
The Australian National Broadband Network board have submitted resignations - xelfer
http://www.smh.com.au/business/entire-nbn-board-resigns-20130922-2u835.html
======
contingencies
Sad, really sad.

Despite being an Australian, I rarely follow the news there, so if someone
closer to the action could confirm and clarify here: the notion was put
forward to build fiber to the home across the country (extremely costly), it
was passed by a government courageously (for supporting any long term benefit
at immediate expense is tantamount to severing a near-term political limb),
the government changed, and the new one is likely appointing the current
chairman of what used to be the state-owned telecommunications provider (sold
off by the incoming government in a prior reign) to 'fix' it.

Does it not appear then, on a macro scale, as if the government gave up its
golden goose and wound up redistributing wealth to many private hands whilst
reducing its actual capacity to get anything done or maintain a semblence of
competitiveness with more successful but similar ventures elsewhere? (China,
France and New Zealand come to mind)

After spending much time living in China, I can only conclude that two party
democracies are essentially incompetent structures for long term
infrastructure.

Perhaps my homeland could fix its NBN project with a pause to enforce
transparency, issue public reports and a referendum. Of course, the government
wouldn't do that ... the've just stolen the goose.

~~~
anthonyb
Yeah, it's the same story across the board really - not even many private
hands, just a small handful of them.

Public infrastructure was never particularly invested in, even under Labour,
but now that the Liberals are back in (I'm in Victoria, so double Liberal for
me) it's "jobs for the boys", more roads, more private health insurance, etc,
etc.

~~~
jacques_chester
"Jobs for the boys" is a universal in Australian politics. Scan the resumé of
anyone appointed to any board, committee, commission, agency etc etc and you
will usually find clear connections to one of the majors.

~~~
vacri
I'm not sure why you needed to specify 'Australian' there.

~~~
jacques_chester
Touché. One of my favourite scenes in _Yes, Minister_ is when Sir Humphrey is
having lunch with Sir Desmond, a banker he needs a favour from. He offers
about a dozen random appointments in the scene -- Potato Board, Wine Marketing
Committee etc. It's great.

~~~
vacri
I've just finish rewatching those series. I'd forgotten how much fun they
were, and surprised at how little had gone out of date.

~~~
jacques_chester
"In Sydney you think it is a comedy. In Canberra we see it as a documentary".

------
redact207
What's the point of a FTTN network? You haven't removed the bottleneck which
is the copper wire infrastructure. This was one thing that could have made
Australia competitive in the years to come, but instead the people who make
the decisions know nothing about it let alone able to spell NBN.

IMO it's not all doom and gloom. By putting in the FTTN "backbone", it leaves
the door open to rewire it to FTTH down the line when the government realises
that commerce is being stiffed because of a slow network.

~~~
cam_l
The big issue will be in the sort of contracts they sign with Telstra to rent
and maintain the copper infrastructure - which by the figures I have seen
published so far may make it _more_ expensive than the FTTH (though no one
really knows at this point).

Given that the point of the FTTN as opposed to FTTH is to essentially maintain
the status quo for the media (and give established businesses, city areas and
the wealthy a competitive advantage - at 2-5G a pop for a connection).. the
likelihood is that the libs will try to lock in these contracts as much as
possible.

It disappoints me that the article seems to suggest that the board quit due to
a lack of faith _from_ the incoming minister, rather than as a gesture which
shows a disturbing lack of faith _in_ the incoming minister.

~~~
jacques_chester
Does this conspiracy theory that Turnbull is doing Murdoch's bidding have any
... you know ... _evidence_?

The cui bono is just stupidly thin. Murdoch makes bugger all on his Australian
operations. If he divested the lot Wall Street would cheer, holler and stamp
its feet.

Edit: "quo vadis" indeed. What's the Latin for malapropism?

~~~
cam_l
I never mentioned murdoch. I think FTTN benefits all established media. I was
also was having a go at smh reporting, so whatever..

But since you ask, I would say the reason why people think there was a
conspiracy is the rabid anti-NBN propaganda by murdoch during the election.

A better explanation perhaps.. [http://theconversation.com/news-corp-
australia-vs-the-nbn-is...](http://theconversation.com/news-corp-australia-vs-
the-nbn-is-it-really-all-about-foxtel-16768)

~~~
jacques_chester
Sorry, I was reading my own pet peeve about conspiracy theories into your
remarks. I've seen all the arguments given before, but honestly, Foxtel just
doesn't make very much money for Newscorp.

And given the huge bargaining power Foxtel has to alter content agreements,
switching to an NBN-based streaming model just isn't the contractual minefield
that it is in the USA (where there are far more cable providers).

I think that most papers came out against Rudd because they were ... against
Rudd.

------
DigitalSea
This whole fiasco reminds me of a hilarious satire article I read recently on
an Australian satire site called The Shovel:
[http://theshovel.com.au/2013/08/26/malcolm-turnbull-
launches...](http://theshovel.com.au/2013/08/26/malcolm-turnbull-launches-new-
logo-for-coalitions-broadband-plan/)

Sadly, we all know this sub-par alternative will be a disaster that will go in
the history books. In 40 years I'll tell my grandchildren, "I remember a time
when you would have to wait 10 minutes to load a video on the Internet" and
they'll laugh and call me crazy. But the sad fact of the matter is, the LNP
party have outdated views on not only Internet access but gay marriage, the
economy and way things work in the real world.

It's going to be a bumpy 3 years, but LNP won't get another term after all of
the crap they've pulled. If I were on the board I'd rather get out before the
impending ship of failure sinks (and trust me, it will).

~~~
zarify
Never underestimate the power of the opposition to snatch defeat from the jaws
of victory.

We could be having Labor leadership scuffles for the next three years.

~~~
GrumpySimon
I agree. Compare what happened in New Zealand when John Key and the National
party ousted the long-term Labor government.

Despite some major missteps from Key/National, Labor's spent the last term and
a half fighting amongst themselves about who will lead it. There just wasn't
the talent or the public respect for the interim leaders that could compete
with Key.

My money's on a few Liberal terms in government, I'm afraid. The scary thing
is, the second time they get voted in, they'll treat it was a strengthened
mandate to do what they want.

------
anthonyb
Disgraceful, IMO. The last Liberal government over here entrenched Telstra as
a monopoly by selling it off in its entirety. They were kicked out of the
process last time, due to not taking it seriously, now that their cronies are
back in power, they're off the hook.

[http://abbotsinternet.com.au/](http://abbotsinternet.com.au/) gives a good
idea of just how bad the offerings over here are. And that doesn't show half
of it. My internet drops on a regular basis, and if you call out a technician
you will typically get slugged with a callout fee of $100 or so regardless.
From... Telstra, because they run all of the phone lines, even though I want
to get as far away from them as possible.

~~~
shaunpud
FTFY [http://abbottsinternet.com.au/](http://abbottsinternet.com.au/)

------
ajtaylor
One thing that always puzzled me about the NBN rollout was why they chose to
do the least populated areas first? It seems that it would have helped to
allay the cost concerns if they had brought it to more populated areas where
the customer uptake would have been greater. By doing places like remote
Tasmania (among other small customer base areas), they pretty much guaranteed
disappointing numbers up front.

~~~
vacri
Brunswick in Melbourne is a pretty solid medium-density suburb, and the area
within it that got the NBN is the most dense of the lot - and was one of the
first rollouts. It's also one of the politically safest seats in the country,
held by a no-name MP, Kelvin Thompson. Maybe he has a lot of behind-the-scenes
power? I've certainly never seen his name outside of local papers. Or maybe
someone high up in the NBN planning committee lives there? I never could
figure out 'why there?', and simply assumed that the rollout areas were
political.

The NBN rollout area missed my house by about two streets...

~~~
contingencies
_The NBN rollout area missed my house by about two streets..._

Aha! So maybe _FTTN_ (Fiber To The Neighbour) or _FTTO_ (Fiber To The Others)
would be more accurate topology summaries?

------
enneff
> Former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski is waiting in the wings to be appointed
> executive chairman.

That's all that needs to be said, isn't it?

~~~
Volpe
Isn't most of NBN Corp made up of ex-telstra... Where else would they get
communications engineers?

