michaelwyres.com.au | musings of a geek

The Biggest Insult With The New V/Line Timetable

The other day I wrote about how once again travel times on the Geelong V/Line service had been increased with the preparation of a new timetable, which goes into effect later this month.

This is not the first time travel times have been increased under the auspices of a new timetable.

After writing my previous post, I’ve decided to actually look at what all these deliberate increases in travel time actually mean.

Along with travellers on the Ballarat, Bendigo, and Traralgon lines, Geelong customers endured lengthy full-line disruptions to their V/Line services, during the implementation of the Regional Fast Rail (RFR) project – (not to be confused with the current Regional Rail Link (RRL) project) – a project which ended up officially costing $750 million, though some estimates have it closer to $1 billion.

Specific to the Geelong line, the tracks between Corio and Werribee were replaced with higher class rails and sleepers, to allow the introduction of the 160km/h V’Locity trains on the line.

According to rail enthusiast site Vicsig, the line distance between these two locations is 32.247 kilometres – with Corio being 63.944 kilometres by track to Melbourne, and Werribee being 31.697 kilometres from the same location.

Given that the V’Locity trains can only travel at their full 160km/h speeds on this section of the line, they should be able to cover that distance in 12 minutes and 5 seconds.

Non-V’Locity services are predominantly hauled by V/Line’s fleet of N-class locomotives, with a maximum speed of 120km/h.

Over the same 32.247 kilometre distance, the N-class locomotive hauled services cover the journey in 16 minutes and 7 seconds.

In both cases, no intermediate stops at Lara and Little River are assumed.

So all the money spent to allow the V’Locity trains – (and in purchasing the trains themselves) – to run at 160km/h over a single section of the line only improved travel times – (potentially) – by around 4 minutes and 2 seconds. That already sounds expensive, right?

The newest timetable to take effect later in April has added two minutes to the travel time. An earlier timetable update added six minutes to the travel time.

So the four minutes improvement we paid for with a grain wagon full of cash, and many many days crammed in road coaches while the line was replaced, have been given back to us as an increase of at least eight minutes in timetabled travel time.

I say at least, because other timetable updates have also added minutes here and there across the timetable.

We endured that insult, for this result.

Nice, right?

Also remember that it is quite common that for operational reasons – (particularly with respect to how V/Line services interact with metropolitan services) – trains often are unable to travel at their full speeds anyway.

I have previously looked at how even the V’Locity services often don’t reach full speed when travelling towards Melbourne.

It is fortunate that the Regional Rail Link – (which although will slightly increase the distance Geelong line commuters have to cover) – will improve things, because the trains will be able to run at much higher speeds for much longer distances, and not get stuck behind metropolitan services once they get close to Melbourne.

That project is however, not expected to be fully complete until 2016 – so in the meantime, we should all sit and wonder no longer, why our journey times to Melbourne seem to be getting longer.

It’s because they are.

Why Must Oracle Treat Us Like Idiots?

With yet another round of Java security updates – (this time to address 42 new security issues) – reaching our computers today, I find myself once again getting agro with Oracle with the nonchalant way they treat people when their updates roll.

Why on earth should/would a security patch be asking us to install a piece of bloatware like the Ask toolbar?

Why is an important security update concerned with us getting “Facebook status updates directly in our browsers”?

People have been taught to trust software updates, and Oracle are abusing that trust by trying to trick people into installing useless rubbish like this.

It’s irresponsible, and it’s not good enough.

Turnbull Admits His NBN Could Cost The Same As Existing Plan

Despite continuing high levels of public support for the existing FTTP National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout plan, and his claims that his alternative FTTN approach will be “cheaper”, Malcolm Turnbull admitted yesterday that his plan could end up costing just as much in the long run.

“When questioned whether the costs in maintaining and replacing parts of the ageing copper infrastructure for premises will end up costing more than the current NBN, where the copper will be replaced with fibre in one go, Turnbull said that ‘probably the prudent thing to is say it’ll cost you the same.'”

Everyone knowledgeable on the subject – (including Turnbull himself) – agrees that FTTP would come eventually, even if we take the intermediate step to FTTN.

When even Turnbull knows that FTTP is the endgame, all of this is remarkable considering his adamant claims that he would deliver it “cheaper, and faster”.

The existing NBN plan delivers that endgame for far cheaper than bouncing through with a politically-motivated middle point.

It’s ridiculous.

FTTN is not even a true intermediate step, as all the field equipment required for an FTTN deployment would become redundant, wasting that investment.

Turnbull also continues to misrepresent how the existing NBN plan is rolled out, claiming that funding a full FTTP rollout upfront – (as is the existing the plan) – would leave much of that investment making no return for “years and years”:

“It’s never a good idea to invest money years and years ahead before there is demand for it because you have got extra investment getting no return.”

Turnbull knows full well that the current rollout out plan sees the existing Telstra copper network decommissioned approximately 18 months after the fibre rollout is completed in each area, which necessarily forces people wishing to maintain a fixed line service – (even if it is just a landline telephone service) – onto the NBN fibre.

Where a return on investment would obviously be made as people pay for that service.

And lets not forget that this is the same copper network Telstra said had only fifteen years of life left in it…in 2003.

The same copper network Turnbull’s alternate plan relies on, and the same copper network that is routinely maintained using plastic bags.

For someone striving for credibility for his alternative policy – (which has been roundly criticised as inadequate for future needs, and even described as “economic lunacy”) – such an admission that his plan would probably end up costing as much as the existing plan once a later upgrade is performed, is remarkable.

We already know the Coalition is happy to lie about the existing plan, just to try and make a political point.

Now his credibility on the matter is now strained even further.

V/Line Extends Geelong Travel Times Again

Well, once again is seems Geelong rail commuters are having their peak journey times lengthened by V/Line, with the release of new timetables to take effect from April 28th.

Looking at just the two so-called “flagship” services from Geelong to Melbourne each weekday morning, each leaves the various stations in the Geelong area two minutes earlier than on the previous timetable.

The two services, previously leaving South Geelong at 6:47am and 7:09am, and arriving in Melbourne at 7:46am and 8:08am respectively on the old timetable:

Now, these same services will leave South Geelong at 6:45am and 7:07am, arriving in Melbourne at 7:46am and 8:08am respectively on the new timetable:

Leave earlier, arrive at the same time.

Two extra minutes might not sound like a lot, but since similar amounts of travel time have been added in previous timetable updates – (including this one where travel times increased by around six minutes) – Geelong commuters have been screwed again.

The “flagship” reverse peak services in the afternoon have also been extended by two minutes – leaving Melbourne at the same time, but arriving two minutes later.

Undoubtedly, this extra two minutes will be blamed on the opening of the new Williams Landing station on the Werribee line, but instead of holding a potentially clashing metropolitan service at Werribee for two extra minutes, or pushing it ahead by two minutes, the metropolitan services seem to have been left alone to the detriment of the regional services.

Many other V/Line services on the line have been similarly “adjusted”. It seems that in slotting together the new timetable, metropolitan commuters have been favoured over regional commuters.

Again.

Coalition Gaffe: Turnbull And Abbott Wrong On Geelong NBN Claim

In an embarrassing gaffe, just two days after the launch of their alternate NBN policy, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, and his communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull have been caught out lying about the status of the proposed fibre rollout in the Geelong region.

TWEET: “@TonyAbbottMHR: With press + @TurnbullMalcolm at Marcus Oldham College Geelong. Under Labor they get no NBN. A priority under us.”

At first glance, this statement is at the very least curious.

With a 93% fibre footprint, a 4% wireless footprint, and a 3% satellite footprint, 100% of Australia is covered by the NBN – including places like far-flung Christmas Island and Norfolk Island.

With regards to Marcus Oldham College in Geelong, the statement “under Labor they get no NBN” is clearly false – everyone gets the NBN in some form.

I’m sure that they may have meant that Marcus Oldham wasn’t to get fibre connectivity under the current NBN plan, and that they may have not chosen the best words to express themselves.

But that would be plain wrong as well.

“This is just the latest lie told by the Coalition as they attempt to promote their inadequate broadband plan, which doesn’t serve Australia’s needs now or into the future. The facts are that the Marcus Oldham College will get NBN fibre under Labor. NBN Co is building fibre all the way to the premise, including schools, in every exchange area dedicated as Band 1 and Band 2 in Telstra’s classification of exchanges.”

Time to explain yourself chaps – you were wrong.

You either lied / tried to mislead people, or you were too lazy to check your facts.

Either way, it’s very poor form.

Politics needs to be about trust – and you clearly can’t be trusted on this issue.

Credibility And The Alternate NBN

Today has seen the release of the long awaited, often touted Coalition alternative broadband policy to the current National Broadband Network (NBN) scheme.

In a press conference that became heated during questions, Malcolm Turnbull announced a $29.4 billion plan to provide FTTP for 22% of Australia, FTTN to 71%, LTE Wireless to 4% and Ka-band Satellite to 3%, as outlined in their detailed policy document:

Regardless of the merits – or otherwise – of this alternative plan, the very nature of how it was released means one must truly evaluate and question the credibility of the plan in political terms.

In the lead up to today’s launch, two articles appeared in the Daily Telegraph – one on Monday, and the other this morning.

Remarkable how one reporter managed to get two “exclusives” on the same subject on two consecutive days, isn’t it?

The writer didn’t even have the journalistic integrity to seek balance from the other side of the story with even a quote from the Communications Minister:

“It’s back to a campaign against the NBN Co, a campaign against the Government and the Daily Telegraph did not even seek comment from my office about these claims of $90 billion.”

It seems quite likely that these articles were plants to get the media talking about the subject once again, in preparation for today’s slick looking launch.

I think it is hard to argue that that is not the case – particularly since Turnbull himself has been setting up the “one third the cost” angle for some time:

“Q: What do you estimate would be the cost difference between deploying FTTN and FTTH?”

“A: Between one third and one quarter of FTTP by those building it.”

Remarkable then that $29 billion is almost exactly one third of $90 billion, isn’t it? I wonder how they calculated that figure?

Setting up the “facts” to suit the argument?

They have promised 25Mbps to everyone by the end of 2016 – that will leave them a little over two years to do all this – (including renegotiating all the existing contracts, redesigning the network, and actually building it) – as well as all the cost-benefits analyses they’ve promised.

Stretching it, to say the least.

But however you choose to view today’s policy release, one thing remains – the opposition claim that their version of the broadband network will be “cheaper” and delivered “faster” is false at worst, and dubious at best.

The current solution and their proposed solution don’t even have remotely the same technological outcome.

Making direct comparisons is like comparing apples with a bag of rusty nails.

They are completely different.

It’s $29.4 billion for a half-solution that will need to be upgraded at great expense later, or $37 billion for the same result without the later upgrade.

Further, $29.4 billion gives us 22% of people with fibre, or the existing version at $37 billion providing 93% of people with fibre – where are the economies in the smaller scale there?

That Turnbull has today even delivered a costed alternative policy also strains his credibility.

Last August, he claimed that he had a costed alternative policy “ready to go”, yet a month later he said that such a costed plan would not be possible, given he was unable to see the value and details of all the deals NBN Co had already entered into.

“Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has conceded that the Coalition will not reveal a fully-costed National Broadband Network (NBN) policy prior to the next Australian Federal election, because NBN Co has not disclosed the full cost of the existing contracts.”

Despite this information being on the public record – either in the NBN Co business plan, or subsequent media releases. It’s all out there.

By the time December came around, Turnbull was now pushing a figure of $15 billion for his alternative.

Care to recap?

In August a fully costed plan. In September, a fully costed plan was not possible. In December, at least a partial costing.

You can’t gain much credibility for your political narrative, when it changes from month to month.

Even today, it is now suddenly fully costed again – and fully costed at $29.4 billion. Even though he still hasn’t seen the NBN Co books he claimed he needed to be able to produce a fully costed alternative policy.

$15 billion? $29.4 billion?

What’s $14 billion between friends?

What are we supposed to believe here?

He even previously said his alternative plan wouldn’t be released prior to the election – yet here we are five months out, and there it is – another backflip.

The bottom line here is that the higher the opposition spin the cost of the current model, the more their policy will seem all warm and squishy in comparison.

It’s not technology, it’s politics – but there’s even holes in the technology.

When the first NBN plan was cancelled in 2009, in favour of the current FTTP model, Optus estimated 75,224 nodes would be required to offer a minimum of 12Mbps download speeds to 75% of the population.

This new plan is for 60,000 nodes to provide a minimum of 25Mbps, and while this isn’t necessarily impossible to achieve, it does mean you are pushing the existing copper network significantly harder than you are now, and every node has more services concentrated into it, which creates a greater chance of contention issues, user to user.

And those nodes? Would you want one of these bad boys outside your house?

Imagine all the objections to those.

Turnbull was even questioned today as to how long the copper network in the ground on which his solution depends would survive – he said “nobody knows”.

Actually, people do know about the state of Australia’s copper network, and it isn’t pretty. In 2003, Telstra described its network as “five minutes to midnight”:

“Former manager of regulatory strategy, Tony Warren, gave the Senate broadband inquiry details of the company’s problems with its ageing copper network. He said ADSL, the high-speed internet service that runs over copper wires, was the bridging broadband technology Telstra was using until it replaced the network. He described ADSL as the “last sweat” of revenue Telstra could wring out of the 100-year-old copper wire network.”

But most of all, when you add the $29.4 billion announced today, along with the $11 billion value of the Telstra agreement, and throw in the estimated $21 billion it would cost for a later upgrade to FTTP, an upgrade that even Turnbull agrees is required eventually, the Coalition may have just committed us to $61 billion of broadband expenditure to reach the same result the current plan would give us for $37 billion, and sooner.

Maintenance of the current copper network is estimated at around $1 billion per year, with expected savings of around $600 million per year by switching technologies – an amount Turnbull doesn’t believe is “material” in the debate.

The applications that require fibre speeds are already with us.

The benefits of a full FTTP network in only small areas of the economy alone are enough to fund the existing NBN:

TWEET: “@TonyWindsorMP: If FTTP keeps 5% of elderly people at home for extra year, that’s a saving of $60B over 10 yrs. Benefits of full fibre far outweigh costs.”

The benefits of a full FTTP rollout are bountiful, and Coalition have a long history of contradictory messages on the subject, misrepresenting it’s success, and denying that people want it.

The Coalition wanted to offer an alternative broadband policy.

This barely qualifies as a like-for-like replacement right now – with many people already getting the kinds of speeds they are offering us for $29.4 billion.

It’s a joke, and Australia deserves so much better – and the existing NBN is already on the way.

When Abbreviations Backfire

The V8 Supercars Championship returns to Pukekohe Park Raceway in New Zealand this weekend, with the Kiwi round having been run on the Hamilton Street Circuit for a number of years.

V8 Supercars fronted a large amount of money to revamp the Pukekohe – (pronounced “Pucka-co-ee”) – circuit, affectionately known as “Puke” – (pronounced “Pucka”), and some people have questioned this investment.

Popular motorsport news site Speedcafe often auto-abbreviates article titles in its “Related Articles” section. The article titled “V8 Supercars Defends $6.6M Pukekohe Investment” copped the auto-abbreviate in a most unfortunate way:

Puke?

Expensive puke at that.

Regional Rail Link Continues To Form

As a train buff, I’ve been watching daily the progress on the construction of the Regional Rail Link (RRL) – or at least as much of it as I can see on a Geelong line train – and the works are impressive in many locations.

Here’s the latest flyover video produced by the Department of Transport:

For most commuters, currently the most visible and substantial section of work is the Joseph Road Precinct between Footscray and South Kensington stations – here is an animation of what it will look like in the end:

Coming along nicely!

Turnbull Suggests Eighteen Billion Dollars Is Not Material

In an interview on the ABC program Inside Business this morning, National Broadband Network (NBN) CEO Mike Quigley reiterated what many observers of the NBN have been saying for years.

That the alternative Coalition policy would be far more expensive for Australia in the long run.

Said Quigley of the costs of FTTP compared to FTTN:

“Well you’ve got to do the calculations. The calculations are really a question of, how much do you pay for the copper for a start, then how much is it going to cost to put these nodes in place. Then you have the question of what’s the ongoing maintenance cost and it really depends on what period of time you look at.”

“Obviously there’s a higher up-front capital cost for fibre to the premise but there’s lower ongoing maintenance cost – so you’ve got to look at the period over time.”

Opposition Communications spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull has been asked repeatedly how much his FTTN solution, plus a later upgrade to FTTP – (which even he admits will be necessary) – will end up costing the taxpayer.

He steadfastly refuses to answer.

Midst a similar discussion on Twitter tonight, Turnbull made the following extraordinary statement with respect the difference in maintenance costs between maintaining the existing copper network, and maintaining a new fibre network:

Note the statement that the difference is “not large enough to be material”.

Really?

“Based on our estimates and our surveys with contractors and organisations in the telecoms industry, we believe that we could save in the vicinity of $600 to $700 million a year in telecoms maintenance that is currently undertaken on the copper network but could probably be saved under a more technological solution such as the fibre optic NBN.”

Given a reputable firm like BIS Shrapnel has made the projection of between a $600 and $700 million saving each year in network maintenance costs, simply by having the fibre network instead of the copper network, is Turnbull saying this kind of money is “immaterial”?

Sure sounds like it.

So $600m one year, $600m another year.

Geez, that’s not much – it might even add up to “real money” one day.

Given the financial terms of the NBN project run for 30 years, is he really saying that the difference of $18 billion is “insignificant” over that period?

Sure sounds like it.

Given Telstra has signaled that that they will not renegotiate the value of their current NBN deal – (valued at $11 billion), that the FTTN plan has been independently costed by Citigroup at $17 billion, that there will be close to $5 billion dollars of contracts – (including those with Optus, and the various construction companies currently building the NBN) – to break if the current NBN is halted, and Malcolm is committing us to $18 billion dollars of extra maintenance, will his plan cost $51 billion?

$51 billion is more than the current NBN is slated to cost.

Who is being frivolous with the costs now Malcolm?

You are.

Eighteen billion dollars is NOT immaterial.

UPDATE (11:39 25/03/2013): Data indicates that the operating expenditure on both the existing Telstra and Optus networks, just to keep them running over the last decade, is well in excess of what it would cost to build the NBN:

“As you can see, the NBN’s budget to install fibre, wireless and satellite is comparable to the last ten years’ PPE spend by Telstra alone. Never in the last decade have Telstra and Optus spent less than a combined $3 billion on property, plant and equipment.”

Given we already know that having the NBN will reduce maintenance costs, and the carriers have spent more than the cost of the NBN over the last ten years maintaining the current networks, any suggestion that a FTTN solution – (which will carry over much of those existing networks) – would be “cheaper” is just plain wrong.

Bernardi Manages To Miss His Own Point

Driving home from the station last night, I caught what I felt was an extraordinary speech in the Senate from the self-proclaimed bastion of all that is good, Cory Bernardi.

It was a speech which appeared on the surface to be primarily about free speech – (I think so anyway, as you can never be too sure what Bernardi is really on about) – but to me, he seemed to miss the point.

Completely.

Funnily enough, the point he missed was the point he was trying to make, and in doing so he displayed his own hypocrisy.

In a nutshell, he was complaining about an apparent lack of coverage of the Australian Islamic Peace Conference, and of the “purveyors of hate” who may or may not be speaking at this conference.

He states:

“It is hard for even the stoutest defender of freedom of speech to defend the poison that is peddled by this lot.”

I would have thought that “freedom of speech” was a fairly black and white concept.

You either have freedom of speech, or you do not have freedom of speech. If you defend this principle, you have to defend it for everyone, not just for select groups.

To single out “this lot” – (as Bernardi describes them) – as to be apparently not worthy of the right of freedom of speech, is wildly hypocritical. That is, Bernardi appearing to support free speech, but not for “this lot”.

He also stated:

“Melbourne’s Sheikh Abu Ayman, aka Sheikh Omran, who I was unfortunate enough to sit next to on an SBS Insight program.”

He was “unfortunate enough” to sit next to someone whose opinion differs from his, and is a member of “that lot”?

Poor diddums.

You either support free speech or you do not. There’s no halfway point.

He went on to attack the other side of politics for not attacking them:

“And, just as important, where were the words of condemnation from Labor ministers like Chris Bowen, Kate Lundy and Mark Dreyfus? These ministers had no problem being forthright and scornful when at least one other recent visitor was on our shores, but why not for Al-Sudais and his companions?”

For whatever reason, Bernardi chose not to name controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders in his speech, but Wilders was clearly the “other recent visitor” he was referring to.

Heaven forbid I agree with him, but Bernardi may have a point in pointing out that Wilders was attacked by some, and that Islamic speakers such as Sheikh Abu Ayman were not.

It may just be a case of the media not knowing about the Australian Islamic Peace Conference, and Bernardi does point out the lack of media coverage the conference was attracting.

Most likely, the media didn’t know about it either, or didn’t think it was important enough to make a story of it. Or there were other more important stories that day – like Julia Gillard’s glasses perhaps?

Or a thousand other possible reasons.

But it was Bernardi’s support of Wilders before, during and after his recent visit that makes his speech truly remarkable.

Said Bernardi:

“Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ public speaking tour has run into constant problems as venues continue to pull out or refuse to host his events. In such a tolerant and open society like Australia, why is it so difficult to accommodate a speaking tour by a member of the Dutch parliament who has a different perspective?”

Don’t the Islamic views he is complaining were not attacked, come from a “different perspective” also?

Yet he would attack them, under parliamentary privilege.

Double standard.

Why is it so difficult for Cory Bernardi to accommodate an Islamic peace conference, where the speakers have a different perspective?

The difference is, as long time supporter of Wilders, Bernardi presumably agrees with his views. It’s quite clear he doesn’t agree with the views of someone like Sheikh Abu Ayman, and of course it is his right to agree or disagree with anyone he chooses.

If you are the believer in free speech Bernardi would claim to be, Sheikh Abu Ayman and Geert Wilders would have every right to state their views in whatever forum chooses to allow them to state them.

Equally, those listening would have every right to express opposing views if they so chose.

But in “such a tolerant and open society like Australia”, where does supporting Wilders’ right to free speech, yet complaining that nobody is trying to squash the views of the Australian Islamic Peace Conference and its speakers, leave Cory Bernardi?

In the “hypocritical basket”.

That’s where.