That is the $1000 question. IMO the min they can reasonably offer with their slowest plan (25Mb/s by the sounds) is 50GB. Anything less isn't enough. For the 100Mb/s plans there should be 500GB+ DOWNLOAD usage at the bare min (uploads should always remain free as they are currently with good plans).

Really though, there should be no usage limit at all. All plans should be unlimited with the price based solely on speed, especially for business plans.

I don't think that is correct but I don't have time at the moment to find the definite answer.

Yeh I'm not sure it will be either. That is how we get do it (get rorted) currently with Telstra's copper network, does not at all mean it will be the same on the NBN.

There has to be an ISP in the mix somewhere, they wont just send them all out of business.

The govt has effectively recreated the old Telstra monopoly, thats why they want to split the company into retail and wholesale.

There doesn't need to be ISPs. The 'NBN Co' could be the only ISP. There almost defiantly will be wholesale ISPs, but regardless that "cost to consumer $50-60" means exactly that - cost to consumer - not cost to wholesale ISP + their profit on top. Anyway that is just an estimate so we will have to wait and see.



Nay, they are recreating a new TELECOM!

It will be $50-60 for a connection to the NBN (they haven't said what speed that is) and ISP costs on top of that.

This is from the Transact web site.



at the moment with Grapevine its about $90 for 160GB (100 off peak) + Transact costs for fibre to the home (100mg speed is about $140 a month).

Needless to say it's not very popular.

Yeh I understand that, we looked at getting it at one stage a few years ago but already had Foxtel and ADSL and decided it wasn't worth it.

The difference with Transact is that you also get their pay tv service (and phone too as far as I can tell) as part of their fiber service (http://tranact.rtrk.com.au/?scid=50748& ... 4430858018).

There are cheaper ways of getting pay tv

It's all good, nothing happening for 10 years anyway so I guess we'll see, could become bigger than the Dugan re-signing thread....

It could even top the Carney thread by the time it is done

Would be interesting to hear from any Raiders fans who live in Tassie (do we have any on here?) about the NBN as they will actually have finished there rather soon.

Just found this: http://www.nbn.icn.org.au/

Looks like the Gov is already hiring in Tas.

Exetel announced their prices for the NBN in Tasmania.

$1 per Gig, plus a monthly amount depending on speed.

$0 - 25Mbp/s
$15 - 50Mbp/s
$25 - 100Mbp/s

Apparently, low end users currently subsidize the bandwidth hogs that take like 200 Gigs a month... and Exetel doesn't want bandwidth hogs on their NBN so they can offer affordable prices to everybody else.

Seems like a damn good deal, if it ends up in Canberra I'll definitely be getting the 25Mbp/s plan, super fast Internet for like $10 a month.

And now Telstra are on board for those who missed it

http://www.smh.com.au/business/telstra-signs-transfer-deal-20100620-yosf.html

Woo hoo, the taxpayer is paying a taxpayer owned company to establish a taxpayer owned monopoly that will produce zero competition for broadband and result in sky high prices.

How so? NBN Co will still own the fibre network and be wholesaling to all the telcos right?

What's the better alternative?

Yep, they will wholesale to all the Telco's at whatever price they choose, just like Telstra used do now.

The difference is the taxpayer is paying $48bn to set up NBN Co, who just paid $9bn to Telstra to buy the taxpayer funded infrastructure that Telstra owns.



This bit is just strange, I am not sure why Telstra is being compensated for this ?

You may have missed that Telstra isn't still fully taxpayer funded. The government got a lot of money selling that infrastructure they funded.

A return to a fully taxpayer owned network should ensure the internet prices are reasonable until a government decides to sell it




Telstra is being compensated for that because if they sat on their hands and did nothing they can still make profits out of the shitty old network. If they're to give up their infrastructure and profits then obviously they need some form of incentive.

Bloody hell that is cheap.

Read the thread a bit closer..

Well there's a surprise, its now almost a trillion dollars with 50% take up in tassie where they are just about giving it away for free


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... 968355.htm

It's some expert who said these projects tend to blow out 50 to 100 per cent. Absolutely nothing concrete about it now costing the trillion dollars.

'I'm no Bill Gates': Abbott stumbles on broadband plan

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has struggled to explain the basics of his broadband policy, saying he is not a ''tech head''.

Mr Abbott was conspicuously absent when his colleagues, communications spokesman Tony Smith and finance spokesman Andrew Robb, yesterday unveiled the coalition's $6 billion broadband plan.

It guarantees minimum broadband speeds of 12 mega bits per second (mbps) for 97 per cent of homes, while Labor's national broadband network promises 100mbps to 99 per cent of households.

Mr Abbott was later quizzed on how many towers the opposition would have to build to implement the plan, how many kilometres of fibre would be required to connect them, and what spectrum would be used to deliver the network.

''I'm no Bill Gates here and I don't claim to be any kind of tech head,'' he told the ABC's 7.30 Report presenter, Kerry O'Brien.

Mr Abbott also drew blanks on what his broadband network's peak speed of 12mbps actually meant.

''Again, if you are going to get me into a technical argument, I'm going to lose it because I am not a tech head,'' he said.

''We are offering 12 and up ... but in the vast majority of cases it will be a lot more than that, a lot faster than that.''

Peak speed is the best speed at which internet users can download material, usually when there are fewer people online, for example at midnight. When there is lots of online traffic, download speeds slow.

Mr Abbott said Mr Smith and Mr Robb were more adept at fielding technical questions than he was.

''I do not have the same level of technical competence in this area that they have,'' he said.

Mr Abbott said the coalition would deliver a ''good'' broadband scheme that was quicker and cheaper than Labor's offering.

The government's campaign spokesman, Chris Bowen, lampooned Mr Abbott's performance, saying: "He didn’t seem embarrassed by the fact that he doesn’t understand it.’’

Mr Bowen said a leader did not need to be across all details of all policies, but broadband was a major issue. ‘‘When your party is releasing a major policy in a major area of difference about an important piece of economic infrastructure, then you do need to be across it,’’ he said.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/ ... 11yi8.html

No **** you're not Gates, Abbott you dunce.

This new plan by the Libs is such a shocking waste of money. If you are going to do a job then do it right! Stuffing round with the old copper network and whacking up more mobile towers isn't going to get us anywhere.

I'll tell you what his peak 12Mb/s means. It means that you could, in theory, get 12Mb/s on his wireless network. You won't though. The more people that use the same mobile tower the less signal there is for everyone, the chances of getting the max speed is next to nothing.

Abbott's plan is a bandaid fix for something that they had the chance to fix properly while they were in gov for 11 years. It is a massive waste of money on something that won't fix the problem.

Where are the Nationals sticking up for the 1000 odd regional areas that will be left with substandard broadband under Abbott's plan?



Conroy isn't much better and shouldn't be in charge of the NBN, but I have got to back him 100% on this one.

Abbott has no idea.

tbh the attacking the man that labor is doing is petulant, the guy said he doesnt know the technical side of things and has let others take control of that area. Trying to then grill him for not being across the details is imo disgusting and will lose labor votes.

On a more positive note for labor there positive message ad last night i was impressed by, and there promise to upgrade the rail link in sydney. Unfortunately labors history regarding rail and transport in sydney has been disappointing to say the least.

Shadow Boxer.... How can NBN cost a Trillion dollars?

NBN - 43 Billion
1 Trillion Dollars = 1000 Billion

Geez mate.

With Labours track record of blowouts, rorting and needing to spend fortunes to fix their stuff ups anythings possible

I gaurantee it will be a lot more than $43 billion, but a trillion is going a bit far, my guess is closer to $100bil looking at their track record

Shouldn't this question be answered before committing to so much money?

yeh I know, sorry, nobody else picked up my mistake though I was going for a $100bn

To put that money in perspective it took $35bn to build a space shuttle and put it into space.

I'm less opposed to it since they announced Gungahlin is next on the list for the NBN. Then again i'm easily bought

Yep im predicting this NBN to cost $80bn+ under a Labor govt..... will we ever pay back the debt ?

Didn't it take $35 Billion to build a space shuttle and get it to it's first flight.... in 1981? You can't compare dollar amounts between two period 19 years apart.

But you're right. It will blow out. All massive infrastructure projects do. I think it will be closer to 60 Billion. Still, we will eventually need it and no way will the private sector build a network that good. Cop it on the chin now and get the benefits of it sooner.



Where is the urgency to pay off our debt? We are in a very strong position to service such a small public debt (it will PEAK at only 6% of our GDP). Rushing to pay it off at the expense of infrastructure, health and education is like starving yourself in the dark to pay off your home loan quicker.

Don't be ignorant.

Ok sick of hearing it's such a small debt, maybe compared to countries whose economies are totally screwed up, but how does this debt rate to others in AUSTRALIAS history?

Having large debt means you pay more interest meaning money is being wasted, and how close are we to losing our AAA credit rating, I know when Labour lost Qlds AAA credit rating the interest rwpayments went through the roof. Less money for the essentials due to more being spent repaying interest.

For those that defend a large debt, how much interest is Australia paying daily?

They're now saying the NBN will be 10 times faster than expected, speeds of up to 1 Gbp/s

It sounds pretty impressive, but the faster these things get the less you notice the difference... and how many web and download hosting servers can transmit data to you at 1 Gbp/s? I don't think people are going to see those kinds of speeds in actuality, our super fast connections might be capable of receiving that much, but it sounds like there's going to be a bottleneck in terms of what speed the data can be 'sent' to us from overseas servers.

The only use I can think of for speeds that fast is downloading several large files simultaneously, who really needs 1 Gbp/s?

I'll be shocked if anybody can max out their connection without intentionally trying to do so.

Especially from overseas sites.

theres some pricing here

http://www.internode.on.net/residential ... s/#ShowAlt

It's actually not bad if they can keep it that low, shaping to 128k seems harsh though

Still more than I'm paying, and I go over the 100gig every month, with increased speed we'll need a lot more cap, too easy to go through unexpectedly

I really do hope either the prices or the download limits would get reworked.

I only have ADSL with Optus and can download 150Gb a month now before being shaped, and that only costs $50 a month. And i regularly go over that limit. I couldn't even think of how much i would download at those speeds though.

And i think that's the problem is that these great new uses we can imagine up for the super high speed connection, wont mean much to the average joe as their speeds will be shaped dramatically in no time at all.

Mate our Federal Government's AAA rating is no way in threat. Not even close. QLD State Labor is ****, I admit that. But still, demand for QLD Govt Bond's is still incredibly high because we're nowhere near the ****. To think we'd default up here is absurd.

Our debt is lower now than what it would have been without Labor. Let me explain.

No stimulus = much less economic activity

This would have meant more unemployed and massive reductions in company and individual tax revenues in the building sector.

Because the Liberal Government from 96 to 07 left NO shovel ready projects in the pipeline (a massive infrastructure project takes up to 5 years of pre-planning and feasibility) we had to support that sector through the BER.

Had there been no BER, we'd have had MUCH lower tax revenue from that sector and we'd have had to support more workers on the Dole. It also would have also dampened market confidence if the economy had contracted, further hardening the arteries of our financial system. It would have been a snowball effect had we seen negative growth figures.

Because we're now growing at about 2.75%, the fiscal outlook over the next few budget cycles is much healthier than it would have been had we had the old Liberal Neo-classicals in there, pinning their hopes on tax cuts to big business and praying for the "trickle down" effect. Tax cuts are a lagging influence, which is why money needed to be pumped directly into the arteries of the economy in its weakest sectors (retail and construction). Because of short term debt, our long term outlook and forecast tax receipts are much healthier. Therefore we'll be able to pay it off quicker. ALSO, investing in infrastructure and borrowing in the short term delivers medium to long term productivity gains which add to tax reciepts in the long run from economic growth.

Our debt is pinned to the "shock absorber" effect. As the economy slows, public spending should supplement private spending until it recovers. Tax reciepts also decrease dramatically leaving shortfalls in available money. $75 Million of the alleged $100 Million being borrowed by Labor daily is simply to cover lost tax revenue from the GFC. Only $25 Million a day is stimulus and other initiatives. In growth periods, tax reciepts should outstrip expenditure because a lot of money is exchanging hands in the economy and private investment is strong.

The Howard government got 11.5 years of sustained growth, muchly due to the reforms (the 4 pillar policy) of the Hawke Keating era AND favourable economic conditions around the world. The previous Keating government had 3.5 years of strong growth leading up to the Howard years. We were already on the right growth trajectory with low inflation, a competitive financial system and an IR system based on enterprise bargaining. In such a boom period, a monkey could have paid off our national debt and delivered surpluses. The REAL shame is that much of this was pissed away in middle class welfare instead of delivering infrastructure to drive growth and productivity gains in the long term. But then again, the Libs have no concept of the world past the next election.

Without this "massive" debt we have incurred, we'd be going backwards.

Oh, a more direct answer. Treasury says the debt is managable. The RBA Govenor says the debt is "negligble". Get over it.

What do you do for a living Sossman? You seem very knowledgeable about economics.