[LINK] A national broadband network?

[Martin Barry]

$quoted_author = "stephen at melbpc.org.au" ;
> 
> All over the net today .. "In all, about 18,000 homes now have access to
> the NBN, but only about 2,000 paying subscribers have been registered by
> the NBN Co, making for an 11 per cent connection rate." 

Is that 18,000 homes passed or 18,000 physically connected?

And I presume the 2,000 is those with active services running over the NBN.

I actually think that number is high given where the NBN is up to. That
number represents people who have actively churned to a service provided
over the NBN. They've gone out of their way to make that happen.

A lot of the other homes will just wait till their service provider churns
them onto a service over the NBN. Telstra itself said that could take up to
2 years from when the NBN is switched on in a particular area. And other
providers will be on notice from Telstra that the copper will be
decommissioned by a particular date so they will churn on roughly the same
timeline.


> Surely, with an 11 per cent network connection rate the NBN can hardly
> be called a national broadband network, which must include actual take
> up, and utilization, to be correctly termed any computer etc network.

You are taking a name a bit too literally. But give it a chance, we're in
year 2 of 10-12 year project.

 
> Seems to me that ongoing usage costs must be the problem? 

Eh? Most of the plans are comparable to existing plans. You need to be
comparing someone's existing spend over the copper (e.g. line rental + phone
calls + ADSL service) with the NBN service (which includes most or all of
those into a single charge)


> Whatever, at this rate, it's a dud. And, something needs to be done.
> Quickly. Hence though a firm supporter roll-on any and all competing net
> technologies.

Let's wait a little longer before calling the undertaker.

cheers
Marty