'NBN is like a bathroom' says opposition, BCA agrees Following the political dictum not to waste a good crisis, Australia’s government-in-exile opposition Liberal Party has chosen the country’s floods as the current opportunity to attack the government’s NBN. Abbott has said “The one thing you don't do is re-do your bathroom when the roof has just been blown off and that's the …
They hate the NBN because they believe government should not be providing services or infrastructure, or, well, anything at all, really. The Liberals think everything should be provided by private industry who can then charge for it.
This kind of thinking is why, regardless of how much I despise Labor, I could never vote for the Libs. They're all a pack of lying bastards, even most of the minor parties too.
And this is why they will loose the next election by a landslide - all those politicians who are taking this as an opportunity to make political hay will find the Australian Public doesn't take kindly to it. On the other hand, those who went about doing their job (and doing it well) or actually *helping* (instead of slagging off their opposition) will see a boost in their rating.
Personally, I think the NBN is a good idea (at least in principle). To ask "what are the monetary returns" is akin to asking what the (fiscal) point was in going to the Moon - in and of itself, none; but look at all the technological advances that eventually tumbled out of it.
If you mean the Liberals will lose because of their opposition to the NBN then I think you're wrong. What I think the Australian Public will want is for the Nation's flood damage to be sorted out before people start trying to buy votes with a poxy fast connection to Farmer Giles. "Fast connection or all your local infrastructure back working mate?". Jesus, priorities people. Has everyone just been taken over by the "a fast connection will somehow make my futile worthless existence become utopian" fever?
Wouldn't the correct way to go about this be to hook up fibre to the cabinet then see if it's worth doing the final bit (or even just delaying it until a better time)? Especially when Mother Nature has just invoked all her ire at you.
The problem with the NBN rollout is that the NBN construction group is "being funded initially by equity funding from the Commonwealth. So far the Commonwealth has provided $662 million equity funding to NBN Co" and rising!!
Like all government funded companies in Australia they are a black hole into which TAXPAYERS money is poured. Layer upon layer of managers, poor decision making processes, jobs for mates etc etc.
Its inevitable that a national network will be built but if the government is involved then the result will be less than desired.
Plus from what i can work out, the plans being offered are less value than existing considering the speed increase versus the data download quota.
IInet in Tasmania
NBN-1 10GB + 10GB 25/5 Mbps $29.95
NBN-2 100GB + 100GB 25/5 Mbps $49.95
NBN-3 200GB + 200GB 25/5 Mbps $69.95
NBN-4 500GB + 500GB 25/5 Mbps $99.95
All this for virtual porn and lighting fast torrents???????
Less than 1km from the exchange and I get 8Mbps, when I should be around 18Mbits, and I pay the same price for the copper line. The plans are faster but the prices are the same. Could be worse, a friend on the same exchange gets 4Mbit to the north of the exchange and his back fence neighbour is on a pair gain.
The Oz opposition would have also opposed the roll out of telephones and even electricity as being too expensive and unnecessary given that business was able to function perfectly well in a pre-telephone and pre-electricity environment, so should be able to continue to function without such things.
If Tony Abbott had lived in Roman times, he would have objected to the rollout of Aquaducts.
$43 billion is the figure that's been thrown around, and the rationale behind it is so rubbery (as well as being kept out of view of the public) that industry people are saying it'll be something like $10bn on top of that.
And for what? I know we keep hearing about doctor's consultation rooms via webcam and online education - but really, it's mainly going to be used for streaming movies and BitTorrent.
In any case, none of that NEEDS fibre-to-the-home. If we spent even $5bn extending the quality connections currently available only in big cities out to the country we'd have all we need.
The NBN still lacks a business case to establish its economic viability (thus bringing into question the very idea of putative viability).
The basic proposal is akin to running an eight lane tollway/motorway/autobahn/autostrada to the front driveway of 93% of the Australian population. Of course, in the abstract it sounds like a Good Idea. But do we really want that? And especially at the cost estimated to be beyond a gross $A46Billion now.
But nobody has dared to say anything about the concentration of traffic and the contention that may occur as throughput rises (as expected by proponents of the idea).
And nobody in the gummint is game to say publicly that the base network in place TODAY, already provides a lot of 100Mbit throughput - especially in the Metropolitan Access Networks (between exchanges), and the interstate and interurban trunk connections.
But they sure as hell KNOW it because they are proposing to pay Telstra $A11Billion to rip out the old infrastructure completely.
It's a backdoor method for undoing the privatisation of Telstra, which has been handled badly by successive gummints from 1975 onwards.
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