Convincing the wider tech community that the the FTTN NBN is a bad idea isn’t exactly a hard task as anyone who’s worked in technology understands the fundamental benefits of a primarily fibre network over one that’s copper. Indeed even non-technical users of Australia’s current broadband network are predominately in favour of the fully fibre solution knowing that it will lead to a better, more reliable service than anything the copper network can deliver. The was a glimmer of hope back in September when Turnbull commissioned NBNco to do a full report on the current rollout and how that would compare to his FTTN solution however his reaction to a recent NBNco report seems to show otherwise.
The document in question is a report that NBNCo prepared during the caretaker period that all government departments enter prior to an election. The content of the document has been rather devastating to the Coalition’s stance that FTTN can be delivered faster and cheaper with NBNCo stating in no uncertain terms that they would not be able to meet the deadlines promised before the election. Additionally many of the fundamental problems with the FTTN solution were also highlighted which should be a very clear signal to Turnbull that his solution is simply not tenable, at least in its current form.
However Turnbull has done as much as he can to discredit this report, taking the stance that it was heavily outdated and written over 6 months ago. However this is clearly not the case as there’s ample evidence that it was written recently, even if it was during the recent caretaker period (where, you could potentially argue, that NBNCo was still under the influence of Labor). In all honesty though the time at which it was written is largely irrelevant as the criticisms of it have been echoed by myself and other IT pundits for as long as the Coalition has spruiked their FTTN policy.
Worse still the official NBNCo report, which Turnbull has previously stated he’ll bind himself to, was provided to him almost 2 weeks ago and hasn’t seen the light of day since. It was even brought up during question time during a recent sitting of parliament and Turnbull was defiant in his stance to not release it. We’ll hopefully be getting some insight into what the report actually contains tomorrow as a redacted version of the report will be made available to some journalists. For someone who wanted a lot more transparency from NBNCo he is being awfully hypocritical as, if he was right about FTTN being cheaper and faster to implement, would have supported that view. The good money is then on the fact that the report is far more damning about the Coalition’s policy than Turnbull had hoped it’d be.
If Turnbull wants to keep any shred of creditability with the technically inclined voters he’s going to have to fess up sooner or later that the Coalition’s policy was a non-starter and pursuing the FTTP solution is the right way to go. Heck he doesn’t even have to do the former if he doesn’t want to but putting his stamp on the FTTP NBN would go a long way to undoing the damage to his reputation as the head of technology for Australia. I guess we’ll know more about why he’s acting the way he is tomorrow.
