Australia's communications minister Malcolm Turnbull has once again outlined how everyone - his predecessors, the press, people who disagree with him - have messed up Australia's national broadband network. A speech he delivered yesterday to the NBN Rebooted conference offered a spirited defence of his position that fibre-to- …

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Tuesday 19th November 2013 00:32 GMT Abacus

The Liberals Just Don't Get It

Fibre to the node just won't work in Australia. Many people will not pay for the the connection to their premises, particularly those renting their home. After spending $x Billion on the rollout, spending the extra $y Billion to ensure connectivity is surely worth it.

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1. Tuesday 19th November 2013 00:59 GMT cracked
  
  Re: The Liberals Just Don't Get It
  
  While I agree that folk with very long driveways are going to find the cost of connecting themselves a bit prohibitive, I think you might be wrong on renters (unless they are renting a place with a very long drive).
  
  I would imagine that rental accomodation will go in 3 phases:
  
  1. Early adopter landlords get to splash "NBN Connected at 473820-million MB per second - The best place for cat lovers to rent!", on their adverts.
  
  2. The bulk of landlords will slowly follow the early adopters (as they find renting out their Super Fund gets more and more tricky without a connection) and eventually the adverts above will need new copy
  
  3. Owners of stations will be telling their tennants to, "STFU and go round up the sheep".
  
  "Digital poverty" (you know .... I should write an article about it) is going to have both own home owners and someone elses' home owners up in arms about the injustice of it all.
  
  Ten years after Mal has built it, try to flog a house without a connection ... won't be easy. In five years try to rent one out that isn't connected.
  
  If he builds it, they'll all end up coming. Whether they wanted to or not.
  
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  1. Tuesday 19th November 2013 02:10 GMT MrDamage
    
    Re: The Liberals Just Don't Get It
    
    I would imagine that renters, particularly of houses (more so than units due to all the Strata bullshit you have to go through), would rather end up getting Foxtel with Bigpond cable, instead of NBN FTTN. Similar pricing, with the added bonus of extra TV channels, and higher download quotas, for similar pricing.
    
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  2. Tuesday 19th November 2013 02:28 GMT mathew42
    
    Re: The Liberals Just Don't Get It
    
    If the ~$3000 install cost for fibre on demand is correct then this is less than 0.5% of the value of the average property in many areas. Landlords will also be entitled to claim the cost as a tax deduction.
    
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    1. Tuesday 19th November 2013 06:11 GMT LaeMing
      
      Re: The Liberals Just Don't Get It
      
      Assuming the landlords care. A typical landlord around this area won't let the agent repair anything without their full involvement in pinching every penny they can, while generally being unavailable for their agent to even contact much of the time.
      
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  3. Friday 22nd November 2013 22:58 GMT drengur
    
    Re: The Liberals Just Don't Get It
    
    It might help if the rental market has plenty of properties but that's rarely the case in my experience.
    
    I doubt landlords will bother forking out a year's rental income to get a slightly better chance of renting when empty.
    
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Tuesday 19th November 2013 00:39 GMT Andy Mac

Patience...

After promising to deliver the NBN sooner (at the cost of nobbling it), patience is the one thing he will not be getting from me.

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Tuesday 19th November 2013 04:56 GMT Anonymous Coward

Let's face it

Tony "the mad monk" Abbott thinks that torture is acceptable in certain circumstances.

Mal "Technology" Turnbull probably thinks copper is bleeding edge.

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1. Tuesday 19th November 2013 06:13 GMT LaeMing
  
  Re: Let's face it
  
  Copper... Bleeding.... He must be a deep-ocean cockroach. I knew it!.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemolymph
  
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Friday 22nd November 2013 23:03 GMT drengur

Nice catch in the facebook likes thing, I noticed the same suspicious counts on the greens website this morning. I daresay it is an issue with the plugin they are using rather than deliberate, but still embarrassing for Mr. Broadband.

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