Posts by mathew42
73 posts • joined Thursday 29th September 2011 04:13 GMT
More like 2018
"“Construction to commence within three years - we will commence construction in your area from Dec 2014 in phases with last construction scheduled to commence in Dec 2016”
There are plenty of areas from the 2012 update where last construction scheduled to commence much later than Dec 2016: For example:
* Cabramatta, NSW - June 2017
* Heidelberg, VIC - Sep 2018
* Stonyfell, SA - Mar 2017
NBNCo estimate that it takes 12 months from the time construction starts for services to be available - that means Heidelberg should be connected in Christmas 2019 if there are no delays.
Google to bid for Australia's NBN?
I'm beginning to think the best outcome for Australia would be for Labor to sell* NBNCo to Google prior to the election in September.
*where sell is defined as give with extra cash
Lets consider the outcomes
The bits don't care how they travel, so lets consider some questions about about outcomes under each plan:
1. Why is the Coalition promising 25Mbps rising to 50Mbps in 2019 when Labor's NBN has 12Mbps minimum and NBNCo Corporate Plan predicts 50% of fibre connections will be at this speed?
2. Is ~$3000 for a fibre install reasonable when Labor's NBNCo are charging $150/month ($1800) year for 1Gbps wholesale AVC?
3. Will the Coalition plan see more people connected at 1Gbps than the Labor plan (less than 5% in 2028)?
4. Is there anywhere else in the world where FTTN and FTTP plans are competing and FTTN is faster for more users than FTTP?
Posted in Windows Phone 8 support to end in 2014
Re: Nexus for upgradeability
Interesting. I've brought a Nexus 7, recommended a Nexus 10 and almost brought a Nexus 4 (except it lacked 4G) because they all come with the promise from Google that the firmware will be upgraded. Several other people share this view.
Re: Two points
I'd argue it is better that the person is working in Australia and actually paying taxes than the job fully outsourced to an overseas company.
Re: desperate government
The truth is that this is a desperate government that will try anything in the next 6 months in a futile attempt to avoid being obliterated at the election in September. Hopefully they won't do too much more damage.
The government has been one series of mistakes after another. A school building fund that mostly benefited private schools, an insulation scheme that was fleeced by scammers (even after they were warned), a mining tax that doesn't collect revenue and a 1Gbps fibre network with 50% of connections at 12/1Mbps.
Re: Let's be clear about this
> The NBN is ultimately intended to replace the private networks (plural) with a re-monopolised government communications network.
Except that as soon as NBNCo is shown to be profitable, the government's plan is to privatise the company. Socialise the risk and privatise the profits!
> If you recall, not long ago - within the last about 12 months, NBN paid huge sums to Telstra, Optus, and the other network owners for the purchase of their assets, on the condition that they no longer compete with NBN. This condition is called by the legal eagles a "restraint of trade".
Only those companies with significant infrastructure that could be used to compete were compensated. Watchers of the rollout would be well aware that NBNCo is overbuilding the HFC network first. If the plan was to improve average speeds the quickest, HFC areas should have been overbuilt last.
> There should have been a separate infrastructure entity (government owned) which operated ONLY the cables and exchanges, mobile towers, backbone etc., charging a transparently equal fee for access by service providers.
Totally agree. New Zealand have taken a much better approach by forcing the monopoly provider to separate into an infrastructure and retail company. The only challenge is that monopolies tend to be inefficient.
Re: Let's be clear about this
> Might I suggest from your comments, you have a very warped, obscure and hopelessly confused attitude to technology.
Telstra had speed tiers on ADSL, people suffered and nobody was happy. That only changed when Internode installed their own DSLAMs in exchanges and provided uncapped speeds, cheaper that Telstra.
Have you been following Google Fibre in Kansas? 1Gbps and estimates suggest $120-$140 billion to connect the entire USA. Bloody cheap compared to what it is costing in Australia.
> Oh, and by the way, can you please advise all the readers what these other "justifiable" technologies might be?
Pay attention. I've never said FTTP is not best technology. However it is no point going to the expense of installing massive pipes if you then fit a restrictor at the end. With speed tiers, less than 5% will connect at 1Gbps and see the full benefits of fibre.
Re: Long term implications
> I think what you like a lot of other people forget, is that wholesale is a natural monopoly. Just like when Telstra followed Optus down the streets when it came to HFC.
We don't forget that, but every signal is that NBNCo will morph into Telstra especially once it is privatised.
> It becomes less of a return on investment at this point, which is why there is only 1 copper network in Australia which is owned by Telstra, because to have every Telco run a copper network down every street (lets say iiNet, TPG, Telstra, and Optus all decide to run a copper network) they will all have to share a piece of the housing pie for the streets they go down.
Actually the problem is that if someone else attempted to build a rival network, Telstra would discount access to the copper network making the new network unprofitable. Have a look at the cost of fibre backhaul to exchanges where Telstra is the only provider or pricing of backhaul to Tassie prior to BassLink.
This principle is well known as far back as railway competition in the US.
> Please don't forget that, you CANNOT have more than one wholesale network, it is not cost feasible.
But you can separate that wholesale network into multiple geographically separated networks and have companies tender to run the networks. Much the same happens with public transport networks now.
Re: Let's be clear about this
> What seems to be so conveniently forgotten in all these arguments is that the NBN is NOT just about speed.
WRONG! The only justification for the NBN is speed, otherwise other technologies could be easily justifiable.
> There is no doubt we are living with a telephone network that is at 2 minutes to midnight in terms of its useful life.
Certain areas may need replacement, but much of the copper network is in good condition.
> Our kids and grandkids will look back with despair if we don't do it
With the current Labor plan our kids are going to wonder why they have a fibre network which provides speed in abundance but is sold as a scarce resource. It should be a national shame that NBNCo are predicting 50% of premises connected by fibre will connect at 12/1Mbps and less than 5% will connect at 1Gbps in 2028. Remember speed is purely a software setting - the installed hardware is capable of 1Gbps.
NBNCo plan is to grow ARPU steeply
I'm not sure that it is well understood that NBNCo's stated aim in the NBNCo Corporate Plan (http://www.nbnco.com.au/news-and-events/news/nbn-co-corporate-plan-released.html) is to increase Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). That is to on average they plan to have people pay more for their internet connection.
Prices for the same service will (almost certainly) decline, but at a rate significantly less than the uptake of faster services / downloading more. NBNCo have kindly provided sufficient information.
Plans for AVC pricing are outlined on page 67:
* 1000/400Mbps falls from $150 to $90, while the average speed grows from 30Mbps to 230Mbps.
* Price falls by 40% while average speed grows by 760%
Plans for CVC pricing are outlined on page 67:
* Starts at $20Mbps/Month when the average data usage is 30GB/Month and falls to $8Mbps/Month when the average data usage is 540GB/month.
* Price falls by 2.5 times, while the average data usage grows by 18 times = growth in revenue from CVC of 720% when accounting for price falls.
Re: @-tim
> That's not even a good troll. You'd either have a head full of rock, or believe we are stupid enough to believe any Liberal party BS. Once they get in the gov, they'd like everyone to go back to dial-up age.
Whereas the Labor party who held a big press conference in Tassie after Google Fibre was announced to mention that NBNCo was 1Gbps capable. Except unlike Google Fibre which is 1Gpbs (unless you take the free option), 5% might connect to the NBN at 1Gbps in 2028. Meanwhile 50% will be connected at 12/1Mbps. Of course it is also worth noting that Stage 2 maps published around the same time prior the 2010 Federal Election have been shown to be a vast exaggeration, and only a tiny fraction of premises in those maps will be connected by the election. Some areas aren't even in the current 3 year roll-out.
> wireless is never going to beat wired connection for speed and reliability.
From a technical specification yes. However Labor in their brilliance have taken an abundant resource (fibre speeds) and applied speed limits. For 50% of people their 4G connection is likely to be faster than they 12/1Mbps NBNCo connection, especially for upload. Only those people on 100Mbps or faster will actually receive the benefits that Labor are promoting will come from the NBN.
Re: Hype, facts or just political comments?
> The reality is the home wired internet connection is going the way of the landline and I don't think NBNCo's numbers properly account for that. Many of my friends feel if they are already paying for their mobile devices to have fast wireless anywhere, why pay extra for slightly faster connection at home.
The fact is NBNCo's basic 12/1Mbps which they are predicting 50% of premises connected by fibre will select is slower than 4G. Unless you need to download large amounts of data it may well be cheaper to add a data pack rather than add a cheap but slow 12/1Mbps NBN fibre connection.
> I see our options are Tolerable (ADSL2+), Good (Let ISPs put DSLAMs in RIMS), Better (An optical cable TV network aka NBN) or Best (Google Fiber like with 1G+ bidirectional point to point to the box in the house). There is a reason Google isn't using GPON on their network so why is the NBN so insistent on that technology for the rest of time?
GPON is likely to be adequate and upgrade paths to GPON10 and beyond already exist. However, I do share you concerns about the NBN when compared to Google Fibre. Estimates last year suggested $120 billion to for Google to roll out 1Gbps direct fibre across the entire USA. This means that Google should be able to build a better network than NBNCo are planning cheaper. If I was Turnbull, I would be negotiating with Google to build the network. All Google want is a fast network to sell services on.
> I am using the NBN interim satellite solution. I shall never get fibre and I doubt very much if I will ever get wireless. The schema behind NBN is that we all end up with pretty good broadband supplied by the govt. and NBN at no cost.
I would have thought you were paying a nominal fee (<$50/month) for 6/1Mbps soon to be 12/1Mbps?
> The satellite service will be cross subsidised by the other wholesale services that NBN offer.
>
> The end result being that the cost to governement (the people) is zero dollars, indeed the end result will be a return to the governement.
I don't dispute your right to a basic internet service, however it is not clear that an opaque subsidy at the NBNCo level is the right answer. Satellite services are an ideal example of where multiple companies could have competed for supply and the government offered a subsidy directly.
Re: same old BS
> PS. As a content creator, I look forward to the day when we can distribute (reliably) to the masses content at about 25-50mb/s. That day is coming very soon.
Except you won't because NBNCo are predicting that 50% connected to fibre will be connected at 12/1Mbps.
Posted in Australia cuts Microsoft bill by AU$100m
Re: So how much are they paying?
$100m at $250k a staff member, equals 400 staff. You could do some amazing work with that many people. It would be interesting to see where LibreOffice falls down for use in the government compared with Microsoft Office and seek some indicative quotes on how much to fix the areas.
Better still rather than money being shipped straight overseas it would remain in the hands of Australian developers.
Anyone know how much tax Microsoft pay in Australia?
NBNCo plan to grow ARPU steeply
It might just be possible that the ACCC have actually read the NBNCo Corporate Plan and investigated the projections.
Have a read of the NBNCo Corporate Plan and see how many times the plan mentions strategies to drive up average revenue per user (ARPU). I don’t expect wholesale prices to rise, but the pace at which prices fall will be significantly less than the growth rate in usage. Please don’t take my word for it, instead go and read the NBNCo Corporate Plan.
Plans for AVC pricing are outlined on page 67:
* 1000/400Mbps falls from $150 to $90, while the average speed grows from 30Mbps to 230Mbps.
* Price falls by 40% while average speed grows by 760%
Plans for CVC pricing are outlined on page 67:
* Starts at $20Mbps/Month when the average data usage is 30GB/Month and falls to $8Mbps/Month when the average data usage is 540GB/month.
* Price falls by 2.5 times, while the average data usage grows by 18 times = growth in revenue from CVC of 720% when accounting for price falls.
The saddest part of the NBNCo debate is that those people who consider themselves informed have been blinded by “fast internet” bright lights and don’t actually understand what the government is planning. Worse than prices rises is the fact that NBNCo are building a fibre network, while at the same time predicting that 50% will connect at 12/1Mbps.
Re: Give it time
Don't Google have a reputation for just giving away gear like this to developers who turn up to their conferences?
Paying for peering common in Australia
Paying for peering in Australia is very common and is substantially controlled by Telstra, Optus/SingTel, MCI and Telecom NZ.
Reference: http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Ecosystems/Australia-Peering-Ecosystem.php
What about direct buried cable?
I'm still curious as to what is going to happen on streets where the cable is direct buried. You will find many streets like this on inner-suburbia.
On my street there are several houses where the telephone connection is underground from the pit on the footpath and on the opposite side of the property to the electricity connection.
How accurate?
Wikipedia suggests accuracy could be as high as 0.5m but is currently 20m for civilians.
Has anyone verified this?
The word is that the yanks were slightly peeved when their stealth planes were detected easily by Jindalee.
> Gillard also described how Australia increasingly competes against emerging Asian economies, and wrote “We can't win this economic race without new technology and better skills, so we are rolling out the [National Broadband Network] NBN and expanding our training system.”
Except that the NBN has been crippled by speed tiers. The 2012 NBNCo Corporate Plan predicts that 50% will connect at 12/1Mbps on fibre - most likely slower than 4G.
Re: I'd be happy to lobby Google for a youtube app for ms phones
I'd settle for proper Open Document Format support.
I don't even need the complete office suite, but complete Exchange MAPI documentation and test suite would be nice.
Re: Be careful who you engage with anti-competitive allegations
Standard Microsoft strategy is to change direction about every five years. This leaves developers either working with old technology or needing to rewrite significant functionality.
Re: less pranks, more apps
> And then when it's powered up they want to play the games, read their email, open docs with the same fidelity that their OSX and Windows (any version) friends and relatives are using.
For example if I produce a document in LibreOffice, I can be assured that other people can read the documents that I produce because if they don't have the software it is a free download. If I produce the document in Word or worse Publisher, then to view the content they need to purchase the software. If they have an older version then there is no guarantee that the document will display correctly.
Re: And as always...
> So much for the NBN delivering 'Affordable broadband to ALL Australians'.
The NBN is very similar to electricity networks in the way it is priced. With both networks they are being built to support the most demanding users (1Gbps & Three phase multi-aircon homes). The economically disadvantaged cannot afford the premium services (1Gbps & Aircons) but have to pay an access charge that is significantly higher to support the premium users.
With electricity there isn't much choice, but with the NBN there is 4G which is faster than the base 12/1Mbps NBN plans (50% of predicted take-up). Conroy is justifiably worried that 4G is a serious competitor for 50% of NBNCo's customers (it is already predicted to take 13%) and without the access fees.
If the NBN speeds were uncapped then it would be a much easier sell.
Unlimited data = slower connections
Unlimited data reduces the incentive for providers to upgrade the speed of connections.
* If providers can charge for data, then it incentives them to provide as much availability and faster speeds, because the results in more data being downloaded which generates more revenue.
* If providers are required to provide unlimited data, then providing faster speeds mean that they have to upgrade network infrastructure to support throughput.
In today's world where you have video streaming and torrents it is perfectly feasible to continually transmit data. Fibre being installed today is easily capable of 1Gbps (100 times faster that an average 10Mbps ADSL connection). Is a provider really going to want to take the risk of you downloading 100 times more data in a month?
For an historical viewpoint, go read about "Tragedy of the Commons".
Posted in Australia gets new CIO and CTO
First great idea: split the theorists from the implementers so they loose touch with each other.
Second great idea: more public servants.
NBNCo Protection Racket?
I wonder if Conroy is trying to price Telstra & Optus out of providing viable wireless competition with the NBN?
NBNCo have consistently predicted that 50% will connect at 12/1Mbps (page 64 of NBNCo Corporate Plan (2012-15). Secondly NBNCo have stated that people will opt for wireless because it is cheaper. If higher spectrum license fees push up the cost by $10/month then it makes it easier for NBNCo fibre to compete.
Of course the minor issue that Labor have with delivering the budget surplus in 2012/13 might also be contributing to this. The next six months are going to be interesting to watch as the government seeks to defer every expense possible to the next financial year. Many (most?) political commentators are surprised that Gillard isn't opting for an early election while Labor can still promise a surplus rather than in the second half of the year.
Ideally you want two separate networks - one for patient data and one for internet access. This is what the military use. More realistically you need a partitioned system, with strong authentication (either tokens, certificates on USB key, mobile phone authentication (bluetooth) or a combination).
It will be interesting to read the trade magazines this weekend to see what coverage it gets.
If the policy has been designed for system administrators, then one would like to assume that is been tested and used in anger by people who are more demanding than the average user. However those users may also be more tolerant of configuration issues and more willing to work through issues to make stuff work than the average person.
Re: Can someone help me here?
I'm not knowledgeable about the science, but the "October global temps above average for 332nd straight month" article shows significant ocean warming off the south west coast of Western Australia, but rainfall in the southern part of WA has declined by 10% since the mid 1970s (search water.wa.gov.au for more details). Interestingly there is mention of a global change in atmospheric simulation in the ."How our rainfall has changed - The south-west" article.
Re: He's lucky he's with the Taliban, not Wikileaks
On a more serious note, this will make an interesting case study on how the "leader of the free world" deals with a leak compared to the Taliban. Not overly confident on picking a winner in the justice stakes.
Beware of the license conditions
From past experience the big hassle is likely to be licensing conditions. I worked with a company using Windows CE for a home automation controller. Their biggest gripe was that they had to keep track of all the licenses. To release an upgrade / fix (shipped on an CF card) they had to build unique images with the right license key and track the return of the old card to "reclaim" the license. The process was frustrating as they couldn't provide images directly to installers and managers felt there was too much risk of being in breach of the license conditions.
The end result was they switched to linux, because it contained none of the risks. The company made all it's money from selling the hardware and the software only worked with the hardware, so tracking licenses had zero value.
Disquiet over the NBN?
> But after hearing Collings speak for 45 minutes, it was hard to draw a conclusion other than that he feels disquiet that policy may not be resulting in the best-possible NBN.
The wireless technology is one of the minor reasons to raise questions about the NBN. I can give you some others:
* ACCC concerns with NBNCo's monopoly powers
* NBNCo's prediction in the corporate plan that 50% of premises with fibre will connect at 12/1Mbps
* Many small regional towns being forced onto wireless when they have ADSL now and the copper network will remain
* Failure of the roll out to focus on areas of need (e.g. housing developments built since the 1980s where RIMs, long cable lengths and/or 3G areas exist)
* Focus on overbuilding of areas that currently have cable with 100Mbps connections to eliminate competition
Device drivers have and always will be the problem until the hardware manufacturers provide support. Once you have a binary blob anywhere in the chain it becomes significantly more challenging to upgrade. Graphics cards and wireless cards are the primary example of this.
Linux has been supported by hardware providers writing device drivers because the server market is large enough that it makes financial sense. For a mobile phone manufacturer there is little incentive in open sourcing the binary blobs because they want to sell more hardware.
I suspect it might be the Chinese manufacturers who move first on this, because they can avoid royalty payments and gain support from a wider community.
Re: GPL doesn't help
GPL only encumbers those who want to develop a closed-source proprietary application.
I don't particularly like the idea of releasing code, and for example having someone add a pretty interface and then selling it without contributing that work back to the community.
Can you expand on what is so special about mobile app development that the GPL doesn't work?
Re: Gouging - stabbing, slashing, ad infinitum
The response will be the same as Blackberry and WebOS. Two questions will be asked:
1. When will the fire sale occur?
2. Can we root it and put android on it (or for more geek points debian)?
Re: Debian please
It will be interesting to see if support turns up here: <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM">Ubuntu ARM Wiki Page</a>.
Posted in New Oz road rules forbid touching mobes
Re: Silly.
I'm not sure if it is still the case, but it used be that the penalties for driving under the influence were significantly higher than drink driving.
Posted in New Oz road rules forbid touching mobes
Re: The number of times
Even better is when you about 5 or further cars back - honk your horn as soon as the light turns green. Almost guaranteed they will look up see the green light and floor it.
Unfortunately I happened to be the car in front collected by the SUV a few years back. Still amazed I didn't roll forward into the car in front of me.
This is not the worst statement he made. He also said that if international bandwidth prices are not sufficiently cheap, the government will simply overbuild. I suggest that this could become a self fulfilling prophesy, because the financiers simply won't fund projects with that sort of threat hanging over the viability of the project.
I'm beginning to think we should ban political staffers from becoming politicians.
Posted in Linux-based Tizen mobile platform lives!
The biggest problem maemo -> meego -> Joila or Tizen faces is consistency.
Maemo showed it was possible to run LibreOffice on a mobile phone. With the increasing power of phones and HDMI out this becomes an increasing realistic option. Joila is probably the better option for this as it supports Qt.
However it is difficult to make any other recommendation apart from iOS or Android.
Posted in Toyota kills city 'e-car for everyone'
Re: Gosh. Someone gets it. Finaly
What I want is a second car for short trips around the city - 50km range would be sufficient.
I don't want a second engine for increased range. If I want increased range then I have a nice petrol SUV for that.
Posted in The Register lands in Australia
Vulture Down Under
Rather than Vulture South, you could have at least gone for Vulture Down Under, although I much prefer Wedgie to vulture- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge-tailed_Eagle
Posted in Libs launch broadband poll
NBNCo running on schedule?
> NBNCo's current plans, which Turnbull says are running late, over budget, and are likely to drift further in future.
> Abundant evidence collected on other sites suggests otherwise.
I haven't seen any evidence that NBNCo are running ahead of schedule and under budget. The latest revision to the plan pushed the dates out and increased the budget.
Re: ubuntu
The closest would be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolla">Jolla</a> ( the successor to Meego, the successor to Maemo). If Nokia hadn't kept changing partners and strategies every year and not jumped into bed with Microsoft then you might have had your wish.
The biggest challenge is binary drivers. If open source drivers existed then it would be relatively easy to upgrade the phones. The same problem exist for Android.
Not that dangerous
Red-back spiders aren't really considered that dangerous down under and there have been no deaths since an anti-venom was developed. Sydney Funnel-Web on the other hand has killed a small child in under 15 minutes.
Rumours abound that the White-tailed spider bites cause ulcers and necrosis, but research in 2003 failed to support this.
NBN challenge?
NBNCo are predicting that 50% will connect at 12/1Mbps on fibre. When for $5 extra a month 25/5Mbps plans are available, one has to assume that these people want the cheapest connection.
Optus are offering 10GB for $34.95 at probably around 30/10Mbps. Cheaper than NBN plans and faster than first 3 speed tiers.
I think NBNCo are facing a serious challenge to achieve their predicted 70% market share.
