musings of a geek - Latest Comments

Re: Remember When The Turnbull Staffer Said This?

Michael Wyres — Sun, 03 May 2015 04:24:06 -0000

No arguments from me... ;)

Re: Remember When The Turnbull Staffer Said This?

Steve Jenkin — Sun, 03 May 2015 02:59:24 -0000

Michael,

I was the 'blogger' on the receiving end of that Staffers rant.

There are three things about that incident:

- I'd requested the CVC price used in the Policy for a Copper NBN service. Not only had no other analyst bothered asking for this part of their model, no news outlet reported what had 'provoked' the outburst or followed up on what was an _extremely_ sensitive issue for the LNP.

- Turnbull or his staffer NEVER contacted me, never apologised. There was NO 'charm remediation'. Again, no news outlet or journalist followed up with this very simple check. Turnbull lied and misled, very deliberately and cynically.

- My analysis turned out to be conservative. Rather than rantings & delusional as claimed, I'd nailed their bogus numbers well before the election. They've already readjusted costings back to the same as full Fibre, while not releasing the numbers that drive this whole idea: Profit and Dividends.

The question for me over this rather unpleasant affair is the very low interest in real issues by the Mainstream Media and their rather poor and prurient interest in 'sensational' topics.

This was across _all_ Media: nobody asked the simplest of business questions about the NBN nor followed what was a very strong story lead:
a significant outburst == a very hot issue for them == strong story

The simplest question that was never asked, by the General Media, the Business Media or the publicly-funded independent arbitrator, the PBO was:
What's the Fiscal Budget Impact of the Liberal's NBN Policy vs ALP's?

It's a stunningly simple answer, requiring NO technical, accounting or economic knowledge.

It's the difference in Interest in Bonds raised for NBN Equity injection:
- LNP Policy was $29.5 billion Equity Funding, and
- ALP Policy was $30.4 billion.

This was the _total_ financial difference between the two plans, yet never appeared in any Election materials or Media reports & analysis.

The Quigley NBN Business Plan had full draw-down by 2017/8 and payback by 2027/8.

Turnbull has never given a draw-down schedule or payback date.

Because T'bull promised NBN Co would spend very close to the same budget (~$4B saved, but another $4B wasted on stranded assets) but rolled out faster, the immediate Fiscal Budget Impact would've been much higher than the full Fibre plan: more Bonds = more Interest paid.

At the end of 2013, 10-yr Bond yield was around 3.75%, now it's under 2.5%.

For the $900M difference in Public Borrowings between the Policies,
- in 2013, the WHOLE Fiscal Budget Impact of Turnbull's Policy was under $35M/year saving, and
- currently, it's around a $22M/year 'saving'.

Turnbull and his mates haven't come clean on the full project Fiscal Impact, to 2040 - he deliberately reduced Profits significantly while marginally reducing the public Equity Funding.
Profits = (Income - Expenses), which the Coalition have never addressed.

1. not only would NBN Co's revenue be 33% lower to 2021 according to Turnbull himself [his ARPU chart, misleadingly entitled "Typical Household Bill"] was $62.50/mth vs $95/mth. He's on record as claiming a 'saving' that the Coalition ARPU will be $43/mth/sub lower. An appalling grasp of business and financials. ARPU is a business _Revenue_ figure, not what any Average or Typical subscriber pays. And to make it worse, NBN Co is a wholesaler, it has NO control over what Retailers will charge end-users. Citing _any_ savings to 'users' isn't just bogus, but incorrect and deliberately misleading.

2. The total Revenue would be lower than the ARPU figure would suggest, because the number of subscribers, the 'take-up rate' _will_ be lower for the much poorer copper services. The FTTP service is 1Gbps, derated to 12/1Mbps or 25/5Mpbs, NOT a 100Mbps service.

Total subs is squeezed from two ends:
+ Low-end subscribers will be actively poached by Mobile 3G/4G Operators for whom avoiding the NBN is more profitable, and
+ High-end subs who need 100Mbps-1000Mbps, low-latency, fast upload speeds and guaranteed access rates, will find substitutes, being lost to NBN Co then, and possibly forever. The top 10%-15% of subs will generate ALL the NBN Co profits. Cutting them off is stunningly stupid, commercially.

3. Turnbull himself has stated that "Operational Expenses" (OpEx) will be higher for a Copper/Cable FTTN network than pure Fibre.

APRU is down, massively, Total Income is down more, by potentially 50%, and Operational Expenses are higher for a similar CapEx:
So how can Turnbull's bastardised NBN make a Profit, payoff the Public Equity and return Dividends? Only in Upside Down Land.

It's 'Borrowing', not not 'Debt', because the NBN Co business was judged by the ATO as an _investment_, the _only_ FedGov programme to be an Investment, not Expenditure
But you won't find that basic difference ever noted by the Coalition, ALP, the PBO or the ANAO who reviewed the PBO's reports.

Investments are different in two ways to Expenses:
- you expect to get your money back [with some Project 'Risk'] and
- you get paid _interest_ or dividends on your Equity on top of that.

These are very basic maths and concepts, seemingly too complex for the entire Australian Media and the ALP. It should've been trivial to knock over Turnbull's boozy BBQ spreadsheet.

Like Hewson's over-detailed, over-early "Fight Back" package, the Turnbull Copper NBN should've been demolished easily and quickly, becoming yet another Case Study in Political Stupidity.

That it never did is in itself what I consider to be a major story.

regards
steve jenkin

Re: Getting Melbourne Moving – Properly

Steve Jenkin — Fri, 01 May 2015 03:00:15 -0000

Michael,
I hadn't picked the problem of end-point dispersal. The London Congestion Tax seems a partial solution. The other is taking the money saved on not building EastWest Link and putting it into exactly the area you mention.

You're wrong about "100% installed base" before its useful. You don't allow convoys on every lane, only selected lanes. To drive in a convoy lane, your car needs to be fitted out. Start with just one lane. People will see the convoys bypassing them and want to join in.

Your third point I heartily agree with: reduce the car count and pollution.

Running auto-following convoys is as feasible with fully electric cars, collectively owned shared vehicles and mini-buses.

Nice segue to the NBN. Well played!
Just allowing people to work from home 1 day per week, or come in around Noon twice a week, because they have a secure home connection and can do HD Video conferencing would immediately lower road usage, congestion and pollution.

Apparently in the Wonderful World of the Climate Deniers, time wasted commuting to/from work has zero value, as does time delays for business deliveries across town in congested periods.

A real Cost Benefit Analysis would account for wasted time, pollution and poor use of capital.

Great article - hope it inspires a lot of discussion.

regards
steve

Re: Getting Melbourne Moving – Properly

Michael Wyres — Fri, 01 May 2015 02:05:48 -0000

A solution like that would also have potential, but I see a number of issues:

- first, it doesn't lower the number of cars on the road, instead it potentially increases the number. They might all get into the city faster, but then the city is clogged sooner, and they still have to find somewhere to park.

- If the government were to pay for every car to have such a system installed, it wouldn't reach its potential until every car has it. You'd only need a handful of cars without it to potentially create some chaos.

- third, we should be getting cars OFF the roads for the environmental benefits - surely that should be a priority goal too.

In the end, I agree there are many technological approaches to solving the issues of congestion - (eg: a decent NBN that allows people to work from home in more practical terms than they currently can) - which would mean not having to travel at all.

It's all something of a panacea, but unless someone opens up a massive chequebook, we have to do things one step at a time.

Re: Getting Melbourne Moving – Properly

Steve Jenkin — Fri, 01 May 2015 00:53:50 -0000

Michael,

There's an additional way to get more than 1,800 cars/hour/lane:
use technology that already exists - cruise-control with radar auto-braking.

One of the Holy Grails of automotive engineering since the mid-50's has been "self-driving cars", seen in the most recent iteration at Google.

At 80kph there's ~41m gap between cars, at 100kph, ~50m gap.

If we can close that up to a 1-2m gap using something less powerful than an iPhone, we've can run 10 car "platoons" down the freeway, especially in peak-hour. In the space of 3 cars currently, you could safely run 25 cars.

At considerably less cost than building freeways at $10-20,000 per lane/metre. It also doesn't need land resumption or on-going maintenance.

The question becomes:
- does the Govt upgrade cars for "high-speed automatic following" or do drivers pay for the conversion themselves, which would be a modest cost if thousands were done at one time. The Govt could buy the electronics & car-kits, in bulk, and give to car-owners at cost.

At $500-$1,000 at most per car, that'd be a terrific time/cost tradeoff for commuters, and most would take it. All commercial vehicles would sign-up solely because of the time savings.

Same system would work in all capital cities. No retro-fitting, no rebuilding, only some lane signage.

Where's the Govt Research programme for this?

What about The Clever Country, or are we just a Clover Country, resting on its Laurels and not trying at all?

regards
steve

Re: Essendon Go Down On Soggy Anzac Day

Pennype AJ — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 04:55:13 -0000

wet, but good players :)

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Scott Williams — Sun, 13 Jul 2014 01:47:54 -0000

You are either ignorant of how infrastructure building works, or more likely deliberately choosing to ignore to emphasise your political bias. Under Tony's plan to "build the roads of the future" it will be *many years* before a single car will drive on them. Applying your view then, all that money spent on building those roads over the next xx many years will be completely wasted because nobody can use them.
As has also been discussed in many places, wireless broadband is *NOT* the same as mobile broadband. Mobile broadband does *not* replace fixed broadband, it complements it, and wireless broadband in *not* a universal replacement for fixed broadband *because physics*.
Morrow has done *nothing* to increase anything. Take up rates have doubled because that is what they were always going to do. Not a single user has been connected to the new MTM or FTTN trials. All those take up rates have been on the Labor NBN model.

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Reg Lansfair — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 21:18:25 -0000

Learn about technology before you go on a rant. As a previous network programmer. Wireless tech can be quite limited, Message packets sent via wireless can fail at a very high rate and have to be constantly resent, with increasing uptake of wireless for everything, interference increases and fail rate will continue to be a problem. Fiber is far superior, it is important infrastructure.

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Michael Wyres — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 20:02:02 -0000

...versus ISPs being able to be selective about which areas they cover - but I do know where you're coming from :)

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Alex Moorhouse — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 19:59:39 -0000

Yeah I know its what we are working with, though it would have created competition... a large amount of POIs insures only large ISPs can enter the market because they have the capital.. sorry Im just having a whinge ;)

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Michael Wyres — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 19:55:58 -0000

One of the "C"s in "ACCC" is "competition" - 14 POIs would have decimated competition in the backhaul market. This is what we have to work with. I don't think it's the "best" outcome, but it's a "better" one...

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Alex Moorhouse — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 19:52:46 -0000

Yeah, everyone else's interests, mainly Telstra and large ISPs, not the consumer :(

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Michael Wyres — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 19:28:16 -0000

That's what they wanted. That's not what the ACCC gave them.

More POIs gives more opportunity for redundant links - consider a mesh network.

The initial design was for reasonable redundancy while still limiting costs.

Just don't forget WHY the ACCC made its ruling - to protect *everyone else's* infrastructure.

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Alex Moorhouse — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 19:24:01 -0000

Here is a quote from http://www.computerworld.co... NBNCo engineers designed an optimal architecture with two redundant POIs in each capital city and a highly resilient intrastate network with multiple redundant routes to those cities.

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Michael Wyres — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 19:22:20 -0000

Sure - I'm not disagreeing with that, and the NTDs are an interesting point.

The problem was - and the ACCC agreed - that backhaul providers would have had a great amount of investment in existing infrastructure stranded and unusable under a 14 POI model.

The other problem with low numbers of POIs is that a failed POI would have brought down a greater percentage of end users.

The CCA model would have nicely met existing infrastructure concerns versus cost. I do believe the number of POIs is too high, but this is what the ACCC has given us, so that's what they have to work with.

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Alex Moorhouse — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 18:55:33 -0000

14 new buildings may have been cheaper to build than paying Telstra access to 121 POIs forever. Business' could opt in to have a 4 port NTD installed, 99% of users are residential, remember when customers start wanting 10gbit and gpon get updated, all those NTDs that got installed are going to be thrown, better to have one port in the wall and have the customer/isp supply a 1gbit gpon router/modem.

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Michael Wyres — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 18:43:41 -0000

I've always felt the "correct" number of POIs was 66 - one for each of the 66 CCAs - which would have closely matched existing infrastructure.

Having Telstra involved *does* save money - using their pit and pipe saves digging and laying new pit and pipe for new fibre. Using their existing exchanges saves buying up land and building new "exchanges".

This is the model both plans use - except that the FTTN model continues to use a lot of copper that in some cases is decades old.

FTTN limits each premise to a single service - whereas the FTTP model allowed for four data and two voice services per fibre drop. For home users, not immediately useful, but for businesses a godsend.

FTTN removes that advantage completely because it relays on an analogue connection between the premise and the node. FTTN is not a modern solution.

Where multiple connections become useful in the home is for IPTV services, and similar "extra" services. It also allows for future innovation.

The Turbull "MTM" provides none of this.

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Alex Moorhouse — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 18:27:44 -0000

Also I might add that instead of giving Telstra 200,000 free customers on node "trials" they could have opened it to other RSPs and other local contractors to each area, I thought this whole NBN was meant to increase competition, not hand entire areas to one provider... As for speed of the entire rollout, they could have just increased that by removing the current NTD that gets installed to a single port in a wall then have the RSP/customer supply a generic GPON fibre modem/router, not only would that have saved time, but also money. Then there is the issue of the large amount of POIs, instead of 121 there could have been 14, that would be much cheaper, would have provided a backup if one POI goes down, would have increased competition because smaller businesses could have more easily created a national presence by installing their hardware in only 14 instead of 121 points, could have been completely been separated out of a Telstra exchanges by building only 14 new buildings and thus no reliance on Telstra at all.

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Alex Moorhouse — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 18:14:46 -0000

Mate the rollout speed was/is exponential, in due course it would have doubled labor or not. "Cable network that will totally abandoned in less than a decade?" Oh you must be smarter than the guys at Google rolling out fibre.....

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Michael Wyres — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 09:01:14 -0000

Sorry to disappoint you – but I published your comment, so clearly your inference that I am “ [derogatory word that you used]” in some way is clearly misguided and incorrect.

Misguided and incorrect much like your understanding of how telecommunications systems work. You should take your political hat off and assess the facts as they stand, not simply believe what Turnbull says because it suits your political beliefs.

If a wireless network is the right way to go as you claim, why is Turnbull promising to build a "cable" network of a different flavour, and not a wireless network?

Re: Turnbull Dismally Fails First NBN Test

Tom — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 08:59:57 -0000

It took Labor 5yrs to get 115k homes connected to obsolete #nbn and this [expletive deleted by mod] not once complained. Since Morrow started there has nearly been increase to double that. Furthermore, take up rates have doubled!

Turnbull has already done an outstanding work in rescuing monumental disaster. Whilst the world is seeing rapid uptake of wireless broadband due to strong consumer demand for mobile devices, Australia is wasting billions on a cable network that will be totally abandoned in less than a decade.

I know you’ll be too [derogatory word deleted by mod] to publish this but I still wanted you read it so you can get a grip with reality.

Re: What The MH370 Black Boxes Might Not Reveal

Michael Wyres — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 06:58:15 -0000

I do stand corrected - chapter 30 of Richard De Crespigny's book does detail that VH-OQA had the ability to record 2 hours on the CVR.

Quote: "Because the cockpit voice recorder only records the last two hours of a flight finishing when the last engine shuts down. Your Engine 1 didn't shut down until three hours and 39 minutes after you had landed, so the voice recorder kept recording, overwriting your flight audio with the last two hours of ground audio."

The accident aircraft - (9M-MRO) - was manufactured in 2002, and is therefore around five years older than VH-OQA, and likely still had the more traditional "30 minute" recorder.

Of course, as you say...either length of time is moot, if MH370 carried on for 6 to 7 hours as is believed.

Re: What The MH370 Black Boxes Might Not Reveal

supine — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 05:57:36 -0000

I concur that there might not be valuable CVR because of the time elapsed from "disappearance" to "crash" but I think your "30 minutes" is a bit out of date. My understanding was QF32 CVR had 2 hours in it's memory but a combination of the time spent in the air post explosion and then the inability to shut down one engine which continued to provide power to the CVR which kept running, overwriting recordings from earlier in the incident.

The FDR should have the entire flight on there and, depending what it can reveal, might hold the only clues the investigators get.

Re: Geelong Council Fibbing Over GST?

Thomas Baxter — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 04:50:47 -0000

There have been a raft of ATO rulings for NSW councils about what Council functions and services have GST implications or not (including GST on waste management) - maybe similar rulings have been made for Victorian Councils

Re: Funny Smell Over NBN Co Board Resignations

Michael Wyres — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:28:40 -0000

More importantly, the updated NBN Co business plan has been leaked, and it shows - (surprise, surprise) - that the NBN is broadly 'on track':

http://www.theage.com.au/it...