As Australia’s global internet ranking slips, critics of FTTN grow louder

OUR global internet ranking has slipped 30 places since Malcolm Turnbull took over as Comms Minister, fuelling the chorus of NBN critics.

THE much maligned National Broadband Network (NBN) continues to be dogged by calls for the current strategy to be abandoned out of fears the use of copper will cause the project to be outdated before it’s completed.

The CEO of the country’s peak internet body, Laurie Patton, brought the issue to the forefront this week with his comments that Australia’s internet speeds warranted a national outcry.

His comments came in the wake of the State of The Internet report produced by US content delivery network provider Akamai. The company publishes a quarterly report comparing internet speeds from countries around the world.

Unsurprisingly Australia did not fare well, slipping to 60th in the global rankings in terms of average peak internet speed — considered to be crucial measurement in broadband performance. The unflattering ranking represents a continued slide as the nation ranked 30th in the category when Mr Turnbull held the post of Communications Minister just a few years ago.

“Singapore, with whom we are destined to be in serious competition as an Asia-Pacific innovation hub, already has internet speeds 100 times faster than ours,” Mr Patton wrote, urging the government to return to a full fibre rollout. “The maximum speed that can be squeezed out of copper is limited.”

The findings of the Akamai report have done little to help the Coalition’s version of the NBN. Despite the relatively low number of homes currently connected to the network, a speedier rollout has been a major selling point for the party’s decision to stick with a predominantly fibre to the node (FTTN) approach.

A spokesperson for the NBN has refuted the notion that Australia’s declining competitiveness in internet speeds is an indictment of the current NBN strategy.

“What the Akamai Report tells us is that we are on the right track — to focus on the fastest deployment we can to move Australia up that list. It is a fast global pace and we need to complete the rollout of the NBN network as soon as possible,” they told news.com.au.

According to the company, one in four homes will be able to access the NBN network by July this year, a number that will increase to three in four homes by September 2018.

There’s no denying Australia faces unique challenges in the rollout given the difficult and vast terrain of the country coupled with a mandate to service every Australian — something the company is quick to point out.

“Likening Australia’s broadband network roll out to a roll out in a country the size of Singapore is not comparable,” the spokesperson said. “We have only 24 million people but in one of the largest countries in the world.”

Despite the inherent difficulties of the project, critics of the FTTN plan have been unrelenting in their opposition, instead championing a fibre to the premises (FTTP) model which provides much greaterbandwidth capacity and speeds.

Mr Patton’s organisation, Internet Australia, has launched a campaign to encourage Malcolm Turnbull to abandon the copper-based strategy and return to the Labor favoured FTTP model.

The issue received increased attention this week following a special innovation and technology focused episode of ABC’s Q&A program. Both the audience and social media became particularly lively when the discussion moved to the NBN.

Audience member Simon Van Wyk provided the moment of the show when he took the government’s Assistant Minister for Innovation, Wyatt Roy, to task.

“Under the tutelage of the Prime Minister, we have seen the broadband speeds in Australia go from being 30th in the world to now 60th in the world. I’d like to know why the Government talks about wanting innovation but seems to be actively undermining the actual ecosystem that was going to drive some of that innovation,” he said.

A rather unenviable position to be in, Mr Roy fell back on the usual Coalition talking points that the FTTN model is cheaper and quicker to rollout.

Labor MP Ed Husic curried favour with the audience saying: “We will have an ideas boom after we get through the buffering.”