How the government has let us down with the NBN

THE government keeps letting everyone down with the NBN. It’s costing more, taking longer to roll out and something needs to change.

OPINION

Fast. Affordable. Sooner.

That’s the NBN we were promised when Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition were voted into power two years ago. But what is the NBN we have we got instead?

Slow. Expensive. Longer.

When the NBN was first devised, the original plan was to deploy high-speed fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband for most Australians, but that was eventually scrapped by the Abbott Government as it was deemed too expensive and too slow to roll out.

That has now largely been abandoned in favour a mixed network that prioritises a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) technology. This means fibre optic cables were run to each internet node, then the rest of the connection to individual homes was completed through Telstra’s ageing copper wire network. This is without the government fully assessing the state of the copper network before spending $11 billion to buy back what the Howard Government sold off to Telstra a decade ago. It’s a move that’s meant to save money and time, but will likely require billions of dollars in maintenance costs during its lifespan.

Under the government’s NBN, the speed of your internet will vary depending on how far you live from the node. The further away you are, the slower it’s going to be. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull promises us a minimum speed of 25 Megabits per second (Mbps), the same speed that the US Federal Communications Commission defined as being the absolute bare minimum to be able to call an internet connection broadband.

Mr Turnbull has repeatedly said that his plan is the best cost-to-speed option available, and he might be right that it is the most affordable option, but why aim for the bare minimum? Shouldn’t we be looking to at least future proof a multi-billion dollar project? Why aren’t we aiming for even 50Mbps as the minimum for all Australians?

There are still NBN-haters out there, and for the uninformed it’s easy to get angry about what appears to be a multi-billion dollar project just so we can watch Netflix better. But the NBN is infinitely more important than that. It’s about bringing Australia to a level playing field with our economic partners and rivals, about minimalising the gap for rural communities and giving Australians just as much of an opportunity to achieve great things as someone in the US, UK or even Sweden. It is way too important to just be aiming for the bare minimum.

The NBN had predicted that 37,200 premises would be ready to be connected to its FTTN network when it goes live next month, but now it has been revealed that only 2100 premises will be ready.

That same slow rollout theme seems to be recurring, with only 1 in 10 properties across the country having access to the network. That should rise soon though when the government completes is purchase of the hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) cable networks from Telstra and Optus and rebrands them to NBN connections for 34 per cent of premises.

The HFC network was originally rolled out in the 1990s to offer pay TV and broadband internet, which they’re still used for today. It has potential to offer fibre speeds, but only if significant investment is made in improving the networks. Again, this potentially costs billions of dollars, which the government hasn’t talked about. As it stands, to tell Australians that cable internet is a proper NBN solution is rubbish. With HFC cable internet, you share your bandwidth with your neighbours, which means when everyone’s watching Netflix on a Sunday night it grinds to a halt. Forums are full of countless horror stories surrounding this.

Thankfully, 20 per cent of the country will still receive FTTP broadband by 2020, but even that number has dropped again. Originally the Coalition promised 3.1 million households would have access, but now they say only 2.4 million.

To top that off, it was announced yesterday that the NBN would need to raise up to $26.5 billion to complete the rollout of the network.

Originally, it was projected that the Coalition’s multi-technology plan would cost significantly less than the original all-fibre NBN, at $29.5 billion over six years. A review in late 2013 then found a realistic cost would more likely be $41 billion, before yesterday’s showed it realistically will be over $50 billion.

Mr Turnbull tried to deflect from the problem, throwing blame at Labor and repeatedly trying to justify the costs by comparing it to the original all-fibre plan.

But by doing so, he was just losing further support for his plan.

The NBN is important, and most Australians know that, they also know that it’s going to cost a lot of money to construct and are happy to spend it.

But where support is lost is with the complete lack of transperancy and honesty shown by both the government and the NBN. There’s no effort being made to show why costs keep blowing out despite using less fibre technology, or even why 700,000 homes suddenly won’t receive the superior fibre-to-the-premises connection, and instead will be connected to the inferior fibre-to-the-node. There’s no effort to explain why only 2100 homes will have access to FTTN next month now, or the realistic speeds those homes will receive.

The NBN needs to stop trying fluff campaigns showing happy kids and happy farmers using their network, and just be transparent and honest with everything. NBN chief executive officer Bill Morrow knows this works better than anything to get people back on side, so why isn’t he? It obviously works and makes people happy; it’s the same tactic he used when he turned Vodafone around from being the laughing stock of the Australian communications industry to a company that’s growing its customer base significantly each month.

We’re sick and tired of being let down, and the least the NBN and Malcolm Turnbull could do is tell us why it’s happening, instead of trying to cover up their mistakes by blaming past governments.