Belly, you have legitimate concerns about the quality of your line, but note that you live in the country and your problem is specific to remote areas: I support you getting a proper decent and fast line out there, and if you want to call it "NBN" and use my tax-money for it you may even do so, but please leave the city/suburb-people alone, who already have great, fast and reliable connections on their existing copper.

OUG so you pay tax's? your old copper wire rots in the ground some has been there longer than you and I have been alive.
I disagree, may I? with the idea we are squandering any thing.
Are my views to be discounted just because they are not yours.
Do we understand the full gains of the NBN?

All I will say in this thread is that despite my greatest expectations that the Labor party (and to a lesser extent, the Liberal Party) fail to do a decent job and end up making us lose billions down the toilet while we fall behind the rest of the civilized world in terms of technology or management, STILL they surprise me by how much worse it actually gets every year, and the limits of human stupidity are taken lower.

We really DO need to do something about this- if we're paying multiples of the price for a product of only a fraction of the quality of those we are comparing to, our country is going to go downhill very fast.

We are so far behind most of the civilized world that we really ARE going to be living up to the stereotype the rest of the world used to wrongly pin on us, as a nation of backwards khaki-clad chumps very soon.
Because if we are willing to pay the insanely high rates we are for effectively LOSING progress, who's going to tell those abroad they're wrong?

Sonofgloin What you wrote doesn't make anything at all. The insulation batts are going through court now, there will always be ripoff members of our community.
The great divide is not the end of AU. Your concerns of no water this side of the divide is not quite right. Your argument does not hold water. The NBN will be the greatest piece of infastructure since the snowy mountains power supply.
If you have problems with the costings of the NBN tell someone who cares. Maybe you can do some costings and forward them to the prime minister.

Shadow Minister wrote 13 February 2011 5:45:18 PM:

>... ranked Conroy's NBN plan poorly against top-ranked South Korea ...

The NBN could be made more cost effective with more wireless.

The report ‘Full speed ahead: The government broadband index Q1 2011' is at: http://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=broadband2011

The report criticises the Australian government for "... spending a colossal 7.58% of annual government budget revenues on its National Broadband Network. In South Korea, by comparison, the government is spending less than 1% of annual budget revenues to realise its broadband goals, achieving targets by encouraging the private sector to invest in the country's broadband future. ...". The report costs US$2,950 so I just read the summary.

It appears that the EIU's researchers developed an index to rank national broadband schemes on speed, coverage and rate of rollout. More controversially they also include in the index the "... most appropriate regulations for realising targets and fostering a competitive broadband market". This makes the assumption that a market is possible and appropriate.

On these measures Australia ranks 9th out of 16 countries, just under Denmark and above New Zealand and the USA. South Korea ranks top and Greece bottom.

Any deployment of broadband across Australia which attempts to achieve equity will be difficult and expensive. Australia has large cities where deployment is easy and then sparely populated areas where there is no technology which can provide cost effective deployment. If everyone in Australia was prepared to move to Sydney, then broadband could be provided at comparable speeds and costs to countries like Singapore. ;-)

The cost of the NBN (about $43B over 8 years) should be seen in perspective with other public expenditure. As an example Australian public expenditure on education each year is 4.5% of GDP (from "Education in Australia", OECD, 2008), or about $56B (based on the OECD States Extract estimate of Australian GDP of $1,253,121.0 for 2009). If the NBN achieved a 10% saving in the cost of education, this would pay for the entire capital cost of the network over eight years.

ps: My draft NBN parliamentary submission is at: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2011/02/broadband-for-broad-land-envrionment.html

belly
..not intrested in the..'gains of the nbn'
the copper in-front of my home
is only as old as my home..[-20 years]

my point ..i dont use my copper
because of the connection fee
just under 40 dollars ..each quater

currently i pay on mobile
50 dollars year with dodo
they have a trickle feed..[they are as slow as treakle]
but with text..[which is all i do]..its just fine

its too slow to watch you tube
but i used 3 mobile for that..

i tried to get vodaphone's deal
who has taken over 3

..via woolworths 99 dollars
for the modum plus 15 gig download

thats the sort of prices ,..i am prepared to pay
regardless if its copper ..or glass fibre

my point being i refuse to pay these absurd prices
to maintain a copper connection..

*that now is being ripped out

im angry about this issue specificlly

3 was great...the 10 gig i used up in 3 months...
but they kept me connected ..for the contracted year

if it was slow..
BUT it was still fast enough to watch you tube
which the dumb dodo connection cant handle

we are being screwed big time

the dodo etc is deliberatly slowed down
it could easilly give the same as 3 gave..
but wants to do other deals

wanted a credit card..
[and i never owned one of them ..on principle]

had the vodaphone deal ..worked out
i would be doing the 99 dollar conection
but it didnt..mainly because of 3 errors

then the regestration failing..
in the end it failed to regester me
it came up as errors...

i dont need to be stuffed arround
by idiots ripping me off or wanting to get at a credit card..

thus am content to blog about the prikkkkks
..till the dodo service runs out

i was with telstra for 35 years
payed a ssssshitload of connection/line/maintainance
or whatever the hell the buzz word is...

im over it..i own the copper line..
paid in full...never seen any maintanance on it

payed my fees ..now only want my service