Having spent many years designing and building electrical and automation systems, I have installed more than a few networks of various protocols.

For the high speed business systems, the typical configuration is to have a fibre back bone between the major nodes, and CAT 6 copper cable to computers etc.

The fibres are capable of speeds in excess of 10 000 megabits / second, while the cat6 can only do 1000Mb/S. However, whilst most Internet connections fall below 10Mb/s this is generally not a problem.

The major network problems are not the hold hold connections, but the back bones. While existing phone lines to homes are not cat5 or Cat6 cable, they are still mostly capable of speeds in the 10-20Mb/s.

An earlier proposal for the NBN was to upgrade the backbone to street corners, and continue to use the existing phone lines. This would have given 90% of Australian customers the same service that the New super delicious network proposed by Stephen Conroy has proposed.

The cost difference is massive. The proposed backbone upgrade was estimated to cost $5bn, whereas the Conroy version is to cost $43bn.

Having fibre to my home, would also mean that I would need an expensive fibre to copper converter, as PCs don't take Fibre. PCs are configured to take up to 1000Mb/s so the 10Gb/s capability of the fibre is wasted. I have a 30GB monthly plan. At 10Gb/s I could theoretically use up my entire monthly allowance in 24 seconds. However, the reality of connections to the outside world would require that speeds be truncated to levels not much higher that 10Mb/s.

The difference between the cost of the two scenarios is about $7500 per house hold, which whether we like it or not, we will have to pay for.

The agreement with Telstra and the NBN is that when the fibres are pulled in, the copper is removed, so is the choice.

Some valid points SM.

I also worked in the industry for AT&T. I was in Southern California in 1992 when the first very large scale FO bundles were laid as part of the “Information Super Highway”. We also laid Asia to North America sea bed FO and launched a few satellites.

I’d like to know if, in your view, the NBN could be replaced by wireless technology before nationwide installation is completed; it just seems such dated technology.

I hear much about the speed of FO broadband to the home. My experience is that many home PC’s run pathetically slow for no other reason than their “Windows” operating systems are “clogged” with temporary internet files and viral infections. Nothing to do with internet access speeds

Do I understand correctly that in a few years (if Labor is elected) I will no longer be able to use my existing copper-based phones at home, only because of this stupid internet-thing?

Do I also understand correctly that I will be charged much much more just to be able to have a basic telephone at home, or for the occassional web-access for banking/shopping/E-mail/OLO, all together well under 1GB/month, all due to those mega entertainment-services which I have no use for and rather read a good book instead?

Do I understand correctly that nobody will even want to talk to me, face-to-face any more when I'm old, because everyone will be totally absorbed and glued to their technology-thingies?

Optic-fibres to eat, optic-fibres to drink, optic-fibres to wear, optic-fibres to cover, I guess this robotic government simply decided to get rid of real people, which they consider a nuisance.

Spot on.

SM
There are issues to be answered with the NBN and it's a valid topic but 'White Elephant?' come on!

Do we really need to discuss wire technology V OF? i.e.Maximum ADSL2 on copper is only available to those within a limited geographical range of the Exchange. Also give the exchange is a Telstra one the cost is several times that of other providers.
This hobbles my son's activity sending drafting blue prints. Pricing him to be marginal value when competing with others who have OF.

Radio technology internet is currently slow and outrageously expensive.

Your argument has some *short term validity* and smacks of Political inspired Ludditism. In truth there will be options by the time it's up and running.
I see NBN as both strategic planning and practicality like the switch over from analogue To Digital TV. Those who think it's worthwhile will do the switch those who don't won't i.e. I still have my clunker TV with a box on the top, it suits my need untill "COVET" dies I see no reason to consider the move.

Additionally I have no doubt that some entrepreneur will be flogging a cross over interim technology.

I understand that OF technology is being integrated now.
Clearly you have forgotten that computer speed/technology is accelerating at a rate of doubling every 6-12 months. Worrying about current computer technology being able to maximize OF speeds is a load of cobbles.

What we're dealing with is planning for the future or stop gap that will cost more later...I remember reading the arguments about the snowy being too expensive etc. It should be noted it would be financially impossible to do it today.

Is this the best program there is or will be ? probably not but it beats having to revisit the coalition option later at great expense.
When you do your numbers factor in all the calculable variable.
in the final analysis it is a matter of judgement me, I favour NBN.

Examinator,

I often despair of your posts, especially when it is patently obvious that you haven't read or understood what I wrote.

The original plan involved taking the fibre to the street corners, not to the exchanges. The degradation of signal would be minimal and 20Mb/s would be easily feasible for 90% of homes, which is presently not even close to possible with the present backbone.

Extending fibre to each home later does not require further upgrade to the back bone, and could literally be considered as phase II to be installed in an ongoing basis as required. Or individual users that wanted to get 100Mb broad band might just pay for the privilege.

In short the back bone upgrade gives 80% of the benefit for 10% of the cost.

Considering that only 62% of households actually wish to pay for broad band access, most of which was sub 1Mb/s, the question is whether we are getting what we need, or is this a shiny new toy that the Labor government can wheel out as an "achievement".

Shadow Minister & others
The fibre to the home is a Rolls Royce solution and likely to be at
a Rolls Royce price.
You will not get the 100Megabit speed, well you will, but the data
arrives in packets. The packets may include up to about 2000 bytes
perhaps, but what happens is that the gap between packets will increase
over what you experience now.
The reason for this is that time it takes for a file to arrive depends
not on the speed of the network but on the rate at which the remote
computer can dump its data into the internet.
It depends heavily on how many people are connected to the remote m/c.

Hope I have not been telling too many how to suck eggs.

There is one other problem, with fibre you will need to provide a
240 volt power point for the terminal equipment With Fibre to the node
that is not needed as DC is fed up the telephone line.
You will get the fibre as the electricity suppliers will insist so
they can run their smart meter system.
Re wireless, it will not be on the mobile telephone system I suspect
but may well be Wimax which can give ranges up to 100 Km from base
stations depending on antennas and heights.

SM,
I understood your point and or argument. My comments are still valid. What I'm saying is you are thinking now not the future. I would suggest that you consider ALL of what I wrote.

I was thinking national strategy not supporting someone's 'Cash cow' or 'captive markets'. I am not blind sided by specific commercial interests.

shadow minister, i have always thought that the NBN was fundamentally a good idea, but as you have exposed yourself as the expert pray do tell.

Is it true that optic fibre is capable of moving it's photon at light speed?

if this is correct then surely the future possibilities are limitless? (considering the meaning of light speed in a vacuum)

if the possibilities are limitless, then is not the only hold back the technology plugged in at either end?

Then if we restrict the ability with copper, are we not simply putting off cost till later when it will be more expensive? clem Jones was heavily criticised for his plan to sewer Brisbane back in the 60's. He did it anyway and found the money in the end at a cost much less what it would have been 10 years later.

The only problem i was having was labors ability to actually deliver such an ambitious plan.

Shadow Minister,I have to agree.I spoken to people in the IT industry who agree.We don't need it.There are more pressing issues like road/rail infrastructure.This Labor Party been driven by Corporate greed,so our taxes shore up their bottom lines.We do not need another $ 43 billion in debt.

All needs to be done is that Labor abandon their planned clean feed internet censorship nonsense.That will cost us nothing.

The fibre will terminate in a certain type of hub which will have a number of outputs, depending on what's required - internet, digital TV, digital telephony or whatever. The hub will have a battery backup if required so there would be no loss of connection in case of a local power blackout (although the peripherals would have no power anyway - just like a cordless phone).

Cost would be based on the amount of data transmitted, not just the available speed. The data could be voice, internet, TV, video-on-demand or private virtual networks for business users.

As someone who has also been in Telecommunications for 35+ years I can say that the days of analogue telphony are coming to an end. Even Telstra is retiring its digital network and moving to multifunctional IP-controlled "soft-switches" in the capital cities. Their Next-Gen network is coming (to the capital cities) regardless but fibre would take it to a whole new level. Rural areas however, would get nothing without the NBN and wireless-only is a dead-end solution.

As for it being a white elephant, a layer 2 Ethernet appearance in most homes is just the beginning of what's possible.
Looking at it from just increased Internet speed is missing the point, although most were happy with their dial-up 52K Modems only a few years ago.

To also think of it in purely economic terms rather than as infrastructure is a typical historic argument.

Why did we replace perfectly good gas lights in our streets with electric ones or build those big highways between cities when there was little traffic on the roads? Indeed, why replace perfectly good horses-and-carts with those expensive noisy machines in the first place?

The city of France had a huge fight with its population when it tried to introduce sewerage and drainage because it was such a huge unnecessary cost to the public.

In reality we are just playing catch-up with similar countries and economies and if we miss this opportunity, the next comparable one would be far more expensive.

Wobbles, I see that you are very technically knowledgeable:

Can you tell us, simpletons, in simple terms, what does all this entail for those of us who are already happy with what we have and wish to retain the same and nothing else for the remaining years of our natural lives?

Or, are you representing the nanny state, imposing on us that we must have what nanny believes that we "need", "for our own good", without ever asking for our consent?

Yuyutsu, its called progress and change. Must be you are getting old and change scares you. So i am sure that you don't drive a car with emissions control or unleaded fuel, still use an analog mobile phone, never consider digital television and are happy for business in this country to comunicate with morse code.
Change hardly constitutes a nanny state.

Running fibre to every house is the Internet version of building a concrete free way to every small street. As many people have pointed out, there is a good chance that the demand for this speed will grow within the next decade or so.

However, the NBN lite version of upgrading the backbone only does not preclude this, only delay the second phase until it is required.

There are two main reasons why this delay is advisable:

1 Until the demand for these higher levels are in place, the government will be required to subsidise the "company" at taxpayers' expense.

2 Optic fibre cables and equipment has until recently been almost exclusively designed for industrial uses with the commensurate high costs. As this technology undergoes the same consumer competition, the prices and quality will fall drastically.

This means that even delaying the second phase a few years will drastically reduce the costs in real terms, and the required modems in the homes will probably be smaller, cheaper, more energy efficient, and have capabilities that we can only dream of today.

Who would realistically buy a computer today for needs he might have in 3 years?

Luddites.

I presume you lot are happy with your 56k dial up modems and never use UTube, Google Earth, Bittorrent, Skype, Flickr, Streaming video/movies, ITunes, Iview, games and downloads of all sizes and shapes etc etc etc. None of these things were even dreamed of ten years ago. With our crappy telecoms infrastructure we dont even get to use these new products to their full potential.

A fibre optic system will be longer lived and have lower maintenance costs than the current system. The current copper based system is on its last legs anyway and desperately needs replacing after decades of government and Telstra neglect and cutbacks. Would you lot really have them just replace copper with copper? Have you seen copper prices lately? It will also replace Telstra's damaging, self serving monopoly on infrastructure.

Who knows what new applications and products will be invented to make use of what will be a giant step forward from what we have now.
Just a few imaginings comes up with things like
Much more telecommuting and business done via the net
Real time access to surveillance footage. (crowd sourcing security)
Medical imaging and conferencing, maybe even consulting, in remote areas
Larger, or even true unlimited, download limits.
Growth in gaming both playing and designing.
Mobile coverage will improve as will mobile speeds and bandwidth.

The largest part of the cost is making it near universal. The costs of connecting those that live in country areas are huge. But would you deny your fellow Aussies a service just because they live out of town? Dont all our farmers and primary producers deserve the net too?

Build it and make Australia part of the future not just a dirty old quarry and coal mine.

mikk,

My point exactly this is a strategic plan.
On thing I notice about capitalism you supply a technology some entrepreneur will see it as a new opportunity.

You should be aware SM is too busy waving his "vote for Libs" dogma to see the probabilities.

Mikk,
You seem to reflect the labour party attitude.
You would go ahead without a cost benefit analysis I presume.

This is probably what an analysis would have found.
When the copper has to be replaced, replace it with fibre and where
a large customer or customers need fibre put it in and charge appropriately.

I don't have fibre here but I can do all the things you mention.
Except perhaps on line gaming.

Now for the killer statement;
Alcatel Lucent have developed equipment that can send 100 Mbit data,
which is the NBN speed, over a twisted pair for 1 KM .
This technique could be used with the fibre to the node.

For probably 95% of the ultimate NBN users their most pressing need
of perhaps 10%, would be for playing on line games !
Is that worth $43 billion of your money ?

No one on here is considering other than a "Business as Usual" environment.
The need of the internet will decrease and in some years hence the
internet itself will become unreliable and access may be restricted.

There are much bigger fish to fry than internet speeds.

Mikk; we all know that those outside of the capital cities have some
disadvantages. You also have some advantages.
All in all we make the decision where we will live.
We then have to live with it.
So, it will be possible to improve the speed for such as yourself and
that was and is being done anyway.
Fibre will I presume, be cheaper to maintain, but it is like a car, you
don't go and buy a new car when the 10,000 KM service comes up do you ?

Most of the copper in the ground has good quality plastic insulation
and will probably be sound for the next 100 years.
When energy depletion sets in and electronics gets into a very great
problem with rare earth and specialised material supply we might be
wishing that we still had the copper so we could re-install that old
time POTS telephone system.

Nairbe,

It is funny how you call me "old" in a derogatory context. It seems the attitude of Labor in general to despise old age, but I don't see anything wrong with this natural phenomenon. I am prowd of who I am, of my body and of how I live.

My great as new 1992 car uses unleaded fuel. It takes me everywhere I need, at 12.5 Km/Litre in the city/suburbs. I have no mobile phone of any sort, never had, never will. I have no television of any sort - what a great relief and yes, I listen to the radio occassionally. Morse code is great, because for a change, one needs to think before they send a message. I actually used it... when I was in the Scouts. It was great fun.

It is not that I'm afraid of change - I simply detest that way of life. Perhaps unlike most of you Laborite lot, I am happy with what I have, with how I live, with what I achieved - I am just not addicted to your particular drug.

I do have a telephone for occassionaly keeping in touch with friends and relatives. For convenience, I actually have three of them in different rooms, connected to those copper wires which you so much hate. Should my modest request to keep my telephone operating be too much, compared with all those other shiny things that you covet?

Mikk and examinator.

Instead of just throwing stones, and accusing anyone who does not support this massive cash splurge a Luddite, perhaps you could explain exactly what 100Mb/s will give a home internet user that a 20Mb/s connection won't.

Considering that with modern compression techniques, a HD video signal requires about only 2Mb/s, what on earth would require more than 20Mb/s.

In a while, I am sure that something will arise, but in the interim, we have a $20bn copper infrastructure that is aging, but perfectly capable of meeting our needs of 90% of the population for the next decade.

Why on god's earth would you build something so expensive now when it is only needed much later, and can be built later for a fraction of the price?

Labor is trying to appear fiscally responsible, this makes a complete mockery of their claims.

Yuyutsu, so sorry to have touched a sore spot. Actually the reference to old is not about age just thinking. You could be 25, 45, 65 doesn't matter it's the fear of change. I get your want to maintain the basic telephone service you have, but have you really thought that through. A mobile (unless you are in a rural area of question) is a cheaper and more reliable option as a phone service. Security wise both personal and national it is better. less faults than copper meaning lower maintenance costs. my mobile which i use predominately costs me little more than my line renal each month making my home phone an expensive luxury item.

Yuyutsu;
Hey don't anyone knock the morse code. It is quicker than SMSing.
I usually use it a two or three of times a week.
When the internet and telephones fall over you will all be running to
the likes of Belly and me to send your Xmas Greetings, Happy Birthdays
etc etc.

Dah de Dah

Sigh SM,

you are (deliberately) missing the point to support you party choice.
Strategic placement is more about FUTURE advances that simply meeting current needs.

The snowy was over kill and then some in 1955 but look at it now we in Aust could do with more non fossil fueled energy.
I can just imagine if the snowy didn't exist and it was proposed to day I can just hear your protestations.

As I also said I'm prepared to bet that by the time it is rolled out there will be wanted technologies not available to day, in play see see the growth of the computer technology/ internet ad nausium.

Luddite is apt.
NBN as it stands may have flaws but (no plan that far out can expect to get it all right) but it is a medium/strong STRATEGIC bet.

Especially, if one considers having to revisit the Libs plan a few year on probably before NBN is bedded in . The cost for ad hoc advances will be far more expensive than to do them now

Nairbe,

I conscientiously object to using a mobile phone because I don't believe it right to send electromagnetic waves through other people (and animals and birds). I am not willing to support those towers or brain-tumors for others or myself.

In addition:
* with a mobile phone, others expect you to be available at all times.
* with mobile phones, big-brother always knows where you are. Others probably too (especially those who would be very glad to know when you are not at home!)
* mobile phones are impolite. Glazed-eyed people keep talking into thin-air in public places. You can't even be sure whether it is you whom they are talking to or someone-else. This is prior to even considering the chance of peace and quiet.
* the buttons on mobiles are way too small - I shouldn't need glasses in order to dial.
* fixed phones are 100 times more reliable, less faulty than mobiles. I only experienced one fault, for a few hours, in the last 10 years, except of course those few minutes that took them to connect the ADSL.
* There is of course a fixed fee, but calls from fixed phones are actually much cheaper.

You may think that I am strange, but people like me are simply under-represented here, on the internet. Also, people who are happy with what they have do not tend to go out and about screaming for "more", so they are also under-represented: this does not mean that they do not exist!

I was hoping that with all your technical knowledge, you will be able to tell me (and others) what's going to happen to my ordinary telephone service under Labor's scheme.

Yuyutsu, I'm with you. I have never owned a mobile phone, or a sat nav, & have no intention of getting either.

I did carry both on a recent trip from Melbourne to Qld in a 32 year old car I had just bought. A mate insisted I take one of his sat navs, & an old mobile of his, for safety.

The sat nav was useful in finding my way out of Melbourne, [although I had to ignore it where it's map did not have a new road, & I did really value its ability to check the speedo of the car.

The phone was supposed to save me, if the unknown car broke down. It may have, if the thing had broken down in one of the few places it had a signal, rather than the long stretches where it didn't.

In the 60s I did 56,000 nautical miles around the pacific, in a yacht. My marine radio had a range of about 12 miles, & sat navs were far too dear for us mere mortals, back then. The fact that I'm here now proves you don't need all this stuff. I find it slightly funny that it is those who want us to reduce our carbon footprint that want all this stuff.

I would not be surprised if the whole network was superseded by a newer technology, before it was fully installed.

I was recently horrified to see a new big screen TV in my grand kids play room. They are 1 & 1/2, & 2 & 1/2 years old, I I felt they could probably survive with the moderately large older one they had, even if it was only a set top box powered thing.

It's not the cost of the fibre itself, it's the cost of hauling it through the existing pits and pipes and ploughing in even more.

There are complex access, heritage and environmental issues to consider for all new excavations.

Waiting for it to be somehow magically cheaper is like holding off on buying a house in case the cost of real estate may fall.

Despite the notion that copper is "the eternal metal" (look at your car radiator) the cost of maintaining it is extremely high. A lot is corroding badly and since maintenance was slashed years ago, much of it is failing.

What do all the major highways, the power stations and power lines, the railways and piped water have in common?

They were all utilities provided by governments because they are the only ones who can work and plan on such a large scale.

Likewise, before it was Telstra, it was a government Commission called Telecom. It's commission was "to provide a basic telephone service to 98 point something of the population at a reasonable and equitable cost" - which it did.

If it was still in government hands it would be building the NBN (or equivalent)on our behalf. Now that it's an independent corporation, the only alternative is for the government to sponsor its construction directly by creating a separate entity.

There's really no other practical alternative for a national system.

It's true that you don't have to use it just because it's there. You can hang onto your old analogue TV too but don't complain when they turn off the transmitters.

Ten years ago, even ADSL was a fantasy. What will we have in ten years time?

Beyond all the usual consumer arguments there is a significant advantage to business and national efficiency that most people just overlook.

Ten years ago I as working for a company in Texas who were actively acquiring TV bandwidth licences used to distribute paid TV signals and converting them over to wireless broadband internet services.

The technology was very very new, Cisco were involved ...

That was ten years ago and a lot has happened, technology wise, since.

So, I note spindoc’s reference to wireless technology and would comment, this would seem to be a more cost effective way to go than hardwired into every house, particularly since digitalised data allows greater concentration of signals than analogue (I am now watching myself as I step into areas beyond my understanding or capacity so will leave it there)

I would reckon on a couple of things

1 local wireless hubs connected, to intercity backbones could work as well as the proposed NBN and be alot cheaper per user hour.

2 why is the government investing in what is clearly not an essential service. By “essential” I mean, 20 years ago it did not exist but mankind did, so what did not exist 20 years ago cannot be claimed to be “essential” today?

3 if this is such a “good idea” why is the private sector not clamouring to supply it?

4 does this notion carry the stench of another “government-backing-losers” about it?

5 Does Conroy’s lust for monopoly control of a NBN, combined with a censorship program usher in a dark new paradigm in collectivist interference and curtailment of civil liberties, like China?

To my way of thinking, if

private enterprise, with its resources, expertise and commercial acumen cannot supply competitive high speed Internet services,

government, with its access to tax payers funds, bureaucrats and a history of backing losers will not either.

Wobbles, examinator et al,

Irrespective of my political affiliations, the technical facts are simple:

1- The major bottle neck presently is the back bone. For 10% of the NBN cost, the consumers can get an average of 10x increase in speed. With the average consumption requirements of broad band increasing st the way they are presently, this should meet Australia's needs for the next 8-10yrs.

2- Technologies are rapidly improving, for example for wireless, the technology is improving rapidly. In the plant I am building for example, the office block will have Cat 6 cabling, but the rest of the plant will have wireless. This wireless will be using new software that will enable multiple users, including security cameras to use the same bandwidth, and on top of that it will allow personnel to use mobile phone via VOIP that can revert to the usual GSM once off site.

If this technology progresses at the rate I expect, in 10 yrs the need for fibre to every house would be replaced by multiple nodes along the streets with overlapping areas and load sharing capability, and while presently limited to 54Mb/s with compression etc, is targeted for much much higher.

This could also be done at a fraction of the cost, and with the mobile telephony capability would render today's mobile phones completely obsolete.

As I said before, there is nothing stopping anyone installing fibre to houses if requested, but if I were to spend the additional $38bn I would rather spend it on infrastructure that is desperately needed today, such as roads and airports.

Typical short-sightedness on display here.

We're talking about keeping up with the rest of the world, and planning for the future at the same time so that we spend $43bn now rather than $100bn later. Why are you arguing for us to do a half-arsed job? Typical baby-boomer conservatives who don't give a toss about generations to follow. (the same people, I notice, arguing against action against climate change).

This is the only real issue that differentiates the two major parties for me, and as a result Labor win with a landslide.

And how many people against the NBN actually live in rural areas where this will benefit the most?

TrashcanMan, your post is typical of dumb young lefties, with little reasoning power.

If, as you suggest, it is baby-boomer conservatives who are against this waste of money, it is precisely because they have a real concern for future generations that they want it stopped.

If it does go in, & is actually working as planned, something which has not happened with any of this governments initiatives yet, we older ones will get to play with it free of charge. It is our kids who will be left to pay off a huge bill for yet another white elephant.

Instead of throwing insults around you should be glad that we are prepared to at least try to protect you from your most stupid ideas. There is nothing in it for us. However, as most of us are parents, we are used to trying to guide headstrong young folk away from bankruptcy, it just goes with the territory.

Trashcanman ”Typical baby-boomer conservatives.”

I was living in UK when the excesses of “nation building at all costs and damn the consequences” were being paid for by those who succeeded the failed socialist politicians responsible for such incompetent strategies

The point –

The real world lives with a very simple economic model... called “return on investment”

Now, just as “investing in climate change” produces no economic return

So too throwing an additional $30 billion or so at a supposed “problem” will produce no economic return

And when ventures, especially ventures on this scale, are pursued, with no economic return one has to ask the question –

Where does the money come from.

Well that is simple

One of two places

Either the electorate are taxed to recoup the costs or

Other government services are slashed to finance the cost

Those are the only two options... no “magic-pudding” scenarios, that is what got the UK into so much bother in 1970 was the primary reason for the economic collapse of

Russia in 1990
Greece in 2010

Of course

If such ventures are left in the hands of private enterprise, where the notion of return on investment is an ingrained guiding principle, any network will either be “profitable” (= positive return on investment) and (technically) structured in an efficient and effective form

or it will not be undertaken

regarding solutions – see my previous post for a possible starting point for solutions ...

Regarding “who don't give a toss about generations to follow”

Now I suggest you take your “gimme-gimme, hand-out mentality” and consider this -

do you not think you are too old to expect to still be suckling on the teat of some ancient baby-boomer momma?

And like hasbeen so accurately put it “Instead of throwing insults around you should be glad that we are prepared to at least try to protect you from your most stupid ideas.”

"We're talking about keeping up with the rest of the world"

I suppose you are, and so also say big corporations that try every possible gimmick to sell us things we don't need, the real reason being that they cannot close their inflated IT departments.

The question is, why should keeping up with the rest of the world be a good thing.

The drive behind technology is not our well-being (with the possible exception of medicine), but rather to cope with the increasing and unsustainable numbers of humans on this planet. To the extent that technology develops further, more people can be squeezed in for the short term, making the eventual and final collapse of the human race even more dramatic than it should - and this is what you call "caring for generations to follow"...

If you care about the physical future of this planet and future generations, the only way is to stop the tyranny of those selfish-genes - stop making children!

If you also care about the spiritual future of this planet and future generations, curtail their addiction to electronic gadgets and virtual-reality, so they have time left to reflect and live a real life in the physical world.

One of my considerations when coming to Australia was that this great country is (or was, in 1989) technologically behind, where people still related to each other on the physical plane, with kindness and compassion. Although there was a gap between Australia and the rest of the developed world, it was not a 3rd-world country and people lived comfortably. In the 2010 elections, I vote for preserving this healthy gap and staying behind the rest of the world while it proceeds to jump over the cliff.

Yuyutsu,

In general, I completely agree with your last post, except that it is a mite idealistic and ignores the realities of human nature.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world is moving in a particular direction. Now, we could follow the lead of North Korea and do our own thing. Stop where we are, close our borders, ignore the outside world. OR we could move with the times, RESPONSIBLY of course, and remain competitive economically and maintain parity in living standards.

Stern & Hasbeen:

If the younger generations are all "gimme gimme", it is the way they were brought up and the world that was created for them. The world is the way it is now because that is the way it was shaped, not because of those who are being shaped by it.

And, despite your argument for protecting us from paying later; my argument is that we're going to be paying later regardless. So we'd rather pay less later by doing the job properly now.

Why should Australia continue to move further and further behind global development?

Trashcanman “If the younger generations are all "gimme gimme", it is the way they were brought up and the world that was created for them.”

Ah blame your poor attitude on your parents eh TCM?

I have two daughters, neither of whom has looked to me for subsidy since before the age of 21....

If your expectation is a result of your parents poor parenting skills don’t blame me...

I did my bit properly

Re “The world is the way it is now because that is the way it was shaped, not because of those who are being shaped by it.”

Those without the backbone or their own legs to stand on are always those who are shaped by their environment, instead of mastering the skills and adopting the attitude which allows them to survive, independently, in that environment...

Since you have declared that as your excuse, all I can say is

Do the gene pool a favour and remain celibate -

Because any child you are expected to be responsible for is going to be damned the moment they are born.

Regarding paying for stuff

Spending $30 billion more than is possibly needed is not the same as investing $30 billion more... it is simple profligacy and playing fast and loose with the tax payers resources and is an attitude which must never be tolerated.

But whilst we are at it.. you have made no comment regarding my observation to private investment.... has the “cat got your tongue” or are you lacking in reasoning, as well as basic bum-wiping skills?

“Why should Australia continue to move further and further behind global development”

Well it would be one way of discouraging all these illegal boat people from coming here....

TrashcanMan,

There is so much middle-ground between North-Korea and the U.S.A.:
I am not suggesting to open a 200-year gap, perhaps just a 20-year gap is adequate, then we can watch and see how the others fall off the cliff before trying it ourselves.

You don't need to close the borders, just not open them any wider, and I don't mean in the way of physical restrictions, but rather where it all starts - in education. Public (or publically-funded) schools should not have computers in them. Those kids have way too much of it at home already. If you absolutely need them for remote-education, then the teacher should hold the key to make sure they are not used in any other fashion. Also, computers and similar gadgets should not be allowed toward educational tax-deductions/rebates (except in remote areas where schools are not available, and then locked by hardware to prevent other uses). Teachers should show a personal example, then explain to the kids why those gadgets are dangerous and addictive, and how it is possible to fully live their lives happily without it. So many kids today are not even aware of their options!

Business competitiveness is not a real issue: despite them saying otherwise, NBN is all about home-entertainment. A real business which identifies network-congestion to be an operational issue has lots of possible technical solutions already. It costs a bit more of course, but its a business, isn't it? At the lower-end, if one copper-ADSL line is insufficient, you can use several of them in parallel. Of course there aren't enough of those for every home, but there are plenty enough for small-to-medium businesses. Even for those working from home, two ADSL2 lines are more than one will ever need for video-conferencing, and every home in Australia is already allocated two copper connections. BTW, High-Definition is not really necessary for business anyway: why should one wish to see each and every pimple on the face of their colleagues? At the higher-end, real-big business can pull their own fibre-optic cables, or launch their own satelite.

Stern mate... there is another possibility "Borrow more" :)

which in due course does translate into 'we owe' and I guess it means taxes or cut services.. or.. OH YEAH.. "sell the Snowy Scheme" :)

Stern,

First of all, I would like to apologise for not encoding my message well enough so that you could understand it. But in future, if you don't understand, try to at least stay relevant.

Because I wasn't talking about me, and I'm certainly not talking about you or your credentials as a mother. As an aside, your own little anecdote is a perfect example of the neo-liberal baby-boomer attitude towards their children: "It's my money, don't ask for any help unless you want to show me how much you've failed me." If that's not the intention of the NLBBs, it sure is the message they're giving off. Although I'm in no place to comment on your individual family circumstances, which leads me to my second point:

...There is no name-calling on this planet that could offend me as much as you telling me my children should not have been born (GrahamY take note) except perhaps being told I was possibly as obtuse as certain posters in OLO.

I was merely saying that one generation should not complain about what has happened to society or the attitudes etc of younger generations while on their watch. You can't blame the garden for not growing the way you want when you watered it with cola.

Your point on private enterprise is correct in principle; however sometimes we need to go beyond profit when talking about issues of nation-building.

And I can hardly see how impeding the country's development is worthwhile just to stop a handful of refugees. I'm going to assume you were just laying bait there...

Yuyutsu,

You lost me. No computers in schools? Just bibles eh?

TrashcanMan,

You keep amazing me:

If it's not the forefront of world-technology, then it must be North-Korea.
If it's not computers, then it must be the bible.
Nothing in between? what's wrong with Shakespeare for example? or Darwin?

I just wrote that we should keep a healthy gap of about 20 years behind the rest of the developed world, not 200 years, so now you are suggesting 2000 years...

Was it so bad 20 years ago? Were you missing anything?
Didn't they teach science and maths and biology, history and geography in schools then? or may I remind you that man landed on the moon already 41 years ago?

Yes, I repeat, no computers in public and public-funded schools (can't tell totally private schools what to do), for the same reasons that school-canteens don't sell beer. Children ought to experience nature and fresh air and confidently interact with the world and its elements using their physical bodies, before they disappear forever into their tiny gadgets. Do you really think that all those simulated shoot'em games do them any good? What's wrong with building tree-houses, reading a good book, playing ball or sitting on the floor to play board-games with other kids? Once they grow of course, with a solid basis, both academic and in moral-character, and go to university, they will have plenty of time to specialize in the electronic/scientific world, if that's what they are inclined to do.

The maximum transmission speed on optical fibre has multiplied many times over the last 5-10 years and I see no reason why that trend won't continue. In fact there's no domestic technology available - outside telco hardware- that can match the speed. It's simply the fastest known secure digital transmission media available.
What it amounts to is whether we want to catch up with our comparable trading partners or do nothing and just hope for the best.

Rache,

On the technical side, if indeed the speed of optical-fibre continues to multiply, then by your own admission, it would be foolish to install it now, prior to reaching its theoretical maximum (and a maximum will be reached, just as the maximum was recently reached in silicon, so now all you can to do to gain more computing power is to place more units in parallel, side-by-side). Also, while speed has importance, the GBit/sec numbers being discussed here are of capacity, not speed.

On the competition side, it is unrealistic to expect to catch up with "our comparable trading partners": they just have many more hungry mouths to feed than our mere 22-millions, mostly overfed. Why do you want to compete with them in the first place? is it to make them even hungrier, so they come and take us by force? The best way is to learn to live more simply, so to not depend on their products.

As I explained earlier, business already has many options and is not hindered by the capacity of lines (and as for speed, it can only get close to the speed of light, nothing more anyway). It should better concentrate on having more worthwhile data to transfer over the physical lines it already has. Claiming that NBN is needed for business is therefore a blatant lie. NBN is designed to provide entertainment for the masses, lull them into drowsy non-resistence, just as they did in ancient Rome - when they did not have enough bread to eat, they delivered gladiator-games instead.

Yes, We can wait for the best, or we can prepare for the inevitable future by learning to live more simply, demand less, and be more self-sufficient.

If anyone was to suggest that buying a computer of similar capability in 5-10 yrs would be more expensive than today, they would be laughed off the forum.

Yet I see claims that IT infrastructure will cost double!

Either they are staunch labor supporters who feel they have to punt the party line irrespective of the nonsensical nature of it, or they are technically challenged, or both.

I understand that installing the cables is a large part of the expense, but the cost of the fibre cable, and modems is no small part either. In 5-10 yrs time, they will be far cheaper and faster if they are not completely surpassed by other emerging technologies.

While I make no bones about whom I support for the elections, this is just another large ill advised attempt at social engineering by the incompetents that brought you the BER rort.

SM,

Please explain to me how the NBN is social engineering.

Cheers,
Trashcan Man.

Yuyutsu,

You're correct, the bible is out of date by 2000 years and it was silly of me to think that it had any relevance to even 20yrs ago.

Once again, while I do agree with your idealism, it is a lovely idea, yet I think it's unrealistic for us if we want to remain a competitive economy.

Trashcanman,

I see that while attempting to nit pick, you chose not to challenge that:
-Your previous claim that the costs will double are rubbish,
-that the government are incompetent at large projects.

PS. A huge scheme to build a government corporation with sole ownership of the countries network resources, and a shift back to state based employment, easily fits within the definition of social engineering.

Oh TCM “...There is no name-calling on this planet that could offend me as much as you telling me my children should not have been born (GrahamY take note)”

… it seems I have “rattled” you somewhat, how apt!

Ah well so be it,

Re “what has happened to society or the attitudes etc of younger generations while on their watch.”

Yes, we have a problem

Maybe bring back military conscription … that might help

Or make prison a place where even big men fear to tread, instead of “Disneyland with bars”.

Anyway.. like I said previously, we are all individuals, one way of stopping the indolent failing in their responsibility for bringing up their children is to cut their dole payments to the point they cannot afford kids, instead of all the namby-pamby handouts for irresponsible procreation which we have today.

Like I said previously, none of the children I fathered have asked for subsidy since before the age of 21..

I suppose some leftie-minded social worker would say that the advantage they will gain from that self-reliance is an unfair benefit they have over the “waifs and stray” offspring of the indiscriminate fornicators and should thus be taxed more

But we don’t live in that sort of "bizarro" world, where the best “advantage” is to be able to claim a “disadvantage”.

“we need to go beyond profit when talking about issues of nation-building.”

Yes, Russia tried that… had the best "nation building" nuclear missiles in the world… and shops full of empty shelves!

Your theory of “nation building” is just another socialist fraud..


It has been tried and failed more times than you have had a sandwich (or a hot dinner)

Fixing the illegal boat arrivals is easy…. Issue the RAN with smart bombs instead of life belts… but humanely, we should probably just

Lock ‘em up on Nauru
Add them to a list of “never to be allowed entry to Australia”
And send them back to wherever the boat sailed from and let that country work out their country of origin.

"if we want to remain a competitive economy"

Yes, I think we ought to break that idea apart and work out what it is about "a competitive economy" which is more important than anything else:

More important than any moral stand.
More important than balancing work and family.
More important than the mental health of our kids.
More important than preserving our ability as a nation to manufacture our own everyday-necessities.
More important than our chances to survive once the world-population bubble explodes.

Are we selling ourselves for cheap holidays overseas? or for bigger plasma screens?

Perhaps you can tell us, TrashcanMan, what does competitiveness mean for you, then we can see whether we can find an alternative way to achieve what you actually want.

Shadow Minister,

So it's better not to build any railways, roads or hospitals now either because they will be cheaper and better later on?

Maybe governments should stay out of those areas too and "let the market decide".

My final argument against is this;We are in dire economic times,we don't need more debt.Why is the ordinary tax payer forking our again for multi-nationals to use this infrastucture for free.

In the near future there may be cheaper and better mediums of sending information.So what's the hurry? I find the speed right now just fine.

Rache,

To avoid looking like an idiot, I would suggest actually reading the thread.

The government could spend trillions of dollars on anticipated infrastructure, or even on infrastructure that is needed now. The issue is to get the best bang for the buck now.

Having just racked up nearly $90bn in debt since coming into office, this is hardly the time to whip out the credit card.

The other isssue is this Shadow Minister;for now they seemed to have shelved the clean feed censorship propaosal.If they get their super fast infrastructure in,this will justify censorship again since one of the main arguements against clean feed was the slowing down of the internet.