NBN Co claims 96 mbps download speeds for FTTN trial NBN Co, the entity building Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN), has revealed the data transfer speeds obtained by folks connected to its test fibre—to-the-node network in the New South Wales Central Coast suburb of Umina. A canned statement quotes local small business owner Martin McInnes as saying he was able to …
A spherical pirated TV show in a vacuum? (This is Australia.)
We have a privately operated FTTN network covering parts of Canberra, using VDSL2. It reaches 100 Mb/s down and 60 Mb/s up for subscribers who live inside the "supernode" cabinets. They market it as a 60Mb/s service*, which works out to a radius of about 500 m on good quality copper. Which will deteriorate.
The problem with FTTN is the same as that of ADSL2+. Your connection speed is already chosen for you, and you'll pay the same whether you're getting 100, 50 or 25 Mb/s. One side of politics disagrees with this continuing inequity.
* So we have a curious situation in which, unlike ADSL2+ for which the maximum speed is advertised, some VDSL2 subscribers will get much higher speeds than those advertised. They quote "up to 60Mb/s" for the upload speed too, when asked, but at 500 m this is about 10Mb/s.
"We have a privately operated FTTN network covering parts of Canberra" - Transact demonstrates the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD factor) being spread by ignorant and greedy people that want the taxpayer to give them everything and won't pay for anything themselves.
Yes, fibre to the node works and works well. If your copper network is deteriorating, then remediate it. Pay for it yourself, after all it is your network. You know I'm talking to you.
"Transact demonstrates the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD factor) being spread by ignorant and greedy people that want the taxpayer to give them everything and won't pay for anything themselves."
Conveniently forgetting here that, while TransACT is now privately owned, its genesis relied heavily on the support of a Territory-owned corporation for its viability. People have such short memories ....
Limited though my understanding of Aussie's FTTN is, I'd expect that the kicker is the 'last mile' - i.e. whatever connects your premise to the cabinet. If that's ADSL / VDSL then there's your limiting factor (throttling aside)
Does FTTN enable open access to the node - so as a firm could offer FTTP by a premise to node connection? If so then maybe the "market" will resolve the issue if the reward is sufficient.
Note I am also unaware of the Aussie rules and regulations about telco services.
And another issue is that cheapskate Telstra went through various areas putting in shared cables and other such nonsense. The real issue with this statement is that the state provided network is playing catchup to BT in the UK rather than catching up with the likes of Norway and South Korea. The sights have been set too low.
"Such outlets won't ask nasty technical questions . . . The Reg will. Stay tuned."
And we appreciate it; we just don't expect you to get any answers beyond directing you to existing press releases.
Such is the state of politics and, moreover, journalism in Australia - if only news outlets just stopped publishing and broadcasting government advertising as if it were news and instead insisted on asking their own questions and only publishing the material if the government was willing to provide real information.
Unfortunately, pre-prepared press kits like this are just so easy to regurgitate and it saves having to pay journalists and photographers/camera-operators.
Considering Newscorp will publish whatever sugar-coated 'story' this government gives them, the politicians can just sidestep or refuse to answer detailed questions from more thorough or well-informed journalists and presenters/reporters as they know their message will get out as intended and in a good light through Uncle Rupert's Australia-wide collection of tabloid-sized propaganda mouth-pieces.
They'll usually also take the further step of criticising the opposition, just to offer a balanced view. Fuck I hate the Daily Telegraph - if you must read it, start from the back and stop once you get to horse racing.
And considering that the labor government made promises they couldn't keep and ballsed up the whole thing. You only have to read the news to find out that Rudd flew by the seat of his pants, scribbled plans on the back of napkins and allowed the SMH to report what a wonderful thing the NBN was going to be. No wonder the SMH is called shake my head, the whole organisation is a disaster thats losing money and looking to offload some of its assets in order to keep its head above water.
@RealFred
You seem to have implied partisanship in my comment where none existed. Murdoch's papers almost always support the incumbent at the start of their term. Often the idea is to see who they think will win and then back them, helping to push them over the line. They then call in their favours.
Newscorp backed Rudd strongly against Howard and was one-sided there as well, just as they the Sun has been in the UK, flipping from the Tories to Labour, to the Tories, to New Labour and back to the Tories.
My comment was not about the Liberals but about the standard of 'mainstream' reporting in this country, which just regurgitates whatever it gets. Fairfax papers are right in on it and my point about Newscorp was that, as they back this Government so strongly and have such wide coverage, the Government can quite happily ignore Fairfax as they know that Newscorp will print their stories the way the government wants.
Media outlets are petrified of their competitors having a story they don't so they run what they're given, even if it's nothing more than a piece of spin.
My comment had nothing AT ALL to do with Labor, nor with the NBN itself - it was about a story being picked up and carried verbatim without any investigative work being done. If I want to read/hear the Government's* carefully polished, self-congratulatory, fluff piece, I will go to their various websites, where at least I can gaze at a benevolent-faced MP in the masthead.
If all a journalist or news outlet does is slap down something I can find direct then it's not worth much to me. I want journos to ask the questions that I would ask if I could and this article supplies them - how far was it? what contention? etc...
Again, this has nothing to do with Labor and almost as little to do with the Coalition or even the NBN - it was a rant about the passivity of the media in this country, sitting like dogs** waiting for scraps off the table and lapping them up, rather than pressing these slick-suited, bullet-point repeating spin merchants for details. When they do ask, they might try once but, when they get the same answer back again, usually prefaced by a "let me just say this . . . ", they give up.
That's a sweeping comment - too sweeping - but really, when was the last time you saw a politician really pressed by an interviewer? I mean really - having their bullshit called and told they are hiding the truth or outright lying. You see it on the ABC on occasion - especially Lateline - but it is all to infrequent and those programs don't reach the majority anyway, who are content with colourful front pages with overblown, large-font headlines.
* - Whoever that is, also substitute big corporations, who release newspeak-ridden statements the papers reproduce in the same fashion.
** - I don't mean that quite the way it sounds - more that they posses the qualities one associates with a well-trained canine: obedience and loyalty. Which is great, except their loyalty is to the mouthpieces feeding them their homogenous, canned mystery meat - and they wolf it down. Instead, their loyalty should be to their readers/viewers and they should 'go in to bat' for them.
@RealFred
And, for only the second time ever, have a down vote. I have strong opinions (don't we all) and, consequently, get my share of downvotes. Most of the people seem to actually address my points when (if) they respond but, as you didn't, that earns you a down vote.
If you want to make a comment that blah, blah, Labor was worse, blah, blah, Rudd was worse, blah, blah, the SMH is worse - then do so by all means. But don't jump in with your whataboutery in reply to my comment as if it is in any way connected with the points I was making.
If you think that "it was no different with Labor/Rudd and Fairfax" is actually a counter-point to my argument then you either didn't read it (which is understandable; it was a rather drawn-out rant) or didn't understand it. I was, and am still, complaining about the almost across-the-board deficiency of the media in Australia when it comes to asking tough, well-informed and relevant questions of politicians and then pressing them for answers.
I singled out the Coalition because, well, they're in Government right now and, you know, they kind of appointed the NBN board. I talked about Newscorp because they are unarguably biased towards this current government so said government can be as tight-lipped as they want with the media as they know that the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, NT News, Courier Mail, Mercury, Advertiser, Sunday Times and The fucking Australian will present their polished turds to the public, possibly accompanied by some op-ed pieces from Murdoch's hand-chosen cadre of line toe-ers* about how lustrous and fragrant they are.
Actually, don't worry about the down-vote - I'm all ranted-out. (For now.)
* - Take Miranda Devine, whose appointment at Newscorp in 2010 coincided nicely with the concerted push by Uncle Rupert to get Abbott and the Coalition into Government. Likewise Andrew Bolt. Yes, he had a few columns in the Herald Sun but about 4-5 years ago he started getting not only more ink but wider circulation in the other Newscorp state papers.
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