spalen

The NBN our country 'voted' for was for 100meg to the home 'future proofed' for 'decades' thats what I was comparing. 1GB is the latest incarnation merely 48hrs old.

If you want to trust people who run tenders like that with trillion dollars of your money , fine. Personally, I dont.

IvanM

No one has voted for it yet? It was but a sperm in Conroys left testicle at the last election.

spalen

Agree, hence the use of ' ' :-)

Centurion

I liked this NBN comparison article. Just about says it all for me.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/coali...813-121x2.html

"Why worry about the cost when the NBN will generate massive externalities from the use of high speed broadband by other sectors? It will drive Australia's productivity and economic future.

If the world were that simple, governments in every advanced economy would be tipping money into superfast broadband. But they aren't. The NBN represents $2500 per head spent on high-speed broadband. But in America, the Obama administration has committed less than $30 per head while the European Union has allocated $4 per head.

Australia will have to get an awful lot of externality bang for its buck and the NBN isn't needed to deliver it. The critical sectors here already have fibre and high-speed services. Universities enjoy gigabit speeds on their own networks. Big business couldn't operate without high-capacity fibre links that at least five telcos offer and even 60 per cent of schools already have fibre."

Its such a shame that more people don't focus on the real issue. Cost / benefit rather than how awesome my Modern Warfare ping times will be.

IvanM

It is ashame people keep coming back as though it is of benefit to home users only. Ping times help for real time apps as well as frag rates in gaming.

JoeBloggs80

I don't know too much about this so have been reading up on it. There seem to be some pretty strong arguments for it here:

http://www.computerworld.com.au/arti...mic_argument/?

In one of its most recent reports on ICT, the World Bank described investments in faster broadband (with no distinction on technology platform) as "no regrets" infrastructure that carry little risk.

"We used the phrase ‘no regrets’ investment to capture the idea that, even if broadband does not immediately deliver the direct benefits expected, in terms of jobs and competitiveness, it will certainly benefit the economy as a whole and therefore the indirect benefits (for instance in terms of capacity-building, opportunity creation or speeding up the general flow of information) are substantial,” the World Bank’s lead ICT policy specialist, Dr Tim Kelly, told Computerworld Australia in a written response. “In other words, the broader, intangible benefits of investment in broadband mean that it is rarely, if ever, a bad investment...

...So while caution must always be taken when drawing conclusions on the existing body of research, it is noteworthy that the consensus view of organisations such as the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) - two of the world’s most reputable economically-focussed intergovernmental bodies - is that faster broadband and specifically fibre optic networks are a very good thing for any economy.

For instance, one recent World Bank study of 120 countries found that for “every 10-percentage-point increase in penetrations of broadband services, there is an increase in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points

IvanM

For me the big question is whether it comes down to value for money. Money will be invested one way or another. It about the best return for the taxpayer and it is hard enough to measure productivity gains through improved IT.

For me the need for the business, education, government and consumers is there.

My opinion is that there is at least 43bn in value to Australia however that is a leap of faith.

Whatever happens I believe Telstra needs to be split into wholesale and retail and regulations are needed to encourage further development of the backbones around Australia. Out of the cities business is pretty much stuck with Telstra for fibre. It costs a lot.

My own interest is that I specialise in managing large scale fleets of PCs around Australia and further afield. Give me fibre over DSL and anything over wireless. Satellite is horrible.

James516

Not a particularly relevant comparison - in the US there is no political will for public infrastructure projects so Obama spending more would be electoral suicide on ideological grounds (i.e. it should all be up to the private sector). Of course the EU isn't allocating much, it's up to national governments.

Fibre optic infrastructure will be better, faster, and most importantly very future-proof. Speeds will be increased by putting better machinery at either end of the fibre. Copper wires can only ever handle so much.

I'm a Liberal normally but the coalition have got this one very wrong. Wireless is a method of last resort, it shouldn't be a cornerstone of the infrastructure.

THR

I haven't noticed a thread on this subject, so I'll start my own. However, if there is an earlier thread, let this one fade away.

You will have a general election next Saturday. How does it look like who's going to win? I used to take very active interest in the Aussie politics in the years gone by but the very recent developments have somewhat escaped me. For example, I have no idea why Kevin Rudd resigned and Julia Gillard became Labor-leader and PM. Was Rudd an incompetent leader or was the party just lagging in the polls?

Next week's election will be between Labor led by Gillard and the Liberals led by Tony Abbott. Perhaps some other parties will get fringe-seats but the two-party system is deply entrenched.

John Howard was PM for 11 years. He managed to become some sort of "face of Australia" not least because of his very servile attitude towards the US including engaging in the war in Iraq. Is this Abbott a 2.0 version of Howard or is he a man of another view?

You have a system of compulsory-voting. Does anyone of you oppose the idea of the government forcing you to go out and vote to the extent that you actually spoil the ballot?

Is it compulsory to vote also at the state and local elections?

Pollyana

Threads merged

THR

Ok, there was a really long thread on it, sorry, I hadn't looked long enough, wasn't on the front page.

But still, what is your view on the system of the government forcing you to turn up at the polling-station? Do you agree or disagree?

Pollyana

i don't have to turn up. I'm not a citizen

Even if I was I don't agree with compulsory voting though and would rather pay the fine.

Amazulu

The election is there for the taking by both sides.
I expect the socialists to win by a whisker but the coalition also has a great chance.
It's very open.

MartinLuther

I bet Peter Costello's kicking himself. He could have rolled this one if he'd had the guts to ride out a few years in opposition.

BristolBeary

Better throw our mobile phones in the bin then.