tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183150659683354612024-03-18T18:45:27.718+11:00Value Management: Innovation 2.0Exploring:conceiving Value Management<sup><a href="http://valman.blogspot.com.au/2007/01/beyond-innovation-management-towards.html">1</a></sup> from my phd thesis<sub><a href="http://valman.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/value-as-resolution-of-forces.html">2</a></sub> on innovation.<br> Innovation for the 21st Century. All CC-BY.Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-64664950467767684852024-02-29T09:47:00.001+11:002024-02-29T09:47:15.205+11:00Research Data vs VRIO; valueable, rare, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable... in progress....<br /><h2>What is VRIO?</h2><p>
Source: Jay Barney 1999? </p><p>Haven't heard of VRIO, but sounds derivative of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Porter">Michael Porter</a>'s work on Strategy.
And especially <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource-based_view">Resource Based Theory</a>.
And especially whether resources are: (in order to Achiev[e] a sustainable competitive advantage)
</p><li>Valuable - they enable a firm to implement strategies that improve its efficiency and effectiveness.
</li><li>Rare - not available to other competitors.
</li><li>Imperfectly imitable - not easily implemented by others.
</li><li>Non-substitutable - not able to be replaced by some other non-rare resource (which looks like or very close to VRIO)
There's a very big rabbit hole to go down here....
<h2>Is Research Data intended to give SCA(sustainable competitive advantage)?</h2>
</li><li>- the business of research
</li><li>- the research of business
<h2>How does competition relate to research?</h2>
</li><li>- competing for grants
</li><li>- competing for promotion
</li><li>- competing for having answers generally accepted
</li><li>- competing for policy influence</li>Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-77079232118173204092023-03-10T13:05:00.010+11:002024-02-21T13:30:41.431+11:00China's broadband approach; FTTP makes a difference<p>China over the last ten years has rolled out a superfast fibre-based broadband network, while Australia, who aspired to something similar, took a commercially conservative approach - abbreviated by the Coalition Government to "better, faster, sooner". At the time the Coalition won the 2013 election, China decided a FTTP network was the right approach. This approach is now showing up (ten years later) in the Global Rankings, <a href="https://www.speedtest.net/global-index">Speedtest Global</a>. </p><p>China is now in the Top 5 of countries (median speed: over 200Mbps) and has two of the Top 5 cities; Beijing and Shanghai; averaging close to 250Mbps).
The median speed means 50% of users get faster than 200Mbps.
Australia after some 15 years of NBN rollout, still sits (as a country) at around 80 in the world, with a median speed around 50Mbps.
Our fastest city, Sydney, scrapes into the Top 100 cities in the world - slightly behind Kathmandu, Nepal (#92), Dehli, India (#87), Kharkiv, Ukraine (#85) and Moscow, Russia (#58).</p><p>See my <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13263881">dataset</a> where I track Speedtest performance since 2017, for Australia's Top Ten trading partners. Partners include: US, China, NZ, UK, Germany, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, India and Singapore.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgewtFTY6hUeV1jDI5dwJHMRXuUHbZIT-yviRhTXLS4n5-4YFOWnugS_YXfUIcq_rL4HgyYZ7alV1y3V4yVecbMIs9AYj5lEXbFM4Zz8PDxaXFOPIztJ0fSCxoPTxFw0Kv3pMPdOMFr73EaGOWEL6PqNA4wMd-ofejN1oVQoPBdl09JJzedicpu3j7h6g/s592/Screen%20Shot%202023-03-10%20at%2012.59.57%20pm.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="592" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgewtFTY6hUeV1jDI5dwJHMRXuUHbZIT-yviRhTXLS4n5-4YFOWnugS_YXfUIcq_rL4HgyYZ7alV1y3V4yVecbMIs9AYj5lEXbFM4Zz8PDxaXFOPIztJ0fSCxoPTxFw0Kv3pMPdOMFr73EaGOWEL6PqNA4wMd-ofejN1oVQoPBdl09JJzedicpu3j7h6g/s320/Screen%20Shot%202023-03-10%20at%2012.59.57%20pm.png" width="320" /></a></div><p>Figure 1- 2017 to 2022 Speedtest Global (China, US, Australia) - Accelerating China fibre use<br /> </p><h4 style="text-align: left;">China's Fibre Timeline</h4>
<p>
</p><table>
<tbody><tr><th>Year</th><th>Result</th>
</tr><tr>
<td width="10%">2012</td>
<td>20M Fibre Users[1]</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#333333">
<td>2013</td>
<td>Broadband Strategy [1a]; 2015 Aim 20Mbps speed; 50% of Urban use. By 2020, Aim 50Mbps plus 50% at 100Mbps plus some gigabit.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2014</td>
<td>34% on FTTH; 68M users [1]</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#333333">
<td>2015</td>
<td>57% on FTTH; 120M users [1]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2017</td>
<td>84% on Fibre; 289M users; 39% at 100Mbps or faster [1]</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#333333">
<td>2019</td>
<td>91% on Fibre; 396M users; 77% at 100Mbps or faster [2]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2020</td>
<td>93% on Fibre; 417M users; 85% at 100Mbps or faster [2][3]</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#333333">
<td>2021</td>
<td>93% on Fibre; 489M users; 93% at 100Mbps or faster; 34M gigabit [4]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2022</td>
<td>93% on Fibre; 554M users; 94% at 100Mbps or faster; 92M on gigabit (16% of total) [4]</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#333333">
<td>June 2023</td>
<td> 641M users; 94% at 100Mbps or faster; 128M on gigabit (21% of total) [5]<br>
Reality 1: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/shanghai/comments/bbxqil/china_telecom_1000mbps_internet/">Source:</a> "Applications for it are pretty minimal ...
It’s like putting a supercharged V8 on an ebike and driving it around Shanghai during rush hour. Like, yeah, in theory you could go super fast but the reality is less exciting."<br>
Reality 2: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/shanghai/comments/155vdtf/china_mobile_gigabit_home_internet_for_10_yuan/">Source:</a> "I usually don't bother with super highspeed internet in China since the bottle neck is your VPN (50Mbps)."
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
SOURCE:
<li>[1] CNNIC; <a href="https://valman.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-future-of-nbn-comparing-to-sth.html">2017</a>
</li><li>[1a] <a href="https://t.co/mCxBClYNsJ">China Broadband Strategy</a>
</li><li>[2] <a href="https://valman.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-future-of-nbn6-uk2030-vs-china2019.html">CNNIC 2019</a><a>
</a></li><li><a>[3] Tweets: </a><a href="https://twitter.com/valuemgmt/status/1315918473038458880?s=46&t=89VeZKx_XBhd-rFR6jd2_A">Graph 2017</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/valuemgmt/status/1197761576675098624?s=46&t=89VeZKx_XBhd-rFR6jd2_A">Graph 2019</a></li>
<li>[4] Tweets: <a href="https://x.com/ValueMgmt/status/1696791618823819333?s=20">Report Mar 2023</a></li>
<li>[5] Tweets: <a href="https://x.com/ValueMgmt/status/1731902801607811570?s=20">Report Aug 2023</a></li>
<p><br /></p></li><p></p>Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-6500243466527970872022-05-04T15:45:00.004+10:002022-05-04T15:48:16.190+10:00Value in elections; Australia's 2022 Electoral AdvertisingGathering the data before the Aust 2022 election on May 21.
<h3>Data:</h3>
<ul>
<li> Don't risk our recovery with Labor (Liberal) - <a href="https://youtu.be/KWQlncRXDKA">https://youtu.be/KWQlncRXDKA</a> (8k views)
<li> Australia's recovery is leading the workld (Liberal) - <a href="https://youtu.be/ctNBbL8Ggxs">https://youtu.be/ctNBbL8Ggxs</a> (1M views)
<li> 11 Facts about Australia's Economic Recovery (Liberal) - <a href="https://youtu.be/TsCIdRvfNcg">https://youtu.be/TsCIdRvfNcg</a> (21k views)
<li> Honest Government 2022 Election (independent) - <a href="https://youtu.be/Gz4IkzM217U">https://youtu.be/Gz4IkzM217U</a> (380k views)
<li> Labor's Economic Plan - <a href="https://alp-assets.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/documents/Labor's+Economic+Plan+and+Budget+Strategy+Statement.pdf">https://alp-assets.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/documents/Labor's+Economic+Plan+and+Budget+Strategy+Statement.pdf</a> (13pp)
<li> Liberal Plans - <a href="https://www.liberal.org.au/our-policies">https://www.liberal.org.au/our-policies</a>
</ul>Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-7294401844043180932021-12-17T17:26:00.006+11:002024-02-29T09:56:09.870+11:00Apple, AR, Cars and Value<p>This post analyses why Apple may be interested in AR and developing a car. It structures my thoughts about both these potential technologies and why they might be attractive to Apple to create a product. Apple has been working on both technologies for a number of years, and invested thousands of hours and people's time into efforts to bring these technologies to the Apple community. </p><p>What does Apple say it will do? See <a href="https://github.com/areff2000/v2-value-of-value/wiki/Value-in-denting-the-universe-(Apple,-Steve-Jobs)">case on Apple</a> and Value in my book The Value of Value.<br /></p><p>Apple says it:</p><p>- will "continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do" (<a href="http://mashable.com/2011/08/25/tim-cook-apple-emai/" target="_blank">Tim Cook</a> 2011) </p><p>- is "unwilling to cut [corners] in delivering the best customer experience to the world. [It's] this relentless commitment to innovation and excellence [that] is the reason that our customer[s] choose our products and this will always be the driving force behind Apple... we remain very confident in our strategy and will use our world-class skill and hardware, software and services to delight our customer[s]" (Tim Cook 2012 Q4 Earnings Call)<br /></p><p>- "priced [iPad Mini] aggressively... delivering incredible value to our customers" (CFO Oppenheimer 2012 Q4 <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/952971-apple-s-ceo-discusses-f4q12-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single">Earnings Call</a>)</p><p>- "will not make a product that somebody may feed good about it for the moment that they're paying for and then when they get it, they really ever use, that's not what we're about" (Tim Cook 2012 Q4 Earnings Call)</p><p>- wants to build great products (Cook 2012), not the most products <br /></p><p>- wants to show "just how much we care" (Jony Ive in Macbook Pro unibody video and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-25/apples-jonathan-ive-and-craig-federighi-the-complete-interview">Grobart</a> 2013)</p><p>- "we will only do a few things... where we can make a significant contribution... to society at large... [with a] maniacal focus on making the best products... enriching people's lives" Cook in <a href="http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-19/cook-ive-and-federighi-on- the-new-iphone-and-apples-once-and-future-strategy">Tyrangiel</a> 2012.</p><p>- "very very simple focus on trying to make something beautiful and great." (Jony Ive on Steve Jobs in <a href="http://www.recode.net/2015/10/7/11619348/apples-jony-ive-remembers-steve-jobs-there-wasnt-this-grand-plan-of">Bergen</a> (2015)</p><p>- "instead of encouraging .. or permitting a thousand ideas to bloom,
Jobs insisted that Apple focus on just two or three priorities at a time - Ch. 35 Steve Jobs (Isaacson 2011), or "there are a thousand no's for every yes" (Jony Ive, <a href="https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1358686">AZQuotes</a>)<br /></p><p>Other things that Apple do, but not say are;</p><p>- create new user interfaces for mass markets eg mouse and WYSIWYG for Macintosh, touchscreen in ios/iPhone, digital crown in Apple Watch.</p><h2>AR </h2><p>AR is glasses (or other projections) where digital objects are represented within our field of vision. That is traffic directions may appear as floating arrows directing us which way we need to go. Or our phone or computer screens are represented as floating in space rather than attached to physical output devices. Currently Apple provides AR on an iPhone as digital objects the phone can represent as the phone is directed around the user, using the sensors to tell in which direction and which angle a phone is pointed. Apple makes 3D AR versions of products, such as Macbooks, or logos of Apple Events. Thus in Pokemon Go, a pokemon may appear in front of us on the phone screen, in a certain direction and of a certain size.</p><p>What problem does AR solve? AR can provide contextual information in the context of place, direction and angle. AR can also provide a larger if not endless screen for users. Rather than a 27" monitor, or a 50" or 65" 4k television (as monitor), AR can provide a 360* immersive screen, up to the sky and down to the floor. This can enable more content, and some users have large content use cases, such as brokers who have multiple screens or control rooms which have many gauges and dials to read. Similarly on our phones we have multiple messages, emails, posts to read. Each one could be represented as hanging in space rather than in a list, where we only see the title. Extra screen size of AR could enable a home for each message, each communication we receive.<br /></p><p>Does AR have application for a large number of users?</p><p>iPhone is used by a billion customers, whereas Mac perhaps has only a hundred million users. How many customers might use AR? Does Apple care if only a proportion of iPhones users use AR? Will you need an iPhone to power AR - initially? eventually? </p><p>If all our messages were shown separately, then this view could be useful for anyone who has large amounts of messages, emails, tweets or texts. This could potentially benefit large numbers of users<br /></p><p>Can Apple make a significant contribution?</p><p>AR may provide new use cases, not just of output but of input. AR could record our surroundings instead of displaying over our surroundings. For instance, AR could record our activity, including identifying objects we see, and classifying their location. So when/if we lose our keys, we can go back to the last time we saw our keys. Where did I put X? But this is a very niche action, that may perhaps only be used once a month.</p><p>Another function of AR glasses would be as corrective lenses. If AR could correct what we see, so that we would never need to buy another pair of glasses, that is perhaps hundreds of dollars value. That could also potentially enable a new user interface to sharpen our vision to bring the world into focus. A potentially high impact contribution for users.<br /></p><p>What user interface could Apple use for AR? </p><p>If AR works through glasses, and has an unlimited screen space, then how does a user control that space? We could wait and see, but it is interesting and fun to speculate how to control such space. Could your hands control the space, like Tom Cruise in the movie, <a href="https://youtu.be/E-oC_n9IDAM">Minority Report</a> (youtube link)? Could our fingers type on a floating keyboard? Would voice make sense, dictating our commands, and text? Could our eyes and blinking control actions, looking and blinking to select and choose? Could a finger control a trackball on a ring? Or a finger touching a fingertip? </p><p><b>Update</b>: Apple launched its AR Product - <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/apple-vision-pro/">Vision Pro</a> - on 2 Feb, 2024 for $3500 USD. About 200,000 units were sold in the first weekend. <br /></p><h2>Cars</h2><p>Why would Apple make a car?</p><p>Some underlying technologies of an electric car are like Apple technology - lithium batteries, cameras, screens, control software, power management, hardware design, user testing, meeting consumer needs. But why does this need to be a car? Could it be an electric scooter? An electric trike? As John Gruber suggested an electric autonomous robot, for inside the house? Electric skateboard? Electric roller skates?</p><p>What problem does an Apple Car solve?</p><p>Does an Apple Car have application for a large number of users?</p><p>Can Apple make a significant contribution? See my recent <a href="https://x.com/ValueMgmt/status/1761196533159235761?s=20">thoughts</a>. Maybe this market isn't a big enough opportunity for Apple to make a difference.<br /></p><p>What interface could Apple use for their car?</p><p><b>Update</b>: 28 Feb 2024 - Apple announced its car project, <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/guide/apple-car-history/">Project Titan</a>, would be closed and many staff transferred to its AI, generative AI initiative. <br /></p><p>More to follow....<br /></p>Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-22514067329265066812021-12-17T10:56:00.007+11:002024-01-03T13:43:36.619+11:00What is the value of a dog?<p>In Melbourne this year, we have had a lot of lockdowns, so one highlight this year, was the addition to the family, of a dog called "Banjo". His mother was a Kelpie, and his father was a Blue Merle Border Collie (see pic below). We say he is Border Collie at the front end (black and white and merle underneath), and Kelpie at the back end (black). He arrived in late June, a sprightly, fluffy 6kg, and now at year end, he was recently weighed at 16 kg. The lockdown has meant he has been mostly at home with us, while I work from home (like today), but he cries when he is left at home, and it breaks my heart. He is so joyous when we come home; wagging and dancing and rolling on the floor, getting much love and pats.</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEip0063H7VcH7VICpD6nZuaCZsVGt0ulUAeIimX5sp--xXHGndkJXVyPz3JdKNfp4hEtQF0f-S2pROfldI5aa1FXqF4M1yu3RNy8_VH5ovdTJwF085oH4QgnixLQHEWRLQk2q5f6Gf1DwNSO7viGdAdpXxVbZeuGgpCgg7Qo-qWylURPx_pgtKxIwPSQg=s4032" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEip0063H7VcH7VICpD6nZuaCZsVGt0ulUAeIimX5sp--xXHGndkJXVyPz3JdKNfp4hEtQF0f-S2pROfldI5aa1FXqF4M1yu3RNy8_VH5ovdTJwF085oH4QgnixLQHEWRLQk2q5f6Gf1DwNSO7viGdAdpXxVbZeuGgpCgg7Qo-qWylURPx_pgtKxIwPSQg=s320" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Banjo (8mths) is loved.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>What value does a puppy bring?</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRsmRQ0ujHAe2zzCY4t6Qdct-McSVkzu7JaH8wFlkI9v1vAm3udCApgxECxwtHn5LDovxYW6NL9BFS__vWgvE1ukCytcWBA6qwy_yyqPPNiTlnSZh7QIt4vh5efVyez4HD00uGsoLT8pbxB4z6yaNwhg98Ji1f8c-P65T5EIviyFE8pSfncgGogtGmWA=s1440" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="684" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRsmRQ0ujHAe2zzCY4t6Qdct-McSVkzu7JaH8wFlkI9v1vAm3udCApgxECxwtHn5LDovxYW6NL9BFS__vWgvE1ukCytcWBA6qwy_yyqPPNiTlnSZh7QIt4vh5efVyez4HD00uGsoLT8pbxB4z6yaNwhg98Ji1f8c-P65T5EIviyFE8pSfncgGogtGmWA=s320" width="152" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Love at first sight (8 wks)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>Of course, love - he is a new child in the family (to extend our only child little world), but one that grows faster than a human. By the time he is one year old, new research suggests a puppy is equivalent to a human at 40; past childhood, teenage and early adulthood.<br /></p>
<p>He is a new chore, to be fed, walked, played with, his waste managed.</p><p>Banjo is a new threat, stealing clothes especially undies and dirty socks (the smellier the better), chewing Christmas presents under the tree, destroying a shoe, pulling clean clothes off the inside drying clothes rack.</p>
<p>He is still a delight, sitting under my feet as I type, chewing a toy. He will sit on the bed, leaning on me as I read. He now sleeps in a bed in our bedroom, now accidents are less likely during the night. I did not expect that a working dog would be so relaxed. He will happily lie at our feet as we watch tv at night, sometimes cuddling up to us as we sit on the couch; where he also often curls up, for family time.<br /></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqV4GlavBM-Jjtuos6eoq8BxjIANVkxM6ePNLq__ZEd5yqN9YcLk33zBKzgiwBgJ8bnBuDEwGidcxMGJKNHokzO-_zpS-2MnFkHXQImm3vE4Obif_mixHHkrDzc-yxJVQzZCNlnvQ_juNsTmA8jx8m9YGPKcBsHQoocofmn0_k8o3PxRGUP66PdLpZOw=s480" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="269" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqV4GlavBM-Jjtuos6eoq8BxjIANVkxM6ePNLq__ZEd5yqN9YcLk33zBKzgiwBgJ8bnBuDEwGidcxMGJKNHokzO-_zpS-2MnFkHXQImm3vE4Obif_mixHHkrDzc-yxJVQzZCNlnvQ_juNsTmA8jx8m9YGPKcBsHQoocofmn0_k8o3PxRGUP66PdLpZOw=s320" width="179" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Banjo's Parents<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>Banjo is an exercise regime, making me walk, throwing his favourite ball. </p><div class="separator" style="float: right; font-size: 100%; text-align: center; width: image width px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTbtPn8KINr7GUFqED9S_VLmUkPWmNom8J1BKyC6Cp0HrBjwWqTN21B5d1LIlzVgRBTyVnIEjCMB-jTYoLXj5J75XwL_T6IQvUGb5YlYDFBI3ar3uCtsRi5x37YkxYgiCR3pUWzuhiPslP3e_eYPR8jad8WRGU0qdSLjVmajQQB5pWEvyqY6cppNEYRVBE/s480/IMG_1539.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The Litter" border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="360" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTbtPn8KINr7GUFqED9S_VLmUkPWmNom8J1BKyC6Cp0HrBjwWqTN21B5d1LIlzVgRBTyVnIEjCMB-jTYoLXj5J75XwL_T6IQvUGb5YlYDFBI3ar3uCtsRi5x37YkxYgiCR3pUWzuhiPslP3e_eYPR8jad8WRGU0qdSLjVmajQQB5pWEvyqY6cppNEYRVBE/w240-h320/IMG_1539.jpeg" title="Banjo litter" width="240" /></a><br />The Litter</div><br />After ten throws, (chasing and some retrieving of the ball) at the park a few minutes away, he can pant for 30 minutes recovering from summer heat.<br /><p></p>
<p>Banjo is a learning exercise, as we all struggle to communicate with him, train him to sit, bring the ball back, and when we leave home, the recent challenge is not to bark and disturb the neighbours.</p><p>Banjo is also a tool; he experiences the world quite differently to me - acute hearing, a nose when he walks that chases many scents, which evade my senses, and when there is a ball or a stick involved - he becomes a laser focussed, one trick pony who has only eyes for one thing. Chasing a ball his feet thunder past, like a racehorse.<br /></p><p>Banjo is a financial cost; he was $500, plus shipping ($200) and came on a plane from Queensland, a two hour flight away, but was born, some 20 minutes drive from where my mother was born and now rests. Coincidentally, we were visiting my Mother's gravesite, on the day Banjo was born, not 30 minutes away, but did not meet him in person until ten weeks later. It cost another few hundred dollars to outfit our house for Banjo - a crate to sleep in, food, toys, leads, vaccinations and monthly worm, fleas and tick treatment ($20 per month).</p>
<p>So Banjo is cost, love, duty, family, fun, time, novelty, and a power tool. So Banjo has many types of value, and overall the love suggests a strong positive emotion. Yet he also causes problems, yet these are overwhelmed by the positive feelings he generates.<br /><br /> </p><p><br /></p><p></p>Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-8733111581817605192021-04-09T14:10:00.014+10:002021-06-04T09:32:44.733+10:00Where are we at with the NBN?<p> It has been nine months, since we passed the target build completion date for the NBN. In the half-yearly report, NBN generated a $0.4B positive EBITDA (effectively cashflow from operations), largely due to declining Subscriber Costs (down $0.6B), and increasing revenue (up $0.4B), while CAPEX is also close to half the previous year, declining from $2.5B to $1.4B for the half-year.</p><p>NBN also commenced a post-build investment of $4.5B, announced in the Sept Corporate Plan, with headlines of enabling 75% of the fixed line network to reach gigabit speeds (the highest offered). This will enable all the FTTP, HFC and FTTC (and maybe FTTB) to reach the fastest speeds, and a proportion of the FTTN to be upgraded to enable an FTTP overbuild. There is $700M for regional business fibre hubs, and $300M for co-investment with rural and regional communities.</p><p>On the demand side in 2020/21, there has been a significant slowdown of brownfield's new signups (See Figure 1; 2021 Avg 206k/Qtr, 2020 Avg 393k/Qtr, 2019 336k/Qtr, 2018 355k/Qtr):</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Q1 20 - 325,000 additions</li><li>Q2 20 - 250,000 additions</li><li>Q3 20 - 130,000 additions</li><li>Q4 20 (budget) - 120,000 additions. Around 1% of 10M ready to connect premises.<br /></li></ul><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYuqay2wzExrE1hZ8cOVJNDwYlmbOfcTcAG8TpvIpaIMB0Q6wnmG8zLqROFEkGbNl6PeKExuTi7lg_crl4gMhvlsRZzs-MooSRmVtl53OPA0QMlvIjgyDay5vTj2NU4RG3xngQlYr_l2Zy/s388/NBNadoption.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="239" data-original-width="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYuqay2wzExrE1hZ8cOVJNDwYlmbOfcTcAG8TpvIpaIMB0Q6wnmG8zLqROFEkGbNl6PeKExuTi7lg_crl4gMhvlsRZzs-MooSRmVtl53OPA0QMlvIjgyDay5vTj2NU4RG3xngQlYr_l2Zy/s320/NBNadoption.png" width="320" /></a></div><p><br />Figure 1 - NBN Consumer adoption (2016 - 21); Source NBN <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/about-nbn-co/corporate-plan/weekly-progress-report">Weekly Summary</a>. Data: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jtucV0KEkpdnE2PqNK5Ktcg2xfM-e4O-uMrSrq3_1MY/edit#gid=1015261221" target="_blank">Google Sheet</a>.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNomDv11f6F4C7flxDzEzRLVX67W6QAJT2pR-beymdP6yBLyRWiW17t7mE9s3M-gJwB2ero9HGY3RYhKMPOjQ-OgNtdnHSv0kMhskZHjaYSEeojqw6O0TvIJA9qUfQqOtpeOxh4CgE1jf_/s609/Screen+Shot+2021-06-04+at+9.29.53+am.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="609" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNomDv11f6F4C7flxDzEzRLVX67W6QAJT2pR-beymdP6yBLyRWiW17t7mE9s3M-gJwB2ero9HGY3RYhKMPOjQ-OgNtdnHSv0kMhskZHjaYSEeojqw6O0TvIJA9qUfQqOtpeOxh4CgE1jf_/s320/Screen+Shot+2021-06-04+at+9.29.53+am.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p>Figure 1a. - NBN Brownfield Additions 2021 - significantly slowing. Source/Data: per Figure 1.</p><p></p><p>NBN retailers (RSPs) are being consulted about NBN's proposed pricing, looking forward for two years, and continue to complain about CVC variable costs, which put pressure on RSP margins, if consumers are not increasing their plan speeds and prices. Both Senate and large RSPs are keenly interested in the potential for NBN to reduce reliance and exposure to rising CVC costs due to increased consumer data demand.</p><p>NBN revenue is nearing a $5B annual rate, with more boost from business usage (inc new fibre zones), and demand for consumer speed increases. NBN #<a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-statements/nbn-launches-new-focus-on-fast-campaign">FocusOnFast</a> is the 2021 plan to lift subscribers from 50Mbps to 100Mbps and above, through a <a href="https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/lp/freakinfast" target="_blank">six month discount</a> of $20-30 on the most expensive plans; reducing gigabit retail prices from $149 to $119, and 250Mbps from $129 to $99, and 100Mbps from $99 to $89 per month. These plans are mostly for unlimited data, so can incur greater CVC costs, though NBN bundles more CVC with the fastest plans to encourage higher plan usage.</p><p>Current NBN penetration, given slowing additions, are at the following rates (see Figure 2):</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Brownfields - 71% and slowly rising (2020 - 64%)</li><li>Greenfields - 66% and steady (2020 - 64%)</li><li>Wireless - 57%, jumped from 2019, but now slowly rising (2020 - 53%, 2019 - 43%)</li><li>Satellite - 26%, very slowly rising (2020 - 23%, 2019 - 21%)</li></ul><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzbr0sh2lWIh1eqV69d7LFMol0hEtG6ZylZokbo6bDDGvNuhYXlfaC-F5Wktp490o_enDEkgil3Gj5My9tfYQnJTpLL8stUmiqE8doNcNxSFvTXack3saOvLPrAVpCaUa5sYmcJjzzguQ/s390/NBNbyTech2016-21.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="246" data-original-width="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzbr0sh2lWIh1eqV69d7LFMol0hEtG6ZylZokbo6bDDGvNuhYXlfaC-F5Wktp490o_enDEkgil3Gj5My9tfYQnJTpLL8stUmiqE8doNcNxSFvTXack3saOvLPrAVpCaUa5sYmcJjzzguQ/s320/NBNbyTech2016-21.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Figure 2 - NBN adoption by Technology (2016 - 21); Data NBN <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/about-nbn-co/corporate-plan/weekly-progress-report">Weekly Summary</a>: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jtucV0KEkpdnE2PqNK5Ktcg2xfM-e4O-uMrSrq3_1MY/edit#gid=1015261221" target="_blank">Google Sheet</a></p><p>So NBN is reaching a revenue headwind period, where revenue growth will become more challenging, (and expensive) and come from:</p><p>- new additions; new homes in Greenfield sites, or 1% organic growth in Brownfield sites, plus some potential for growth in Satellite and Wireless usage<br /></p><p>- lifting consumers to higher speed plans (increasing ARPU); with discounts to entice usage of faster speeds (#FocusOnFast); which will also be impacted by levels of NBN satisfaction<br /></p><p>- engaging more businesses on to the NBN (increasing overall ARPU); but which will require investment in a Business Sales force.</p><p>A lesser opportunity for growth is through CVC, where rising consumer data usage incurs increasing CVC, which can either squeeze RSP margins, if prices are inflexible, or create price inflation, which could reduce demand and/or decrease satisfaction. <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoZCYudtx0YXAmHmxFudfp_VkR2iPLEITklMos_X8G_iGJiku3IFVY_yJ7DT2lQeCPTx66avRsmV0CT-gyFhSjpk84jSHHg2QbRwNdCDl77M4OmVPRXl836MKhJ_iIybrxHXl0fz3PWWO3/s699/NBNUsers-RevCorpPlan.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="699" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoZCYudtx0YXAmHmxFudfp_VkR2iPLEITklMos_X8G_iGJiku3IFVY_yJ7DT2lQeCPTx66avRsmV0CT-gyFhSjpk84jSHHg2QbRwNdCDl77M4OmVPRXl836MKhJ_iIybrxHXl0fz3PWWO3/w400-h229/NBNUsers-RevCorpPlan.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /> Figure 3 - Sales and NBN Users - Corporate Plans (2016 - 24). Data: <a href="https://observablehq.com/@areff2000/nbn-business-case-financials-update-sept-2020">Observable</a><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Other issues:</h4><p>- NBN is refinancing its $20B debt with the Commonwealth, with private debt by mid-2024, and has also raised $10B private debt at low rates, enabling the post-build investment, and retiring of some Commonwealth debt.</p><p>- NBN faces increasing competition from both 5G in slower FTTN suburbs, and more rural wireless sites, and LEOs in the Satellite footprint, but the $140 per month LEO pricing will be more attractive to higher end consumers or businesses. </p><p>- ABAC: The Minister, Paul Fletcher has appointed an <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/what-we-do/internet/australian-broadband-advisory-council">Advisory Council</a> to provide guidance around broadband generally and ABAC released its first report, <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/what-we-do/internet/australian-broadband-advisory-council-reports">Riding the Digital Wave</a>. The Council will focus on specific industries eg Agriculture and Health, plus Digital Inclusion, Digital skills and small/medium businesses. (p.3)<br /></p><p>- In global competitiveness, Australia still <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13263881" target="_blank">compares poorly</a> (Data: <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13263881" target="_blank">Figshare</a>) against our top ten trading partners in average national speeds (per <a href="https://www.speedtest.net/global-index#fixed" target="_blank">Speedtest Global</a>), though Feb 2021 saw a 20% increase in Australian national average download speed (from 59Mbps to 71Mbps; which looks like a year's growth in two months), perhaps from more gigabit services coming online. The speed jump would equate to about 1% takeup of gigabit plus 1% superfast (250Mbps) services; significantly higher (8X) than the 25,000 over 100Mbps services the <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/regulated-infrastructure/communications/national-broadband-network-nbn/nbn-wholesale-market-indicators-report/december-quarter-2020-report" target="_blank">ACCC reported</a> at Dec 2020. ACCC's March report (expected late May) will provide takeup information for over 100Mbps services.<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Comparing Broadband Speed with Trading Partners<br /></h4><p>Speedtest has made its <a href="https://www.speedtest.net/insights/blog/best-ookla-open-data-projects-2021/" target="_blank">data available</a> globally (in anonymised 600m^2 blocks), so it is possible to see distributions of speed <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13370504" target="_blank">across the country</a>. This enables our <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13621169" target="_blank">cities to compare</a> with our Top Ten Trading Partners eg Shanghai, Bangkok and Los Angeles. Melbourne, for instance, has far slower distribution of broadband services compared to these overseas cities.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtCyK82VgAAsZKi?format=png&name=900x900" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="692" height="304" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtCyK82VgAAsZKi?format=png&name=900x900" width="320" /></a></div><br />Figure 3. Comparing Speedtest results of Australian and Top Ten Partner cities, Q3 2020 (Data; <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13621169" target="_blank">Figshare</a> | Pic: <a href="https://twitter.com/ValueMgmt/status/1354996571373330434?s=20">Twitter</a> thread). <br /><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Further work - Broadband performance data (Speedtest) vs NBN Technology<br /></h4><p>An activity to compare <a href="https://www.data.gov.au/dataset/national-broadband-network-connections-by-technology-type" target="_blank">NBN technology maps</a> (see <a href="https://www.data.gov.au/dataset/national-broadband-network-connections-by-technology-type">https://www.data.gov.au/dataset/national-broadband-network-connections-by-technology-type</a>) (showing regions of FTTP, HFC, FTTC, FTTB, FTTN etc) and average Speedtest results is <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14006138">underway</a>. This will produce maps of Australia cities, showing distribution of speeds, and eventually average speed by NBN technology. There is also a plan to compare broadband speeds with <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/seifa" target="_blank">SEIFA index</a>, the socio-economic index of areas, to see if broadband speeds vary by wealth of neighbourhoods.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpMJEA9U0AAtzH1?format=jpg&name=4096x4096" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="675" height="400" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpMJEA9U0AAtzH1?format=jpg" width="337" /></a></div><br />Figure 4. Speedtest results across Melbourne Q2 2020; colour coded by speed (Data <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13370504" target="_blank">Figshare</a>; Source: <a href="https://twitter.com/ValueMgmt/status/1338423770181029889?s=20">Twitter</a>).<p></p><p>The results show speeds vary across the city, with patches of faster broadband, north of Geelong, and in outer west, and in wealthy inner-east suburbs and slower on the fringes of the city, but across the suburbs, your mileage will vary. See Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/ValueMgmt/status/1336138623582793729?s=20">thread</a> for more images and analysis. This data is also loaded to the <a href="https://data.aurin.org.au/dataset/ookla-performance-australia-fixed-2020-q3-na" target="_blank">AURIN geospatial workbench</a>, where Australian researchers can access the data online (Figure 5).</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtoZYLEAVdnc2BU3AZP3mrU2RYLDDFfR8Ku7IKvAgXQRYo7hDYmRsxQ86i3mK4ui4QVn8n76_0hxrECGBwDYrUwQEdXaTeLYB9OKzyaGJ08ja17Fi1oZZGUpEATy3B15p52s5Rii2cmipA/s769/AURINvsSpeedtest.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="769" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtoZYLEAVdnc2BU3AZP3mrU2RYLDDFfR8Ku7IKvAgXQRYo7hDYmRsxQ86i3mK4ui4QVn8n76_0hxrECGBwDYrUwQEdXaTeLYB9OKzyaGJ08ja17Fi1oZZGUpEATy3B15p52s5Rii2cmipA/s320/AURINvsSpeedtest.png" width="320" /></a></div><p><br />Figure 5: Speedtest data available at <a href="https://data.aurin.org.au/dataset/ookla-performance-australia-fixed-2020-q3-na" target="_blank">AURIN geospatial workbench</a> (Data/Image: <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13370504" target="_blank">Figshare</a>).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRJzEaUzaDFq0NSsEL3Hc6e1Sk0fjBVUR9ZbEHLsTlrxg-05kYBhOhmqMCgCHM9Sih-xM1GEVRPOGn2dE0MarwY7noxf52e2KfXuUqIAs1S9oeJAKlnt7_YNuuczHu6ctsotm1ewZ8Sue8/s1272/AURIN-MELB-speed-by-3colourmapQ320.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="954" data-original-width="1272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRJzEaUzaDFq0NSsEL3Hc6e1Sk0fjBVUR9ZbEHLsTlrxg-05kYBhOhmqMCgCHM9Sih-xM1GEVRPOGn2dE0MarwY7noxf52e2KfXuUqIAs1S9oeJAKlnt7_YNuuczHu6ctsotm1ewZ8Sue8/s320/AURIN-MELB-speed-by-3colourmapQ320.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Figure 6: Speedtest data Q3 2020 - AURIN - three colour (less than 20Mbps; grey; over 90Mbps; blue; Rest = red) (Data/Image: <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13370504">Figshare</a>).<br /></p><p></p>Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-10182666326695250522020-11-06T10:42:00.004+11:002020-11-06T13:09:54.634+11:00Has FTTN paid for itself?<div style="text-align: left;">I will analyse Communication Minister Fletcher's recent claim that NBN's FTTN has paid for itself. FTTN is the poor cousin to FTTP, the gold standard of broadband. Where FTTP is capable of terabits per second (10 ^ 12 bps), but twice as expensive as FTTN to install ($4000 vs $2000), in contrast, FTTN suffers from degradation over distance from the fibre at the node, so 1/3 get very fast (<500m; up to 100Mbps and a bit more), 1/3 fast (500-750m; up to 50Mbps) and 1/3 slow (>750m; less than 50Mbps). NBN's plans in 2020 include enhancing half of NBN's FTTN footprint with fibre on demand, and upgrading FTTC and HFC to gigabit speeds, giving 75% of NBN's fixed line customers access to gigabit speeds.<br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://nbnmtm.australiaeast.cloudapp.azure.com/img/FTTN_Speed_Graph.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="800" height="224" src="http://nbnmtm.australiaeast.cloudapp.azure.com/img/FTTN_Speed_Graph.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><h4 style="text-align: left;">Background</h4><p>FTTN is one of the fixed line technologies, NBN (the National Broadband Network) uses to deliver broadband to Australian homes. It is part of Australia's MTM (multi-technology mix) approach that aims to deliver broadband to Australians at lowest cost to the Government and as early as possible, ensuring that nearly all Australians were ready to connect with broadband when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in 2020. In contrast, Australia's prior government envisioned an NBN with largely FTTP broadband delivery, which is more expensive to install, but capable of very high speeds over potentially future decades. </p><p>FTTN uses copper phone lines to deliver the last stretch of broadband, while FTTP takes fibre right into the house. The longer the copper, the more the interference through the medium and the slower the broadband speeds to the user. NBN Co reported in its Corporate Report 2021 that FTTN users fell into one of three categories; 1. 1.2M who could get 100Mbps; 2. 1.9M who could get 50Mbps, and 3. 1.0M who could only get the baseline 25Mbps. FTTP in contrast currently enables 1000Mbps, with some countries now activating 10,000Mbps access speeds over fibre. </p><p>Australia's current government argues that most households are satisfied with their current access speeds, but are providing a way forward, as households demand higher speeds. NBN for instance launched cheaper 250Mbps and 1000Mbps services in May 2020, which attracted a few thousand new subscribers to these high speeds, and may have caused a 25% uptick in Australia's average broadband download speed.<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Upgrades Corp Plan 2021-24</h4><p>Following NBN Co's completion of the volume rollout in 2020 (99% complete, with 100,000 more difficult premises to finish), its Sept 2020 three year <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/2020/documents/media-centre/corporate-plan-2021/nbnco-corporate-plan-2021.pdf" target="_blank">Corporate Plan</a> announced investment to lift Australian broadband performance. To that point, NBN's goal in its Statement of Expectations was to provide all premises with at least 25Mbps by 2020, and 90% of fixed line premises with 50Mbps (as soon as possible). The Corporate Plan announced several investment strands, including:</p><p>- business zones where businesses could get fibre services connected for $nil upfront on committing to a service</p><p>- upgrade to HFC and FTTC technologies to gigabit service levels</p><p>- upgrade of 50% of FTTN footprint to enable fibre on demand, when customer demands a fast service, which its FTTN can not provide, for $0 install cost to customer.<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Minster Fletcher</h4><p>In announcing the NBN Co Corporate Plan and committed investment, Minster Fletcher stated:</p><p>"By 2023, the FTTN network will have generated $9 billion in revenues, cost $7.3 billion to build and $1 billion to operate. FTTN will have effectively <u>paid for itself</u> - and will continue to provide a very good service to millions of premises for many years, generating cashflows well into the future". <a href="https://www.paulfletcher.com.au/portfolio-speeches/commsday-speech" target="_blank">CommsDay Speech</a>, 27.10.2020. </p><p>Let's look at the "paid for itself" claim. </p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Assessing the claim</h4><p>The claim consists of three parts;</p><p>- FTTN has generated $9 billion in revenue - I agree<br /></p><p>- FTTN has cost $7.3 billion to build - my estimate $11 billion<br /></p><p>- FTTN has cost $1 billion to operate - my estimate $2 billion, but full costs add another $20 billion.<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Revenue</h4><p>The NBN has generated $10 billion in revenue in the last five years (2016 - 2020); <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/2020/documents/reports/NBN_Annual%20Report_2020.pdf" target="_blank">NBN Co Annual Report 2020</a>, p.56. Over the next three years, NBN is budgetted to generate another $15.6 billion (Corporate Plan 2021, p.54). NBN revenue can be prorated by the types of technologies to apportion their revenue by technology type. At 2020, FTTN/B has 3.1 million activated premises from a total of 7.3M active connections - 42% of connections. By 2023, FTTN drops to 36% of connections as another 1.5M premises are activated but very few are FTTN (less than 10%). A first cut estimate of FTTN revenue is 43% of pre 2020 revenue, and 36% of post 2020 revenue; equating to about $9.6 billion. So close to Fletcher's claim.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Build Cost</h4><p>NBN reports cost per premise (CPP) by technology. Per NBN Corporate Report 2020, NBN had 4.7M homes serviced by FTTN/B as CPP of $2340 (NBN Corporate Plan 2020, p.52). This gives total Build Cost for FTTN of about $11 billion. Added to this should be a proportional share of common CAPEX. The 2020 Annual Result presentation shows Commons CAPEX at only around 10% of total CAPEX, so would only make a minor difference. The NBN Annual Report does not break down Network assets by network technology type, nor identify levels of common capex. But NBN shows on their books a network worth $42.5 billion less $9 billion depreciation, for 11.7M premises ready to connect - an overall average of around $3600 per premise. So, overall the Minister's claim of FTTN costing $7B to build seems low compared to my $11B estimate.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Cost to Operate</h4><p>In 2020, NBN reported Direct Network Costs of $641M, about 30% of total Operating Costs ($2.0B) <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-statements/nbn-exceeds-network-build" target="_blank">NBN Operating Result Presentation 2020</a>, p.11. From 2016 - 2020, NBN reports Operating expenses totalling $9.4B (NBN Annual Report 2020, p.56). Using the 42% share of revenue as above, the FTTN share of Operating Expenses would be around $4B, and likely direct network costs at 30% of $1.2B. For 2021 - 2023, Operating Expense can be calculated as Revenue - Subscriber Payments - EBITDA or ($15.6B - $1.4B - $8.6B = ) $5.6B. The FTTN share at 36% would be close to $2.0B, with Direct Network Costs (30%) around $0.6B. So my estimate of total Direct FTTN Network costs of ($1.2B + $0.6B) around $1.8B, close to double Minister's Fletcher's estimate.</p><p>However, how much of non-direct Operating Expenses should be attributed to FTTN. Should it include employee costs (around 30% of operating expenses), subscriber acquisitions costs (close to $10B). Addition of these costs would increase FTTN related expenses to $2B (employee costs) and roughly $4B for related subscriber costs). There is also depreciation and interest cost incurred by NBN, which in 2016 - 20 are in the order of $15 billion. A share of FTTN would add another $6B to FTTN's bill. Thus total expenses related to FTTN would be closer to $14B (2016 - 20) while the direct costs to operate, I estimate are around $2B (2016 - 23). To add the 2021 - 23 portion of FTTN costs, would add another $2B of employee expenses and 3/5 of depreciation/interest, so close to $3.5B. Grand Total Expenses: $21.5B Thus the $1B FTTN Cost to Operate is extremely light on in excluding employee costs, subscriber acquisition costs, depreciation and interest, understating total costs by close to $20 billion over 2016 - 23.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Conclusion</h4><p>Thus I would argue that FTTN has not paid for itself. Even with a narrow view of network operation costs, margin earned by FTTN services has contributed around $7 billion to NBN operating funds, while I estimate build costs at $11 billion. A fully expensed costs of FTTN is closer to $20 billion for 2016 - 23, including employee costs, depreciation and share of subscriber costs.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-6581166537051610082020-07-03T09:29:00.008+10:002020-07-03T10:57:58.263+10:00To Gigabit or not to GigabitAs the NBN rolls past its completion date, the Government is strangely silent choosing not to mark the occasion. Perhaps remaining quiet before this weekends by election. A new report out in the last few days is titled “ the <a href="http://huaweihub.com.au/51-billion-nbn-leaves-australia-with-huge-gigabit-gap/">gigabit</a> gap “ argues for Australia’s weak international ranking on gigabit aspiration. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://huaweihub.com.au/51-billion-nbn-leaves-australia-with-huge-gigabit-gap/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="816" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2qS5iQiEhEBuxjQ7m9MDIsNZZf62lJiKf1R59zfDokg5NaMahkmIuQXcrakk9tBHNbwofFHJqHlS6ts1Msj2Qlir02g0ZPdwsaKm6IF07kuhG1X4k1EJJdSyJkmPQh4hpeXovUA7dO7pM/w205-h171/IMG_0302.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Gigabit is 40 X the mandatory speed promise for all. (25 Mbps)</li><li>Gigabit is 10 X the previous top speed available widely. There were business plans ($800/mth) and 250 plans availed on FTTP, which makes up about 20% of the NBN.</li><li>Gigabit is on the roadmap for 50% of NBN, inc FTTP, HFC and FTTC.</li><li>NBN has committed that all HFC will have access to 250 Mbps by June 2021. But at release of new high speed plans (end May) only some 7% of HFC could get gigabit speeds. Home Superfast (250 Mbps) was available to 32% of NBN ready to connect, <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-statements/nbn-launches-three-new-residential-wholesale-higher-speed-tiers" target="_blank">NBN said</a>, inc up to 70% of the HFC footprint.</li></ul></div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">What’s in a name?</h2><div>NBN calls fast 100Mbps, Superfast 250 Mbps, and Ultrafast 500-1000Mbps.</div><div>But ACCC called Superfast when referring to 25Mbps.</div><div>NBN calls a 25Mbps service, Home <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/learn/speed#home-basic">Basic</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The NBN <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/2018/documents/Policies/soe-shareholder-minister-letter.pdf">SOE</a> aims for universal very fast broadband - “ The Government is committed to completing the network and ensuring that all Australians have access to <u><b>very fast broadband</b> </u>as soon as possible, at affordable prices, and at least cost to taxpayers. The Government expects the network will provide peak wholesale download data rates (and proportionate upload rates) of at least 25 megabits per second to all premises, and at least 50 megabits per second to 90 per cent of fixed line premises as soon as possible.”</div><div><br /></div><div>I would agree that 250 Mbps is very fast, beyond fast, and so the NBN according to the SOE should be pursuing universal access to this service AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. So for now Australia has universal basic broadband, and we are still waiting for universal very fast broadband.</div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(18, 41, 58); color: #12293a; font-family: "roboto", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(18, 41, 58); color: #12293a; font-family: "roboto", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">“The Statutory Infrastructure Provider (SIP) obligations ensure that all Australian premises are able to access superfast broadband services (25 Megabits per second (Mbps) or better).” </span>Dept of <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/what-we-do/internet/telecommunication-reform-package">Communications</a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(71, 85, 96); color: #475560; font-family: "open sans", "helvetica", "arial", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">“Our priority is to help deliver high speed broadband to premises across Australia and, as we complete the initial volume build to 11.5 million premises</span><sup style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(71, 85, 96); color: #475560; font-family: "open sans", "helvetica", "arial", sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 0; position: inherit; top: -0.5em;">7</sup><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(71, 85, 96); color: #475560; font-family: "open sans", "helvetica", "arial", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">, we are starting to unleash higher speed tiers on a phased basis,” said Brad Whitcomb. “Launching the three new higher wholesale speed tiers is the next step in our network evolution and we will continue to upgrade the network to offer higher speed services to more customers over time.”, NBN said.</span></div>Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-42124166582268188862020-01-31T13:07:00.002+11:002020-09-03T15:39:50.149+10:00The future of the NBN (7); Inquiry into the business case of the NBNIn October 2019, the Parliamentary body overseeing the NBN - the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Broadband_Network">Joint Standing Committee</a> on the NBN, launched an <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Broadband_Network/smallbusinessandcase">Inquiry</a> into the Business Case for the NBN and the experiences of Small Business. Submissions were due a couple of weeks ago (17 Jan), and my <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Broadband_Network/smallbusinessandcase/Submissions">submission</a> (#16) went public this week. Data is at <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8116079" target="_blank">Figshare</a>. I previously responded to a similar <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Broadband_Network/Businesscase" target="_blank">Inquiry</a> in <a href="https://valman.blogspot.com/2018/04/is-there-business-case-for-national.html" target="_blank">2018</a> (<a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6030926" target="_blank">Data</a>) with a model to calculate the value of the NBN. On 25 Feb, I will <a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1215376000306909185.html?refreshed=yes" target="_blank">talk</a> on this topic at <a href="https://telsoc.org/event/nbn-futures-forum-learning-international-experience" target="_blank">Telsoc</a>. Slides now available at: <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/RichardFerrers/maximising-the-value-of-the-nbn-comparing-to-oecd-and-australias-top-10-trading-partners" target="_blank">Slideshare</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://www.slideshare.net/RichardFerrers/maximising-the-value-of-the-nbn-comparing-to-oecd-and-australias-top-10-trading-partners" target="_blank"><img alt="Slideshare" border="0" data-original-height="171" data-original-width="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhisKOVBLpvMB36CLHLvgyn7EEMbAfKDv0FMvDYh6WtqO7Wuvflr20iTVccm5pF0VBKkn4yBqZkQBPcZoGVMJX_MdXXpu160NRENs6AyuOwerRIom_6Fvdu_qMFzQ2Pf_ZTvbimblAqJxET/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-02-26+at+10.50.16+am.png" /></a></div>
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<h4>
Committee Focus</h4>
The Committee were interested in "the rollout of the [NBN] and the performance of nbn co", particularly:<br />
<blockquote>
a.the economics of the NBN, including key operational and financial performance forecasts in the Corporate Plan 2020-23;<br />
b.current pricing structures, including wholesale pricing, affordability and take-up, particularly as they relate to low-income and rural and regional customers;<br />
c.network coverage issues; including reporting of outages planned and unplanned<br />
d.the delivery of the business segment strategy, including to enterprise and government customers, and small to medium businesses;<br />
e.the experiences of small and medium business in relation to the utilisation, accessibility, customer service and affordability of the NBN;<br />
f.compliance with the NBN Statement of Expectations and adequacy of that Statement <br />
g.any other related matters. Source: <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Broadband_Network/smallbusinessandcase" target="_blank">Parliament of Australia</a></blockquote>
<h4>
Australia vs OECD and Top 10 Trading Partners </h4>
I presented the material from the future of the NBN posts (1-6), especially NBN speeds vs OECD, but narrowed that down to Australia's Top 10 Trading Partners (Source; <a href="https://oec.world/en/profile/country/aus/" target="_blank">OEC</a> - Observatory of Economic Complexity), which are an interesting mix of countries, including:<br />
<ul>
<li>China | United States | Singapore </li>
<li>South Korea | Japan | New Zealand</li>
<li>Thailand | India | Germany | United Kingdom. </li>
</ul>
Australia per OECD (2018) was close to the bottom (see Figure 2 below), but post-build NBN, we come back to middle of the pack. An <a href="https://twitter.com/ValueMgmt/status/1215388587010560003?s=20" target="_blank">Appendix</a> shows the NBN <a href="https://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/ITU_BroadbandPlans_2019.pdf" target="_blank">plans</a> for each of these countries (Table 1). The Broadband Commission produced a nice summary graphic (Figure 1) comparing NBN target speeds and coverage for UK, EU, USA, South Korea, NZ and DE (plus others).<br />
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<a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EN3snraU8AAH6JY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="800" height="205" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EN3snraU8AAH6JY.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Figure 1. Broadband Commission summary of NBN Plans; Australian and Top 10 Trading Partners highlighted. Broadband Commission: <a href="https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/opb/pol/S-POL-BROADBAND.19-2018-PDF-E.pdf" target="_blank">The State of Broadband (</a>2018), p.37.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZZTsuvlHGFv9mxfAm9wxv0_99LVO7eClS3ilM16pFsbHAhAbgkSgqemNthWhH04VI-ys-jSBa-Xk0Gorxc8B3XbTyIPZEiEMv8xjuFgB5cdOPdn73kZAkluVVa9vtM9NK6LLESEkLf-TC/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-01-31+at+12.03.21+pm.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="1174" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZZTsuvlHGFv9mxfAm9wxv0_99LVO7eClS3ilM16pFsbHAhAbgkSgqemNthWhH04VI-ys-jSBa-Xk0Gorxc8B3XbTyIPZEiEMv8xjuFgB5cdOPdn73kZAkluVVa9vtM9NK6LLESEkLf-TC/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-01-31+at+12.03.21+pm.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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</div>
Figure 2. Appendix 2 of Ferrers (2020) Submission. Australia Broadband speeds vs OECD (2018). Source: <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8116079" target="_blank">OECD 2018</a>. <a href="https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/5.1-FixedBB-SpeedTiers-2018-12.xls" target="_blank">Raw data</a> (OECD xls).<br />
<br />
<h4>
Summary of Australia's Top 10 Trading Partners - NBN Plans - Appendix 1 - Submission</h4>
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr><th>Country</th><th>Target</th><th>Speed (Mbps)</th><th>Year</th>
</tr>
<tr><td>Australia</td>
<td>90%</td><td>50 </td><td>2020 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>Australia
</td><td>100%</td><td>25 </td><td>2020 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>China
</td><td>50%</td><td>100 </td><td>2020 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>China
</td><td>70% </td><td>50</td><td>2020 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>China
</td><td>some</td><td>1000</td><td>2020 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>India
</td><td>100% </td><td>50 </td><td>2022 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>India
</td><td>Villages</td><td>1000</td><td>2020 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>India
</td><td>Villages </td><td>>1000</td><td>2022 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>Japan
</td><td>98% </td><td>Fibre </td><td>Now </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>New Zealand
</td><td>75% </td><td>Fibre 100</td><td>2019 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>New Zealand
</td><td>87% </td><td>Fibre 100</td><td>2022 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>Germany
</td><td>100% </td><td>50</td><td>2018 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>Germany
</td><td>Regional</td><td>1000 </td><td>2025 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>Singapore
</td><td colspan="3">?? oops left it out - in error </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>South Korea
</td><td>99% </td><td>Fibre</td><td>now </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>South Korea
</td><td>50% </td><td>>1000</td><td>2022 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>Thailand
</td><td>Cities </td><td>100 </td><td>2020 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>Thailand
</td><td>95% </td><td>broadband </td><td>2020 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>United Kingdom
</td><td>15M(55%)</td><td>Fibre </td><td>2025 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>United Kingdom
</td><td>100% </td><td>Fibre </td><td>2033 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>United States
</td><td>100M(80%)</td><td>100 </td><td>2020 </td>
</tr>
<tr><td>United States
</td><td>extensive </td><td>wireless</td><td>2020 </td><td><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
Table 1: Comparing Australia's and Top 10 Trading Partners - NBNs. <br />
Source UNESCO/ITU <a href="https://www.broadbandcommission.org/publications/Pages/SOB-2019.aspx" target="_blank">Broadband Commission</a> | List of <a href="https://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/ITU_BroadbandPlans_2019.pdf" target="_blank">Plans</a> (NZ: Wikipedia)(South Korea, Japan International Broadband Scorecard, <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/130842/International-Broadband-Scorecard-2018.pdf">Ofcom)</a><br />
<h4>
Fast Broadband (at/over 100Mbps) - Australian and Selected Top 10 Trading Partners</h4>
What was really interesting, and surprising, was China has rolled out an NBN since 2013, and now has 250M fast broadband connections (77% of fibre users; which are 93% of internet users; <a href="https://valman.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-future-of-nbn6-uk2030-vs-china2019.html" target="_blank">Future of NBN 6</a>), compared to US 30M fast broadband users, where fast is at or over 100Mbps. Both countries report coverage of 90% for access to fast broadband services. US reports about 10 subs (of fast broadband) per 100 people, whereas China has close to double, around 20 subs per 100 people.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGnvoL6yjaSFXHI8Y-NejBSAsa1ZB76eiZXwifMzop2pjY6BxJ99Ruw6CD4tH9zpy5v7zl2yfm5Uj5Re9o050meK9lVeS2ek6nQ-d8p9T46hk0iJ8ABTosteovuDdNGQSxtXAKnTVJuIOm/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-01-31+at+12.00.59+pm.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="704" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGnvoL6yjaSFXHI8Y-NejBSAsa1ZB76eiZXwifMzop2pjY6BxJ99Ruw6CD4tH9zpy5v7zl2yfm5Uj5Re9o050meK9lVeS2ek6nQ-d8p9T46hk0iJ8ABTosteovuDdNGQSxtXAKnTVJuIOm/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-01-31+at+12.00.59+pm.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Figure 3. Figure 1b. in Ferrers (2020) Submission. Millions of fast Broadband Subscribers. Australia and selected Top 10 Trading Partners. NB: Japan, South Korea did not report in OECD 2018.<br />
<br />
I also looked at more recent data from Ookla, which reports average speeds by country of its Speedtest service. Australia does not fare well on this metrics. Australia rates near the bottom of our Top 10 Trading Partners (Figure 4).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfSZk0gQhAhM1Vv4yYTGAMtiNi90Y0-_J2R8AunI7l-evWao4xESyEhSI4cgesXIP4ZNDEEkl-gmKPCPC3d8xPVhiGoLGxkQOIIj3a8OiRm0O2ZQ7NWXYXxkkCuy8aX5NVAFctyWgWLIsX/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-01-31+at+12.05.34+pm.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="634" data-original-width="1163" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfSZk0gQhAhM1Vv4yYTGAMtiNi90Y0-_J2R8AunI7l-evWao4xESyEhSI4cgesXIP4ZNDEEkl-gmKPCPC3d8xPVhiGoLGxkQOIIj3a8OiRm0O2ZQ7NWXYXxkkCuy8aX5NVAFctyWgWLIsX/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-01-31+at+12.05.34+pm.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<insert graph="" ookla=""></insert><br />
<insert graph="" ookla="">Figure 4. Appendix 4 in Ferrers (2020) Submission. Download Average Speeds - Australia and Selected Top 10 Trading Partners. <a href="https://www.speedtest.net/global-index">Ookla Global Index</a> 2018, 2019.</insert><br />
<br />
What I realised (in Figure 2 - gold bars), was that other countries have a lot of fast (over 100Mbps) connections whereas Australia does not. In 2018, we reported 0% fast broadband to OECD. In the Ookla graph from mid-2019, we showed close to 0% at or over 100Mbps. This year (around May 2020), NBN will release more affordable gigabit services for around 50% of users (FTTP, FTTC, HFC). I argued in my submission that even small percentages using gigiabit will have a significant impact on Australia's average speeds (which is often complained about). New Zealand currently has about 10% gigabit users, so this level of takeup seems quite possible for Australia too, if the price is affordable. So I am optimistic that Australia can increase its national download performance, if affordable prices can be set for gigiabit services.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr><th>Scenario</th><th>Average Speed </th><th>Ranking against Top 10 Trading Partners</th>
</tr>
<tr><td>OECD 2018 </td><td>21mbps </td><td>10th</td></tr>
<tr><td>NBN post-build </td><td>50mbps </td><td>10th</td></tr>
<tr><td>5% gigabit </td><td>98mbps </td><td>7th</td></tr>
<tr><td>10% gigabit </td><td>145mbps </td><td>3rd</td></tr>
<tr><td>20% gigabit </td><td>240mbps </td><td>1st</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Table 2: Adding Gigabit substantially raises Australia's national average broadband speed, relative to Top 10 Trading Partners<br />
Source: Appendix 5, Ferrers (2020) Submission. <br />
<br />
Overall my recommendations in my <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Broadband_Network/smallbusinessandcase/Submissions" target="_blank">submission</a> (<a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8116079" target="_blank">data</a> at Figshare) were:<br />
<ol>
<li>Encourage NBN gigabit services at affordable prices.</li>
<li>Update NBN Co's Statement of Expectations to upgrade the network (preferably bi-partisan), and guide how NBN Co will spend cash NBN will generate on debt repayment, dividends and network improvement.</li>
<li>Focus NBN Co on encouraging use of the NBN (so we are more like China - heavily used, than US - accessible but less used at fastest speeds).</li>
<li>NBN Co publish customer satisfaction results with the network by major customer categories eg business, consumer, FTTP, FTTN, FTTC etc. (bearing in mind that satisfaction comes from more than just speed eg ITU/UNESCO <a href="https://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/BD_BB_Commission_2025%20Targets_430817_e.pdf" target="_blank">2025 Broadband Goals</a>), and lastly</li>
<li>NBN Co include in its Corporate Plans a section on how Australia compares to other countries, along key performance metrics, and particularly the Top 10 Trading Partners. Ongoing NBN performance targets should reflect shareholder preference for Australia's performance relative to our major trading partners.</li>
</ol>
<b>Afterword</b><br />
In contrast, and we should not forget, Australia has come a long way, with NBN and broadband from ten years ago. In 2009, nearly everyone had less than 25mbps, and about 30% had less than 2Mbps. Going back to 2006 (from ABS Internet 8153.0 Usage), some 45% of Australia was on dialup. In 2009, those still on dialup (1M users) were downloading 10Mb per month. The average in 2009 across all users was 4Gb per month. NBN recently (at end 2019) reported NBN users were using 250Gb per month). Extraordinary growth in download consumption.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EN3lc5LU0AE_0kn.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="800" height="148" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EN3lc5LU0AE_0kn.jpg" width="320" /> </a></div>
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Figure 5: NBN Speeds 2009, 2018, post-build. Source: <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/8153.0Main+Features1Dec+2009/" target="_blank">ABS</a>, OECD 2018, NBN Co. | <a href="https://twitter.com/ValueMgmt/status/1215379765508501504?s=20">Tweet</a> <br /></div>
<p><b>Update: China <a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/" target="_blank">reports</a> (p.11,12) 2020 Internet development - </b><br />As of December 2019, the number of FTTH/O (home/office) 2019 users had reached 417 million, accounting for 92.9% of all fixed Internet broadband subscribers. The number of subscribers at/over 100Mbps reaches 85% of all fixed broadband users (up from 77% in 2019).</p>Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-55956789320831270142019-11-22T12:27:00.001+11:002019-11-22T17:39:48.053+11:00The future of the NBN (6): UK(2030) vs China(2019)Two reports recently from China and the UK on their broadband rollout plans, report:<br />
<ul>
<li>a promise "to deliver free full-fibre broadband to all individuals and business by 2030.... [further we] will aim to deliver free full-fibre broadband to at least 15-18M premises within five years" <a href="https://labour.org.uk/press/british-broadband-labour-sets-out-mission-to-connect-communities-across-britain-by-delivering-free-full-fibre-broadband-for-all/" target="_blank">Link</a>, Nov 16, 2019</li>
<li><a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/" target="_blank">Update</a>: June 2019 report on Internet <a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201911/P020191112539794960687.pdf" target="_blank">released</a> (pdf); noting 395.75M Fibre (FTTH - Fibre to the Home, FTTO - Fibre to the Office) connections "accounting for 91.0% of all Internet broadband access users" (p.11) and 77% of broadband subscribers at 100Mbps or over; (p.11), up from 39% at the end of 2017.</li>
</ul>
The first is the promise of the UK Labour Party for the upcoming December 2019 UK General<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.picpedia.org/highway-signs/images/broadband.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://www.picpedia.org/highway-signs/images/broadband.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Courtesy: Nick Youngson <a href="http://www.picpedia.org/highway-signs/b/broadband.html" target="_blank">CC-BY-SA</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Election. The second shows the progress China has made in the last ten years. See graphs from the China report below. You can compare earlier analysis I made of China progress (<a href="http://valman.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-future-of-nbn-comparing-to-sth.html" target="_blank">NBN Future Part 2</a>), from 2012-17.<br />
<h4>
UK</h4>
UK regulator, Ofcom, <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/166650/connected-nations-update-summer-2019.pdf" target="_blank">reports</a> (Sept 2019, p.9) that 95% of premises can access a 30Mbps broadband (superfast) service, while only 54% can access a 300Mbps (ultrafast) service (about 16M premises). In contrast, Ofcom <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/175582/q2-2019-telecoms-data-update.pdf" target="_blank">reports</a> current broadband connection (by technology) Q2 2019 as:<br />
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<a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="55" data-original-width="395" height="44" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVzqyssayK0HQTsBSlx9mBh15AFN_DmAI-hNGg9D-QKAJxlsDt6yK4mhSBi01Rw-W0U6P_QPIvU84wwzXP7X27NVaCmFq6uRocVyKGFGRmTUyTgZa_44xlQ9aepCMyrU7HmBjoR-EPUecT/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-11-22+at+4.51.50+pm.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<ul>
<li>ADSL 8.4M</li>
<li>Cable 5.3M</li>
<li>Other (inc FTTx; predominantly Fibre) 13.0M - but full-fibre homes (2018) - 1.8M(<a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/130736/Connected-Nations-2018-main-report.pdf" target="_blank">Connected Nations</a>, p.1).</li>
</ul>
Another Ofcom report (<a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/130842/International-Broadband-Scorecard-2018.pdf" target="_blank">International Broadband Scorecard 2018</a>), comparing UK to EU countries and 18 other international countries (2017, Figure 1.8), breaks UK broadband down by technology and speed, noting VDSL is active in 35% of connections, cable 20%, ADSL 44%, full-fibre (1%). Also they report 14% of connections above 100Mbps (including 4% above 300Mbps), 42% under 30Mbps, including 2% under 10Mbps, and 44% in between (Figure 1.7). <br />
<br />
<br />
The same <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/130842/International-Broadband-Scorecard-2018.pdf" target="_blank">Ofcom report</a> (International Broadband Scorecard 2018; Figure 1.26) notes that at the end of 2017, Japan has 98% full-fibre coverage, and Korea over 99% full-fibre coverage (Source:<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 10.000000pt; font-style: italic;"> <a href="https://ihsmarkit.com/products/broadband-infrastructure-intelligence-service.html" target="_blank">IHS MARKIT</a>)</span>, and (Figure 1.27), meaning that close to 100% (98-99%) of households in Japan and Korea have access to the fastest broadband (over 300Mbps). China is reported having 45% of households who can access similar (ultrafast) speeds (US 61%, NZ 70%, DE 34%, AU 0%; Figure 1.27, Fixed Broadband coverage by advertised speed). In Figure 1.29, the percent of broadband connections over 100Mbps (end 2017) is reported, including Korea (76%), Japan, (74%), Sweden (78%), US (28%), China (14%), UK(14%), NZ (11%), AU (3%), among .<br />
Interactive data is also <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/telecoms-research/broadband-research/eu-bbroadand-scorecard/2018-interactive-data" target="_blank">available</a> (full-screen required) providing international comparison.<br />
<h4>
China Fibre Broadband (2019)</h4>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii7k8BJy6aRduoZfcQVaIIy_vXNyWb-VMQhAs9NO9sBkf0F30KCwaQ3GCG4760o7WSjU3oxQkqNRtN-ji6tGeci-GZyzS1TsfBcwsp7oGQbQ5ZdS6uIO6t_RvVRKKIzpCMqskWc4jY4XEd/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-11-22+at+9.26.39+am.png"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="757" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii7k8BJy6aRduoZfcQVaIIy_vXNyWb-VMQhAs9NO9sBkf0F30KCwaQ3GCG4760o7WSjU3oxQkqNRtN-ji6tGeci-GZyzS1TsfBcwsp7oGQbQ5ZdS6uIO6t_RvVRKKIzpCMqskWc4jY4XEd/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-11-22+at+9.26.39+am.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 11 Scale and Proportion of Fibre Broadband Users<br />
- <a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/" target="_blank">CNNIC</a> <a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201911/P020191112539794960687.pdf" target="_blank">China Internet Statistics 6.2019</a>, p.11</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0HZPlcLsc9uyzvRK0JuP9LeQxJJW3Frl_EIix4PWrMPbOVhOg8tHdrtUU3aQmHTEXaBfd_wRPFEKgI11ZQ6a6jZCHYsH84s_k4GCI6gpawJ5G2gD7cTWysTaK1XDHf_1Oy4qoU960biRi/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-11-22+at+9.26.50+am.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="727" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0HZPlcLsc9uyzvRK0JuP9LeQxJJW3Frl_EIix4PWrMPbOVhOg8tHdrtUU3aQmHTEXaBfd_wRPFEKgI11ZQ6a6jZCHYsH84s_k4GCI6gpawJ5G2gD7cTWysTaK1XDHf_1Oy4qoU960biRi/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-11-22+at+9.26.50+am.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fig 10 Proportion of Subscribers of Broadband at the Speed of 100Mbps or above<br />
- <a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/" target="_blank">CNNIC</a> <a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201911/P020191112539794960687.pdf" target="_blank">China Internet Statistics 6.2019</a>, p.11</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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China, in its annual Internet Statistics (<a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/" target="_blank">CNNIC</a>), recently updated for 2019, demonstrates a significant investment into fibre broadband. It also shows that China is close to completing a full fibre network with 395M fibre connection users; some 91% of all broadband users. Of these users, 77% are accessing broadband at 100Mbps or above (substantially more than the 14% reported in the Ofcom report - International Broadband Scorecard, at end 2017, mentioned above). When China (CNNIC) says fibre, they explain in a footnote (p.11) they mean FTTH/O - Fibre to the Home, or Fibre to the Office. An earlier post (<a href="http://valman.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-future-of-nbn-one-year-to-completion.html">Future NBN 1</a>), shows China Fibre rollout 2012-17.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/">
<img border="0" data-original-height="76" data-original-width="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmBDLRZCDfAn55pXeaQTOeg2CblveFKfxzxksp1woRjSjV9GYOQ3S4Bz4_0vvjp1FBEsXHOmeYhs3oGoIbLXPF9E03jnR1sEiTPQUxUJI6pxlL2C-C8jqqCVaj4TYTSZm8diAU3sSYu9Qn/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-11-22+at+4.50.09+pm.png" /></a></div>
<br />
The Labour Party <a href="https://labour.org.uk/press/british-broadband-labour-sets-out-mission-to-connect-communities-across-britain-by-delivering-free-full-fibre-broadband-for-all/" target="_blank">says</a> the UK is falling behind in broadband, with only 8-10% of broadband users accessing full-fibre services, which they compare unfavourably to Japan (97%) and South Korea (98%). These percents turn out to be percent of households with access to, rather than subscribers of, fibre broadband. Japan has 60% households connected to full-fibre, whereas South Korea has 40% or 80% connected to fibre, depending how you classify one type of common Korean broadband connection.<br />
<h4>
South Korea </h4>
My previous examinations (<a href="http://valman.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-future-of-nbn-comparing-to-sth.html" target="_blank">NBN Future 2</a>) of South Korea, showed in 2017 only around 40% on full-fibre, with 25% still on HFC and ADSL. A significant category called LAN, is likely to be FTTB (connecting the basement of residential buildings to fibre, and using LAN to distribute broadband within the building), had around 40% of broadband subscribers. Even if LAN and FTTH were both counted (about 80%), the total is substantially lower than the 98% the Labour Party suggests.<br />
Recapping (<a href="https://www.netmanias.com/en/korea-ict-market-data/broadband/1372/" target="_blank">Netmania</a>), South Korea's broadband connections (2017) consist of:<br />
<ul>
<li>LAN (presumably FTTB): 8.6M (40%)</li>
<li>Fibre to the Home: 7.7M (36%) </li>
<li>HFC: 4.0M (19%)</li>
<li>DSL: 0.9M (5%)</li>
</ul>
NB:See further Korea broadband data noted in the UK Ofcom report (International Broadband Scorecard) mentioned above.<br />
<h4>
Japan</h4>
The Japan Statistics Organisation - <a href="https://www.stat.go.jp/english/" target="_blank">Statistics Bureau of Japan</a> reports on telecommunications including fixed broadband services, for their 53M private households (Link, Ch. 2). The 2019 Statistical Handbook of Japan reports total 41M fixed-broadband subscribers (Table 8.6. <a href="https://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook/pdf/2019all.pdf#page=109" target="_blank">Subscribers to Telecomms Services</a> (2018), p.93 - totals to 42M, strangely):<br />
<ul>
<li>Fibre to the Home: 30.3M (72%)</li>
<li>Cable Internet (HFC presumably): 6.9M (16%)</li>
<li>DSL: 2.1M (5%)</li>
<li>ISDN: 2.9M (7%)</li>
</ul>
NB: See further Japan broadband data noted in the UK Ofcom report (<a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/130842/International-Broadband-Scorecard-2018.pdf" target="_blank">International Broadband Scorecard</a>) mentioned above.While these figures represent significant users of broadband (Japan is placed 3rd in the world behind US 110M, and China 393M; p.94), rather than who can access broadband, the number of full-fibre users is substantially lower than the Labour figure, closer to 60% of total households, than the Labour Party suggested 97%.<br />
<h4>
China</h4>
What the Labour Party seems to be missing, is that while the UK is far behind Japan and South Korea, the UK is also substantially falling behind China. China's 395M full-fibre connections (Fig 11 above) is a significant proportion (86%) of their 456M total households (<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>). Not only are fibre connections in place, but there are subscribers using the services, and 77% of those subscribers are consuming broadband at 100Mbps or more. In Summary, China's broadband is:<br />
<ul>
<li>Fibre to the Home/Office: 395M (91%)</li>
</ul>
<br />
So, the UK is looking ahead to a broadband future, where everyone is connected in 2030 to full-fibre (and 60-70% within five years; that is 15-18M households of total 26M; <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>). Japan is 60% full-fibre connected there now (but every house can access fibre, per Ofcom). Korea is 80% full-fibre connected there now (if you count FTTB as full-fibre, only 40% if you don't). But China is close to already fully connected with close to 90% already on full-fibre, and with the result that nearly 80% of subscribers are using broadband at speeds at or above 100Mbps.<br />
<br />
In contrast, Australia <a href="http://valman.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-future-of-nbn-one-year-to-completion.html" target="_blank">reports</a> to OECD (end 2018), 0% broadband users at speeds at/above100Mbps (<a href="http://valman.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-future-of-nbn-one-year-to-completion.html" target="_blank">NBN Future 1</a>).Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-49820516431744525802019-08-30T10:25:00.000+10:002019-10-11T15:01:49.264+11:00The Future of the NBN (5): Fast National EU Plans vs Fast ServicesIn the last post I looked at EU NBN (national) plans for 28 countries. These national plans nicely group into several different target clusters, including:<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYLEwLFFZRBacTDeEo28ynEE8SL176a3R5PyAY1Smmq60rp7_ieItftCN3b4jp0tY5GrnQHm66Fxwzl_OvZip_vr32XGWkI_maW2BKioHF2XPr2IL6cKH67fxC0Qe25vgDUOZhah9HStQz/s1600/compare-643305_640.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="640" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYLEwLFFZRBacTDeEo28ynEE8SL176a3R5PyAY1Smmq60rp7_ieItftCN3b4jp0tY5GrnQHm66Fxwzl_OvZip_vr32XGWkI_maW2BKioHF2XPr2IL6cKH67fxC0Qe25vgDUOZhah9HStQz/s200/compare-643305_640.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Compare: <a href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/compare-comparison-scale-balance-643305/">Pixabay</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<ul>
<li>30mbps coverage by 2020 (Many including Greece, France, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Ireland and 12 others )</li>
<li>50mbps coverage by 2020 (Germany)</li>
<li>100mbps coverage by 2020 (Sweden, Italy 85%, Netherlands 2023)</li>
<li>1000mbps coverage by 2025 (Luxembourg 100%, Sweden 98%, Belgium 50%, Netherlands vast majority).</li>
</ul>
I wanted to compare these clusters against current Speedtest world speed rankings. When they didn't compare neatly, I thought about what other broadband indicator is going to give a better indicator of fast average usage, than a national target. That's when I thought to compare average speed (per Speedtest Global Index) with OECD count of number of very fast users (over 100mbps).<br />
<br />
In national targets, Australia sits close to Germany, with 90% of fixed line aiming to get 50mbps, and rest 25mbps. <br />
<br />
Let's compare.<br />
<br />
<table>
<tbody>
<tr><th>NBN target (mbps)</th><th>Cntry </th><th>Speedtest Ranking </th><th>Speed Down </th><th>Users/100 over 100mbps(OECD 2018)</th>
</tr>
<tr><td>30mbps</td><td>GR </td><td>96</td><td>23</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td>30mbps</td><td>FR </td><td>15</td><td>108</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>30mbps</td><td>ESP </td><td>17</td><td>107</td><td>9</td></tr>
<tr><td>50mbps</td><td>AU </td><td>60 </td><td>40</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td>50mbps</td><td>DE </td><td>34</td><td>73</td><td>6</td></tr>
<tr><td>50-100mbps</td><td>CN </td><td>24</td><td>90</td><td>>4</td></tr>
<tr><td>100mbps</td><td>IT </td><td>46</td><td>51</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>1000mbps</td><td>LX </td><td>16</td><td>107</td><td>na</td></tr>
<tr><td>1000mbps</td><td>SWE </td><td>14</td><td>110</td><td>26</td></tr>
<tr><td>1000mbps</td><td>NE </td><td>20</td><td>99</td><td>14</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Table 1: Speedtest results (2019) - Ranked by NBN Target
<br />
The first table compares NBN targets for country with Speedtest actual speeds. The Speedtest rankings do not line up very well with the NBN targets for each country. France and Spain have low targets but high rankings. Italy and Australia have a quite high national target but quite low Speedtest rankings.
NB: China has 4% superfast users - data is only found for gigabit users (post 2).<br />
Now we retry the comparison, sorting by percentage of very fast users (over 100mbps). I include CN (China) data from my <a href="http://valman.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-future-of-nbn-comparing-to-sth.html" target="_blank">post</a> below. <a href="https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/5.1-FixedBB-SpeedTiers-2018-06.xls" target="_blank">OECD</a> data (xls) comes from <a href="http://valman.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-future-of-nbn-one-year-to-completion.html" target="_blank">post</a> below too.<br />
<table>
<tbody>
<tr><th>NBN target (mbps)</th><th>Cntry </th><th>Speedtest Ranking </th><th>Speed Down </th><th>Users/100 over 100mbps(OECD 2018)</th>
</tr>
<tr><td>50mbps</td><td>AU </td><td>60 </td><td>40</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td>30mbps</td><td>GR </td><td>96</td><td>23</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td>50-100mbps</td><td>CN </td><td>24</td><td>90</td><td>>4</td></tr>
<tr><td>30mbps</td><td>FR </td><td>15</td><td>108</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>50mbps</td><td>DE </td><td>34</td><td>73</td><td>6</td></tr>
<tr><td>100mbps</td><td>IT </td><td>46</td><td>51</td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td>30mbps</td><td>ESP </td><td>17</td><td>107</td><td>9</td></tr>
<tr><td>1000mbps</td><td>NE </td><td>20</td><td>99</td><td>14</td></tr>
<tr><td>1000mbps</td><td>SWE </td><td>14</td><td>110</td><td>26</td></tr>
<tr><td>1000mbps</td><td>LX </td><td>16</td><td>107</td><td>na</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Table 2: Speeedtest results (2019) - Ranked by Users of 100+mbps (OECD 2018).<br />
Source: Speedtest <a href="https://www.speedtest.net/global-index">Global Index</a> - July 2019, EU summary of NBN plans (post 4), OECD (post 1), China (post 2).<br />
The second table compares adoption of over 100mbps speeds (OECD 2018) with Speedtest actual speeds.<br />
This analysis suggests that the Speedtest ranking is more closely related to (1) how many users are on fast (over 100mbps) speeds than (2) what the country's NBN target is. Again Italy stands out as a high performer on number of very fast broadband users, but scores low average Speedtest results. This suggests there are very fast and very slow speeds available across the country leading to a lower average. Australia, Greece and Italy are the only countries not exceeding their national broadband targets (excluding the gigabit targets).
<br />
Conclusion: To improve your average speeds, you can either lift everyone's speeds, or push superfast access to a small minority. Small percentage levels of 1000mbps can substantially lift average speeds.Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-36902665712123723232019-08-21T13:43:00.000+10:002019-08-21T15:29:39.033+10:00The Future of the NBN (4): EU collates their National Broadband PlansAs Australia's NBN approaches completion, some 12 years after Kevin Rudd took the NBN to an Australian election, many nations are now nearing completion of their own version. A European document, neatly compares 28 countries within the EU, and their national broadband targets. I summarise this list below.<br />
<br />
<b>Data</b>: See the EU document (<a href="https://t.co/YFd9pA8LZe" target="_blank">pdf</a> - Slide 37), <a href="https://t.co/CWrpGFgqEs" target="_blank">html</a>. Full <a href="https://atenekom.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Study_on_National_Broadband_Plans_ateneKOMweb.pdf" target="_blank">Report</a> (pdf 328pp), and EU Strategy for a <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/connectivity-european-gigabit-society" target="_blank">Gigabit Society</a>.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECdoSevVAAAAprk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECdoSevVAAAAprk.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">EU National Broadband Plan - Targets</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Some examples include:<br />
<ul>
<li><u>Slow</u>: Greece/Italy 100% coverage - 30mbps - 2020 (plus 17 others)</li>
<li><u>Usage</u>: Greece/Spain 50% penetration (ie usage) - 100mbps - 2020 (plus 14 others)</li>
<li><u>Medium</u>: Germany 100% coverage - 50mbps - 2020</li>
<li><u>Fast</u>: Netherlands at 100% coverage - 100mbps - 2023 (plus six others similar eg Italy 85%, Sweden 95% at 2020)</li>
<li><u>Superfast</u>: Sweden 98% coverage - 1Gbps - 2025 (plus Netherlands (vast majority), Belgium 50% and Luxembourg 100%) </li>
<li>UK 100% fibre coverage - 2033 (and 15M premises by 2025).</li>
</ul>
<h4>
Comparing EU to AU </h4>
Looking at these clusters, Australia's NBN seems to sit closest to Germany, with 90% of fixed line network, getting at least 50Mbps, as well as the base 25mbps target for 100% coverage. Australia has neither a usage target (besides Corporate Plan targets of 75% usage) nor gigabit target. The current MTM allows up to 50% of premises to access gigabit once NBN activates upgrades to HFC, FTTC, FTTP.<br />
<ul>
</ul>
Structured data (csv) follows: (MacOS 10.14.6 Numbers 6.1)<br />
<br />
Country,Cover%,Type,Speed (mbps),Date,Comment<br />
Greece,100,coverage,30,2020,"Inc Cyprus, Spain, Malta, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Italy, Czechia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Estonia, France (2022), Hungary (2018), Ireland, Portugal, Romania (inc 80% > 30mbps), Slovakia, Slovenia (last 4%)"<br />
Greece,50,Penetration,100,2020,"Inc Bulgaria homes (Businesses 80%), Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia (60%), Hungary, Ireland (inc 17-21mbps up), Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania (45%), Spain, Sweden"<br />
Germany,100,coverage,50,2018,<br />
Belgium,50,Penetration,1000,2020,"Inc Luxembourg (100% coverage, 500Mbps up), Netherlands (vast majority by 2023), Sweden (98% coverage by 2025)"<br />
Denmark,100,coverage,100,2020,"Inc Denmark (30mbps up), Sweden (95%), Austria (99%), Finland (2025), Italy (85%), Netherlands (2023), Slovenia (96%)"<br />
UK,100,Full fibre,n/a,2033,Inc 15M premises by 2025<br />
// Source: https://t.co/YFd9pA8LZe - slide 37<br />
<ul>
</ul>
Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-24644887869733916832019-08-02T13:13:00.000+10:002019-08-21T15:41:03.811+10:00The Future of the NBN (3); the business opportunityThe national NBN rollout is coming close to its finish, with now 11 months until expected completion. By 30.06.2020, all premises should be RTC (Ready to Connect), some 11.8M homes and businesses. But the Corporate Plan while targetting eventually some 75-80% users, expect activations to ramp up from:<br />
<br />
When | Planned NBN Activations<br />
30.06.19 | 5.5M<br />
30.06.20 | 7.5M<br />
31.12.20 | 8M<br />
30.06.21 | 8.4M<br />
30.06.22 | 8.7M<br />
Source: NBN Corporate Plan 2019-2022. <br />
<br />
Current NBN ARPU is around $44 per month (total revenue 2019; $2.6B), with a expected rise to $54 in 2022 (total revenue 2022, $5.6B). These numbers update annually, with the Corporate Plan for 2020-2023 to be released shortly. What those ARPU numbers average out is the split between business and home revenue. Business services while much smaller in number, are substantially greater in revenue per premise.<br />
<br />
For our home broadband service, for instance, I pay $60 per month to retailer Exetel (which is about NBN $45 wholesale), for a 50Mbps unlimited data line. Plenty of speed for a small family, watching 4K video and a home office running low bandwidth applications. But what if I wanted to upgrade to gigabit service with business grade services?<br />
<h4>
What does Enterprise broadband cost? Enterprise NBN?</h4>
I can get a 200/200 Telstra fibre service through my current broadband provider, Exetel for $1000/mth, on a three year contract with $0 setup. I can get a gigabit service with a three year contract from TPG ($880/mth; $1100 setup), iinet ($880/mth; $1800 setup) or AussieBB ($770/mth; $0 setup). The AussieBB service is a TC4 best effort service (with 100/100mbps speed shaping during home video peak hours 6pm to 12am). AussieBB also offers a TC2 committed bandwidth service accessory at 50/50mbps for $440/mth extra. Support packages are an extra $220/mth (Silver support, 99% uptime) or $330/mth (Gold support, 99.95% uptime). All these services come with unlimited data.<br />
<br />
It is clear that these business NBN / fibre services are
significantly more expensive than my $60/mth home NBN service. But the NBN
services are significantly cheaper than the Telstra product, which
Exetel is offering. Up to five times faster (1000/400 vs 200/200) for a similar or slightly
better price ($1000 vs $800 per month). <br />
<br />
It is
interesting to look at the prices for the business service. You need to
leave your name, and contact details, so a salesperson can talk to you
about the service. And then they send the prices to you. This was my
experience with Exetel and AussieBB. <a href="https://www.tpg.com.au/services/fibre1000-bundle" target="_blank">TPG</a> and <a href="https://www.iinet.net.au/business/internet-product/fibre" target="_blank">iiNet</a> did show the prices for Enterprise Broadband on their websites, and are 1000/1000 symmetric services. AussieBB is an up to 1000/400 Enterprise service on NBN.<br />
<br />
Another NBN Business service is called <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/2018/documents/nbn-business-fact-sheets/nbn-business-fact-sheet-enterprise-ethernet.pdf" target="_blank">Enterprise Ethernet</a> (pdf) with speeds up to 1000/1000, $0 install on three year contract, and available as an upgrade anywhere in the NBN <a href="https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/enterprise/nbn-enterprise-ethernet/?fromwideband" target="_blank">fixed line footprint</a>.
Downloading a brochure for the service requires providing your name,
company name, and contact details (phone and email). The brochure
doesn't seem to provide specific costs for Enterprise Ethernet, beyond
the TC4 (best effort; 1000/400 at $770/mth) and TC2 (committed rates;
50/50 at $440/mth). <br />
<h4>
What is the potential revenue from the Business Internet market?</h4>
The ABS provides <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/8165.0June%202014%20to%20June%202018?OpenDocument" target="_blank">statistics</a> of number of businesses in Australia by size. In total there are more than 2.3M active businesses in Australia, but most are small. There are 1.3M businesses with no employees. There are 0.8M businesses with some but less than 20 employees. Around 50,000 have between 20 and 200 employees. And only 4,000 have more than 200 employees.<br />
<br />
Employees | Count of Businesses<br />
0 | 1.3M<br />
1-20 | 0.8M<br />
20-200 | 50K<br />
>200 | 4k<br />
<br />
It is likely that the no-employee businesses (unless in a specifically technical industry, such as video editors) would likely use just home level NBN, particularly if they can access 100/40. NBN has promised that 90% of the fixed line footprint will get 50mbps and 25mbps for everyone else. But businesses with multiple employees would likely need Enterprise NBN. If all of the 1-20 employee businesses took a $500/mth Enterprise Broadband service, that would generate around $5B revenue per year, equivalent to all the expected NBN revenue. Obviously, this revenue would be highly contested between those telcos with substantial fiber networks, such as Telstra, Optus, TPG, Vocus, who can reach many businesses. But NBN's advantage (opportunity) and weakness (who to target) is that NBN runs past every business.<br />
<br />
Businesses with larger numbers of employees (over 20) would pay substantially more per business for internet. These businesses would be the site of substantial competition for their telecom expenses.<br />
<h4>
What NBN revenue might employee broadband generate? </h4>
AARNet generates $80M revenue (<a href="https://www.aarnet.edu.au/images/uploads/resources/AARNet_Annual_Report_2018_2.pdf" target="_blank">Annual Report</a> 2018) for providing internet to the University (and education) sector, which employs 130,000 staff (excluding schools). This works out to about $50/mth per person. This is a little overstated, since there would be schools generating revenue whose staff are not counted, making the average a little high. Nevertheless, each employee is a potential roughly $50/mth NBN revenue source for internet costs. With 13M current <a href="http://lmip.gov.au/default.aspx?LMIP/GainInsights/IndustryInformation" target="_blank">employees</a> (Labour Market Information Portal, May 2019), that equates to about $8B revenue per annum, in possible NBN revenue.<br />
I can think of businesses with lots of staff but not much need for internet eg restaurants. I can think of businesses with few staff but lots of need for internet eg anything video related, software related, data related, research related. <br />
<h4>
Summary</h4>
The Business market is a substantial opportunity for the NBN, but with likely significant competition from the likes of Telstra, Optus, Vocus and TPG. There are billions of dollars in play. With likely costs per employee to fall to around $50/mth for internet (AARNet's cost for the University sector). How much of a premium telcos can extract from businesses for Enterprise quality NBN remains to be seen.<br />
<br />
However, it is possible NBN could generate substantial ($billions) revenue from businesses. Even a 10% market share is close to $1B annually, which would reduce the ARPU for homes required for the NBN to break even and repay its debts. A 50% business market share could go close to double NBN's revenue and pay for substantial upgrades to the fixed line network.<br />
<br />
The opportunity is there for NBN to seize, and for Telstra and competitors to lose.<br />
==<br />
<b>Update</b>: 15/8/19 NBN Co <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-statements/nbn-co-delivers-strong-FY19-financial-results" target="_blank">reports</a> their 2019 result includes Business Revenue of $388M up 54% on FY18 ($252M). This is 14% of total revenue $2.83B (up 43% FY 18 - $1.98B), and similar to FY18 business proportion (13%). ARPU increased from $44 to $46 per month.Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-11710099842480047362019-07-24T11:16:00.000+10:002019-11-21T10:27:38.121+11:00The future of NBN (2); comparing AU to Sth Korea and ChinaIn thinking about the value of an Australian post-build NBN, it is useful to compare where other countries are at. In the last post, I looked at NZ, compared AU actual speeds from 2018 to 2019 (thanks Speedtest), and the OECD broadband speed tables, especially the % of connections which are over 100Mbps. Lately, I have been looking at China and South Korea. South Korea, because it is close to the top of the broadband usage, so might be useful in thinking where AU is headed, and China because as a large trading partner and economic competitor is useful to see where broadband fits within economic and innovation investment priorities.<br />
<br />
<h2>
1. South Korea</h2>
I found a website (Netmania.com) which reports Korean broadband statistics. Korea's <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiI74b8p8zjAhXSXSsKHSDUC18QFjAFegQICxAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fworldpopulationreview.com%2Fcountries%2Fsouth-korea-population%2F&usg=AOvVaw1AKCglGpP6ZmNxlMIMX7XE">population</a> is around 51M in 2019. Korean count of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households">households</a> in 2005 was about 16M, so with population growth is likely now about 18M. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPptxkG8y-Dg2lmkA_-DGL8-rhyphenhyphen6SjexQleS2iLg_LxaWa21iHW7JxcUcTZ6riL3qy5kSdjatmRHB-IczPex_f2n-_65lDbzxRwuYMs48zDmEWDgaYioptAgPcWNYjzMs1LfURcw2c6uVT/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-07-24+at+10.43.17+am.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="664" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPptxkG8y-Dg2lmkA_-DGL8-rhyphenhyphen6SjexQleS2iLg_LxaWa21iHW7JxcUcTZ6riL3qy5kSdjatmRHB-IczPex_f2n-_65lDbzxRwuYMs48zDmEWDgaYioptAgPcWNYjzMs1LfURcw2c6uVT/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-07-24+at+10.43.17+am.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.netmanias.com/en/korea-ict-market-data/broadband/1372/">Netmanias</a>.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As the graph above shows, FTTP has risen to 8M households in 2017, as total connections reach 21M, exceeding the number of households. HFC remains reasonably steady over ten years, falling slightly from 5M to 4M. DSL subscribers fell substantially over ten years from 6M to 1M. A LAN(UTP) service rose from 3M to over 8M, ahead of FTTP - this is possibly a type of FTTB. Interestingly FTTP while significant is one of three major technology types. <br />
Korea is <a href="https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/03/south-korea-getting-10-gigabit-per-second-internet-and-targets-50-10-gbps-coverage-by-2022.html">looking at</a> next generation broadband, aiming for 50% adoption of 10Gbps by 2022, presumably over the FTTP, which would rise to 50% of total households (from 8M to 9M). <a href="https://www.netmanias.com/en/?m=kws&g=1780">Netmanias</a> reports 24% of KT Subscribers have gigabit internet in Q3 2016 (around 2M services; after 7 quarters of availability).<br />
<a href="https://www.netmanias.com/en/?m=view&id=oneshot&no=13636">Interestingly</a>, Netmanias report, Korea's telcos (SK Telecom, KT and LG U+) make only a smallish proportion of their total 2017 $52B revenue from fixed line broadband; around $12B of total. Most revenue comes from mobile ($21B) and handsets ($6B).<br />
Current pricing for gigabit services in Korea (with unlimited data) is around $60 per month on a one year contract (<a href="http://www.skbroadband.com/eng/product/Page.do?retUrl=/eng/product/internet/GigaInternet">SK Broadband</a>) plus setup costs ($25) and monthly equipment rental ($5/mth). Speed is limited to 100Mbps when exceeding a 100Gb data limit (per day).<br />
<br />
<h2>
2. China</h2>
<h4>
2.1 Overall</h4>
China, a country of 1.45B people and 450M households has recently upgraded its broadband. By 2017, 84% of broadband users had a FTTH connection; some 290M households, according to the most recent <a href="https://t.co/MpB63LJbYW">CNNIC</a> report (end 2017, p.27-28; see graph below- note: 10k scale). The graph below shows that China fibre broadband rose from 20M users (2012) to 290M users (2017), including some 62M connections added in 2017 alone. (<a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/" target="_blank">Update</a>: June 2019 report <a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201911/P020191112539794960687.pdf" target="_blank">released</a> (pdf); noting 395M Fibre connections (p.11) and 77% of broadband subscribers at 100Mbps or over; p.11).<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D_prdVTUYAAeJ4u.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="800" height="283" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D_prdVTUYAAeJ4u.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://t.co/MpB63LJbYW">CNNIC</a> - China Internet Network Information Center (2017)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4>
2.2 China Strategy</h4>
China pushed their broadband forward in a <a href="https://t.co/mCxBClYNsJ">2013 China Broadband Strategy and Implementation plan</a>. Further the General Office of the State Council, issued "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of High-Speed Broadband Networks, Increasing the Network Speed and Reducing Access Charges" per <a href="https://t.co/OCdWTQfTzX">CNNIC report</a> (p.56).The broadband targets in China were:<br />
<br />
<table border="1"><tbody>
<tr><th>Year</th>
<th>Speed(Mbps)</th>
<th>%Urban</th>
<th>Comment</th>
</tr>
<tr><td>2015</td><td>20</td><td>50%</td>
</tr>
<tr><td>2020</td><td>50</td><td>70%</td><td>plus 50% at 100Mbps, some gigabit</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4>
2.3 China Mobile - Qtrly stock market reports </h4>
More recent information comes from China Mobile who reports quarterly to investors. China Mobile at the time of the CNNIC report, <a href="https://t.co/vDolYpOfpR">reported</a> 109M fixed broadband users (up from 74M in 2016). In 2017, around 70% of their wired broadband subscribers, China Mobile reports, subscribe at over 50Mbps speeds. By Q1 2019, China Mobile <a href="https://t.co/FSGeH1mRTF">report</a> 167M wired broadband customers, up 10M for the quarter (plus a breathtaking 963M mobile subscribers (723M on 4G), using 6Gb of data monthly, up 162%). Thus China Mobile would have around 30-40% of the fixed broadband market and the China households (by 2019) are fully connected to broadband, likely at more than 85% on FTTP. Fixed Broadband ARPU was RMB 31 (about $6) per month.<br />
What does this rapid and extensive rollout in China mean for the value of Australia's NBN? More thoughts to come...<br />
<u><b>Update</b></u>: China Mobile <a href="https://www.chinamobileltd.com/en/ir/webcasts/pre190808.pdf" target="_blank">reports</a> (p.17) in Q2 2019, 175M wired broadband customers, with 80% over 100Mbps on "1000Mbps all-optical fibre broadband network", up from 135M (2018). ARPU is 35 RMB (less than $10AUD/mth).<br />
<h4>
3. Analysis</h4>
Sth Korea has followed a more NBN like approach with multiple technologies. HFC still plays a part (about 25% of households), but the next generation target is only for 50% of households - similar to the NBN level of gigabit-ready households. China in contrast has (at least two years ago) around 85% of urban subscribers on FTTH. Last time we noted that the US has around 30% of subscribers on over 100Mbps plans (around 30M connections). China, has the potential at least to have 85% (about 290M plus premises) on over 100Mbps plans. NZ already has 10% of subscribers on gigabit plans. Sth Korea's KT has about 25% of its subscribers on gigabit services. While Australia, until affordable gigabit services arrive has effectively 0% of NBN subscribers on gigabit services.<br />
<br />
<b>Gigabit Users and Potential Users</b> (or over 100Mbps**) - selected countries<br />
<br />
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr><th>Country </th><th>Gigabit (100Mbps) Users</th> <th>Gigabit % </th><th>Gigabit access potential %(M users) </th>
</tr>
<tr><td>AU</td><td>nil^ </td><td>0%^</td><td>50% (5M)</td></tr>
<tr><td>NZ</td><td>0.1M^</td><td>10%^</td><td>90% (1.8M)^</td></tr>
<tr><td><a href="https://www.government.se/496173/contentassets/afe9f1cfeaac4e39abcdd3b82d9bee5d/sweden-completely-connected-by-2025-eng.pdf">Sweden</a></td><td>(2-3M) </td><td>?? </td><td>98% by 2025 (3M) </td></tr>
<tr><td>Sth Korea</td><td>est 4M (per above^^)</td><td>25%^^</td><td>50% by 2022 (8M)^^</td></tr>
<tr><td>US</td><td>3M [1] (30M)^ </td><td>about 30%** </td><td>?? <a href="http://gigabitmonitor.com/">at least 66M HFC </a></td></tr>
<tr><td><a href="https://rethinkresearch.biz/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Executive-Summary-Gigabit-Broadband-%E2%80%93-Forecast-and-Report-to-2023.pdf">China (p.4)</a></td><td>19M (<a href="https://rethinkresearch.biz/report/gigabit-broadband-forecast-to-2023/">Source</a> [1])</td><td>4%</td><td>over 85% potential (>290M)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Source</b>: ^ - prior blog <a href="http://valman.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-future-of-nbn-one-year-to-completion.html">post</a><br />
So Australia with 50% of potential gigabit users is in line with South Korea as a leading broadband nation. But moving from potential to actual users, depends on the value of the NBN offer. A competitive price would likely be similar to NZ, at around $100 per month, but that price so far has only attracted 10% of users to gigabit.<br />
<br />
One <a href="https://rethinkresearch.biz/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Executive-Summary-Gigabit-Broadband-%E2%80%93-Forecast-and-Report-to-2023.pdf">commentator</a> suggests in most countries gigabit will rise to 30% by 2023, and in some countries (France, Switzerland and South Korea, China) to 40-50% of households. <br />
<br />
<b>4. Unanswered questions:</b><br />
<ul>
<li> how many gigabit users in China? What will gigabit cost? (300 Yuan($60)/mth; <a href="http://www.china.org.cn/business/2019-06/20/content_74904424.htm">China.org.cn)</a></li>
<li> what speed do users in China connect at? (<a href="https://www.speedtest.net/global-index">Speedtest</a> #28; avg 85Mbps)
</li>
<li> when will AU NBN introduce gigabit services? At what price? Current TPG <a href="https://www.tpg.com.au/business-products/internet/fibre-1000">Business service</a> $880/mth on 36mth contract (ie $32k). See more at <a href="https://valman.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-future-of-nbn-3-business-opportunity.html">NBN Business analysis</a>. <u><b>Update</b></u> (Sept.19): NBN proposes household gigabit (1000/50) service at $80/mth wholesale (<a href="https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/thread/30yjrxp9" target="_blank">Whirlpool</a>), likely to retail around $130/mth.</li>
</ul>
Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-29894777417353298002019-07-10T21:03:00.002+10:002019-10-30T10:07:28.575+11:00The future of the NBN; one year to completionAs we start 2019/20, the 2020 end of the NBN rollout is now very close. The weekly NBN progress report shows 8.1M brownfields premises are Ready to Connect (of total 9.8M), and overall 5.5M premises are connected. So now, our thinking turns to what next after the rollout is complete.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/126337928@N05/28357629929" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="160" data-original-width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHniGVDOxJGhVFMBdccgbLKtqFB1TEaJyDNUiUDOXnBoMLSJtamvnehF10jduN3IeQQPNBkU5oONk4W41uT4r7SdFuRe3YJq9lpZOxEq7jBYLXM429S5IBeJZDbP18S4tZvgyrju2jb7Wi/s1600/28357629929_3f69da4894_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/126337928@N05/28357629929">Jeremy Segrott, Flickr (CC-BY)</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There will still be:<br />
- getting all the ADSL network shut down,<br />
- getting as many premises as possible on to the NBN, not least in trying to find the right combinations of price and service to suit the diversity of Australian households<br />
- trying to earn a profit from the completed network, and lastly<br />
- thinking about what next.<br />
<br />
Three data points, I came across this week, give pause for the <i>what next</i> question.<br />
<br />
<b>1. NZ quarterly report of their NBN; the UFB; </b><br />
While NBN reaches 5.5M activated premises (about 47.5%), Chorus in its 2018 <a href="https://company.chorus.co.nz/file-download/download/public/1857">Annual Report</a> advises that their activations have risen from 35% to 45% (p.1). Across the whole of NZ, UFB <a href="https://www.mbie.govt.nz/assets/6eb634329f/quarterly-connectivity-update-march-2019.pdf">Quarterly Report</a> shows their activations include 8% on 1Gbps (64,000 connections), and 6.5% on 200Mbps (49,000 connections), with the remaining 85% (645,000 connections) on 100Mbps or less.<br />
<br />
What next for NBN includes when to activate 1Gbps services, and at what price.<br />
The <a href="https://www.broadbandcompare.co.nz/compare?per-page=20&f%5Btracking_enabled%5D=1&f%5Baddress%5D%5Bformatted%5D=13%20Finnerty%20Avenue,%20Howick,%20Manukau,%20Auckland&f%5Baddress%5D%5Bid%5D=A1001519163&f%5Bconnection_types%5D%5B%5D=ufb_100_plus&f%5Bquick_filters%5D%5B%5D=unlimited&f%5Bquick_filters%5D%5B%5D=fastest&f%5Bsort%5D=price-asc&f%5Bprice_type%5D=per_month&page=1">broadbandcompare.co.nz</a> website, shows NZ services can get 1Gbps service for about $100NZD per month, with unlimited data, 12mth contract, and $150 for a modem/router. If NZ can only get 10% of connections onto gigabit at $100 per month, then don't expect Australia to reach 10% gigabit unless it is priced affordably and competitively. That is, at $600 per month for gigabit, expect only low single digit percentage household uptake. There may be more interest from businesses at this price.<br />
<br />
NBN says 50% of the network will be gigabit compatible, including HFC, FTTC and FTTP. With Gigabit worldwide activated in 2017, <a href="https://www.speedtest.net/insights/blog/mapping-gigabit-2017/">Speedtest</a> reports only around 400,000 users. Australia will soon have 4M gigabit-capable NBN premises. But whether they will use gigabit will depend on need and price - hence the value of gigabit.<br />
<br />
Chorus (the wholesaler) in their 2019 <a href="https://company.chorus.co.nz/file-download/download/public/1947">half-year presentation</a>, say their gigabit charges are $60 per month for Residential and $75 per month for Business connections <br />
<br />
<b>2. Speedtest compares Australia, Saudi Arabia and Ireland</b><br />
While the analysis of the three countries was not that interesting, a graph of Australia's broadband was very interesting. Speedtest provided a comparison of AU broadband speeds in 2018 and 2019 speeds in a graph at 5Mbps intervals. Their testing shows no measureable usage over 100Mbps. Each 1% equates to about 100,000 households. There are obvious NBN peaks just under 50Mbps and 100Mbps, and obvious gains in those peaks between 2018 and 2019 (see the <a href="https://twitter.com/ValueMgmt/status/1148379091206205440">Data</a>).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D-_bAVXUIAYYBjK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="713" height="305" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D-_bAVXUIAYYBjK.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The graph shows under 25Mbps falling from 70% in 2018 to 50% in 2019. In the same time average speed increases from 25Mbps to 30Mbps. If all the under 25Mbps were to be removed, then the average for Australian would be around 50Mbps. This does not take account of underperforming NBN services such as congested fixed wireless.<br />
<br />
This data and graph shows Australia is quickly improving. But compared to the top 20 nations who are averaging close to 100Mbps, we are well behind. Not until gigabit takes hold will the Australian average leap forward. The NZ UFB (per the 2019 Q1 report) averages around 170Mbps with the 8% gigabit having a big impact on lifting the average. <br />
<br />
<b>3. OECD compares member countries by broadband speed, including per cent of connections over 100Mbps.</b><br />
<a href="https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/5.1-FixedBB-SpeedTiers-2018-06.xls">OECD data</a> (xls) on broadband <a href="https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/broadband-statistics/">speeds</a> for 2018 has Australia on 0% of connections over 100Mbps. This puts Australia, next to Greece at the bottom of the OECD. In total about 70M connections over 100Mbps are noted across 37 countries. The US has about 30M of these connections (about 10 per 100 people). The next biggest countries being Germany (4.9M), Italy (4.6M), UK (4.3M) and Spain (4.0M), at either 15% (DE, UK) or 25% (IT, ES) of broadband connections. By percentage the most over 100Mbps connections are Switzerland (84%), Sweden( 67%), Portugal (63%) and Belgium (52%), but in total these countries only have about 11M total connections over 100Mbps, about 2-3M each country.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin2XUUb21vgdPpVyoCVqDMdKigFOalKXbkOAQlSo20K2sC8TP7SsbD8p1PqF32ujOnW-ZX6jJo-lnWSrXqLMgOcbJeXEjIc_HG4Fw6dWYv01cSBW0AGmXJML3iwq6KfbAFyjO0jGCykPNI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-08-08+at+5.19.30+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="969" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin2XUUb21vgdPpVyoCVqDMdKigFOalKXbkOAQlSo20K2sC8TP7SsbD8p1PqF32ujOnW-ZX6jJo-lnWSrXqLMgOcbJeXEjIc_HG4Fw6dWYv01cSBW0AGmXJML3iwq6KfbAFyjO0jGCykPNI/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-08-08+at+5.19.30+pm.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fixed Broadband - OECD 2018 - Fast (<100), Slow (<25) per 100 people</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There is also <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20171225203512/https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/broadband-statistics/">comparative data</a> (archive.org | <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888933585248">xls</a>) from 2016, so it is possible to see how fast people are adding over 100Mbps connections. And now I also retrieved 2014 data from the OECD <a href="https://www.oecd.org/internet/oecd-digital-economy-outlook-2015-9789264232440-en.htm">Digital Economy Outlook 2015</a> (Broadband <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888933224603">speed data</a> (xls); Figure 2.26, p.109).<br />
The graph and underlying data and calculations are available at:<br />
Ferrers, R and OECD. (2019): How fast is Australia's broadband (vs OECD) - 2018? figshare. Dataset. Online at: <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8116079.v2">https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8116079.v2</a> This data was posted in response to NBN's report on their recalculation of NBN in the world speed of <a href="https://nbn.tm/Speed-Check" target="_blank">Broadband race</a>.Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-57628212057331745562019-02-19T11:40:00.000+11:002019-02-28T15:21:25.253+11:00The value of non-profit: Dryad and California Digital Library<b>Workshop</b>: Accelerating Data Publication: new models for research institutions. Melbourne 8 Feb 19. <br />
<br />
I attended a <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/accelerating-data-publication-new-models-for-research-institutions-tickets-53569974235#" target="_blank">workshop</a> the other day, where John Chodacki, Director, UC Curation Center, California Digital Library, pitched an idea for a Data Repository, run by the non-profit organisation, Dryad. Dryad, accepts researcher's data, for (as John mentions) around an average $120USD <a href="https://datadryad.org/pages/payment" target="_blank">processing fee</a>, which covers the curation cost to check all submissions (data files and data description), and to hold the data long-term to support a publication related to the data. Here are the <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mEPVEEPGAlpFXi-JimyqmjRt9zbI0UOAVKhVE8WPiVc/edit#slide=id.g4ece06088a_0_0" target="_blank">slides</a> and <a href="https://pad.carpentries.org/accelerating-data-publication" target="_blank">Etherpad</a>. Per <a href="https://datadryad.org/pages/payment" target="_blank">Dryad</a>'s website, the charge per publication is calculated as a $120USD processing fee plus a storage fee if a researcher submits over 20Gb data ($50 per 10Gb). Most datasets come under the data cap, John says. This fee is waived, upon request, for researchers from lower - middle income countries (per World Bank definitions).<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://datadryad.org//" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="99" data-original-width="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLy0MlQmBlydlTWZEJHUdQEbt_tnO1KMV7leIYz00DhgGAQaOLYWMBQ6obFUhsgqfDMjMon3YfE2u4GgYJXL3hIEpDysx3HFqcrRazyWkxPpOzhTJbazMuzkjo5u2-TI2a0qN7H3rKi5_v/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-02-19+at+11.18.08+am.png" /></a></div>
<br />
John had another idea, for how to use Dryad, for his University of California (UC) researchers. UC had been considering building their own repository from scratch, but thought their funds might be better spent building on top of an existing platform - where researchers were already depositing their data. Apparently 90,000 researchers (<a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mEPVEEPGAlpFXi-JimyqmjRt9zbI0UOAVKhVE8WPiVc/edit#slide=id.g4ece06088a_0_0">Slide</a> 55) already have deposited data at Dryad, and Dryad provide data deposit for over 900 academic journals (<a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mEPVEEPGAlpFXi-JimyqmjRt9zbI0UOAVKhVE8WPiVc/edit#slide=id.g4ece06088a_0_0">Slide</a> 55).<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.cdlib.org/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="93" data-original-width="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9gvUcG0N-AiyGsdPrC8tbGdT44SwQOCm0aXDBrgkXa5vslfMdUFyDMKdWYFPW5fq7-U3kAkLW7FMbK-mWsXMxBG3SxVdzvMcR_RCX6dwDxxqqJltAlAsmkVNfcysGALOfYw-r6NQmAIXt/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-02-19+at+11.19.07+am.png" title="" /></a></div>
<br />
John's idea was to use <a href="https://blog.datadryad.org/2018/05/30/dryad-partnering-with-cdl-to-accelerate-data-publishing/" target="_blank">Dryad as an Institutional service</a>, where the University could pay an annual fee, then their researchers would no longer need to pay a per article data deposit fee. Talks with Dryad began, and they agreed to seek support of other institutions to promote the new service. Fees were agreed on a sliding scale, where a big Institution would pay more (about $13,000 USD per year) and a smaller Institution would pay less (about $3,000 USD per year).<br />
<br />
At the workshop I attended, there were representatives from a number of Australian Universities and research organisations; RMIT, Deakin, Victoria University, CSIRO, University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, Queensland University of Technology, Aarnet, Monash University, plus myself and my colleagues from ARDC, the Australian Research Data Commons. In a final quiz item, the attendees said they were interested in the new service, but that they were not the ones to sign off on that type of purchase. It raised the question of what was the next steps. How could Australian institutions contribute to interest in this new idea for a repository? This blog post was one of those next steps.<br />
<br />
There were a number of obvious benefits:<br />
- paying a non-profit community run organisation, rather than a commercial provider, so it should be a little cheaper<br />
- community can drive what the system looks like, and the functions can be responsive to community needs<br />
- using a system that already has a lot of researcher users (over 60,000), and journal integration.<br />
- using a trusted system (certified with CoreTrustSeal recognised certification).<br />
<br />
But there were some obvious challenges:<br />
- if you were to use this system, how would we transition from our current system to this new system?<br />
- would there be local support in Australia to help users, and help Institutions make a business case, and help researchers use the Dryad system?<br />
<br />
There were a number of questions raised:<br />
- where would the data be stored? In the US. But a copy could be kept locally.<br />
- what about sensitive data, which has to be stored in Australia (or an equivalently privacy-protected jurisdiction ie not the US which has weaker privacy rules)? Dryad doesn't accept sensitive data, so where the data is stored should not be an issue.<br />
- what size data can be sent to Dryad? (As a file up to 10Gb; and from a URL up to 100Gb)<br />
- can we use specific data description types (vocabularies)? Should be fine, John said.<br />
- can we get descriptions of data belonging to our Institutions, back into institutional systems? Contact Dryad for discussion.<br />
- have CDL/Dryad talked to the Australian infrastructure provider, QCIF, who manages the RedBox repository? or Figshare? about how to create a win-win amongst the various repository providers? No, but there is enough room in the ecosystem to allow different repositories to service different users/<br />
- were there any plans to have people in Australian to promote the services and educate institutions and users about the benefits of the system, like Figshare's sales team? Not at this stage.<br />
<br />
Later that same day, I was at another event, and spoke to Natalie Meyers, University of Notre Dame, who is an ambassador for the Center for Open Science and interested in having more <a href="http://help.osf.io/m/addons" target="_blank">integrations</a> with the <a href="http://osf.io/" target="_blank">Open Science Framework (OSF).</a> She wondered if by engaging a larger community to join a Dryad Institutional service, there might be incentive to enhance the Dryad API to make it more consumable and its endpoints more interoperable with other open science platforms like OSF? John, in response, says the new software development work at CDL/Dryad will provide exactly this type of opportunity by leveraging CDl's <a href="https://dash.ucop.edu/stash/about" target="_blank">DaSH</a> API (see API <a href="https://dash.ucop.edu/api/docs/index.html" target="_blank">docs</a> and <a href="https://github.com/CDLUC3/stash/blob/master/stash_api/basic_submission.md" target="_blank">github</a> repo). <br />
<br />
So, it is obvious that the community needs to keep talking about what to do next, what questions are still left unanswered, and how to sell the idea to the money people at your institution. That will require at least in the beginning, glossy flyers, and ultimately a business case to assess the costs and benefits. See also the Dryad <a href="https://blog.datadryad.org/2018/05/30/dryad-partnering-with-cdl-to-accelerate-data-publishing/">blogpost</a> (May '18) announcing the partnership with CDL (<a href="https://blog.datadryad.org/2018/10/23/the-way-forward-at-dryad/" target="_blank">follow up Oct</a> '18 post).<br />
<br />
If you have any questions, please post them in the comments section below and I will send them along to John (john.chodacki - at- ucop.edu) to answer.<br />
<br />
NB: Where I work at <a href="http://www.ardc.edu.au/" target="_blank">ARDC</a>, we have a policy of vendor neutrality, so this post should not be read as an assessment of the value of the CDL/Dryad service, but does seek to point out the many issues to be wrestled with in making a value assessment.<br />
=<br />
Thanks to Natalie and John for their feedback on this post. <br />
<br />Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-65303924079253696822018-12-07T13:08:00.002+11:002022-03-17T12:26:59.240+11:00What is new in Value (2013 - 2018)? How to do a Literature review as an Open ResearcherI am writing an update to my literature review, now that I have published v1 of <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7376879">The Little Book of Value</a>.
But this is the first literature review I am writing as an Open Researcher. So I am considering how do I write this as an open process.
Some options:<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7376879" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="LBOV" border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="403" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAr2QfCrJawsFOH1XcjTLN7H6zcau2AN98u32YyCdzu6ao9leC4XGlUNUoYIkBD0cHqk5B2HYk9v-WYDGeLgExGGyauxySjhVRh13_uwiHwUO4HaL12vpoH6QZ4DQXAIBJJMsM18ZXBUqt/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-12-07+at+1.06.03+pm.png" title="The Little Book of Value" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7376879" target="_blank">The Little Book of Value: figshare.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<ul>
<li>Endnote - too proprietary. Sharable. I doubt it. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Onenote - Microsoft. Ick! Too complicated. </li>
</ul>
Now I am thinking I will use a Google Doc, with sections:<br />
<ul>
<li>Authors </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Journals </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Papers </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Quotes </li>
</ul>
So my research question is: what is new in value theory (2013 - 2018). Let's begin.
Will update this post with my progress.<br />
<br />
I posted a request to the Australia/NZ Open Research Slack channel (ANZORN) and had responses:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.zotero.org/" target="_blank">Zotero</a> - "<span class="d-sm-block">a free, easy-to-use tool to help you</span> <span class="d-sm-block">collect, organize, cite, and share research" ,but it is a download to desktop tool.</span>Ugh! Where is the work in the open? Also has <a href="https://zbib.org/" target="_blank">Zbib</a> for a quick bibliography from DOI.</li>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nC0bf3aeL18X5KOm5ew7ssRFnb7Qs4ox2yxS6Io3rCo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">google doc</a> (view/comment only): sharable, unstructured, public, free, simple. See the Literature Review in progress. Current paper count: 40. Current Author search: <a href="https://haris.hanken.fi/portal/en/persons/christian-groenroos(2fe28e69-47ee-493c-88cc-d888f555ed4c)/publications.html" target="_blank">Gronroos</a>, <a href="http://www.sdlogic.net/publications.html" target="_blank">Vargo and Lusch</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=yRd3E60AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate" target="_blank">Akaka</a>. Current Journals: Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, Industrial Marketing Management, Marketing Theory, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Creating Value (and more) plus books.</li>
</ul>
Will update here as progress continues. See the <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nC0bf3aeL18X5KOm5ew7ssRFnb7Qs4ox2yxS6Io3rCo/edit?usp=sharing">Google Doc</a> for live updates.<br />
<u>Update 1</u> (24.1.19): Summary of Value Lit. published as an update in <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7376879" target="_blank">The Little Book of Value</a> (version 3).<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://marianamazzucato.com/publications/books/value-of-everything/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="368" height="200" src="https://marianamazzucato.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/The-Value-of-Everything.png" title="The Value of Everything - Marina Mazzucato" width="137" /></a></div>
Significant new literature noted: Mazzucato, M. (2018). <a href="https://marianamazzucato.com/publications/books/value-of-everything/" target="_blank"><i>The Value of Everything</i></a>. Includes an economic history of value theory including focus on land (physiocrats), labour (Classical, Adam Smith, Ricardo, Marx ie industrial revolution), trade (mercantilists). Focus on productive and unproductive growth - making and taking.<br />
<br />
See also a network visualisation of Innovation and Value creation at <a href="https://kumu.io/areff2000/innovation-and-value-creation" target="_blank">kumu.io</a> (opens full page), and embedded below. On a bigger screen you can choose between two views:
- Innovation and value creation - thinkers (an overview of the literature review in my PhD 2012)
- Value theory of innovation (the PhD model). NB: After clicking on a node, click top-right corner to close description.<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="640" src="https://embed.kumu.io/0cc0aa7f19dd0da38f8fd41c2a936e1a" width="960"></iframe>
Help: Click on node in network to select, and see content. Click in Top Right to return to map.Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-59356905956796651642018-04-04T16:36:00.000+10:002018-11-28T16:51:57.493+11:00Is there a business case for the National Broadband Network?I made a <u><a href="https://beta.observablehq.com/@areff2000/nbn-financials-from-2021-on-v5a-verbose-off">model</a></u> to calculate the value of NBN for the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Broadband_Network/Businesscase">Business Case Inquiry</a>, using an online calculator(JavaScript) called an <a href="https://beta.observablehq.com/@mbostock/five-minute-introduction">Observable Notebook</a>.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Broadband_Network/Businesscase" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-KWHyLztWW1HXfVkZNfSdHq6HXKpgk-vyAx8evNkgxe4PAts9TEnsoXKXyxHpmhuv7_Q1cx3NOW7NPqVFhhDPbEBof_VMYFF0rG1TQau3N-DiMn1lwXWDRz6WTFr-mCiWtxrptL7CfHUj/s400/Screen+Shot+2018-04-04+at+4.12.33+PM.png" width="400" height="219" data-original-width="593" data-original-height="325" /></a></div>
See introduction to Observable Notebooks at: <a href="https://beta.observablehq.com/@mbostock/five-minute-introduction">https://beta.observablehq.com/@mbostock/five-minute-introduction
</a><br>
<p>
I had a class in Feb at Melb Uni which showed these HTML sliders controlling the colour of a box;
<a href="https://beta.observablehq.com/@maegul/basic-html-and-viewof-play">https://beta.observablehq.com/@maegul/basic-html-and-viewof-play
</a>
and I thought it would be cool if you could make a model of NBN's finances and use a bunch of sliders to check out various scenarios eg
<ul>
<li> people leave NBN for mobile
<li> people leave/stay with FTTN because too slow/good enough
<li> when to replace FTTN with FTTC/FTTP
(I ended up using two sliders. One to put $$$ aside to replace FTTN, as % of cash profit. The other is what to replace FTTN with, FTTC or FTTP or mix.)
</ul>
So I wondered with a bunch of sliders, say six, could you model 100M possible scenarios.</p>
<p>As I say in my <a href="">submission</a>:<br>
This submission introduces an online model which describes financial scenarios of NBN’s business over the next 20 years; including replacing FTTN with FTTC/FTTP, repaying debt, upgrading to gigabit services and the potential fallout of not replacing FTTN, to calculate NBN’s financial value under these different possible futures.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6030926" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnMb6X5mC4TwZpIW1YIbXbnbp8Y-pPNmgcCMBVN8DwkXinCcYvSPq0hoglbYZM7OgzIicPzAQIaW2eT1fIyut_lXOFmomcCQ1zw78CDzfdFhIwFmkmSz0sXrfFSfsORaP3IZ3xYXwtAIi_/s320/ModelCashflowGraphand4sliders.png" width="318" height="320" data-original-width="1025" data-original-height="1032" /></a></div>
<cite>Figure 1. NBN Cashflow graph and four sliders.</cite>
<p>
<a href="https://beta.observablehq.com/@areff2000/nbn-financials-from-2021-on-v5a-verbose-off">Here the Observable model is - NBN Financials from 2021 on</a>. The model rates a Base Case value of NBN at $31B.
<a href="https://beta.observablehq.com/@areff2000/nbn-financials-from-2021-on-v5a-verbose-off">https://beta.observablehq.com/@areff2000/nbn-financials-from-2021-on-v5a-verbose-off</a>
</p>
<p>
I was so rushed getting it finished, and 5pp summary(see <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6030926">figshare</a> link) for NBN inquiry, didn’t think to share here, at <a href="http://whrl.pl/Re7MR3">Whirlpool</a>, for comment. I should have.
</p>
Here is the link to the version with explanations;
<a href="https://beta.observablehq.com/@areff2000/nbn-financials-from-2021-v5-on">https://beta.observablehq.com/@areff2000/nbn-financials-from-2021-v5-on</a>
<h3>Key findings of the model</h3>
<ul>
<li>NBN cash profit(EBITDA) after 2021 $2.44B per year
<li>can afford to replace FTTN In 6-8 yrs depending on FTTC/FTTP, if not repaying debt
<li>each loss 1% of customers worth $1B in NBN value
<li>gigabit services can add $20B to NBN value
<li>FTTN replacement pays for itself if 30% of FTTN users upgrade to gigabit
<li>customer satisfaction has big impact on NBN value
<li>where gigabit costs 2* avg ARPU...but higher margin...
<li>Model suggests NBN will have enough $$$ to replace FTTN, if don’t have to repay debt urgently. Otherwise run into FTTN end of life and possible loss of customers...
</ul>
<b>Disclaimer</b>; model had no tax, interest, inflation, price rises, but was built in four weeks, so there you go. The next thing I would add would be interest on debt, and a slider for the rate, to add a time dimension/penalty to the replacement of FTTN.
<p>
Any comments, as usual, appreciated.<br>
rf
</p>
<br>Links:<br>
Twitter mention: <a href="https://twitter.com/valuemgmt/status/979110826643660800?s=21">https://twitter.com/valuemgmt/status/979110826643660800?s=21
</a>
Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-87052499428071678102018-02-09T10:12:00.001+11:002018-02-09T10:22:09.569+11:00Why walk on the footpath when you can walk on the grass? ...a value choice...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9t6k4R070CWhZ37VTLfnpD-T0JdsiqUPCKstOy_DQpSwO35tDuumy2l1WK1hTwXo6Cw407eY8z1dYX8YGRcaGJ9Oj-KK3X-NIaRyqeU76n2SMepI5ZLA711FbbJvyMf5pjnyHwplaK_xm/s1600/DVi5FX_UMAA8_eX.jpg-large.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9t6k4R070CWhZ37VTLfnpD-T0JdsiqUPCKstOy_DQpSwO35tDuumy2l1WK1hTwXo6Cw407eY8z1dYX8YGRcaGJ9Oj-KK3X-NIaRyqeU76n2SMepI5ZLA711FbbJvyMf5pjnyHwplaK_xm/s320/DVi5FX_UMAA8_eX.jpg-large.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div>
Walking to the train this morning, I noticed the long grass verge next to the footpath, as if for the first time. They are upgrading the train near my house, so for the last three months I have had to walk for ten minutes to the 2nd closest train station. It is summer here, and so I had my slip on shoes on to keep cool.<br />
<br />
On a whim, I took my shoes off, and walked on the grass instead of the footpath. My 900m walking commute suddenly became a walk in the park. #shoesOff The footpath in bare feet seemed alien and unfriendly. The grass, while uneven and coarse, I realised was gently massaging my feet.<br />
<br />
I realised how dull my feet felt in shoes on pavement. While barefoot on grass, I felt more alive, more in touch with nature, more normal.<br />
<br />
Then a young woman, headphones on, frightened me as she scooted past on the footpath, walking briskly. Left Right Left Right, she was soon gone up the road, as I ambled along enjoying the tickle of the grass on my soles.<br />
<br />
Aha. I was having a <u>value</u> moment. In that choice between grass and concrete, between fast and slow, between smooth and bumpy, we were each finding our value. Hers was quick and smooth and efficient, while mine was bumpy, slow and (like an Aussie wit) laconical. Her value was functional while mine was pleasureable. Hers was a means to an end, while mine was an end in itself.<br />
<br />
Monday, I will probably be scooting down the footpath, on a cooler day, socks and shoes on.<br />
<br />
Value is thus an individual choice, in a perceived context, between value dimensions eg function vs pleasure, each according to their current momentary needs. That choice for me happened in an instant today, but not occurred to me over the previous three months.Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-20245898245242357772017-02-17T11:47:00.000+11:002017-02-17T11:47:06.824+11:00What do consumers value in smartphones?As part of the <a href="https://github.com/areff2000/v2-value-of-value/wiki" target="_blank">Little Book of Value</a> (#<a href="http://valman.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/the-little-book-of-value.html" target="_blank">LBOV</a>), I am writing a number of case studies, including:<br />
<br />
- <a href="https://github.com/areff2000/v2-value-of-value/wiki/Value-in-smartphones-(2004-to-2013)" target="_blank">Value of smartphones</a> - see draft case here<br />
- Value of NBN; national infrastructure<br />
- Value of new products (denting the universe); Apple and iPhone<br />
<br />
The #LBOV is a collaborative writing project at <a href="https://github.com/areff2000/v2-value-of-value/wiki" target="_blank">Github</a>, but the pics need to be on a URL, so I will post the pics here for linking from Github. Please add you Value stories as a link to this post, or other #LBOV posts <a href="http://valman.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/the-little-book-of-value.html" target="_blank">on this blog</a>.<br />
<br />
Here are the images of what consumers valued in their smartphones. All images CC-BY.<br />
Please also refer to my Phd at Ferrers (2013), full reference at: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.680002">http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.680002</a>.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHY7OOE9mXN3t0S0u5ZFyTdbM8Fv5SpBcpTmHz7L-FpX8LBsledCZ_kzheW9y0o9GdEzrHpK__zJA3mNpeAQrYH6AjcUFOAhXN_D-LCnFEiHQigBSnWmlsIWKFN-TFfok-GqjT_ADRVdZ8/s1600/VElistbyConsumer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHY7OOE9mXN3t0S0u5ZFyTdbM8Fv5SpBcpTmHz7L-FpX8LBsledCZ_kzheW9y0o9GdEzrHpK__zJA3mNpeAQrYH6AjcUFOAhXN_D-LCnFEiHQigBSnWmlsIWKFN-TFfok-GqjT_ADRVdZ8/s320/VElistbyConsumer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Fig 1. What do consumers value in smartphones? A small sample.<br />
<br />
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</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiImp80SsAn03G6o00r4-usribQvnE9ikXl-No1RJG58qQ37S66HEuRT2dAJM7gsbW5rSGU2i7mpGMwKVqfmVoL26Ynx-gI5FCynrdCYDLCKZx0CP6Zkc39-5KU8EzNzyidVau_CiFLM5CE/s1600/VEsbyConsumer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiImp80SsAn03G6o00r4-usribQvnE9ikXl-No1RJG58qQ37S66HEuRT2dAJM7gsbW5rSGU2i7mpGMwKVqfmVoL26Ynx-gI5FCynrdCYDLCKZx0CP6Zkc39-5KU8EzNzyidVau_CiFLM5CE/s320/VEsbyConsumer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Fig 2. Count of value elements by consumer - the PhD sample.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8oTHUbyUlZiY90Tsy3MogkN-hq_oLJyz1YXa-KGABxBK0azQtMWRPMMslsrnlYt27Yen3bYD7Y14rYpI3JGng5fCaQqDukDO0yEWGfQZri6VM0tJoe6mWijZpiAfCA8mGuNjIUWtY4RBm/s1600/VDsbyConsumer2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8oTHUbyUlZiY90Tsy3MogkN-hq_oLJyz1YXa-KGABxBK0azQtMWRPMMslsrnlYt27Yen3bYD7Y14rYpI3JGng5fCaQqDukDO0yEWGfQZri6VM0tJoe6mWijZpiAfCA8mGuNjIUWtY4RBm/s320/VDsbyConsumer2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Fig 3. Comparing value dimensions across consumers - the PhD sample<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnKfVFFHwhi1iWcqtH_GQ-4ueyl-JylSXFGuK6x8pROeCvr2r30NT-cc38TjbZna9rLzEBH0Y4hUStCtyj5EL6ZeI9JZjaYokhj33mY-0agGOEybmwdw2ntJcDPqQf27nT8ZXkxJGLjST/s1600/theoSatnValue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnKfVFFHwhi1iWcqtH_GQ-4ueyl-JylSXFGuK6x8pROeCvr2r30NT-cc38TjbZna9rLzEBH0Y4hUStCtyj5EL6ZeI9JZjaYokhj33mY-0agGOEybmwdw2ntJcDPqQf27nT8ZXkxJGLjST/s320/theoSatnValue.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Fig 4. Theoretical saturation - Value Concepts - the PhD sample <br />
<br />
<br />Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-49274174724949201522017-02-02T17:42:00.002+11:002017-02-13T15:30:59.201+11:00NBN coming to Vic 3166 - I made a map. Here's how.<h3>
</h3>
See the map (v.1) I made (with 40 datapoints) at: <br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/ValueMgmt/status/827009730870521856" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/ValueMgmt/status/827009730870521856 </a><br />
I made a (v.2) map (with 60 datapoints) at:<br />
<a href="https://t.co/zd8F86Z9am" target="_blank">https://t.co/zd8F86Z9am </a><br />
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<a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=12NgnRE9tZXqZt-0-6WYOS2MTiig&ll=-37.89884626691354%2C145.077&z=15" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheOD_PAsyp-EL-yutn5iq1ZtQyj4V1hQxciV0NTNlvutVqIh3yg_Zdo_dGzXMDf0e9QyZhH1BANJguCAXp1tLyvuu6l_f6as7n7BYxeClkIk0JTfd5K980KzJ7a8mo3W1XaysdFUYBcnF8/s320/nbnMap.jpg" title="NBN in Vic 3166" width="320" /></a></div>
<h3>
Method</h3>
If you want to repeat this for your area, here's how I did it.<br />
<h4>
Getting Started </h4>
<ul>
<li>Lat/Long: I use a Mac, and its Map program provides an easy way to turn an address into a Lat Long. You can also use maps.google.com.</li>
<li>Spreadsheet. I used a Google Sheet. You can also load data into excel (csv) and drop into Google Maps.</li>
<li>Google Maps. You need a Google login for this. </li>
</ul>
<h4>
Making the Map</h4>
<ol>
<li> Create Google Sheet (or spreadsheet) with four columns</li>
A. Address B.Lat C.Long D. NBN Status – in rollout (yes/no)<br />
<li> Get the Lat Long. In Apple Maps, pick an address, Drop a pin = Right Click. Click (i).
Copy address into Column A. Copy Lat/ Long in Col B,C.
Alternatively, in Google Maps, right click What's here to get the Lat/Long of any point. You can also find a Lat/Long with Google Maps API; by inserting and address into: http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=ADDR where ADDR = 12carlislecrescent,hughesdale,vic eg <a href="http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=12carlislecrescent,hughesdale,vic" target="_blank">Link</a></li>
<br />
<li> Paste address into NBN map checker:</li>
http://www.nbnco.com.au/connect-home-or-business/check-your-address.html<br />
This gives rollout status. In Hughesdale it was either (1) (Available: Apr – Jun) = yes or (2) (Still finalising) = no.<br />
<br />
<li> Paste Address status (yes/no) into Col. D.</li>
<li> Gather a list of addresses you want to map... I did about 25 before I made a map. Then the map helped pick where to check next.</li>
<li> Go to Google Maps: https://www.google.com.au/maps/</li>
-> Menu -> Your places -> Maps -> Create Map -> Add Layer -> select Google Sheet -> indicate Lat/Long fields -> indicate NBN Status: Yes/No field<br />
This places all your address points on a map. <br />
Add a title and description to explain what area you are mapping.<br />
<br />
<li>Colour code the points into different colours for NBN Status: Yes/No.</li>
Select Layer -> Uniform Style -> Uniform Style -> Style by Data Column -> Col D. (NBN Status).<br />
<br />
<li>When you add new data to your spreadsheet, you need to (but maybe there is an easier way) readd the layer: Add layer -> select Google Sheet i.e. repeat Step 6,7. Delete the old layer: Choose layer -> layer options (three vertical dots) -> delete this layer.</li>
<li> Add polygon to show the boundary of rollout for the region.</li>
<li> Post to <a href="https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2604791&#r52719260" target="_blank">Whirlpool</a> / <a href="https://twitter.com/ValueMgmt/status/827009730870521856" target="_blank">Twitter</a> for comments: Maps -> Share -> Change: anyone with the link can View – copy/paste URL</li>
<br />
Enjoy!</ol>
Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-87781051596370511102017-01-28T06:46:00.000+11:002017-01-28T06:46:19.229+11:00The Little Book of ValueI am writing a 75 page book on Value to publish by the end of this year (2017).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5vXZMHsVBZIj55CZdnGixi6ek4gXcj0W_gEYtH9Ny0qMcNvrRGIYpIhSNdvYJSJltDprCABCUSK0DhvRiYy803UGGine48Hd8wVV30ZlQ_9nBs4p9lR5O771OKLZixIxevYL7fzyyxSH8/s1600/cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5vXZMHsVBZIj55CZdnGixi6ek4gXcj0W_gEYtH9Ny0qMcNvrRGIYpIhSNdvYJSJltDprCABCUSK0DhvRiYy803UGGine48Hd8wVV30ZlQ_9nBs4p9lR5O771OKLZixIxevYL7fzyyxSH8/s320/cover.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Will be $10 for the plain black and white text copy (eBook at Amazon).</li>
<li>Will be $20 for the colourful eBook, with videos, photos, exercises and more.</li>
<li>Will be free for the Community Version, where you earn a copy by contributing your value stories.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
If you want to be part of the writing process, either:<br />
<br />
- comment below with your email, and tell me "what do you value?", or<br />
- make a three minute video and post the link below to the question "what does value mean to you"<br />
- the writing process will be a public community exercise at <a href="https://github.com/areff2000/v2-value-of-value/wiki" target="_blank">Github</a>.<br />
<br />
By posting, you agree your content can be included (royalty free) in the above books. All included entries will earn the author, 10 copies of the book, so be sure to leave your email.<br />
<br />
Add your comments to the wiki or fork the repository. Add your questions about value either in comments below or at Github.<br />
<br />
You can see the outline at <a href="https://github.com/areff2000/v2-value-of-value/wiki" target="_blank">Github</a>.<br />
<br />
Happy New Rooster Year!!Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-5812688643970297172017-01-20T09:42:00.002+11:002017-01-20T09:42:33.516+11:00A new beginning: creating and destroying valueOn the eve of the 45th Presidency, it seems appropriate to reflect on the potential for innovation to create and/or destroy value. [1]<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxWX8S-Coy2Yhb4jLBCZeJy_O0ho8MJXcsUwLSPxyZwFILGYmOv89YOUTwrBn6yH77ctmFhBQiUlLNYty7lV15DmocPzfS1rz0DKScNVLMAkEG8Jn3d3LZoqSD5kgWrbhekday9KuXFT3Y/s1600/trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxWX8S-Coy2Yhb4jLBCZeJy_O0ho8MJXcsUwLSPxyZwFILGYmOv89YOUTwrBn6yH77ctmFhBQiUlLNYty7lV15DmocPzfS1rz0DKScNVLMAkEG8Jn3d3LZoqSD5kgWrbhekday9KuXFT3Y/s200/trump.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
I have long argued here that innovation is doing new things that create value. But many new things destroy value. For instance, a tweet saying a President-Elect will cancel a $5B contract sends a company share price down as investors price that information into a stock.<br />
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It is harder to create value with new things. At ANDS, we work with Universities to promote the new idea of #openscience and data sharing as a value creator. The idea takes time, effort and investment to implement, which are costs. These costs have uncertain returns, so may create or destroy value. As Gilder suggests, the entrepreneur takes a leap into the future ("<a href="http://www.discovery.org/a/74">Faith of the Futurist</a>", Wall Street Journal, 1999), reaching out to grab some uncertain future potential value.<br />
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Of course, Schumpeter talks of "creative destruction" (1942, <i>Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy</i>). So a new industry or product negatively affects what came before. Cars puts horses out of work, as did farm machinery. Agricultural labour fell from 70% of the population to low single digits (say 4-5%) as machinery and mechanisation raised the amount of work a farmer can do. The losses of jobs are destruction of value. The raised productivity of the remaining agricultural workers add value. Similarly, Rogers in <i>Diffusion of Innovation</i> (1962, 2004), quotes Machiavelli, saying (I paraphrase), a new idea has the lukewarm interest of those who may benefit and the criticism (resistance) of those who benefit under the old regime. Thus new things benefit and harm people. New things, new ideas, new products both create and destroy value. The value of those benefiting under the old regime is destroyed (transferred) to those benefitting under the new regime.<br />
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The trick for innovation is when there is more than a zero-sum game. When the benefits outweight the costs. Generally we can see this through GDP as those benefits and costs are turned into dollar equivalents. However, value is not measurable in dollars alone. Social, emotional and other types of value exist alongside economic value (see Value Dimensions). So people are concerned, worried, anxious about the new Presidency and his potential actions. Such emotions are temporary negative value, that may be converted into economic value, with consumer outlook an intermediate measure.
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What comes to pass, we will have to wait and see. For me, I have set my expectations so low, that I may be pleasantly surprised when a new President does something half sensible. New perspectives bring opportunity for new ideas, new interpretations, new approaches. It remains to be seen whether these will create or destroy value. There is always another election in four years (let us hope).<br />
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There is always risk and uncertainty in new things. So let us not judge a person by their words, (which fade away like flowers, the wind, or a wave lapping on the beach). Let us judge a person by their deeds, that will last. Let us let our emotions assess ones words, and tell us whether to like, trust or resist their actions. I have noticed that new leaders arrive full of new ideas, but a real test is what can be put into action, as those ideas have to pass through the value filters of those affected both positively (the promoters) and negatively (the resistors) to those ideas. This is the social process of creating and diffusing an innovation. A process whereby the value in the idea is assessed by all those affected by it.<br />
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[1] I believe we have no word for something new, destroying value (maybe '<a href="http://valman.blogspot.com.au/2009/01/upside-down-novation-denovation.html">denovation</a>', Valman 2009).<br />
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Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-21994638777318595842016-08-09T06:40:00.001+10:002016-12-09T09:29:13.668+11:00Where is the economy growing / shrinking? #AU<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZIxqe_oNSxfak-K8C4Yq70eDOSGPjhW2NuieLlycjyXE6kTReKAFdQVwAaBp3utUiKm3m041zBqEoWWx0HHB9O39D_huXvyA7sxLp1SRNkIVOvwk1SrfUpMTGu1hB7jICPm2qHT9pATt/s1600/ato_logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZIxqe_oNSxfak-K8C4Yq70eDOSGPjhW2NuieLlycjyXE6kTReKAFdQVwAaBp3utUiKm3m041zBqEoWWx0HHB9O39D_huXvyA7sxLp1SRNkIVOvwk1SrfUpMTGu1hB7jICPm2qHT9pATt/s320/ato_logo.jpg" width="320" /></a>The Australian Tax Office (ATO) has recently provided me with a dataset to examine innovation in Australia. I am interested in economic activity over time and by location. Previously the ATO has provided corporate data, but companies are seen only as Australian, and not having a point or multi-point location. Employees however have an address which provides a point location.<br />
<br />
Thus the ATO has kindly provided all the salaries and wages data (for 12 years), and sole trader data, by fine detailed industry and location. Sole Trader's have 500 industries and employees have 1500 occupations. Australian locations, while requested at postcode level, were provided at a statistical area level (SA4) which splits Australia into 100 regions of similar population. Cities have many zones, while the country has large zones.<br />
<br />
See my request for the data <a href="https://datagovau.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Measuring-industry-growth-stable-fall-Employees-Sole-Traders/231857-26233#idea-tab-comments" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
The resulting dataset has two tables:<br />
<ul>
<li>Sole Traders (100,000 rows) 2014 $96B, 2002 $61B.</li>
<li>Salary and Wages (200,000 rows) 2014 $584B, 2002 $285B.</li>
</ul>
The raw data is available <a href="https://data.gov.au/dataset/ad-hoc-data-requests/resource/d198f1da-614e-42cf-b480-5cee7d2ef752" target="_blank">here</a> at data.gov. I have loaded the data into an online database at <a href="http://nectar.org.au/" target="_blank">Nectar</a>, which provides free cloud services for Australian Researchers. Preliminary analysis is taking place at a website set up for that purpose <a href="http://118.138.240.130/" target="_blank">here</a>. For SELECT access to the database please contact me.<br />
<br />
<h4>Data Visualisation of the Industries of Sole Traders.</h4>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg16fQCYI0WtkSyo9d8fskpczRGafvBatXlbsLo7jUBuc6v0SMXzptlsfjfJ0AU5CyFV2FqS2HbRzpYzCDSmgcS6Z-40sUAJDlL-YTMU30Qlan4keQUGqHlYnHrqRbThhmNOb-DioyZCNL2/s1600/bubbles.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg16fQCYI0WtkSyo9d8fskpczRGafvBatXlbsLo7jUBuc6v0SMXzptlsfjfJ0AU5CyFV2FqS2HbRzpYzCDSmgcS6Z-40sUAJDlL-YTMU30Qlan4keQUGqHlYnHrqRbThhmNOb-DioyZCNL2/s320/bubbles.jpg" width="320" height="290" /></a>
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See details including rollover to get names of each bubble <a href="http://118.138.240.130//bubble/index.html">here</a>.
<hr width="100">
<h4>A Data Visualisation of growth by SA4 region</h4>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAtUd11oQ3VrFVRFn-TU_Z17dEqO9AA6SyN7nHHjg1Mv6NyhDOUI7bsWrAs5XfWnagw_w9LxeNqOgQr40xb7M9HLXbFaMM2rGRkeNntxRRcoAWl_PJjSB1rVn-idYyNqMd4tirS_RUv3-5/s1600/atoInnovationFerrers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAtUd11oQ3VrFVRFn-TU_Z17dEqO9AA6SyN7nHHjg1Mv6NyhDOUI7bsWrAs5XfWnagw_w9LxeNqOgQr40xb7M9HLXbFaMM2rGRkeNntxRRcoAWl_PJjSB1rVn-idYyNqMd4tirS_RUv3-5/s400/atoInnovationFerrers.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Figure 1: Growth by SA4 region (2006, 2010, 2014). <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4056282.v3">Data</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<cite>
Data Citation: Ferrers, R., Australian Tax Office; AURIN (2016): Where are Australian jobs growing or shrinking (2002 - 2014; over 100 regions; SA4)?. figshare. Online at:
<a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4056282.v3">https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4056282.v3</a>
Retrieved: 06 05, Oct 27, 2016 (GMT) </cite>
<hr width="100">
<h4>Top ten occupations (2010-2014) - growing / shrinking </h4>
<table border="1">
<th>Top Ten <u>Growing</u> Occupations**</th><th>2010</th><th>2014</th><th>Diff</th>
<tr><td> Sales Assistant (General) </td><td> 235,449 </td><td> 273,104 </td><td> 37,655 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Corporate General Manager </td><td> 162,899 </td><td> 198,595 </td><td> 35,696 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Office Manager </td><td> 145,522 </td><td> 172,883 </td><td> 27,361 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Primary School Teacher </td><td> 121,599 </td><td> 147,589 </td><td> 25,990 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Child Care Worker </td><td> 73,496 </td><td> 92,813 </td><td>19,317 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Aged or Disabled Carer </td><td> 103,196 </td><td> 121,359 </td><td> 18,163 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Labourers nec </td><td> 72,007 </td><td> 89,238 </td><td> 17,231 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Program or Project Administrator </td><td> 81,640 </td><td> 94,905 </td> <td>13,265 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Registered Nurse (Aged Care) </td><td> 29,605 </td><td> 42,581 </td><td> 12,976 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Machine Operators nec </td><td> 18,764 </td><td> 31,263 </td><td> 12,499 </td></tr>
</table>
<br><br>
<table border="1">
<th>Top Ten <u>Shrinking</u> Occupations**</th><th>2010</th><th>2014</th><th>Diff</th>
<tr><td> Practice Managers nec </td><td> 131,480 </td><td> 73,434 </td><td> 68,722 </td></tr>
<tr><td> General Clerk </td><td> 361,094 </td><td> 326,118 </td><td> 34,976 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Earthmoving Labourer </td><td> 33,313 </td><td> 13,585 </td><td> 19,728 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Sales Representatives nec </td><td> 90,840 </td><td> 74,679 </td><td> 16,161 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Nurse Practitioner </td><td> 35,031 </td><td> 21,767 </td><td> 13,264 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Secretary (General) </td><td> 46,570 </td><td> 33,800 </td><td> 12,770 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Farm </td><td> 33,781 </td><td> 21,038 </td><td> 12,743 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Hospitality Workers nec </td><td> 40,256 </td><td> 28,725 </td><td> 11,531 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Clerical and Administrative Workers nec </td><td> 44,280 </td><td> 32,874 </td><td> 11,406 </td></tr>
<tr><td> Checkout Operator </td><td> 65,242 </td><td> 54,294 </td><td> 10,948 </td></tr>
</table>
NB**: excludes unnamed occupations. <a href="http://118.138.240.130/viewJobCount2010-14.html">Full List</a>. <a href="http://118.138.240.130/jobCount2010-14totalsOrdered.csv">Data</a> (1162 lines, csv).
<hr width="100">
<h4>Other sample reports</h4>
Several sample reports are <a href="http://118.138.240.130/">now available</a>, including;<br />
<ul>
<li>List of Occupations from largest to smallest</li>
<li>List of Occupations from highest average wage to smallest</li>
<li>List of Sole Trader industries from highest sales to smallest</li>
<li>Change in one Industry over time - Hairdressing.</li>
</ul>
For more information: contact richard.ferrers@monash.edu. <br />
<span id="goog_701417357"></span>Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618315065968335461.post-23630250635313030792016-02-05T16:00:00.001+11:002016-02-07T09:53:32.233+11:00FTTN vs FTTP (6): the graphical version After attending a Data Visualisation workshop at University of Melbourne this week (<a href="http://melbourne.resbaz.edu.au/ResBaz2016" target="_blank">Resbaz 2016</a>; D3 Visualisation <a href="http://isakiko.github.io/D3-visualising-data/" target="_blank">workshop</a>, plot.ly <a href="http://dataviz-blog.github.io/" target="_blank">workshop</a>; Thanks Isabel and Errol), I have tried to plot graphically the FTTN vs FTTP perspectives. See my outputs <a href="http://areff2000.github.io/" target="_blank">here</a> from this week's workshops.<br />
<br />
Through playing with the <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.2008689.v5" target="_blank">model</a> (available on figshare (v5)), the most important variables seemed to be:<br />
<br />
- impact on GDP per household after 20 years<br />
- discounted by an interest rate (0,3,5,10%)<br />
- impacted by a delay in FTTP rollout (0,2,4,6,8 years)<br />
- impacted by Household GDP growth (0,1,2%) externality<br />
<br />
as discussed in earlier posts.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Plot.ly: FTTN (blue) vs FTTP (orange). Some assumptions support FTTN (blue). Other assumptions support FTTP (orange).</h3>
Datapoints: GDP per household at Yr 20, discounted to current $$; difference FTTN - FTTP<br />
eg 1. At Year 20, FTTP Delay = 8 yrs, 0% discount rate, FTTP and FTTN GDP impact is $20k per household. Difference is close to $0. A datapoint of $0 is plotted;a brown dot. Where FTTN GDP > FTTP GDP then plot is blue (positive nos). When FTTN GDP < FTTP GDP impact, then plot is orange (negative nos).<br />
eg 2. At year 20, Delay = 6 years, interest rate 5%, household GDP impact 1% pa; FTTP GDP impact is: $13k; FTTN GDP impact is $20k. So the difference ie $7k is plotted; a light blue dot.<br />
<br />
The dots are smoothed into colour sections. Blue sections where the assumptions favour FTTN (preferred by the Liberals Party, in conjunction with HFC, some FTTP and other wireless tech for Regions and Remote) and orange sections where the assumptions favour FTTP (preferred by Labor Party). Live version of image, with mouseover datapoints at: <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.2008689.v5" target="_blank">Figshare</a> (v5) to download, and <a href="http://areff2000.github.io/2016/02/05/fttn-fttp-heat-map.html" target="_blank">Github</a> to view.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTAwSQfq4Pw7dEzVP5hFbQD0gkEdUc23Rs5JLjna0HaC-HZOGd1VPjEOgGlgdJrqesGGDfRlSHS4Ueh8cFZCK-Mp52FpWHe_QsE2XhT-oz7117CraLSL1ULaYlXSqb2AjJt0MQDKlFP8aQ/s1600/fttnvfttpHeatmap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTAwSQfq4Pw7dEzVP5hFbQD0gkEdUc23Rs5JLjna0HaC-HZOGd1VPjEOgGlgdJrqesGGDfRlSHS4Ueh8cFZCK-Mp52FpWHe_QsE2XhT-oz7117CraLSL1ULaYlXSqb2AjJt0MQDKlFP8aQ/s1600/fttnvfttpHeatmap.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click pic to enlarge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<b>Figure 1,2,3: Stronger colours indicate more value.</b> FTTN vs FTTP GDP per household impact at Year 20, discounted by interest rate; Y axis shows interest rate (discount rate). X axis shows years delay until FTTP installed. Orange zones indicate FTTP preferred. Blue zones indicate FTTN preferred, per model (linked above). Heatmap coded added to <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.2008689.v5" target="_blank">Figshare model (v5)</a>. Html version shows GDP values at each point. Blogger unfortunately doesn't run javascript. See live heatmap version <a href="http://areff2000.github.io/2016/02/05/fttn-fttp-heat-map.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Data:<br />
<pre id="line1">var data = [{
z: [[-12, -9,-6,-3,0],
<span id="line20"></span> [-10,-7,-4,-1,2],
<span id="line21"></span> [-9,-6, -3,0, 2],
<span id="line22"></span> [-7,-3.5,-1,1.5,3]]; // GDP diff FTTN - FTTP $k per HH, 0% HH GDP imapct
x: [0,2,4,6,8], // Delay years
y: [0,3,5,10]}; // Discount rate</pre>
<pre id="line1"> </pre>
<pre id="line1">z: [[-12, -6.5,2,5,11],
[-10,-4,1,6.6,11.5],
[-9,-3, 2,7, 11],
[-7,-1,4,7.5,11]], // GDP diff FTTN - FTTP $k per HH, 1% HH GDP impact
</pre>
<pre id="line1"> </pre>
<pre id="line1">z: [[-12,-4, 5,14,22.5],
[-10,-1.5,6.5,14,21],
[-9, 0,7,14, 20.5],
[-7,1,8,14,18]], // GDP diff FTTN - FTTP $k per HH, 2% HH GDP impact
</pre>
<pre id="line1">Source: <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.2008689.v6" target="_blank">Figshare model</a> (manually entered from model into heatmap html);</pre>
<pre id="line1">view source on <a href="http://areff2000.github.io/d3-bubble-plot/fttn-fttp-heatmap/FTTNFTTPheatmap.html" target="_blank">Github</a> page.</pre>
<pre id="line1"> </pre>
What the above figure shows is:<br />
<ul>
<li>at 2% impact on household (HH) GDP ($70k household) then FTTN is highly favourable, even if only short two year delay. The HH GDP annual impact $1,400pa is much larger than around $2,000 difference between FTTN and FTTP capex and dwarfs OPEX and revenue differences.</li>
<li>at 1% impact on HH GDP, a four year delay in FTTP installation is sufficient to favour FTTN over FTTP.</li>
<li>at 0% impact on HH GDP, then FTTP is favourable even with long delays to FTTP. At higher interest rates, then a shorter delay for FTTP is equivalent to FTTN.</li>
</ul>
In previous cost benefit analyses of NBN, a 0.5 - 1.0% impact on GDP was sufficient to make the NBN NPV positive - ie benefits exceed costs, accounting for time impact of cashflows. At these lower household impacts, FTTP is preferred, but where there are immediate significant household GDP impacts ( ie more than 1%) then FTTN is preferred. Long delays in FTTP encourage more use of FTTN, as do higher interest rates.<br />
<br />
NB: outstanding and unaccounted for issues were described in the last post, eg cost of replacing FTTN at the end of its perhaps 10 year life; the excess benefit of FTTP over FTTN, and so on.<br />
<br />
<b>Conclusion</b>:<br />
FTTN and FTTP are only as good as the assumptions that assert their case. There are many cases, listed above where FTTN is better than FTTP for GDP over 20 years. Where the NBN impact on household GDP is significant, this prompts an earlier install of FTTN. <br />
<ul>
</ul>
Dr Richard Ferrershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07616037313787233493noreply@blogger.com0