Above two posters:

Exactly right. The most practical alternative to wholesale installation of fibre cable is a technology compatible with copper wire. Copper cables have taken years to install to current levels in rural Australia. What a mind boggling stupidity to now reinstall the same countryside with fibre cable.

optic cable installation is a massively expensive and unnecessary undertaking, if simply for the sake of a supposed social equity issue.

The cable technology is not sufficiently robust and is lightning prone to damage, will not tollerate stretching from flood and earth movement, and is generally unproven for use under harsh Australian rural conditions.

Cable repair and joining techniques require laboratory conditions which, even in its current small scale use in rural conditions, proves difficult, expensive and time consuming .

The proposed new venture requires an available workforce of such vastness in skills and numbers, willing to work endlessly under harsh, dangerous and isolated conditions throughout Australia to achieve cable installation to the end of every Nationally insignificant country lane for the HS venture to be universally successful: And this right on the heels of the completion of a National programme to install copper conductor cable.

We as a nation have a need to NOT demonstrate stupidity in such unachievable and unnecessary ventures of doubtful usefullness.

Governments must prioritise necessities over luxuries. They should never use our taxes for projects that they can’t prove will be good for the community. It is not clear whether <<paved roads>> are doing more harm than good to the human species. But what is incontestable is that it is a luxury. Human beings don’t need it to flourish - << paved roads and 4 lane highways>> pale into insignificance compared to the must haves of security, health, housing and education.
This is a great game. You can insert any number of things into this post instead of high speed broadband:
"Flush toilets are a luxury..."
Municipal sewerage and water systems...
Central electrical generators...
Good shootin' thar, Tex.

'Flush toilets are a luxury..."

Especially in the Commonwealth games village.

Bigger than a texan ten gallon hat and more "Grim","Grim".

It's irrelevant whether NBN is a luxury. Almost everything we have in our Western lives could be considered a luxury. Cars, TV, refrigerators, washing machines... All unnecessary really. But man they make life so much better, don't they?

The benefits for rural communities are endless, but some significant ones are:

- Access to more information outside the Murdoch press and prime time news, makes for a more informed electorate (I would hope)
- Access to on-line employment opportunities to help subsidise farmers incomes, especially during low-yield periods. With today's available technology, more and more people should be enabled to remain in the communities where they grew up and still make a decent living.
- Access to increased social interaction for isolated families.
- Access for farmers to the commercial advantages of fast internet. e.g. On-line livestock sales save massive transport costs.
- Closer to parity on education, health etc with urban counterparts.

$43billion over 8 years... It's not so much...How much has our misguided 'war on terror' cost us? and the illegal invasion of iraq...? (let's not forget lives lost, life long physical and mental injuries sustained and the related ongoing costs to society, plus 100s of thousands of lives destroyed in Iraq)

We spent a couple of billion on the pacific 'solution', which did nothing for anybody, anywhere, except perhaps make a few racists and xenophobes feel a bit safer and give the Coalition a few extra votes from these aforementioned small-minded people.