David Ramli of the AFR has led much of the recent reporting on the NBN.   The things that are described in David's report are so predictable and so unnecessary.   

Imagine your house and the practicalities of getting a fibre optic cable from the street up to your outside wall.   If you're in a block of flats, don't even bother trying to imagine how they'll do it - NBN Co doesn't know either.

Now, multiply the complexity of getting that cable underground up to your outside wall by about 10,000,000 - that's about the number of premises the NBN's fibre optic cable has been promised to.

In a market like Australia market forces usually handle roll-outs pretty well.   Think about the 8 or so mobile networks that have been built here.   But when the grand interventionist schemers decide to turn the place upside down all at once - as with Pink Batts or now the attempts at connecting fibre cable to every home and office - well you can see what happens here.

DAVID RAMLI, JAMES HUTCHINSON AND JOHN MCDULING

 

Labour shortages and poor hiring practices are delaying the construction of Labor’s national broadband network, as the contractors building it rush to meet crucial rollout targets.

Union officials and executives close to the rollout have told  The Australian Financial Review  that scarce labour and skills deficiencies are exacerbating delays of the network rollout, especially in resource boom areas.

The Communications Electrical Plumbing Union’s South Australian branch president, Steve Butterworth, said many of the work sites in South Australia and the Northern Territory were using workers with inadequate training and on relatively low wages.

“They’re getting untrained people for bargain rates and some of them come from [community service employers],” he said. “As much as it might be great for social benefits, at this ramp-up stage they need to get people who know what they’re doing.”

NBN Co chief executive Mike ­Quigley told a Senate hearing last week that the government-owned company had not connected a single customer to the parts of the fibre optic network in Western Australia, South Australia or the Northern Territory being constructed by contractor Syntheo.

He blamed Syntheo – a joint venture between construction giant Lend Lease and Service Stream which is responsible for roughly 17 per cent of current rollout targets – for the delays. NBN Co said in October 2012 it would pass about 300,000 existing homes by June this year, but Mr Quigley told the committee he now expected to reach 286,000, as per its business plan.

Continue reading this article at the AFR website