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The Forum > Article Comments > Broadband baloney: Kevin Rudd's unhealthy addiction to ICE > Comments

Broadband baloney: Kevin Rudd's unhealthy addiction to ICE : Comments

By Jonathan J. Ariel, published 4/4/2007

Kevin Rudd's broadband plans are a clear, present and future danger to the economic security of Australia’s workers.

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Another piece of trite ALP-bashing from Jonathan Ariel.

While I'm not an ALP voter, I'm moderately impressed by Rudd's willingness to invest taxpayers' money into the future infrastructure needs of the nation.
Posted by CJ Morgan, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 11:14:02 AM
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Steve Madden states that the government may be going to sell the Telstra shares from the future fund. That may be, however if the returns from that sale are retained in the future fund, then they would actually be increasing the value of the future fund. That however, is just speculation, on my behalf and Steve's, anyway.

The motivation of News Ltd et al to push this is obviously so that they can ensure that more people will have access to the rather unregulated 4th form of media. I don’t think that News or Lachlan Murdoch have any real worries about their access to high bandwidth networks.

Most Australians should currently have access to ADSL2+ (dependent on how far from the local exchange they are), however Telstra currently has not "turned on" these exchanges and won't until a competitor such as Soul (in regional NSW) adds their own DSLAMs to the exchange. This is what makes the propaganda I received with my last Telstra phone bill so laughable.

What I am concerned about with regards to the policy, is the lack of detail regarding what is proposed. For example, if a Rudd government is just planning to implement a Fibre to the Node (FTTN) network, such as that proposed by Telstra or even the G9 group (Optus, Telecom New Zealand (AAPT/PowerTel), iiNet, Macquarie Telecom, Internode, Primus, Soul and TransACT), how will they get past the impasse that currently exists to ensure that competition remains fair (well at least as ‘fair’ as it currently is)?

The policy from what I can see is basically “we will throw money at the industry and hope that they will come up with something that is not anti-competitive and will work”. A better start would be to see that Telstra switch on their ADSL2+ capabilities in regional areas and some fairer pricing that doesn't involve bundling home phone, mobile, Foxtel, electricity etc. just to get a decent priced connection.

cheers,

d
Posted by Deryck, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 11:29:53 AM
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Two Points:

1) The private sector has had years to get it's act together and improve the communications infrastructure and hasn't done so. This is infrastructure that is critical to the economy in the future and so it's important that the government show leadership on the issue, even if that means using tax payer money. Ideally any tax payer input should mean public ownership, and the government should receive it's share of any revenue.

2) Even if the government isn't able to gain a direct return on investment from the project, infrastructure investments help boost the economy which increases tax revenue and can provide an indirect ROI not available to the private sector. In your example if the government can gain enough extra tax revenue from the Super Mall to pay off all expenses, why shouldn't the politician push for the mall to be built?

Finally:

"He also proposes that the Super Mall offers the latest in customer conveniences, forgetting for a moment that he is talking of a small town in a mediocre state in a middle ranking country and not of a major city in a G8 nation."

Major cities in G8 nations got to where they are by making the hard choices and investing in the infrastructure required to drive the economy.
Posted by Desipis, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 11:43:13 AM
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My, what a sad piece of overblown rhetoric this is.

>>...Mr Rudd gleefully runs towards populism and 10-second sound bites that don't stand up to rigorous analysis<<

A pretty fair analysis of your own contribution to the discussion, Mr Ariel.

>>While Americans are united as one nation under God, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd would seem to be keen on bonding us, as one nation under the fibre optic cable<<

Pretentious? Moi?

>>The extra bandwidth Mr Rudd offers [is] a bit like your daily home delivered newspaper publisher demanding you fund a bigger mailbox<<

Mr Ariel leans heavily on the argument that Internet speed and bandwidth only benefits the "media and entertainment industries and the telcos [by selling] more of their wares online"

Breathtakingly shortsighted. A position that can be imagined only by someone who has never in fact worked in the real world, where revenue and profit are of critical importance.

Over the past few years - this will no doubt come as a surprise to Mr Ariel - more and more businesses rely upon the Internet to conduct their day-to-day activities. These range from simple accounting stuff like sending out invoices or paying bills, to dealing with the taxman (www.ato.gov.au), ASIC (www.asic.gov.au) and their State equivalents (for payroll tax etc.)

At an individual level, I now pay more than 95% of my bills online, book hotels, book holidays, book airline tickets (after tracking down the cheapest on offer), find the best rate for CTP Green Slip insurance and so on. Plus a whole host of other information-based stuff, from checking Latin grammar (yes, you can) to researching the content of a prescription drug to see if anyone around the world has reported side effects.

Using a "Super Mall" as the principle example betrays the author's complete lack of understanding of what the Internet does, or is used for.

>>Clearly the politician has slept through the last decade...<<

Sorry, I think this charge is more appropriately levelled at the author of this shallow and ignorant piece.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 11:58:35 AM
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Sounds like Jonathon is gearing up to retire and is concerned his publically funded nest egg is aobut to be srcambled.

Most people know the future fund is a crock - if all the C'wealth public servants were to retire today ( we wish) there might be an issue with helping them make that final payment on the "shack" in Batemens Bay or Dromana - but we know they wont be doing that.

Most ICT reports I have read support the notion in priciple

- some conservatives are a feared that Rudd is setting a precedent by raiding Peter Costellos slush fund - he has been scaring the bejesus out the nation about the unfunded super liability and the crap assumptions made in the Intergenerational Report for 5 years - because he and his mates are philsophically against government commiting to infrastructure development - they would sooner leave it to the private sector - well we all know when it comes to quarrying, building shopping compllexes and producing garbage magazines and commercial media we are great but when it comes to any thing else on a national scale our captains of industry just cant cut it.

Spend the money Rudd
Posted by sneekeepete, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 12:14:11 PM
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Allow me to clarify. High speed internet connection is a good thing. No, a great thing! Hey, I'm on ADSL2 and it's very, very bad value for $60/mth.

But, I don't see how see why taxpayers must fund an improved network. If the market doesn't produce such a network maybe there's a message in there for us. I do however see that media groups and telcos would welcome ever more gravy been spooned out to them.

If the government gets back into the telco business as Mr Rudd espouses, what industry will the government next go into? Where do we draw the line?
Posted by Jonathan J. Ariel, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 12:35:42 PM
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