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The main people getting excited about FTTH are the contractors and IT companies. The taxpayers aren't getting so excited about it. You can't argue that every

by brc 16y ago

The main people getting excited about FTTH are the contractors and IT companies. The taxpayers aren't getting so excited about it. You can't argue that every home with fiber isn't a beautiful idea. But then every highway should be 4 lanes, every school airconditioned and every hospital should have more beds than patients to fill them. It's not a technological argument - it's an argument on (a) whether the cash spent is worth it and (b) should we be paying a private company (Telstra) to remove infrastructure to replace with a public monopoly. Or should we just organically grow the network and expand with fibre in new areas and spend the money where it is needed. I for one are scared about the abuse and waste that will happen with a public project of this size and the one-size-fits-all mentality that goes with it. The monopoly will be protected by law to make it pay, and that's a bad thing for all involved. It matters not that it is a wholesale network, the pricing power (and power to keep the monopoly) will remain with a government official. The Coalition policy was flawed in parts but I liked their approach a lot better.

andrewstuart 16y ago
The coalition's broadband policy? Tell me how to run home Internet TV in the lounge, computer gaming in the bedroom, web browsing elsewhere in the house, all over a wireless broadband connection shared with every other house in range of the local telephone tower. The idea that wireless has what it takes for the next 20 years of broadband innovation for every home in Australia is silly. I am genuinely excited about the idea 1 one gigabit broadband to the home over fibre. The applications of this sort of power arent yet dreamed of, and the person who does the dreaming and executing stands to do very well for themselves. What sort of person is it that reads Hacker News but is not excited by 1 gigabit fibre to the home?
- brc 16y ago
  >What sort of person is it that reads Hacker News but is not excited by 1 gigabit fibre to the home? One who believes in free markets, low taxes and private enterprise. One who believes that technological solutions arise to real needs, not imagined ones. One who pays taxes and hopes that one day they'll get spent wisely. One who believes that genuine wireless apps are more important to the future than home based services. One who is sick of government waste and spending, deficits and rorts. You haven't read the coalition broadband policy, but that's not surprising, virtually nobody did. Not all services were to be delivered by wireless. Wireless was to be used in areas where running other types of network. You can already get fast speeds in capital cities, but the takeup is low because of cost and most people have no reason for it. You fall into the trap of arguing that the benefits of fast broadband can't yet be known, but argue that wireless internet cannot possibly innovate beyond the current state of technology. This is having it both ways, and I see a lot of these types of arguments around. I don't blame you for getting excited. Just realise you are seeking your own personal enrichment at the expense of others. I've got a lot of pet projects I wish the government would subsidise, but none of those are going to happen because I haven't got any lobbyists on my side.
  - andrewstuart 16y ago
    A super fast broadband network will make entirely new classes of applications possible - applications that cannot be envisaged today. Unfortunately many people are unable to see beyond the needs of today - they can only imagine that tomorrow's Internet will be largely the same as todays. If all Australian homes had 1 gigabit Internet then this would form a platform - a framework upon which new ideas can be built. It's like the iPhone - a lowest common denominator of power enables developers to exploit that computing power, safe in the assumption that end users will be able to use what they build. Tomorrow's Internet is not just the same stuff as todays but faster, it's something different. Consider this: every night, 2 million Australian households go home and watch TV. Effectively commerce has stopped for the day. Imagine if instead that audience of 2 million homes was interacting. Think about hundreds of thousands of people watching Masterchef, and being able to stop when they see a recipe they like, bring up coles online, order the ingredients for the recipe and return to Masterchef. Coles Online pays a referrer fee to Channel 10 and to the producer of Masterchef. Think about TV holiday programs like Getaway showing destinations around the world. The viewer stops the TV program, books a flight with Qantas, books some hotels and returns to watching Getway. Referrers fees from Qantas and the hotels go to the Getaway producers and the TV station. Every night miilions of people would not be passively watching but would be interacting in a vibrant online community. This sort of stuff only becomes possible when everyone in the country has a predictable high speed broadband connection - the NBN offers this. A hotchpotch of ADSL, fibre backhauls and wireless does not. We should be garetful and thankful that we have a government with enough foresight to build such critical infrastructure. If you are not the entrepreneur to take advantage of these incredible opportunities then someone else here might be.
    - jacques_chester 16y ago
      > A super fast broadband network will make entirely new classes of applications possible - applications that cannot be envisaged today. This is a common argument, but such new applications have yet to emerge in Japan and South Korea, who've had these sorts of speeds for around a decade now.
      - 16y ago

by brc 16y ago

andrewstuart 16y ago

The coalition's broadband policy? Tell me how to run home Internet TV in the lounge, computer gaming in the bedroom, web browsing elsewhere in the house, all over a wireless broadband connection shared with every other house in range of the local telephone tower. The idea that wireless has what it takes for the next 20 years of broadband innovation for every home in Australia is silly. I am genuinely excited about the idea 1 one gigabit broadband to the home over fibre. The applications of this sort of power arent yet dreamed of, and the person who does the dreaming and executing stands to do very well for themselves. What sort of person is it that reads Hacker News but is not excited by 1 gigabit fibre to the home?

brc 16y ago
>What sort of person is it that reads Hacker News but is not excited by 1 gigabit fibre to the home? One who believes in free markets, low taxes and private enterprise. One who believes that technological solutions arise to real needs, not imagined ones. One who pays taxes and hopes that one day they'll get spent wisely. One who believes that genuine wireless apps are more important to the future than home based services. One who is sick of government waste and spending, deficits and rorts. You haven't read the coalition broadband policy, but that's not surprising, virtually nobody did. Not all services were to be delivered by wireless. Wireless was to be used in areas where running other types of network. You can already get fast speeds in capital cities, but the takeup is low because of cost and most people have no reason for it. You fall into the trap of arguing that the benefits of fast broadband can't yet be known, but argue that wireless internet cannot possibly innovate beyond the current state of technology. This is having it both ways, and I see a lot of these types of arguments around. I don't blame you for getting excited. Just realise you are seeking your own personal enrichment at the expense of others. I've got a lot of pet projects I wish the government would subsidise, but none of those are going to happen because I haven't got any lobbyists on my side.
- andrewstuart 16y ago
  A super fast broadband network will make entirely new classes of applications possible - applications that cannot be envisaged today. Unfortunately many people are unable to see beyond the needs of today - they can only imagine that tomorrow's Internet will be largely the same as todays. If all Australian homes had 1 gigabit Internet then this would form a platform - a framework upon which new ideas can be built. It's like the iPhone - a lowest common denominator of power enables developers to exploit that computing power, safe in the assumption that end users will be able to use what they build. Tomorrow's Internet is not just the same stuff as todays but faster, it's something different. Consider this: every night, 2 million Australian households go home and watch TV. Effectively commerce has stopped for the day. Imagine if instead that audience of 2 million homes was interacting. Think about hundreds of thousands of people watching Masterchef, and being able to stop when they see a recipe they like, bring up coles online, order the ingredients for the recipe and return to Masterchef. Coles Online pays a referrer fee to Channel 10 and to the producer of Masterchef. Think about TV holiday programs like Getaway showing destinations around the world. The viewer stops the TV program, books a flight with Qantas, books some hotels and returns to watching Getway. Referrers fees from Qantas and the hotels go to the Getaway producers and the TV station. Every night miilions of people would not be passively watching but would be interacting in a vibrant online community. This sort of stuff only becomes possible when everyone in the country has a predictable high speed broadband connection - the NBN offers this. A hotchpotch of ADSL, fibre backhauls and wireless does not. We should be garetful and thankful that we have a government with enough foresight to build such critical infrastructure. If you are not the entrepreneur to take advantage of these incredible opportunities then someone else here might be.
  - jacques_chester 16y ago
    > A super fast broadband network will make entirely new classes of applications possible - applications that cannot be envisaged today. This is a common argument, but such new applications have yet to emerge in Japan and South Korea, who've had these sorts of speeds for around a decade now.
    - 16y ago