"One day a rooster, the next day a feather duster!"
By LAURIE PATTON | 23 September 2020
This week’s capitulation – that’s what it is – by communications minister Paul Fletcher sets us on a course that hopefully will see Australia start moving in the right direction again as we head further into a digitally-enabled future. It’s a welcomed move, but we’d be wise to take a close look at the detail in his National Press Club address before getting too excited.
Continue reading “NBN glass still only half full”By LAURIE PATTON | 2 January 2020
A report released by communications minister Paul Fletcher has confirmed that so-called ‘Internet piracy’ declined dramatically following the arrival of Netflix and other online streaming services – debunking the need for ‘site-blocking’ laws controversially introduced following a well-funded lobbying effort by local representatives of the Hollywood studios. In the same week NBN Co announced it is cutting in half its pricing for new connections to encourage reluctant consumers to sign up to its troubled broadband service.
What these two incidents suggest is we need politicians to engage more with industry experts when making technology-related policy decisions. We also need IT / telecommunications groups to do more to ensure the government of the day is well advised. And we need more mainstream media focus on keeping everyone better informed.
Continue reading “My New Year’s wish — more collaborative technology policy development”
By LAURIE PATTON | 20 October 2019
To quote veteran IT journalist Sam Varghese, “NBN Co’s latest attempt to put lipstick on a pig – the animal in this case being the network it is building and the make-up in question being speed – goes one step further than the ‘alternative facts’ which its former chief executive, Bill Morrow, used to dish out”.
The spin doctors at NBN Co are understandably annoyed at media reports reminding people that Australia has dropped from 30th to around 60th in global broadband speed rankings. So they came up with a novel solution. They made up their own numbers. The trouble is nobody in the IT world seems to believe them.
Continue reading “More broadband porkies — buying an NBN pig in a poke”
By LAURIE PATTON | 6 January 2019
2019 is shaping up as the year we’ll be forced to face the fact we are building a National Broadband Network that simply isn’t good enough. It’s also the year our major telcos will start rolling out their capital-intensive 5G mobile networks, having spent millions of dollars buying up spectrum from the federal government.
Nobody seems to have asked if we really need 5G right now. Or why Australia is rushing to be one of the first countries to adopt 5G when 4G speeds are more than most of us realistically need at the moment, or will need for some time? Too few commentators have delved into the ‘value proposition’, or asked if 5G, at least in its first iteration, will actually be all that some people are predicting.
As a nation keen to be a leader in the 21st Century’s digitally-enabled world we’d arguably be better off fixing the NBN before investing in mobile networks few in the know reckon will add much to the consumer experience.
Across the country people are coming to understand that the broadband network we are being delivered is a dud – especially in the bush!
Continue reading “My New Year’s Resolution — keep fighting for #BetterBroadband”
By LAURIE PATTON | 24 October 2018
In my opinion, the National Broadband Network rollout will not be finished until everyone has access to fast, reliable and affordable broadband. On that basis the rollout will take us well beyond the current official completion date of 2020. It looks like a lot of NBN Co customers are in for a long hard ride unless the Government instructs the board to abandon FTTN (the trouble-plagued technology using Telstra’s ageing copper wires) sooner rather than later.
NBN Co boss Steven Rue told Senate Estimates in late 2018 they are still projecting that FTTN will be used until 2040. Yet experts, including Internet Australia chair Dr Paul Brooks, say FTTN will have to be replaced within 5-10 years of completion, preferably before then.
It’s not Mr Rue’s fault of course. He has been left ‘holding the baby’ – stuck with the flawed multi-technology mix (MTM) strategy introduced by his predecessor. But in a year from now it will be his problem fair and square.
Surveys regularly show that people increasingly regard access to broadband as an ‘essential service’. Which is why it’s essential that we fix the mess NBN Co has managed to get itself into.
Continue reading “NBN: Won’t be finished on time. Simple as that!”
By LAURIE PATTON | 6 April 2018
With complaints about the NBN’s shonky and inadequate service at an all-time high, and after having made compromises that have “rolled his stomach”, NBN Co CEO Bill Morrow has decided to jump this sinking ship two years before the project’s completion.
Morrow’s tenure in charge of the operation has – to say the least – been turbulent, with the belligerent American being happy to defame and disparage his critics. So long as it’s under the cloak of Parliamentary Privilege. Continue reading “Goodbye Bill Morrow, the NBN Nero, who fiddled and raged as it buffered”
By LAURIE PATTON | 9 August 2017
The years ago, Internet Australia, the NFP peak body representing internet users, embarked on a mission to foster more informed debate about the National Broadband Network and its importance to Australia’s future. It was – and is – the view of the board and members that we need something better than a network deploying ageing copper wires. Most technology journalists already agreed with that proposition.
However, some in the mainstream media took much longer to get the message. As one of my former colleagues from Channel Seven put it, the subject amounted to a lot of “white noise“. Continue reading “Internet Australia continues to call out #NBNFail amid media attacks”
By LAURIE PATTON | 21 June 2017
Earlier in the year the head of the NBN Co, Bill Morrow, was appearing before a Senate Estimates hearing. Asked by Greens Senator Scott Ludlam about his organisation’s habit of blocking people who make unkind comments about his inferior broadband network on social media, Mr Morrow had the first of two ‘brain farts’ in which he gratuitously attacked Internet Australia.
Continue reading “NBN boss attacks Internet Australia under Parliamentary privilege”