Australia doesn’t want 100Mbps Internet, says Turnbull

Sorry Mr Turnbull but you are wrong. I do want 100mbs. I can tell from your statement that you do not have a home network otherwise you would know the benefits. Just ask the few people that have the NBN.

And it's political, short-sighted views such as this that has stifled progress and competition for consumers (i.e. taxpayers) in this country. France touted TV+High Speed Internet (30Mbps)+Telephone 7, yes 7 years ago for a mere 30 euros a month. And here we are STILL discussing. A politician with a view further than their term would be a clean breath of fresh air.
Lets get out of this rut, and allow Australian consumers and business to benefit from increased competition and future proof high speed infrastructure.

Malcolm Turnbull is absolutely right. $43 billion borrowed for something that hardly anyone needs. It's ridiculous, and we'll be paying for this ill-conceived white elephant for generations. As for the inane comparison with France, they are a tenth of our size with 4 times the population. YOU do the sums. It's typical, poorly planned populist rubbish from an economically vandalous government.

I agree with Big MalT. Do you want to pay $300 a month for super high speed to surf your porn and download movies illegally. I doubt most websites could cope with the increase in video traffic without prices going upward also. Only deviates and IT professionals want super fast speeds at home. Which one are you?

Most other countries have faster internet than Australia. If you search for countries with the top internet speeds you will be surprised. Australia is falling behind rapidly in internet speed and communications and this can only be bad for business and ultimately our economy. In Sweden landlords are installing 100mbs either way connections for 40 SK to make their rental properties more attractive.

On Malcolm Turnbull's wonderful idea of wifi and mobile internet I am pulling a massive 313 kbps and paying a very high price for it. Sorry, Australia is a lame duck when it comes to internet.

Not sure were you get the $300 A Month from Chris i do need High speed broadband and NOT for Surfing porn but to work from home. And iam Sick of Paying ridiculous price for Telstra's cable. Prices i have seen range for NBN from $49 to $189 .
And with the ability to have Phone Pay TV from your choice of provider etc on the same service sounds Great to me.

Iam not a labor supporter but think on this one they have it right.
Just wish Malcolm & Tony would see the light.

I think the Government has to be commended for adopting a grand vision that will benefit the vast majority of Australians, not least SMEs and home based businesses. Turnbull is clearly playing politics but if elected, I'd be interested to see what he comes up with, for rural and metro areas. The WiMAX based OPEL project had clouds hanging over it before it was canned, so let's hope Malcolm has a new sounder strategy to provide the broadband "real action" that we deserve.

Fibre has to underlay Wifi.

Malcolm is toeing the company line.

maybe I am not an australian then. I'd love 100M internet access. I hope Malcolm is putting his money where his mouth is and still using dial up at home.

Malcolm, Malcolm Malcolm,

say what you believe not what you have been told to say, stand up the real Malcolm.

Tony is the leader for the past another Little Johnny, It's up to thinkers in the Liberal Party to standup and deliver Australia into the furure not turn of the lights and enter the caves under the coalition again.

Pete

I think Malcolm doesnt know what he is talking about. Having high speed internet would be nothing but good for the country. we are lagging behind as it is with with internet speeds. As for Michael Quadrio comment(#3) i dont think you know what your talking about. clearly you dont get on the internet much, there is so much the internet can do now and requires the higher speeds.

All the people who say they 'want' 100Mbps what are you prepared to pay for it? What Turnbull is saying is that most people aren't prepared to pay the cost of 100Mbps to their home or business.
I want an Aston Martin but I'm not going to pay $500,000 for one.

Yes its might be an expensive option right now, but everyone knows these things usually come down in price. I have ADSL2+ at home, and Im at ransom to have telstrra provide the copper into my place. Im over giving telstra my money. The service, and product is a rip off. Its about time this Government has started to invest into the future. I do also believe this national roll out will have more impact to hosptials, schools, and other government agencies, that are currently paying too much for quality high speed too. For God sake lets look at the bigger picture here. Its not all about home. This will be a huge benefit for small business too. And another point we should consider, just think new mums/dads that are at home who want to stay at home, they can do so, and can remotely connect to office, and continue to work, and be at home with her children. Look outside the small square ...... Malcolm

There is one thing consistent about the Liberals, they can find fault with anything, hmm so can I. The Liberals must still believe in a flat earth with the sun orbiting it pulled by chariots.

I suppose Turnbull has learnt his lesson, toe the Luddite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite) line of the Liberal heirachy.
I think he sees a future again in the lesson of John Howard so long on the outside untill he fully understood what being a conservative was actually about, keep the current order.

And they disabuse Labour antics!

please people , do some research on how limited ADSL availability is in suburbia and on actual NBN pricing!
4 months ago our Telstra phone bill used to be $100+ and $60 for 12GB of 1.5Mbps ADSL - now we are on iPrimus Fibre in Tassie and paying $75 per month: $50 for 25Mbps 40GB and $25 for phone which now includes all our local and interstate calls!!
My daughter who lives in Springfield Lakes (Qld) hasnt been able to get basic ADSL for the last 5 months so is using dial up because Wireless in her area is unusable and hence is unable to run her business from home.
Whereas my son in Wyndham Vale (Vic) who built his house 7 months ago only just recently , after countless applications , finally had ADSL connected but guess what? after 5pm it is unbearably slow and unusable and from what they both tell me they are not alone as most of their neighbours are in the same boat.
Mr Turnbull , due to your party's lack of vision you have lost my families vote.

Just because you get 100Mbps to your home does not mean everything is going to be that much faster. At the end of the day it depends on the server you are connecting to and how fast their pipe out is and how many people are using that pipe.

I currently work from home with a connection under 3Mbps and I’m able to connect to my work applications a lot faster than if I was at work. Why my work has over 5000 people trying to use the 1 link out of the office and even though it’s a fibre link that many people slow it down.

Currently there are a lot of solutions out there for business to use that can allow users to work from home as if they were in the office and it doesn’t need 100Mbps connections.

It would be nice to have 100Mbps, but at what cost to tax payers

Yeah, sure, 100Mbps would be nice, but I am not so selfish as to delude myself that such an enormous amount of money could not be better spent elsewhere.
The law of supply and demand will ensure that if there is a genuine need for speed, then it will be filled by private enterprise in mutual competition.
Surely this is better than an artificially created monopoly, that will inevitably be sold off (just like Telstra), leaving us with yet another bloated, competition-destroying, innovation stifling entity that makes it impossible to achieve a level playing field.

Comment 15 nailed it. For most families the real NBN benefit is cutting their phone bill with VoIP. 60% of Australians who have fixed broadband often forget that nearly 40% are on dialup.

Half the wireless accounts in Australia are secondary mobility accounts for people with a fixed service for the bulk of their data needs. Scarce tower capacity is forcibly rationed by charging huge rates per gigabyte, and the signal is not continuous, so it is only capable of sustaining VoIP calls if you live a block away from the tower.

100 Mbps is not the issue, since fibre can run at any speed from 25 Mbps to many Gbps. Giving regional Australia a mobile-only phone service merely replaces their hefty STD call costs with hefty mobile phone call costs. Talking to the grandchildren for an hour should cost ten cents, not a dollar. ADSL doesn't have the reach, therefore fibre is the solution.

Read the National Party 2010 Election platform and the answer jumps out at you for regional Australia.

Quadrio, its an investment - to be repaid. and the all up bill is already lower than the 43 billion placeholder figure, by some billions. and the governmental portion of that is again less by some billions. stop waving around the out of date 43 billion figure, you are engaging in a FUD argument.

so what if france is a tenth the size, 90 % of aussie population is <200 kms of a major city centre. contrary to your FUD the network is very achievable.

Dawes, you DO realise the NBN plans are on parity to current internet plans, not "$300" plans? have a look at the NBN pricesheets from Internode iiNet et al before waving around THAT bit of FUD. you couldnt be further from the truth.

and no its not just for 'deviates and IT professionals' - ornery mum and dad businesses that currently only get a 1.5 mbit upload, Accountants, Lawyers, any business that relies on shifting large amounts of documents from one office to another. Any e-tailer. there are thousands of non deviate, non IT shops that can and will use and benefit from such a network.

and yes i am one of those who would love to pay for 100mbit access. noone is asking for an Aston here, just access on the market to those speeds. weve left behind 56 K speeds and i currently use a wireless product - FAR TOO SLOW for those of you wondering and thinking why its not good enough. the page size trajectory over the past 5, 10 years is such that it already is a pain accessing media rich sites with a 'standard' dsl connection.

Remember not that long ago when DSL was first introduced, or even DSL2+, how people wondered if they could use all that speed, or if anything over 1.5 mbit would ever be affordable? we are now in the days where it IS affordable, and we CAN use that speed. and more. and it has only taken us a few years to get to this point. If we go back to waiting for Telstra etc to get on with building a Fibre network we are going to be sorely disappointed by the time the next election will roll around.

And dont say Wireless will save us, you STILL NEED fibre backhaul for those sites, and additionally you will need more tower sites. not to mention spectrum to signal on - if you want white elephants. attempting a wireless network is it. Particularly when you will be up against the mobile market sector, which is actually the most competitive comms sector here, and hungry for more spectrum of their own. Good luck with that.

Now i get it... The Libs are in it for the Lulz.

The Libs are in any discussion today to take the opposite position to the ALP. Finito.

The Libs presided over a decade of infrastructure and telcoms stagnation and pandering to Telstra, do we want another 3 years or more of that?

We are already way down the list of telecoims standards here, and that situation was caused by the very same thinkingt that Turnbull and the Libs are preaching here: Leave it all to Telstra...

Good luck with that one and hallo Stone Age...

So we pay $43bn now (roughly $6,000 to $8,000 per family) to get 100Mbps at unknown prices in 15 years? Sounds like a fair deal to me. Does anyone remember what the average speeds were 15 years ago? You were lucky to get a dedicated 32k line. Imagine if you paid $8,000 back in 1995 for a prospect of getting a 128k connection in 15 years. How would you feel today? Pretty stupid I would guess. Well, get ready to feel exactly the same way in 15 years time. Enjoy your Labor, Australia, you fully deserve it.

IF it was ALL houses I could see the merit,
My house is just under 3km from the exchange by cable
We cannot even get ADSL let alone ADSL2.
The Krudd plan for NBN was never and is never going to be available to us or anyone else in a community of less than 1000 homes, Once again Labor is looking after the cities and not the rural population.
Tony/Libs may not have all the answers, none of them do, but at least we get a chance for a decent service.
It costs me close on $400 a month for 50GB at sometimes lousy speeds and with 2 x wireless providers because one is down at least once a month.
1Mbps reliable service would be lovely, 10Mbps great.
100Mbps is very much pie in the sky for us
OZ does not have the International bandwidth to support 100Mbps from 10% of the homes let alone all so it will be amusing once the uptake goes up and the bandwidth share goes down.
Anyway off the soapbox

the NBN is not just for 100M internet, it is also for phones,pay tv , video conferencing, visits to the GP, distance learning the list goes on. this is a $43B investment that will only appreciate in value. I think we should go ahead with the NBN no matter who gains power after the election.

OLD PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGY!

Australia does need 100mbp/s broadband. If not today, then tomorrow. With more and more using YouTube, online radio, IPTV, how could we settle for anything less?

I want 100Mbps Unlimited with 100Mbps upload, run my server here save me some money lol.
but the current plans the ISP's will offer are hopeless for this tax payer funded network, the NBN is flawed in many ways

Turnbull is holding an iPad connected to a fibre network which has a server 1/2 way around the world but we cannot get a fibe network for Aust for local use.

wireless is limited if the local companys don't have it.

Turnbull like all Liberals is a TOOL.

Australia NEEDS the 100 MB connection. It is like putting in any infrastructure for the future... You build dams to cater for growth. If we do not have faster internet how will we be able to cater for the future technology needs. Video on demand, VOIP, facetime calls, download news video content. My 30 MB connection can cope (sort of) but add in future advances and it will be useless.
The rest of the world is on 100MB FREE, yes FREE internet. We need to catch up let alone lead the world.

Turnbull says we don't need an NBN? Just like someone once said we don't need more than 640k of base memory.

Let me see 100 mb filtered or what we got unfiltered

vote with your brain .....Its not rocket science

How is it that there is no mention of the fact that Malcolm Turnbull previously owned Ozemail, that overpriced dialup ISP that made him very rich, and Ozemail supplied such an ineffective and expensive fraudband internet service to our homes.

No wonder he can't see why a future broadband infrastructure would require high speed backhaul with fibre to the premises AND wireless technologies.

Such wireless infrastructure must also provide for mobile data reliability at high physical speeds of mobility in transit, such as when travelling in high-speed trains, aircraft and cars on freeways with passengers using broadband. This is critical when travelling above 60km per hour.

Most consumers are not aware that current wireless and mobile voice technologies can not seamlessly perform reliable wireless handover between cells or transmitter/receiver towers above such transit speeds.

This is also why voice calls drop out when travelling in cars over these speeds because the next cell cannot process the seamless connection handover fast enough.

And even now our most advanced Telco's are still installing services that fail because of this factor, using prior technology instead of testing and adopting leading edge ratified IEEE solutions that will suit our lifestyles now and in the future.

Larger Telcos favour wireless data technologies that utilise their considerable investment in the 3G spectrum, currently used for voice and data, because they (and therefore we) paid huge amounts of money to the previous Government/s to buy commercial access to those radio spectrums when they were auctioned off. (See how conflicts of interest may occur between such financial windfalls for the then sitting government, and the current public interest in regard to future technologies? If they are luddites, then they may also be greedy luddites).

Currently there is one Telco installing commercial WiMAX 4G wireless broadband services in some capital cities in Australia, this is a positive private sector undertaking except that they are using 802.16e instead of the more desirable 802.16m, (which is capable of mobile use at physical transit handover speeds beyond 300km per hour and therefore a better choice for all customers that want to use broadband data while travelling faster than 60km per hour.) the same question needs to be asked about LTE 4G wireless data services, and the National alternate WiMAX solution proposed by the OPEL consortium.

There is no point in having wireless mobile broadband infrastructure that requires the user to stand still or only move about slowly.

Conversely for fixed broadband service to the home, a wise decision was made to choose fibre to the premises rather than fibre to the node, it is actually more economical to avoid the translation layers for last mile circuitry and permit higher speeds point to point.

In the UK they are already converting from 100Mbps to 200Mbps for Fibre to the Premises services.

With regard to international internet backhaul, that is being doubled currently by private sector investors as most readers here are aware, - just as crude oil shipments and processing facilities are increased due to demand when our population and car consumption have increased, and new roads are developed.

For those that think nobody needs or wants speeds of even 100Mb to their homes and offices now, keep in mind that the employment model of the near future will see far more Australians employed under contract to multiple employers based nationally and internationally and undertaking collaborative work performed from home offices and SMB locations far and wide.

This will help remove some commuters from roads during peak hour and will contribute to reductions in toxic air pollution and CO2 emissions. Which the media insists is important to most Australians AND Malcolm Turnbull.

We will also have better opportunities to become wealthier through direct effort, vary our work hours and commitments, thus allowing us to spend more time with family members and friends.

If for some, the future choice is to not spent hundreds of dollars per month on fuel, traditionally commuting every work day and instead spend a just little more per month above the current broadband costs to instead work from home then most would agree to do it.

Avoiding those lost hours stuck in traffic also means potentially more time to earn extra dollars working for clients, or your boss.

Perhaps the other hurdle is that Malcolm Turnbull and employers like him, might not trust employees to work from home.

How now can the opposition party, who told us that Telstra was among the worlds best technology based Telcos and worth investing in, and with Telstra now seeking to agree that they should partner with NBNCo for the better long term outcome for national broadband services, be the same political party that claims they will dump the whole NBN/Telstra project if re-elected, probably greatly diminishing Telstra's value now and in the future?

The final question is perhaps cynical, but how much nepotism might be involved in the OPEL alternative that the opposition proposed?

Lot of people above my comment do not have a CLUE what they are talking about.

As a support officer with a large media company supporting over 1400 users across australia remotely; a nationwide fibre network would increase our productivity by a factor of 5, letting people work in far off regional areas in real time, and allowing us the ability to support those users in real time, rather than the slow and pathetic state we have to support them at the moment due to lack of infrastructure.

just because people of turnbulls generation dont want a decent connection doesnt mean that the current and next generations dont want to be hamstrung by some out of date luddites.

fiber is not just about fast net, Its about ubiquous connections, equality, taking the power away from telstra and greenfield developers and ensuring everyone in australia gets a level playing field and an open choice of providers.

having higher speeds also allows opportunities for many that doesn't exist, Instead of paying for hosting services for your company website, you can run it from home/work .

Remote desktop applications can run faster as well. It wont only be for net, it will be for phone etc... copper needs replacing, Why not do it with an opportunity like this.

just to add, There is Nothing bad about fibre to the premises, its so good, even telstra are jumping on board. And seriously, If we don't spend the money on infrastructure now, We'll just end up doing it later.

Yeah the older folk are happy with there 200mb for $39 telstra plans cause they "only use it for emails"

This is recession time and if you need support your family.

Get paid for Blogging or Surf Online
Many different ways how to get paid on the web space
http://twitter.com/alvulf

Malcolm Turnbull is wrong if he thinks most australian's don't want 100mbps fibre. My family constantly complains about our internet, but have no interest in this whole fibre debate because they don't understand the technology or argument.

If the argument is rephrased in simple terms, i think most people would disagree with him.

- Do you want cheaper calls? With fibre, you can use a VoIP phone for a fraction of the price. Can't all australian's do this now? No.

- Do you want extra TV channels? IPTV is growing in popularity. You need a stable 3.5Mbps connection, something not all australian's have yet. What if it continues to grow, and becomes as common as pay tv is now? Got kids? Watch 2 shows at once, 7mbps. Watch 2 shows at once, while recording 2 others? Too bad, Malcolm Turnbull says we don't need that.

- 100mbps fibre, sounds expensive, right? No. Current NBN plans are quite affordable. As the service becomes more popular, which will happen as copper is phased out, prices will continue to drop.

- Will the next new thing make fibre obsolete wasting 40billion $? 100mbps is not fibre's speed limit, far from it. 100mbps is the limit of the hardware used to route our internet traffic. If Australian speed demands increase, fibre can handle it.

- Ever used youtube, or webcams? That tiny little box is a representation of the current state of Australian internet. 100mbps means fullscreen, high quality, with no buffering delays.

Many people here claim they *want* 100mbps broadband. But very few are going to cough up the monthly fee.

I have '8mbit' connection, but because of telstras crappy network at night im lucky to even get 50kb/s download. I've also never got above 6Mbit due to the rim cap. Another thing. Telstra users can adsl2 on my rim but I can't on my comoany. How stupid is that. We need a open network! owned by Australia not a company.

Some interesting pricing facts from PC World: http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/349452/nbn_tasmania_pricing_comparison/
Internode seems to have the best plans for pricing in Tasmania as you can see following. That's cheaper than what I am paying for my current ADSL2+ connection, which at the best of times only gives me approx 5Mbps connection and usually around the mid 3Mbps and that's at a cost of $79.95/month.

Internode's plans are offered in three tiers according to speed — 25 megabits per second, 50Mbps and 100Mbps for download speeds, with upload speeds capped at 2Mbps, 4Mbps and 8Mbps respectively. There are 15 plans to choose from; the 25Mbps Entry-Line plans start from $29.95, the 50Mbps Mid-Line plans start from $39.95 and the 100Mbps High-Line plans start from $59.95. Each of these entry-level plans has a monthly data quota of 15GB. The largest Internode plan in terms of data allowance is 200GB per month and this will cost $109.95 on the Entry-Line, $119.95 on the Mid-Line and $139.95 on the High-Line plan. There are no excess data usage charges but the service is shaped to 128 kilobits per second for the rest of the month if customers exceed their quota.
The more users use the service, the more the costs will come down! It's what has happened to Broadband generally anyway!
So Australia, get to and register your interest in this excellent not-so-new technology. Remember, once this infrastructure is in place, there is no more cost for the cable, it's then just a case of improving the switching at either ends as fibre is capable of handling much much higher speeds. It's future proof in that regard—copper or wireless isn't!

Well Frank, if you want it so badly, then YOU pay for it, rather than steal from the rest of us via government.

We may not need 100Mbps to the door at every residence but there are certainly a lot of residences outside the eastern seaboard that could do with some sort of decent low latency broadband access. The upgrade is to improve services eg: eHealth in remote communities, but that is another project the coalition has put on hold until the budget is in the black.

well it would be bloody good if wireless was more stable. where i live i have to only rely on a mobile internet service, and quite frankly it's crap - constant drop outs and poor speed.

Turnbull is wrong ... I want 100mb internet

Haha Jon "steal" from the rest of us? I like how you try to justify your comment. Obviously you are pretty technologically "challenged", as are many other people here, well, pretty much anyone who doesn't want the NBN.

If you take a few minutes to actually do some *research* and see the benefits of the NBN, plus the money it could save you via services like VoIP, and the fact that the existing NBN plans are quite affordable, you may well change your mind.

I for one am fed up with not being able to get ADSL2+ at a reasonable price because my ISP doesn't see it as profitable to put a DSLAM in my exchange. I *could* sign up with Telstra but then I'd be signing up for twice what I pay now with inferior service, and at prices well *above* what the *current* NBN plans are. We are stuck in the 20th century using copper phone lines and are pretty much inline with 3rd world countries when it comes to broadband. It's about time we got with the 21st century and invest a bit of time and money into a network that will last many decades!!

Was private enterprise prepared to build and own the Harbour Bridge? Did the "majority of people" what a private phone line within 10 years of the invention of the telephone?

Malcolm should be more capable of understanding where the future is headed.

I can understand why the "baby boomer" generation wouldn't understand the need for 100mbps broadband as 90% of them dont even know how to access emails properly without downloading some sort of virus. But to the younger generations, a better networking infrastructure is absolutely essential not only for pornography, but for working and also recreational use.

To malcolm turnball, get off your ancient rocking chair you outdated old man and take a look around. The NBN will be far better than what your construed notions of it are.

Has anyone had a close look at the NBN maps published a couple of weeks ago? There are a lot of regional areas that have ADSL2+ now, but when the copper network is decommissioned under NBN they will be limited to the wireless service.
Unless you are within the fibre footprint, you may find that you will be worse off under NBN. Be careful what you wish for!

$40 billion + mainly for household entertainment and $1 billion over 10 years for renewable energy. Something isn't quite right.

$43billion / approx 20m people = $2150 for every man/woman/child in Australia, maybe $6000 per household? Of which I'd guess 80% would not require anything more than we already have, particularly with the ever growing 24mbps ADSL2+ networks, VOIP and mobile wireless usage. If we say 20% of the population actually require 100mbps then it is effectively costing $10,750 per person or approx $30,000 per household for people who will actually utilise 100mbps capabilities.... People must remember we as tax payers are paying for this....and we and our children will be for years to come.

People complain about Australia being behind Europe... A little bit of trivia for you, Australia's population is 6.4 people per square mile, Europe is 134.... Per head of population, Europe's cost is a fraction of Australia.....

Everyone complains about Telstra... Doesn't everyone realise that labors plan is to privatise this network? Who thinks the NBN will be any different to the Telstra outcome?

Everyone should know how inefficient government run programs are (look at the BER rorting for example), I believe the government would be far better off providing generous incentives to the private sector to provide the required services (ADSL2+/Fibre/Wireless) to rural/metro australia at reasonable cost. Competition drives productivity.

100mbps is useful, yes, I will get on board if it happens, but at the same time it will lead to more people wasting their time watching illegal movies, tv, youtube, playing games, watching porn and getting obese through not getting out and interacting with the real world.

I can see far better uses of $43billion. Spend more on health and education and save the rest to decrease the rediculous interest we are paying on this debt. The figure floating around is Labor's spending $100,000,000 a day? My tax payer dollars getting squandered....

@TJ: privatisation has never been the issue with a telecomms network. The issue has always been the conflict of interest that results when a network owner is *both* a retailer of services and a wholesaler of services. So long as NBN does not retail services it will be fine, whether government owner or as a private enterprise.

@len "Let me see 100 mb filtered or what we got unfiltered
vote with your brain .....Its not rocket science" ill take the unfiltered. this liberal broadband program is exactly what this country needs. i would much prefer the unfiltered dial up connection. but the liberal are not announcing dial up connections, its faster than that. its workable. do not underestimate wireless.

@Kev: Understood, my post was already too long to go into detail but I think I got the point across. Lets hope they have more stringent regulations because I see it going down the same path....

Also, I though the figure was that 93% of the population will have access to the NBN fibre, so I'd assume the remaining 7% or 1.4 million people (most of which would be rural) would still be stuck with dialup or insanely expensive satelite? Forgive me if I've got that wrong....

And what about the millions that all these ISP's have invested into getting their ADSL2+ services setup over the last few years, I hope they get some kind of reimbuirsment for their obselete service.

I still can't believe all this talk of the NBN.... assuming Labor win the election and this continues, how long will it take them to implement? It's heading towards 3 years now and all they have done is a few small networks, mainly in Tassie?

This is a government run operation we are talking here.... Private sector might take 10 years? Government maybe 25 years and 10 elections? This will never be complete before it is already outdated....

Wireless is the future, by the time NBN is done we would have had 4g/5g/6g and our humble little mobiles downloading almost as fast....

You have to laugh... lets assume it costs $5000 for each conection (and experts say it could well be FAR less). You do realise that a 10% return would only cost each conection an average of $10 a week.

Thats for telephone, Internet, Vidoe Conferencing, Pay TV (With TRUE CHOICE) Free to air TV and a dozen other services I havn't a clue about.

Curently I have a conection with TPG. I pay $30 per month for a phone line, TPG pays Telstra as well, with my money, for space in the exchange and a host of additional "services"

I use VOIP, of questionalble quality (because of the crappy connection) but unsurpased value. It's so close to free... My friend has 2 lines, and has only paid $2.80 over the last 18 months, ringing me several times a week. Add a quality fiber conection and he (we) could have a CD quality phone.

I'm lucky though, I can get a 4mb sec connection that only drops out every so often, like when it rains, or is dry or just plain random.

So is $40 rental to much to pay a month, when all other services will be far closer to free then the current prices? True competition will have finally arrived.

Ill-informed idiot politicians are renowned for standing up and making such proclaimations based on a complete and utter lack of understanding or knowledge. Turnbull and Abbott have no knowledge or comprehension of the reason we need the NBN or even how it can be utilised.

Once again the Libs have foot in mouth and living in the dark ages, as I know most of our customers would love to have 100MBps internet and pay between $49 to $189 per month as they are ALL feed up with being ripped off by Telstra etc. Bring on the real world of internet speed Labour as the Libs are still in the dark ages, as per usual. I suppose most people want to bring back WORK CHOICIES too!!!! Lets keep moving forward and NOT BACKWARDS like the Libs want us to do. LONG LIVE "NBN" and get rid of Big ears Abbott and his backward acting and looking cronies.

What they dont understand is what fibre is, it can be the cable that can connect and be used for just about anything, the scalability is already surpassing 10 gigabit/second, so we are starting off small with 100, NBN will be around for the next 20-30years and will be fully upgradable by only needing to change the equipment the cables plug into, unlike copper or wireless where there is limits already being met.

Also Why waste taxpayers money giving people with no broadband a 3rd rate broadband connection that the rest of us already have and isn't really going to be upgradeable to anything worthwhile in the future.

@Jason: "OLD PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGY!".

Most older people do have an understanding of technology, or at least of the benefits that can be gained from its use.

Which is why most of the older people I know are strong supporters of the NBN, because they can look ahead and see the benefits for many years.

Apart from the political and Telstra-inspired posts, most whinges about the NBN seem to come from the "I-only-use-the-Net-for-email-and-eBay" brigade, who have no idea that things are going to be very different for most people after a few more years, let alone fifty or so.

Calculating the potential costs of NBN conections based only on residential housing connections and coming up with some large number demonstrates a total lack of knowledge or understanding of the commercial realities and our economy or telecoms industry.

Period.

Who is really so ignorant that they only see residential connections and surfing as the outcomes>

Who is really so ignorant that they cannot or will not factor in commecial connections, productivity and servcies delivery?

Who is really so ignorant that they have not, cannot or will not see the applications in tele-medicine, emergency services, education, personal and business communications, digital publications and distribution?

The same attitudes existed with some folks back in the 1990s, when I was told that our ISP must be bonking mad and will surely go broke because they invested in a 10Mbps backbone down the East Coast for their major PoPs...

Today I get 20Mbps to my home office, and still we often struggle with call quality on VoIP services. I am thankful for the 20Mbps (11Mbps actual potential throughput usually), however higher access speeds and the death of the killer factor copper and replacement by fibre will improve this exponentially.

We serviced the regional medical networks for some years, and they have almost limitless requirements for more bandwidth for a whole array of telemedicine, image and X-ray transmission, live remote medical procedures, remote house consultations, and more, and more and more.

The list goes on across many key industries and thousands of applications that will servcies and improve our nation.

Sorry luddites, but your *all is OK with our speed today* statements just reek of political expediency and a manic fear that bad boy Conroy and the ALP will succeed big time with the NBN, and stay around for a long time to come...

BTW, when Robb wants to review a truly talentless mob, he should have a meeting with his peers and discuss the NBN...

I agree with Turnbull. I work in IT and would not pay more for a 100Mbit connection, my current dsl connection has met my needs for the last 5 years and probably will for the next 5 or more.
Remember that life changing new technology of the future "second life"?
I'd prefer to spend my money on the real world, hospital beds and green energy, which coincidentally is leaning towards a mix of existing technologies, wind, solar geothermal. I'm happy to ride my bike on the information super-highway.

Who are these politicians? They shouldn't be talking about stuff they have no idea about... Ever wonder why the average Australian has no idea on how to use a computer? Its politicians like him and abbot that likes taking people back to the stone age. Fiber has many benefits and it is a positive step forward.

Once NBN is finished and Liberal becomes in power, they will sell it off no doubt.

Can someone tell me how I will be able to plug my smart phone, ipad, netbook etc into the NBN when i am on my way to work sitting on the train, the ferry or in a local park? The world is going wireless but not the lucky country we are going the exact opposite. Stay tuned a $43 billion labor lemon coming your way soon. As for this fibre optic hype go outside look up on the powerline it is already there and most dont want it. Not fantasy cold hard facts!

Whats this guy on, alot of people want it.

NBN plans start from $0 per month for 25Mbps and $50 per month for 100mbps.

Stop saying are you prepared to pay for it, it's cheaper than the crap we get now!!!

Do some research before you start throwing around arguements it will cost a few hundred a month...

Oh also, about the initial rollout being expensive comments.

NBN is $26bn at last estimate - $2.6bn over 10 years.

welfare will cost $110bn per year and $1.1 trillion in the same timespan.

NBN will actually generate profit after a few hours....

Stop being so short sighted people!

years* typo in the above post.

I'll just let this pie chart do the talking for me:
http://www.budget.gov.au/2010-11/content/overview/html/overview_37.htm

NBN seems alot cheaper now huh?

And about the dude claiming the NBN cannot power his iPhone, it can! NBN will also include a much-faster-than-current wireless network.

Congratulations scotty @ post 35.

You won the discussion in a landslide; including those below your post too.

Im living in fremantle and im limited to dialup service, i have jumped onboard the Vivid Wireless network. Im happy with the download speeds but latency is my primary need. Online gaming is a evergrowing industry in Australia - and is the services arnt in place it will suffer slowly.

Alot of people here do not understand that a NBN will not be primarily to bring "faster download speeds"- it will be to bring Broadband speed internet to rural homes. Unlike copper; fibre optic cables do not (within reason) have a limit on the distance they can be stretched- they are also any times faster in their ability to transmit a signal- literally at the speed of light.
In terms of wireless- I do not see why Latham is worried about his iPad at the moment, infact it's rather selfish. Complaining about not having high speed wireless connectivity everywhere; when many Australian families do not have high speed access at all.
Lathams got to get his head out of rear end and start looking at the larger scale.

the simple fact is its called an investment for a reason, sure it will cost $43 billion dollars to install, but the returns will cover the cost + more. We are supposed to be a developed country, and if the government used their heads, and not talk out of their ass, and installed fibre 10 years ago, it wouldnt cost 43 billion.. the longer they take to upgrade, the more expensive it will be

not to mention the increasing population in metropolitan areas, the internet will keep getting slower, and slower, this upgrade is necessary for the future of Australia, and there is no excuse, every country in europe has it, and in asia, and in US, why dont we have it? Are you aware that some businesses overseas refuse to set up here in Asutralia because of our lack of communications infrastructure, not only would it make the economy stronger here, it will most definately increase competition, not only with the telecommunications industry, but other industries also. We will see a huge increase of organisations setting up here in Australia due to the Upgrade. Julia gillard has the right idea, and she is very wise in taking this course of action

Telstra monoplises the market, and are a rip off, and is majorly expensive... Some people who have posted there stupid statements are uneducated, did you ever stop and think about where our tax money is going on to begin with? Did you know the war on Iraq, cost our economy and tax payers money more then 30 billion dollars a year, a war they should not even be involved in, and a majority of Australians dont want this, so in other words, at least our money is being invested into our future, because face it people, technology is the future, GROW up!!!

Peace OUT!

Listen i dont care for speeds but fiberoptic networks would be good that means you can have any network speed to a extent.

You're a bloody clown Turnbull! Yes we do need it and need it now!! Afghanistan is connected via fibre optic for christ's sake!! You want the Afghans to be more advanced than us?
Also Japan will soon be installing a fibre optic service with speeds of up to 1 gigabyte per second!! So if the Japanese need a gigabyte per second surely our country needs a mere 100 megabytes per second which would put us on par with the likes of Afghanistan.

I'd say that 40 Billion would be better spent in the health department.

I'd say we'd be fools if we did not do the NBN infrastructure upgrade.

Wireless broadband is worthless for ANY form of streaming content - the delays and lost packet data are just too high for the content to arrive in a timely manner. It adds a minimum of 200ms to communications, which utterly trashes anything like online video conferencing or gaming, and frequently adds more than 10 seconds to the time for round-trip communications (I've found stuff that normally takes something like 60-90 milliseconds on copper can frequently take more than 15 seconds via 3G).

Things like:
* Video, movies on demand
* Internet Radio
* Video Conferencing, open-learning University classes
* Gaming (which is frequently particularly sensitive to delays)
* Off-site data backups (try backing up a modern harddrive with a max upload rate of ~80kB/s for ADSL2+ and less than half that for wireless)
either don't work at all, or operate very poorly on 3G wireless.

As for the current copper in the ground...I'm already pushing the absolute limit of what it can do...for a max download of around 7.5Mbps (~800kB/s) - not bad, but thats on ADSL2+ - it can't GET any better than that on the copper lines. The copper gets weather affected with water ingress, picks up interference, etc, and I'm 2.5km from the exchange.

With optical fibre, the weather problems go away, the speeds are significantly higher, it doesn't have the delays from wireless communications, it can carry additional services such as TV, phone, etc...and upgrading it in future is a case of upgrading the terminal hardware on the ends rather than replacing the cable in the ground.

Next election we need to vote the Liberals back into the dark ages where they belong.

Malcolm, hi again. I wrote In ABC's The Drum.

Malcolm, if you think you know what Australians want, you might be surprised at what I want.

1. Free telephone calls to other fixed line connections.
2. Fast enough internet at a constant speed and not dependant on traffic or distance
3. I want to have a choice of pay TV providers so that I may choose how to entertain myself.
4. I want to view The programs I choose on a system that provides HD broadcast quality images and sound, even in 3D if it’s broadcast that way.
5. I want to watch the team I coach matches on the same quality setting after the game so that I might improve my coaching and my teams performance.
6. I want to work from home so I don’t spend 2 hours travelling to and from work every day.
7. I want to live in a country town where all those facilities are available to me without relying on satellite broadband that doesn’t work during storms.
8. I want to listen to digital radio from anywhere in the world and receive HD sound.
9. I want to watch “free to air TV” in HD quality that is local to me.
10. I want my son’s drama class to be able to broadcast their productions
11. I want to pay circa $150 per month for all that

Other things I want are more businesses moving away from cities to set up in regional centres, thus reducing pressures on big cities and in turn improving services and facilities in those centres. Also I want anyone with an idea to be able to launch their products to a mass market via a fast NBN.

The most important thing I want is for this country to be in a technological safe zone so that my son and his children will be looked up as very poor cousins in the communication world as Australia would surely be looked at with your party’s version of the NBN.

Do I want 100mbps? You’re right, Malcolm, I don’t. I want 1gbps to my home because the people I live with will probably want to watch something else and do something else at the same time or want to be on the phone to someone else at the same time as me via their mobile phone that works like a fixed line whilst at home.

Malcolm, I do feel for you, you seem to be pulling the wrong reins in your political career. You come across as a decent guy. Maybe politics is NOT for you?

Tony, comment 67. Wireless is going to still be available. It will also improve. However, you're thinking now and you are thinking I and only me.

It isn's about you or anyone else that thinks like you. it's about the futuer of this nation and its economy 20, 30, 60 years from now.

What will your children be using to get to work? A bus or a computer.

See my post above to see what I mean

Reading a few of the comments made here, I can definitely tell that Australians are backward thinking and narrow minded.

Not to mention that EVERYTHING here in Australia OVERpriced, including internet.
Most of the countries of this world have optical fiber installed and they don't charge for the amount of downloads.

YES I DO WANT FAST SPEEDS, so I can at least watch a you-tube clip in the evening when all of you all farts get on to read the british news.

I hope Australia continues to lag behind all the other progressive nations of the world, and even those developing nations with modern infrastructure.

I hope that it becomes so meaningless to do business here that by the the time China is the sole world superpower, this country be cast into the depths of irrelevancy (along with the United States of America).

I hope that Australia be ruled by malevolent politicians who rule not in the national interest but the interests of no-one but themselves and their party.

I hope that the bigots and Bogans who are the pride and joy of this great nation come to override logic and reason to forge for this country an international image worthy of vitriol and scorn.

I hope that by the time I die, which will likely be after the mid of this century (if the world still exists up until then), I will not be in this great nation of Australia when the stage curtains draw shut and its final laments are heard by a jeering world

I hope that that last living inhabitant is Malcolm Turnbull.

to all the people who say we don't need it and to all the people who say we won't cough up the money for it. I would like you to take that argument up with all the people that play video games online especially the 3 million xbox and ps3 users we have been waiting years for something like this even before the government came up with the idea. And what it is we don't really care about the 100Mbps down speed yes it will be nice but the 100Mbps upload sped is what the country really needs, sitting on a maximum of 2Mbps is a joke. You need to think about Jurno's (with their 100's of photos at about 10MB and up for each one) and other workers at home and uni students who work with large files to send and receive it in seconds to minutes with a push of a button without having to carry around flash drives or portable hard drives would make life easier for them. Plus it can also have TV so no more need for antenna's on roof tops, phones so no more telephone lines dropping out when bad weather hits and knocks out the phone lines. I'm not going to say everyone needs it but a lot of people do and being a fiber optic cable it wont become obsolete for decades being able to handle up to 1 to 10Gbps depending on size of fiber they use. People talk about Australia moving forward well the internet is the way the future is going at that the moment so why not go in that direction instead of backwards.

People in favour of NBN seem to look only at the throughput, however, few things to consider too:

1. Population density
2. 3G / statellites
3. Computer hardware
4. Power outage; just to name a few.

We previously had bad service from telstra bigpond,now its much worse since the proposal.Telstra wont upgrade the local exchange at Mernda so im still stuck in the dark ages because telstra wants labor to spend hard earned tax payer funds so they dont break the telstra yearly super profits and c.e.o. pay packets.telstra customers have paid a fortune already and where oh where is the service,in Manilla or maybe Dehli?
Good call for Aussie jobs yay!

But i'm sure in 10 years when there is a demand for 100mbs internet, Australia will continue to lag behind many countries in terms of the speed it can provide.. Then politicians will all jump on the bandwagon, demanding new infrastructure be created so that we can get the Internet service we require, when in reality it should have been provided much earlier.The internet is constantly growing and in the past ten years we have seen a move from Dial-up speeds to ADSL2+ speeds. The size of data that needs to be downloaded has generally increased and i'm sure that this trend will continue.

Seriously, politicians always seem to invent policies in terms of knee-jerk reactions and hindsight. 'Oh theres violence in the city after a certain time?.. Lets make some new laws regulating pubs/clubs instead of offering decent public transport to get people off the streets and back to their homes'.. 'omg, the paper has run a story on "boat people", let's stop the boats.. But dw about people arriving by air.'... 'People have started wearing underwear on the outside of their pants and are flying around? Let's ban underwear and only allow the purchasing of boxer shorts, yeah! that'll fix the problem!". "Hmm people are still commiting crimes? we need tougher penalties AND more policing, cause' that will reduce the amount of re-offending, YEAH!"

derrrp.

Haha this is classic for the partial of Australia who are lacking brain cells. Let me put this short and simple for the lessers of Australia.

NBN (Optical = speed of life = nothing can beat light speed (get it yet) = Future Proof

Wireless = (Signal issue, limited speed = waste of money = not future proof (get it yet).

You know the more *Modern* *Intelligent* part of the world would laugh at the use of wireless. I recently Spent 2.5 months in Portugal who is suffering harder than most countries (Including Australia) with the economic crisis. Every house (even the run down ones) have fibre connections paying each month at barely the price of a coffee because it is so cheap to run. The lesser intelligent Australians need to do their *research* (for all the liberal lovers it means this -

research |ˈrēˌsər ch; riˈsər ch |
noun
the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions : we are fighting meningitis by raising money for medical research.

Back to the point. *Research* in seeing cost benefits and a solution that will never be surpassed because nothing is faster than light speed (scientific fact guys)

some more definitions for the Liberal party

Definition of a Dictionary - dictionary |ˈdik sh əˌnerē| (abbr.: dict.)
noun ( pl. -aries)
a book that lists the words of a language in alphabetical order and gives their meaning, or that gives the equivalent words in a different language.
• a reference book on any subject, the items of which are arranged in alphabetical order : a dictionary of quotations.

Light Speed - 299,792 km per second. (faster than your hillbilly horse)

I work for an Australian company creating large indexes (60-200Gb each) those used for automotive service industry. We deploy indexes from Australia to the rest of the world (USA, UK, Europe, Asia etc) to give the consumer a local speed and accessibility to the service of their countries. Our main issue is we get data every weekly and when uploading indexes takes days, by the time they are at customers systems, they could become invalid....

Today the model that most enterprises use is IT as a Service! -- Think of Gmail, Twitter etc.. they are all are online services and the numbers keep on growing each day as there are many advantages.

I strongly believe if not today, tomorrow we're definitely going to need the faster Internet access in Australia. I believe the question is not "IF" Australia need 100Mbps, but "WHEN"!!

Josh - Yes, nothing can beat the speed of light but there is still a limit to the number of channels that can be multiplexed into an optical fibre. There is a limit to the frequency at which the light source can be modulated and that is what determines the bandwidth. There is also a limit to the speed of processing at each end of the opitcal fibre. Speed of light is not really relevant.

Mark - No, the question is "who should pay - the service user (you) or the taxpayer?" I vote for you.

Tony - Agreed, there are physical limits to glass fibre, speed of light and the currently available end point systems.

Glass fibre can still be improved and refined, the speed of light is harder to upgrade but the end point systems are not anywhere near exceeding the capacities of available fibre and light of speed.

Significant growth in the data carry capacities is certain. Recently tested (must find you the URL - UK Uni test I believe) capacity of a single glass fibre was a sustained 270+Terrabit per second throughput.

Per strand, not cable...

The limit was the end-point technologies and quality of the glass fibre etc. Those will change.

Hi Mr TurnBull,

100MBps is needed in Australia. I have been away from Australia for quite sometimes. One of the reason I am away was because of its slow internet speed. Every modern countries are installing 100MBps internet infrastructure.

Some ISP in Australia do provide 100MBps service for a ridiculous price of $1500 per month. Compare to other country that give 100-200MBps for $100/month.

I think its time for Australia to build that internet infrastructure before it become a second class nation.

Joshua

Turnbull is without doubt one of the dumbest people in power... such a uninformed idiot should not be in a position of influence.

Australia is so far behind the rest of the world in the telecommunications industry, we are basically becoming a laughing stock... unless we do get this and MOVE FORWARD as a country in this area, we really will become a second class country.

The current pricing of internet here is not only ridiculous, but slow also, the NBN would bring a huge amount of business opportunities not just the opportunity of revenue from end users and businesses.

Telecommunications has been neglected for far too long, time to give it a bit of attention and step up to the same level as the rest of the world.

i think we should talk faster than 100mbps when the 5g network is offering 1gbps thats 10 time more than 100mbps

perhaps, though at current anything is a massive upgrade really.

though we don't know when 5g will come in really yet... and also cellular data has always proven to be very expensive compared to physical lines... and if your looking at that kind of speed then you want alot of bandwidth.

@joshua, when 5G eventually gets rolled out, you will find that 1Gbps is only achievable in the lab, and then only if the wind is in the north and the month has an R in it.

Wireless is a valuable and convenient system, but there is not enough spectrum available for it to be able to replace fibre as the national network. And while there will be increases in wireless speed over time, fibre has much more potential for upscaling.

Why is it that Telstra Mobile Network can take 7 days to alert me that I have a message? I have numerous Black spots in Townsville where I live despite having a Blue Tick phone" which gives me coverage over the State" Telstra is no better than Vodaphone in coning the general public, they may be even worse than Vodaphone. I have a home email service which does not work, a mobile service which gives me messages 5/7 days after they have been left by a customer/friend , and this from the leading Telco, wow aren't we the lucky country? 2nd rate crap which we get to pay top dollar for, who is the dumb one in this equation? not Telstra that's for sure, it's us!!!!
Why do we pay for service that are not provided? why do we believe that it is just us that is having problems?. If someone can out a class action against Vodaphone, we should gang up against Telstra, until we get value for money.

We need better infrastructure no question, current performance can be woeful but I am sceptical that will see value for money spent in NBNCo. I think it is a prime candidate to becoming another "Telecom".

To expect this project will be delivered on time and on budget is naive, the scope is enormous and it has been a while since I have seen a project with Government stakeholders run on budget.

The Plans might be reasonably priced but rest assured we will all pay a premium through our tax dollars..

100MBps yes ! getting it for less than $40 Billion ...Unlikely

No-one has any right to take the money of our future generations and use it for what the majority do not want or need, shoving it down our throats. This is just one example of unethical government spending gone mad.

How about Conroy resigns his job and the rest of his government cronnies can go with him. Therefore we'll be at least $40bil better off and we won't have to pay for their unproductivity

@TomG

Then why should we spend 90 billion a year on welfare to keep drop kicks alive when a slit of the throat is cheaper than a bullet?

You would only have to dispose of 45% of the dopes on welfare and there is your NBN paid off in 1 year!

Amazing!

@Jason well that's another matter, but at least it's going to people and supposedly "helping" them.

If you think that's a good idea then you can be the one to slit their throats

People keep putting down wireless (Mobile Internet) for not being fast enough, not being enough signal. But if you put half the money that is being spent on a network that is only able to achieve current world internet speeds from today. That won't be finished for another 15 years. That will still put us behind. We won't be ahead. When the US creates it's 1Gbps network. Rather than it's current 100mbps.

We will still only have 100mbps.

If we were to put money into wireless (satelittes with fibre technology) We'd be ahead in both availability. With a fraction of the infrastructure and cost, we can build this network. But we'd still be tied to our houses, companies. Information would still be limited. I can see any benefit, to having that kind of speed only obtainable in select stops. Not for that price. It's far too large. Half that price and yes, I'd be behind it more. But 40 billion dollars minimum never.

Who cares how much it costs for infrastructure costs.., on an international level our ADSL2+ / BDSL services for large business, small business and home users do not compare and are a joke.

Australia's internet costs are crazily overprice for what we get due to outsource Telstra....Look at countries that have these connections they cost the same or less for a 100mb connection.

Opposing this idea is stupid, politicians don't know about IT at all or how much it cost the the average Joe..and his business's.
ADSL2+ is really only good if you sit on the exchange. (Not to mention the many black spots in densely populated areas)

And everyone wonders why all our IT is outsourced....

Those who fall behind get left behind, Australia is almost a 3rd world country when it comes to internet speeds. And only now are ADSL2+ becoming super competitive with the whispers of the words NBN.

Enough Said take your pick.
To the people that said home users dont need it (dumb much - so you never work from home requiring a sync of more than 3.5mps down and 500kps up?) Then maybe you need to try it.

To all those people who think that if we get 100mbps we are stuck with it, this is not the case.
Generally speaking the volume of traffic that you can get down fibre is defined more by the equipment at each end of the fibre, not the fibre itself.
This is somewhat of a oversimplification but it is close enough.
In other words in 5 or 10 years time we will probably be able to plug new equipment into the fibre and increase the bandwidth.
Another factor to remember is that the actual fibres themselves are not very expensive, the big cost is getting right of way and laying them.
Therefore I hope to god we are burying bundles of fibre, instead of one or two fibres, so again we can increase bandwith by plugging the fibres into new equipment.

Who are you to was what we want, I'll tell you what we dont want.. you thats why you lost.. Now stop trying to mess up my 100mbps, I'm a wed designer and I didn't know we could even get speeds like that, I'm on 1mbps and thats amazing imagin 100 times that speed.. BACK OFF

NBN has to happen now - it's now or never. With opposition's short sightedness and unwillingness to spend for the future beyond their term in office, we shall never see something like NBN from opposition party within the next 10-20yrs at least. By then Australia would of fallen behind with rest of the world playing catch up.

NBN cost/ROI should be calculated over 20+ yrs.

Same can be said for oppositions criticisms of Labour's spending now, spending on health care and education even if it puts us in further debt now is needed as these things take years to come to fruition and the spending has to happen now or will play catch up every year.

I remember QLD's power supply issues a decade ago, government didn't spend/plan for future capacity. End up having power black outs often in Brisbane until someone decided to spend to meet capacity.

Comment 1/2

I find it frustrating how the politics and peoples ignorance interferes with progress. I know a few people in the telecom industry. Think of the big picture here.

Now just about ever house in Aust. has a pair of copper wires providing a telecommunication service. Most of these wires are buried directly in the ground (no conduits) under the watch full eye of the Post Master General (PMG the former name of telecom and Aust. Post) some 30 - 60 years ago.

Now in the next 10 years everyone of these copper cables have to be replaced, due to the requirement of more capacity or just because the current one is in very poor condition.

Now this is something the no-one expects, the 3 largest telecommunication companies in the southern hemisphere of the world.
1 Telstra, easy guess
2 Optus,
3 QR National (formally QR - the Queensland Government owned Railway).

I only know the QLD system to comment on, but would assume other states are the same. But in my last inquiry some years ago, QR National had more fibreoptic cable installed than Telstra and Optus together, and that Telstra, Optus and Vodafone all rent the railway's dark fibre to transmit over half of QLD's voice and data requirements. And they make good money from the wholesale rental (exceeds the PSTN and Mobile call cost for the company)

TBC

Comment 2/2

If one is to look in the wad of Telstra web pages, one will find a status of all the exchanges. Just look in the Brisbane area , (been a few months and all form memory), but there are some that have physically reached the maximum number of connections, meaning to add more ADSL users then a new building has to be built, and who will pay for that.

So do we now just replace the current 50 year old copper with more copper. To do that the copper cable alone would be in excess of $30B (fiber is 1/10 the cost to buy). The install cost would be the same regardless due to all the conduits, ducting and pits required to be installed or replaced. I think fibre is better value for money and will improve the quality of service.

Simply NBN should have started over 10 years ago, but the government then didn't think that it was needed. It also sold of the GOC Telstra, selling with it the public rights to access, the telecommunication corridors (land in which telecommunication infrastructure is installed), so hence the dirty deal with Telstra and NBN to gain this access back.

I think that the idea on an entity that is owned by the Aust. people that owns and rents its fibre network to other wholesalers and retailers it the best outcome for all Australians. This will allow the start up of 100's or more retailers providing the same service and hence lower more competitive prices. In 10-15 years no-one will know what we get for the very low monthly charge.

In the end NBN would be up and running full steam if the CEO of Telstra would state to the public "Using internal reports and data, we have the concern that if significant replacement of our current copper network, costing us Billions of dollars a year to maintain, then within the next five years, over half of Australia will not have a permanent reliable internet or voice telecommunication service." but this might lower the share price and therefor lower his bonuses.

Lastly Fibreoptic telecommunication uses about 1/3 of the electrical energy than the current copper based system does. Got to be a good thing.

There's a few things to point out here...
a. Fibre is generally scalable... meaning that by changing the equipment at either end of the fibre / exchanges and alike, the speed and bandwidth carried over the fibre can be increased - hence this 40billion dollar investment is for one that will be future-proofed not something we'll be stuck with.
b. People forget how unreliable wireless is!!! I don't know how many of you have used wireless internet, but it drops out, has connection issues.. overall far more problems then fibre or wired internet has - Overall there is just FAR to many variables with Wireless... Wind, Tree's, Buildings, Basically any obstacle or weather variation can affect it...
So the point here been is if you want reliable internet, fibre is the only way to go.
- And if you really think that after 4 generations, 5g wireless is really going to be that reliable... you truly are naive.

Turnbull is an idiot >.<... i do want faster internet... fibre optic to the home yes please!!!... thos who think otherwise obviosly arnt heavy downloaders/internet users like alot of nerds like me in Australia r... NBN u kick ass... labor ftw!

NBN is a joke. Even rural areas are getting ASDL2+ now which can play streaming video easily. Why pay extra for NBN for something you don't need, when you already have it. Fibre to the town exchange, YES good idea. Fibre to the home, a total joke and waste of tax payers money.

Mate how could it be a waste of tax payers money, god this is unbelievable do you guys want Australia to be far behind than those countries that are head of us like 11 years ago. bloody hell wake up Australia we need NBN it has many benefits and its worth the tax payers money. Its fine when Australia spends the tax payers money on Afghanistan all that military stuff. and besides fiber network would make Australia more stable in terms of redundancy and super fast internet, And would be helpful for the Department of defense, monitoring etc. piss of copper I had enough with you!

Sorry Mr Turnbull, but you don't honestly believe your own rhetoric which seems to be solely based on Liberal Party Policy, after you made a fortune out of internet services.

Recently I was informed by my Telco in a blaze of publicity that my exchange had been upgraded and I could now get "upto" 8mbs ADSL Broadband. I already had 1.5Mbs but was out of my "2 year" contract period. I decided to upgrade my plan commit to another 2 years contract and get "upto" 8mbs download. I didn't expect to get 8mbs as it is a theoretical limit but 6mbs would be nice and I guess a reasonable expectation dont you think?

I now have a new phone and internet plan although giving me a much larger download limit, all I get, on a good day is 4mbs but mostly I get 1.5mbs. So in the main I get no gain. At least with the NBN I'm sure they could guarantee a stellar 100Mbs with potential for much higher speeds in the future.

I guess if we listen to the Liberal Party we shouldn't have built the Overland Telegraph or the Sydney Harbour bridge or the Snowy Mountain scheme or any of the other nation building projects this great nation has taken on in the past.

Governments in Canberra should NOT be allowed to accumulate $65 Billion surpluses so that politicians can boast how big a surplus has been generated so far and how good they are to have acheived that.

Well NEWS FLASH! a Governments job is to take money in and provide services to the community with that money and good fiscal policy is to roughly break even at the end of each year otherwise the population has been OVER TAXED. Any surpluses should be returned to the population in services or tax cuts. The NBN is a nation building project that will benefit businesses and the population as a whole.

It's about time this country catches up with the rest of the world! Looking forward to the 100mbps

Part 1.

I think he meant to say he doesn't want 100Mbps (the NBN has now been upgraded to 1 Tbps) internet for all Australians, maybe for the select few or those who can afford to pay for it to companies he owns or has shares in.

We all need or in the future will need fast internet. It will become increasing important in education, health, business and entertainment. Important for these things not only in schools, hopitals, or at work but in the home too. Those with serious illness will be monitored from afar etc. Of course private enterprise could provide this service to much of Australia without any input from the goverment, but not at a price that would make it affordable for most Australians and certainly not to low population areas - which is most of country. Private enterprise would not get their money back providing such services to most of the land area of Australia. Like most roads it requires government involvement. Australia is a very different place to Hong Kong - and better for it. We don't want to be that crowded here - ever travelled overseas - almost everone who does agrees, that even though the rest of the world has its attractions, this is the best place to live. It's all down to population, our wealth is not spread too thin and we are not yet overcrowded and so we have a better life style than most of the world. Let's hope it stays that way.

Back to the topic - The downside of Australia is our remoteness, this is one reason we desperately need fast internet. Tony Abbott said something along the lines of - most of us are seen using mobile internet these days - well of course we are mostly seen using mobile, when you're on the move you have no choice and when you're at home you're not on public display, so no one is watching you, so you're not seen. However I suspect Mr Abbott does not, or did not, understand the differnce between mobile internet connection and the wireless router connections used at home. Wireless connections used at home do of course require a land line connection to leave the premises. These then will benefit greatly from the fast NBN network. Even true mobile connections will benefit because it has to go through a land line eventually - no connection is wireless to the source. This is very simple, but I think a bit too technical for poor Tony Abbott - just like economics, about which he has public stated he finds it boring - explains a lot - Do not assume I'm a labor voter, I voted for John Howard three times - one time too many.

Cont. in part 2.
Greg.

Part 2.

Mobile internet connections will always be adversley affected by congestion and to a much greater degree than can said for land lines. On mobile at a congested time or in a congested area you may not get a connection at all, not even a slow one. Ever tried to use your mobile phone in a large crowd of people - Big day out, concert in the park, etc, sometimes you can't connect (provider is a factor) - mobile internet will have the same problem and increasing so if it becomes more heavily used. Then there are the security issues - it is intrinsically less secure because your signal is broadcast and your downloads are broadcast. Admittedly beyond the ability of most people and proably most hackers but easier and safer than trying to tap into a fixed line.

Many argue the NBN will be outdated by the time it's finished - so what - we do nothing and in ten years we don't have even 1Gbps but are still stuck on 20Mbps ADSL2+ while the rest of the world has moved on to even more mind blowing speeds. If we start then it will another ten years before we get a better system i.e. 20 years from now. By then we will truly be an internet backwater and the boat will have sailed. If the Eurpoeans had waited for better and faster ships they could have mapped the globe much faster and with much less inconvenience and less loss of life and discovered that America, China, India and Australia were a part of the powerful Japanese empire. If we are not in a positon where we can take advantage of opportunities as they arise, someone else will and we will miss out.

Greg

Guys,
It's just a simple fact. The NBN IS A COLLOSAL WASTE OF TAXPAYERS MONEY. The NBN is most probably a $50b unfunded spend over the next 10-12 years when what we need is vastly improved real world Transport, Health and Education (THE) facilities. Instead this current govt has taken on a narrow, politically driven agenda. It has nothing to do with mb/s to homes that don't want or need it. It has everything to do with political egos and "look how much we spent to climb rungs on an imagined ladder" and the hoped for political kudos.
I think most of us believe that the prime role of Govt is to deliver THE. When a Govt loses that goal its integrity, authority & right to govern disappear. We have reached that point.

@GjB, if you're going to troll here, you should at least try and get some of your points right or we might be tempted to dismiss your comments as political hogwash.

Time for a reality check:

1) NBN is not a COLLOSAL (sic) waste of taxpayers money. It's a good investment in national infrastructure (which I'll bet you can't spell either), and the entire construction cost will be repaid from operating revenue.

2) It's not going to 'probably' cost $50B, and by the time it is built in 10-12 years (good one, but that's the only thing you got right) it will be fully utilised to meet our needs for another fifty years.

3) Don't know where you've been lately, but communications is a federal matter. Your stated preferences for transport, health and education (what, no policing?) are all state issues. So concern about 'integrity, authority & right to govern', whatever that means, should be directed to your state/territory pollies, where it belongs.

When George Stephenson invented the first steam train, the Rocket, which averaged at 12mph (19km/h), and a top speed of 30mph (48km/h).

Politicians then said we didn't need to travel at such ridiculous speeds, and even passed a law to have someone walking in front carrying a red flag. Some politicians even claimed it was impossible to breathe on a locomotive moving beyond 30mph.

They were wrong, and so is Mr Turnbull.

A faster internet will bring about possibilities we do not even realise or understand just yet, for the simple reason we cannot do them now.

Mr Turnbull - if all this is beyond you then step aside and let someone who DOES understand it allow the rest of us to evolve and progress while you hang out with the dinosaurs.

@120 Ian, you're just so right about the internet analogy, and it becomes more frustrating as time passes to hear A&T continuing to make ringing statements about broadband which are almost the exact opposite of being accurate.

(ps - Stephenson didn't invent the steam locomotive, but he was the first person to improve the design enough to travel at passenger train speeds. And the red flag was carried by a man walking in front of a motorcar, not a train)
;-)

i just wanted to say i play video games comptitionaly Pro gaming prepered to other country's are country sucks the most with enternet connection are Ping is horriable and you guys dont care about the gaming industry ever we play on 200-450 ping when the amercians play on 1-10 ping plus you guys even charge us for how much download we get when other country's you get as much as you want to download soo dis country very badd why not just move to another country cheaper and better

I feel we need it because if you havent heard but everything is going to the cloud network the online storage server in the us and to navigate that effectivly and efficently we need the 100gbs iternet to keep up with 1st world technology

I really love to come here and find what others have to
say about this helpful subject.