NBN Co will NOT be sold? | Dirt Report

[@GregMcCall]

As a person who started in public ownership of telecommunications (ie. PMG and Telecom Aus) and then watching it privatised and the result today, I really don’t want the NBN to suffer the same fate. Shareholders can make more anti technology, nonsense decisions to drive the profit rather than provide service.

[@zachb1706]

I don’t know much about the privatisation of Telstra, but thank fuck the government doesn’t control cellular infrastructure like they do broadband. We actually have one of the best cell networks in the world because of that.

[@PAPO1990]

Privatization has NEVER gone well. Telecom, Power, and Water NEVER should have been privatized in the past. Let’s not make the same mistakes again

[@peter65zzfdfh]

Airports, toll roads, anything that can’t be duplicated easily or where failure isn’t possible. The whole point of privatization is to put the risk onto the private industry and to allow multiple players to compete. If one or both of those things is impossible, it’s just privatized profits on something the taxpayer has to fix or bail out when they run it into the ground for short term returns.

[@PAPO1990]

@@peter65zzfdfh I mean, toll roads shouldn’t really exist in the first place 🤷‍♂️

[@Samus2400]

Thanks for raising this pat, I hope this passes for us.

[@smithynoir9980]

Not only should NBN be kept firmly in public control, we should be nationalizing energy and many more crucial services that have been handed over to for-profit interests.

[@Epic3032]

We should nationalize our postal services too...currently "Australia" post is privatized. And slow as fuck...for example you buy something online in Sydney metropolitan, it takes DAYS to delivery. Where with Amazon even though its private, when you pay for next day delivery it actually COMES the next day.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

Yes, electricity is an essential service, should not be in private hands. j

[@wtf22playa56]

@@Epic3032 ...sounds like you are arguing that aus post should run like amazon..lol

[@Epic3032]

@@wtf22playa56 precisely but government owned.

[@wtf22playa56]

@@Epic3032 LOL...obviously you ignore all our current govt run programs...Centrelink and welfare, NDIS, renewables...lol...lets increase our taxes even more I guess to pay for that....zzzz

[@domm6812]

Every time we're promised privatisation will magically fix everything it turns out to be a lie. Prices always go up and service quality gradually goes down. We were promised that privatisation of our electricity infrastructure would fix everything here in NSW and it's become a nightmare. There's been no investment in it, and prices have skyrocketed.

[@plu_Tony_um]

Government ownership's main objective is to provide a service to the public, whereas the main objective in the hands of companies is to make a profit at all costs, spend as little as possible (preferably off-shore), let the infrastructure go into disrepair, and then seek corporate welfare and expect the government (ie: the Australian public) pay for infrastructure upgrades - its a total con job

[@StevieLeigh]

Exact same story in SA, owned by the Chinese and now the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, who have a history of asset stripping

[@johnkauppi7078]

You are absolutely correct. Every time the politicians want to privatize a public asset at the insistence and benefit of their 'mates', they always feed us these lies of how everything will be cheaper and better. And always the exact opposite happens. Service goes to shit and prices skyrocket. Every time. God! I'm so sick of these liars.

[@DigitalDependance]

OMG. Could you imagine if NBN was privatised. Complete disaster.

[@kmitalian]

The LNP tried to privatise it but thankfully Labor came back in and now is codifying

[@geesehoward7261]

@DigitalDependance why? Explain yourself or are you incapable?

[@DigitalDependance]

@@geesehoward7261 Increased costs, minimal maintenance, worse consistency across the network and slower repairs. All the usual that you get from a privatised system that is geared towards maximising return.

[@alanhilder1883]

We had a national telecommunication, which was trying to connect all Australians. Then politics got involved, making that company deal first for the politically connected ( screw the rural areas, boost the rich areas in the capital cities ). Then Little Johnny got in... "private companies do it better", "Sell it off", then they only worried about those who could pay big for little outlay from the company. Labor stepped in with the NBN, a government owned company, which was trying to connect all Australians. Tony sold the idea that "private companies do it better". The sheeple put him in, the company couldn't get the old hardware givin back ( the premise of Tony's cheeper system was that he could take back the old hardware at no cost, Telstra forced him to buy it back, at inflated prices ) so was gutted, pushed an inferior product and wondered why no private company wanted to buy in. Now the company has to go back and install what should have been done the 1st time ( so repeat the cost, that is double the cost of doing it the 1st time, plus inflation ).

[@peter65zzfdfh]

I have friends who worked for a company doing drafting the NBN. After years of planning and drawings for FTTP they were paid to do them again for FTTN etc…. Lots of waste due to that change of direction well beyond the obvious.

[@648Roland]

Was the 13th draftsman/RF designer employed by Visionstream created by Telecom. Was a stressful time competing against PBN who was employed by Optus. After being sold the new owners fired about half of us. Was a good training ground for later RF design positions.

[@Epic3032]

BOTH parties are prone to selling OUR assets

[@RemusKingOfRome]

This is why we need people power, everyone votes online on all policy issues. d

[@tld8102]

We need to nationalising other industries services like power and mining

[@Rocket-hb6jh]

Couldn’t agree more- we need to cure ourselves of this privatisation BS.

[@Neil-yg5gm]

I suspect there is an election coming up so Labor comes out and tries to scare people about what the Coalition MAY do. NBNCo just reported a $1.4B loss. Who would buy it?

[@rakeau]

I don’t think privatisation is generally a bad thing, but on the flipside, when it comes to a basic necessity + infrastructure (elec, water, internet, transport, etc), which is monopolistic in nature, well .. Yeah. Have to concur with keeping such things public.

[@garrymcgaw4745]

Well!, if it's not one thing it's another, pft, I can see me going Launtel very soon. Thanks Pat 👍.

[@peterhoz]

Anyone paying $90 for a 50-down plan needs to get a grip. They're available for below $70 if you shop around.

[@peter65zzfdfh]

Privatization only makes sense for things that can be efficiently duplicated. Things that building twice are impossible to do profitably, or impossible like roads and airports. Should be public, especially when their failure is impossible as they’re vital to the wider economy. If you have lots of small power plants, it can make sense to privatize, if a bunch could fail and the grid would be fine, then you can privatize. But if you have just a few larger generators. It makes no sense. You’re not going to build three sets of power lines to everyone’s house, so distribution is going to be a monopoly, so why privatize? There’s zero reason for a private company to do more than charge as much as possible while running it into the ground until they collapse after having distributed all the profits of neglect. Then the government has to pick up the pieces and fix it at taxpayer cost. Internet is not much better, yes there’s more wireless options but they couldn’t cope with everyone in cities moving to them, and are inherently less efficient.

[@zachb1706]

Obviously not true. NZ’s internet infrastructure is privatised and they have far cheaper internet The point of privatisation could be that they run the assets more efficiently, or as a part of a larger scheme to deregulate the industry and allow more competition.

[@maxmusemel]

100% it should stay a public company, nevertheless it doesn't help those of us who can't get Fibre and as you say will end up paying Fibre prices for lagging Node services. I get @NBNco will give a property Fibre for free but to qualify for this our property would have to install our own local network to All units ourselves with one agreeing to have an NBN Box install on inside of connected outer wall that the 14 other unit's LAN cables run from (according to a NBN Tech who visited me for problem they'd detected And the NBN Installers putting in Fibre to my parent's home)! Until they include rolling out connections from access point directly to All units in a property such as ours we have hands tied on idea of Full speed NBN services aa we pay more and more for stagnant speeds on FTTN 🤯

[@Tutankhamun1333]

My current internet of 100/20 through nbn fttp is $124/m with fetch tv, extra channels and home phone but once i go to ~700/50 my price will jump up to $154/m with the extras on the 100/20.

[@VeritasVortex]

Thank goodness! Now if only they can find a way to make nbn services cheaper...

[@MrJugNut]

Look how good it went when our government sold the power grid. Even though they knew beforehand just how bad it would be for us. How? They followed the NZ model & in NZ the price of power exploded almost overnight after privatization. So "before" even starting the sale the government knew that we'd be screwed but chose to do it anyway. Why would the NBN be any different?

[@tld8102]

Hwat! Why would they even consider privatising the nbn,

[@Carrotsalesman]

So they've come full circle. Tax payer hates privatised internet, because it was awful and unreliable, and too expensive. Taxpayer buys infrustructure off private companies at insane cost. Taxpayer pays to roll out 3 versions of a patched and potched overbudget "upgrades" at insane additional cost. Taxpayer pays to use taxpayer funded infrastructure. Prices go up for NBN. NBN try to sell back to same private companies at pennies on the dime. Taxpayer has essentially purchased the upgrade for the private companies that refused to do implement themselves. Prices go up.

[@diablosv36]

The NBN only was created because Telecom\Telstra got privatised and became a pain in the backside of the government. We had a whole bunch of proposals from Telstra to build faster networks that were so bad, terrible speed, high prices and no competition at the wholesale level. Selling NBN would just be another disaster, a Telstra 2.0.

[@Neil-yg5gm]

It was always Labors plan to sell the NBN. So what has changed?? """""In 2010 Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said Labor “remained firmly committed to selling its stake in NBN Co after the network was fully built and operational, subject to market conditions and security considerations”."""

[@ThunderBoxAu]

Any thoughts on Opticomm? We already have a small amount of fixed line estates outside of the NBN (which Telstra had their velocity network until the sold it last couple years).

[@annoyedlemon]

i have a Opticomm service though aussie BB Opticomm is such a rought they charge activation fees etc when i moved into my unit with a Opticomm service i was shocked i kind of wish nbn would take over Opticomm services

[@alf699]

I am close to Port Macquarie Mid North Coast NSW. Properties around here are on average 10+ Acre and sealed roads.Property values of 1 Million minimum. NO NBN even close. People are still on ADSL2 (Not VDSL). There are Multiplexers installed everywhere in the pits as there is simply not enough functional copper in the ground. No workable Wireless NBN Tower on our side (we are in a shadow). When I still had ADSL2 my maximum speed was 5Mbps and most times around 2Mbps. I now use Starlink for around 2 years. Just now tested up and download speed. Down: 287.48Mbps, Up: 25.69Mbps. Even in the worse situation, I get a minimum of 120Mbps down. You can stick your NBN where the sun....LOL

[@a9503128]

LOL it’s going to Telstra even though it should have been services they’re obligated to maintain or you take their SSU dollars and license away.

[@ThePred2009]

they haven't even finished the job of rolling out FTTH i live in sydney still on copper.

[@GabrielTobing]

1:11 Legit, Australia just asking to be bent over with that hahhahahha

[@Steve-yk5jx]

here we are in 2024 and I am still on ADSL because NBN is not available despite the Fibre cable just 1km from my front door. I suppose when my ADSL modem Dies that will be that. I maybe lucky people are giving me there old Modems.

[@JohnJohn-ts6ux]

Hi Pat thanks for that information lucky eh and be in didn't get sold of course our price over the go now thank god for that they didn't,Pat did you find out about the information about soon there will be ISIM on latest smartphone, thanks Pat

[@Jwalker76]

Of course Labor want it in public hands, its the LNP who do most of selling public assets. Question is can they stop the LNP selling it in the future before the next election. Because Labor haven't had much success passing stuff in parliament lately.

[@Neil-yg5gm]

It was always Labors plan to sell the NBN """""In 2010 Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said Labor “remained firmly committed to selling its stake in NBN Co after the network was fully built and operational, subject to market conditions and security considerations”.""" There must be some bad news coming up and Labor is putting up a smokescreen to cover up the bad news.

[@zachb1706]

Because who would want to buy it? Should’ve been public-private from the start. Like New Zealand (whose internet is faster, cheaper and more reliable than ours)

[@KF-bj3ce]

The NBN should never be sold it was paid for by the people and needs to be owned by the people. So hands off.

[@sjdtmv]

Will not effect me, as NBN dosen't service my area in Australia that has good internet, I had to go 4G Telstra and it's not that great also but better then NBN

[@peterhoz]

Remember too that the original idea was that, yes city people would pay a tiny bit extra but due to the volume that tiny bit multiplied by millions of people would subsidise the huge costs of the few in rural areas who would pay the same price. Third party competitors cherry-pick the cities and undercut this model, which leads to NBN having to increase the wholesale price to everyone else. Another crap legacy of Abbott & Turnbull.

[@wolvAUS]

Oh gee lets let a private company have full ownership over the NBN, what could possibly go wrong? (yes NBNCo is a company but they're not Telstra).

[@RemusKingOfRome]

I pay $120/mth for 270 Mbps, which is fine for streaming 4K movies etc. I think most families just need that but can they afford over $100/mth ? probably not, $80 for 250 should be a target. k

[@wtf22playa56]

sounds like you need a new router...I pay 110 for 950mbs at the router and 900-650 through the wifi to my PC room.

[@innocentbystander2673]

Recently had fibre brought up to the house from the pit. I used to get 50 down and 20 up regularly. Now i get 95 down and 13 up. Interesting...and they had to run my own new cable back to the box, as there wasn't any spots left in the pit. Bit of a waste of time and tax payer money if you ask me.

[@markborchers6613]

This will cause Telstra to disappear in 5 - 10 years. The Government simply isn't interested in maintaining a retail comms company. Telstra has been forced to be made made non-competitive, and Telstra's regional mobile coverage (in Gippsland, Vic) is absolutely terrible. Both with Telstra, I get 1 bar, and my wife's phone does not work at all when at home. I am absolutely confident Telstra will disappear. Telstra's already been gutted - it'll be wound up soon.

[@peter65zzfdfh]

Telstra just posted a net *profit* of $1.79 billion. They’re ridiculously profitable compared to other Telcos. They still have the best regional coverage although lots of house designs make that coverage marginal to non existent these days with the popularity of metal roofing and siding etc. I fixed that with a repeater that has an external antenna.

[@zachb1706]

Wonder how Optus will fair once they get StarLink Direct-to-Cell

[@davidscott4318]

You got this one totally wrong in my opinion. Governments have a terrible record of running anything cost effectively or properly. Most Government Enterprises are disfunctional and incompetent.

[@zeburgerkang]

ftp lol that is not happening here

[@info88w11]

Partial privatization up to 40% via public IPO only to verified Aussie citizens to max individual shareholding of 1% will make NBN more custom focused and minimize capital losses to taxpayers when technology is obsolete

[@Neil-yg5gm]

I am sure you will ban me but Your comments are nonsense 1. power prices have gone up because of renewables not privatization 2. MTM is not more expensive than FTTP 3. it was always Labors policy to sell the NBN as stated in 2010 The only thing i have learnt from your vid is that you vote ALP. Labors NBN was always a boondoggle

[@TechManPat]

Short reply, I don’t delete comments and I don’t vote. 1. False 2. False 3. True, and the recent party lead policy has changed, hence now going the other way. Long reply, 1 & 2 is easy to verify using google + verified sources.

[@Neil-yg5gm]

@@TechManPat NBNCo says it costs $4,200 to install FTTP and $2,400 to install FTTN. It was always Labors plan to sell the NBN """""In 2010 Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said Labor “remained firmly committed to selling its stake in NBN Co after the network was fully built and operational, subject to market conditions and security considerations”.""" There must be some bad news coming up and Labor is putting up a smokescreen to cover up the bad news.

[@politenessman3901]

Great, we'll be getting the service delivered to public service standards and on public service timelines. forever.

[@endmity6659]

The video claims privatisation will raise prices but also notes that prices are already increasing under government ownership. It overlooks the fact that taxpayers ultimately bear the cost of inefficient government run companies, whether through higher prices in their bills or via their taxes.

[@wtf22playa56]

2 things...1) a quick look at history shows Labor as sold alot more govt assets then the LNP has, 2) Labor literally stated back in 2010 til upto just 2 days ago the intention was to always privatize the NBN. This is simply a non issue to distract the public from Albo basically openly admitting that he supports terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah by refusing to give the jewish people a day to grieve Oct 7.

[@rubybitch6195]

I gather you skipped the bit about staying on topic.

[@geesehoward7261]

It will be sold. It was always meant to be sold and it should be as it will result in lower prices. Oh and labor is fucked

[@seq_virtualtours]

lol show me any company that has been privatized that costs for the consumer have gone down. The answer is 0

[@wtf22playa56]

@@seq_virtualtours ...yet you ignore any 'govt owned' asset increases your taxes...so you screwed either way hey?

[@geesehoward7261]

@@seq_virtualtours telstra, qantas, commonwealth bank. All are no longer inefficient companies and offer market competitive pricing.

[@Neil-yg5gm]

@@geesehoward7261 It was always Labors plan to sell the NBN. So what has changed?? I think it is just a scare campaign before the next election. """""In 2010 Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said Labor “remained firmly committed to selling its stake in NBN Co after the network was fully built and operational, subject to market conditions and security considerations”."""

[@geesehoward7261]

@@seq_virtualtours telstra, commonwealth bank, Qantas and medibank. All are now competitive in the market.

[@Nick41622]

The NBN is getting too expensive, Redfox is now better & cheaper.

[@huskkyy]

I’m sorry but red fox is not cheaper considering the fact that the plans which are cheaper have a data cap

[@Nick41622]

​@@huskkyy It's cheaper. I don't go over 500GB.