back to article Telstra's Thodey is NBN kingmaker after Oz election

With Saturday's emphatic election result putting almost certain to put Malcolm Turnbull into the communications ministry, the business of rejigging the National Broadband Network is about to begin in earnest. Step one, once Turnbull assumes the ministry, will be a promised “100 day” review of the NBN. This will presumably …

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  1. LaeMing

    Hmmm.

    Interesting to see what this will do to housing prices. Will people without fibre find their properties being de-valued because of it?

    1. mathew42

      Re: House prices

      Doubtful. Considering fibre install will cost ~$3000 which is less than 1% of the average house price and much less in many areas.

      1. LaeMing

        Re: House prices

        Thanks for that info. I am in the market for a place in the next few years, and if it doesn't have fiber I can push for a $3000 drop in price off-the-bat!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reap what you sow

    Guess if LNP had done it right the first time (structural separation of Telstra) we wouldn't be in this mess. Now they have to work with Telstazilla :-)

  3. mathew42

    Good news

    Based on the incompetence of the Labor government in negotiating (Mining Tax, GP SuperClinics, etc.) means that Telstra are already sitting on a very sweet deal which should give the Coalition plenty of room for negotiation. A chunk of the money is also based on customers transferring from copper to the new network. However, Labor's incompetence may also mean that the Telstra have negotiated plenty of loop holes.

    Overall given the speed tiered based pricing structure, the Coalition plan should actually see faster overall network speeds in Australia. Sounds ridiculous, but Labor were planning for 50% on fibre to connect at 12Mbps.

  4. Matto in AUS

    As a long-time proponent of the initial FTTH plan, I find myself less and less interested as this whole thing drags on.

    Every time it rains (which it tends to do quite a bit here in FNQ), my ADSL drops out. On a good day, I need to only restart my router 3 times. Through 6 years of experimentation we've worked out that there's only one decent copper path for our street - when you complain they re-patch you to the "good" path, then your service slowly degrades over the coming months as your neighbours complain and you get shuffled down the quality ladder. All this, for a base ADSL1 service that generally manages to run anywhere up to 5mpbs, and costs $50/month + line rental, etc.

    To wit - I no longer care whether I get FTTN, FTTH or FTTSE (fibre-to-the-something-else) - I just want it to work, to provide decent bandwidth, and to cost less than it currently does. My technical opinion is that the additional cost for FTTH is justified in future-proofing, and that patching up the existing copper is a false economy. But as I'm facing the prospect of at least another 2-3 years before I can qualify for NBN-provided services under the existing plan, I'm willing to cut the LNP's plan a break and give them enough rope.

    I'm just glad I'm not the one doing the negotiating. As the article mentions, THAT is going to make the initial NBN contract negotiations seem like a walk in the park.

    Cheers,

    Matt

  5. ceebee

    not called Fraudband for nothing...

    The Liberal plan is designed essentially to prevent high speed internet competing with existing (Murdoch) cable / media interests.

    The whole plan is a sham no matter what the technicalities of the deals.

    Australia will get a 20th century pseudo NBN at great cost.

    Thanks to these conservative fools.

  6. Vulcon

    Bit late to become concerned...

    Strange how so few in the media were concerned about these many problems before. We should have known the answers to these questions before the election

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