5 ms·

>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 en

by 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.
  - hartror 16y ago
    I think the NBN won't prove itself in the next 10 years, it will take longer. I don't know what we will be using the internet for in 2020 . . do you? This is the long haul and frankly the private sector has had 10 years to prove themselves in Australia and they have faltered at every turn. This is the kind of projects governments should take on, long term and perhaps a little visionary. Oh and don't ignore the reliability it could/should. I know we've dealt with some pretty unreliable internet connections both a home and at the office due to oooold copper and you really do pay through the nose for good connections. Don't underestimate what reliable infrastructure brings to the table especially for business confidence.
    - andrewstuart 16y ago
      This is an excellent point. The free market has done nothing to build a powerful, universal foundation for telecommunications in Australia. We've seen nothing but stalling and roadblocks from Telstra in recent years. A major part of the problem is that rural/country Australia is so vast that it is not economically viable for profit driven companies to support. Telecommunications in Australia a disgrace. Frankly I think that massive government expenditure in this area is well overdue.
      - brc 16y ago
        I was going to leave this thread alone, but one thing keeps sticking in my mind. Water infrastructure is a state owned monopoly. Telecoms is not, even though Telstra dominate residential connections. A friend of mine wanted to connect water to his house down a short laneway (about 100 metres) in a rural area. The water authorities wanted $15,000 and 6 months to do it. He asked Telstra to connect the phoneline. It was done for free within two weeks. That is the difference between a government monopoly and private enterprise. If Telstra was still Telecom Australia, I have no doubt that the line would have taken twice as long and probably cost something as well. You might scoff and say that couldn't possibly happen with the NBN, but in all seroiusness, anyone who thinks setting up a massive government beauracracy will result in anything but this type of behaviour hasn't had much experience with governments. The role of Government should be to design the laws in such a way as to encourage investment, and to leave that investment to the private sector where the private sector is willing to invest. Where they are not because of low population density, government subsidies can be provided to private companies to do that investment.

by brc 16y ago

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.
- hartror 16y ago
  I think the NBN won't prove itself in the next 10 years, it will take longer. I don't know what we will be using the internet for in 2020 . . do you? This is the long haul and frankly the private sector has had 10 years to prove themselves in Australia and they have faltered at every turn. This is the kind of projects governments should take on, long term and perhaps a little visionary. Oh and don't ignore the reliability it could/should. I know we've dealt with some pretty unreliable internet connections both a home and at the office due to oooold copper and you really do pay through the nose for good connections. Don't underestimate what reliable infrastructure brings to the table especially for business confidence.
  - andrewstuart 16y ago
    This is an excellent point. The free market has done nothing to build a powerful, universal foundation for telecommunications in Australia. We've seen nothing but stalling and roadblocks from Telstra in recent years. A major part of the problem is that rural/country Australia is so vast that it is not economically viable for profit driven companies to support. Telecommunications in Australia a disgrace. Frankly I think that massive government expenditure in this area is well overdue.
    - brc 16y ago
      I was going to leave this thread alone, but one thing keeps sticking in my mind. Water infrastructure is a state owned monopoly. Telecoms is not, even though Telstra dominate residential connections. A friend of mine wanted to connect water to his house down a short laneway (about 100 metres) in a rural area. The water authorities wanted $15,000 and 6 months to do it. He asked Telstra to connect the phoneline. It was done for free within two weeks. That is the difference between a government monopoly and private enterprise. If Telstra was still Telecom Australia, I have no doubt that the line would have taken twice as long and probably cost something as well. You might scoff and say that couldn't possibly happen with the NBN, but in all seroiusness, anyone who thinks setting up a massive government beauracracy will result in anything but this type of behaviour hasn't had much experience with governments. The role of Government should be to design the laws in such a way as to encourage investment, and to leave that investment to the private sector where the private sector is willing to invest. Where they are not because of low population density, government subsidies can be provided to private companies to do that investment.