Perth’s new apartment market recorded its strongest quarter of sales since Q4 2021, with 412 apartments sold in Q1 2026 and a record quarterly sold value of $537 million, according to Urbis’ latest Apartment Essentials results.

Urbis said the March quarter result reflects strong, highly product‑specific demand across both ends of the market, from more attainable projects delivering at scale, through to premium stock being absorbed by equity‑rich downsizers.&nbsp;

David Cresp, Partner at Urbis, said the key story in Perth is not demand, it is the market’s ability to convert demand into delivered housing.&nbsp;

“This is the strongest sales quarter since Q4 2021, and it reinforces that demand in Perth is real and it’s local,” David Cresp said. “But the task now is delivery, turning that demand into projects that can actually be built and completed.”&nbsp;

[smartcode_project:default project_id=110291 project_image_fid=302785]

<h2>Affordable product leads, premium demand remains resilient</h2>

Sales in Q1 were led by more affordable projects, with The Boulevard (SKS Group) recording 115 sales in the quarter, the presentation noting this is only the second time a single project has surpassed 100 quarterly sales. The project was able to offer more affordable housing product right next to a train station.&nbsp;

Palmyra West (Finbar) also delivered strong results with 28 sales in Q1, following 84 sales in Q4, with an average price of under $800,000, underscoring depth of demand for well‑located, attainable new stock.&nbsp;

At the premium end, Urbis said downsizer demand is continuing, with the results highlighting Romeo (Applecross, Finbar) recording 75 sales and reaching almost 50% sold in one quarter.

Jual (Shenton Park, Celsius Property) also posted a strong quarter with 28 sales, reaching 39% sold in one quarter.

Urbis noted that Perth apartment demand is not speculative, not investor‑led, and not uniform, describing it as localised, often equity‑driven and highly product‑specific, a pattern reflected in the polarisation between strong “attainable” performers and premium downsizer product.&nbsp;

[smartcode_project:default project_id=148957 project_image_fid=364102]

<h2>Prices underpinned by costs, and the delivery risk is growing</h2>

Urbis said pricing pressure is cost not demand‑driven: construction costs and delivery risk are now a central constraint, with the results noting build costs remain elevated and volatile, and that energy, fuel and labour uncertainty weigh on feasibility.

David Cresp said a growing challenge for private Build‑to‑Sell developers is simply securing a builder in the current environment.

“Developers are really feeling the pressure from a building market that was operating at capacity and securing a builder is challenging,” David Cresp said, adding that even where a builder can be secured, “trying to get to the price that makes the development financially viable is incredibly challenging in the current market.”&nbsp;

Urbis’ broader WA commentary also notes that industry remains at or above capacity with lot and housing creation, and that many builders are limiting new sales to manage stretched workforces and fixed‑price contract pressures, conditions that flow directly into apartment feasibility and delivery timing.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=108869 project_image_fid=317905]

<h2>Supply: improving later, but still constrained, and Perth lags eastern benchmarks</h2>

While near‑term supply remains constrained, Urbis’ forecast shows completions lifting “Supply is forecast to be back above 1,500 apartments per annum for the first time since 2019”, with 1,775 completions forecast for 2026, and volumes remaining above that level over the following years.&nbsp;

Looking further ahead, completions are forecast to reach 2,500 in 2028, with the report noting 32% of that total is social/affordable, reflecting the role of government‑supported delivery in rebuilding the pipeline.&nbsp;

However, Urbis said Perth remains behind comparable markets on pipeline scale. In a national comparison of projects under construction, the report shows under construction Perth Build‑to‑Sell (BTS) at 3,446 apartments versus the Gold Coast at 7,922. Mr Cresp said “The challenge for Perth is how to we grow the delivery pipeline”.

Urbis’ conclusion is that Perth’s market is increasingly defined by product discipline and delivery certainty, with the research identifying “delivery certainty is key” and calling out builder risk and procurement models as core success factors, alongside “timing and staging”.&nbsp;

Joel Robinson

Perth apartment sales hit strongest pace since late 2021 as builder capacity tightens

<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developers/sammut-developments">Sammut Group</a> has secured development approval for its latest Brisbane apartment project, marking the Sydney developer’s next step in expanding its Queensland pipeline following the success of its debut Gold Coast development, Coast.

The approved project at <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/44-glen-road-toowong-qld-4066">44 Glen Road, </a><a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developments/toowong-qld-4066">Toowong</a> will deliver a 15-storey riverfront apartment building with 42 residences, significantly increasing the scale of the site’s previous approval for a smaller luxury scheme. Designed by Bureau^proberts, the development will comprise a mix of predominantly four-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments positioned to maximise Brisbane River and city views.

Sammut Director Julian Sammut said the group had been actively searching Brisbane for several years before identifying Toowong as the right fit.

“Brisbane was the right step for Sammut,” Sammut said.

“With the success of Coast we thought we should definitely look to do more in Queensland alone. We then pushed up to look at Brisbane. We've been looking for I'd say two to three years actually and it was hard to find the right location.”

<img alt="Sammut makes Brisbane apartment play" data-entity-type="" data-entity-uuid="" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/f_auto,c_limit,w_1440,q_75/https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/field/image/Screenshot%202025-12-23%20at%203.27.14%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=dYAVIL7qdcGA8ojvkslSrLjczXFejSSx" />

Sammut said suburbs including New Farm and Teneriffe were considered before the group ultimately focused on Toowong due to its strong downsizer demographic and limited supply of developable riverfront land.

The site was acquired off-market after what Sammut described as a lengthy negotiation and planning process, with the developer pursuing an uplift to the original approval.

“We are DA approved now which is very exciting,” Sammut said.

“We've had our change approval come through and we've obviously doubled the height, 15 storeys plus rooftop. We've got 42 amazing apartments that are going to be coming to market soon.”

<img alt="Sammut makes Brisbane apartment play" data-entity-type="" data-entity-uuid="" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/c_scale,w_580,dpr_2.0,q_auto:good/https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202025-12-23%20at%203.27.26%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=ohkRkY0dIZlqdfME2EZePsCQavRiBadE" />

Bureau^proberts said the design responds to Toowong’s evolving urban character, balancing contemporary apartment living with the area’s established residential identity.

“A place where traditional Queensland living has taken place for centuries; Toowong is seeing a shift of contemporary influence, commercial and retail hubs mixed with well-considered residential offerings – all the while maintaining its character and charm,” the architect noted in planning documents submitted to Brisbane City Council.

The architecture practice said the project’s form was shaped by its riverfront setting, flood considerations, neighbouring building scales, and view corridors.

“They said the mix of four and two-bedroom apartments capture the ‘fundamental qualities of Queenslander living,’ translated into the context of a contemporary subtropical building.”

The development sits just off Coronation Drive within walking distance of Toowong’s retail precinct and the upgraded Regatta ferry terminal, while also benefiting from proximity to the incoming green bridge connection to West End. Sammut said the accessibility and amenity offering were central to the site’s appeal.

The approval adds to growing residential activity along the Toowong riverfront, joining nearby projects including Consolidated Properties’ Monarch Residences and Spyre Group’s ARC Residences.

Sammut secures approval for debut Brisbane apartment development in Toowong

Developer Lanevick is heading back into Sydney’s apartment market after focusing more heavily on the luxury townhouse and terrace sector in recent years.

Lanevick, founded and directed by Steve Maroun, is expecting to receive approval in the coming months for a new apartment development in Gladesville, with the aim to launch it to the market later this year.

The 51-apartment project, designed by Studio Johnston, will comprise a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments positioned toward the Hunters Hill downsizer market.

“Traditionally it’s been difficult for people in that market to downsize because there just hasn’t been the right product available,” Maroun said.

“We’re targeting buyers who might have 30 to 40 per cent of their house value sitting in the bank after downsizing.

“They still want good spacious entertaining areas, they still want quality design, but they also want flexibility and the ability to enjoy life a bit more after working hard for a long time.”

The project sits near Boronia Park and within close proximity to the Parramatta River foreshore, an area Maroun says offers more of a Hunters Hill lifestyle than a traditional apartment precinct.

“From a lifestyle perspective, it’s really more Hunters Hill than Gladesville,” Maroun said. “You’re close to the foreshore, close to parklands, and still connected back into the village precinct.”

From level four and above, apartments will capture water views&nbsp;toward Sydney Harbour. Communal amenity will include rooftop entertaining areas, wellness spaces, and a gym tailored toward owner-occupier buyers.

“We’ve really designed these apartments around that buyer coming from the Hunters Hill LGA and what they’re actually looking for in their next chapter.”

The proposed development has also been designed to respond to the changing character of the broader Gladesville town centre, where a growing number of mixed-use and residential proposals are expected to emerge over the coming years.

“Gladesville presented a rare opportunity to deliver a genuinely design-led residential project within an evolving lifestyle precinct, just moments from the growing Gladesville town centre, and we’ve approached the project with a strong focus on architecture, liveability and long-term community value,” Maroun said.

Maroun said Lanevick saw a first-mover advantage within the precinct as planning controls continue to evolve to accommodate greater housing density.

“We think there’s a real opportunity there that hasn’t really been serviced properly yet,” he said.

“There’s going to be a broader evolution of the whole Gladesville village precinct over time, particularly with more activation and mixed-use outcomes.”

The Venus Street proposal will include a commercial and retail component at ground level designed to contribute to that evolving streetscape activation.

“A big part of the thinking was how do you activate that area properly and create more vibrancy and amenity, which is what Hunters Hill has been looking for,” Maroun said.

Lanevick’s focus since 2020 has largely been on smaller-scale luxury townhouse and terrace developments. The developer recently completed Royale Randwick, also designed by Studio Johnston, where prices reached $3.65 million. The project was featured in the UDIA NSW 2026 Professional Development Prospectus and was also named a finalist for Development of the Year.

&nbsp;

Lanevick to cater for Hunters Hill downsizers with new Gladesville apartment development

Property developer One Living, backed by former Macquarie banker turned investment manager Chris Green’s investment firm, has unveiled plans to bring more institutional capital into housing to help address the national supply crisis.

The New York-based investor has focused his firm, GreenPoint Partners, on addressing the supply shortage hitting middle market housing in Australia.

It is backing the new One Living business to develop more than 1000 units along the eastern seaboard. The new firm is starting with a development on Mona Vale Road, on the border of Mona Vale and Pymble, in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, with around 140 apartments planned. They are eyeing off more sites across the city.

With cost pressures rising in the industry, One Living’s model is to be a vertically integrated developer-builder, so it can respond directly to the housing gap by removing the cost inefficiencies embedded in traditional residential delivery.

“We are building a platform designed to operate at scale and starting in a market where there’s a clear need for quality, attainable housing,” One Living joint managing director Joseph Scuderi said.

“It’s that missing middle – it’s that attainable end of housing… that’s what most Australians invest into and what Australians can actually afford.”

<img alt="Mona Vale" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="798dfa93-4941-4db6-a696-31e9dc18e81c" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%202.31.50%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=mKBqi5C_DmeiXS.AtJkcR8LQIxqCqmFi" />

GreenPoint Partners brings years of experience assembling and scaling real estate operating businesses across major markets. And Green sees a big opportunity in Australia.

“For its size, sophistication and importance to the community, Australia’s living sector has remained largely under-institutionalised, which represents significant opportunity,” Green said. “GreenPoint identified that gap, assembled the right team, and is backing One Living to build a platform that is aligned to market needs.”

Green said being a builder-developer would give the company the capacity and flexibility it required to deliver reasonably-priced homes.

“We want it to be at that attainable level; not super high end luxury but at that attainable level,” he said.

<img alt="Mona Vale" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="74a5344a-4b26-4d4a-ada3-056b1220be77" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%202.32.15%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=vY8hXHO4reBMdO8ZXMWCNtGZJofUPQ3j" />

&nbsp;

One Living will undertake a component of affordable housing in its schemes, which it will own and operate, and it could also run build-to-rent on some sites.

Green praised local policy settings.

“The NSW government is being very supportive, strategic and pragmatic in terms of how do we generate more supply of housing,” he said. “We think it’s actually positive for development and the bit that’s been lacking at that attainable level is that it’s lots of relatively small private developers, whereas we want to create an institutional platform.”

One Living is also&nbsp;looking at high-density projects and could take on more institutional funding in the future.

“The way we will be able to achieve economies of scale is through size,” Green added.

One Living enters Sydney's new apartment market with Northern Beaches site acquisition

It's been several years since there's been an opportunity to buy a brand new townhome in Melbourne's coastal suburb of Mordialloc. Even apartment developments in recent times have been few and far between in the area.

Local developer LDS Property identified the gap in new housing, securing a site on White Street, directly opposite&nbsp;Woodlands Golf Club Mordialloc. They've recently launched&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-townhouses/wm-residences-mordialloc-102-white-street-mordialloc-vic-3195">WM Residences</a>, just 13 townhouses which they have already started building.

Projects by Buxton Director Heath Thompson, who is selling WM Residences, says the townhouses x that perfect middle ground be

"Mordialloc residents have had limited options to downsize within the suburb, often forcing them to look elsewhere despite long-standing ties to the area," Thompson says.

"With very little comparable new supply coming to market, projects like WM Residences are well placed, particularly as buyers look to capitalise on current conditions amid constrained supply."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6109]

The development, designed by regarded architecture firm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/architects/ewert-leaf">Ewert Leaf</a>,&nbsp;adopts a deliberately restrained architectural approach, focusing on simplicity, durability and liveability rather than overt design gestures.

The boutique scale is central to the offering. With only 13 three-bedroom residences, each home is configured to prioritise functional layouts and everyday use, supported by private terraces and secure two-car garages.

Ewert Leaf’s design response leans into a calm, neutral material palette. Interiors are defined by oak flooring, white walls and soft finishes, creating a consistent and understated backdrop. The approach avoids trend-driven detailing in favour of longevity, with an emphasis on natural light and spatial clarity.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6110]

Beyond aesthetics, the homes are designed to meet contemporary performance expectations. Each residence targets a minimum 6-star energy rating, incorporating double glazing, comprehensive insulation and all-electric Bosch appliances.

The project’s location supports a walkable coastal lifestyle, sitting within close proximity to Mordialloc’s foreshore, Main Street retail strip and the train station. Local cafés and dining venues, including Suburbia Deli and Hendriks Café, are within a short walk, reinforcing the area’s established neighbourhood character.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6116]

While <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developments/mordialloc-vic-3195">Mordialloc</a> is often defined by its beach and pier, the project taps into other areas of day to day living, offering easy access to local food, casual dining and transport, rather than positioning itself purely as a lifestyle retreat.

WM Residences reflects a continued trend across Melbourne’s coastal suburbs towards smaller-scale, design-led townhouse developments, particularly on infill sites where proximity to amenity is already established.

With construction commenced prior to its market entry, the project aligns with a growing preference among buyers for developments with visible progress and defined delivery timeframes.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=134646]

WM Residences fills gap in Mordialloc townhouse market

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/77780/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
Eight years into the Australian government’s National Broadband Network (NBN) project, the nation has an average internet speed – 50th in the global rankings – that lags well behind many advanced economy countries. 
Ongoing secrecy around the NBN, a project that’s likely to cost more than A$50 billion, makes it impossible for the public in most cases to know when and what quality service they will receive. Further, new research shows the NBN rollout was politically motivated and socioeconomically biased from the beginning. 
It is perhaps time to remind ourselves of the ups and downs of the project that was once announced as a dream national infrastructure project for the 21st century. This requires a ten-year journey back in time, before we can figure out what needs to be done next.
The ups
In November 2007, after 11 years of Coalition government, Labor was elected on a policy platform that promised a national broadband network. 
The NBN company was announced in April 2009 to provide terrestrial fibre network coverage for 93 percent of Australian premises by the end of 2020. Fixed wireless and satellite coverage would serve the remaining 7 percent. 
Looking back, it’s hard to deny the influence the NBN has had on Australian politics. Perhaps the peak influence was when three independent MPs cited the NBN as one of the key reasons why they supported a Labor government over the Coalition when the 2010 federal election produced a hung parliament. 
The final 60 early NBN rollout locations were then announced. The plan was for the first stage of the large-scale rollout to follow, connecting 3.5 million premises in 1,500 communities by mid-2015.
The downs
The early NBN rollout experienced significant delays. This attracted a great deal of “overwhelmingly negative” media coverage. Public opinion polls reflected growing dissatisfaction with the national project. 
This dissatisfaction and the September 2013 federal election result changed the fate of the NBN. In 2013, the new Coalition government suspended the first stage of the large-scale fibre-to-premises NBN rollout to reassess the scale of the project. 
In 2014, the government announced that the NBN rollout would change from a primarily fibre-to-premises model to a multi-technology-mix model. The technology to be used would be determined on an area-by-area basis.
This change of direction resulted in a prolonged state of uncertainty at the local government level. As it was rolled out, the NBN was widely criticised for being slow, expensive and obsolete.
Current state of play
Delays continue in the construction of the Coalition’s NBN. What can only be described as a downgrade of the original national project is now seriously over budget. 
In September 2016, a joint standing committee of parliament was established to inquire into the NBN rollout. The inquiry is continuing.
The bleak status quo only gets worse when the on-the-ground reality of the NBN rollout is considered. While fibre-to-premises rollout is supposed to be limited in the Coalition’s NBN, disturbing examples of misconduct in the NBN installations are highly concerning. 
The image below shows one example of many in which heritage-listed buildings (in this case also public housing) are disrespected to the point that suggests an absolute lack of communication between NBN contractors, local government, or heritage agencies.
<img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/171251/width754/file-20170529-6367-ez3j2i.JPG" alt="">
<div class="enlarge_hint">
One heritage-listed house with two NBN installations (Judge Street, Woolloomooloo, NSW). Image: Stacey Miers, Author provided
</div>
Who misses out?
In the Coalition’s NBN, the provision of universal high-speed capacity – as envisioned in the original NBN – has been transformed into a patchwork of final speeds and different quality of service. This leads to an important question about equity. It also puts the 60 early rollout locations in the spotlight as these could potentially be the only ones across the nation that enjoy fibre-to-premises NBN.
My new research points to the political motivations in the selection of these lucky 60 sites. Voting patterns in these locations were compared with all electorates in the federal elections from 2007 to 2013. The analysis shows the selections were skewed for potential political gain.
ALP-held seats were the main beneficiaries of the early NBN rollout; safe Coalition-held seats were the least likely to receive the infrastructure. 
Tony Windsor, one of the three influential independent MPs in 2010, famously said of the NBN:
Do it once, do it right, and do it with fibre. 
He secured priority access for his regional electorate to the early NBN. 
However, most regional localities were not that lucky. Indeed, research on the sociospatial distribution of the early NBN rollout shows the limited share of regional Australia.
What to do?
It is convenient to blame one political party for the state of chaos that the NBN is in right now. However, politicisation of the project has been part of the problem since day one. 
Instead, we call for telecommunication infrastructure to be considered for what it really is: the backbone of the fast-growing digital economy; the foundation for innovation in the age of smart cities and big data; and a key pillar of social equity and spatial justice.
In reality, however, in the age of big data and open data, the lack of transparency around the NBN is shocking. In evidence to the parliamentary committee inquiry in March 2017, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission expressed concern about the lack of transparency on NBN performance. 
Policing the leaks of NBN data is not going to clean up the mess. Quite the opposite: the Australian government needs to share the NBN data, so the exact nature and scale of the problems can be determined. Only then can we talk about finding a way forward in this long journey.
Tooran Alizadeh is senior lecturer, Director of Urban Design, University of Sydney and author for The Conversation. She can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/tooran-alizadeh-377838" target="_blank">here</a>.
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jchancellor-FAypfDUnLy

The NBN: how a national infrastructure dream fell short

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/78911/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
The National Broadband Network (NBN) is widely considered to be failing Australians, but it isn’t failing them equally.
Our research, undertaken at the Centre for Research Excellence in the Social Determinants of Health Equity, seeks to address health inequities by looking at the geographical distribution of infrastructure, including digital technology. 
Examining the rollout of NBN technologies as of December 2016, our preliminary analyses suggest areas of greatest socio-economic disadvantage overlap with regions typically receiving NBN infrastructure of poorer quality. 
<h2>Comparing NBN technology with inequality</h2>
To determine socio-economic disadvantage, we used the Australian Bureau of Statistics’s (ABS) socio-economic indexes for area (SEIFA) and its index of relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage (IRSD)from 2011.
Across Australia, we found only 29% of areas with a SEIFA decile of one (the lowest-scoring 10% of areas) had fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) – considered the best broadband technology solution available – or fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) connections. So far, around 71% of the NBN technology available in these areas involves inferior options, including hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC), fixed wireless or satellite technologies.
On the other hand, 93% of areas with a SEIFA decile of 10 (the highest-scoring 10% of areas) had FTTP or FTTN.
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/06/21/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-22%20at%209.32.21%20AM.png" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/06/21/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-22%20at%209.32.21%20AM.png" alt="">
This result tells a similar story to an early analysis by Sydney University’s Tooran Alizadeh of 60 NBN release sites that were announced in 2011. She found some of the most disadvantaged areas of Australia were not gaining equal access to the new infrastructure. 
If we look only at major cities in Australia – where the level of fibre technology is higher overall – areas with the greatest disadvantage, while exceeding similarly disadvantaged areas nationally, still received significantly less FTTP and FTTN: 65% of areas with a SEIFA decile of one had FTTP and FTTN, compared with 94% of areas with a SEIFA decile of 10. 
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/06/21/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-22%20at%209.33.26%20AM.png" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/06/21/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-22%20at%209.33.26%20AM.png" alt="">
Of course Australia is a large, sparsely populated country, which makes the business case for rolling out fibre difficult in some regions. Nevertheless, inequitable access to NBN technology appears even when controlling for the remoteness of the location. 
If we look at outer regional Australia where fibre is less prevalent, the pattern looks worse. Only 12% of the most disadvantaged areas with a SEIFA decile of one received FTTP and FTTN, compared with 88% of the most advantaged outer regional areas with a SEIFA decile of nine.
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/06/21/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-22%20at%209.34.32%20AM.png" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/06/21/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-22%20at%209.34.32%20AM.png" alt="">
Receiving FTTP or even FTTN may still be better than receiving HFC, fixed wireless or satellite technologies. While HFC may be able to match maximum speeds of FTTN, this is unlikely to happen during peak times when the increased number of users sharing the same data capacity will slow service considerably. And, similar to FTTN, these technologies provide fewer opportunities to upgrade capacity to meet future demand.
However, given only a limited data set was made publicly available in December 2016 by the NBN company, it is difficult to determine exactly which services are currently installed where. For example, the data set we used does not differentiate between FTTP and the lesser FTTN connection.
It also aggregates some NBN technology into an “other” category, making it impossible to distinguish between HFC and satellite service.
<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/images/2017/06/21/file-20170619-22129-15bjd9a.png" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/06/21/file-20170619-22129-15bjd9a.png" alt="">
The NBN company offers a “check your address” search for its most up-to-date rollout information including technology type, but was unable to share this information with us in a single, usable data set.
A NBN spokesperson said the network was being rolled out across Australia regardless of any socio-economic mapping. 
“Determining the sequence is a complex process of weighing up factors including the location of construction resources, current service levels, existing broadband infrastructure, growth forecasts and proximity to nbn infrastructure such as the transit network,” she said in an email. “Only 8 per cent of premises in Australia are not in the fixed-line footprint.”
<h2>Internet access and social inequity</h2>
A faster internet connection is increasingly central to people’s social connections, education opportunities, employment prospects and ability to access services.
This was raised in a 2011 report by the parliamentary Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications. It emphasised the potential role of the NBN in enhancing greater equity in digital access to services in regional and rural areas. 
"The Committee heard that, due to the ‘digital divide’, many of the Australians who could benefit the most from broadband currently have the lowest levels of online participation … The extent of accompanying measures implemented by governments will determine whether the NBN narrows or widens this digital divide."
Previous research has also found that people from lower socioeconomic groups are already restricted in their use of digital information and communication technologies. This can limit their access to a range of social determinants of health. 
When populations already facing disadvantage receive poorer quality digital infrastructure, those with the greatest need will continue to slip farther behind. 
Equity must be at the forefront of the NBN company’s considerations as it continues to roll out across Australia. Further entrenching social inequities through digital infrastructure is not the NBN anyone dreamed of.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ashley-schram-376758" target="_blank">Ashley Schram</a> is Research Fellow, School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/fran-baum-105532" target="_blank">Fran Baum</a> is Distinguished Professor, Foundation Director, Southgate Institute for Health, Society &amp; Equity, Flinders University
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/matt-fisher-115741" target="_blank">Matt Fisher</a> is Research Fellow in social determinants of health, Flinders University
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/patrick-harris-102775" target="_blank">Patrick Harris</a> is Senior Research Fellow, University of Sydney
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/sharon-friel-91509" target="_blank">Sharon Friel</a> is Director, School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) and Professor of Health Equity, ANU, Australian National University
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/toby-freeman-111682" target="_blank">Toby Freeman</a> is Senior Research Fellow in Health Equity, Flinders University.
All are authors for The Conversation.
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The NBN and Australia’s digital divide

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/74611/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">GUEST OBSERVER
The latest complaints about the National Broadband Network (NBN), including concerns about slow download speeds and frequent dropouts, show that all is not well with the NBN.
A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also flags Australia’s broadband speeds as among the worst in the OECD, beating only Mexico, Chile and Greece in terms of internet speed and penetration.
This raises questions on NBN’s continued use of fibre to the node (FTTN) over a large proportion of the total NBN footprint.
When the coalition government came to power in 2013, it instructed a new NBN management team to stop rolling out fibre to the premises (FTTP) and instead build a multi-technology-mix (MTM) version of the NBN.
But, as predicted, it is becoming clear that the FTTN component of the network is inadequate for Australia’s future needs.
Who’s to blame?
NBN chief executive Bill Morrow has deflected some of the blame for low speeds away from NBN and onto retailers, suggesting that their networks might not be up to the task.
He has correctly pointed that part of the problem is that many customers are opting for cheaper, slower services rather than the more costly faster ones.
In defence of its network, NBN points out that existing slow-speed ADSL services dominate the speed data quoted in the OECD report. It suggests that rolling out the NBN out across the entire country will help to improve Australia’s broadband ranking.
But this argument ignores any future developments in other OECD countries. There are numerous broadband initiatives in the OECD, and many of these initiatives use FTTP networks, which offer much higher speeds than FTTN.
Faster speeds overseas
Worldwide, the proportion of fixed broadband services using FTTP has increased by 77% in the past year and those using copper, such as FTTN, have decreased by 11.6%.
While the OECD and the rest of the world are moving forward with ramped-up FTTP deployments, Australia is moving backwards with its continuing rollout of FTTN.
New Zealand, for example, currently sits three places ahead of Australia in the OECD report. But in New Zealand, the telco and internet provider Chorus is installing FTTP around the country.
It announced in September last year gigabit-per-second services across its fibre footprint, starting at a wholesale price of NZ$60 (A$55) per month. This follows the announcement of gigabit services in Dunedin in 2015.
In Spain, more than one-third of customers have access to FTTP and this fraction is growing. A similar surge in FTTP connections is taking place in France.
In the United States, fibre rollouts are expanding, and countries such as Sweden and Finland already have a large penetration of fibre in their networks. Many countries in Southeast Asia either have rolled out, or are rolling out, high-speed FTTP networks.
One of the reasons why FTTP deployments are expanding worldwide is that newer construction techniques and cabling technologies are driving down the cost of FTTP.
Enter Fibre to the Curb (FTTC)
NBN Co announced last September that it will roll out Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) to around 700,000 premises originally slated to use an upgraded version of the Optus HFC network.
FTTC is a relatively new technology in which fibres link the local telephone exchange to small existing pits in the street, outside a home or business. FTTC potentially provides speeds in excess of 500 Megabits per second.
Up to the pit, FTTC is essentially the same as a FTTP. The key difference is that in FTTC, a small waterproof electronic box in the pit connects the fibre to the existing copper wires that run into the home.
But FTTC is largely untested in large deployments such as Australia’s NBN. So a rollout of FTTC will carry a degree of technological risk.
NBN says it will cost about A$2,800 to roll out FTTC to each premises, which is only $630 more than FTTN. Like FTTP, the cost of rolling out FTTC will decrease over time using newer construction techniques. FTTC and FTTP are both becoming more cost competitive.
With speeds as much as ten times higher than FTTN, FTTC has the potential to improve Australia’s rankings in broadband speeds and accelerate Australia’s transition into the digital economy. These were the original objectives of the NBN.
In a blog post, NBN’s chief network engineering officer, Peter Ryan, says that FTTC and FTTN are closely related, and uses this premise to paint a picture of how easy it will be to upgrade from FTTN to FTTC.
But FTTC has a natural relationship to FTTP and not to FTTN. In FTTN, fibres feed a cabinet on the side of a road that is connected to nearby 240-volt power lines. The power supplies backup batteries and banks of electronics that connect to the premises via the existing copper wires.
In FTTC (and FTTP, for that matter) the expensive powered node is not needed, meaning that the cabinets in the street could have to be trashed when FTTN is upgraded.
In an attempt to bolster its arguments for FTTN, NBN has asserted that those cabinets are “an extremely valuable asset … which can be used for a range of purposes”. But it is very hard to imagine what these purposes could be.
Taking stock
Despite the excitement over FTTC, it’s getting harder to cancel contracts for FTTN and move to a more sensible strategy.
Ryan points out it’s not possible to “tear up 18 months” of FTTN planning as that would only delay some connections for two to three years.
Rod Tucker is a Laureate Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne, in the University of Melbourne’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rod-tucker-2000" target="_blank">here</a>.
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Australians could get faster broadband with more kerbside NBN connections: Rod Tucker

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/69711/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
Internet and broadband connectivity are the foundation of the networked economy.
But to ensure the benefits of the networked economy are evenly distributed, the Australian government needs to ensure access to the internet to encourage and support innovation. 
A recent report from SGS Economics and Planning highlights a widening gap between the economic workhorses of Sydney and Melbourne and regional Australia. 
All of the key sectors experiencing growth depend upon the networked economy. The emerging economic environment is leveraging the rapid rise in real-time connectivity between people, businesses, devices and systems. 
The result is the digitisation of many transactions and growing importance of data. The Productivity Commission’s draft report on data use and availability highlights the need for clear thinking to make this transformation fair for all stakeholders. 
When the telephone network was rolled out, this was enshrined in the Universal Service Obligation (USO), a framework to provide a basic level of connectivity. 
A key question is whether the USO principle of connectivity is sufficient for the emerging Australian networked economy. The answer is very clearly “yes”. But urgent attention is required to deliver fair, equitable and cost-effective access to broadband and internet connectivity to enable economic development in the cities and the regions.
To be digitally inclusive, Australia needs to overcome the digital divide. There is a significant divergence in the nature and availability of communication and internet services for regional Australia. 
nbn co’s broadband index clearly highlights the widening gap between metropolitan areas and regional areas not serviced by an NBN plan. 
The reaction from regional Australia has been very clear. A new Regional, Rural and Remote Communications Coalition between the Australian Customer Action Network (ACCAN), the National Farmers’ Federation, the Country Women’s Association of NSW, the Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association and AgForce Queensland is advocating for better access in five key areas. 
This sentiment is supported by Internet Australia’s submission to the Productivity Commission. The group, which includes the Melbourne Networked Society Institute, argues for important changes to ensure connectivity. 
So, what is being advocated? 
Universal service obligation
Australians need a new USO provision that incorporates both voice and data connectivity to ensure internet access is guaranteed to all citizens. 
This will address digital cohesion and ensure everyone can participate in the growing networked economy. nbn co should be allowed to provide retail services to customers where there is only one commercial provider to encourage competition and access. 
Service guarantees and reliability
As broadband deployment and uptake increase, service offerings need to provide better and more transparent guarantees to customers. The network should have better reliability measures and offer services with certain quality of customer experience. 
Countries such as the UK already provide a reporting framework to make ISPs accountable for their performance. This includes the speed of connection customers can expect to receive during peak hours. 
Such requirements support competition by focusing service providers on differentiation while lifting performance. This creates incentives for investing in resources to address emerging issues such as the effect of backhaul networks on broadband performance.
Mobile network access
Mobile network technology is critical for the economic activities of regional Australia. Ensuring that network coverage is expanded to everyone also promotes social cohesion. 
Regional Australia needs network coverage to take advantage of emerging opportunities from technologies such as the internet of things. This will enable significant productivity gains in industry sectors such as mining and resources, agriculture and food processing, as well as professional services. 
A government commitment to mobile network coverage is a key step to guarantee such investments and make it attractive for network operators to build the network. 
Fair and equitable broadband access
nbn co’s SkyMuster satellite services (the second satellite will be available in 2017) and its fixed wireless services will face significant demand, which presents issues for fair and equitable access. This will create difficulties in matching the needs of different stakeholders across regional Australia. 
On the one hand, new services such as internet access on (Qantas and Virgin) flights could potentially add congestion to satellite services, depending on the access and allocation of resources. 
Alternatively, new business opportunities enabled by the internet of things and the digital economy might demand low-latency connectivity, which a satellite service cannot provide in regional Australia. 
Therefore, to realise the potential gains, nbn co needs to support investment in development and adoption of new broadband technologies that can provide greater bandwidth, or lower latency, services cost-effectively to regional Australia.
Digital capacity building
Through the government’s digital transformation agenda, it is imperative to ensure regional Australia is empowered through programs focused on digital capacity building. 
This should include skills development, assistance to access new technologies and support for businesses and consumers. As the data becomes a key economic enabler, data skills and platforms for regional Australia will also become a major priority.
While the case for lifting the economic and social participation of regional Australia in the emerging networked economy is very strong, will the policy framework evolve to make it a priority? The bush is crying out for equitable access to broadband.
Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas is director - Melbourne Networked Society Institute, professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Co-Founder/Academic Director - Melbourne Accelerator Program, University of Melbourne and author for The Conversation.
He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/thas-ampalavanapillai-nirmalathas-824" target="_blank">here.</a>
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Regional Australia is crying out for equitable access to broadband

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/57114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
And there has not been a delay of the NBN… Because of Malcolm Turnbull’s management of the NBN, it will all be finished by 2020, not 2024 as Labor was promising, with speeds that people want and need. – Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Christopher Pyne, speaking on Q&amp;A, May 23, 2016.
The election campaign has brought national broadband network policy back into the spotlight, particularly as the incumbent prime minister was responsible for the National Broadband Network (NBN) in his previous role as communications minister.
Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Christopher Pyne told Q&amp;A there has not been a delay of the NBN. Is that right?
<h2>2013: the year of election promises and reviews</h2>
The Conversation contacted a spokesperson for Christopher Pyne seeking comment and sources to support his statement, but did not hear back before deadline.
Nevertheless, most of the documents on the recent history of the NBN can be found online.
As acknowledged in this Coalition document, the previous Labor government promised to deliver an NBN by a deadline of 2021 (not 2024 as Pyne stated on Q&amp;A).
Prior to the 2013 federal election, the nbn co under the then-Labor government said it planned to deliver a predominantly fibre to the premises (FTTP) network by 2021.
But there were delays in negotiating with Telstra for access to ducts and pits, the discovery of asbestos in some of Telstra’s network, and other teething problems.
In their 2013 pre-election promises, the Coalition said its goal was to provide everyone in the nation with access to broadband with download data rates of between 25 and 100 megabits per second by the year 2016. They also planned to deliver between 50 and 100 megabits per second by the end of 2019 to 90 percent of the fixed line footprint. That election commitment, the Coalition said, “assumes the current NBN Co satellite and fixed wireless networks are deployed on schedule.”
But after the election, the Coalition’s dropped its promise to deliver 25 to 100 megabits per second to everyone in the nation by 2016.
Then communications minister Malcolm Turnbull said that a December 2013 Strategic Review of the NBN commissioned by the new government had found that the NBN is in a fundamentally worse position than the Labor Government at any time disclosed to Parliament or the Australian public.
The strategic review also said that Labor’s NBN would not have been completed until 2024.
<h2>2015: New plans</h2>
In 2015, the nbn co issued its 2016 corporate plan.
In this document, the company now estimated that Labor’s plan for an all-FTTP fixed line rollout could be completed by 2026 but possibly as late as 2028.
However, this revised estimate has been challenged by former nbn co CEO, Mike Quigley, who said in a 2015 article that
For that to be correct, one has to assume that for the next 13 years, nbn co will roll out just 12,300 premises per week on average. Fewer premises than it regularly passes each week today… It is almost certainly true that an all-FTTP NBN would take longer to complete than its inferior MTM counterpart [the Multi-Technology Mix proposed by the Coalition]. But it would likely only be longer by one to three years.
In late 2015, an nbn co spokesman was reported as saying that the company had deliberately chosen to take a more gradual approach to [fibre to the node or FTTN] activations than was originally flagged.
<h2>The 2016 leaks</h2>
Early in 2016, internal nbn co documents were leaked to the media.
These and other leaked documents – which were at the centre of a recent Australian Federal Police raid on a Labor offices and a staffer’s home in an effort to find the leaker – were reported as showing bottlenecks and delays in the fibre to the node (FTTN) and hybrid fibre coax (HFC) components of the NBN rollout.
In response, nbn co said: NBN has met or exceeded every key target for six quarters in a row.
Current nbn co chair Ziggy Switkowski wrote on May 28, 2016 that "The company will meet its targets for the ninth quarter in a row… There are no “cost blowouts” or “rollout delays” to the publicly released plans."
It’s beyond the scope of FactCheck to say with any certainty whether the leaked documents accurately reflect the full picture.
It’s important to note that as any technical and other teething problems are resolved, nbn co should be able to ramp up the roll-out rate to improve its chances of meeting a 2020 completion project date.
Internet access speeds around the world are growing rapidly, and this growth is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Australia’s internet speeds are slow compared to other developed countries.
Verdict
Christopher Pyne’s assertion that there have been “no delays” in the implementation of the NBN is inaccurate. Some delays occurred under the Labor government, and the early stages of the FTTN rollout under the current government have been slower than the Coalition originally envisaged.
Leaked documents and reported statements by an nbn co spokesperson also suggest delays occurred under the Coalition government. However, nbn co rejects that, saying it has met or exceeded its key targets.
Labor promised a completion date of 2021, not 2024 as Pyne said. It was the December 2013 Strategic Review of the NBN commissioned by the Coalition government that said Labor’s NBN would not have been completed until 2024. – Rod Tucker
REVIEW
This article is factual and correct. As stated in the article, delays in the nbn co’s roll out is also self evident by comparing the original deployment date promises made before the 2013 federal election with the the revised schedule outlined in the December 2013 strategic review of the NBN, initiated by the Coalition government. – Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas
Rod Tucker is laureate Emeritus Professor, University of Melbourne and author for The Conversation. He con be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rod-tucker-2000" target="_blank">here</a>.
 
 
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Election FactCheck Q&A: has the NBN been delayed?

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/57114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
A National Broadband Network (NBN) based on Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) was, and still is, the right answer for Australia’s broadband needs.
Compared to the original FTTP-based NBN, we are currently on the way to a much poorer performing broadband network with a mix of FTTP, fibre to the node (FTTN) and other technologies. It will entail increased long-term costs and be completed at about the same time as the original project would have been completed.
Around the world, the direction in which new builds of fixed broadband networks are headed has become clear. The world is increasingly moving towards FTTP. As a consequence, advances are being made in FTTP technology that make it cheaper and easier to deploy.
These developments, which have taken place in the last few years, have only reinforced the rationale for basing Australia’s NBN on FTTP.
<h2>Not too late to change</h2>
It is not too late to change the current direction of the NBN, but that change would need to be made in a controlled and managed way to ensure the project is not subject to another major disruption.
Why has it been so hard to get at the facts regarding the costs and timing of the FTTP-based NBN? The answer, as we all know, is that the NBN project has been from its inception a contentious political issue.
Initiated by the Labor party back in 2009, it was a good example of a government being courageous enough to initiate a large and complex project for the public good.
The original NBN was a visionary project and would have created a valuable asset for the Australian public. It didn’t take long, though, for the attacks on the project to start.
But the fact – confirmed this week - remains that over the past three years, Australia’s world ranking for average peak connection speeds dropped from 30th to 60th. We shouldn’t have been happy with being ranked 30th in the first place.
Yet the drivers of faster speeds and capacities for fixed broadband have not abated. Quite the contrary.
The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows internet usage has been increasing over the years, from 191,839 terabytes downloaded in the month of December 2010 to 1,714,922 terabytes in December 2015. That’s nearly a ninefold increase in five years.
What’s more, Cisco is forecasting that global broadband speeds will nearly double between 2015 and 2020.
<h2>From megabits to gigabits</h2>
That’s why the debate in the United States and Asia is about gigabit per second speeds, not about whether 25MBps or 50Mbps is sufficient.
It is a bit surprising that we continue to hear the argument that nobody is buying a 1Gbps service today, so why build a network that can deliver that much speed? 25Mbps to 50Mbps is more than enough.
This has been a mantra for the Coalition, and it was supported in the view by the Vertigan committee, which was set up to review the NBN. In its final report, the committee assumed that the median household would require only 15Mb/s by 2023.
It seems especially curious that a government that styles itself as the innovation and infrastructure government should argue this. Because this argument betrays a complete lack of understanding of what the original FTTP NBN was all about.
It was about providing the vital infrastructure that Australia needs in order to remain competitive internationally in the 21st century.
It is arguable that, today, most homes and businesses can get by with speeds of up to 50Mbps. But already there are many home-based businesses that can’t and are demanding 100Mbps or more.
Gigabit services are just starting to emerge elsewhere in the world, so the applications that can take advantage of this type of speed are in their infancy. But we all know they are coming.
To spend billions of dollars on building a major piece of national infrastructure that just about meets demand today, but doesn’t allow for any significant growth over the next ten or 20 years is incredibly short-sighted.
It is such a pity that so much time and effort has been spent on trying to discredit and destroy the original FTTP-based NBN plan. Equally, it’s a pity the Coalition has put its faith in what has turned out to be a short-sighted, expensive and backward looking multi-technology mix (<a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/the-nbn-project/what-is-the-nbn-multi-technology-mix">MTM</a>) plan based on copper.
The nation is going to be bearing the consequences of those decisions for years to come – in higher costs and poorer performance in an area that is critical to its long-term future. Betting tens of billions of taxpayers dollars at this time on copper access technologies, as the Coalition has done, is a huge miscalculation.
The number of telcos still focussed on squeezing out the last bit of value from their old copper networks continues to decrease every year. Even the UK’s BT, which has been the poster child for FTTN, is now planning to increase its FTTP deployment, in part as a response to pressure from the UK regulator, Ofcom.
<h2>Come the election</h2>
No matter what the outcome of the upcoming election, the original vision of a broadband network built largely on a future-proof FTTP solution is now going to happen over a longer period and at a greater cost to taxpayers.
The Coalition is likely to continue with the FTTN and Hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) deployments and the peak funding is likely to be in the range of A$49 billion to A$56 billion. It will take a “heroic” effort, as NBN Co’s chairman Ziggy Switkowski has said, to have the network completed by the end of 2020.
Just when the FTTN equipment will need to be upgraded to provide higher speeds is an unknown but given what is happening overseas, it is unlikely to be very long. No one has yet made public the estimated costs of this upgrade.
Should the Labor party win the election, we can expect a managed transition from FTTN to FTTP, increasing the number of premises served by FTTP by about two million.
Given what we now know about the deployment costs of FTTP versus FTTN, I would not expect this transition to FTTP to make a big difference to deployment costs or timing of completing the NBN. It will result, however, in a network that is a step closer to the desired end state.
While it is impossible to turn back the clock on the MTM, it is still possible to make changes to the current direction, without introducing another major disruption. Changes that will get us closer to building the right network for the long term.
It is becoming increasingly obvious, especially to customers, that an NBN based on FTTP is a much better network than an MTM-based NBN from every angle – speed and capacity delivery, maintenance costs, reliability, longevity and upgrade costs.
An FTTP network would be a much more valuable public asset and could generate greater cash flows for the government due to lower maintenance, higher revenues and almost no upgrade costs. And it would be vastly superior in driving growth through the wider economy.
So it is a great pity that before making the shift to the MTM, the Coalition did not heed the words re-quoted by the then independent MP for New England, Tony Windsor: “Do it right, do it once, do it with fibre.”
Mike Quigley is adjunct professor in the School of Computing and Communications, University of Technology Sydney and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mike-quigley-276502" target="_blank">here</a>.
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The need for speed: there’s still time to fix Australia’s NBN

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GUEST OBSERVERS
Is the rollout for Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) on track? Are we employing the right technology for the job? Will the NBN be fast enough to handle future demands?
The Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network recently asked five of Australia’s leading academic experts to give their views on the state of the NBN.
Here, each of the experts gives a summary of their views as they presented them to the Committee, raising concerns about the current technology and suggesting there might be ways to improve the NBN rollout using new approaches being adopted overseas.
David Glance, University of Western Australia
The Senate Committee was brought up-to-date with contemporary answers to these questions. It was given examples of companies and countries that thought fibre to the node (FTTN) was an adequate implementation strategy, but have since changed to a fibre to the premises (FTTP) approach.
In the US for example, AT&amp;T last year abandoned fibre to the node and has switched to deploying fibre to the premises because of the speed and capacity limitations, and because 1 Gigabit per second (1 Gbps) is the “new normal”.
AT&amp;T is also now certain that 25 Mbps will not be adequate for most people, and in fact, won’t be what most people actually want to deploy in their homes or businesses. Households are already consuming multiple simultaneous media streams at whatever definition their network will support. Business, especially in an online innovation-led economy, is increasingly coming to rely on the presence of ultra-fast broadband.
Costs and technologies that make up those costs have also changed. In Australia, since the decision was made to switch to a fibre to the node implementation of the NBN, costs of implementing other solutions, including Fibre to the Pavement (Sidewalk) have come down. Technology solutions like G.Fast allow short lengths of copper to be used to a home and still deliver 1 Gbps speed.
With technology, especially in the time frame of the construction of the NBN, the rationale for a particular approach will change. In the case of the NBN, most of the answers to the usual questions have indeed changed, and continuing with a fibre to the node approach no longer makes any sense.
Mark A. Gregory, RMIT University
The NBN is a nation building project that has been hijacked by politics. As a result, the obsolete fibre to the node technology is being rolled to a large number of Australians.
The government should accept the weight of international evidence and move back to fibre to the premises (FTTP). There is an urgent need for a 20 to 30 year life-cycle costing analysis to be completed to provide an engineering cost benefit justification for the NBN technologies to be used in the rollout.
There is a need for a broad panel to be formed that includes academics, industry, consumer representatives and government to discuss the future of the NBN beyond 2020.
It is time for Australia to adopt a “universal access” regime, where everyone can connect reliably to digital services, including health and education and other government services, at all times. This is especially for the socially and economically disadvantaged, including the homeless and itinerant, to be provided with the means to access digital services.
For this reason, nbn Co should rollout a national wholesale Wi-Fi network to facilitate companies and local government offering free Wi-Fi similar to what is happening now through Telstra Air.
 
Rod Tucker, University of Melbourne
Since the days of dial-up modems, there has been a relentless growth in demand for higher broadband speeds. But the 2014 Vertigan report underestimated Australia’s future broadband needs by a factor of ten. Vertigan supported the Coalition’s game-changing shift from fibre to the premises (FTTP) to fibre to the node (FTTN).
Since Vertigan, a lot has happened in the broadband world. For example, the major US telco AT&amp;T has switched from FTTN to FTTP, arguing that demand is growing for speeds that FTTN cannot deliver. And rollouts of FTTP are accelerating in many countries. Australia is rapidly being left behind.
All of this points in one direction: Australia’s FTTN network will be obsolete by the time it is rolled out and will not be able to deliver the speeds that will be needed in the future.
Unlike FTTP and other technologies such as fibre to the distribution point (FTTdP), FTTN will be expensive to upgrade and a future owner of the FTTN network may not bother. Every way you look at it, FTTN is a bad idea.
The notion FTTP is much more expensive than FTTN turns out to be incorrect. The cost of rolling out FTTN is often understated and the cost of rolling out FTTP is overstated. New lower-cost FTTP construction techniques and cost increases for FTTN have changed the equation.
While public attention has generally focused on the fixed network in urban areas, people in rural and remote areas will use NBN’s satellites. Qantas also plans to use nbn’s satellites to provide video entertainment on its flights, sapping bandwidth from people on the ground. A third satellite will alleviate this problem.
My advice to the Senate Select Committee on the NBN is that the FTTN rollout should be abandoned before it is too late, and replaced with FTTP.
Arthur Lowery, Monash University
I have been in telecommunications for over 35 years now, and co-founded VPIsystems, a company that develops software tools for optimising and rolling-out telecommunications systems using multiple technologies, such as national broadband connectivity.
The goal of the NBN is laudable: to provide decent connectivity to everybody in Australia. I’m interested, as a taxpayer, in how this can be done in a cost efficient manner. One of my points is that a rollout is a longish-term endeavour, and maybe it should provide long-term employment for its skilled-up workforce.
Thus, when designing the rollout, a staged approach should be used. Because civil engineering is a large part of the cost, it is prudent to defer decommissioning existing infrastructure close to dwellings (which can support &gt; 1 Gbit/s, as it is short and not shared), and concentrate on the real bottlenecks nearer the exchanges.
This means “fibre-to-the-fence” (G.fast). The fact that many period Australian homes are being rapidly replaced also makes FTTP question somewhat academic. Of course, once fibre is at the gate, it’s relatively easy extend to any building in the future, if needs be.
Thas Nirmalathas, University of Melbourne
The rapid proliferation of connected devices is transforming connectivity between people, places and things and creating a networked society. This presents many opportunities for citizens, businesses, and governments through the advancement and use of connectivity.
The NBN presents Australia with an opportunity to provide the critical infrastructure for the networked society. It remains the essential launch pad for transformation of key industry sectors, for a data-driven economy, and for delivering greater social equity across the Australian society.
Global rankings of internet connectivity and speed show that Australia needs to improve its standing or risk being left behind by the current wave of innovation. Australia falls short particular on broadband subscriptions and faces a widening gap between peak and average speed of internet connections.
The NBN rollout provides an opportunity for Australia to increase bandwidth and capacity to support innovation. However, in order to meet growing demands to enable innovation the NBN rollout must improve.
The actual rollout rates is falling short of the original targets promised under the NBN. Despite a change in the technology mix and revised network architectural options recommended through the strategic reports, NBN deployment remains slow across both new and existing sites.
The NBN should plan for a third satellite without waiting for demand saturation. Machine-to-machine traffic arising from connected devices across many key sectors of relevance to regional Australia will demand cost-effective wireless access using satellite or other wireless alternatives such as those that could take advantage of optical fibre networks to provide improved wireless coverage and access.
David Glance, University of Western Australia; Arthur Lowery, Monash University; Mark A Gregory, RMIT University; Rod Tucker, University of Melbourne; Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, University of Melbourne.
All are authors for <a href="https://theconversation.com/au" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.
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Property 101: The state of the NBN

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GUEST OBSERVER
Cost is a central issue in the ongoing debate about the best approach to building Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN).
In 2013, the Coalition argued that Labor’s original all-fibre to the premises (FTTP) network could cost as much as A$94 billion. In the 2016 NBN Corporate plan the figure was revised down to A$74 billion to A$84 billion, while NBN Co’s multi technology mix (MTM), incorporating fibre to the node (FTTN) and upgraded hybrid fibre coax (HFC) was less costly, with a price tag of A$46 billion to A$56 billion.
Since the Coalition announced these numbers, Labor has said that, if elected, it will not go back to an all-FTTP network, but instead pursue a half-way option, in which the HFC component of the MTM is retained but FTTN, the slowest and most limited technology, is phased out.
It’s worth looking more closely at cost difference between FTTP and FTTN to see if the claimed A$84 billion to A$56 billion maximum cost comparison stacks up, and see where Labor’s new half-way solution sits.
<h2>Capital costs</h2>
The NBN 2016 Corporate Plan states that the average capital cost (capex) to connect a home or business to the NBN using FTTP is A$3,700. But the real cost for a FTTP connection is probably less than this.
The A$3,700 figure quoted by nbn co is based on old construction techniques that have been superseded in other parts of the world. The costs of rolling-out FTTP in New Zealand, for example, have been dropping steadily in recent years and will soon be A$2,900 per premises. For some reason, NBN Co has yet to acknowledge the lessons learned in New Zealand.
Let’s give NBN Co the benefit of the doubt and assume that the A$3,700 cost per premises for FTTP is correct. In comparison, the 2016 Corporate Plan states that the average capital cost for a FTTN connection is A$1,600, or A$2,100 less than FTTP.
For an upgraded hybrid-fibre-coax (HFC) connection the capital cost is A$1,100, or A$2,600 less. However, in light of recent revelations in a <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/291057120/Leaked-NBN-document">leaked document</a> from NBN Co published by Fairfax indicating that it may be necessary to overbuild Optus’ HFC network, the savings offered by HFC will not be as good.
Using these numbers, it is easy to compare the capital costs of different networks.
At the end of construction, the MTM network will provide FTTN to 4.5 million premises and HFC to 4 million premises. Labor’s new approach is to replace as many as possible of these 4.5 million FTTN connections by FTTP. The maximum additional capital cost to do this would be 4.5 million times A$2,100, or A$9.5 billion. This figure corresponds to A$790 per premises averaged across all 12 million premises in Australia.
An all-FTTP network could be achieved by also replacing the HFC connections with FTTP. The total additional capital cost of this hypothetical all-FTTP network would be A$19.9 billion, or A$1,658 per premises averaged across all premises.
<h2>Peak funding</h2>
Of course, it is necessary to also consider operational expenditure (opex) – the cost of running the network – and revenues from the network. These factors all contribute to the peak funding figures in the 2016 Corporate Plan.
Peak funding is the maximum cash outlay required before cash flow becomes positive. Peak funding is a useful measure of cost because it is a direct measure of the cash outlay required. But it is not necessarily a good measure of the cost of the network infrastructure or a good measure of the net financial cost/benefit to the Australian taxpayer.
Operational expenditure is a major issue for the MTM network because of factors including the need for new software management systems, the additional costs of maintaining the degrading copper wires in the FTTN network, and the cost of the electricity required to power the FTTN nodes located in suburban streets. Importantly, an FTTP network would incur none of these costs.
In fact, the leaked nbn co document mentioned earlier shows that the operational costs of FTTN network are 67% more than for FTTP, and the operational costs of HFC are 25% more. Over the lifetime of the network, this difference could amount to billions of dollars, greatly reducing the overall difference in costs between FTTN and FTTP.
Another factor that reduces the cost difference between the Coalition’s network and Labor’s new alternative is that a Labor’s FTTP/HFC network would be capable of generating higher revenues through the delivery of premium services that would not be achievable with a slower-speed FTTN network.
This is well documented by high-profile companies such as Ovum, which predicts FTTP services will drive the highest global growth rates for broadband revenues over the next five years, based on premium speeds of 100 Mbps and higher.
<h2>Timeframes</h2>
In light of all these factors, why is NBN Co’s cost estimate for a hypothetical FTTP network so large? The NBN Corporate plan provides no detailed information on its financial modelling, but it states that an all-FTTP network would take until 2026 to 2028 to complete.
If the timeframe was indeed as long as this, the revenue stream would be delayed. This could indeed lead to unrealistically large numbers for the peak funding cost of FTTP.
So where does the 2026 to 2028 timeframe come from? My guess is that NBN Co has simply extrapolated from the present rollout rate for FTTP, which has not increased much since 2013. One piece of supporting information comes from a Senate Estimates meeting, where NBN Co confirmed that its A$74-84 billion number was not for a “continued” FTTP network but for a “restart” from the current plan.
NBN Co waited until September this year to hire additional staff, increasing the number of employees from 3,400 to 4,500 to speed up the rollout of FTTN. If it had hired these additional staff in 2013 and focused on the FTTP rollout, the network could well have been completed by around 2020 or 2021.
Rod Tucker is laureate emeritus professor, University of Melbourne, and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rod-tucker-2000" target="_blank" style="line-height: 1.3em;">here</a>.
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