Dr Steven Conway, a senior lecturer in games and interactivity at Swinburne University of Technology, has warned that the National Broadband Network (NBN) is facing a “congestion time bomb” as more people and new streaming technologies breach the network’s capacity:
“In a nutshell, the future is dire. In contemporary terms, it’s not great,” [Dr Conway] told The New Daily.
Australians hoping to use high-definition, cloud-based streaming services such as the newly launched Apple Arcade, or Google’s forthcoming Stadia, will need to shell out for an “upper-tier” NBN plan “assuming that’s even possible in your area”, Dr Conway said…
FTTN is a “a community shared service”, and its performance depends on how many people are using it, Dr Conway explained…
“You’re inherently sharing the bandwidth among all of the properties using it, rather than FTTP where you get it all to yourself”…
“If everyone’s on it you’ll face severe limitations and hit congestion”…
Public confidence in the network remains low, with only 5.9 million homes and businesses using the service as of August, despite 10.2 million being ready to connect…
Dr Conway said issues with the network will only be exacerbated as more users come online.
“At the moment the country lanes are not very full, nor are the highways, because the NBN is still rolling out to more properties,” he said.
“Give it two years and those lanes are going to be highly congested and the inherent limitations of copper and FTTN are going to rear their ugly heads”…
Many consumers would see little improvement in the speed and reliability of their internet should they choose to upgrade to the pricier plans, RMIT University telecommunications and network engineering associate professor Mark Gregory told The New Daily.
So basically, Australia is facing a situation where the $51 billion NBN is obsolete by the time its roll-out is completed.
Only in Australia!
