Locked out of Commercial Opportunities & Growth
Ever since Turnbull announced the compromised, patchwork quilt of copper obsolescence I have been saying that this was going to cost Australia dearly. This is decision was about knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
Any communication network is, and should be viewed as, an enabling technology and as such what it is able to enable is limited by its capacity. In terms of capacity to carry, technology has reached, and moved beyond, 'Peak Copper'. The inherent physics of copper mean it that its day is done. It served its purpose way beyond its original intent, but technology and the world have moved WAY beyond any of the technologies cobbled together in Turnbull's version of the NBN.
But more important than the physical obsolescence is the technology/commercial obsolescence. That is to say that that innovation, technology development, business and consumer demand are already beyond it. It is this obsolescence that will cost Australia dearly.
Why? Because we will be locked out of innovative new applications that are only enabled by a communication network that has a capacity to deliver it. We are spending $50 Billion plus on a solution that we KNOW will not meet the immediate future technology requirements - and that is just what we can already see.
It means Innovative Australian businesses and technologists will have to go overseas to develop applications on a communication network that WILL enable their innovative business ideas and systems. It means that Australian businesses will not be able to implement innovative new business applications that drive new levels of efficiency and effectiveness. It means Australia will lose bright young minds to overseas markets.
As a business consultant I have personally seen three Australian business grapple with the impacts of a communications network, that even at its best, won't deliver for them. The three business are currently trying to develop work around strategies, but these band-aids won't fix their business problems. It simply kicks the can down the road, hoping that their will be a solution in the near future.
And ultimately it means we will have to build the NBN all over again.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
