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(Cartoon by Mark David / @MDavidCartoons)
INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA, 16 February 2022
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It’s
been eight and a half years since the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison
Government came to power and
took a wrecking ball to key policy initiatives of the Rudd &
Gillard Governments – solely on the basis that these were programs
initiated by the Labor
Party.
Even
in Opposition, one of the Coalition's targets had been the National
Broadband Network (NBN).
However,
unlike the price on carbon, it could not erase the NBN but was forced
to tolerate its existence.
By
23 September 2020 the
Morrison Government
and NBN Co had
declared the initial
rollout of a national high speed broadband network complete and fully
operational. Apparently the
only thing remaining was to plan for future increases in demand.
NBN
Co then closed the door and, to all intents and purposes, walked away from
most of the
issues both it and the Coalition Government had created by using a patchwork of different connection types to supposedly meet the needs of over 25 million people in homes and businesses scattered
across est. 7.692 million square kilometres of
widely varying terrain.
In
2021 in response to Internet connection problems in his own
electorate a member of the Morrison Government,
Liberal
MP for Berowra Julian Leeser,
tabled a private
members bill - supported by
seventeen MPs and senators - which
attempted to make NBN Co more accountable, build
better infrastructure and
improve customer
service.
Julian
Leeser, Telecommunications,
retrieved 9 May 2022:
In
response to the Bill, Choice’s Alan Kirkland said: ‘It’s
unacceptable for people who live in a major city like Sydney not to
have mobile coverage in their home, and even worse in a
bushfire-prone area. We find it puzzling that the telco industry,
particularly Telstra, has been able to get away with substandard
service for so long.’
Professor
Alan Fels, former chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission, agreed that more needs to be done. He said: ‘For many
years the telco industry has failed to make access to mobile phone
services universally available, even in a number of suburbs. Yet such
access is an essential service and vital in emergencies. After
waiting for so long, it is clear that the only solution is
legislation, backed by sanctions compelling it.’
That
particular private member’s bill appears to have withered on the
vine.
Also
in 2021 a five-member panel conducted a review
of regional telecommunications in Australia. One could be forgiven for wondering about the independence of this panel given a former Nationals MP for Cowper and, a business person who worked on the 2013 Nationals election campaign and previously derived consultancy work from a WA Liberal Government are among its members.
It
came as no surprise that there were 16 key findings contained in the
December 2021 review report, along with twelve recommendations. Although Finding 10 (highlighted below) raised an eyebrow.
Key
Findings
1.
Increased coordination and investment between the Australian, state
and territory governments is needed to address a ‘patchwork quilt’
approach to connectivity in the regions.
Relates
to Recommendations: 1, 2
2.
Local councils and other regional stakeholders are increasingly
expected to facilitate telecommunications service delivery, but are
not appropriately resourced to identify connectivity need and support
the deployment of suitable solutions.
Relates
to Recommendations: 1, 5
3.
Supply side issues, including backbone fibre and spectrum access, are
barriers to competition and innovation in regional telecommunications
markets.
Relates
to Recommendations: 1, 2
4.
There is an urgent need to consider the future of the Universal
Service Obligation in order to provide reliable voice services to
rural and
remote consumers.
Relates
to Recommendations: 7, 8
5.
There are significant issues with the maintenance and repair of telecommunications
networks, particularly copper landlines, in regional,
rural and remote areas.
Relates
to Recommendations: 7, 8
6.
In instances of natural disasters and emergencies, connectivity is significantly
impacted by power and network outages. This reduces access
to recovery and support.
Relates
to Recommendations: 3
7.
Mobile coverage continues to improve, but expanding reliable coverage
to priority areas is becoming more difficult.
Relates
to Recommendations: 9, 10
8.
Increased ongoing demand for data on regional, rural and remote
mobile and fixed wireless networks is not always being met, causing
network congestion issues.
Relates
to Recommendations: 6, 9
9.
Although Sky Muster Plus has improved access to data, Sky Muster users
are frustrated by insufficient data allowances, high latency and reliability
issues.
Relates
to Recommendations: 6
10.
Current minimum broadband speeds are mostly adequate, but will
need to increase over time.
Relates
to Recommendations: 8
There is a certain irony in Finding 10 given that less than one month before the report was delivered to the Minister, review panel member Prof. Hugh Bradlow was tweeting the NBN on 1 November 2021 with this complaint: "Hello
@NBN_Australia my
Internet at Sandy Point, Vic has been out for 3 full days. Instead of
all the excuses on your website (and don't blame the power - it is
working just fine) can you actually give a committed time to get it
fixed?
11.
There are emerging technology options to meet the demand for data but
their service performance has not yet been validated.
Relates
to Recommendations: 4
12.
Regional consumers, businesses and local governments experience
difficulty in resolving telecommunications issues and providers
are not adequately addressing the complex needs of regional
users.
Relates
to Recommendations: 5, 7
13.
Regional consumers, businesses and local government need access to
independent advice and improved connectivity literacy to support
them in making informed connectivity choices.
Relates
to Recommendations: 1, 5
14.
Predictive coverage maps and other public information do not accurately
reflect on-the-ground telecommunications experience. There
is significant misinformation about the availability of
telecommunications
services.
Relates
to Recommendations: 5, 9
15.
The cost of telecommunications services remains high for vulnerable
groups in remote Australia. This is impacting on their access to
essential services.
Relates
to Recommendations: 11, 12
16.
Continued engagement with Indigenous Australians in regional, rural
and remote communities is needed to address ongoing issues
of access, affordability and digital ability.
Relates
to Recommendations: 5, 11, 12
Over
a year after the Morrison Government declared the high broadband
network a success it was very evident that it was far from having
that status.
Indeed,
in some quarters opinion had been scathing.
InnovationAus.com:
Public Policy and Business Innovation,
4 November 2021:
This
week, Telstra claimed its 5G home broadband service will offer
average speeds of 378 megabits per second to homes and businesses. In
contrast, the average maximum speed on Fibre to the Node is 67
megabits per second, and up to 200,000 premises on the copper NBN
can’t even get 25 megabits.
Imagine
spending $50 billion on a copper dominated network, that’s not
delivering minimum speeds required under law, and already losing its
competitiveness.
That
is the anti-genius of Liberal-National Party. Deceive. Implement bad
technology policy at higher cost. Then spend more money to correct
their mistakes. They led us down this path on broadband, and now want
to do it with energy.
In
2013 the Liberals produced “modelling” known as the NBN strategic
review. This elaborate sham had a sole purpose: provide political
cover for abandoning fibre.
This
document was then used to claim a multi-technology mix of second-rate
technologies was going to be $30 billion cheaper than a full-fibre
NBN.
This
untruth, repeated at nauseum, relied on two tricks.
The
first was pretending the copper dominated network being rolled out
costs $41 billion. False. It is costing $57 billion.
The
second was to claim the original plan to deploy a fibre network to 93
per cent of Australia would cost $72 billion, rather than the near
$50 billion forecast under Labor.
The
latter claim, which the Liberals clung to desperately, was decimated
in a front-page report in the Sydney Morning Herald in February 2021.
It
revealed that in late 2013 the Liberals were explicitly told
deploying Fibre to the Premises was dramatically cheaper than what
they claimed in public.
That
advice was redacted and kept secret for seven years, and it is clear
why.
If
the redacted costs for fibre, along with real-world interest rates,
were fed back into the strategic review “modelling”, the original
fibre rollout would have cost around $53 billion.
Notably,
Minister Fletcher stopped repeating his $30 billion claim since the
unredacted extracts appeared in print, because he always knew it to
be false.
The
NBN copper rollout has now become a business case liability and looks
increasingly uncompetitive against 5G.
The
NBN HFC network, which relies on Foxtel Pay TV infrastructure, is
arguably the most expensive and unreliable deployment of its sort in
the world.
Tens
of thousands of Fibre to the Curb modems across the country are also
frying during storms because lightning is being conducted over the
copper that leads into the home.
The
government is now saying Fibre to the Curb technology will not
deliver gigabit speeds, despite promising it would only a year ago.
Every
fixed-line technology deployed by the Coalition is beset by technical
or business case problems, except for Fibre to the Premises –
Labor’s original technology of choice.
As
the 2022 federal election date drew nearer the Morrison Government on
23 March bestirred itself enough to
announce that:
The
Morrison Government has welcomed NBN Co’s announcement that 50,000
homes and businesses will be able to order an upgrade to their NBN
connection, delivering ultra-fast speeds at no upfront cost.
These
are the initial customers to have access to upgrades that will allow
8 million homes, or 75 per cent of premises in the NBN fixed line
footprint, to access to ultra-fast speeds by 2023.
Minister
for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts, the
Hon Paul Fletcher, said the on-demand upgrades will give more
Australians access to the fastest broadband speeds available on the
NBN.
There is no mention of ongoing costs and pricing which remain an issue.
I
am honestly not sure that this is anything more than a typical
election year 'announceable' which will sink down into the pile of past
unmet expectations raised concerning NBN high speed broadband.
Regardless
of whatever media releases the Morrison Government is sending out,
the dissatisfaction with the NBN high speed broadband network
remains 12 days out from election day…..
The
Guardian,
8 May 2022:
The
NBN rollout may have been completed, but Richard Proudfoot is still
using an old ADSL internet connection, and he has to juggle his Zoom
meetings around his partner’s work.
He
runs a small IT business from his home in Maleny, on the Sunshine
Coast, about 100km north of Brisbane, while his partner is a
part-time university lecturer.
Due
to their property’s terrain, NBN Co has told him he is not able to
connect to fixed wireless or fixed line. While he has the option of
satellite, many users have reported poor speeds and reliability. He
has stuck with ADSL for the time being because he believes the tree
cover and weather would adversely effect his service.
“We
are very, very dependent on a reliable internet ADSL connection. To
make it work for us given the limitations, we schedule internet use
based on need ... we cannot do concurrent Zoom meetings so we
rearrange diaries in order to cope.”
The
Coalition and NBN Co declared the rollout of the then $51bn network
complete in 2020. There are now 12.1m homes able to connect, and 8.5m
homes on the NBN.
The
high-speed network was meant to resolve the digital divide in
Australia, but two years on from its completion there remains a stark
difference between the haves and have-nots; those who have a decent
internet service and those still waiting or suffering from poor
speeds and reliability on their NBN service.
The
Liberal
MP Julian Leeser wrote a scathing review of the NBN in a
submission to the federal government’s regional telecommunications
review last year, describing it as “too slow with countless
delays”.
Leeser’s
northern Sydney electorate, Berowra, is a mix of suburban and
semi-regional locations, meaning his constituents are living with the
spectrum of NBN technologies, from fixed to wireless and satellite.
“There
is too much variability in the quality of coverage across the various
NBN technologies,” he said.
The
pandemic forced many people to work from home and rely on their home
internet more than ever before.
Leeser
said that teachers had been forced to work out of McDonald’s car
parks to leech the wifi for online classes, people were unable to
work from home or undertake telehealth appointments, and some had
even been forced to move out of the area due to their poor NBN
connection…...
Many
Guardian Australia readers raised problems with the project when
asked what their major concerns were ahead of this month’s federal
election.
One
reader, Cate, who lives in Killarney Heights in the Sydney electorate
of Warringah, missed out on full fibre or cable that some nearby
suburbs have access to.
She
says she was originally connected via the Optus internet cable but
was moved over to fibre-to-the-node (FttN) on the NBN.
“Using
Optus cable we rarely had dropouts. I could count on one hand the
number of times over five years that we lost internet for any
noticeable length of time,” she says.
Now
she says they experience daily interruptions.
“Our
modem takes five to 10 minutes to reconnect so this can often mean at
least 25 to 50 minutes a day of disruption to our service and this is
still considered acceptable by NBN and they will do nothing to fix
it.”
She
says she is rarely able to get the top speeds promised. In speed test
results Cate provided to Guardian Australia taken between 2pm and 3pm
on a weekday, the results ranged from 1.3Mbps to 40Mbps, compared to
100Mbps on her previous Optus cable…..
Around
119,000 premises that are connected to the NBN via FttN still can’t
get the minimum 25Mbps download and 5Mbps upload speeds. Due to the
ageing copper and environmental conditions, FttN connections will
continue to get worse over time.
In
February, the NBN CEO, Stephen Rue, admitted the bit rate – the
number of bits that can be transferred across the network per second
– would degrade between 2% and 4% every year on average across the
4m FttN connections.
The
other looming factor is people switching the NBN off. Customers
frustrated with the NBN might look to 5G or another service like Elon
Musk’s Starlink, and threaten the ability of the network to make a
return on the taxpayer investment.…...
Something to think about standing in line at the polling booths on Saturday 21 May 2022.
