The Federal Opposition says it does not expect to pay Telstra for access to parts of its copper network but the telco may be contracted for maintenance under its broadband internet plan.

Yesterday the Coalition released details on its $29.5 billion plan to build the national broadband network, which would cost less than Labor's NBN, but deliver slower speeds.

Instead of rolling out fibre optic cable directly to people's homes, it would build neighbourhood nodes connected with fibre, with houses using the existing copper network to link to the nodes.

The Opposition expects its network to deliver speeds of 25 megabits per second by the end of 2016, ramping up to 50mbps by 2019.

Labor's National Broadband Network currently delivers a maximum speed of 100mpbs, but NBN Co says speeds of 1gbps (20 times faster than the Coalition's top speed) will be possible in the future.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-10/coalition-expects-telstra-to-hand-over-copper-network/4619594

The "may be contracted" to fix blah blah smells of ratbaggerry to me, because guess what? The repair of the old copper network will most likely be put to "private" tender and when your system is down, you will have 90 per cent changes to pay for the Mr Fix-it yourself... Wink wink say no more... And what they don't tell you is your chance of "traffic jam" and drop out with the copper network would increase likely like the traffic on the harbour bridge at peak hour after a tanker spill...

The NBN is smart technology.

Let's not loose this great step forward for this country...

Kick Abbott in the groin and Turnbull in the arse. He should be ashamed of his proposal... He should sack himself for this abomination...

''Don't mess with our internet'' has been the resounding message on social media since opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull announced the Coalition's alternative national broadband network policy.

A new Twitter hashtag – ''fraudband'' – is being used to aggregate mockery of the Coalition's NBN.  By Wednesday morning a new ''fraudband'' message was appearing on Twitter every minute.

The Coalition's alternative NBN will be completed two years sooner than Labor's and would cost an estimated $17 billion less but it relies on inferior (slower) copper telephone lines. Labor's network runs fibre all the way to the home for 93 per cent of Australians.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/twitterati-cry-foul-over-fraudband-20130410-2hkdq.html#ixzz2Q1MC2Tzi

The Libs also hated compulsory superannuation and long struggled against it, yet it survived Howard’s 11 year tenure as PM pretty much unscathed. Instead, the Libs made super even more favourable to the rich. If we have to have socialism, let’s at least have socialism with a decent social hierarchy embedded in it.

Now we have the NBN.

The Libs hate it – too much public money being ‘wasted’ on too many people – but what can they do. Despite its well-publicised delays, cost blow-outs and so on, the NBN remains highly popular in the electorate. It is especially popular in National Party electorates.

Broadband seems now to be up there with health and super as something most Australians seem to believe most people should have good access to no matter where they live, or how wealthy they are. We Aussies believe in freedom with a bloody strong and wide safety net.

One problem for the Libs is that their efforts at a ‘private’ solution on broadband access were tried during the Howard era and, like Shack’s health policy, it just didn’t add up. They just couldn’t get it to work. Like health for everyone, they discovered, broadband for everyone actually costs money.

Turnbull’s new broadband policy is an attempt to have an NBN by any other means.

Poor old Malcolm, usually so urbane and confident looked a little like Peter Shack yesterday — out of his depth and trying to flog a crock

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/add-the-nbn-to-medicare-and-super/

And the same goes with the carbon tax (pricing)... The Libs (conservatives) should not fiddle with it — unless they extend it more, with an intent to save the planet... Who am I KIDDING?

Exclusive

The Coalition’s national broadband network model will prove inadequate for many businesses, is poorly planned and is unlikely to be completed on time, according to NBN Co’s internal analysis for the incoming Abbott government.

Obtained by Fairfax Media, the analysis casts doubts over the timing and cost-effectiveness of the government’s proposed fibre-to-the-node model, highlighting numerous legislative, construction and technical challenges likely to blow out the Coalition’s 2016 and 2019 delivery deadlines.

The draft document also slashes revenue projections important for the project’s commercial viability by up to 30 per cent by 2021.

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/confidential-briefing-nbn-unlikely-to-meet-coalitions-deadline-20131128-hv3tp.html

The coalition has always tried to make sure the NBN did not happen... It hates anything that smells of everyone being on equal terms on the net. It does not want anything that can compete with Uncle Rupe's cable TV... Not only that, the Coalition idiots have no idea about technology — all they care about is to provide third rate equipment that would be obsolete last year at the price of tomorrow  — a bit cheaper to save three candle sticks... Many beancounters in charge of enterprises are not "entrepreneurs"... The Abbott government is full of beancounters and grandiloquent lawyers who don't understand the future as they are caught in their petty sums and elegant hubris... while twisting your proletariat nipples...

The union representing Telstra field staff estimates up to 80% of the telco's "disgraceful" copper-wire network pits have been patched together by plastic bags or ring-barked cables.

It's the very same copper network NBN Co plans to buy or lease from Telstra for the fibre-to-the-node national broadband network (NBN) being championed by the Abbott government.

"This would be a fraud on the Australian taxpayer," CEPU NSW assistant secretary Shane Murphy told a Senate hearing on the NBN in Canberra on Thursday.

Murphy said 75-80% of Telstra's copper pits were as rotten as the pictures he brought to the Senate committee, which showed the ageing network being crudely held together by ring-barked cables and covered by plastic bags in a vain attempt to keep water out.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/28/telstra-network-held-together-plastic-bags

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For the first time in a long time... I cried... I cried quietly at what the Abbott regime is doing on all fronts — damaging the good nature of this fair country... I cried because of the suffering added to by populism expediency, secrecy and especially the silliness of the Abbott regime. I cried because some good people had spent time to study and review a fairer system for education that Nazi Pyne wants to destroy in a secret fundamentalist bout of his religious misunderstandings... I cried.

I guess the Abbott regime possibly reminds my subconscious of a past I want to keep at bay but not forget, but now it is coming back to haunt me. The Nazis are back. But worse. These Canberra nazis with their Queensland colonels, have combined their idiotic ideology with the ruthlessness of  Stalin... The new laws in Queensland are pure Stalinism..  

I cried...

Lucky — at the moment there is no-one around to see my tears.... But the only way to dispel my upswell of angry tears is to tell you about it...

And yes, the bloody bunch of Telstra wires in the connection boxes in the streets are patched with plastic bags and some sticky tape. I believe that Malcolm never bothered having a look... It is infuriating... Cry, Gus, cry...