Battle of the broadband

Published by Ed | Filed under NBN Video

www.abc.net.au There’s a battle of broadband polices forming in this election. And if you want faster broadband then you need to know what both parties are offering. If elected, the Coalition will kill Labor’s National Broadband Network (NBN) and spend six billion dollars to encourage the private sector to extend broadband services through a mix of fibre optic and fixed wireless technology.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Kevin Rudd – Broadband Broken Promise

Published by Ed | Filed under NBN Video

The National Broadband Network was a Labor guarantee. Rolled out to 99% of the population within 5 years. But only 2 years later Australia recieved reports of how completely flawed the network was, so flawed in fact that it could not get corporate backing. Now we have a series of complicated half promises which haven’t been acted on. Get real Mr. Rudd, you’re supposed to be part of the progressive party and yet you still cannot deliver. Broadband is just another broken promise in your alread overflowing waste bin of insulation, immigration, health and education. Enough’s enough Mr. Blahblahblah, Australia will remember this at the next election!
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Popularity: 8% [?]

National Broadband Plan: Future of Spectrum

Published by Ed | Filed under NBN Video

Tom Peters, Chief Engineer for the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau talks about innovations that will make higher broadband speeds and greater innovation possible in the future. (public domain)
Video Rating: 0 / 5

Popularity: 8% [?]

NBN Co to limit spending in limbo period

Published by Ed | Filed under NBN News

Affected vendors to be notified.

NBN Co has announced it would cut down on its spending until its future is determined by the forming of a Federal Government, post Saturday’s hung election result.

The freeze on spending and procurement was first reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.

The company said in a statement that t would “continue to operate, plan and use existing resources but would seek to minimise any discretionary expenditure”.

NBN Co said it intends not to award “any new significant contracts”, issue new requests for capability statements or proposals, and would “postpone or suspend significant existing tender processes during the post-election phase… where appropriate”.

NBN Co said affected vendors would be notified of the decision.

The network builder also said it would “suspend employee interviews and will not issue any new offers to potential employees.”

iTnews reported yesterday that NBN Co had some 47 positions vacant that were listed prior to the election.

View full post on http://nationalbroadbandnetwork.net.au

Popularity: 7% [?]

Telstra Submits NBN Proposal: Chairman Donald McGauchie

Published by Ed | Filed under NBN Video

Telstra’s Chairman Donald McGauchie announces the National Broadband Network proposal.

Popularity: 11% [?]

NBN Co makes corporate data centre hire

Published by Ed | Filed under NBN News

Internal IT taking shape.

NBN Co has added a project manager to look after the build and commissioning of its corporate data centres.

A former project manager for CSC and IBM, Neal O’Brian was tasked with getting the internal data centres together “complete with all servers (virtual and physical), storage, network and database infrastructure”, he said in an update to his LinkedIn profile.

The appointment came a bit over a week after NBN Co brought on Mick Huxley as a data centre architect, “heading up the Microsoft Architecture”.

Huxley, a former systems engineer with Thales Australia, described himself as a specialist “in Microsoft identity, unified communication and enterprise virtualisation solutions.”

NBN Co previously awarded $23 million in core software and hardware contracts to IBM and Oracle respectively, and to Accenture for implementation and “ongoing support services”.

The Australian newspaper reported last month that the first three phases of the Oracle enterprise resource planning (ERP) installation was now completed.

Uncertainty

NBN Co was continuing to hire with 47 jobs currently vacant, including three new roles listed the day before the election.

It was unclear how – if at all – the likely outcome of Saturday’s election, a hung parliament, would impact the next-generation network builder, although it was speculated that it could favour the prioritised rollout of broadband services in regional and rural Australia.

NBN Co chief Mike Quigley said last week that winding down the company would cost several hundred million dollars.

Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde said it could be “a week, or even weeks, before it will be known how Australia will governed for the next three years and thus also what the future of the NBN will be.”

View full post on http://nationalbroadbandnetwork.net.au

Popularity: 10% [?]

Question Time Brief – Julie Bishop – September 15, 2009

Published by Ed | Filed under NBN Video

Today in Question Time, Mr Rudd was asked how he could continue to tell the public that it will spend billion of your money building a National Broadband Network without preparing a business case. Amazingly, Mr Rudd couldn’t provide this most basic business requirement. This is yet another example of the Rudd Labor Government’s reckless spending.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Popularity: 7% [?]

NBN Co announces Gungahlin to be in first round of mainland NBN sites

Published by Ed | Filed under NBN Video

Senator Lundy discusses the announcement from NBN Co that Gungahlin will be amongst the first mainland sites for the National Broadband Network. Captions being processed, but will be ready soon. Transcript below. Transcript: I just thought I’d do this video to welcome the wonderful news that 3000 houses in Gungahlin to be accessed by the NBN network as part of these first 20 sites. I think it’s fantastic news! It’s a real tribute to the Gungahlin community who have campaigned long and hard for better broadband access and I think that community’s been long suffering with all the dramas about Telstra’s poor service to the area, Telstra’s use of not only inadequate but inappropriate infrastructure as Gungahlin has been built out has meant many people have been left with a substandard services for many, many years. What I like about what the National Broadband Network means for Canberra in Gungahlin is that Canberrans will get a first hand taste of what it will mean for all of us. The (full) rollout is going to take a number of years so to have 3000 households in Gungahlin getting the NBN first is going to be a wonderful example of how we can all benefit. It’s also important to remind everyone in this region that no one misses out on the National Broadband Network. The Libs have been trying to say that somehow, some people in this region will miss out on the National Broadband Network, but that’s just not true. Labor’s policy will deliver 100 megabits per second to 90 per …
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Popularity: 10% [?]

Quigleys big stand: the full speech

Published by Ed | Filed under NBN News

Quigley wins over the true believers.

NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley has blasted the Coalition’s alternative to the ALP’s National Broadband Network in a fiery speech that addressed the limitations of copper, HFC and wireless networks.

Quigley made no apologies for entering the political debate, outlining the many social and economic reasons australians should vote for the build of a national fibre to the home network.

iTnews has deemed the speech worthy of being published in full, below, and recommends it be read.

Mike Quigley, 2010 Charles Todd Memorial Oration

It is an honour to be here today giving this Charles Todd Memorial Oration in the company of many of Australia’s telecommunications leaders. When, many months ago, I accepted the invitation to speak here today little did I know that it would be just a few days before a Federal election, the outcome of which will have a profound impact on our industry.

But here I am, the CEO of the company charged with building the NBN, which as we all know has become rather a hot political issue. So, I was left with the question, what to do?

My conclusion was to take a deep breath and just tell it as I see it – without fear or favour. This is what I did just last week when we made the announcement that we would be providing a 1 Gb/s product.

We had been working on this for quite some time and I saw no reason not to follow our usual practice, which was to make the industry aware of our conclusions. We are continuing to do this. So we released our Product Overview documents for our Fibre, Wireless and Satellite products yesterday.

Tomorrow we will be releasing a more detailed 80 page technical Product Description document for our Fibre product.

I was also conscious of my responsibility to try to ensure the public debate surrounding the NBN is as fact-based as is possible given the current circumstances. I came out of retirement for this project because I believe this is the right way to deliver a national broadband network for Australia.

So, I plan to use this speech to outline:

1. Why it’s better to invest $27 billion rather than spend $6 billion
2. Creating a monopoly helps competition
3. Why a ubiquitous broadband network isn’t just equitable, it’s essential for the delivery of social, economic and productivity benefits
4. Why wireless can’t, on its own, serve all our long term broadband needs but a combination of wireless and fibre can.

In fact, there is an even more fundamental point I would like to address – the veritable elephant in the room, in fact, the “white elephant” in the room.

Some have claimed that the FTTP network would end up not being used because of the growing capability of mobile networks. But why then are some very large and very experienced commercial Telcos investing in fibre architectures, both FTTN and FTTP.

I am talking about some of the biggest Telcos in the world such as AT&T, Verizon and DT. They all have large mobile networks yet they have heavily invested in fibre access.

Even more interestingly, I heard just earlier this week, from a Chinese equipment vendor that China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator, is now looking at deploying FTTP.

Are all these Telcos wrong about the future of FTTP?

These are some interesting questions, but first I would like to return to decisions made 140 years ago to build the Overland Telegraph, which was supervised by Charles Todd.

The Overland Telegraph cost £480,000, equivalent to just under a $1 billion in today’s terms. The total cost was met entirely by the tax-payers of South Australia and was equivalent to 60% of the state’s annual budget.

This was the first of the three major investments that have been made in Australia’s fixed line telecommunications infrastructure.

The second was made just after the end of WW2, when the PMG committed £42 million to rollout today’s copper Customer Access Network. In today’s dollars this was a commitment of around AU$10 billion. Even more extraordinary is the fact that in 1950 Australian Government public debt was at about 80% of GDP, more than 10 times the level of today’s public debt.

The Overland Telegraph and the copper CAN, built using public funds, were great public investments that have paid for themselves many times over in social, economic and productivity benefits.

Let’s have a look at what was happening 60 years ago, when this decision was made. This is compliments of the Telstra History Museum. The third major fixed line investment was attempted by the private sector. I am referring of course to the investment in HFC technology by two private companies.

We all know that the infrastructure was duplicated as the two companies chased each other up and down streets until they both called a halt to their rollouts. In terms of the utilisation of scarce capital, this multi-billion dollar duplication of access assets was not an ideal outcome.

View full post on http://nationalbroadbandnetwork.net.au

Popularity: 11% [?]

Telstra NBN – FTTN technology briefing

Published by Ed | Filed under NBN Video

Telstras Chief Operations Officer Greg Winn today held a briefing to outline the massive technical requirements and logistical issues facing the chosen builder of the National Broadband Network. The briefing focused on the technology, size and complexity of the build from a technical and logistical perspective and include a demonstration of a working node and the types of services that can be delivered across the NBN.

Popularity: 19% [?]