NBN – What is it all about? (Part 2)

Having understood a little about the history that has affected some of the political decisions that got us to 2009 we can now look at why we need the NBN and what it will do for us as users and owners.

Lets start by understanding some of the terminology and the technology,

Broadband is really any data service that is not dialup, back in the pre Internet days it really referred to data services that were at least 2mb, these days we are a bit more loose in the definition.

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) has been around in different forms for many years, it is designed to get more data through copper lines. Traditional technologies really struggle to get high speeds over copper but DSL can achieve speeds over 8Mb.

ADSL The most common form of DSL is ADSL, the A stands for Asymmetrical, this means that the data in one direction can go faster than the other. Usually the download stream is much faster than the upload stream, an example would be 1.5mb down and 256kb up. This is usually ok when you use the internet to get information but when you need to send information it can be a limitation.

So, DSL uses the cooper network which is almost totally owned by Telstra!

Also, the copper network is aging. This older cable that has been in the ground for many years cannot perform at the same quality as newer cables, the insulation breaks down, it has more noise and poor performance.

DSL also has other limitations, it does not perform well over longer distances, the further you are from the telephone exchange the slower it will go. At about 5km it just doesn’t work at all. The more people using it also limits it’s performance, the more services in a cable group creates more noise and more noise means less distance and less speed.

The other problem is that there has been such an increase in demand for data services that not all the exchanges or housing estates have enough capacity for everyone to have a service. Even suburban areas in our biggest cities have limited access to DSL.

Hopefully you are starting to see that DSL/copper based services are an older technology with a limited lifespan.

What about wireless I hear you say?

Wireless is good but again has limitations, price for one. It costs more to have wireless and wireless is also limited by bandwidth and speed. Wireless is also impacted by noise & atmospheric conditions. 

Don’t get me wrong, wireless has a part to play, it is great for places that cannot get fibre and it is the only mobile solution. It is not as effective and does not have the same future capability of fibre.

So, getting back to DSL. 

We have a technology to deliver the services that is limited in it’s future potential, we have a large organisation that has a virtual monopoly over access to the underlying infrastructure and we have no commercial desire to resolve the gap between those that have good service and those that have none.

Enter the Governments solution, "Build an NBN", negotiate with Telstra to retire the copper network and effectively remove the monopoly from Telstra and put it in NBN Co. 

Why is this better? 

Because NBN Co has no retail operation and will encourage competition not try to reduce it! More competition means better services and lower prices.

So, the NBN became the way the government could fix the competition issues created 30 years ago as well as get the development of the Information Technology Infrastructure across Australia moving again.

Why do we want higher speed broadband service…Part 3 coming up soon