NBN: Now the National Broken Network

The strategic review into the operations of the NBN has delivered a number of surprises today, as well as painting an extremely bleak picture of the nation’s broadband future.
Image: G Meyer
In many ways, the findings of the strategic review are no great surprise. FTTP would be more expensive — nobody ever particularly doubted that — but then so would the FTTN model that the Coalition espoused, coming in at an estimated $41 billion.
The promises of “every Australian” getting 25Mbps by 2016 are also gone; by 2016 it’s likely to be around 43 per cent, although the modelling is still somewhat optimistic in delivering 50Mbps nationally with the claim that 90 per cent of Australians may have 50Mbps by 2019. Broken promises from politicians. Nobody saw that coming, right?
Over at ITNews, Ry Crozier’s written up a nice analysis of the announcements this morning — so as I always say, go and read it!
That out of the way, there are a number of things that jump out at me immediately. We’re apparently not now headed for a FTTN Australia, but instead what’s being dubbed a “Multi-Technology Mix”, or MTM, with bits of Fibre, bits of copper and bits of hybrid-fibre-coaxial.
A stew, in other words, of technologies. Here’s my top-level thoughts on that.
What exactly happens with the HFC networks? Optus and Telstra spent millions running them up and down many of the same streets in metro areas in the 1990s. Will they be opened up to other competitors, or will those in HFC areas simply be told that they have to buy from Telstra or Optus? That’s not terribly open in terms of competition.
HFC is stuck in metropolitan areas, but hardly all of them. What happens in areas where the cable stops just short of premises? Something tells me it’s unlikely the HFC trucks will suddenly start rolling out again.
The FTTP plan, while more expensive — $19 billion and three years, according to the review — skips those kinds of problems, even though the cost is higher. The strategic review suggests that VDSL trials would be needed (this, it should be noted, despite Turnbull’s assertions pre-election hyping VDSL as ready right now) and that rollout for FTTN wouldn’t commence rollout until the second half of 2015, will full speed rollout not commencing until “early calendar year 2018”.
So even if you are on the FTTN plan, you might not see a network cabinet around your way for up to five years from now. The figures that suggest 43 per cent of Australians getting that 25Mbps access are presumably very heavily slanted towards existing fibre and HFC rollouts, because by 2016 it doesn’t appear that there will be much FTTN network action at all.

Image: Gavin St. Ours
The real hidden sting in all of this is that the speeds purported — and we’re still talking here of download speeds, with nary a mention of upload — are for wholesalers only.
It’s worth keeping that absolutely top of mind, because it’s critical to the kind of experience you’re going to get. There’s no guarantee of any kind of any sort of speed at the user end. We’re jumping into the same kind of “up to” speeds that you currently get with ADSL right now, rather than a speed guarantee. It’s a humongous jump from the “guaranteed floor” speed that Turnbull was so happy to talk up pre-election.

Image: Marcin Wichary
The report’s line — and Turnbull’s — was that they were unaware of how badly the existing FTTP rollout was being managed. Were things bungled in that respect? Yes, it’s pretty clear that they were, but this feels to me like a political compromise with a mish-mash of technologies that won’t ultimately be fit for purpose. I’d better expand on that.
I’ve long argued about the issues with a mixed mode system as it relates to the quality of the overall network.
The issues with a mixed system goes even beyond the haves-and-have-nots, because it has profound effects on the network as a whole.
To give an example, if you’re looking at, say, Telehealth, but your GP’s office is in a slower upload zone (because it’s FTTN, or waiting for FTTN, or fighting for the shared resources on HFC, or whatever), then you’re in a much worse situation than if everyone is on a level playing field. It’s the functional equivalent of having today’s ADSL style speeds back in the 1970s. You’d technically be blazing fast, but if nobody can keep up with you, you quickly lose that speed advantage, because you’ve got to work to the speed of the slowest part of the network. Given there will be no speed guarantee for end users, that could be a very slow part indeed.
Suddenly, spending that extra money and waiting the extra three years for everyone to have equitable access doesn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.