Hankering after higher broadband speeds is irrelevant. Let me repost an earlier comment made on the idea of moving from a high energy to a high information society. The comment is split into two parts due to length.
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...It is not commonly understood (even by many scientists) that high complexity/information requires high energy availability. You can read about this in Richard Heinberg’s “The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies”. This means that, as energy availability declines with declining oil extraction, we will be unable to maintain current levels of complexity.

Our current globalised economy is a good example of how abundant energy supports complexity. Currently, manufacturing of the components of high tech devices occurs at a vast variety of locations and these are then drawn together using real time transport logistics to create the finished product before it is distributed. Each of those component manufacturing locations in turn is operated using apparatus assembled from a vast variety of other manufacturing locations. While the number of different component manufacturers is great, the number of manufacturers for any specific component is not – there will only be a few in the world. (A good example of this is how most of the mobile phones made in China all use chips from a very few factories. Another example is the thousands of materials and processes required to manufacture something as “simple” as a photovoltaic cell. See:
http://tinyurl.com/3xqzqj )
In other words, the manufacturing of any high tech device requires a vast and intricate web of manufacturing interdependencies with critical components only being available from a few sources. If any part of the manufacturing world happens to be cut off from the rest (e.g. say that a catastrophic event/conflict involving Germany made manufactured goods from there unavailable) you would see rapid knock-on effects to the availability of high tech goods from anywhere else in the world. As transport problems and conflict increase with decreasing oil availability, it will become very difficult to maintain high tech manufacturing.

(continued in later post)

(comment continued from previous post)
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A related problem with your idea is that it is based on the common assumption that the current global information infrastructure is robust and not very energy dependent. This is quite untrue. The rate of hard drive failure in a PC is high (a computer tech at my workplace told me that he sees one in ten hard drives fail every year) and if supply of parts for maintaining computing becomes problematic we will see a rapid decline in the availability of this technology. Another point unappreciated by many is the extreme technological challenges that are involved in producing modern computer chips. The factories/clean rooms required to make these devices cost literally BILLIONS of dollars each to build and the manufacturing process itself requires materials of incredible purity. You can read an excellent essay on the vulnerability of computer chip manufacturing (“The Fragility of Microprocessors” by Alice Friedemann) here:

http://www.energybulletin.net/19131.html

What all this means is that, as energy production declines, so will globalisation and so will the ability to manufacture advanced technology. If this year is the peak of oil extraction, then my guess would be that the internet will be seriously degraded/unavailable to most by 2025. So what will we do for a “high-information society” then?

Finally, any solutions for our energy/information problems based on current economic structures (e.g. competing companies owned by shareholders) are very questionable since the entire economic paradigm (and our fiat currency/banking system) relies on continuous economic growth to survive. Efficiency gains aside (since these are subject to diminishing returns) reduced energy availability due to reduced oil availability must mean reduced economic activity (negative economic “growth”).

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So the conclusion is that, rather than wasting money investing in infrastructure that we will soon be unable to maintain or use, we should be investing in things that we really need like education for local agriculture, securing low-energy input (non-desalination) water supplies and local biomass and paper production etc. In 30 years we will all be saying, "Hey - do you remember the internet?"

maybe so. but it may that the complexity of our current society is partly the result of the radical speed of changes underway. i can imagine a possibilty that concentrating resources in fewer areas might sustain a hi-tech society if it were planned, rather than profligate.

let's hope so, there's about 6 billion surplus people now living for the future you envisage.

Whether we used FTTN or FTTH, without VDSL (52Mbps/16Mbps) been available we will still come last.

As for the sale of Telstra, politician were simply interest in Money not was best for the people of Australia.

All the telcos are only interested in controling Fttn/Ftth. Why because Landline Telephony is facing extinction. The future of Telephony lies in Mobile Phones and Internet Phone Services. Futhermore, find me a telco who is interested in servicing all Australian People.

Labor's plan must ensure that all telcos have access to the system and pay the same cost for its use. Either the system is own by all telcos or none of them. As for me it should be owned and managed by a company who is not a provider of such services. The tender process must allow for international companies to be involved and Technology must rule over price.

For those who have never heard of VDSL search the internet and learn.

Combine FTTP with VDSL.

The chart below provides a comparison of the various DSL technologies:

DSL Type. Send Speed Receive Speed

ADSL 800 Kbps 8 Mbps

HDSL 1.54 Mbps 1.54 Mbps

IDSL 144 Kbps 144 Kbps

MSDSL 2 Mbps 2 Mbps

RADSL 1 Mbps 7 Mbps

SDSL 2.3 Mbps 2.3 Mbps

VDSL 16 Mbps 52 Mbps

How far behind in our thinking are we?