This was to be a great infrastructure. National broadband services to every home and business in Australia. Originally proposed by the Rudd-Gillard government in 2010 it was eventually commenced with promises of 100 Mbit / sec to increase to 1Gbit / s. While the Rudd government had proposed a modern optical fiber telecommunications network to provide it to 93% of population but it was later changed to copper to the node.
It became a major factor in the 2013 election. Both Tony Abbott, the then leader of the opposition, and Malcolm Turnbull, who was the shadow minister for communications and broadband, combined to state that in government they would abolish the NBN. They later changed this to being agnostic towards it, which happened in 2012.
When Abbott was elected in 2013 fiber was allowed only to those areas already being worked on. Then they paused new developments. As Minister of Communications Turnbull formed a number of committees to discuss future directions. The public were kept on tender-hooks waiting for an outcome.
The Minister invested in copper and implemented the multi-technological mx (MTM). He promised earlier delivery than was previously promised along with significant savings. The adopted change saw an adoption of the mixed copper-optical technology with fiber to the node (FTTN)
The sabotage of the system has seen that it is so flawed that complaints about non-delivery of services is plaguing the telecom and ISP providers. Telstra is the owner of all telephone exchanges throughout Australia, so it is the main port of call for disgruntled purchasers of the NBN. Instead of a first-rate Internet service we have ended up with a totally flawed second-rate one that is far from serviceable.
What can be done about it? Nothing, is the word from the Labor Party, who first began to lay out the NBN. The CEO of the network admitted that 15% of it customers are receiving an inferior service. Some ISP's are sticking to the VDSL connection, which is what I have. It is fast, efficient, and reliable.
So what did the Australian public get from Turnbull and Abbott? That is something for voters to decide at the next election, which may be sooner than later. The lies told by these politicians has really hurt the country. They still get paid but we, the Internet users, are the poorer for their presence.
