The NBN spells the end of the ISP as we know it

Sounds to me like the beginnings of subscription package based internet access.

Sounds to me like a walled garden. So much for network neutrality.

Sounds to me like a convenient way of filtering our net/everything else used on the line, rather than the gov. putting in filters at every ISP. How convinient.

less and less

and they will decide what we see and do online
the more I learn of nbn the less I like it

It appears that it's just another scheme for the Australian government to filter the internet and attack privacy of internet users, Whenever this happens, I can bet you they will filter and govern the internet.

Perhaps the "anonymous" poster above will stop posting a dozen messages by himself to make it look like there is a wave of people agreeing with him.

What is with all this negativity lately? It seems there are people coming out from the woodwork who for whatever political/economical/Telstra loving reasons are trying to find all sorts of excuses why the NBN is bad....the scary thing is that many of their arguments are so flawed they are laughable to anyone who understands the industry well.

There are dozens of countries around the world that are actually at a much more advanced stage of bulding their own NBNs, yet you don't see all these 'pseudo experts' jumping up and down complaining.

Anonymous and the NBN baggers

There are sadly some poor, ignorant and clueless people, bitter about their inability to make an impression on anyone, who just resort to spreading gormless comments about stuff they have no idea about...
Yeah like the gov commits to upwards of $43billion so that they can filter the net, and that with an infrastructure that is incredibly difficult to use as a filter platform at all, if at all...
Back to your Harry Potter books Anon, and check under your bed for the scary Voldermonroy while you are at it...
Kick the filter idea all you want, but at least have the knowledge to understand the difference between that and the NBN.

Re: Anonymous and the NBN baggers

"Kick the filter idea all you want, but at least have the knowledge to understand the difference between that and the NBN."

The difference is that the NBN costs will far exceed the $43b government estimate (as noted by pipe networks (a neutral backhaul wholesale provider)), and will demonstrate Australian sovereign risk to foreign institutional investors (of which the government is attempting to sell its bonds).

The similarities are that the NBN network topology will end up structured so that it can centralize filtering - just like the Chinese (after the filtering fails at the ISP level with the use of tor/proxies/vpns).

We would all like fiber, but not at the cost of $43b+, sovereign risk or filtered access.

"Perhaps the "anonymous" poster above will stop posting a dozen messages by himself to make it look like there is a wave of people agreeing with him."

Actually, I only posted the first message.
Guess there are other people who think the same thing.

Support of Anon

Though everyone has criticised the anon post against the NBN and filtering I can't say I disagree. This government has made some terrible policies regarding internet content, and it would seem that helping them create a network that could potentially make those unworkable policies a terrible reality is unwise. We all know it could never happen like that, but 5 years ago I'd have never believed the government could propose the kind of filters that are under consideration either. Australia needs a better network, this is not in dispute. But the current government's net policies make me concerned too.

At last..

.. some public comment that isn't blinkered to think speed, and effects of Telstra monopoly, are the whole story. Speed helps, but the 3 things I see as significant have had little comment from government and industry:
- Potential restructure that allows multiple concurrent services to premises, as partly described above.
- Ubiquity of (high-speed, multi-service) connection - new "killer apps" that just need speed would be already appearing anyway. What we haven't seen are those that require very high penetration to become viable. SMS wouldn't have taken off if there weren't a lot of people carrying capable mobile phones, giving it much greater reach for personal messaging than email and fax.
- Latency. VPNs between multi-site businesses (including a lot of small-medium ones both in cities and regional Australia) become much more valuable if latency between sites can drop to a few ms.

NBN & filter questions

There are core differentiators between the NBN and the proposed internet filtering scheme, whether we like them or accept them or not.

The NBN has the potential to ensure the political rise and future of both Conroy and the Rudd government on a national level, the filter though is at most an annoyance for the majority public who care about it anyway, and is certainly never going to be a reason for Conroy or Rudd to lose office.

That is a reality. I know there are committed people out there fighting hard to counter this filter, and so they should when this is their conviction.

Conroy does not need the NBN at all to filter the net, and is it a serious misjudgement to try and connect the justification of the NBN to the filtering initiative.

That will guarantee the filtering policy will proceed, as there is already no going back from the NBN...

Tie the filtering to the NBN and you ensure that the filtering will happen, it is that easy. Try and attack the filtering on the basis of the NBN and you make the filtering a reality already. The industry (except Telstra...) and the public broadly want the NBN and see this as an important and required move.

If you want to defeat the filter, then you need to overcome it on it's lack of merits. The NBN as a concept is a done deal, it is now a question of how it will be structured.

Read the polls people and read therein the mood of the people. Not some flakey online polls that are easily fixed with voting apps, look at the real polls of real people. Rudd is currently on a high and has copious room to move...

"Conroy does not need the NBN at all to filter the net.."

True enough - but it will be a lot more difficult to get it past all ISP's than it will when "he" is in control of every single 'access point' into and out of the network (and, lets face it, if/when this does go ahead it _will_ spell the death of the ISP's as we know it.. it just needs time).

As to the whole "Anon" thing - put up your real name and phone number if you expect to be taken seriously - "Todd" is just as "Anon" as Anonymous.

Finally, "There are sadly some poor, ignorant and clueless people, bitter about their inability to make an impression on anyone" - whatever, I don't give a rats what you think - I just want put out there that ppl need to think about what is going to happen when/if this thing rolls out (and the Gov. prices access low enough (loss-lead) to ensure take up and remove the real ISP's).

As to the whole "Anon" thing...

Would you expect anyone to publish their name and phone number here? All that does is give the cranky and bitter people a direct target for their pretty offensive calls & mail... (it happens to the unfortunates who have had their details published...)

BTW, who said that paragraph was about you?

Todd is not quite as Anon, at least you can address these posts directly, instaed of addressing a pool of Anons...

Fair enough.

In answer to Anon 1-5 (well, 1,2,4,5)

With regard to the first ~4 anon posts (I skip one of the personal comment posts), I noticed no one took up your challenge, so I thought I'd add some thoughts.
1)<cite>"Sounds to me like the beginnings of subscription package based internet access"</cite>
Yes, there will be Service providers (SP) that will use this model. "pay 10 dollars for this, 10 dollars for that" etc.
But there will be competition remember, and you won't have to build your own network to BE a competitor. the SP's using the above business model will therefore *have* to be cheaper or offer something *better* to compete. (this is a good thing)

2) <cite>"Sounds to me like a walled garden. So much for network neutrality."</cite>
See (1) above. There will be walled gardens, but there will also be competition (from those offering *more* than walled garden). The *network* is neutral! but the providers aren't! The providers on the network will sell you a "product" on the network. Not all products will be the internet! (but people still want the internet, so ofcourse there will be "the internet" as a product available)

3) *Skipped*, will take this as personal opinion to which no argument can be levelled. (Akin to arguing with someone about their dislike of Cheese, if they don't like the taste, how can you argue that they should?)

4) <cite>"Sounds to me like a convenient way of filtering our net/everything else used on the line, rather than the gov. putting in filters at every ISP. How convinient."</cite>
This is an actual argument with merit. Unfortunately this has nothing to do with the story above.
The story talks about ISP's becoming SP's. Some SP's will sell filtered internet, I 100% guarantee you this. (Psst! some internet service providers provide filtered internet access RIGHT NOW!). This is not evil. This is a good thing. It is a different product on the neutral network (see (1) above).
Now, I am 100% against a government mandated, no Opt-Out filter (as you appear to be). But I am 100% all-for a national broadband network. <em>They are not the same thing.</em> (did I mention that the filter has nothing to do with the article you are commenting on?)

(5) <cite>"It appears that it's just another scheme for the Australian government to filter the internet and attack privacy of internet users, Whenever this happens, I can bet you they will filter and govern the internet."</cite>
Huh?, is this just a reprint of (4) with more flammable wording?
As with (4), This has nothing to do with the article you are commenting on. Read the rest of my response to (4) as a response to (5)

Well, that seems to be it.

On topic: Sounds great, I like choice, competition and ubiquitous access. Means high bandwidth products become possible! What I'm hoping for is a future competitor that allows for free access to content delivered from Australia, and only charges or "caps" data coming from the international links. Unfortunately too many ISP's are narrow minded (or more likely incapable due to existing players) of providing a service like this right now.

Would just like to add, in response to another comment by another Anon user (perhaps the same one?):
<cite>"True enough - but it will be a lot more difficult to get it past all ISP's than it will when "he" is in control of every single 'access point' into and out of the network..."</cite>
The difficulty in installing filters will be the same I think you'll find.
ISP's will still be providing you DNS services.
ISP's will still be linking internation links to your house.
(ISP's will sell you a product of: "Access to our International link - VIA an NBN.Co owned fibre".)
The filter will still need to be installed at the ISP. The government is not going to buy international capacity, then resell filtered international capacity (the only way to do what you say will happen).
The government is ONLY building a fibre network linking all houses in Australia.
I <em><strong>HOPE</strong></em> the government also decides to build an international link. But so far I don't think anyone has said that is what they plan to do (there is competition in this sector already, and it is not a natural monopoly as fixed line networks are.)

I don't think the gov WILL build a cable, and they probably shouldn't.
The internet really is very similar to the transport industry.
The government builds roads. (NBN)
Car manufacturers sell you a car to use roads. (ISPs)
Airlines fly people domestically (ISPs build their own high-bandwidth interstate links)
Airlines fly people internationally (Undersea cables, like PPC1)

Heres that analogy taken further:
(! this was the short re-written version! I need to get back to work)
Currently, our network is:
Holden owns the roads, and manufactures cars.
Ford has to rent access to the roads, so that it can sell people Fords to drive in Australia.
Unfortunately all the roads are Dirt tracks. It costs a lot of money to upgrade your dirt track, and Holden have made some noises about paving over some of the bigger dirt tracks (but not all the way to your house, and even then only in the big cities). But it was not going to happen any time soon.
In the past Ford started building its own concrete-road network. Everywhere Ford paved a road, Holden paved a road. Now 25% of the population has access to at-least 1 concrete road. (20% of which have access to BOTH concrete roads! what a waste!).

The NBN is talking about making Holden sell/give its Road network to the government, and having the government Pave the WHOLE lot, using asphalt instead of dirt or even concrete.

Now tell me, do you like paved roads (paid for by car registration) better than privately owned dirt Toll-Roads?

Which is better for this country in the long-term?

What about the mid-term?