Comment by BLKNSLVR | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BLKNSLVR | Hacker News Reader

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You know not what you ask!

I didn't post what you're replying to, but I'm also an Aussie who's been reading articles about the NBN disaster for its entire duration.

Sources are difficult because the NBN has been on on-going project for over a decade now, so there's an absolute haystack to search through, and all the hay and most of the needles are strongly coloured by political ideologies.

Whirlpool has what looks like a comprehensive timeline / article here: https://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/nbn

I always found http://delimiter.com.au/ to be the best source of information around the progress (or otherwise) of the NBN. Here are a couple of semi-targeted articles that demonstrate the depth and density of this political quagmire:

http://delimiter.com.au/2013/01/17/fact-check-the-nbn-wasnt-...

http://delimiter.com.au/2013/07/19/breaking-the-rules-how-nb...

http://delimiter.com.au/2016/03/29/qa-panellists-agree-polit...

The whole issue goes back before NBNCo was created, however, to when Telstra, the government-owned monopoly infrastructure owner, was sold without being broken up into wholesale and retail arms, thus meaning their retail plans directly competed with those of their wholesale customers. The Australian Government at the time didn't see that as being a potential problem in the future, and yet here we are...

There is an interesting comparison with what could have been. When I moved to New Zealand in the early 2000s, Internet access was worse than in Australia.

“Broadband” was 256kbps ADSL at best, insanely expensive, with punitive data caps, and the monopoly telco had no interest in investing to increase service or drop prices. There were other ISPs but they had a hard time competing due to underhanded tactics by the monopolist as well as having to build out their own infrastructure entirely whereas the monopoly had inherited all its infrastructure from the taxpayer built state owned company that was privatised for a song.

Around 2007, the government removed this monopoly power and broke up the company into infrastructure and service companies, with the infrastructure company having to provide equal access to any ISPs.

Then the initiative to build fibre to the home started in 2008. Luckily, the government of the day did not compromise on the technical approach and it remained fibre to the home, not the node.

Roll forward to today, and I have gigabit fibre to my home, with no data caps, for a decent price.

There’s still a fair bit of build out to happen but the option now exists for people in most urban areas.

I've read the occasional article about the New Zealand rollout. Rest-assured, the Aussies who care about the NBN are jealous of what New Zealand now has.

It really pushes the point home about how much politics and special-interests (as opposed to real things like technical limitations) got in the way.

Now I'm angry all over again.

Thank you! I should have checked Whirlpool first, seems like the obvious place. Such a great resource in general, but that NBN wiki is very detailed. I'm lucky enough to live in an apartment with full FTTP NBN 100/40 and in a way it sucks because if I have to move the chances of me getting it again are so low.

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