“There has not been a delay of the NBN… Because of Malcolm Turnbull’s management of the NBN, it will all be finished by 2020, not 2024 as Labor was promising, with speeds that people want and need.”
These are the words of Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Christopher Pyne during this week’s episode of Q&A on the ABC. Was Christopher Pyne right to say there has been no delay? We take a look at the facts…
Picture by Kenny Holston
The election campaign has brought national broadband network policy back into the spotlight, particularly as the incumbent prime minister was responsible for the National Broadband Network (NBN) in his previous role as communications minister.
Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Christopher Pyne told Q&A there has not been a delay of the NBN. Is that right?
2013: the year of election promises and reviews
As acknowledged in this Coalition document, the previous Labor government promised to deliver an NBN by a deadline of 2021 (not 2024 as Pyne stated on Q&A).
Prior to the 2013 federal election, the nbn co under the then-Labor government said it planned to deliver a predominantly fibre to the premises (FTTP) network by 2021.
But there were delays in negotiating with Telstra for access to ducts and pits, the discovery of asbestos in some of Telstra’s network, and other teething problems.
In their 2013 pre-election promises, the Coalition said its goal was to provide everyone in the nation with access to broadband with download data rates of between 25 and 100 megabits per second by the year 2016. They also planned to deliver between 50 and 100 megabits per second by the end of 2019 to 90% of the fixed line footprint. That election commitment, the Coalition said, “assumes the current NBN Co satellite and fixed wireless networks are deployed on schedule.”
But after the election, the Coalition’s dropped its promise to deliver 25 to 100 megabits per second to everyone in the nation by 2016.
Then communications minister Malcolm Turnbull said that a December 2013 Strategic Review of the NBN commissioned by the new government had found that
the NBN is in a fundamentally worse position than the Labor Government at any time disclosed to Parliament or the Australian public.
The strategic review also said that Labor’s NBN would not have been completed until 2024.
2015: New plans
In 2015, the nbn co issued its 2016 corporate plan.
In this document, the company now estimated that Labor’s plan for
an all-FTTP fixed line rollout could be completed by 2026 but possibly as late as 2028.
However, this revised estimate has been challenged by former nbn co CEO, Mike Quigley, who said in a 2015 article that
For that to be correct, one has to assume that for the next 13 years, nbn co will roll out just 12,300 premises per week on average. Fewer premises than it regularly passes each week today… It is almost certainly true that an all-FTTP NBN would take longer to complete than its inferior MTM counterpart [the Multi-Technology Mix proposed by the Coalition]. But it would likely only be longer by one to three years.
In late 2015, an nbn co spokesman was reported as saying that the company had
deliberately chosen to take a more gradual approach to [fibre to the node or FTTN] activations than was originally flagged.
The 2016 leaks
Early in 2016, internal nbn co documents were leaked to the media.
These and other leaked documents – which were at the centre of a recent Australian Federal Police raid on a Labor offices and a staffer’s home in an effort to find the leaker – were reported as showing bottlenecks and delays in the fibre to the node (FTTN) and hybrid fibre coax (HFC) components of the NBN rollout.
In response, nbn co said:
NBN has met or exceeded every key target for six quarters in a row.
Current nbn co chair Ziggy Switkowski wrote on May 28, 2016 that
The company will meet its targets for the ninth quarter in a row… There are no “cost blowouts” or “rollout delays” to the publicly released plans.
It’s beyond the scope of FactCheck to say with any certainty whether the leaked documents accurately reflect the full picture.
It’s important to note that as any technical and other teething problems are resolved, nbn co should be able to ramp up the roll-out rate to improve its chances of meeting a 2020 completion project date.
Internet access speeds around the world are growing rapidly, and this growth is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Australia’s internet speeds are slow compared to other developed countries.
Infographic: How fast is the NBN?
Verdict
Christopher Pyne’s assertion that there have been “no delays” in the implementation of the NBN is inaccurate. Some delays occurred under the Labor government, and the early stages of the FTTN rollout under the current government have been slower than the Coalition originally envisaged.
Leaked documents and reported statements by an nbn co spokesperson also suggest delays occurred under the Coalition government. However, nbn co rejects that, saying it has met or exceeded its key targets.
Labor promised a completion date of 2021, not 2024 as Pyne said. It was the December 2013 Strategic Review of the NBN commissioned by the Coalition government that said Labor’s NBN would not have been completed until 2024. – Rod Tucker
Review
This article is factual and correct. As stated in the article, delays in the nbn co’s roll out is also self evident by comparing the original deployment date promises made before the 2013 federal election with the the revised schedule outlined in the December 2013 strategic review of the NBN, initiated by the Coalition government. – Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas
Rod Tucker, Laureate Emeritus Professor, University of Melbourne
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Comments
12 responses to “Is The NBN Hopelessly Late Or Right On Schedule?”
Yeah, it’s pretty easy to beat a deadline if you decide to only do half the job.
The whole thing has turned into a political football which generally means that whoever is in power blames the other side of gov’t for its failings.
For the Australian People, the NBN will be a lose-lose situation, having been white-anted to death by both sides.
When the plan stated the connection of 100% to 25 Mbps or better by 2016, its behind. That was what was promised, or near enough, and thats what hasnt been delivered.
So why should we believe they will be able to deliver the rest of their promises of 2020, and so on? Their entire plan was based on hype and hope, and has needed drastic changes, most of which have kept delaying the project even more.
And all it would take for people to not care is to remove FttN from the equation, and replace it with a middle ground like FTTdp. Yet even that olive branch is too hard to give up in favor of political ideology.
Meanwhile my grandfathers internet is so terrible he can barely download emails without timing out. He tries to blame everyone he can because it’s frustrating, but as a staunch Liberal supporter doesn’t want to see where he should lay the blame for his suburb being removed from the rollout map….
We were originally told that the NBN would reach our district sometime later this century. Since then there has been a change in government. Last month we were advised the NBN was available in our area and did we want to sign up. We get connected tomorrow — yay!!!
Is our change in fortune linked to the change in government? I can’t say for sure, but I reckon if the Honourable Senator Stephen Conroy were still in charge we wouldn’t be celebrating for many years to come.
The FTTN network which is currently under construction is the PINK BATTS on steroids .This will go down in history as the biggest waste of money this country will ever see.
FTTP was the only way to move forward, what a wasted Opportunity .FTTN cannot and will not deliver the speeds required for the future.
You may be celebrating now but wait till your FTTN Node is at full capacity and your back to ADSL2 speeds its happening as we speak.
I found a “NBN coming to your are soon” card in my letter box in March. No sign of any activity in town so far. Is NBN behind schedule, you bet it is
I got that letter about 6-9 months before it became available. I watched http://www.nbnco.com.au and http://www.mynbn.info very closely. As soon as the status changed, I called an independent ISP (they will work harder to get your business). I called them once a week and told them that my area had just gone live and could they try to make an installation booking, and on the third week, they said my installation booking was successful (with NBNco). When the NBN guy came out to hook me up, he actually said he didn’t know how I knew I could be connected. I just shrugged and said I looked on the net.
Although I am still very happy with my independent ISP (www.skymesh.com.au) a year later, I suggest hooking up using a non-contract plan so you can switch if you are unhappy.
Why.. is the photo of three US Army engineers ?
And not a hi-vis jacket in sight. OH&S will be around very soon.
No hiding from google image search 🙂
I can’t speak for everywhere but my area was scheduled to start after the last election as it was running slightly late. Then the liberals came in and we have been removed from the nbn co website ever since so 3 years?
Ziggy Switkowski was the CEO of Telstra, no improvement there, more the opposite and now he is CEO of the NBN … and incompetence rules supreme from every angle when no-hopers and politicians control expensive projects and purchases.
What makes the situations worse is that the general public keep voting for these unqualified cretins.