Internet Australia CEO Laurie Patton, a long-time critic of the NBN and the network’s mix of technology, much of it to be delivered on an "ageing copper network", reckons Australia is being outplayed by our global competitors who are building fibre-based systems providing speeds that “cannot be matched by FTTN”.
Patton was commenting on NBNCo’s response to the latest global Internet speed report from Akamai which shows Australia now sits at 50th in the global rankings for average Internet connection speeds, with an average of 9.6Mbps for the 3rd quarter this year, a decline of 13% on the previous quarter.
“NBN says it is “building broadband across the entire nation, bringing universal connectivity to every community across the country. More than 3.6 million homes are now in the nbn footprint, which is more than one third of the country,” Patton notes.
“While NBN is right in suggesting that the Akamai report demonstrates the need for a fast broadband rollout, what it really points to is the need to build a better NBN.
{loadposition peter}“Under the current multi-technology mix (MTM) model 30-40 percent of premises will be provided with its inferior copper-wire based fibre to the node (FTTN) version, which IA argues will not meet Australia’s future needs.”
Noting NBN Co’s statement that the Akamai Report is not a measure of the NBN’s wholesale speeds, but a measure of retail broadband speeds across a range of different providers, including NBN - predominantly on ADSL lines – Patton says the wholesale speeds claimed by NBN are “largely irrelevant as they are not necessarily the speeds that will be delivered to consumers”.
“What counts is what you pay for and what you get,” Patton counters, repeating his constant call that it’s time for the Government to “bite the bullet and allow NBN to dump its copper wire (FTTN) rollout in favour of a return to fibre and a 21st Century, future-proofed broadband network”.
“NBN has recently conceded that the Optus Pay TV cables are unusable and announced that they will instead deploy fibre to the driveway – otherwise known as fibre to the distribution point (FTTdp) or fibre to the kerb.,” Patton says.
“If FTTN is not considered good enough for the people who were to get the NBN via Optus cables how can it be good enough for anyone else?”
“It all amounts to millions of NBN customers with an inferior service that will eventually need to be replaced and a big bunch of very unhappy consumers who will soon discover that compared to those on full-fibre (FTTP), or even FTTdp, they have been consigned to a broadband ghetto”.