NBN promises already broken?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 26 December 2010 15:17

Opinion and Analysis

The NBN is coming'¦ in 10 years, even longer than initially promised. Which promises will be broken next?

OPINION (please feel free to comment in the forum if you don't agree with this opinion, thank you to those who share their opinions): The NBN, Australia's National Broadband Network has had a sorry history of starts and missteps, which thus far make it look more like a "broadbad" network than a "broadgood" one. 

First it was meant to cost AUD $4.7B as a 'fibre to the node' network, but when the Federal Government couldn't get Telstra, Australia's dominant telco (which it still effectively owns a chunk of through the Future Fund) to play ball, in came a new NBN at ten times the cost, to be part funded by the Australian Government, and part funded through heavily burdened debt markets.

The new NBN would be 'fibre to the premise', delivering a fibre network directly to homes and businesses, but as we've seen over time, compromises are already being made, such as some fibre cables set to be strung between power poles and exposed to the elements, rather than putting them underground where they won't be an eyesore and will be under far better environmental protection.

Much reporting has looked at the redacted 160-page 'business plan' that is 400 pages in non-redacted form, and many from the world of businesses have raised serious concerns over the last couple of weeks - it's not just me questioning what the heck is going on.

Sadly, rural and regional users are set to be stung big time should they happen to want to use the broadband network to its fullest potential, due to hidden costs over high bandwidth use that no rural or regional user ever expected to pay if they believed the plan(s) that have come forth thus far.

Although Australia is criss-crossed with fibre and existing networks of many types, all of these are set to be largely railroaded by the new network which is being built at any cost, scaring off investment in Australia's broadband infrastructure by private players - why should they risk their money when the Australian Federal Government will foot the bill?

Critics defend the NBN as a technology that can't be superseded, but with history showing that no future proof technology is ever future proof, why do the critics so readily believe in Government promises, when Governments have proven time and again to change the rules of the game when it suits them?

Critics also point to the previous Coalition Government over its inaction over broadband and '18 failed broadband plans', and cry that that former Government didn't make broadband happen any faster and thus can't be trusted.

Sadly, neither side of politics can truly be trusted in this arena because both sides are guilty of meddling in the markets. There are no truly free markets in Australia or the western world, as both sides try to impose their will on markets and shape things as they see them.

Perhaps if Australia actually had a true free market we would have had a market-supplied national broadband network by now, but no - Governments of both colours have intervened in the past, and now they feel they must intervene again. How about a hands-off, laissez faire approach instead? How about actually trying that for once, seeing as it has never truly been tried?

Unfortunately neither side of politics is that enlightened, and so both are destined to continue meddling until one day the public wakes up and says 'enough!', but when that day will come is anyone's guess and clearly not likely to happen anytime soon.

Look, we will just have to see what time and the promises of this current Government brings, but forgive me for not putting my blind faith in Government policies that have more chance of not going to plan than of actually being on time, on budget and available at an affordable price to end-users.

Many Australians want a cost/benefit analysis, but it's not forthcoming. They want to see the whole business plan, but it's not forthcoming. They also worry about the freedom-killing filter that still lurks in the background, wondering when it will rear its ugly head once more.

They also wonder, rightly, what a Coalition Government would do if it won power - will the NBN, as promised, still be delivered, or would that new Government only mess it up further? It's a vicious cycle that spins around in circles in a one step forward, to steps back kind of situation.

Oh ye critics of NBN critics, how I do hope for the future of Australia that you are 100% right, that the NBN will be the miraculous game-changer for telemedicine, for teleworking, for future investments in Australia's knowledge economy, and that global economic conditions don't deteriorate further so that debt remains as easy to acquire and pay off over the next few years as it is today - lest we be left with a half-built network that is never properly finished due to running out of money, whoever is in Government at the time. 

Believing the NBN will be built exactly to plan requires a giant leap of faith, kind of like 'if you build it, they will come'. If you have made that leap, I envy you.

Just remember, the NBN timeframe has already been changed. Now it will take just under 10 years to complete, and still we've barely started. Perhaps we should stay on the 'safe side' and expect full completion of the NBN by, say, 2025.

Whatever the truth of the NBN's completion date, I wonder which promises will be broken next? Given the track record of both major sides of politics, broken promises are a given, so when it inevitably happens, please do not be surprised. The surprise will be if the NBN we get is faster, cheaper and better, instead of the opposite.

Good luck, my fellow Australians, we are surely going to need it.