Bias or truth? nbn™’s official blog just can’t stop attacking the former Government’s Fibre to the Premises policy. Does this fall foul of the GBE guidelines?

Along with last year’s flashy redesign of the then “NBN Co” website, the company introduced a “blog” section to their revamped site. Whether you liked it or not, at that point the NBN rollout had transitioned to the Multi-Technology Mix strategy. However, it became evident quite quickly that this site is being used to trash the former Labor Government’s NBN policy while parading the current Government’s policy of the “Multi-Technology Mix” rollout.

I’ve completed an analysis of all 127 blog articles posted on the nbn™ blog, as at the morning of 24th June 2015. The results are not surprising (see the table at the bottom for my full results):

Clear evidence of bias

Not an FTTN party pooper

For example, nbn™’s blog is all too happy to spruik British Telecom’s (BT) headline up-to speed of 76Mbps download. The figure pops up numerous times in nbn™ blog posts, including here and here. But when it was revealed that 74% of households could not reach the headline 76Mbps speed at all, nbn™ was silent. One might say, it’s bad to push a negative impression of its rollout own rollout strategy to the community. But then, why would nbn™ be more than happy to trash the Fibre to the Premises technology on its blog, given it accounts for almost a quarter of the MTM rollout.

FTTP? Neverrr!

Likewise, even when there’s positive news about a particular FTTP rollout, the company blog always takes a negative spin about the topic on hand. For example, when Singapore announced nationwide 1Gbps speeds over FTTP – nbn™ immediately went on the negative focusing on the issues of the aggressive competition in Singapore. Keep in mind, these issues will never affect Australia as no incumbent telco has the money to roll out such a network across such a vast landmass… which is why the NBN existed in the first place.

In fact, of all 22 pieces where FTTP was mentioned, only four (that’s 18%) were written in a positive light. One of the blog post was not about FTTP, the technology – but rather how Google Fiber has been driving competition using its FTTP network in the US. The others were about Hong Kong Telecom launching 10Gbps FTTP, CEO Bill Morrow’s reflection on his one year at the helm of NBN Co and Spain ONO’s aggressive FTTP rollout. To add to that, none of those blog posts were particularly positive – that is, unlike what the positive spin they would normally write about FTTN, FTTB or HFC, the FTTP discussion only permissively positive. No mention of the benefits of a reliable, FTTP network was afforded.

In stark contrast, there were no articles that described FTTN, FTTB, FTTdp or HFC in a negative manner. All 22 articles where FTTN, FTTB or FTTdp were mentioned described the technologies in a positive manner or had a neutral opinion. Likewise with HFC where of the 14 articles where the technology was mentioned, all had a positive or neutral opinion on it.

Why not a more balanced view?

By all accounts, both technologies has its merits and problems. But the blog clearly favours one technology over another. It continually rehashes the argument that FTTP “costs more than FTTN” and is “difficult to roll out in some areas” and that FTTN “is faster to build”. These may be valid points, but there are plenty of other advantages and disadvantages for both technologies.

Just as an example:

FTTP provides reliable and stable wholesale speeds, it is low-cost to maintain and does not deteriorate over distance;

FTTN speeds deteriorate over distance and copper conditions, in-field active equipment costs more to operate and maintain, copper maintenance costs are more expensive.

All are valid points about both technologies, as are those that the nbn™ blog continually rehashes and pushes. What is blatently obvious, however, is that there is evidently no attempts to balance the articles posted. They all ignore any problems that telcos around the world have faced using the “new” MTM technologies of FTTN, FTTB and HFC and only talk about the positives. In stark contrast, any mention of FTTP is immensely negative and ignores any positives a full fibre network has to offer.

The nbn™ blog is evidently one-sided and provides a narrow-minded view of reality.

Is this acceptable for a GBE?

Being a company owned wholly by the Government, nbn™ is subject to the Government Business Enterprise (GBE) guidelines. Sections 2.5 and 2.6 of the GBE guidelines clearly states that employees must “avoid activities that could give rise to questions about their political impartiality” and “being professional and apolitical”.

2.5 In particular, the government expects GBE boards to establish and maintain a code of conduct for directors, employees and contractors and ensure that GBEs, in undertaking their business, avoid activities that could give rise to questions about their political impartiality. For example, GBEs should not make direct or indirect political donations or participate in activities sponsored or in support of partisan political causes. 2.6 The code of conduct may cover the following matters: being professional and apolitical; customer service; work practices and performance; conflict of interest; relationship with suppliers; gifts and benefits; outside employment; appropriate use of assets and resources; and confidentiality of information, including in electronic form. It is desirable that the board establish and maintain a formal register of directors’ interests to ensure potential conflicts can be identified and managed.

Given these blog posts can clearly be interpreted as being a political attack on a previous Government policy and continually strives to rehash arguments against the former Government’s NBN policy – it raises questions about the impartiality of the authors of the blog posts.

Whichever way you look at it, I think the company’s blog is at the very least, verging on the borders of appropriate content for a GBE’s website. Whether it was the intent of the author to publish politically questioning pieces is not the issue here. It is the simple fact that it “could give rise to questions” about their impartiality that challenges the GBE guidelines.

The analysis:

Below is a list of blog posts posted since 15th December 2014. Depending on the content and its reflection on particular technologies in the MTM (or even the concept of MTM itself), I’ve flagged it as either positive, negative or neutral. Some articles do not reflect on any of the technologies.