Coalition unveil their broadband and internet policy

[jules]

i think people are missing the point a bit.

the NBN will in practice focus on delivering broadband to rural communities, so that they are not left behind cities. to me, it's a waste of money. the reality is, rural communities are rural for a reason - they don't have the same amenities as cities. deal with it - it's reality. $43 billion to perpetuate Labor's socialist ideal of everyone being equal, no matter what the cost, is just irresponsible. also, they're bound to screw it up.

 

[Grennan]

Not really - The Greens will win many seats in the Senate this time round - as there is no other party to vote for. (no strong party) and the Nationals have been over run by the libs.

If you're well off, then you will probably vote Libs. if your a poor working family you will vote Lab.

This is probably a discussion for the other thread, but the Greens do give Labor their preferences and having the Greens with the power in the senate is downright scary.

 

[Reaper]

Places like youtube demand high speed. now especially with HD quality videos.

This is what I find hilarious about the whole thing. The crux of the debate to me is how fast we want to watch our tv??? $40bill sounds kind of expensive to me considering I have a tv that works perfectly fine now via the satellite connection.

If it's that indispensable then what is wrong with private enterprise anteing up for it and selling it's capacity like every other service?? Interestingly govco said that after (can't remember how many years) it would only ever produce a "modest" return of 6% max which is coincidentally nearly the level that they consider a super profit for the mining industry.

Really - $40bil for what is really a play thing for 99% of the population sounds very steep for me.

Reaper

 

[acarmody]

I personally would love the NBN. Even though the estate we are living on is only 6 years old, Telstra put a stupid ring-configuration network in the neighborhood. What does this mean for us? Even though we are only about 1 kilometre from the exchange we can only get ADSL1, max speed, 150kB/s. This sucks, ever tried downloading a Windows service pack or anything over 100MB with this speed?

 

[sjmcc]

Let's all take our hands off it in regard to an argument about speed and requiring 100Mbps.

Any streaming, conferencing etc that I have taken part in work fine even currently, these sort of activities aren't huge bandwidth users.

As for online university, I currently study by correspondence (online) through several universities depending on the unit. I am yet to have a problem with any part of my study.

As for downloads, using a download manager on my current cable connection, I can download 700MB in around 5-10 minutes, depending on the time. Although by world standards (particularly South-East Asia) this is quite slow, I find it is more than acceptable as I can achieve a download of decent size in the time it takes to get some food from the fridge, make a coffee and sit back down again.

Whilst I would love a ridiculously fast network that would be "futureproof" for longer, the country is already in debt and I would much prefer a country with a stronger economy and weaker internet infrastructure than one with the reverse.

 

[Julie]

i think people are missing the point a bit.

the NBN will in practice focus on delivering broadband to rural communities, so that they are not left behind cities. to me, it's a waste of money. the reality is, rural communities are rural for a reason - they don't have the same amenities as cities. deal with it - it's reality. $43 billion to perpetuate Labor's socialist ideal of everyone being equal, no matter what the cost, is just irresponsible. also, they're bound to screw it up.

Couldn't agree more. You can't expect city services living in the sticks.

 

[Low_VX_Taxi]

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't fibre optics very difficult to repair once damaged? So we may be paying 60 odd billion now but think of the cost when Johhny Mullet decides to dig a hole for his new maibox and cuts throught the cabling for his and three other blocks.....

I learnt about fibre optics some 6 years ago and back then basically once the fibre optic cable is cut or damaged it goes in the bin.

Please feel free to correct me though

 

[sjmcc]

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't fibre optics very difficult to repair once damaged? So we may be paying 60 odd billion now but think of the cost when Johhny Mullet decides to dig a hole for his new maibox and cuts throught the cabling for his and three other blocks.....

I learnt about fibre optics some 6 years ago and back then basically once the fibre optic cable is cut or damaged it goes in the bin.

Please feel free to correct me though

I remember when they upgraded the cables at my old school. They attached a new fibre cable at one end of the existing cable. Then pulled the existing from the other end. This was due to the cable running under houses and a road between our two campuses. Had one of the cables snapped halfway through, their would have been serious problems.

 

[minux]

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't fibre optics very difficult to repair once damaged? So we may be paying 60 odd billion now but think of the cost when Johhny Mullet decides to dig a hole for his new maibox and cuts throught the cabling for his and three other blocks.....

I learnt about fibre optics some 6 years ago and back then basically once the fibre optic cable is cut or damaged it goes in the bin.

Please feel free to correct me though

Not sure how much legally I am allowed to say, but when some certain workers for a certain petroleoum company cut through an optic line of telstras, the certain petro company was charged $12,000 per minute while repairs were undertaken. The repair took 18 hours.

 

[Julie]

Not sure how much legally I am allowed to say, but when some certain workers for a certain petroleoum company cut through an optic line of telstras, the certain petro company was charged $12,000 per minute while repairs were undertaken. The repair took 18 hours.

#### if I were making $12k a minute I'd take my sweet arse time too:yeah: