michaelwyres.com » Newsworthy

Does Australia Really Want The NBN?

Michael Wyres — Mon, 14 May 2012 03:56:46 +0000

I love local newspapers. In many many cases, they are lovingly created by people who just want the best for their communities, and want to make sure they are informed as to the issues in their local community.

The issues that the big metropolitan newspapers don’t give a damn about; issues that are presented without the political agendas of the Fairfax’s and News Limited’s of the world.

Take for example the three-year rollout plan for the NBN, and the disappointment many communities are feeling, since finding out they aren’t in the initial plan.

No political “white elephant” rhetoric, or “biggest infrastructure project in Australia’s history” whining. Just people calling out for what they really want for their suburbs and towns.

Let see some examples of what local communities are saying about the NBN:

Moe, Victoria:

“Mr Buckley said in an interconnected municipality like Latrobe, Moe’s omission would ‘disadvantage’ the area, with ‘integrated institutions’ like Latrobe Community Health Service and the education sector unable to effectively utilise the technology across its services.”

Esperance, Western Australia:

“The Esperance Chamber of Commerce and Industry is complaining to the Prime Minister over being left out of the initial roll out of the National Broadband Network.”

Bendigo, Victoria:

“I wish to register my dismay at the federal government and its decision to exclude Eaglehawk from the NBN fibre network roll-out in Bendigo. The education and health sectors have been used in their promotion as examples of how beneficial the NBN would be. Why is my secondary college the only one to miss out?”

Berrigan/Jeriderie, New South Wales:

“‘For the Berrigan residents and business owners there were concerns that Berrigan had been left of the map – similar to what had occurred when natural gas was installed in the towns of Finley, Tocumwal and Barooga.”

Drysdale/Clifton Springs, Victoria:

“Drysdale and Clifton Springs will submit a formal request to be included in the next rollout of the national broadband network, according to a community group.”

Orange, New South Wales:

“The long wait for the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Orange may be a hurdle for establishing Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) medical school.”

Sunbury/Macedon Ranges, Victoria:

“Mayor Henry McLaughlin said he was disappointed that the shire was overlooked.”

Port Douglas, Queensland:

“Council officers have been in discussions with NBN Co. with regard to rollout in the Douglas area. While these discussions have been positive, we can’t speculate on any impending announcement by NBN Co.”

Mildura, Victoria:

“It’s extremely disappointing. I would have thought Mildura, as a major inland centre, and at a major crossroads for transport, communication and other services would have been included in this first stage.”

Heathcote/Axedale, Victoria:

“Heathcote Tourism and Development president Wayne McKay said while Heathcote and surrounding communities welcomed the news of the rollout, it was disappointing the local region would not be included.”

Dunkeld, Victoria:

“Dunkeld Primary School principal Pat Gleeson said the lack of a roll out would affect his students in the long term.”

Kimberley, Western Australia:

“I don’t know whether we’re in the mix for later, but it’s disgusting that we’ve been left off. They need to revisit what they’re doing. In our Shire, there’d be over 10,000 people and that’s Derby and Fitzroy Crossing and surrounds. It was supposed to make things faster and better.”

Casey/Cardinia, Victoria:

“I want the ministers to come and hear for themselves about what residents in Berwick, Narre Warren and right across my electorate need. Our area is one of the fastest-growing parts of Melbourne.”

So, does Australia really want the NBN?

From this cross sections of articles – (which were gathered together over only about 30 minutes of searching) – the message is loud and clear.

Yes.

When you subtract all the “tasty soundbites” from each of the government, the opposition, and the various slants of the major news outlets, and actually listen to Australians, it is wanted and it is needed.

And listening to what people want sounds like a reasonable idea to me.

Mulder Has No Interest In Where The Buck Stops

Michael Wyres — Tue, 08 May 2012 01:42:12 +0000

Late on April 30th, I finally received a response from my March 8th complaint direct to the Victorian Minister for Public Transport, Terry Mulder, about the state of infrastructure at Newport station.

I wrote about this complaint a few days later on the 14th, after failures at Newport on both days.

I might add, his response arrived just a few hours after I released another article which took a broad swipe at the minister, in which I complained about the lack of response to my initial complaint.

Coincidence much? Mind you, it’s dated six days before I received it. But anyhow.

Here is Mulder’s mostly canned response:

“Metro is currently delivering a project to increase the amount of train stabling sidings at Newport. Part of the project involves changing the junction between sidings and the main line. Work on this project can affect the reliability of signalling equipment at Newport. Metro expects to complete this project by mid 2012.”

Really? The bottom line is, this is mostly bullshit.

The project to install new stabling sidings at Newport has been going on for quite some time, and actually, appears to have been completed for some time.

Courtesy of the awesome NearMap, which records mapping and aerial photography over time, letting you go back and look at old imagery, lets see how much derp is in Mulder’s statement.

Here is the work site as it appeared on January 7th, 2010 – clearly work had not started:

Here is the work site as it appeared on February 20th, 2010 – work had started, though had not progressed very far:

Here is the work site as it appeared on April 16th, 2010 – work is moving along, mainly on the more southern of the two new stabling yards:

Here is the work site as it appeared on October 20th, 2010 – work is progressing well, and in fact, the more southern of the two new stabling yards is apparently complete, with a train shown in one of the stabling roads:

Here is the work site as it appeared on November 17th, 2011 – both the new northern and southern stabling yards are complete, with trains stabled in each:

So as of no later than November 17th, 2011 – (and earlier photos show the site apparently complete in mid-October 2011, though no trains are seen using the northern sidings until November 17th) – the project to add new sidings was complete.

Yet Mulder is saying they won’t be done until “mid-2012″. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve not seen any workmen in the area for months. The “mid-2012″ statement seems more than a stretch to me.

Also, as of January 7th, 2010, the project hadn’t started. Once again, I don’t know about anyone else, but the problems at Newport have been going on for a lot longer than this. Blaming Metro for the problems with respect to the new stabling sidings seems one hell of a cop out.

Even if the stabling project was the problem, how much confidence should we gain from the fact that six months after its completion, it is still causing major problems at this location?

Not much from me.

“To address some of the delays that affect V/Line trains in the metropolitan network, the Coalition Government is proceeding with the Regional Rail Link (RRL) project. RRL is a major new rail line that will provide capacity for enough extra trains to carry thousands more passengers across the rail network in peak periods.”

RRL is a fantastic idea, but the Coalition did not initiate it. It was one of the very few decent transport infrastructure projects initiated by the previous government. It also won’t be ready until at least late-2014, with some estimates putting it as late as early-2016.

What do we do in the interstitial four years? Just put up with all the failures? It’s not just V/Line customers getting shafted here, it is Werribee and Williamstown line Metro customers as well.

Newport NEEDS to be fixed.

Moreover, if “work on this project can affect the reliability of signalling equipment at Newport”, I would suggest that the entire stabling siding project was utterly mismanaged, and reasonable risk mitigation techniques were not used. Reasonable risk management in this instance, would ensure that this work did not affect main line operations.

So I fear for the delivery of RRL too. After all, the same people are likely involved.

“RRL will separate regional trains from metropolitan trains, giving Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat trains their own dedicated track through the suburban system from Sunshine to Southern Cross. The project will deliver improved reliability for V/Line trains on the Geelong line.”

But do nothing to help in the meantime.

Some of the management issues with the Newport project might be attributable to the previous government who initiated it – but Mulder recently stated “the buck stops with me”.

Yet here, in his weak response to a simple question, he passes the buck straight onto Metro.

You fail Terry. You fail hard.

I will be making a formal response to his feeble attempt to respond to my initial complaint – and I shall be sharing it with you all!

Andrew Laming: No Criticism Please

Michael Wyres — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 02:00:13 +0000

Federal Liberal MP Andrew Laming went on a trolling warpath earlier this month in regards to his perception that the National Broadband Network (NBN) was being rolled out in the Brisbane area on a politico-geographic agenda.

“The cold, hard reality in Brisbane is that households in Labor seats are eight times more likely to get the NBN than those in Coalition seats.”

“Worse, the odds are around 50 per cent better if your Labor MP is a minister. This is a save-the-political-furniture strategy. They are not targeting marginal seats here. They are just trying to survive.”

Of course, there are many reasons why his position was completely wrong, as I highlighted in my article last week on how the Coalition – (deliberately or otherwise) – manage to get their facts on the NBN completely wrong.

Constantly.

At the time of his rant – (spread throughout the media over several days) – myself, @CameronWatt and @Gwyntaglaw engaged in a terse dialogue on Twitter with Laming, pointing out clear, well documented facts in regards to the NBN and its rollout schedule, that were contrary to Laming’s own beliefs on the matter.

He ably demonstrated his inability to grasp even the basic concepts of how the NBN works, how it connects together, and how technical matters – (in most cases) – dictate which parts of the network are rolled out first.

He clearly didn’t like being shown up as being wrong about it.

In fact, he hated it.

How much did he hate it? Well, he blocked me on Twitter, a fact I discovered when putting together the aforementioned article last week.

The dialogue centers around this tweet, but as he has blocked me, I can’t see the entire conversation any more.

So what’s wrong Andrew? Why don’t you want to hear the facts?

Shouldn’t you be listening to the people?

Of course, all of this goes against his own “social media guide” on how a politician should be dealing with their communities on social media networks, where he declares:

“Politicians reaching out to their communities via social media should avoid getting into public slanging matches with critics.”

You got yourself into a very public slanging match on Twitter, didn’t you Andrew?

Further, he also declares that:

“…disconnecting or blocking constituents is ‘the most damaging thing a candidate can do’…”

Oh dear, really?

Politics will always come with attached criticism – that’s a given – but if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!

Especially when you break your own social media rules.

Mulder: The Buck Shoots Straight Past Me

Michael Wyres — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:30:01 +0000

Thousands of regular commuters on the Geelong line have had their travel plans massively disrupted on numerous occasions over the last couple of months, with signal and power failures shutting the line for hours at a time.

People – (quite rightly) – have been complaining long and hard about it. It is apparently news to transport minister Terry Mulder however, who hasn’t made a single statement about the fiasco.

Sorry. Fiascoes.

Ignoring the ongoing infrastructure problems at Newport Station, the first major incident was on April 2nd, when a cable cut shut the line down during the evening commute for many hours.

“The high-voltage cable, which supplies power to the signalling system, has been buried for 25 years and appeared to have suffered a break.”

“That was little comfort for the passengers who were stuck on board the trains without food, unable to get off for hours on end. Thousands of other passengers were affected when trains on the Geelong line were cancelled throughout the evening.”

Not to rest on whatever ever laurels might have been earnt that night, just over a week later, the same cable failed again, shutting the line down for almost 24 hours.

Commuters were loud in their disdain:

“The State Government need to get involved now last week we were stuck for five hours on the train, people were pushing the emergency buttons so much they ended up turning them off.”

“The lateness of the trains is an issue for me and getting into work late, they always say it’s a signal faults but I don’t know what that means.”

Of course, you would expect the opposition to jump on such a debacle, and transport spokesperson Fiona Richardson chimed in with this pearler:

“The contempt that the Liberal Government has shown to commuters on the Geelong line by failing to acknowledge that there is even a problem is disgraceful.”

Of course the problem is, the state opposition have absolutely no right to complain about the state of Victoria’s public transport infrastructure, as it was thoroughly neglected by them throughout the eleven years they were in office prior to the Baillieu Government coming to power.

Richardson’s statement is empty political rhetoric, though she is correct about one thing – the lack of comment from Mr Mulder’s office.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

As of writing, there is not a single press release on the matter on Mulder's press release website, and it has been almost a month since the first of the two major incidents on April 2nd.

Of course, the apparently crappy power cable isn’t the only ongoing issue affecting the Geelong line, and I have previously written about the obvious infrastructure issues at Newport.

As I discussed in that article from several weeks before, I sought comment from Mulder’s office about what Geelong – (and Werribee and Williamstown) – line commuters could expect to be done about this issue. The response was:

“Thank you for your email addressed to the Hon Terry Mulder MP, Minister for Public Transport and Minister for Roads, concerning the above. I wish to advise that a response will be forwarded in the near future.”

Almost two months later, and no response has been received.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

I’ve even politely reminded his office of their promise of a statement in the “near future”, to which I’ve received no response at all.

Transport failures were a major factor as to why the former Brumby Government was ousted in Victoria, with Mulder promising in opposition to fix the problems. He has even declared recently that “the buck stops” with him.

Terry, we want our dollar back, okay?

We appreciate and accept that things go wrong from time to time – but when the same things happen over and over again, and nothing ever gets done about them, and you say nothing about them, you look like an ass.

Pull your finger out of that ass and tell us what you’re going to do – at the moment your conduct is worse than the succession of ALP transport ministers that came before you.

They did nothing – but at least they told us what they wanted, but wouldn’t ultimately do for transport in Victoria.

Your silence is deafening.

Can We Have A Little Truth Please?

Michael Wyres — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 04:31:58 +0000

Whether you believe in the National Broadband Network (NBN) project or not, it is fair to say that it has created a lot of discussion and political discourse, particularly in recent months.

The Federal Opposition has vowed to stop the project should they win the 2013 Federal Election, with many seeing this as a good thing, and many seeing it as a bad thing.

They try and justify this position in many ways, mainly with “it’s too expensive”, but also with “the government are doing it wrong”, and “they are pork-barrelling” towards their own interests.

If they are going to attack the project on these factors, you’d want to hope their facts back up their case.

In recent weeks, they’ve shown that not only do their facts fall down heavily, in many instances, they don’t even know what they are talking about.

In late March, NBN Co released its three-year rollout plan for the fibre portion of the network, detailing how 3.5 million premises will have work commenced or completed in their areas over the next three years.

Inevitably, there were many people who were happy their local areas were included, and many people disappointed when their area was not included. The unfortunate fact is that with a project of this magnitude, not everyone can be first in line, and some people will have to wait.

Liberal MP Andrew Laming went on a ferocious and ill-informed rage on Twitter over the areas selected in the Brisbane region within the three-year plans. He accuses the ALP of “pork-barrelling” the rollout into ALP-held seats, commenting to The Australian newspaper:

“The cold, hard reality in Brisbane is that households in Labor seats are eight times more likely to get the NBN than those in Coalition seats. Worse, the odds are around 50 per cent better if your Labor MP is a minister. This is a save-the-political-furniture strategy. They are not targeting marginal seats here. They are just trying to survive.”

He also bleated on Twitter – amongst other ill-informed comments:

“Not just NBN pork barrelling for Labor in Qld, but the bigger Labor man you are, the more fibre you get.”

Laming accuses the government, via the NBN Co developed rollout plan, of carefully selecting Point of Interconnect (POI) locations to suit ALP political interests. At first glance, as suggested by his tweet above, that there might be some basis to such an assertion.

The problem with his assertion however, is that the Government did not choose the POI locations.

The initial plan was for 14 POIs, as supported by the government and NBN Co, but ACCC intervention eventually saw the number of POIs increased to 120, and later to 121. The ACCC also stipulated the location of the POIs, based on the existing fibre backhaul infrastructure within Australia:

“The revised list represents the agreed number and location of initial POI to the NBN. It follows a public confirmation process into the 120 initial POI that was developed by NBN Co in consultation with the ACCC and published in December last year.”

“The availability of competing fibre infrastructure was a key element of the ACCC’s competition criteria. The ACCC has therefore also released today information about the number of competing fibre infrastructure owners across the country.”

Far from pork-barrelling, the ALP had little or no influence on the chosen POI locations, as it was based on the location of existing fibre, layed out over the years, based on market needs.

The network is being built out from these logical central network locations. For the record, the POI locations in the Brisbane area are Ipswich, Woolloongabba, Goodna, Aspley, Bundamba, Camp Hill, Petrie, Slacks Creek, Salisbury, Eight Mile Plains and Chermside.

If you built in outer locations first, there would be nothing to connect those locations to. It would be like building the middle 30 kilometres of a 90 kilometre road first – those 30 kilometres would be useless, as you can’t get onto it.

Further, the majority of the metropolitan Brisbane area is covered by ALP seats, so even if you spread the rollout in a perfectly even fashion across the region, you’re still going to be covering mainly ALP-held seats.

All of Laming’s claims simply appear to be wrong and ill-considered, and made for no other reason than to create some anti-NBN noise. Others have examined the claims also, and drawn similar conclusions.

During a hearing convened by the joint parlimentary committee overseeing the rollout of the NBN on April 16th 2012, opposition communications spokesperson, Malcolm Turnbull tried to nail NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley down on the recently signed contracts to build and launch two Ka-band satellites to cover the final three percent of the population not reached by the fibre and wireless components of the network.

A somewhat tense conversation ensued between Turnbull and Quigley, in which Turnbull tried to enforce the notion that NBN Co was taking a massive risk in ordering the satellites, and thereby committing $660M towards them, without the process to confirm orbital slots for satellites being complete.

Quigley shot his arguments down at every turn, explaining that there was almost no risk at all, and that the current status of the process was quite normal three years out from a planned launch date. Even so, Turnbull tweeted a few minutes later:

“#nbn. Quigley & Gvt happy to take risk of building and launching $660 million satellites without having the orbital slot allocated.”

Quigley promptly retorted:

“Chair, I have just noticed that we have had a tweet from Mr Turnbull who says, ‘Quigley and the government happy to take risk of building and launching $660 million satellites without having the orbital slots allocated.’ I thought that, just five minutes ago, I had made it absolutely and abundantly clear that we did not say we would be launching without the orbital slots.”

In the days following, the ITU, the United Nations body tasked with the management of orbital slots also shot down Turnbull's assertion that there was a massive risk being taken:

“The ITU statement refutes utterly the suggestion that NBN Co is taking ‘highly unusual risks’ by signing contracts to build and launch satellites ‘without securing their orbital parking spots first’. Anyone suggesting otherwise either does not understand the process or is being disingenuous.”

Turnbull was just wrong, and still refuses to admit it, making even more noise about it on his personal blog, despite being shown to be completely wrong. He clearly knows very little about what he was trying to catch Quigley out on.

Of course, even Turnbull admitted as much, stating to Mr Quigley “so you know a lot more
about it than, I guess, any of the rest of us”.

At least he got that bit right.

I have recently spoken on other reasons not to believe the Coalition in regards to their position on the NBN.

They have even tried to claim that areas outside of the fibre footprint, which currently enjoy ADSL2+ speeds higher than the 12Mbps stipulated for the wireless and satellite portions of the network, would be worse off, since some people in those areas would be enjoying higher speeds on ADSL2+.

This of course is wrong too.

Turnbull in particular – as the man who would be in charge of what happens should the Coalition win the next election – should have a better idea of what he is talking about than he has been showing of late. He has copped it from many directions.

And rightly so – if you’re hoping to form the next government, it would be nice to have you know what the hell you’re on about.

Once again, the Coalition have shown that they don’t.

Who Is Spamming My Apple iTunes Email Address?

Michael Wyres — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:20:32 +0000

Spam. We all hate it.

When I created my Apple iTunes account, I created and used a specific email address – (not my main email account) – for use with the iTunes account. I have only ever provided that email address to Apple in creating that account, and dealing with Apple services.

So why has the following spam – (click image for larger view) – attempted to pass through my mail filters to this email account in recent days?

Did Apple share my email address with spammers? I would hope not, and would highly suspect this not to be the case.

Is there an app on my iPhone that has gleaned the address from the phone, and reported it back to its creators?

Far more likely.

It would be interesting to see if others have experienced the same, as it seems Apple’s application vetting process might have missed this one.

I’ll have to look into this.

Bob Baldwin: Respect Is A Load Of Rubbish

Michael Wyres — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:31:15 +0000

I found myself in a most astonishing Twitter exchange with the Federal Member for Paterson yesterday evening, Bob Baldwin. An exchange in which he asserted that “respect for people” is in fact “a load of rubbish”.

It started with Baldwin accusing @HyperBrendan of being an “ALP hack” after being called out on his position in regards to the National Broadband Network (NBN), something that Baldwin is passionately against.

Now, it’s is perfectly fine for Baldwin to be against the NBN – (after all, this is a democracy) – but labelling someone who does believe in the NBN an “ALP hack” simply for having a different view is just disrespectful.

I tried to point this out with a fairly – (at least I thought) – honest statement in regards to politicians showing respect for the public they serve. I wasn’t necessarily singling Baldwin out in my tweet, but it was his tweet that prompted mine:

“Politicians would serve themselves better to not be so disrespectful to people too, public or not!”

This seemed to get the irk of Baldwin, who labelled it a “load of rubbish“:

Apparently, the “honourable member” feels that showing respect to people is not a priority, and is in fact “rubbish”.

Say what?

There were a number of tweets fired back and forth between myself, Baldwin, HyperBrendan and @bernietb – (and a number of others who joined in) – calling him out on his declaration that showing respect was a “load of rubbish”, with the eventual retort:

“If you don’t like it, then don’t serve it. Simple as that!”

Seems Baldwin is of the opinion that we shouldn’t “serve it” if we don’t like the response, yet if he “serves it”, we should just accept it.

You know what Bob?

Respect should be a core value in our society, and you shouldn’t disrespect people and unfairly label them, just because your views are different to theirs.

Such unfettered attack comes only from those with a position of weakness.

Your behaviour last night was a disgrace – and you should be man enough to admit it.

How Does The NBN Rollout Workout?

Michael Wyres — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:16:23 +0000

With today’s release of the much anticipated NBN 3-Year Rollout Plan, there have inevitably been some people who are excited, and some who are disappointed.

While so many people would all love to be first, as reiterated by NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley at today’s announcement, it is simply not possible to build the fibre out to all twelve million locations in just three years.

Someone has to be first, and someone has to be last – an unfortunate consequence of a project of this magnitude.

But what of the areas that were announced today?

How were those boundaries defined? As someone who has worked in the telco space for many years, it is quite simple to see that they have drawn those boundaries based on existing exchange boundaries of the copper network.

This makes perfect sense.

The just completed Telstra deal allows NBN Co to use all of Telstra’s existing underground infrastructure to haul the new fibre through – logically, that means the areas are based on the old exchange boundaries, and the individual modules of the network are based on the old copper concept of the “DA”, or distribution area.

Within the copper network, a DA services about 3000 premises. Lo and behold, in NBN land, a network module services about 3000 premises. This pretty clearly defines that the fibre goes exactly where the copper is now, with very few exceptions.

In deciding where to build in any given 12 month period, it seems NBN Co are covering two existing exchange areas at a time.

For example, in my local Geelong area, there are two areas listed in the 3-year plan. The first covers:

“Bell Park, Bell Post Hill, Breakwater, Drumcondra, East Geelong, Geelong, Geelong West, Hamlyn Heights, Herne Hill, Manifold Heights, Newtown, Norlane, North Geelong, North Shore, Rippleside, South Geelong, Thomson”.

If you look at the maps of the two exchange areas – (Geelong [GEEM] and North Geelong [NGLG]) – serving those suburbs, they exactly match the above group of suburbs:

The same happens when you look at the second area to be covered:

“Batesford, Bell Post Hill, Corio, Lara, Lovely Banks, Norlane”

…and then look at the maps of those two existing exchange areas – (Corio [CORI] and Lara [LARA]):

While the southern areas of Geelong have been left out so far, if they stick to the “two exchanges areas at a time” methodology, at the next update, the adjacent Belmont [BELM] and Grovedale [GROX] exchanges are pretty likely to be included.

So if your area missed out today, take heart that if a nearby area was included today, your area is not likely to be too far behind.

There is a method in the madness. Just try and control your madness if you did miss out today.

We all want it, and it will come.