Australian NBN. Too little too late (Part 1)

To most, the Australian National Broadband Network (NBN) is an unnecessary burden on the economy dreamt up by self serving politicians trying to win votes. Some of those same people also believe the NBN will only be useful to those who download illegal content or watch porn.

In this two part article, we're going to talk about how the NBN will affect you even if you oppose the project. We'll also discuss the key differences between Fibre To The Premise (FTTP) NBN and Fibre To The Node (FTTN) NBN. Finally,  we'll look at a couple of real world use cases that you probably weren't aware of but will damn sure want to take advantage of. All with the typical IITG spin that will make this article just a little less shit.

The politically bias among us will no doubt cry one way or another but it's important to remember one thing; i hate all political parties equally. Yes, even yours.

What Is The NBN?

In a nutshell it's high (or in some cases highER) speed internet for all. The kind of internet which can be easily upgraded at relatively low cost to the taxpayer and has a longer shelf life than our existing forms of fixed broadband such as copper or cable.

The coalition stated that their NBN will be delivered quicker and cheaper than the now redundant labor NBN. It makes you wonder why we don't build more government projects with that mentality.

• Roads can be delivered quicker and cheaper if we only use dirt.
• Trains and buses can be delivered quicker and cheaper without seats.
• Hospitals beds can be delivered quicker and cheaper if patients sleep on the floor.
• Exotic dancers can... ummm... well, you get my point.

Connecting To The NBN. Will It Be Easier?

When you move into a new home, its often a mission to not only locate the correct wall socket but also verify whether the router and cable from your old house will work in your new house. When it doesn't, its off to the shops to buy the necessary cable/converter. Given the time wasting nature of the exercise i expect complaints laden with plenty of expletives thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately for some, this process will not change under the existing FTTN rollout.

We've all had to look for at least one of these at least once in our lives

FTTP on the other hand leaves you with a gray box in your home with an RJ45 jack waiting for your router to be plugged into it. Simply plug in an appropriate router and your done.

Find this pair of boxes somewhere in your house or garage and.....

Aim your cable for that port and you can't really go wrong.

Yeah, you heard me! no configuration, no username or passwords and no fancy settings to deal with. We've gone from having to deal with a telephone cable, adapter, inline filters etc to buying one RJ45 cable! ONE CABLE! The next time you move to another FTTP home, you'll know to look for and what to do.

How Much Speed Do I Really Need?

Before we can review how much speed is truly necessary, it's important for us to define how much each technology is capable of delivering.

Both FTTN and FTTP are capable of delivering 100 Mbps of download bandwidth. However, in a University of Melbourne study titled Broadband Facts, Fiction and Urban Myths, Figure 6 shows how quickly FTTN speeds deteriorate based on your cabled distance from the node. This explains why it must have been important for the coalition to reassure the public that they are "absolutely confident that 25 megs is going to be enough". It has to be or else they're going to be in trouble.

At 34:53 Tony Abbott tells YOU how many megabits per second YOU need.

FTTP on the other hand does not have this limitation. 100 Mbps download (and eventually 1000 Mbps) is achievable as long as you have FTTP in the first place. In a recent news.com.au article it has also been the deciding factor for one particular couple who work from home. Should the couple move again they agreed they will favour locations with FTTP.

With the car manufacturing industry faltering in South Australia. The SA state government have decided they will aim to create a 10Gb or 10,000 Mbps city which they hope will attract businesses, residents and knowledge economies. Let's be honest, if you're a Netflix or an Apple Computer Inc, a 10Gb city with a more affordable property market starts to look VERY appealing. Opening an office or datacenter isn't the only reason, it's all those potential customers with super fast internet who you'll want to sign up to your latest streaming service.

Whichever way you slice it, the internet of tomorrow is going to need to be capable of delivering multiple Full HD 1080p streams (5 - 9 Mbps per stream) and the odd 4K video stream (requires >25 Mbps per stream), web browser traffic (2 - 3 Mbps) and downloads (everyone downloads something!) to the majority of households in Australia. Compare this to today's paltry 24 megabit per second maximum theoretical speed of ADSL2+ quoted by EVERY internet service provider in Australia. The speed that's only really possible if your house is the same distance from the exchange as the average length of a pubic hair.

What About Wireless?

With 4G networks becoming faster than some peoples home internet connection and 5G on the way, it's totally understandable to think that wireless is the way of the future and number one contender to replacing fibre. Let's start by breaking down wireless into terms everyone can understand to see whether it really is better than fibre.

There can be multiple highways (3G highway, 4G highway, 5G highway etc) run by your mobile carrier (Vodafone, Optus etc). Your phone will try to connect to the fastest highway it can but your mobile carrier will dictate

• Where you can enter the highway (mobile towers)
• The maximum speed limit you can travel at
• Number of lanes you can use (radio frequency spectrum)

Just like a normal highway, there are many more users during peak hour so you can't always travel at or close to the maximum speed. Also, what happens when others find out your highway performs better? They upgrade their mobile device and/or change carrier and suddenly there's more congestion and traffic begins to move slower and slower. Suddenly your seeing speeds of only a few Mbps! Where did the other 90 something megabit? Never forget that maximum theoretical speeds are pretty useless in the real world. Japan's NTT breaks fibre optic data speed record setting a maximum throughput rate of 1 Pbps or 125,000,000 Mbps.

Finally, the faster the highway, the closer you need to be to its entrance in order to use it. Don't forget that obstructions like walls etc will essentially move you further away from the entrance and force you to use a highway with less lanes and a lower speed limit.

This is what a Wireless NBN would probably look like if some have their way

Figure 12 in Broadband Facts, Fiction and Urban Myths shows fibre capable of speeds 10,000 times greater than the entire radio spectrum. What the graph doesn't tell you is that speed can be allocated to a single user. Imagine having a highway that's completely dedicated to you and only you and now your starting to see the power of fibre.

As we move closer towards an "internet of things" where more things are connected to the internet, it's likely we'll still see congestion and interference. Also, with relatively low bandwidth quotas, and quite expensive rates if you exceed them, I'm not confident it will be the silver bullet for those who champion wireless as the technology of the future.

Stay Tuned For Part 2...