{"id":54945,"date":"2023-10-20T16:29:26","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T16:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/turnbulls-plan-to-speed-up-the-delivery-of-australias-broadband-network-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T16:29:26","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T16:29:26","slug":"turnbulls-plan-to-speed-up-the-delivery-of-australias-broadband-network-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/turnbulls-plan-to-speed-up-the-delivery-of-australias-broadband-network-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Turnbull’s plan to speed up the delivery of Australia’s broadband network – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

The number of people involved in Australia\u2019s national broadband network (nbn) is set to double to about 9,000 after Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull this week announced plans<\/a> to recruit and train an extra 4,500 workers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This will make it even faster to roll out the rest of the national broadband network, and no doubt symbolises the Coalition\u2019s leaner, quicker-to-roll-out version of the original NBN \u2013 re-branded earlier this year as a lower-case nbn for a reported A$700,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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But why the rush?<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s have a look at what has been achieved in the past six years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the beginning\u2026<\/h2>\n

The Howard Government struggled<\/a> with all things internet. Australia had \u201cfraudband<\/a>\u201d because it was too expensive and slow.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then Opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, said a national broadband network<\/a> was \u201cnation-building for the 21st century\u201d. And after Labor\u2019s election, NBN Co was born on April 9, 2009.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, the NBN took a back seat due to Labor\u2019s leadership turmoil. Except when the Coalition poked fun at the NBN<\/a> for taking too long. NBN Co blamed its partners<\/a> and then its boss quit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Things were going downhill.<\/p>\n

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From NBN to nbn<\/h2>\n

The Coalition\u2019s cost-benefit analysis<\/a>, released almost a year ago, found Labor\u2019s NBN was extravagant. NBN was stripped back by changing Labor\u2019s fibre-to-the-home model to a multi-technology mix (MTM) model. Slower speeds but rolled out faster \u2013 that was the plan.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now Turnbull is having a bob each way with the broadband network<\/a>. Finish the bits already started with fibre, then finish the bits that haven\u2019t been started yet using multiple and ultimately cheaper technologies. Makes sense.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although he would probably prefer to let the market sort it all out<\/a>. If people want broadband, then somebody will sell it to them. Except maybe in the bush. Then the government should help make it work. Kevin07 thought government could do it all better<\/a> \u2013 that\u2019s why he set up NBN.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

So Turnbull had little choice but to continue with the contracts set up by Labor. That\u2019s the trouble with building things: it\u2019s expensive to change your mind once the building starts.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s also hard to tear up contracts once they\u2019ve started. Do this too many times and big business might stop building things for you. And when you are a politician, this makes you look bad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The whole point of NBN was to fix the \u201cfraudband\u201d. Now we have nbn with a MTM. Occasionally the Coalition still struggles with internet things<\/a>, but not Turnbull<\/a>. He wants to ensure Australia gets the nbn sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

How are we travelling?<\/h2>\n

Well, it depends. The whole point of spending billions of dollars on NBN (nbn) was to give Australians better access to faster broadband. Since last election, NBN was available to 1 in 50 households. Now nbn is available to 1 in 10. Things are looking up.<\/p>\n

But how do we stack up against other countries?<\/p>\n

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I usually compare Australia with Canada, but it can be helpful to compare Australia with other countries in the OECD<\/a> too. This is how Australia fared before Kevin07:<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/figure>\n

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Broadband Subscribers per 100 People, June 2007.<\/span><\/span> OECD Broadband Growth and Policies in OECD Countries 2008<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, just before NBN Co was born, Australians appear to have stopped subscribing while they waited patiently for better broadband. Compared with other OECD member countries, this meant that Australian broadband was worse than before the 2007 election:<\/p>\n

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<\/a>
\n

Broadband Subscribers per 100 People, December 2008.<\/span><\/span> OECD Broadband Portal (Accessed 29 July 2012)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The trouble is, after six years of NBN (nbn), things are still heading south:<\/p>\n

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<\/a>
OECD Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, by technology, December 2014<\/span><\/span> OECD Broadband Portal (Accessed 3 August 2015)<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Now let\u2019s look at broadband speeds. To make it easier to read the graph, I have chosen to compare Australia with New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Greece. I chose the last one because Greece is having problems at the moment<\/a> and it might help put things in perspective.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The graph below shows the fraction of subscribers with connection speeds of greater than 15mbps. Remember, NBN was meant to provide up to 100mbps and nbn at least 25mbps<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Akamai State of the Internet Report: Speeds greater than 15mbps.<\/span><\/span> Akamai State of the Internet Connectivity Visualizations<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

What does it all mean? I\u2019ve argued for many years<\/a> that government control of the market stifles industry. That\u2019s not to say that smarter ways of privatising Telstra or deploying NBN couldn\u2019t have made a difference. We can hypothesise until the cows come home.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But one of the richest OECD countries \u2013 Australia<\/a> \u2013 has broadband speeds closer to one of the poorest \u2013 Greece<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Has it been worth it?<\/h2>\n

Streaming services such as Netflix<\/a> should boost fixed-line broadband demand. This might prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy for the Coalition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But when the next new technology comes along, government shouldn\u2019t try to second-guess the market. Indeed, where government wasn\u2019t meddling, the market has worked. Australia is a world leader in mobile broadband, for example:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a>
OECD Mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, by technology, December 2014<\/span><\/span> OECD Broadband Portal (Accessed 3 August 2015)<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s getting harder to see the public value in nbn. But it\u2019s too late to stop it now. Better to double the workforce and finish it quickly and quietly. That seems to be Turnbull\u2019s way out of this mess.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Michael de Percy<\/a> is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at University of Canberra<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The number of people involved in Australia\u2019s national broadband network (nbn) is set to double to about 9,000 after Communications<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24,3,4,6,21,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54945"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}