Minchin claims there is no need for NBN

By Brett Winterford on Jun 23, 2009 3:15 PM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Argument based on a Sensis survey.

Shadow Communications Minister Nick Minchin has seized on an ACMA report showing most Australians are satisfied with their ISP to claim the country does not need a National Broadband Network (NBN).

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) report, released today, concludes that most Australian households and businesses are generally satisfied with the level of service they receive from their Internet Service Provider (ISP), "with the great majority expressing reluctance to switch ISPs."

Minchin said the study "raises serious questions about the Minister's sweeping claims of fundamental market failure" in the telecommunications industry.

"There is no evidence in this ACMA report to justify the Rudd Government risking billions of dollars of taxpayers' money on NBN Mark II," Minchin said.

Questions over survey

The ACMA report is based on a number of sources.

The primary two surveys from which broadband satisfaction was measured was a Roy Morgan survey of 1396 fixed line customers and 241 mobile users that don't use a fixed line services, plus a survey of 1800 small business users conducted by Sensis, a subsidiary of the country's largest ISP, Telstra.

The annual Whirlpool broadband user survey, by contrast, includes the opinions of some 20,000 users.

In both 2007 and 2008, around 75 per cent of Whirlpool respondents said the customer service they get from their ISP is either "good" or "excellent", 62 per cent were "very happy" with the reliability of the connection and 77 (2007) to 79 per cent (2008) would recommend their ISP to others.

But also in 2008, about one in three Whirlpool survey respondents said their ISP plan was too expensive.

The Whirlpool survey also showed that three in four respondents (75 per cent) favour a Fibre-to-the-Home (FttH) National Broadband Network (2008), and 69 per cent would prefer the Federal Government to build it (2007).

16 comments in this discussion

"who needs fast internet when rudd and his best mate conroy wants to ban every site with his Net censorship regime"

By hoey350

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Comments: 16

Alex DeLarge Jun 23, 2009 4:54 PM	Another triumph from the climate change denier who consistently relies on non-scientific material and discredited sources to back his claims. In this case, he seems to think that consumers are the experts on the future of data communication. If we accepted this idiotic approach, there would be no electricity, no telephones and no breakthroughs from undirected scientific research. Crawl back into your hole with Senator Fielding.
Sams Jun 23, 2009 5:38 PM	What can I say. Most intelligent people will see right through Minchin's idiocy. Perhaps he should try asking people with some tech knowledge who are involved in IT businesses?
singo79 Jun 23, 2009 6:16 PM	Minchin is an absolute fool and has just shown to all of Australia how dumb he is, as well as proving that the Liberal Government is totally against infrastructure building in Australia. If it were up to the Liberals we would be all the way back in the dark-ages, dial-up would be the only internet service and services like Skype and MSN Video calling would only be a pipe dream. Take a hike Minchin! You are nothing but a waste of space and tax payers money. Just remember you work for us, the taxpayer, not for your own political agenda.
hsvandrew Jun 23, 2009 6:40 PM	And I thought Stephen Conroy was the worst IT minister ever. Thank GOD Minchin will never by the ITC minister of this Country. What planet is this guy living on! In which Century? Broadband can never be too fast and our economy and every industry in this country will benefit. This clearly shows our politicians do not represent the next generation of Australians (everyone under 60 that is!)
Maxxi Jun 23, 2009 7:01 PM	Mr Minchin knows the reality, that if Conroy is successful with the NBNco and FttH network, then he and the Libs will be in the Opposition for another 8-9 years... He is probably not fundamentally against the NBNco as tabled, but very very concerned that it will be credited to Rudd and Conroy. As such we must understand his position is compromised and not expect him to ebrace this significant project and the positive outcomes. This is sad and concerning, however a reality. As for accepting any results from a Sensis poll, well that is like asking the Iranian president "Ahmagonnakillyadadagain" whether the USA presence in the Middle East is a good idea... ROFL...
Sniper Jun 23, 2009 10:03 PM	The Whirlpool survey also showed that three in four respondents (75 per cent) favour a Fibre-to-the-Home (FttH) National Broadband Network (2008), and 69 per cent would prefer the Federal Government to build it (2007). The above is a far better representation then a mere 1000 odd. Beside Minchin is just a gimp who doesnt have a clue After all he is one of the idiots responsible for NOT splitting Telstra up before it was sold, and causing the current telco/broadband mess.
Slatts Jun 23, 2009 10:13 PM	Every circus needs a clown. It's just this series of pipes...
F.Plant Jun 23, 2009 10:46 PM	No....He is so wrong, I bet he doesnt even know a kilebyte is....Its something that takes forever to download when you cannot get ADSL Due to exchanges being full...Many of them..This guy should'nt be talking about something he has no clue about, If he done a simple Telstra wholesale check, he would see there is 20+ Exchanges full meaning that tens of thousands of people cannot get Broadband...and we "don't need this" OK Then...FOAD
Rusty-Gold Jun 23, 2009 11:19 PM	His Liberal agenda is market forces will take of competition.Everyone else but Government pay for Infrustructure.Thats why all you Uni' Graduates have have got a HECS debt chain &ball.Didnt do anything for SA as a Senator either.ADSL is an invention from the late 1990's and peaked 2005-09 in demand.It relies on being useful up to only 4-5 kms (from exchanges built in the 60's and 70's), depending on a few criteria.Therefore limited bottlenecks and large areas of blackspots.As 'Sams' writes "Most intelligent people will see right through Minchin's idiocy".
lunaticds Jun 24, 2009 8:45 AM	What irks me about this is that there is a different IMO between being happy with your providers service, and being happy with the general state of broadband. I like my provider, they do a great job. I'm not happy however that my ADSL2+ service runs at between 3.5 & 4 Mbps. That's not my ISPs fault - thats a limitation of antique technology controlled by Tel$tra - namely old copper line that is running 3.5km to the nearest exchange. Is my connection reliable? Yes Is my ISPs service good? Yes Is the price good? Well, it's OK. Would I recommend my ISP? Yes. The question I'm not seeing addressed is what do I think about my Internet access beyond the boundaries of what my ISP can control. The answer to that is that it's horrendous. I live on the outskirts of a decent regional city, where Next G is flaky, and my ADSL speeds are poor. ADSL is great when you're close to an exchange, and it sure as hell beats the old 2400bps modem I once used to rely on, but it's technology that is getting old, and is fairly limited by its significantly reduced performance over relatively short distance. That's a problem with infrastructure. Can my ISP afford to roll out their own fibre across the whole country? Hell no. I hate most of Conroy's ideas, but I don't think that NBN is the silliest idea he's had. It's time for Minchin to shut up and focus on things that he actually knows about. To see him quoting a very small percentage of the population saying their happy with their provider really has absolutely no relevance to NBN. Even issues with the TIO really aren't relevant. I think in this day and age, especially as some Whirlpool users go, they can differentiate between what their provider can and can't control. I'm also not sure that quoting stats about how happy the average person (non-IT savvy) is with their internet connection really means much. They're less likely to understand emerging technologies and the increasing reliance on internet connectivity. Such things are beyond their scope until such technologies become a normal part of life.
bigminchin Jun 24, 2009 1:09 PM	Senator Minchin is absolutely right and speaks from the courage of his convictions arising from personal experience. He still uses morse code and is thinking of getting prepaid dial-up. The problem is that the dial-up modem will not work on his 33 bps line.
Kevmeister Jun 24, 2009 1:12 PM	Senator Minchin is certainly drawing a long bow when he believes a customer's satisfaction with their existing ISP implies there is no need for an NBN. To be quite honest, I had higher expectations of the intelligence of our parliamentarians. I have a high level of satisfaction with my own ISP, but that that does not preclude the fact that there is absolutely zero competitive DSLAM equipment in my exchange, and that as a consequence of my ISP using Telstra services to provision my broadband service, I pay $30 a month more than other customers on the same ISP's own equipment. Besides that fact, the NBN is a forward-looking strategy that is intended to form the basis of our communications infrastructure for decades to come, and Senator Minchin is too simple-minded to have any vision in terms of how the NBN will help improve our economy and create better fairness for users in terms of equality of infrastructure. This lack of vision is not really surprising, given that Senator Minchin will be forever remembered as the finance minister who sold off Telstra as an integrated entity and therefore screwed any potential for a competitive level-playing field in telecommunications. Senator Minchin (and perhaps the Opposition in general - whoever that is at the time) should learn not to argue for arguing's sake. Especially when they (the Liberals) had over a decade to implement their own telecommunications reforms, and never got anything workable as a result of it.
boc Jun 24, 2009 6:08 PM	I'm quite happy with my internet except for maybe the cost. But I also know in 5 years time, maybe less, if things are about the same as they are now I would be very unsatisfied.
listohan Jun 24, 2009 6:51 PM	bigminchin wrote: Senator Minchin is absolutely right and speaks from the courage of his convictions arising from personal experience. He still uses morse code and is thinking of getting prepaid dial-up. The problem is that the dial-up modem will not work on his 33 bps line. And wait! There's more of this nonsense on his website: "A new study which places Australia ahead of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France and Germany for household broadband penetration exposes the Rudd Government myth that Australians have poor access to broadband Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Nick Minchin said." Maybe folk should log on to his website and direct his attention to the Whirlpool survey of 20,000 people who may be satisfied with their ISPs but not with the standard of internet access generally.
anonymous Jun 25, 2009 11:17 AM	Senator Nick is choosing to confuse the quality of ISP customer service available to users with the quality of the infrastructure that the ISPs have to work with. I suspect that he knows very well what the difference is. As other posts have also pointed out, the key issue with the NBN is that it will take years to build. By that time our 'pipes' will need to be much bigger than today, which Nick doesn't seem to remotely comprehend.
hoey350 Jun 26, 2009 12:14 AM	who needs fast internet when rudd and his best mate conroy wants to ban every site with his Net censorship regime