment there is nothing to do.

      You<===========================================>The Point

      1. chris 17 Silver badge

        Re: Yes, without super high def entertainment there is nothing to do.

        catchphrase :)

    3. jarrodmassie

      Re: Yes, without super high def entertainment there is nothing to do.

      Perhaps we could clamber down from our moral high horse for a moment, and accept that this article is about more than streaming the latest season of House of Cards. Netflix is an analogy. An example. An illustration. Need I go on (and on and on)?

      Is it within your capacity to imagine any other possible use for >25mbps data speeds? Because it's beyond the capacity of Australia's ADSL network to deliver it.

  2. Jan 0 Silver badge
    Flame

    3D TV

    Errm, it's not lack of content that killed 3D TV. It's cheesy content, clumsy eyewear, headaches and stereo != 3D.

  3. johnjonescode

    High Bandwidth for Australia who wants that

    Olympics in Ultra High Definition - which Australian would want that...

    high bandwidth might be useful for I dont know diagnosing medical problems without actually going to a doctors surgery and contracting MRSA...

    who wants medical applications... or a healthy population...

    John Jones

    1. MrDamage Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: High Bandwidth for Australia who wants that

      > Olympics in Ultra High Definition - which Australian would want that...

      That would depend on how many closeups they get of those nubile gymnasts bending over backwards in their tight leotards.

      I'll get my coat. It's the stained one with the kleenex in the pockets.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Headmaster

        Re: High Bandwidth for Australia who wants that

        I'll get my coat. It's the stained one with the kleenex in the pockets.

        Please do, they're called "tissues" in this country…

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Amazing the difference in focus between Australia and New Zealand, my home broadband in New Zealand (Christchurch) has just increased to 200/200Mbps on fibre-to-the-premises (UFB) and streams Netflix wonderfully in HD (and from YouTube in 4k). Dunedin in the south of the South Island has won the Chorus 'Gigatown' competition and is the first city in New Zealand to get Gigabit internet service - that will extend to cover most population centres by the end of this year.

    Those who think high-bandwidth home internet is purely for watching HD TV shows are missing the point, they are an incredible enabler for economic growth and ability for many more people to work from home in a fully connected manner (e.g. HD video conferencing with multiple nodes). Possibly a reason why the NZ economy is growing significantly ahead of Australia and the NZ dollar about to overtake the AUS dollar?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You Kiwis just have to rub it in!

      Australia's idea of enabling economic growth is paying people to have kids they can't really afford to.

    2. GrumpyOldBloke

      The difference in focus is easily explained. I heard from someone - can't remember the name, might have been some mentally challenged homeless guy selling big issue - that coal is the future! That is where we are headed and I can't wait to reach our future of dark satanic mills powered by the latest coal and infra red on water technology staffed by servants indentured to the banks for millions just to cover the cost of basic housing, gruel and transport.

      There was another quote from a much more learned chap many decades ago explaining the curse of being an oil rich country but it holds true for minerals and any other rent seeking economy. The business of the country is government.

      Welcome to Oz, can we take you coat and check your phone!

    3. DainB Bronze badge

      Or likely you in NZ don't have territory of US of A with 1/10th of it's population.

      It's easy to build FTTP for 126K people, even NBN managed to do it in Australia.

      1. tim 68

        @DainB

        You've completely ignored where the majority of Australia's population actually lives.

        More than 80% of the population lives in Perth and that very narrow coastal J-curve stretching from Brisbane to Melbourne.

        The relatively small minority living within Australia's vast interior aren't really relevant to that argument.

    4. Sanctimonious Prick
      Happy

      Agreed, Except For...

      "and the NZ dollar about to overtake the AUS dollar?"

      Yeah. Umm.. Not gonna happen!

    5. Gartal

      And the point being missed here is that New Zealand is not blessed with

      Another

      Brainless

      Bastard

      On

      Top

    6. Alan Brown Silver badge

      "Amazing the difference in focus between Australia and New Zealand"

      That's because New Zealand finally bit the bullet and cleaved lineside from the incumbent telco.

      It's caused an amazing transformation and makes a significant change from the 1990s when ministerial orders kept shutting down Ministry of Commerce investigations into illegal behaviour by the telco.

      Too bad NZ still has trouble admitting it has major corruption problems (see http://laudafinem.com and others), not to mention violent crime problems and serious child abuse issues.

      It's gotten so bad there that even the comfortably captured(*) local version of Transparency International could no longer pretend it wasn't happening. (http://www.transparency.net.nz/ details some of the issues TI NZ won't touch)

      (*) TINZ is 100% govt funded, totally opaque internally and kicked out+served trespass notices on a number of internationally lauded transparency campaigners. TI outside of NZ has been aware of the issues for a while and started distancing themselves from TINZ a few years back.

  5. mr. deadlift
    Thumb Up

    Cheer up OZ

    you've still got the cricket WC... doesn’t really mean much when Dunners the arse end of the known world, has faster bigger better pipes than most of your interior CBD's.

    burns me that Oz has so many backwards priorities.

    got world cups? ... check

    got 21st century tech in play? ... what's a fibre?

    and these clowns want "what's a metadata" retention laws?

    i can see now, hamstring the speeds so you can keep the data laws/costs foisted on to the public bearable. You'd think you would want some aces up your sleeve with an economy transitioning away from commodities into something to fill the void, what ever can we do?

    ha ha Dunedin, God of Nations, indeed.

    Advance Aussie oi oi? only in reverse friend.

    Maybe Lee Kwan was right. If i were a voting citzen of Aus i'd be friggin ropeable.

    Hmm that rant lasted longer than expected.

    1. Aus Tech

      Re: Cheer up OZ

      Those of us that voted against the LNP flaming well are incensed. Instead of having a national high speed optical fibre network, nearly the entire country is getting a hodge podge of absolute crap technology that is almost useless. All I can say is that I do have a high speed connection using fibre, so I'm one of the lucky few. I signed up for Netflix a week ago, and it's great.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cheer up OZ

        Lucky you. We might get it where I am in the next decade. I'm not holding my breath.

        Thankfully I get a stable ~16Mbps (~2Mbps upload) on ADSL2 which beats the ~512Kbps (and 128Kbps upload) I had when the NBN was first announced. Download isn't too bad, and upload is much better than it was. I know of people who put up with a lot worse.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Cheer up OZ

          Here in metro Perth I am lucky to get 3Mbps.

          2.5Mbps is the norm.

          It's the very best connection available at my address.

          I can actually see the city, I just can't communicate with it quickly.

  6. Winkypop Silver badge
    FAIL

    Dear Malcolm and Tony

    "Eventually, Australia will disappear from the map of Nations That Matter, as the nation stares at a spinning animation, waiting for a future that never finishes loading."

    Luddites!

    1. Andy Mac

      Re: Dear Malcolm and Tony

      It's not Ludditism, it's politics. The NBN was a Labor policy so it just had to be opposed, because they were like, you know, the opposition.

      I'm surprised they haven't un-apologised to the Stolen Generations.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dear Malcolm and Tony

        Yes and maybe...

        I think old Tone is definitely a keen retrophile.

        I mean, there's no mention of http in the good book, just bronze-age advice on shell fish and the dangers of garments of mixed fibres.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dear Malcolm and Tony

        I'm surprised they haven't un-apologised to the Stolen Generations.

        No, but they did say living out in the middle of nowhere was a "lifestyle choice". For some that might choose to do so for cultural reasons, this could be equally as offensive.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dear Malcolm and Tony

        Um, you know there is something called Bipartisan support? You don't have to oppose every policy just because you're the opposition!

        1. LaeMing
          Unhappy

          Re: Bipartisan support

          They know: that's how they are taking away what little privacy and rights we have.

  7. Graham Jordan

    Just come back from travelling..

    And one of the main arguments for staying in the UK and not immigrating has been internet speeds.

    Surprisingly robust in Thailand most of East Asia was ruddy crap, I guess that was to be expected but even in Australia and New Zealand I struggled to get a decent speed uploading all my videos to OneDrive/NAS back home.

    My heart lies in Christchurch/Dunedin or Rotorua but unless I can get uncapped 100mb speeds my feet will firmly stay here under the grasp of the VirginMedia empire.

  8. mathew42
    FAIL

    38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

    Before you start complaining about the technology choices, take a look at what the average Australian is choosing. NBNCo published a media release on 26-Feb which contained some interesting facts on take-up:

    * Only 50% of premises that can connect to fibre have connected

    * 38% on fibre opted for the 12Mbps plan

    * A further 38% on fibre opted for the 25Mbps plan

    76% of Australians (a figure likely to go higher) has willingly opted for speeds slower than that provided by FTTN, HFC & 4G. Heck the average for ADSL2+ is 11Mbps. Rather than complaining about the technology choice we should be asking ourselves:

    1. Why Labor chose to introduce speed tiers when we already have usage based charging

    2. Why people are content with such slow speeds

    The second issue is that iiNet's network has been struggling over the past month. An article in the Fairfax today suggested that it is unmetered netflix is partially to blame.

    1. Larwood

      Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

      Only? :D Your grasp of reality is seriously lacking, if you think 50% is "only" when it took 6 years to get 28% of aussies onto ADSL. 50% is incredibly high, in fact.

      "76% of Australians (a figure likely to go higher) has willingly opted for speeds slower than that provided by FTTN, HFC & 4G."

      Why shouldn't they have that choice?

      You are plainly incorrect, FTTN doesn't guarantee the speeds, it is like ADSL, it is only 'up to' 25 and 50 Mbps. The current HFC network also is not as fast, due to contention it is barely faster than ADSL at prime time. 4G is irrelevant, as that is an expensive and unreliable connection. The figure is also not at all 'likely to go higher', internet usage continues to grow quickly and shows now sign of slowing down

      "Heck the average for ADSL2+ is 11Mbps." No, it's more like 5 or 6. No idea where you getting this 11 Mbps idea, I think you might be living in fantasy land. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds

      You're just like Turnbull, you argue that because people are on slow speeds now that they will never use faster speeds, despite every piece of advice from digital distribution networks and all historical evidence showing that demand for speed is consistently growing.

      1. LaeMing
        Meh

        Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

        "You're just like Turnbull, you argue that because people are on slow speeds now that they will never use faster speeds."

        Wow. If they used that argument on roads development just think how much money they'd save!

    2. Jasonk

      Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

      And again Mathew you think it volume on the NBN the makes the money

      38% on 12/1

      38% on 25/1

      19% on 100/40

      Now for NBNco on FTTP it cost the same to deliver 12/1 or a 100/40 now if we put those % to 10mil premises and NBNco is making a $2 profit on a 12/1 $24 connection a month $4 on 25/5 and $16 on 100/40

      38% on 12/1 is $7.6mil or $91.2 mil a year

      38% on 25/1 is $15.2mil or $182.4mil a year

      19% on 100/40 is $30.4 mil or $364.8m a year

      so the 76% on those slow tiers paying less than the 19% on the 100/40 like is said the more people going on the higher tiers the more money NBNco makes but not it cant supply those speeds so it will not lose a lot more revenue

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

        I'd happily go for 12Mbps now on fibre over 20Mbps on ADSL2.

        12Mbps on fibre can be reliably upped to 100Mbps without changing the fibre, and in all probability, without even changing the hardware. In fact 100Mbps is probably a conservative estimate. Gigabit is possible.

        20Mbps ADSL2 will go no faster, and even then we're pushing it on today's decades-old copper network.

        It's called "future proofing" people!

        1. DainB Bronze badge

          Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

          In fact 4 x 1Gb is possible if you utilize all 4 ports. NBN wholesale sells 400/100 plans, too bad no ISPs offer them yet.

          However there's one catch here, if your primary interests located outside of Australia there's no point getting anything more than 50/20, latency will kill everything above it anyway.

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

          "20Mbps ADSL2 will go no faster, and even then we're pushing it on today's decades-old copper network."

          Yes, but the telco has to eat the cost of laying fibre and recoup it over 20 years, whilst it can charge 100% of the ADSL endpoint equipment up front.

      2. mathew42

        Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

        > Now for NBNco on FTTP it cost the same to deliver 12/1 or a 100/40

        So the price should be the same. Secondly, the cheaper the connection figure is, the more people will connect.

        > NBNco is making a $2 profit on a 12/1 $24 connection a month $4 on 25/5 and $16 on 100/40

        Except that NBNCo is not turning a profit and is unlikely to turn a profit for the next decade.

        As you've correctly pointed out NBNCo need to increase revenue significantly and that growth in revenue will come largely from CVC (data). If the speed restrictions were removed at zero cost to NBNCo, data usage would jump simply because people could watch 3 netflix streams or video conference in HD.

        1. Jasonk

          Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

          Data restrictions are set by the ISP not NBN as the ISP pay for a set amount to cover what there customer may use. But I also shown you how NBNco makes money off the AVC prices as well

          According to the SR NBNco on either MTM for full FTTP wont start turning a profit until 2021.

    3. John__Doh

      Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

      I fail to see how iiNet's issues are relevant to your argument in fact it almost directly contradicts your point, clearly there is demand for high-speed internet, so high that a reasonably big ISP is struggling to cope.

      More broadly, I think your missing the point governments need to be planning for and building for the future, not building an NBN that only provides for the current requirements, it's like building a new freeway in a capital city on the assumption that population & traffic won't grow over the next 30 years, it makes no sense.

      Netflix is an example (the first mass market one) that contradicts the argument that we don't need/have demand for high speed internet, and this comes less than 2 years after those very public arguments that there was no need for it.

      We should be building infrastructure for the future, not the short-term, it will be interesting to see in a few years if property listings start talking about the type of NBN in a property, I for one will only want a property with 'proper' NBN.

      Luckily for me, I'm on 100Mb FTTP, so I'm quite happy at the moment!

      1. mathew42

        Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

        > More broadly, I think your missing the point governments need to be planning for and building for the future, not building an NBN that only provides for the current requirements

        Except by introducing speed restrictions it limits what people can do. If every NBNCo fibre connection was 100Mbps or better still 1Gbps it would be barely used most of the time, but it would foster innovation.

        Instead what is being built is a network that only the wealthy will benefit from. Labor prediction recorded in the NBNCo Corporate Plan was that in 2026 less that 1% would have 1Gbps connections. If that is what Labor were working on, then my opinion is those that can afford those speeds can also afford direct fibre.

        > it will be interesting to see in a few years if property listings start talking about the type of NBN in a property, I for one will only want a property with 'proper' NBN

        Assuming that fibre on demand is less than $5,000 that is 0.5% of the average house price so it is hardly going to affect house prices. If it does then it will be part of those quick fixes you perform prior to selling a house.

        1. Jasonk

          Re: 38% @ 12Mbps and 38% at 25Mbps

          That 1% on 1Gbps would be around $126 profit with a few minor up grades

          which would be $12.6m or $151.2mil a year almost as much as the 38% on 25/5.

          The innovation would come from a network being able to deliver the speed people require. Not a network the delivers a best which it give you wont.

          It has been already stated by a board member that FOD average price is more than the revised $4300 price of FTTP. So when it goes to finally upgrade to FTTP it will cost even more than cheaper than what has been claimed. If the MTM can only delivers you a 10Mbps but your neighbor can get 70Mbps your happy to fork out the $5k for a $41B network that couldn't deliver in the first place.

  9. david 12 Silver badge

    "dangerously behind"

    "dangerously behind" because we can't stream Netflix? That's a risk I'm willing to take.

    1. Hazmoid

      Re: "dangerously behind"

      The problem is, it is not just Netflix streaming that is an issue. As someone mentioned above, one of the major benefits to fast broadband is the way it makes medical access and diagnosis so much more hygienic and available. If it is the difference between sitting in my home and sitting in a waiting room surrounded by sick people, the former is going to win my vote every time. Also the possibilities for distance education and other services that we just do not imagine at this time, but become viable with reliable high speed internet, are limitless. Just thinking about how much carbon will be prevented from being pumped into the atmosphere through not having to drive to work makes a difference.

      1. DainB Bronze badge

        Re: "dangerously behind"

        Instead of waiting for GP to Google it you can Google it yourself.

        Or are you talking about removing appendix with instructions given by surgeon over internet video chat ?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "dangerously behind"

          Instead of waiting for GP to Google it you can Google it yourself.

          There's a limit to what Google can determine and I'd be very mindful of using it for medical advice. Doctors train for years for a good reason.

          1. mathew42

            Re: "dangerously behind"

            > There's a limit to what Google can determine and I'd be very mindful of using it for medical advice. Doctors train for years for a good reason.

            The issue is that with 76% of the population opting for speeds slower than what is required for the bulk of the population electronic consultations are a non-issue.

            I think it was best summed by Quigley when he said "You certainly can't do high-definition video service on a 1 megabits per second upstream -- it's impossible," in response to a question by The Australian about high-definition video conferencing when your child is sick.

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