This is an excellent article. I worked in venture capital for 25 years (5000 business plans, 50 deals, 25 writeoffs) and we found the biggest problem with regional businesses was the lack of air links. As the businesses grow the need for face-to-face contact grows exponentially with prospects, suppliers, and financiers. In a global world, Australia's capital cities are far enough away as it is, so adding the extra problems of poor air schedules to regionals became to heavy to bear.

It would only take off if more businesses embraced teleconferencing and telecommunications more.
Then YES, and thank god.

great article, totally agree.

there is no way that spraying bandwidth will create oppotunities of it's own - a few new businesses may come of it, but that's all - the main reason to get bandwidth is to move data around, but then you get other issues, like security and IP issues

kh - it's not so much embracing teleconferencing .. it doesn't work for human networking interaction - a lot of time spent in business meetings is developing relationships, personally, with others.

you just can't do that with teleconferences .. they are great for impersonal exchanges of data .. but business does not just run on data exchange during meetings

you can't go have a cup of coffee, or a timeout, exchange personal data to find areas in common with colleagues, customers, suppliers

teleconferencing is great for one on one, but for group on group it does not work

most people are quite reserved in teleconferences with strangers, or when both sides have to work together to solve a problem, worse when it is adversarial

one place they work well, is if the 2 sides are from the same organization and know each other very well already (no risk to ego)

the major reason we do face to face, is to develop a relationship

I've worked for 20 years in industries that have had the capability, before the public had access even, and have never seen it work with any effect.

given a chance, people prefer to meet with people face to face

The key driver of decentralization would have to be removal of excise tax on fuel required to travel long distances in this vast country.
Gas should be made available to Australian motorists at the same price it is sold for when exported, said to be 3 to 5 cents per litre.

In other words an NBN will only help to save our cities if the outrageous cost of fuel is significantly reduced.

The NBN is just another expensive gimmick proposed by a government which is a prisoner of big business and totally bereft of any idea of how to tackle the immense problems which Australia faces.In fact,I doubt if the majority of either of the 2 major parties even have much idea that the problems exist.

Surely we have better things to do with $40 billion(+) than build a broadband network which will probably be obsolete anyway by the time it is finished.Anybody who really needs broadband outside of the major population centres can already access it via existing wireless or satellite services.If those services need to be subsidized for those who can't afford it then that is a far cheaper option.

Climate change,building a non polluting electricity generating system,defence and stabilizing population at present levels are far more important issues.

Mentality is the real problem in Australia, not technology !

Good article, i have mulled it over for a couple of days as the NBN has caused much debate. I have always considered it to be a winner but i am a rural resident and anything in the way of modern infrastructure is a winner in the bush as we rarely see any of it unless it is for the advantage of city folk. Member for New England said during the week that 43 billion over 9 years was chicken feed. That is only 5 billion a year for 9 years followed by all commercial sales returns that are created during and after. Considering the disaster of the Telstra sale and the collapse of the share value of the AWB, holding on to an asset like this is preferred. For the technology doubters, optic fibre itself will not date for a very long time. The cable has the ability to carry information at light speed. It is the technology we plug into it that will date quickly. in the end this only helps to expand the retail and systems industries, more business more jobs.
Certainly the NBN itself will not give rise to the sudden decentralisation of commerce to more rural and regional centres. This will take much more infrastructure such as the completion of the national 1 highway and up grading the Newell and New England highways. Then there is rail infrastructure that has been left to deteriorate and many branch lines closed as maintenance costs have exploded. One of the articles main points was air travel to the regions, this will come with demand. At this stage there are airports all over the country that are underused. Capacity is there it needs demand.
Overall without projects like the NBN, growth and transfer of commerce from urban areas to the rural zones will never happen. Once this project is complete it is important that the government show what its plan is to keep the infrastructure improvements coming so as to offer incentive to business to relocate or to help current rural industries be competitive in the market place.

Having witnessed the population drift from the country to the capitals and coast I cannot see how it will have a worthwhile effect. It isn't as though we are talking about anything new, business and government have had the capacity to decentralise for some time, yet the direction of change has been the other way. The enforced (what would you call it when jobs were taken away) drift away from the country and the ossification of the larger inland and coastal cities has continued.

Honestly, what prevents government from locating the central offices of the Department of Veterans' Affairs or the Department of Health and Ageing in (say) Toowoomba? Oh whoops, Toowoomba doesn't have any water, what about Bundaberg, that is on the coast but its water restrictions were lifted due to recent rains, hope they keep up.

When government takes action to decentralise Canberra I will sit up and take some notice. Until then what about reeling back all of that over-enthusiastic immigration as demanded by the electorate?

The reason for the non-growth of Canberra is quite obvious. Would you want to live that close to so many politicians?

Couple of quick points:

1) The City of Ballarat has had some success at attracting corporations/large public service undertakings to its "Technology Park" such as IBM and VicRoads (both focused on teleconferencing). In this case it was the result of clever planning and integration with the local University's IT department (no doubt some tax concessions thrown in).

2) Yes, you need more than the NBN to encourage decentralisation. The Whitlam govt had built up a credible plan here in the 70s but were only just getting going with it when turfed out. It clearly requires considering transport, social opportunities, economics (including govt intervention). Advanced countries like Germany have a much more decentralised pattern than Oz, so it _can_ be done.

3) As a young person for whom dealing with climate change is a major priority, it's concerning all the posters here saying better highways and air links to regions are what's needed. How about a comprehensive nation-wide plan for rail connections to our regions? Even the tentative improvements in Victoria in this respect since 2000 are starting to pay off.

The government and either side is no different, hasn't encouraged miners to build mining towns or add to the development of country towns within reach. That is how some towns got going years ago, although when the holes are left and the miners have departed the shrinking of the town can be very painful, eg Mount Morgan.

Maybe if government wants to prove how NBN can save a city it could try an easy little existing target like Mt Morgan. If it is seen to be working adjust immigration numbers to suit. If not, close the immigration valve a touch because after all, it is just resulting in more overcrowding in cities. Isn't that what the electorate wants, the long-promised solutiohn before, not after, the record immigration numbers?

Government could always move the central office of Centrelink to the target NBN success story of Mt Morgan to help numbers. Or are the bureaucrats clever enough to convince the Parliament that a central office is really a 'national' office and therein lies a convenient rationalisation for all of that centralism in Canberra.

Maybe the senior bureacrats who have come up with the idea that the NBN would result in blooming cities out in the mulga could volunteer their departments as the first to be relocated. Accountability like that would be a first and something for Australia to boast of.

Pat S stop worrying about global warming, it, like the Y2K bug, is a non event.

Unfortunately you don't understand just how busy the management of even quite small companies can be.

I used to run a 5 vessel tourist day trip operation in the Whitsunday Islands.

Our larger, [325 passenger] newer boats were built in Cairns, & I had to go there regularly when the boats were being built, modified, or dry docked for maintenance.

Unfortunately the only flights available left the Whitsundays at 2.00PM, & arrived back at 1.00PM. This meant that to spend a day in Cairns, I had to effectively spend 3 days doing it. I could not afford that much time.

To avoid this waste of time I would leave home at 4.00AM & drive to Townsville, catch an 8.00AM flight to Cairns. After a days work I would catch a flight to Townsville at 6.00PM ex Cairns, & drive back to the Whitsundays, arriving some time after 10.30PM.

I did not work 18/19 hour days because I liked the idea, or enjoyed the drive, I did it because I could not afford to do otherwise.

People running large operations have even less time to sit in trains.

Oh, one other thing, most public transport uses more fuel per passenger mile than private cars. Public transport is only viable in the minds of the Green converted.

Hasbeen: << one other thing, most public transport uses more fuel per passenger mile than private cars. Public transport is only viable in the minds of the Green converted. >>

I don't suppose you'd like to provide some evidence for that assertion?

Also, I took your tale about the lack of a convenient air shuttle service from the Whitsundays to be some kind of plea that such a service should exist, even though there clearly isn't sufficient demand to make it economically viable - in which case it would.

You seem a tad confused, old chap.

..there clearly isn't sufficient demand to make it economically viable - in which case it would.
CJ Morgan,
I find myself in a very similar situation as Hasbeen on a regular basis. On the northern Qantaslink runs you get exactly as Hasbeen describes it. One of the major reasons is the very high booking by Public Servants who of course couldn't give a hoot about private enterprise having great difficulty because of all the utterly unnecessary travel at taxpayers expense. The Public Service does not question the 4 times above average airfare costs it just pays it. Would a 43 blln Dollar NBN free up much needed seats because Public Servants would not have as many excuses to fly around as if there was no tomorrow ? I doubt it very much. They'd soon say that the NBN is not sufficient enough a communication system & despite Tele conferencing etc they'd still travel because they wouldn't get travel allowances for teleconferencing. It's not super expensive technology that's needed it's less academic bureaucrats maggotting in the Public Service that needs addressing.

CJ. it was a Monash study I read a while back. I must admit I was quite surprised that a place like Monash would not have buried that one. They also quoted a similar study from the UK in their paper.

What I was trying to get across with my travel problem was in the last sentence, where I suggest that busy people don't have time to sit on trains.

We know that academics, & public servants have all the time in the world, & would probably prefer the slow boat, as a transport medium. However, those who have to justify their existence, & that of more than a few employees, by making profits, do not have the luxury of wasting time sitting on a train.

They can not even allow unsuitable timetables to cause them to waste time. The fact that the airline schedules were arranged to suit the main traffic, tourists in that area, was fully understandable, just inconvenient.

The whole NBN project has all the trappings of a political razz ma tazz look at me show.

have just had my internet speed increased from 1.2 Mbits to 10 Mbits
and the difference is not noticeable in almost all cases.
What politicians don't realise is that in a packet system because
the achieved speed is limited by the remote computer all that happens
is that packets arrive quicker but the gap between packets gets longer.

I just cannot see how faster internet is going to be a boost to
country towns economy. So what if some data arrives 1 msec
quicker.
It has been suggested that LTE which is a wireless (read radio)
technique, would be better in the regions and a lot cheaper.

There is another system, Wimax, which may be even better as
the protocol it uses allows for much higher transmit powers and does
not have the built in distance limitations of mobile phone systems.
My understanding is that given high base station locations and high
gain yagi antennae at the users location ranges up to 50KM would be
relatively easy. I can think of locations such as Mt Canobolas that
could give ranges out to 100 Kms.
Nairbe;
We have a much bigger need that roads, we need to get the mainline
railways electrified and branch lines reopened. Long distance road
transport will end together with significant air travel inside 10 years.
They could be extended longer but the politicians are not listening
so transport will face a crisis much sooner than many expect.

We face a crisis in funding for infrastructure due to the financial
crisis that started in 2007 and we have exchanged our savings for massive debt.
Credit is tight and probably will get tighter. Forget your highway
improvement. Have a look at what has happened in the US.
They are tearing up the tar roads and putting them back to gravel.
How long before that starts happening here ? Councils are already
bleating about loss of funds. Do you really think they will worry
about the internet in those circumstances ?

The National Broadband Network is only one of the necessary drivers for decentralisation. The use of Canberra as an illustration is instructive. Canberra is itself becoming a centralised city even though it was designed to have satellite towns. Unfortunately the dynamics of capitalizing of real estate leads inevitably to centralisation. As soon as the owners of land can capitalise and sell future value of the land there is an immediate push to centralisation and to push costs onto those who have to use the city in the future. In other words a central business district with high rents and high buildings enables the owners of land to capitalise the future rents without having to bear the future costs of congestion and getting too and from the city,

If we stopped selling land and only rented land, where the rent on land goes to the provision of infrastructure, then I predict we would reverse the trend to centralisation and I cite Canberra as the example. In the early years of Canberra land was rented and Canberra developed town centres outside the central area. Unfortunately the system was changed so that land value can now be capitalised (even though the land is still leased). As soon as this happened then the town centre concept was corrupted so that Canberra has become a centralised city like any other with new towns deliberately being turned into dormitory suburbs. Land is not released for employment outside the central area because the government, as the controller of land, releases land where they can get the greatest immediate capital gain. This means business in the central area and housing in the outer areas. This gives the government the maximum capital gain and pushes the cost into the future and onto future suburban dwellers.

People want to live near where they work and it is less costly to operate cities where this happens than it costs to operate a centralised city. The same applies to a country. Stop the capitalisation of land and spend land rent on infrastructure and we would get decentralisation and lower costs.

CJ Morgan;
I think you may be right that public transport, heavy rail in
particular uses more fuel in off peak times. However over a whole day
I think not. Look at a peak hour train, how much fuel would be used
by all those passengers in their own cars against the electricity to
move a crowded train.

Hasbeen commented on not having time to sit on a train, you have to be kidding.
The train is a lot faster that driving a car.
They can not even allow unsuitable timetables to cause them to waste time.
Anyway as London Transport said;
If you need a timetable, the service is not good enough.