The NBN is not about fast Internet
- 23 June, 2009 11:33
- Comments 9
The Federal Government’s $43 billion national broadband network (NBN) is not just about super-fast Internet access for consumers and decision makers must get out of this mindset, a leading contender to provide access technologies has claimed.
Alcatel-Lucent Asia-Pacific futurologist, Geof Heydon, told ARN many discussions around the NBN – such as those on whether to have fibre running overhead or underground, if wireless was a competitor, and the predicted cost of an Internet broadband plan – were dangerously misleading.
“One of the key things from our point of view is there is a real danger that the people who make the political decisions about what we all get out of this network are thinking about Internet, which means it can be lower cost to deploy because it can be a dumb network. But that really will do the country a disservice,” he said.
“It has to be built so that it has high availability like the voice network does today. It has to be built so you can deliver this range of service choice. A lot of people ask the question, is it cheaper to build a fibre network or just use the copper. I think it is the wrong question – it is more about how we make one infrastructure to deliver all the services we need in the future and what other infrastructures don’t we need anymore.”
Heydon’s comments echo those of several other ICT industry figures who have supported the NBN plan, but raised concerns the discourse had not covered the whole spectrum of issues and opportunities created by the country’s largest infrastructure spend.
Internally, Alcatel-Lucent doesn’t call the plan the NBN, Heydon said, because most people equate broadband to the Internet.
“We see it far more as a national infrastructure, and that infrastructure will carry all information services with broadband Internet being just one of them. IPTV will almost certainly be another, voice services, government-related services and financial services,” he said.
“I think it is good to look at it this way: If you have got any incumbent telco in the world, they have about 100 networks and any one of those networks is purpose-built to serve a particular market-sector or a particular consumer, business or mobile. This network can replace all of them and will over time. So long as we get the competitive structure right and the operating structure right, there should only be one network and it should be used for everything.”
Subsequently, many business models will have to evolve over time – including print media and TV – to leverage the NBN. It is not about cannibalising technology or markets, but rather utilising technology to modernise and create future opportunities. And it is this aspect of the discussion that Heydon contends has been lacking.
“If you said to me, in 20 years time what would be the way we are watching broadcast TV, the answer would be on the fibre network. There won’t be any terrestrial TV anymore – there just won’t be any reason to have it. There will be a migration to fully digital and then I think a migration to fibre-based delivery for everybody,” he said.
“When we are describing IPTV we are not describing the Internet. IPTV in our definition is an infrastructure is IP-based but is not using the Internet at all. It is a completely private network environment.”
*To contact the journalist on this story please email Trevor Clarke.
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Comments
DC
Who knows the future?
"If you said to me, in 20 years time what would be the way we are watching broadcast TV, the answer would be on the fibre network."
No-one knows the future of technology. the quote above is too simplistic.
My fear is we as a nation will spend billions on technology that's obsolete by the time it delivers what it promises.
In 2029 if you ask me could I have predicted in 2009 the technology I am using I probably would say no.
That doesn't mean don't plan for the future far from it, it means plan for a changeable future and don't put all your eggs in one basket, buoyed by the support of people who have a financial stake in the roll out rather than the final solution.
DC
Anonymous
On the other hand if you always wait for the next best technology then you, potentially, never do anything.
Fiber is the best of breed technology capable of carrying massive amounts of information, quickly, to many people. It is also true that we need new technologies to better support the information we both want and require.
I think saying that fiber will be obsolete in 10 years is a little hard to believe.
Luke R
DVB obsolete? I don't think so
"There won't be any terrestrial TV anymore - there just won't be any reason to have it."
Err... I doubt it.
Broadcasters made a massive investment in spectrum and transmission equipment - for the simple reason that it WORKS. Fibre to the home is great, but it's still at least 4-6 years away from limited deployment, and 10+ years away from getting anywhere near the reach of current capital city broadcast footprints.
Broadcast will always have a presence in mass-media consumer markets. It is very cheap & simple to operate. No set top boxes, no subscriptions, no clumsy hardware, and no ISP in the middle.
Yes, IP-TV is a very attractive technology, and will replace current cable distribution methods, but it won't be the ONLY distribution method. DVB-T will be around for a long while yet.
Anonymous
Fiber is not just wanted, it's needed!
I wholeheartedly approve of everything outlined in this article. The comments made by Nick Minchin yesterday about there being no need for the NBN baffled me. How could he be so stupid? I know it's just politics, but saying this just made him look like a clueless moron. We need a broadband network that delivers speed and reliability, because that's what the future holds for us. When everything is becoming digital you eventually need a medium to move all that data quickly. The amount of data required for new medias (eg. bluray) is growing, and we can't just accept copper as an acceptable way to move it. Apologies for being so simplistic about it but I hope to get the point across.
Anonymous
The speed of broadbank become a block of IT growing
There is no world-class icons sites running in Austrlia at the moment. We cannot rely on selling the limited mine resource now. Definitely, need to change to some low resource cost industry to raise capital. If government can supply such a fast platform can let small/home-hosted IT service start running their good ideas with lower cost, things can be changed.
Anonymous
What a complete load of nonsense!! Absolutely nothing specific at all. All this article says is maybe we will need the NBN in the future for some as yet unknown reason. So let's just throw $43B of taxpayers money at it anyhow. Ever heard of a government spending Billions on roads that we have no present need for? For the majority of people the internet service we have works. If there is any real need to upgrade in the future then private enterprise will fill the gap with their own cash.
Anonymous
Not with our current plans
'“If you said to me, in 20 years time what would be the way we are watching broadcast TV, the answer would be on the fibre network. There won’t be any terrestrial TV anymore'
This isn't going to happen until our current ISP's start offering reasonable plans. In the US you can get unlimited (true unlimited) plans for under $20. In the UK the same plans can be found for just over 7 pounds. Here in Australia with the likes of Bigpond counting uploads as well as downloads and hitting people with heavy usage fees when they go over their limits, we're not going to be watching all our TV on our computers any time soon.
Graeme Harrison (prof at-symbol post.harvard.edu)
But any major CapEx needs to pass Cost-Benefit
I'm pro-IT and would like fibre everywhere... until you mention the price.
People have suggested it is national infrastructure, like building a physical highway. But physical highways do have a 100+ year life. And technology dates very quickly. The digital-analogue hybrid coax hanging from your street poles is testament to that. This is more like a spend on your new shop-window laptop... after just a few years it WILL be old technology.
As to cost-benefit, I spoke with Malcolm Turnbull this week and said the BIG internet issue affecting national productivity is 'near universal access', not speed per se. In other words, the coalition-introduced satellite broadband installation subsidy was a GOOD plan. It did not involve the government of the day trying to pick a technology winner, but simply noted it was for those who would not get ADSL, and if the subsidy was enough to get them to jump to broadband, well and good. If we get almost everyone 'on-line', then all government departments can cancel normal snail mailing.
Further, it is arguably better to spend $43m (not $43b) on a simple mail-forwarding service provided by the feds. Every citizen would have a stable email address of HAR2345@australia.gov.au for life. You could go to the site and self-administer your forward-to email address.. but in case you had a continuity problem with any particular ISP, your from-government emails would remain available at the fed site for 7+ years. You could also give it to others and use it generally, but it would mean that any government dept or agency could contact you that way, and on the one site, you could register a change in residential address, phone number etc as well. Now that $43m has a HUGE benefit vs costs. But once you've pulled the benefits of near-universal access and common email target out, the remaining benefits of the NBN become ONLY speed. And if the cost was $4.3b, I think it would be easily justified. But as it climbs to $43b, the justification evaporates. At that price, you need to wait another ten years till the switches drop another 70% in cost, etc. As I said to Malcolm, the main beneficiaries of very high speed broadband in Japan and Korea are on-line interactive gamers and viewers of downloaded movies. But both these activities are negatively correlated with national productivity, as they are things people would do as an alternative to real work!
So, let's do the things which really do make sense (without allowing a uniform email address to become an Australia Card Mk3) and even let the government offer up to $4.3b of public funding towards an NBN... but let's not agree to anything like 10x that without a well-proven cost-benefit case.
Anonymous
But any major CapEx needs to pass Cost-Benefit
The universal email address idea is just plain silly. It can't possibly last a life time. It will be polluted with spam in months.
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