[craigvn]

As an Australian, I think it can be summed up by two reasons.

1. All large scale infrastructure rollouts are difficult and subject to problems and blowouts.

2. It was made a political issue. New government decided to make major revamps for no reason other than it was different to the previous government so they could use it as an election issue.

[shakna]

> All large scale infrastructure rollouts are difficult and subject to problems and blowouts.

Some of the utter incompetence involved in the actual rollout was astounding.

Telstra's crews had to reinstall the lines under the main road of my town 4 times.

Twice it was installed on the wrong side of the road, and once it was unshielded.

6 months of traffic jams instead of 1 month.

[flukus]

> New government decided to make major revamps for no reason other than it was different to the previous government so they could use it as an election issue.

The worst part was the nationals. In 2007 they were bitching that it needed to be fiber, by 2010 they were saying copper is the future.

[beedogs]

Not just copper. 100-year-old waterlogged copper. We prefer our transmission lines to be well-aged down here.

[IntelMiner]

Let's be fair here, the Nats are a bunch of spineless cowards who'd rather play follow-the-leader with the Libs than represent the bush

Even though they'll be career politicians, because nobody will vote anything other than Nationals in those electorates, there's much more money to be made in a life of lobbying afterwards

[shard972]

To say they changed it for no reason is omitting the state of the roll out at that time. The budget was already blowing out beyond 2x the cost, they were behind on their revised down goals, they missed wireless numbers by 90%.

The only positive thing they could tout at the time was pass by numbers which ignores the hardest part of the roll out, connecting fiber to each and every house.

You can argue that the last mile problem should have been tackled head on in the NBN and it was a mistake for the liberals to not, but to say that they did it for "no reason other than it was different to the previous government" is just simply wrong.

[flukus]

> The budget was already blowing out beyond 2x the cost

According to partisan figures that were often repeated but never justified. I don't doubt it would have blown out, world class infrastructure would have been worth it at twice the cost. Instead we have the current NBN who's costs have blown out just as much to delivery 20th century infrastructure.

[shard972]

> According to partisan figures that were often repeated but never justified.

I mean if you pretend that the $30~ billion paid to telstra had absolutely nothing to do with the NBN then yea you can avoid the 2x figure but I still have no idea how you can say the two things are completely unrelated.

> Instead we have the current NBN who's costs have blown out just as much to delivery 20th century infrastructure.

How? It's fiber for over 95% the connection with plans already been tested to allow people to complete the line to their house with fiber if your willing to pay for it. That's a lot better than what was available in 20th century.

I don't see the big problem with having the government do the entire backbone and lines close to the houses and allow people to fund the final hop if they want to.

[flukus]

The 30 billion to Telstra was the liberals to buy the copper network, not part of the Labor plan. 30 billion for a network the CEO of the owning company said was minutes to midnight a decade earlier.

What do you think is more efficient, digging up the footpath once and giving everyone a fiber connection, or doing it 50+ times? Because if everyone completes the line to their house, that's what will happen.

More importantly, if you're trying to start a business or provide a government service, you can't rely on everyone having a 100Mb connection, you have to plan for the lowest common denominator.

[Khaine]

Except the $30 Billion did have to do with the NBN. NNBN Co wanted access to that nationwide system of cables, ducts, phone exchanges and other infrastructure to form the basis of its network as it would make the build faster, cheaper and avoid duplicating assets [1]. Also please note that the deal was made by Labor and not by the Liberals.

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/business/telstras-nbn-deal--what-it-me...

[silly-silly]

> with plans already been tested to allow people to complete the line to their house with fiber if your willing to pay for it.

As I would one be of these people, how / who do i talk to ?

[imron]

And now the budget is still blowing out, only we have shitty infrastructure that's going to be obsolete almost as soon as it's installed.

The Liberals messed this one up (note to Americans, in Australia the 'Liberals' are the conservatives).

[shard972]

> And now the budget is still blowing out, only we have shitty infrastructure that's going to be obsolete almost as soon as it's installed.

How will to be obsolete? Everything upto the node is fiber so if it was made obsolete it also would have been obsolete under the original plan.

If your talking about the copper, we aren't digging it up and replacing it with copper. It's just going to stay there a bit longer until it gets upgraded by the user themselves or possibly a another roll out down the line.

What part of the roll out gets wasted? The cabinets they roll out can still handle FTTP, so I don't know what you think will become "obsolete".

[boyter]

There is no upgrade path from the node with the way they are rolling it out. Doubt me? Ask NBN yourself and see if you get a reply.

They are rolling it out as cheaply as possible with no thought about upgrade. They are not running additional fibre to the node only what the node requires. That's why the quotes for the technology choice program are so high, it's not fibre back to the node but all the way to the exchange.

[imron]

The FTTN part won't be obsolete, it will be the copper cables limiting speeds and making my Internet connection drop out when it rains.

By the time the rollout is finished, they're going to need to upgrade to FTTP anyway.

They should have done it properly once. It would've been easier, cheaper and technologically superior.

[thanksgiving]

The liberals might have got the final nail in the coffin but nbn fate was sealed the moment they decided Telstra should have anything to do with the project at all.

Edit fate not gate