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The Forum > Article Comments > The NBN - the next Rudd Government fiasco? > Comments

The NBN - the next Rudd Government fiasco? : Comments

By Henry Thornton, published 17/6/2010

'Before the election Labor promised us a 100Mbps broadband nirvana, delivered through a Public Private Partnership ...'

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The sporting metaphore is good, but the article forget to mention that PM Rudd was responsible for Australia's 4-0 loss in the football (and perhaps even the Blues' poor performance last night).
Posted by Donkey, Thursday, 17 June 2010 10:44:29 AM
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Well, that's about as sneeringly cynical as you can get! In fairness, the author alerts the reader to his bias via the headline; he forgets our OECD position vis a vis the GFC, the intransigence of the Opposition controlled Senate (just another obstacle to allowing the Government to implement its vision for Australia) and the fact that at long last we have a Government that wants to get the country moving.

The "fiascos" are the fault of incompetent or dishonest private business people. So go after them; normal practice is to sue the provider, not the Federal customer.

The equally smart-alec 'Nosworthy Report' adds a great deal of verbose regret without offering a vision for the future.

Please if you must opine, write something wrth reading.
Posted by LRAM, Thursday, 17 June 2010 11:12:58 AM
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Articles like this do nothing to improve the reputation of OLO. Mere ranting and slagging is not the informed opinion that we need on these important issues.

Perhaps "Henry Thornton"- aka "The Australian" could reflect on the Singapore Government's (aka Singtel in this mode) foray into NBN- see for example a recent article in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/technology/15iht-rtechbroad.html?scp=1&sq=singapore%20broadband&st=cse.

Australians were seen as early adopters of dialup internet in the nineties because individuals could make their own (several hundred dollar) purchasing decisions on an existing copper wire system with no time-charges. Faster systems required increasingly expensive and aggregated infrastructure, which are beyond the financial capabilities of individual companies.

Despite many reviews and enquiries (see for example the Western Australian analysis Big Pipes: Connecting Western Australia to the Global Knowledge Economy April 2006 http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/sib_tiac/index.html), the Howard government squibbed on its responsibilities to provide infrastructure in the National interest, preferring instead to reduce taxes and extol individual choice.

Governments have to do a "Wayne Gretzky" (a much over-used, but perhaps apt metaphor) with infrastructure. Many chasms can't be overcome with a series of small steps. Did Wayne always get it right?

I, for one, won't be visiting the website of the Henry Thornton evangelicals and I will continue my boycott of The Australian, which continuously squibs its obligations to the Australian community- it presumes to use the Nation's name as its own, while being a mouthpiece for sectional interests.
Posted by Jedimaster, Thursday, 17 June 2010 11:16:39 AM
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There are two major components of the NBN. The first is the high speed fibre back bone to the major nodes, secondly there is the roll out of fibre to each house hold.

The first part is estimated to cost $16bn and the second part is to cost $26bn.

While I agree that there is a need for an improved backbone, the existing copper network is perfectly capable of providing up to 12Mb/s with ASDL. The percentage of households likely to want to subscribe to more than this is in the region of 10%.

So in order to be "fair" to everyone, our telecomms bill will be slugged with the cost of the fibre, or the 10% of those who use it will pay a fortune.

If you want any indication of how this will pan out, just ask yourself what has happened to the "laptops for every child" that are gathering dust in warehouses.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 17 June 2010 3:04:36 PM
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Well said Jedimaster.

""There's more to come before the election," our old friend said in a conspiratorial whisper. "The NBN is about to blow up big-time!""

Ill informed, badly written rubbish based on rumour!
Posted by Loxton, Thursday, 17 June 2010 3:22:05 PM
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This fundy christian zealot has no pucking idea. He actually seems scared of it. Probably all the porn stories he hears. Talk about a luddite. Nothing but third hand garbage.

Irrespective of anything else I predict that the NBN will be Rudds defining legacy like deregulation and floating the dollar were for Hawke and Keating. Like gun laws and the GST were for Howard.
No one knows exactly what it will bring but I am willing to bet it brings a lot of new and exciting and productive technologies to us all.
Posted by mikk, Thursday, 17 June 2010 4:49:54 PM
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