Conroy exits Coalition-dominated Telstra debate

By Ry Crozier on Nov 23, 2010 1:59 PM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Opponents ask why Australia needs 100 Mbps speeds.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has walked out of the Senate on the third day of debate on the Telstra split bil, as Coalition opponents lined up to rail against the bill, the NBN and the Government.

The debate was completely dominated by Liberals and Nationals Senators who argued that 100 Mbps was unnecessary; that broadband was less important than issues of health, transport and education; and that there should be "no hurry" to pass legislation in the Senate.

The Nationals whip in the Senate John Williams claimed that the Government and NBN Co could not get people to agree to take NBN fibre connections without "being pleaded with to actually take it up."

He claimed lack of interest had forced the Tasmanian Government to legislate for residents to automatically connect the network from the street to their houses.

Williams said that "most people [in Japan and Korea] were happy with 12 to 20 Mbps" after years of having the ability to take up 100 Mbps services.

He said he was "quite happy" with his existing ADSL service although he thought "it could be a bit quicker".

And he attempted to position 100 Mbps services as unnecessary for eHealth applications.

He said that medical procedures "could still be carried out with a 4 Meg download [speed]."

Senator Alan Ferguson said he would not take up a 100 Mbps service when it rolled past his house.

"I don't download movies so I guess I'm the wrong generation [for 100 Mbps]," he said.

He said his current service provider - Internode - was "wonderful and that will do me certainly for the foreseeable future".

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy attended the first hour of the debate before leaving the chamber at about 1.30pm.

He attempted to introduce a point of order against Senator Williams on the relevance of his speech to the legislation.

"I am loathe to interrupt this stream of consciousness, but surely it can't be too hard to speak for 20 minutes against the bill," Conroy said.

The point was not upheld. Williams accused Conroy of "the pot calling the kettle black".

"I don't think we've seen Senator Conroy ever answer a question being asked in the Senate. Now here he is with the saintly halo saying ‘You must be relevant'," Williams said.

Senator Guy Barnett accused Conroy of "getting very sensitive now as a result of criticisms and observations being made" by Coalition Senators as arguments continued across the chamber, forcing the acting deputy president of the Senate to intervene repeatedly.

Senator Mary Jo Fisher accused Conroy of leaving the chamber "presumably because he's rather shamefaced" at the Coalition's accusations.

Conroy exits Coalition-dominated Telstra debate

22 comments in this discussion

"@block, I'm not sure what your point is. I don't believe there is any discussion about private B2B network connections, as this really has nothing to do with the NBN (other than network bandwidth ..."

By Ace

Tags

conroy, exits, coalition, dominated, telstra, debate, broadband, nbn

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Comments: 22

djzort Nov 23, 2010 2:36 PM	it would be nice if someone asked optus and telstra what the uptake of their 100meg services has been like?
midspace Nov 23, 2010 2:37 PM	"dominated by Liberals and Nationals Senators who argued that 100 Mbps was unnecessary" Unnecessary to who? (at the politicians) "most people [in Japan and Korea] were happy with 12 to 20 Mbps" "Most" is the word here. Most can be defined as the majority, which has a figure as at least 51%. Doesn't really describe what the rest of the population wants, needs, or desires. There could be 25% of the Japanese using 100Mbps, and they'd think most are using 12-20Mbps. "medical procedures ""could still be carried out with a 4 Meg download [speed]."" What about upload speed? Async line speeds on wireless would most likely be about 512Kbps on such a connection. This would be inadequate for those medical procedures. Sounds like a lot of gasbagging by Liberals and Nationals. No solid arguments, just a lot of time wasting. Who voted for these people? I for one wouldn't be taking up 100mbps, at least immediately. I don't have a need for it. But I don't think we should be blocking those DO need it. The facts is that the NBN can support 1000Mbps (at least the testing has showed this). Putting in hardware (ONTs, etc) that only supports 12Mbps per second is stupid, and no doubt, doesn't exist. Put in the hardware that supports reasonable speeds, at a reasonable price. If we want don't want to run it at 100Mbps, that's OUR choice. Having politicians debate over what speed we should or should not get is ridiculous. We the people dictate what we need. They are running this country for us, not so they can sit there and get paid for debating nonsense. (Which is probably what Conroy walked out. To do some real work.)
MattyB_76 Nov 23, 2010 3:03 PM	@midspace, I've got an idea, Conroy could walk back to his desk and email the unredacted copies of the NBN plans/costings to Turnbull and the rest of Australia. That would be a start.
Maxxi2 Nov 23, 2010 3:20 PM	@MattyB_76: I've got an idea too: How about the banks, Medicare, ATO, parents and any other people you may trust simply go to their desks and email all your confidentiality protected info to people who are derternmined to bring you down? And the rest of Australia across various blogs. Seems you think confidentiality and legal contracts are worth nothing... 101 of politics: Demand somthing you know your opponent cannot do then squawk about it all over the place, hoping to get as many gullible and naive people as possible to think your opponent is doing something wrong... Commercial sensitivity agreements and NDAs are legal concepts and legal documents.
Maxxi2 Nov 23, 2010 3:23 PM	@djzort: Why don't you start by finding out what the uptake of DSL servcies has been in Australia. That will give you an indication of what the uptake will be over the next 1-8 years. The uptake of DSL at the start was abysmal and the pricing high. Then the market balanced as it always does and we have the DSL based services uptake and usage that we have today... That would give you a better picture of what will happen.
Maxxi2 Nov 23, 2010 3:30 PM	Most of the Lib senators in this facicial debate would not know their internet ar$e from their dsl elbow from their web based services probiscus... If the extent of their arguments, once again and as always, is based on the NBN being there only to quickly download movies, then they display breathtaking ignorance and an amazing lack of any relevant knowledge of what the internet is used for in industry, commerce, education, health, services delivery, communications, security servcies, broadcasting, telecommunications, government servcies etc ad infinitum. Left to their arguments, we would all still be using 9600baud modems and even then that would be overkill... Eitgher thaqt or they are simply lying through their teeth... You choose.
Ezy2Confuze Nov 23, 2010 3:31 PM	Why doesn't someone grow a brain in the Senate and propose a nice simple test. They can do 5 seperate tests, viewing a specific web page with oots of multimedia content, streaming a specific video over Youtube, downloading a large file such as the Windows XP SP3 installer and two or three other tests. Each set of tests is to be done at 512/128k, 1500/256k, 8000/384k, full ADSL 2+ speeds and then 100mbps, so these armchair experts in the opposition can see exactly what the difference is speed wise. Better yet, limit the connection speeds to the various opposition and Green candidate to 8mbps ADSL 1 speeds for 3 months and see whether they still feel we don't need the speeds offered by the NBN. I don't understand why Conjob seems to be going out of his way to destroy the NBN with his own antics. It just reeks of cover up. If they plan to release this in 2 weeks anyway, I don't see the point of being so secretive. If Conjob really wants the NBN to go ahead, he needs to get people on his side instead of getting their backs up. Otherwise, if he gets hit by a bus between now and parliament resuming in 2011, who in Govt. will actively champion the NBN if he isn't around?
realitybites Nov 23, 2010 3:36 PM	"Most of the Lib senators in this facicial debate would not know their internet ar$e from their dsl elbow from their web based services probiscus..." hahaha, that just made me laugh...
MattyB_76 Nov 23, 2010 3:52 PM	Maxxi2, I'm not asking for 'all your confidentiality protected info', I just want some basic documents that will outline how, and breakdown costs a little better than "$26billion of government money". I'm not going to trust any government to spend that sort of money without a little bit more information. I know there is benefit to implementing the NBN, and I'll be one of the early adopters, but if we can do it for $20 billion instead of $26 billion, don't you think it's worth 6 months of the government's time now to sort it out?
midspace Nov 23, 2010 4:45 PM	The most logical, probable reason that Conroy hasn't released anything? They aren't ready to. (Going to repeat myself) There is no way the government will release an incomplete NBN business plan. The opposition will pick them apart for not finishing it. Does anyone understand that the NBN test sites are not complete? The full cost of these test sites cannot be determined until it's finished. Complete costs and scheduling cannot be done with any accuracy without having completed these test sites. At the moment, it's about as accurate as licking your finger and sticking it in the air. Until there is a baseline, no one with any certainty knows how much it will cost or how long it will take to complete.
Ice Nov 23, 2010 5:07 PM	"The debate was completely dominated by Liberals and Nationals Senators who argued that 100 Mbps was unnecessary; that broadband was less important than issues of health, transport and education; and that there should be "no hurry" to pass legislation in the Senate." Education health and transport had the funding stripped from them over the time the coalition was in charge of this country so why are they using this argument?
zag Nov 23, 2010 6:43 PM	It becoming like this. Guy 1: says to guy 2 "hey mate!!!! I got this really great idea I'm calling it NBN and all I need from you is 47 billion, ok!" Guy 2: um, what is it? Guy 1: oh, don't worry about the details they don't matter just give us the cash, all right. Now if guy 2 was the hand over the cash without asking what it was he'll be an idiot. Currently conroy is trying to do what guy 1 is asking. and people on here are whinging about why this money isn't just being handed over, and that's because people want to know what it is exactly before saying yeah to a 48 billion check being signed. Conroy should know this would never go through as all government projects have to be pre-planed and costed he's trying to get this passed without any sort of government policy being followed. People on this site don't want the filter yet you still have people saying just sign the contract without looking at the contract first, that is madness. Would you sign some contract from a guy who's going to sell your house for you without looking at it because that is what this is pretty much
singo79 Nov 23, 2010 8:07 PM	I'm sick of these so called "representatives" who claim to be politicians stating that we don't want or need 100Mbps. Maybe they don't, but there are a lot of us that do want 100Mbps. Do we need 100Mbps... No! Do we want the option to have 100Mbps... Yes! I'll be the first one signing up for 100Mbps, after all the price for 100Mbps with 100GB of data is about $90/m through Internode. That is what I pay now for 50GB on an ADSL2+ connection in which I sync at 4Mbps. I have personally been in to see my federal member to outline my case and the fact that I support the NBN, but since she is a Liberal member she gives me the cold shoulder. After all, she doesn't want to know about the people who want the NBN, she is only after feedback from people who are against the NBN. The NBN will be a god-sent for my community. We are stranded on Telstra Wholesale and 50% of the residents can't get ADSL, rather they are forced to take Telstra's costly Next G wireless service. Telstra aren't interested in getting these people onto ADSL services, for they are earning a better profit margin through their unregulated wireless service. The NBN is a wonderful thing for this country, though the average Australian isn't educated enough in the IC&T area to understand what is being delivered with the NBN. All they know is that ADSL gives them reasonable speeds and they can do pretty much all they want, but they don't understand the limitations of ADSL. Only now are friends of mine finding out the limitations of ADSL. Their children are demanding more access to Internet related services from their internet enabled devices, such as Xbox 360's, PS3's, laptop computers, iPad's, iPhone's, media streaming devices and the list goes on. My friend is complaining that every time he wants to get on to the net to check out his websites, or watch YouTube that he has to wait forever for videos to buffer or webpages to load. Welcome to the wonderful world of ADSL! The NBN will do away with this type of congestion, namely bandwidth. Only now does he see the need for faster connections, namely the NBN. And this is where the average Australia will fall into. They don't understand the issues at hand, not until they are directly faced with the issues on a personal level. My friend was totally against the NBN and it's (proposed) $43B price tag, but now he see's it as a good thing, though still hates the price tag. Though all of us that are keenly following this issue will no doubt be fully aware that the $43B figure was a top-end value of the network and that the actual build cost will be closer to $26B of taxpayer money. IMO I can't wait for the NBN to roll past my door and I'll be hooking up ASAP. The politicians need to get in touch with reality and they actually need to understand the technology and the industry a bit more before commenting.
Piper Nov 23, 2010 8:56 PM	"Only now are friends of mine finding out the limitations of ADSL. Their children are demanding more access to Internet related services from their internet enabled devices, such as Xbox 360's, PS3's, laptop computers, iPad's, iPhone's, media streaming devices and the list goes on." $26B so your friend's kids can play games, watch movies and generally entertain themselves (seems to be the thrust). I'd prefer more money for ambulances, paramedics, hospitals, schools etc. Doesn't even have to be $26B worth. Less entertaining, but far more valuable to society as a whole - I think. Perhaps such an expensive project that hangs by so short a thread should need to be passed by a larger majority than just one vote.
Ace Nov 23, 2010 11:16 PM	@zag, who is this Guy2 that has all this money and doesn't know what the NBN is? No-one interested in this whole deal I would have thought. I don't think your 'Guy2' exists. @Piper, your idea of what the 'thrust' is, is way out. The point is, almost every electronic device people buy today wants to use some internet bandwidth. And companies are developing more and more of these devices, and web-based services to support them. We need bandwidth so that we can operate businesses and services competitively, like remote education, medical services etc while all this other stuff is going on. You seem to think that the govt will stop people using online gaming devices and movies so our email still works. I don't think that's going to happen. Unless in 10 years we've got the same network we've got today.
singo79 Nov 23, 2010 11:16 PM	@Piper "$26B so your friend's kids can play games, watch movies and generally entertain themselves (seems to be the thrust). I'd prefer more money for ambulances, paramedics, hospitals, schools etc. Doesn't even have to be $26B worth. Less entertaining, but far more valuable to society as a whole - I think." The Internet is all about entertainment, after all if you took entertainment off the Internet then no one would use it. You read the news on the NET that is entertainment, you watch the news on the NET that is entertainment, you send and receive emails on the NET that is entertainment, you Skype your friends and family on the NET that is entertainment. The list goes on and on, but basically the NET is all about entertainment, with a small portion relating to work/business. However, what Labor is proposing is to introduce services via the NET, such as TeleHealth. I for one see this is a HUGE benefit, considering my only options for seeing a specialist is travelling 560Kms in one direction or 1100Kms in the other direction. TeleHealth will relieve people such as myself from long and expensive trips for Health related matters. You can spend all the money you like on Ambulances, Paramedics, Hospitals, but at the end of the day the staff have to want to work in those areas and provide services to those areas. My local hospital encourages any professional to come out and work here by paying them above average wages, but alas no takers! It's the same situation with Schools, people have to want to move into and work at that location. Whereas the NBN offers the possibility for a teacher to be in one location and their students in another. Simply employ teachers aides (they are everywhere these days) to assist students in the classroom and have the teacher deliver their lesson from 1000Kms away. Unfortunately you seem to have missed my point, the fact that the current network is unable to cope with the demand of where we NEED to go, not to mention the current loads already being faced by everyday Australians (which is where my friends came into the situation). By putting the NBN off it just delays our advancement into the future. Not only that, it means that Telstra will have to invest 10's of billions of dollars in removing and replacing the copper telephone network, or worse repairing the network. A failure of our broadband network would be catastrophic for our economy, not to mention all of our online services that we have come to rely upon. Doesn't it worry anyone that Telstra has been so eager to take the $11B from the NBN and walk away from it's copper network? To me it raises all sorts of suspicions, like the possibility that they know the network is on it's last legs and that they don't want to have to fork out the billions of dollars to fix it up/replace it. I have said it many times before and I'll say it again. If our forefathers had refused to incur a huge debt (at the time) and build the current telephone network, where would we be today? It was a nation building exercise at the time and one that has benefited so many Australians, despite those people strongly opposing it and saying that they didn't need it. Now it is our generation's turn to do something for our future and the future of generations to come. I know we are all pretty thankful that our national telephone network was invested in and built. We all rely upon it on a daily basis in some form or another and it is the same with the NBN. The network will become so necessary to daily life future generations will be thankful for our investment. Don't get me wrong Piper, I'm not here to have a go at you or anyone else. I'm simply saying that this network is extremely important for our growing demand for bandwidth and the applications that will follow. I am also saying that the average Joe Blow is perplexed about this issue in general and it is this lack of understanding that makes it hard for them to grasp why this network is so important.
btone Nov 23, 2010 11:35 PM	Get Clinton to speak with the coalition trogs and say, in a loud, clear voice that even children can hear: "Its all about the UPLOADS, studid!"
HubertCumberdale Nov 23, 2010 11:55 PM	Piper wrote: $26B so your friend's kids can play games, watch movies and generally entertain themselves (seems to be the thrust). I'd prefer more money for ambulances, paramedics, hospitals, schools etc. Doesn't even have to be $26B worth. Less entertaining, but far more valuable to society as a whole - I think. Oh great here we go again, exactly what do you do on the internet? No the real question is: What the hell are you doing on the internet? Seriously I'm sick of all these ill informed Luddites coming out of the woodwork ever since the election, how these people even manage to operate computers baffles even me... you know what I want? you know what the MAJORITY of people in Australia want? is fast internet and I want the government to get on with the damn job and spend the 26billion (or the 46billion that everyone else keeps quoting) and stop wasting my money on roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and public transport projects that I never use.
Ace Nov 24, 2010 2:09 AM	@singo79, there is no doubt that a portion of internet traffic is entertainment, provided by businesses that employ people and generate billions of dollars (AU online advertisements are $1.8b p.a. alone) of revenue. However, did you realise most enterprise sized businesses would be crippled overnight if the internet disappeared? Did you realise you cannot do a degree at uni without internet access? Did you know that news, weather, earthquake notification systems now rely on internet connectivity to deliver warnings and alerts to agencies and the public? Bank branches, government agency offices, utility providers, call centres etc etc are no longer set up with the expectation that large numbers of people are going to walk in the front door to pay bills or make enquiries. So while there is a significant entertainment portion to the internet for the average home user, those same home users rely on the internet in ways they may not realise, because the online world has changed from a nicety to a necessity.
midspace Nov 25, 2010 9:13 AM	@Piper. "I'd prefer more money for ambulances, paramedics, hospitals" Funding for this comes from the State Governement (GST revenue). You got a problem with your local services, you go take it up with them.
block Nov 25, 2010 3:55 PM	@Ace While there are a lot of services provided over the internet. I can access them all at the moment. The businesses require the high speed links. Guess what, they can already get them. Large corporates have no issues getting 1Gbps (or more) at the moment. I know, I work with these organisations. For smaller businesses outside of the major metro area where there may not be fibre, there are still other options such as co-lo datacentres (which are well connected) or cloud based services. @Singo79 They should be spending money or connecting regional Australia, it my opinion the capital cities are well connected enough. If i need more, I have the option of bonded DSL. Every house has AT LEAST two copper pairs into their premises. Spend the money or regional Aust and in a few years hit the cities. I don't understand the whole eHealth thing. Do they really expect me to wave a rash in front of a webcam? Then what? Wait 7 days for him to post out some cream! He'd say "Yeah that looks nasty, you should probably see a doctor about that"
Ace Nov 25, 2010 5:19 PM	@block, I'm not sure what your point is. I don't believe there is any discussion about private B2B network connections, as this really has nothing to do with the NBN (other than network bandwidth being sold to them, as it is currently). While it's nice that you can access 'lots of services' over the internet at the moment, are you sure that you'll be able to in 10 years from now? (Think 1990 bandwidth, 2010 traffic). My point was that many enterprises businesses (like banks) expect a certain percentage of their customers to use their services via the internet. And the are structured accordingly. It's more the C2B component, not the B2B component I was referring to, as my comment indicated.