undefined | Better HN

0 pointsprotocolture1y ago0 comments

God you really have just drunk the NBN koolaid havent you.

> Roads, water, the telephone service, electricity supply

Fun fact, the US has such a variety of fibre providers, because they have such a variety of electricity and water supply. Its called Subducting. They make partnerships with fibre providers and subduct in the fibre with the power lead in.

So they have 3 speeds.

1. Cities, with ancient telstraesque legislative monopolies, getting BEAD funding to be replaced.

2. Townships and cities with private power/water and 1/2/10/100 gig fibre options.

3. Deep rural with hundreds of wisp cowboys.

10 years ago I remember reading about a township of 900 people being passed by a rural fibre company. Fish lake township or something.

>Their asset is "the last mile".

No their asset includes the last mile, but its includes all the way back to 121 points of interconnect. The original, far better model was to have only 21, but the ACCC at the behest of the big 4 ISPs interceded and determined that government intervention is better than engineering. All under Labor mind. Simms has never shown any network engineering credentials. The NBN is literally welfare for Telstra Optus, AAPT and Vocus.

>One effect of that is there is no "net neutrality" argument here.

Net Neutrality in Australia has more to do with the big 4 peering agreement.

>The private operators where given every chance to build a new network

Private networks have been consistently hampered by the NBN. None of them (rightly) would want to attempt a national network. State based private/public co funding would have gotten you the same result faster and cheaper. But Labor wanted one more BIG NATIONAL PROJECT to hang their hat on.

>Creating near a perfect competitive market

It was Turnbull who slightly corrected the NBN funding model to make it halfway profitable. We still have an issue where NBN is serviced largely by the big 4 (who lobbied to have it built this way) wholesalers, and anyone who cant reach 121 poi's is forced into wholesaling.

>In a country that's even more spread out than USA

Rural australia is still mostly just NBN Fixed Wireless and Satellite. And neither of these is largely going to be overbuilt by NBN Fibre. Labor is promising to bring a few more towns online with fibre but not everything.

Honestly I have never seen anyone as confidently wrong on the internet before.

0 comments

rstuart41331y ago

> No their asset includes the last mile

As I'm sure you are aware the term least mile has always included everthing up to and including termination at the exchange. The only thing that's changed is the name of the exchange. It's now called a POI.

Yes there are fewer of them. It did reduce costs and engineering complexity. There is no consensus whether it effected competitiveness, but given the NBN has been in operation for a decade now and there are many, many ISP's, most small, any detrimental effect must be near negligible. It's time you put that tired old debate behind you.

> The NBN is literally welfare for Telstra Optus, AAPT and Vocus

Telstra earnings dropped off a cliff when the copper became worthless. If that's welfare I'd hate to see what some real competition would do to them. The other three never had fingers in the consumer last mile pie. They bought it off Telstra before, now the buy off the NBN. They buy at the same price as every other ISP. Where is this welfare you speak of?

> Net Neutrality in Australia has more to do with the big 4 peering agreement.

I'm not sure you know what net neutrality means.

> State based private/public co funding would have gotten you the same result faster and cheaper.

Wow. Such confidence. Admit it, you don't have a clue what that would cost. Also admit not one state offered to do it. I think you hallucinating random possibilities.

> It was Turnbull who slightly corrected the NBN funding model to make it halfway profitable

I have a lot of time for Turnbull. His rear guard actions managed to derail Abbotts attempt to kill the NBN. God knows what we would have done if our internet didn't support video during COVID. However, it did involve buying $800 million for the Optus HFC network that was so degraded it was written off. His FttN is being ripped out long before it's anticipated EOL, and replaced at great expense. That's because it costs a small to run air-conditioned nodes a few hundred metres from every house, and the performance topped out at a 1/10 of what the NBN is offering now. So sadly the compromises made to save the NBN are now having to be rectified at great expense. And knowing all this, you are saving it saved us money! Delusional.

> Rural australia ...

I wasn't referring to rural Australia. According to google the average population density of urban Australian is an order of magnitude lower than the USA. Cable runs are consequently much longer. Compared to the effort the USA would need to put in, replacing them was indeed a huge undertaking.

> Honestly I have never seen anyone as confidently wrong on the internet before.

Having reviewed the outright falsehoods you told above, I'm guessing I'm dealing with quite the bullshitter. And I guess, true to form, you will carry on.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse