https://www.itnews.com.au/news/unsw-researchers-find-fttp-nb…
TL;DR is they propose a measure (social return accounting) for the social benefits of FTTP, rather than just financially. Even with more conservative estimates (i.e. higher cost than Labor's plan), full fat fibre ends up winning.
Full report: http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/richardholden/assets/s…
I'm an expert at a brand name university. Through research and data, my colleagues and I have determined through numerical collectives that money is indeed better spent on the subject.
We identified that identifying other options and indexing the option our sponsors data favours may be non-socially feasible.
In conclusion, we conclude that social data supports a reality where this option is better than the other reality, and therefore the other option.
every fluff/sponsored research and/or lazy PhD dissertation ever.
You can try the actual paper: http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/richardholden/assets/s…
I haven't read it. I can't download the PDF atm, it seems enormous and I'm capped out for the month.
Let me know if you find anything.
Copying the shortest explanation I found within my 25 seconds of skimming to save others the effort:
(Page 8 of linked PDF report)
An example
Consider a policy proposal to extend the school day for primary school students by, say, 2 hours for all government schools in a given state. Calculating the costs of such a policy would be relatively straightforward. There would need to be extra funding for teachers, additional teaching supplies and utilities, funding for the transition costs
to the new system, and so on. The benefits are not so easy to measure, but SRA provides an approach—using the bridge from social science to social benefit.The starting point would be determining the causal effect of a longer school day on standardised test scores. This would best be understood through a randomised controlled trial (RCT) with perhaps 50 schools in a treatment group and 50 (or more) in the control group. Each school, of course, would have several hundred students in it. With the treatment schools randomly selected essentially all one has to do to understand the causal effect of the longer school day on test scores is look at the differences in the average scores in treatment and control schools.
Such an RCT might have been run in a similar enough jurisdiction that those results could be used. Ideally, if time permitted, a new trial in the target schools would be performed.
The next step in the bridge is to use the best available evidence to map standardised test scores into later-life outcomes of interest. This could involve estimates of how primary-school scores map into secondary-school scores, and then how secondary-school scores map into a range of later-life outcomes such as income, employment, health, incarceration, and others. The social value of these concrete later-life outcomes—income being the best example—are easy to value.
With the flow of costs and benefits understood, determining the Internal Rate of Return of the policy proposal is a simple financial analysis exercise—exactly akin to valuing any private-sector investment.
Zero examination of possible confounding variables, or the complexity of what they're trying to measure. I mean this line:
essentially all one has to do to understand the causal effect of the longer school day on test scores is look at the differences in the average scores in treatment and control schools.
Oh is that all. Just a broad and controlled experiment involving 100 schools. No biggie. And this:
The next step in the bridge is to use the best available evidence to map standardised test scores into later-life outcomes of interest.
That simple hey. As easy as saying - "well you scored this, so you'll end up as a _____". ? No other variables that might tie into it? No accounting for economic cycles over time?
The social value of these concrete later-life outcomes—income being the best example—are easy to value.
They keep using the word "easy". I'm not sure they've ever stepped outside (level 1 of) their ivory tower, because I've spoken to people who work in fields actuarial studies - even a simple correlation like "model of car to risk of accident" involves a lot of work. These people think it'll be easy to link standardized test scores to factors like health?!
These guys are idiots. So much so that I'm willing to bet that the opposite is true to whatever conclusions they draw from their model. It's not even a model - a fifth grader could build a better model out of paddlepop sticks and glue. This is a bunch of drunk guys in a bar throwing darts at what they think is a dart board but is actually the sign on the Mens Room.
As easy as saying - "well you scored this, so you'll end up as a _____". ?
They never said that. They're talking about studies on populations that give rough correlations between scores and later outcomes, because, as you're correctly implying, it's bloody impossible to predict individual outcomes. (I can't think of a better way to derive a cost-benefit analysis for schooling off-hand, but I'm open to the possibility)
These people think it'll be easy to link standardized test scores to factors like health?!
The implication is that this work has already been done. I'm sure it wasn't easy to do, but now that it's done, it's fairly easy to look up the studies. At least, that's how I read it. (Are those studies valid? I dunno. Socio-economic status is probably the dominant causal factor in both test scores and all later-life outcomes, but maybe someone's found a way to control for it…)
It's not even a model
I only read that introductory part, but I saw no claim about having a model. To me it seemed like an "approach" ;)
@abb:
They're talking about studies on populations that give rough correlations between scores and later outcomes
There's nothing 'rough' about their conclusions though - they seem to have a very solid, hard sounding dollar amount at the end.
The implication is that this work has already been done.
Nope. From the part you quoted:
This could involve estimates of how primary-school scores map into secondary-school scores, and then how secondary-school scores map into a range of later-life outcomes such as
And then went on to just state that the social value of these factors are easy to value. Sigh.
I only read that introductory part, but I saw no claim about having a model. To me it seemed like an "approach" ;)
Yeah, an "approach" that they apparently used to come up with some hard sounding numbers. This is the academic equivalent of clickbait.
@HighAndDry : >These guys are idiots. So much so that I'm willing to bet that the opposite is true to whatever conclusions they draw from their model. It's not even a model - a fifth grader could build a better model out of paddlepop sticks and glue. This is a bunch of drunk guys in a bar throwing darts at what they think is a dart board but is actually the sign on the Mens Room.
Shots fired. Please contact 'these guys' and bring up all your issues with their work and post response here
Having read it, my initial impression is: This is stupid. I'll give you one example of why. This is one factor in their determination, apparently:
The evidence from the literature regarding videoconferencing shows durable improvements in the mental health of aged-care residents.
So far so good - this is logical and I have no problems with this.
From this connection we made extensions to costs on the health system which we believed could be reduced assuming NBN enhances the ability of aged-care residents to videoconference, they take up this benefit, improve their mental health and thus remain more physically healthy.
That's my emphasis. They just assume this? As though the internet doesn't exist without FTTP and we can't videoconference on existing internet infrastructure? Because I don't have NBN and still manage to Skype people all the time. NOT TO MENTION - the biggest limit on videoconferencing with elderly people isn't internet - it's the person on the other end of the line. And yet they go merrily along with their "analysis":
Using the base population of aged-care residents likely to have health and depression issues (22,502), the cost index ($4,075), the average stay (6), and the likelihood of readmission due to depression, we calculated the potential savings to the health system as $863 million annually.
Jesus wept. They went from "videoconferencing decreases depression in elderly people", merrily glossed over about a dozen ever increasing tenuous links in a chain - making assumptions at every step - to arrive at some amount of money which they attribute ENTIRELY to not just having an NBN (over apparently a complete lack of an internet), but the marginal improvement of a FTTP-NBN over an FTTN-NBN.
I'm not even in the soft sciences. The closest I came was a few courses in economics and finance. I would have utterly FAILED out of even first year subjects if I used as shoddy a methodology as this in any of my assignments. This is an embarrassment to numbers and the entire field of science.
I'm not even in the soft sciences. The closest I came was a few courses in economics and finance. I would have utterly FAILED out of even first year subjects if I used as shoddy a methodology as this in any of my assignments. This is an embarrassment to numbers and the entire field of science.
jesus christ. What are your credentials? You pop up in almost every forum topic on Ozbargain bringing your homebrew education in every topic and rant about everything while mentioning that you couldve done better
@hadz: Hahaha this is a random internet forum. Plus - what's that saying about: Those who can do, do; those who can't, critique? I'm not saying I can do better - I'm saying I know shit when I see it. You'll notice that I'm not putting out research papers on any subject.
I don't see what the problem is. You can look at a movie like Batman v Superman and say it's a shit movie. It doesn't mean you yourself could create or direct a better one.
Of course it was, the current government has been doing nothing but screwing up since it came into power. We could be leading the world in internet/data with the knock-on effect benefiting almost every sector in the nation. Utterly disgusting how they continue to actively try and drag the country down or pull it back from progress. Now they have a proper nutcase as PM too, bring on the election ASAP.
We could be leading the world in internet/data
Looks at Korea and Japan….
Yeah nah I don't think so.
I believe it was intended to read as
We could be leading the world in
internet/datacost overruns.
We're talking about an entire network built from the ground up with FTTP and mandatory uptake. I know for sure Japan still has issues keeping speeds up for their FTTH customers, and ADSL is still used.
Yeah look, how fast is the fastest NBN speeds now? Quick search shows up 100Mbps down and up for the top tier, Tier 4. Let's be crazy and say that FTTP has TEN TIMES the speed of FTTN, and that gives us what, a max of 1,000Mbps up and down? So 1Gbps.
Quick google for Japan's internet:
https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/15/4226428/sony-so-net-2gbps…
A Japanese internet service provider has begun offering broadband plans with 2Gbps downloads and 1Gbps uploads to residents in Tokyo and six surrounding districts. The service provider believes that these high data speeds make it the world's fastest for commercial internet.
Oh, and would you look at the date of that article? Japan had this back in 2013.
It's nothing to be embarrassed by - Japan (and South Korea) both have far higher population densities (and small country sizes) that make infrastructure like internet much cheaper and easier to roll out and update.
FTTP has been great. I've actively been using up to 1Gbps connections for quite a while and the speeds are fantastic for sending and receiving high volumes of traffic. I don't know how we managed on ADSL before.
How much do you pay for Gigabit speeds?
Private lines but there are some whoop whoop startups doing them for like $400 p/m I believe.
Yeah it's pretty hard to take this seriously without seeing the assumptions used behind the calculations for "social return accounting".
Didn't they have anything better to research?
You can try the actual paper: http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/richardholden/assets/s…
I haven't read it. I can't download the PDF, it seems to have a lot of pages with heavy assets and I'm capped out for the month.
Let me know if you find anything.
Solid topics require solid numbers.
A solid doctorate and a fluffy one still sounds the same.
It's all about getting that "Dr" title.
(Not saying that this is a PhD dissertation. Could just be one of those articles to boost number of articles published by individual/institution)
The Australian Government conducted a study in 1989 that found the same thing: that Australia would be better off spending money on a fibre network. This was before anyone knew what the internet was.
Four years later the braindead voted in the Liberal Party.
They sold the profitable government entity that would become Telstra who was to build the fibre network. Now, 30 years later we still do not have a national broadband system and Telstra has taken over 50 billion dollars to hand over to it's shareholders.
1989 … Four years later the braindead voted in the Liberal Party.
1993?
Keating was PM in 1993.
Try 1996 for Howard. That's seven years.
If you've read any of his other posts, what he was trying to say was:
Four years later the braindead voted in
the Liberaleither major Party.
neither party should have ever been allowed to build a network like this. labor started construction before they even had any idea what the network was going to look like. the liberals should have always gone with fttc instead of fttn. the country would have been better off if nobody built it, telstra was forced to split into a network and a retailer, and the market would have taken care of itself.
liberals could've just stuck with FTTP and shown the labor party how to properly roll it out instead of trying to do the MTM bullshit.
Doesn't take a genius to work out FTTP is better.
According to Moores's law processing power doubles every 2 year.
We can also see that Data storage rates and Data speed rates are also having exponential growth.
The Internet usage has grown 1000s of percentage since the 1990's with no reason to think its slowing down.
So with an amazing uptake in Intenet nationally and internationally and key attributes such as processing, storage and network requirements skyrocketing.
Who on Earth would think that a technology invented in the 1870's namely transmission via copper wire is suitable for the next 50 years.
The biggest disgrace in planning.
Hopefully someone with common sense and who has Australian residents interests at heart, whether they be Liberal or Labor recognizes the utter stupidity if flushing money down the copper path and starts the FTTP rollout.
I really tried reading the whole thing until I got up to Telemedicine.
The news article references research that's actually a case study that indexes against social "science" "standards" which is established by other social "science" studies, all whilst pretending to be anything other than what it is, a long fluff opinion piece.
Saying that NBN can improve medical care because doctors can communicate more effectively with faster internet is like saying my shitty diarrhea inducing cooking can potential topple drug cartels.
This article is exactly what I would have done if I was told to write about social science… with a minimum word count of 25,000 and relevant pictures.
I didn't think this was ever in doubt. One of the (many) reasons I utterly hated the Abbot government. At the same time - when has a government project even come in at less than something ridiculous like 150% of the budgeted cost? Or even more?
More to the point though - money is basically maths and objectively measurable. Wtf is "social return accounting" and how the F do you measure that? Because the article tells you absolutely nothing about it, other than that there are higher "social returns" on a FTTP network.