discomfort or annihilation
skeptic,
when Einstein was asked as to how he thought the third world war was going to be fought he answered "I don't know but I know that the fourth world war will be fought with sticks".
Technology is absolutely great when it is controlled by thinking people but it is downright awful when controlled by megalomaniacs & other morons.

I have two rural propeties. One has a house located 2.8 km from the front gate, the other (house site) 3.2 km from the front gate.

So, am I to assume that as part of the NBN, I will have cable run to both these sites, even if I choose not to connect.

Can anyone clarify this for me?

Thank you rehctub. (assuming you are serious).

Were you involved on those same properties as recently as late 70’s when your telephone service was represented by a single strand of fence wire stretched between the trees with an earth stake grounded at each end, connected to a manual exchange in a remote country village many miles down the track?

And did the circumstances eventuate that after much frustration and badgering of the local MP, you welcomed a copper cable that stretched the same lazy miles of empty country roads and ploughed paddocks to arrive at the door of the same properties, with the addition of a shiny new automatic telephone exchange at the village end?

Did the service improve with the new technology, or was the fact soon apparent that the shiny new cables were arriving at the same moment as redundancy payments arrived for the small army of personnel once employed for the maintenance of phone lines and equipment in your area.

And were those same cooling late summer storms so essential for replenishing of dams and sustaining of crop, to expose themselves as the harbinger of doom to reliability of communication, once considered normal, flashing back and forth from farm to shining sea on the metallic message stick of copper wire cable?

Cont..

Cont.

And after the long delays of silence and frustration, assisted by kilovolts of lightning discharge into conveniently placed and efficient conductors of electricity designed for micro-volts, the shiny new copper cables; was not that frustration heightened while awaiting the arrival of repair crews from their migratory regional centres to become exacerbated by a highly prioritising private enterprise corporation with total focus on the need for profit and happiness of shareholders as the new business-model mantra?

And today a new promise of prosperity and further homage to the “Cargo Cult”, fanfare, drum beats and the sound of trumpets, the arrival of the saviour and God “Fibre Cable”. The same country lane shimmering in the same summer haze at the end of another shimmera of broken promises by the same self-serving experts now present the “armour plated” fibre cable: Another ribbon of steel, a $b43 lightning conductor of unreliability and waste to be serviced by the same army of “ghosts” which helped embed the rural reliance on the mobile phone.

It is difficult for people to imagine the future and to understand how the Internet changes your life for the better. I have lived the life of an Internet connected person for the past 18 years and I do not want to go back to "the way it was".

All the staff in our company spend their thinking and working time at home. We get together once or twice a week for face to face discussions and a meal together. This means we spend more time with our families instead of sitting alone in our cars.

I participate in weekly design sessions on the definition of standards with people from Europe, USA, Canada, and Japan. We examine diagrams, movies, presentations as though we were in the same room.

I am no longer a slave to the TV timetable and watch those programs that interest me at my leisure and without ads.

I participate in contract bridge games with friends without having to go to a dusty hall in the cold at particular times of the evening.

I read my daily enews papers.

I have picked up smatterings of languages before I go to foreign countries using visual language aids that put me in the context of the spoken word.

I explore all my holiday destinations and make all my arrangements myself.

I have not written a cheque or posted a letter for years saving me heaps of time.

I communicate with many more people on a daily basis than I ever did in the pre Internet days.

The list goes on.

The Internet is an essential part of my working, social and intellectual life and I think everyone should have the opportunities that I have to lead a richer more productive life.

rehctub,
Why would they roll out such expensive cable to some remote spot when wireless will fullfil your need. It will always be a second place option and if you are operating a business needing Ecommerce or having a diagnostic test run from sydney at your local hospital you will need Fibre.
The plan was never to supply people such as yourself with cable. That would be a waste. I won't get it here either never thought i would but i am expecting an improved wireless network that is more price competitive because i won't be restricted to one supplier only. The real advantages will be in my local town that will get cable, it gives the small community a chance to do Ebusiness on a level playing field.