NFP Internet Australia continues its criticism of the failure of the NBN despite ongoing attempts to discredit its motives. Executive director of Internet Australia Laurie Patton reports.
THREE YEARS AGO, Internet Australia, the not for profit (NFP) peak body representing internet users, embarked on a mission to foster more informed debate about the National Broadband Network and its importance to Australia's future.
It was – and is – the view of our board and members that we need something better than a network deploying ageing copper wires.
Most technology journalists already agreed with that proposition.
However, some in the mainstream media took much longer to get the message. As one of my former colleagues from Channel Seven put it, the subject amounted to a lot of "white noise".
We soldiered on, putting forward reasoned arguments and explaining the technical flaws in the current strategy. Over the last six months or so there's been a noticeable change. Hardly a day would go by when we were not contacted for comment by a newspaper, radio station or TV station. In that same time period, every survey and opinion poll showed consumers are unhappy and social media was full of horror stories from NBN customers. Plenty of grist for the media mill.
So when The Australian's Walkley award-winning journalist Anthony Klan contacted me about a month ago, I was happy to provide assistance. As a former journalist myself, I have had a long-standing practice of helping erstwhile colleagues.
The first couple of exchanges went well. Klan wrote some balanced, factual stories, pretty much in line with the prevailing current of cautious criticism of what many believe is a highly dubious business model based on inferior technology choices.
One article noted there could be almost two million “seriously dissatisfied” voting-age NBN customers in the lead-up to the next Federal election.
Communications watchdog takes charge of slow NBN complaints https://t.co/neATzaRpym
— Asher Wolf (@Asher_Wolf) August 3, 2017
Another reported that communications minister Senator Mitch Fifield has ordered an inquiry into NBN customer complaints as he "looks to combat mounting dissatisfaction".
But then, a few weeks ago, Klan started asking a series of strange questions. He wanted to see all our company accounts going back to 2011. How many members did we have? Who were they? It soon became apparent that his "fishing expedition" was being directed by a third party or parties — although no mention was made of this. Sadly, it turned out one of these was a former board member who fell out with the majority of the other directors, resigned and has been fomenting disharmony behind the scenes ever since.
As the questions became more targeted, we deduced he wasn't after a good news story.
Last week saw a marked increase in email exchanges as we continued to provide information to Mr Klan. Then, yesterday, a "hatchet job" — its first paragraph belaying the fact that this man was on a mission. The difficulty was working out: what was his mission?
On the one hand, Internet Australia had 'received tens of thousands of dollars from telco Optus and Internet giant Google', while at the same time, its executive director (that would be me) was a member of the Labor Party. Pick the conspiracy theory. Your choice!
Not letting facts get in the way, Klan alleged Internet Australia had:
' ... taken a partisan position against the government's cheaper fibre-to-the-node approach in favour of the ALP policy of connecting almost every home in the country via more expensive fibre-to-the premises connections.'
The reality is that, for about two years now, Internet Australia has been arguing for a bipartisan approach embracing new fibre-to-the-driveway technology — technology that wasn't around when Labor launched the NBN, nor when the Coalition changed the model. Mr Klan knows this because we told him on numerous occasions.
On the eve of this journalistic assault, we assembled a digest of the most significant information we'd provided over many weeks and emailed it to Mr Klan. He ignored most of it. [Read the full email here.]
Klan's headline screamed out that my link to Labor had been "exposed". Klan failed to mention that my political history is well known (and irrelevant) and he failed to include this statement provided in a spirit of transparency:
As is noted in Wikipedia I was an advisor in the NSW Wran Government. I went on to work as a journalist, including stints in the Canberra Press Gallery. I have a Parliament House security pass co-sponsored by Malcolm Turnbull when he was communications minister and former Senator Stephen Conroy. I have discussed the NBN with Mr Turnbull, who I've known for many years, and with Mr Shorten. My role at IA is to advocate for a 21st Century NBN and I have consistently called for a bipartisan rethink and the need to take party politics out of the equation. There are many journalists who belong to political parties and still manage to act professionally and dispassionately. I did this as a journalist and I'm doing it now.
I also told Mr Klan that, in the final week of the last Parliamentary session, we'd met with representatives of the Government, Opposition, Greens and One Nation. We also provided information to Senators Hinch and Xenophon.
Mr Klan's approach to IA is perplexing. He's now devoted two articles, and an immense amount of time and effort, clearly trying to write us off as irrelevant and repeatedly pointing to our limited finances. It's a theme also often trotted out by NBN Co boss Bill Morrow and a couple of his "fanbois" in the tech press.
Here's something else from the email Mr Klan didn't use:
It's a cheap shot to try to value IA on the basis of our financial capacity or on our local membership numbers. We're the Australian chapter of the global Internet Society, which has circa 90,000 members in more than 100 countries. Most chapters, and indeed all the overarching Internet governance and policy setting bodies, operate largely through volunteers too.
Internet Australia has never hidden the fact that we are a small organisation and cash strapped. We ask that we are judged by our performance, not our purse. I've likened us to The Mouse That Roared — the title of the classic Peter Sellers film.
Not content with his first effort, Mr Klan turned on Internet Australia again last night. This time alleging that our "international parent body" (the Internet Society) has distanced itself from us. Rest assured they haven't. We are one of their longest-standing and most active chapters, and we were recently ranked at their highest performance level.
So what was the basis for this bizarre assertion?
In Switzerland, asked whether Internet Australia’s views represented those of the global Internet Society, spokeswoman Allesandra Desantillana said local chapters of the group agreed to support its global goals, "however any public positions and statements of the chapters are their own".
Will Mr Klan try for the trifecta? Seems likely. The final line of last night's missive is:
'Do you know more? klana@theaustralian.com.au.'
Is that an #nbn Co logo I see before me?Spending taxpayer $$s to brief #newscorp journo to do hatchet job on advocates for #BetterBroadband? pic.twitter.com/IFQYYq4zC6
— annehurley (@conscienceanne) August 7, 2017
We emailed Klan after the first attack, asking that this comment be included in any follow-up:
We do not believe that today's article was fair or balanced considering the amount of material we provided over many weeks. The 'Fact Sheet' contains obviously false information and we doubt it came from NBN Co, despite the positioning of their logo on the document. We have identified your primary sources and do not consider them impartial or reliable. The response we've received from both high profile experts and everyday Internet users has been so positive that we are even more proud of our achievement in fostering informed debate about the flaws in the current NBN rollout.
Notwithstanding Mr Klan's efforts to diminish us, Internet Australia is resolute in its determination to press for #BetterBroadband. It's not the only Internet-related issue on our agenda, but it is one that affects every Australian.
This, also from the copious material provided to The Australian, is what it's all about:
The biggest technical issue is that FTTN simply cannot deliver fast broadband. That's the case even with well-maintained copper. So far NBN has skirted some of the more problematic sections of the Telstra network. So as they move closer to completing the FTTN rollout no doubt the complaints will increase.
The biggest consumer issue is that around 40-50 percent of premises will be stuck with FTTN. This means a digital divide where half the country is stuck with an inferior service. You will have seen this week's announcement of 100Mbps speeds on fixed wireless. That means people with fixed wireless, which is generally seen as a second tier technology, will have faster broadband than half the country with FTTN. At Senate Estimates earlier this month Bill Morrow conceded that they have no budget to upgrade FTTN. He told Senators that anyone with FTTN wanting faster speeds will have to pay for their own upgrade.
As we've pointed out to both the current Coalition Government and Labor Opposition, one of them will be in office three years from now when the NBN roll out is due to be completed. If nothing is done in the meantime, they'll be lumbered with the biggest national infrastructure debacle in Australia's history. NBN Co will still owe the government the $19 billion it is having to borrow.
On current revenue numbers, it will struggle to do more than cover the Interest charges. Worse still, as our globally recognised experts point out 40-50 per cent of the network – the areas stuck with the inferior FTTN – will soon need to be replaced.
So it makes sense for everyone to come together, accept there's a better way and move forward in a bipartisan commitment to Australia's future in the emerging digitally-enabled world. It would be nice to see The Australian supporting such a move.
On television last week, Bill Morrow likened the NBN to the nation-building Snowy Mountains Scheme. I guess nobody told him it's political history? Labor launched the "Snowy" amid howls of protest from the then conservative opposition. However, on becoming prime minister, Liberal leader Sir Robert Menzies embraced the project and became an ardent supporter. What a shame we didn't see this happen with the NBN.
Laurie Patton is Executive Director of Internet Australia, the NFP peak body representing internet users and a chapter of the global Internet Society. You can follow Laurie on Twitter @LJPatton.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
I can't palm my face hard enough at @NBN_Australia over this travesty #nbnfail https://t.co/DdTirQVIEy
— Dave "Dafu" Douds (@captdaf) August 6, 2017
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