Been looking at the possibility of getting a faster internet provider and I found one who has this deal on at the moment:

One off payment of $5,375 to get faster speed into my house than I have now.
Monthly data costs will then be advised once I have paid the $5,375.
Connection date to be confirmed once payment is made, but likely to be within the next ten years.

I am hoping I will be able to see the forecast is wrong in 4.3 seconds instead of the painfully slow 4.8 seconds it takes now.

Anyway sounds like a good deal to me, so I have signed up.

(by the way so have all of you)

I here ya, Carantoc,at least we wont have ethonal pouring out of every sugercane farm.
or will we?

Your point of view on the NBN probably depends on where you sit. I'm studying a post grad course and its mainly delivered by the interweb. Some activities such as video chats would have been painful on anything less than a ADSL connection. Fortunately I have access to an ADSL2+ connection. For me right now this connection is perfectly adequate. However what about people who can't get and ADSL connection? However what about the future? Who can really say what sort of connection we will need?

To me its seems to be a pretty good idea to be upgrading the telecommunication network in Australia. The networks probably don't need much government help in the CBDs and densly populated areas as commercial interests will satisfy demands. Some areas won't be adequately serviced by purely commercial interests.

Getting the government involved in infrastructure is a reasonably good idea. Telstra should never have been sold off the way it was. If the company had been split with the retail arm on one side and the back end on the other we would never need such a debate.

Mark, I can't guess what the internet will be like in 10 years. I wouldn't be surprised if its just the same as it is now, only faster.

On the other hand when I first saw the internet it was text only and I thought no one except universities would want it. When it started to have graphics it really took off. Of course, the major driver for it back then, I think, was porn.

Maybe there will be another driver for it that we don't know about yet, or maybe its at its most useful now.

One of the things that I hope it will create is a bit more innovation in the IT world for Australia. A lot of the clever internet applications seem to come out of the US, and I suspect that one of the reasons is that bandwidth there is so cheap.

I really hope that faster internet in rural areas means that a lot of jobs that can be done remotely are now able to be run from rural areas. Businesses can save money and locals can have more job options.

It would be good to know that people in areas that have slow internet connections will be able to communicate better with the rest of the country, whether it be voice, video calls, or even just on forums like this one.

I think one of the reasons that power, roads, and water are never important in politics is that one party can never turn around and say 'look what we did'. Sad but true I think.

FormulaNova said...

Still using handpowered drills and horses are we?

handpowered horses...?

What about all those roads I've never even seen?

Correct me where I'm wrong here but $40 billion/20 million = $2,000

... over 10 years = $200/year

$200 = what I spent/wasted getting drunk the other night.

So what is our population of 30mil in a few years going to drink as they take advantage of groundbreaking internet speeds?

The NBN is a proposal that really only benefits a few people (jobless no hopers who sit on Facebook and dating sites all day do not "benefit" - I mean the real economic /educational benefits).

However lets say 43billion bucks is spent on a pipe to take water from the Ord River in WA all down the state, and another one from NT or FNQ down the east coast.
Firstly, it sees us out for endless water for hundred years plus.
Secondly our agriculture can only just feed us now and arable land and rainfall is decreasing. A water scheme as above will open up 10x more land for farming. With that comes more food and more water for our increasing population and export, plus the flow on effect to the economy would be drastic. The NBN won't create money of jobs once it si finished - it will enable e-commerce to be faster but most industries will be unaffected.

How can you seriously have state govts using band aid solutions to water problems, can't afford to replace aging infrastructure etc whilst the Fed Govt will blow 43bil on internet?
People only go for it as in modern society they have to have all the electronic gadgets in the world and want to download movies, and they think they are getting something new and fats for free - no they are not, it is our damn money!!

It is like having a car which you have to use to get to work and the engine is about to explode, and a leaky roof on your house just before storm season ..... and you have just enough money to fix both - but you go buy a plasma instead.

I will be the first to admit I don't understand it as I am not a propellerhead. I also don't know who will benefit from NBN but I propose it is notional benefit only for education - a DVD works as good as watching it really fast on the web - and it benefits maybe 10% of big businesses.

However I do understand how big a billion is.
A billion seconds is 31.7 years. A billion is a sh!tload. I wish I could find that pic of a billion dollars in bills in a warehouse - it is an eye opener

It costs $1.5 - 2 billion to build a world class hospital for a capital city (eg new one in Perth - 700 plus beds and all the bells and whistles, $1.75bil.

And they want to spend 43 billion dollars - have a long think about how much that is for a minute. Really think about it.

Try to tell the hundreds of people waiting for life saving surgery - some wait 2yrs and have had operations cancelled many times. Go find one of them and tell them you think the Fed Govt is on the right track.

The $43bil spent wisely would fix all our health, education and infrastructure problems for a long long time.

FormulaNova said...


Still using handpowered drills and horses are we?

Nope, I am using electricty generated from polluting coal powered privately owned power stations, using the internet streamed by the current privately run network and I ride on trains run by private transport companies.

All three need replacing with a more modern version.

I would like to invest zero public money in two of them and $43 billion in one of them. Toss a three sided coin for the answer.

^ agreed

like I said - it is like having a house falling to bits and a car about to blow up, and you have a few grand which would fix all that important stuff.... but you go blow it on a plasma

broadband is not critical infrastructure - unlike the water / power / health systems

without broadband I would be driving every week day to an office, which took 30-45mins each way, communicating via facsimile and the drafters working on and old style board with ink pens, taking 5 times as long. Changes were allways a nightmare.

with broadband I can work from home and get all my work info via broadband, and distribute work with a simple click to as many companies and people as required, and keep the car parked in the garage. drafters are in another office.

I want super fast broadband please. The Government just better manage it better than the last few major expenditiures thay have made.





then I can go surfing
unfortunately too busy to go when I like but thats another storey

oliver said...


Looks like maybe the wheels are not falling off after all

and the HDI is inversely proportional to speed of your internet

Carantoc said...
So - at the moment you can do what you want to do with the internet you have got, but - the trip to work takes too long.

So, instead of fixing the road and making what is bad good, you want to fix what is OK to make it better.

I think the point is that if you can work from home, because of a better Internet connection, then you don't need to use the roads for your commute.
Why would you travel even 20 minutes when you can simply walk into the next room?

More people working at home = less cars on the road = a whole heap of benefits
That ambulance wouldn't have to fight through a rush hour, for example.

I work from home now as well and it comes with a host of benefits, not least of which is being able to live away from the city. But I struggle with a feeble internet connection at times, it would be good to have something a bit more stable and a lot more up to date.

evlPanda said...

What about all those roads I've never even seen?

Correct me where I'm wrong here but $40 billion/20 million = $2,000

... over 10 years = $200/year

$200 = what I spent/wasted getting drunk the other night.

Moet ?

Carantoc said...

oliver said...


Looks like maybe the wheels are not falling off after all

and the HDI is inversely proportional to speed of your internet

It seems propotional to me - with Australia lagging behind the norm.

6 of the top 10 countries with the fastest internet are in the top 10 of the HDI

14 of the 20 countries with the fastest internet are in the top 20 of the HDI

Yes I have heard of VOIP, no need to be condescending now

I would like to be able to do lots of those things. However, it would not save me any time, only a bit of money.

The NBN idea is wonderful. It is great, and it is needed.

However, I submit there are greater needs. Much greater needs, when we can barely supply enough water for our current population and we are looking at major population growth, and the public health system is in a shambles.

43bil is a lot of money, so in a few years as you smash out email in record time and download a whole movie in seconds, don't you dare grizzle about paying 5x your current water bill, can hardly afford fresh vegies due to water costs, the fact the trains are packed and always late and your best mate just died awaiting a simple operation after 2yrs on a waiting list.