I think all agree that a NBN is great technology. No-one has a problem with that. The problem lies in the $43 Bn plus. I tend to agree with Yuyutsu & the drugging entertainment. That in itself is not a mere problem, it's an actual danger. We already have people who can't think without an LCD screen in front of them. Do we really want to make it even worse ? For business & technology & progress in general I'd say yes, NBN is good but it will be detrimental to wider society from a social aspect. We already have even teams of thinkers vs morons. Do we really want to take the risk & dip the scale even more in favour of the morons ? We need to think about what so much fantastic technology is doing to us socially. We need to separate business technology from social technology. Are we so lost already that we need superfast 20 Gigabyte dumbing of society ? Technologically the benefits of NBN are superb, socially the dangers are even greater.

Belly,

Having spent several years living in the rural areas, I sympathize with the additional cost of services. When I build a house outside town I had to pay for the cost of the conduit for the telephone which was far from cheap, and for the electricity line, and there was no gas or water. (I had to use rain water.)

However, I did get a large 4 bedroom house on couple of hectares of land over looking a river for less than the price of a 1 bedroom flat in Sydney.

The trial run to supply NBN to the small towns in Tasmania cost $37m to bring the fibre to the doorstep of 500 homes and connect to 270 of them. This is an average cost of $74 000 per house, and much more for actual rural communities. If the actual take is considered this blows out to $140 000.

On top of this has been added about $300 a house for battery back up and $300 a house for incentive to take up NBN broad band, which was not included in the original estimate.

Considering that the take up in these communities of the high speed broad band is about 10%, what will it be in the cities. For example I get 200GB of download at speeds between 10MB/s and 20MB/s on relatively new coaxial line at a fraction of the cost of the published NBN prices. I can watch streamed video and download movies in minutes.

Considering that 90% of people live in the cities and most have access to this existing technology, they are facing being forced onto the NBN when Telstra is paid to scrap their new coax system, and paying higher prices.

To summarize, NBN might deliver better service for rural dwellers, but it does very little for the vast majority of the population in the cities except increase prices.

Dear Belly,

I think you have misunderstood my post: I was not suggesting that the country should not get a good network - I think it should. Shadow Minister just clarified what I said and I wholly agree with him: bring a good network to the bush, but don't implicate the cities. If city-people are glued to their entertainment devices, surely they won't have Matilda, the billy tin and many other things on their mind.

For me, for the world, it improves communications.
I have never played a game, watched a movie, wasted time on my PC.
My family lives in just about every state we use this to communicate.
My work, now over saw every member get at least one industry report a week.
I would rush to get the dish of my roof and not fear the costs.
I still think Luddites are in this thread,self interest rules here and that it is a feeble unbalanced attempt to slander Labor.

feeble unbalanced attempt to slander Labor.
Belly,
please give us a break with this unquestioning loyalty to your political party. There is incompetence in all parties & most of us accept that, so it would be good if you too could accept that Labor just happens to be at the top of the list. So far as bigger, better, faster networking is concerned-yes, it is fantastic technology which enables the criminal elements to gain even faster access to peoples' accounts etc.
Just remember also that too much knowledge in the wrong hands is not healthy for the rest of us. Just look at some of the other great inventions. Dynamite, gunpowder, electricity, cars etc. etc. To what percentage are these inventions still misused to this day. NBN is no different.

Dear Belly,

If you live in a city or its suburbs, then existing copper technology easily allows each member of your family to simultaneously speak with the rest of your family, all over Australia and the world, even with video. The fact that the same is not available in the country should indeed be corrected.

As for Luddites, yes, I proudly believe that excessive technology is harmful, that mankind is not mature enough to use much of it wisely and that the fact that something CAN be done does not imply that it SHOULD be done. Using technology for entertainment, which is what the NBN is really about (because almost anything else can be done with existing copper technology), is disastrous. As if people, especially the younger generations, are not already isolated in virtual cocoons, missing on real-life itself, forgetting even that they have a physical body and to interact with even their own family, this gloomy fibre technology to the home will excacerbate it further.

As for the Labor party, I actually considered giving Labor my preference (due to its better treatment of refugees), but it was due to the NBN that I could not do it, not vice versa.