Tag: government

Zen and the art of digital disruption

When driving an organisation’s transformation, consensus is the first casualty warns the former head of Australia’s Digital Transformation Office, Paul Shetler.

“You can’t kumbaya your way though it,” says Paul Shetler, the former head of Australia’s Digital Transformation Office, about the task of bringing an organisation or government into the 21st Century.

Shetler, who previously worked for the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS) and Ministry of Justice, was reflecting on how a brutal approach to change was necessary when confronted by management resistance and a recalcitrant bureaucracy.

I had the opportunity to interview Shetler two weeks ago with part of that discussion being published on Diginomica. One of his key points is when driving a transformation, consensus is the first casualty.

“In the UK, we didn’t focus on consensus we focused on getting things done. When I first met with Francis Maud he said ‘this is not a change management process – this is transformation.’”

However to drive such change forcefully strong leadership is needed and Shetler emphasised that one of the great drivers for digital transformation at the UK’s Ministry of Justice was having a committed and powerful minister.

“One of the major reasons why the UK was a successful as they were was because Francis Maude was the minister for five years… It became clear he was going to see this through and if you were going to fight, you were going to lose. People got into line.”

Ultimately a lack of strong leadership is why the Australian DTO failed, with the country’s political culture seeing ministers rotated out of positions on a regular basis – the Innovation portfolio is seeing its fourth minister in 18 months  – it’s almost impossible for any leader, however forceful, to drive meaningful change.

This raises the question of whether some organisations can culturally handle change, it may well be that some institutions are impervious to change given the nature of their management structures and the people that lead them.

Australian taxpayers may hope that their public service isn’t an institution that resists change but Paul Shetler’s experience is a worrying warning.

A broken trail of government digital dreams

Until Australian governments commit to longer term visions, it’s unlikely any of their digital dreams will be achieved.

Last August the centrepiece of the Australian government’s digital dream came to an end. The Canberra Times this week described how “the Turnbull government has quietly killed off one of its biggest plans for ‘digital transformation’; the hugely ambitious gov.au website project”.

The abandonment of the project was an ignominious end of the plans for a Prime Minister who had promised so much at the time of his appointment, and that a cabinet submission would be pulled minutes before it was due to be tabled indicates the convoluted politics behind it.

Bizarrely, that story ran the same day the Federal Treasurer revealed the government would be running a ‘pilot project’ to put more services online as part of their attempts to harness the digital economy.

That the Australian Federal government is looking to run some pilot projects this year is remarkable given twenty years ago, in 1997, the then Prime Minister John Howard announced all appropriate government services would be online by 2001.

Australian taxpayers would be well justified asking what has happened over the last twenty years.

It could be argued that Australian governments are not particularly good at technology projects given ongoing disasters like the current Centrelink debacle, the failure of the 2016 Census and the collapse of the Tax Office’s portal shortly before Christmas.

Probably the main reason for Australian governments’ technology failures is the lack of focus, as shown by the Digital Transformation Office barely surviving one year.

That lack of focus is even more problematic as digital transformation projects are more about changing cultures than revamping technology, often making them a decades-long process.

Without a long term commitment to projects and policies, initiatives such as the Howard government’s 1997 Investing for Growth or Turnbull’s 2015 Innovation Agenda are doomed to failure. Until Australian governments commit to longer term visions, it’s unlikely any of their digital dreams will be achieved.

 

Uber’s sharing strategy

Ubers offer to share information with city governments and agencies is part of their bigger data strategy

For most of its existence, Uber hasn’t been shy about claiming to be at the forefront of the future of transport which fits into yesterday’s announcement of Uber Movement which promises to provide aggregated and anonymised trip data to give communities and businesses an overview of road usage in their districts.

Jordan Gilbertson,  one of the company’s Product Managers, and Andrew Salzberg, Head of Transportation Policy, described how Uber intends to make transit time data available.

Uber trips occur all over cities, so by analyzing a lot of trips over time, we can reliably estimate how long it takes to get from one area to another. Since Uber is available 24/7, we can compare travel conditions across different times of day, days of the week, or months of the year—and how travel times are impacted by big events, road closures or other things happening in a city.

As the Washington Post reports, transport agencies do already have a lot of data on some aspects of commuter behaviour – particularly public transport usage – and the Uber information fills as ‘missing part of the puzzle’.

Taxis and buses are also increasing equipped with real time tracking equipment that also gives this data while traffic services like Wayze have been collecting this information for a decade.

So agencies aren’t short of this data and the concentration of Uber’s customer base in more affluent areas means their information may be skewed away from poorer areas. Recently a Sydney taxi driver mentioned to me how he’d stopped driving for Uber because most of the city’s sprawling Western Suburbs where he tended to drive didn’t use the service.

Uber’s offer is another piece in their data strategy that sees the company being a data hub for the logistics industry. It also helps if you’ve co-opted governments into your scheme.

Mapping digital divides

A survey of Australia’s digital divides shows access is improving but some of the gaps are growing

Earlier this year, Telstra released the Digital Inclusion Index along with its report on measuring Australia’s digital divide.

Last week in Sydney the company hosted a half day conference to look at the ramifications of the 2016 report.

Overall the report was good news with most indicators showing improvements although the gap between the connected and the most disadvantaged has widened since the first index was compiled in 2014.

In general, wealthier, younger, more educated, and urban Australians enjoy much greater inclusion. All over the country, digital inclusion rates are clearly influenced by differences in income, educational attainment, and the geography of socioeconomic disadvantage. And over time, some Australian communities are falling further behind.

The one factor the survey found that is declining nationally is affordability which the authors put down to Australians’ increasing reliance on the internet.

The Affordability measure is the only dimension to have registered a decline since 2014, but this outcome does not simply reflect rising costs. In fact, internet services are becoming comparatively less expensive – but at the same time, Australians are spending more on them.

Sadly affordability isn’t going to improve should the government’s proposed broadband levy of seven dollars a month become reality to subsidise rural users.

That such a levy would be proposed by a government that was opposed to a National Broadband Network and to ‘Big New Taxes’ while in opposition is an irony left for Australian political historians to discuss but it shows how comprehensively the NBN project has failed.

Even sadder is the NBN  isn’t delivering for businesses as it increasingly becomes apparent the network being built will struggle to deliver 21st Century services to most of the nation.

That businesses are struggling to connect emphasises just how serious the digital divide is becoming for the economy – as supply chains in every industry become increasingly globalised regions that aren’t connected risk being isolated from their markets.

Policy makers have to consider the costs of those communities and groups being isolated from the modern economy. If we are going to be serious about building a twenty-first century society then we have to consider how disadvantaged groups and regions access global networks as well as making sure they have the skills to benefit from these technologies.

Mapping the areas of the disadvantage is a good first step but we have to look at how we address the segments of our society that are being left behind.

Regulation and technology

It’s often easy to underestimate the effects of regulation on the development of industries and innovation.

It’s often easy to underestimate the effects of regulation on the development of industries and innovation.

Around the world jurisdictions are struggling with balancing regulation and innovation, last week in the UK Uber lost an employment tribunal case 0ver the employment status of its employees . While in Switzerland the country is struggling with rules over Blockchain as the nation tries to build a ‘Crypto Valley’.

Striking the right balance in regulation isn’t trivial. As the development of Silicon Valley’s finance models shows, government rules were critical to how the venture capital sector has evolved.

The US Small Business Investment Act of 1958 was the first step in the sector’s development with the creation of “Small Business Investment Companies” (SBICs) to fund and manage smaller enterprises in the United States. In 1978 the sector received a greater boost when pension funds were allowed to invest in the sector.

We’re now seeing a similar thing happening in the US where the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – a law passed to protect the Twentieth Century business models of record companies and movie studios – is being softened to allow end users to examine and maintain the software on the devices they own.

If the trial is allowed to become permanent, it will almost certainly see a far freer and innovative software environment which may even help overcome some of the security problems with the Internet of Things.

Often though that balance isn’t correctly struck and recently we’ve seen many poor decisions that have concentrated power, particularly in the financial and airline industries where governments have allowed huge conglomerates to dominate their markets which stifles innovation and growth.

Those innovation stifling regulations though don’t guarantee companies’ survival as the taxi industry discovered. Despite reams of laws and regulations protecting their licenses, Uber effectively blew up the business as they offered travellers a far better option to the often poor services provided by local cab companies.

Regulation is always going to be a balancing act between protecting the community’s interest and allowing business and society to evolve. It’s one reason why as citizens and taxpayers we need to be demanding our governments are open and transparent in their dealings and law making.

Winning the gig

The US city of Chattanooga is showing how public broadband networks can be rolled out, and the benefits of doing it properly

A year back this blog asked if Chattanooga’s experience shows how city infrastructure can drive private sector investment.

“The Gig”, as Chattanooga’s civic leaders have branded the city’s broadband rollout, came about because the city decided to treat internet services as a utility like water and roads. Vice Motherboard reports how this has reaped dividends for the town.

As Vice’s Jason Koebler describes, Chattanooga’s unemployment rate has halved since the depth of the Great Recession and in 2014 was listed as having the third highest wage growth among the United States’ mid-sized cities.

There are downsides though, Koebler warns, and one point is that having good broadband on its own isn’t a sure fire bet.

“Like the presence of well-paved roads, good internet access doesn’t guarantee that a city will be successful,” he writes. “But the lack of it guarantees that a community will get left behind as the economy increasingly demands that companies compete not just with their neighbors next door, but with the entire world.”

The advantage Chattanooga had though was its electricity company was owned by the city which meant a major part of the existing infrastructure was already in public hands and made it relatively easier and cheaper to roll out the network.

What Chattanooga does show is a well planned and structured fibre roll out can be done, it is easy or cheap and takes sensible planning. The latter is something other broadband projects can learn from.

When government support goes wrong

Government incentives may look enticing for businesses but StartCon’s Melbourne misadventure illustrates the risks

Last year the Sydney startup and business communities were stunned by the SydStart startup conference announcing it was rebranding itself as StartCon and moving to Melbourne after the Victorian government had offered to fund the event.

At the time StartCon’s Matt Barrie and the Victorian government were most certainly in love with Barrie describing how Melbourne was well placed to be Australia’s startup centre and highlighting the lack of support from the City of Sydney and the New South Wales state government.

Sydney’s shame

In Sydney, the announcement caused a great deal of hand wringing as the city startup and tech communities worried that government neglect would see the more proactive Victorian government attract businesses and talent.

Now the friendship with Melbourne is over with Barrie publishing a scathing blogpost on the inertia and duplicity of the Victorian state government.

The tale of StartCon and its falling out of love with Victoria holds a number of lessons for businesses being tempted by the siren call of government incentives and the risks to taxpayers.

What can I announce today?

The announceable culture is endemic in Australian politics. Having announceables is absolutely critical part a ministers’ life and their careers can defined just as much by not having enough good news to announce as being victims of bad press.

In the last NSW Labor government, ministers had hard KPIs they were held to in cabinet which gave rise to Chatswood-Parramatta railway line probably being the most announced infrastructure project in history.

While the current Victorian government may not have those formal measures, Small Business Minister Phillip Daladakis is a very good player of the announceable game. He’s a man with a future in state politics.

The mistake of the StartCon organisers was to agree to public announcement before they had secured the money.

Public service thinking

I’d never heard of Dr Pradeep Phillip prior to his appointment to run LaunchVic but his previous position as secretary of Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t seem to immediately qualify him to run the state’s startup development agency.

His conduct, and that of his staff, in the published correspondence chain are those of classic risk averse public servants. Not a bad thing when you’re dealing hospital procurement practices but when you’re dealing with startups and new businesses it would be nice to have someone with more relevant private sector experience.

A notable part of the Victorian public service’s risk aversion is the language of the convoluted grant agreement where the state government may provide support. This, along with the classic attempt of shifting all responsibility away from the agencies, opens a lot of wriggle room for the government to get out of paying the publicly stated amounts.

Equally the use of registered mail after weeks of ignoring emails smacks of institutional backside covering. This underscores the disconnect between public servants and the business world, particularly with smaller organisations, events and startups.

The futility of government support

For StartCon’s organisers their embarrassing and terrible Melbourne experience underscores the futility of depending upon government incentives to site your business or event.

In choosing where to base a business important factors are the access to markets, labour and capital with affordable office space being another key issue. For event organisers, the access to reasonably priced venues and accomodation for the attendees – two factors where Melbourne has a real advantage over Sydney – are equally critical.

Government incentives are almost irrelevant to those consideration and really only become the deciding factor if the competing locations are equal in the other respects.

Counting the real cost

The real damage though is to StartCon’s credibility – having made the public decision to move to Melbourne with much fanfare the climb down is a humiliation – but, more importantly the event is compromised in the eyes of its Sydney supporters. The chase for government money also draws a scent of hypocrisy among a group known for its Libertarian leanings.

Equally however the Victorian taxpayers should be concerned at how their government is announcing support for businesses and events without real substance. One suspects that a fair proportion of Mr Dalidakis’ announceables have similar backstories.

More importantly Victorian taxpayers should be questioning the nature of support – with the SydStart announcement there was widespread irritation in the Melbourne tech community that a Sydney based event should get such government backing and similarly funding foreign multinationals to setup Australian sales offices in the southern state’s capital is going to do much to build the state’s tech sector.

Australian sovereign risk

Something all Australian taxpayers and businesses should be concerned about is the unreliability of governments of both complexions at state and Federal level. Too frequently promises are broken leaving companies and communities out of pocket.

The shutting down of the COMET scheme under the new Federal Labor government in 2007 and then the incoming Liberal government replacing the ALPs Commercialisation Australia program in 2013 are good examples of sovereign risk where entrepreneurs spent thousands of dollars and hours only to have the grants pulled without notice.

Innovation schemes are only one example, almost every program is at risk when a new minister, let alone government, is appointed. It would be a foolish manager or business owner who would base their financial forecasts on any Australian government policy.

As we saw in the City of Sydney elections, the real key to developing industry is to have an attractive, well serviced location with access to capital, skills and markets. Melbourne may well do that better than Sydney but it won’t be achieved by ministers bearing gifts.

Small businesses’ tepid recovery

Since the 2008 financial crisis, most countries are not seeing new small businesses being created.

One of the notable things about the 2008 financial crisis was how people stopped setting up businesses. Faced with economic uncertainty, it seemed most folk decided starting new ventures was just too risky.

The OECD’s Entrepreneurship at a Glance report shows just how dramatic that fall in small business creation since the financial crisis has been with United States’ current new business formation rates at 15% below 2008 levels, Italy’s at 35% and Germany’s at 23%.

Even in Australia, which largely escaped the 2008 crisis, business formations are twenty percent lower. This is despite interest rates being close to zero for the last five years.

Those statistics are telling – despite the talk about tech startups, people are not starting new ventures at the rates they were ten years ago. That’s a worrying aspect for economies and future growth prospects.

Freeing business investment

Funding the businesses of the future will be critical to addressing the automation driven shifts in employment, how we fund them is one of today’s challenges.

What would happen if the world’s richest people invested in startup businesses? Bloomberg Business ran an interesting, if flawed, thought experiment looking at how many nascent companies each country’s richest individuals could invest in.

It’s surprising how low those numbers are and, if anything, the result underscore how the 1980s and 90s banking sector ‘reforms’ caused the world’s financial system to pivot from its historical purpose of funding commercial enterprises into speculation, rent seeking and manipulating markets.

Apart from a smattering of venture capital not much has replaced the banks in funding the SME and entrepreneurial sectors, if anything it has been those ultra high net wealth individuals who have been financing the investment funds providing capital to entrepreneurs.

How the finance industry evolves in the face of the fintech boom and a world that’s slowly becoming less indulgent of the industry’s greed will be one of the defining things of next decade’s business environment. For the small business and startup sectors getting the funding right will also be a key factor.

The biggest question though is job creation, being able to fund new and innovative investments will be one a critical concern for societies dealing with the effects of an increasingly automated economy.

Lessons from the CIA investment fund

Dawn Meyerriecks, the CIA’s Deputy Director for Science and Technology, gives an interesting insight into the agency’s investment philosophies

One of the little discussed reasons for the US tech industry’s success is the role of military and intelligence spending by the government. Not only are various agencies funding research and enthusiastically buy technology, they are also being strategic investors in many companies.

In Sydney last week Dawn Meyerriecks, the CIA’s Deputy Director for Science and Technology, gave an interesting insight into the agency’s investment philosophies at the SINET61 conference.

The conference was aimed at drumming up interest in the technology security industry along with showcasing the connections between Australia’s Data61 venture and the US based Security Innovation Network (SINET).

SINET itself is closely linked to the United States’ security agencies with chairman and founder Robert Rodriguez being a former US Secret Service agent prior to his move into security consulting, venture capitalism and network-building.

Compounding the organisation’s spook credentials are its support from the US Department of Homeland Security along with the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), so it was barely surprising the Australian conference was able to attract a senior Central Intelligence Agency officer.

Investing in flat times

“Flat is the new up,” says  Meyerriecks in describing the current investment climate of thin returns. In that environment, fund managers are looking for good investments and the imprimatur of the CIA’s investment arm, In-Q-Tel, is proving to be a good indicator that a business is likely to realise good returns.

“If you can predict a market – and we are good predictors of markets – then the return on investment is huge,” she says.

“In-Q-Tel really leverages capital funding for good ideas. We get a twelve for one return, for every dollar we put in it’s matched by twelve dollars in venture capital in emerging technologies.”

Attracting investors

For the companies In-Q-Tel invests in along with those that supply technology to the organization, the CIA encourages them to seek private sector investors.

“What we’re telling our supply chains is you go ahead and tap into the capital markets,” Meyerriecks says. “If you can turn that into a commercially viable product then will will ride the way with the rest of the industry because it’s good for us, it’s good for the country and it’s good for the planet.”

Adding to the CIA’s attractions as a startup investor are the opportunities for lucrative acquisition exits for the founders, she believes. “Not only are we using that venture capital approach for emerging technologies but our big suppliers are sitting on a ton of cash.”

Diversity as an asset

Another lesson that Meyerriecks believes will help the planet, and the tech industry, is diversity. “Globalisation has show isolationism doesn’t work,” she says.

“Back in the day when I was a young engineer the best way to make sure your system was resilient was to harden its perimeters. the best ways to be ‘cyber resilient in the old days was by drawing the barriers to keep the bad guys out.”

“The best way to be cyber-resilient in the old days was to draw big boundaries around yourself to keep the bad guys out. The latest studies look at other things because you want to be resilient, you want high availability.”

Now, system diversity is seen as an asset.“Biologically the three factors that contribute to resilience are the ability to adapt, the ability to recovery and diversity,”  Meyerriecks says. “We look to deliver high availability among components that may not themselves have high reliability.”

The future of investment

“I think we’ll see commercialisation still driving investment for applied R&D in particular,”Meyerriecks said in a later panel on where the agency is looking at putting its money.

“The big game changers will be around the edge, taking SDN (Software Defined Networking) to its logical extreme giving everyone their own personal networks, not just in data centres but at the edge of the network.”

“I think there’s lots of things that the commercial industrialisation of the technology and physical system are going to force us to grapple with on many levels.”

Risks in managing identity

An interesting aspect of Meyerriecks’ talks at SINET61 was her take on some of the technology issues facing consumers and citizens, particularly in the idea for individuals having their own personalised network.

“This opens up a whole range of things, ” she suggests. “Do I eventually not just be an IMSI or EIMI (the mobile telephone identifiers) but do I become an advertising node, does that become my unique ID? Do I a become a gaming avatar?”

“Then we get into the whole Big Data area. Computational anonymity is a phrase we use. At some point people start saying ‘this is crossing the line’ – it crosses the ‘ooooh’ factor.”

Changing Cybersecurity

“I think the definition of cybersecurity will be expanded to much more beyond wheat we’ve classically thought about in the past.”

Meyerriecks’ presentation and later panel appearance was a fascinating glimpse into the commercial imperatives of the United States’ intelligence community along with flagging some of the areas which concern its members as citizens and technology users.

The US security community’s role in the development of the nation’s tech sector shouldn’t be understated and Meyerriecks’ observation that private sector investors tend to follow the CIA’s investment path underscores their continued critical role.

Sydney’s Mayoral Tech Race – the ALP’s Linda Scott

The ALP candidate for the City of Sydney mayoral election has a raft of policies to promote the city’s tech sector.

A few weeks back I wrote about how the tech sector had become an issue in the Sydney Lord Mayoral election to be held on September 10.

Following that post, I approached the four major candidates to get their policies on how Sydney can do better in attracting tech startups to the city. The idea was to get an overview published in one the major newspapers but sadly my pitches were ignored.

However the issues raised are important to Sydney so over of the next few days I’ll publish each of the candidates’ responses to my questions along with any other conversations I’ve had with their teams.

The first candidate we look at is Linda Scott, the Australian Labor Party candidate. Councillor Scott was elected to the City of Sydney Council in 2012 and is a researcher at The University of Sydney and lives in the inner city suburb of Newtown with her husband and two young children.

“As a Labor Councillor, I moved that the City conduct a feasibility study into the possibilities for implementation of smart technologies for City infrastructure and services. The current Lord Mayor and her team voted against it, defeating the measure.

I’ve also held a start up Roundtable for City of Sydney start ups with Labor Ministers Chris Bowen and Ed Husic to hear ideas for how every level of government can improve our support for the start up communities.”

What are your policies relating to encouraging tech  startups?

“As a Labor candidate for Lord Mayor, my Labor  team and I are committed to  delivering smart technology to the City’s infrastructure and services for the future.

“From more efficient watering of our parks to parking to better planned traffic flows, the Internet of Things has the potential to revolutionise our City – and it’s an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.

“We are committed to working with our start ups and universities to support  the continuation and creation of Tech  Startup  precincts, and will ensure planning policies foster these precincts.

“Labor will also deliver a dedicated, City-owned work space to form part of a Tech  Startup  precinct and open up City spaces for tech startup networking events and will host an annual festival to promote Sydney as an international tech  startup  hub.

“If elected, we will explore establishing dedicated innovation and commercialisation ‘landing pads’  with our sister cities, and neighbouring and regional councils here in New South Wales.

“Labor  will also work to support the continuation and expansion of existing university-based hubs and accelerators in  the City of Sydney along with hosting an annual festival to promote coding among young people. “

What do you see as Sydney’s strengths in this sector?

“Our people. Sydney is a great global city, and rightly is the first port of call for international trade and investment. Many of our nation’s and the world’s major firms have their Australian headquarters based in Sydney.

“We  have the critical mass  of creativity,  capital  and access to services  to provide fertile ground for tech startups.”

What is Sydney not doing well at the moment?

“The Lord Mayor has rejected Labor’s moves to embrace smart technology.  It’s time for change at the City of Sydney.

“We also need more affordable space for start ups, and Labor is committed to delivering this.

What are we doing well?

“Sydney has great  hubs and accelerators that  Labor  will continue and expand where possible.”

How do you see the City’s relations with state and Federal government affecting current efforts?

“As a Labor Councillor, I already work closely with my state and federal colleagues and governments to ensure I secure what’s best for the City of Sydney. The state and federal governments have the financial strength and capabilities to assist the City in delivering its tech  startup strategies.

“For example, a federal Labor  Government committed to create a 500 million dollar Smart Investment Fund and a nine million National Coding in Schools program – both measures I will continue to secure for the future.”

Currently Victoria and Queensland are doing better at attracting businesses.  Should we do anything to counter that and, if so, what?

“Sydney’s strength and appeal as a tech  startup  hub should be the size and diversity of creativity, capital and access services it can achieve.

“With all the measures listed above, and working with stakeholders, Labor is committed to doing better for the future of our start ups.”

How can Sydney compete globally against cities like Singapore, Shanghai and even Wellington?

“Our City needs to continuously increase its exposure to new challenges and new ideas from around the world as well as at home.

“Exploring opportunities for establishing innovation and commercialisation landing pads with sister cities around the world as well as neighbouring and regional councils  will be an important first step in that effort.

“Most importantly, increasing the availability of affordable work space in the City of Sydney will also be critical, and attracting angel investors to Labor’s annual showcase event in the City.

How does your tech industry policy fit in with other key Sydney employment sectors like the creative industries, financial services and education?

“Labor is committed to the creation of a fun, fair, affordable and sustainable City for the future for all businesses and residents. “

It’s hard to see the Labor Party getting a great deal of traction in the council elections, Scott herself only received ten percent of the mayoral vote when she ran for the 2012 election and was the only ALP councillor elected.

The benefit though of the Labor ticket is that Scott’s positions fit nicely with her party’s state and Federal. However, given the party will remain in opposition at both levels for at least two and a half years – although nothing is certain in the farce that Australian Federal Politics has become, that co-ordination means little for the City of Sydney.

Australia’s NBN debacle

However when it comes to missed targets, broken promises and the sheer scale of money wasted, Australia’s National Broadband Network dwarfs all the world’s broadband roll outs.

One of the most stunning examples of Australia’s uncompetitive, post-mining boom economy is its National Broadband Network.

Announced in 2009 to provide high speed data access to the nation to address the effects of thirty years of poor decisions and poorly thought out policies by successive governments, the project was intended to upgrade the telecommunications network and break the near monopoly of the incumbent telco, Telstra.

Sadly the project quickly foundered as the managers of the company set up to build the network made a series of poor decisions that stemmed from their underestimating of the project’s scope and their arrogant hubris in rejecting the advice of those who did.

To compound the problem, the project was politicised by the intellectually lazy and opportunistic Liberal opposition who promised they could build it for less by utilising existing telephone and Pay-TV infrastructure. On becoming government, the then communications minister and now Prime Minister changed the scope to do that and promised a quicker and cheaper rollout.

Last Friday, the folly of the Liberal Party’s plans were shown when the National Broadband Network company, nbn™, issued their updated business plan that detailed a further retreat from both the original project scope and the government’s promises.

The Melbourne Age’s Lucy Battersby illustrated how completely Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal Party bungled their costings, showing just how mediocre and dishonest the government and Prime Minister have been in estimating the cost of the project.

However, NBN Co underestimated the cost of using existing hybrid-fibre coaxial [HFC] cables laid by Telstra and Optus in the 1990s. Last year it calculated an average cost of $1800 per house. But detailed field work discovered the cost was actually $2300.

…

In 2013 the Coalition estimated FTTN connections would cost about $900 per premise and this was raised to $1997 in a 2014 strategic review, and raised again in 2015 to about $2300.

In the real world, being out by nearly 300% would cost an estimator or executive their job and for a small business could well see them being put out of business, but in the carnival of mediocrity that marks modern Australian politics, those responsible for such mistakes only thrive, as do the managers of nbn™ who recently awarded themselves fat bonuses.

Adding insult to injury for the long suffering Australian taxpayers and broadband users is that the nbn™’s management have revised the scope again to overcome increased costs and now only 21% of consumers will get a fibre connection as opposed to the 40% claimed when the new government changed the scope.

Those scope changes beg the question why anyone bothered in the first place. Had the network been left with Telstra there’s a reasonable chance 20% of customers would have ended up on fibre by early next decade as the economics of maintaining and installing the technology overtook the older copper system.

Probably the biggest insult though to Australian customers though are the desperate attempts to make the new network profitable with plans to gouge the nation’s telco users as Fairfax’s Elizabeth Knight reported.

Data use per user is anticipated to grow at a compound rate of 30 per cent per cent to 2020.

At first blush these increases in usage might look exaggerated – but wait. Only last year NBN was working off the expectation that this year its existing customers would consume 90 gigabytes per month. But the current rate of consumption is actually 131 gigabytes per month – and rising.

Thus as the years progress towards 2020, NBN not only gets an increase in customers, it get an increase in revenue per customer .Monthly average revenue per user is forecast to increase from $43 this year to $52 in 2020..

 

So Australians will be expected pay more for their substandard connections to help an organisation that has consistently failed to meet its promises and targets. It should also be noted that rising Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) is the opposite of what’s been happening in the real world over the last twenty years as revenues, and profits have fallen.

To be fair, it’s not just Australia that has struggled with rolling out fibre networks. In the US, Google Fiber is going through blood letting and scope changes as the company struggles to meet targets and keep costs under control. That same experience has been repeated around the world.

However when it comes to missed targets, broken promises and the sheer scale of money wasted, Australia’s National Broadband Network dwarfs them all.

Australian taxpayers, voters and telecommunications users should be asking hard questions of their political leaders