interesting reason why the nbn is being pushed

I copied this post by 03boz from the Silex thread, you can see the ties with Silex at the bottom of the story, you can also read what I said about the real hidden reason behind the NBN, the real reason which they omit to say!
Can't have the natives being scared can we, and yes we also need the system to stay up so that our military can use network technology.

Hmmmm Robots perhaps?

Just lifted this of another forum
Posted Yesterday, 04:49 PM
has a bit about Silex
http://www.mediaspy.org/forum/index.php?/topic


Why is there no cost benefit analysis for the NBN, and why did the Govt decide to do it without a clear 'business-case', and why does the Govt want the NBN to be the fastest and most widely distributed fibre network that can be built?


There's a single reason for it all.

Ultra fast broadband is an essential integrated national defence network technology. Defence has been busy building a "Hardened Networked Army" and the Airforce and Navy are both acquiring and training to operate very advanced new systems that are soon to enter service. These all have one thing in common, they require high instantaneous data transmission speeds that distributes data seamlessly in real-time across the whole continent, and well beyond the mainland. We have very advanced systems in operation and many more are pending but the network bandwidth required to yield the potential of all these systems working together, does not yet exist.

For most people it's difficult to comprehend what super fast digital networks mean for a modern defence force. In short the ADF needs to see and hear everything that's militarily significant within Australia's near region, in real time, in a way no other military in Asia can. The aim is for the ADF to be able to deter or successfully engage a sophisticated larger force. In defence tech circles buried fibre is the way to go for a modern national Integrated defence network. The US was covered in fibre early for that reason and so was Japan, South Korea and the core of western Europe. It enables an integrated digital defence that is daunting in its effect. Going from copper cable to fibre is the difference between a pocket calculator and a PC.

US deployed capability is diminished if deployed to an area where network speeds and bandwidth overhead is low (like Australia). ADF performance is likewise diminished right now by the absence of sufficient transfer speed, it needs a much bigger data pipeline.

Civilian users generally do not require such instantaneous data through-put. But Australia of necessity has advanced and regionally unique early warning and response capabilities but our systems can not deliver anywhere near the best that it can produce using old copper cable tech. So new ADF capability is increasingly capped by old network technology. The NBN will enable a quantum leap in Australia's capacity to defend against a sophisticated and significantly larger force.

Australia buys comparably advanced systems as countries mentioned that have a fibre network. The delay is that despite our wealth we have a small population, and a comparatively very low defence budget, but a vast territory plus a wide EEZ maritime approach. Consequently the cost for a national buried-fibre network is going to be high when the population-to-territorial area ratio is low. The result is the defence budget is far too small to build the network ADF needs. South Korea is small with a big population and a big economy, plus a high threat, so they could afford to build buried fibre many years ago. But for Australia it requires a lot of money to get the scale of distributed network and link redundancy it must have.

Thus no matter which major party formed Govt, a fibre backbone would still be getting built immediately. Both major parties understand the reality of this. Both know a lot of public money must be spent. Both major parties know the private sphere will never do it because they know the private sphere for the most part does not need such speed and bandwidth overhead. Copper cable is just barely adequate for civil needs. But Defence can not wait any longer. The earlier 'Telecom' communications network 'monopoly' was its old network and made obsolete long ago. It was built with public money and held in public hands for very good reason. Private ownership is not always better, and not even appropriate in this case.

The ADF has a constitutional requirement to be able to defend Australian territory in the present and foreseeable future combat context. The Government has a Constitutional responsibility to organize the national means to provide for that. The politics of how it's achieved is what Canberra must nail down.

Australia has some of the most advanced systems anywhere and is modernizing and adding to these rapidly. The more you have the bigger the data pipeline needed. The NBN is required to allow these systems to be drawn together into a fully integrated national defence system, at the command level, in real-time, and also in the remotest locations in real-time. On land, in the air, on water, and under it, via high-speed datalink that connects to the network. Remote areas are where the NBN needs to be just as fast as anywhere else, or the system will not work. So naturally the Govt (and ADF) are more than keen to build the NBN in the regional areas first. But it will also build the backbone element simultaneously to connect northern and western defence nodes with south eastern nodes.

Buried fibre can be hidden and is difficult to disrupt (for long) but fairly easy to repair or bypass, with multiple-redundant cable linkages in a national network. But radio frequency wireless systems have many problems; they are prone to jamming and service degradation or denial, are generally not very secure, their emissions are very easy to detect and precisely locate. Modern weapons home on such radio emission sources and nodes. Fibre does not have such problems. Plus fibre provides plug-'n-play capabilities for close allies. It can enable much closer integration with regional neighbors as well. The snag is the ADF budget is ~$22.5 billion in 2009 (~1.78% of nominal GDP). That budget is insufficient to provide this overdue investment in network capability.

The NBN costs three times more than the RAAF's new networked airforce elements, that will come on line between now and 2020, starting now with Superhornets, Wedgetail and A330 tankers plus unmanned aircraft. These new platforms will not yield their full integrated capabilities, and full functionality, until a robust national fibre network is built.

Australia walks a very fine line in regional defence. We know from both public released official secret documents, and from scientists involved that Australia operated at least 4 secret uranium enrichment programs since 1965. Keep in mind we know about these programs only because the Govt wanted them made known, since about 1995;

1) 1965 operation of a secret gas-centrifuge program that apparently ended prior to NPT ratification in 1973. {1995 30-Year-Rule document release}

2) The Hawke Govt was informed on taking office in 1983 that a secret very advanced gas centrifuge uranium enrichment program had been re-initiated under Fraser (probably due Vietnam invading Cambodia, Indonesia claiming West Papua, plus invading East Timor plus confirmed Indian and Pakistani activity). Hawke kept this program operating until 1986. {ABC 730 Report, 2007}

3) 1986 - we know from SILEX documents that another previously unknown advanced Govt laser enrichment research program operated from about 1986 at Lucas Heights but was disbanded by 1994 when SILEX purchased some of its defunct equipment. We know this was operated by ANSTO scientists under direct Govt supervision. {Silex Systems company documents and market disclosures 2000-2001}

4) SILEX commenced in parallel and in secret at Lucas Heights around 1986 under Govt supervision. There is lot of 'information' about this unique advanced laser enrichment program. It came to light immediately after intense regional warhead testing;

France (120kt 1995 to Jan 27 1996),
Chinese (last on 50kt June 8 1996),
Indian (12kt May 18 1974 & May 11 1998)
Pakistan (9kt May 28 1998 & 5kt May 30 1998)
Plus more to come;
DPRK (~1kt on Oct 9 2006 & 5kt on May 25 2009)
Iran (pending)

So from late 1998 to 1999 the Howard Govt directly intervened to bring SILEX's existence and performance to international attention to send a warning signal to proliferaters. The Govt called it a, "private advanced laser uranium enrichment research initiative", and SILEX Systems was floated on the stock market in 1998. Two months after the Timor INTERFET involvement the Howard Govt entered an agreement with the Clinton Administration (in its final months) to allow the US Dept of Energy to independently test SILEX with a view to proving it and potentially commercially replacing the US's comparatively primitive commercial enrichment technology. Within the Agreement's (public version) was a proviso that the US does not use SILEX to fuel military reactors or produce nuclear weapons with SILEX. Which was also meant to put everyone on notice. DOE testing in 2000 confirmed SILEX was by a huge margin the worlds most advanced uranium enrichment technology, far more efficient than anyone had expected. Plus it could operate without traditional massive industrial complexes of gas centrifuges and power stations. All it needed was uranium hexafluoride gas feed-stock (same as gas-centrifuges). SILEX documents say the process is somewhat [number classified] more than 20-times more efficient than any other uranium enrichment technology. Australia does not sell enriched uranium nor does it use Australian enriched uranium in its first of second research reactor. Both had their fuel source from overseas and the fuel rods reprocessed overseas.

Why did Australia enrich uranium secretly since 1965? This was the building of a national stockpile of several thousand kilograms of uranium-235 that could be rapidly turned into a prefabricated weapon cores, pre-designed and zero-yield proofed, which could be assembled in a national defence emergency. Australia did exactly what it told the US it intended to do, prior to 1973 NPT ratification. Thus Australia stopped just short of producing actual munitions, as the NPT requires, and this is why Australian representatives remain heavily involved in trying to make the NPT function, and why it insists India sign the NPT before it will consider exporting uranium to India. That's why it's very disappointing that George Bush severely undermined the pressure to get India to sign.

Australia made agreement with the US in 1972 (after years of strong disagreement) not to produce nuclear weapons, and it has stuck to that agreement. But it made it very clear prior to signing the NPT that it intended to be able to produce independent nuclear munitions if the NPT were to fail. There was simply no other way Australia could do anything else. Hence Australia has since remained engaged more than most in the NPT regime. But the NPT has in fact suffered progressive failure, since India's first test almost immediately after Australia signed the NPT, but India refused to, to this day. The NPT progressive delinquency has accelerated ever since, particularly since ~1995.

What does this have to do with the NBN?

Today the ADF has to meet a Constitutional duty to provide a viable defence in a nuclear-armed world, where Australia is not nuclear-armed. This therefore requires a very close nuclear alliance partner, the USA, and a conventional defence that's able to defeat a sophisticated larger conventional force, at a distance, and be able to survive conventional battle with very low losses. Attrition without US alliance means defeat. This requires the ADF to maintain a clear but also outwardly ambiguous technological-edge, combined with extraordinarily high survivability of its major systems and combat platforms.

So a secure national buried fibre-optic network must be built.

We need the processing power to assure an effective capacity against a sophisticated larger force, from 2015 to 2050. A stronger alliance with the US is crucial to that strategy. If the US were not to remain committed, or available, this strategy would of necessity evolve it a way it would have if the NPT had never been signed and ratified into law.

A conventional containment of Chinese maritime power is the aim Australia and its Allies, will necessarily pursue for decades. This will also be the orientation of the non-aligned India and Russia. China is literally surrounded by large powers in every direction, most nuclear armed, hence China also has a large nuclear-armed military. The problem for Australia is, most of China's energy supply transits between West Malaysia and Australia. In the event of actual maritime conflict Australia would inevitably be dragged in. Hence a much larger submarine force and enhanced anti-submarine capability is being generated. This requires a continental margin fibre network that relays real time hydrophone data to ADF computers and commanders and can provide the marine equivalent of an instantaneous under-the-horizon-sonar picture of half an ocean, detecting tracking and warning of submarine approach, or suspicious surface traffic, from thousands of kilometers away. Submarine threat is not about torpedoes, it is about low-observable fast underwater launched cruise-missiles with ranges that can strike hundreds of kilometers inland, with near impunity if not detected and tracked. Plus sophisticated late generation sea mine sewing.

Earlier hydrophone arrays existed, and did work.

The new Govt in Canberra knows it must provide the NBN, given the defence budget is insufficient to provide it. The Commonwealth in conjunction with State Govt has always done this, with public railways, roads and ports, duel-use examples of essential ADF mobility needs. So the Govt has decided to completely eliminate copper cable and go to a fast secure 93% fibre network with core components buried. It formed a Govt specifically on that understanding. Both the Govt and the Opposition know this is not being done to turn a profit. Companies using it and providing ISP services will make a profit, and those will be taxed. When the internet kicked-off in Australia it was mostly using 14.4k dial-up modems. It was very slow text-based pages, and business used ISDN for data. But as dial-up speed quadrupled and programming evolved the internet was rapidly transformed into a business-friendly tool. Always-on early 'broadband' finally turned the Internet into a genuine business platform, and spread rapidly over the country. A fibre optic network will continue that business evolution. There will be significant taxable profit and predictable and unpredictable spin-offs for decades.

But a Govt controlled network can be more easily resumed or rationed in the event of hostilities, like any other utility or commodity.

The business-case argument ultimately presumes one is needed to justify the NBN's cost. You can not make a business-case for a squadron of F-111s. The payoff is deterrent effect. F-111s were very expensive and never used in 38 years. They were an extremely good investment when measured in regional peace terms.

An NBN cost to benefit analysis involves factors a business cares about like remaining in business. But that is almost irrelevant if the ADF and Govt Constitutionally must provide an assured defence capability. The Opposition leader may not be tech-savvy, as he says, or understand the issues in depth, but he does know why the NBN must be built.

He is playing the politics to wrest a term of Govt.

There are several large airports in Australia constructed with public money primarily as military bases, but which are predominantly used by private civilian traffic. Townsville airport is a good example, with a RAAF base and Army Helicopter base. The civil use of it can be subordinated to military priority, at any time. Civilian functions and military functions co-exist and the civil side maintains the airport in good order and provides the usual civil security capacity. But airspace oversight and air traffic control is strictly military, and so is perimeter security.

The NBN would reflect such civil-military and public-private mix so the Govt and military are able to instantly ration and subordinate civil bandwidth access, if that were needed.

Regarding Malcombe Turnbull's recent guesstimate of the "final market NET-worth" of the NBN, as about one-quarter to one-half of the $43 billion AUD investment, this is extraneous. When no copper-cable network exists the resulting NBN asset NET-Worth is what ever the market is prepared to pay for it. No one can know what that might be and even if they could know the NBN is not going to be for sale until it's no longer the best network technology there is. Same applies to the recent Telstra Chief Financial Officer's assertion that a business-case is the primary factor for any investment - pure nonsense - if that were so efficient, financiers all over the world would never go broke from bad debts. We are talking about the Australian Govt here, the owner and creator of all the money in your wallet that you use to pay your financial commitments. Think about that.

As nothing can communicate faster than light-speed, and the data throughput can be scaled as needed, by adding more fibre, making the potential data-pipeline width virtually unlimited in capacity. And given that it's physically more secure and reliable than any other data transmission method, fibre network technology will remain current, relevant, sufficient, and in constant use for a very, very long time. The argument that it is a risk of it becoming obsolete, rapidly, is baseless.

The private sector will get to own or control this new network any time soon, as that would be totally inappropriate and not permissible, so not a relevant matter of concern for many decades.

The basic problem here is; the ADF budget is too low for the geography it is required to defend. the projected increases in defence spending is too low. The viable approach paths to Australia are increasing with time as technology improves, and thus the axis and area the ADF must cover with real effects is dramatically expanding, but the budget isn't. The ADF budget in 2009 was about 1.78% of GDP. Based on the progressive increase out to 2030 the Rudd Govt announced, the NET effect is the ADF budget is actually going to shrink, from 1.78% to about 1.38% of GDP, between now and 2030. This is because GDP is expected to grow significantly faster than the defence budget increase. If we were at all realistic about defence we would set it a realistic level, say 2.25% of GDP, then index defence to a 5-year smoothed running-mean of Real-GDP, so it never falls lower or rises faster then real growth. Then the NBN cost would not have been a significant issue at all. And nor would the Constitutional requirements of the ADF's funding base be the constant Canberra political football that it is, that constantly undercuts national security and leaves the country in a position of strategic vulnerability that need not exist.

We reform, not a disingenuous telecommunications bun-fight that's a sham that attempts to hide from or disguise the real factors for why it is happening, so it's never subject of open and genuine public debate that would solve the underlying problems that the Govt would rather we did not know about.

This is why the Govt has no business-case, and wants the fastest largest network on Earth, and is not prepared to spare Telstra if it makes the mistake of getting in the way.