7 ms·

Sadly, Australia missed great many opportunities when it came to the internet.

by bjt12345 3y ago

dkdbejwi383 3y ago
Do you care to elaborate?
- DougMerritt 3y ago
  They very likely will not elaborate, since I see that since 2018 they've made only about a dozen comments, 3 of which were nothing but "."
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- ClassyJacket 3y ago
  In 2008 we started installing gigabit fibre to every home, but a conservative government got in power in 2013 and stopped it, replacing it with 25mbit VDSL. Ours doesn't work when it's raining!
  - shric 3y ago
    The joke is I have gigabit fibre (Sydney CBD), but it's $329/month for 1000/400.
- thisiswater 3y ago
  The rollout of the national fibre network, "NBN", was eaten alive by politicking and conflicted interests. C.f.: Renewable energy. Neoliberalism has done/is doing terrible things to the public services in this country.
- astrange 3y ago
  Australian internet is low quality as the conservative party (confusingly for Americans named the Liberal Party) stopped investing in it and it never recovered. They also produce good CS research and can't seem to productize any of it; the best known tech employer is the company that makes Jira.
  - Grimburger 3y ago
    This is a tiring meme. The entire architecture was flawed from the beginning. It was a terrible monopoly plan that actively decided from the outset to use urban connections to subside highly expensive rural ones, essentially a flat tax on those living in metro areas. Successive governments have enshrined the monopoly status and keep having to make new laws to stop anyone else competing. When a private company is banned from building their own network infrastructure something is very broken. We have taxes on mobile broadband to protect the NBN from 5G, the CEO openly says Starlink is going to eat their lunch and wants taxes on that too so they are less competitive. New Zealand actually got it right by separating the buildout from the operators.The NBN was an utterly terrible design that was intentionally underquoted and deserves to be mocked by anyone with half a clue about it. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/government-urged-to-end-broadband-tax-588425 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/government-urged-to-end-broad...
    - nmfisher 3y ago
      Not to mention that the NBN was already over budget and years behind schedule by the time the Liberals decided to switch to MTM. The whole thing was a disaster from the beginning.
      - astrange 3y ago
        No reason to give up. Do you want to be under budget or do you want your internet to work?
        nmfisher 3y ago
        I don't agree with the decision to switch. At that point, given the sunk cost, I probably would have continued with the original plan. However, that doesn't change the fact that the original plan was bad and should never have been launched in the first place.
- shric 3y ago
  I live in the Sydney Central Business District. 1 USD = 1.55 AUD. All other numbers below are Mbps. I pay 99 AUD per month for 250 down, 25 up. If I want 1000 down, 50 up, it's 149 AUD per month. If I want 1000 down, 400 up, it's 329 AUD per month. If I want 1000 symmetrical, well I haven't even bothered to check because that's a business service. Meanwhile I believe people in Zurich can get 10000 down/up for approximately what I pay for 250/25. Of course, Australia is much larger than Switzerland by area, but that's no excuse for such slow speeds in Sydney. I would much prefer 1G or 10G symmetrical even if it was shaped down once leaving Sydney or Australia.
  - mmerlin 3y ago
    We likely also would have had approximately the same reasonably priced symmetric speeds if Abbott had not aborted the FttP rollout at 5%. Turnbull also helped to butcher the original FttP NBN horrendously and they spent 400% more than FttP would have cost, to get the much slower network we got lumped with... i.e the munted results of Murdoch protectionism and "stick it up the opposition" bully Abbott politics.
  - antod 3y ago
    Not trying to rub it in further, but approx 900/400 can be had in NZ for about 85AUD even in relatively small rural towns (with higher speed options in more populated areas).
  - senectus1 3y ago
    this bugs the crap out of me as well... though I pay 99.95 a month for 100/40 plus a static IP.
  - rk1079 3y ago
    Actually inet7 in der Schweiz offers 25000 as their standard fibre package. Hardware for this is prohibitively expensive for most but it's great that they are pushing for more adoption by allowing those on a plan to speed up if they want to

Sadly, Australia missed great many opportunities when it came to the internet.

dkdbejwi383 3y ago

Do you care to elaborate?

DougMerritt 3y ago
They very likely will not elaborate, since I see that since 2018 they've made only about a dozen comments, 3 of which were nothing but "."
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ClassyJacket 3y ago
In 2008 we started installing gigabit fibre to every home, but a conservative government got in power in 2013 and stopped it, replacing it with 25mbit VDSL. Ours doesn't work when it's raining!
- shric 3y ago
  The joke is I have gigabit fibre (Sydney CBD), but it's $329/month for 1000/400.
thisiswater 3y ago
The rollout of the national fibre network, "NBN", was eaten alive by politicking and conflicted interests. C.f.: Renewable energy. Neoliberalism has done/is doing terrible things to the public services in this country.
astrange 3y ago
Australian internet is low quality as the conservative party (confusingly for Americans named the Liberal Party) stopped investing in it and it never recovered. They also produce good CS research and can't seem to productize any of it; the best known tech employer is the company that makes Jira.
- Grimburger 3y ago
  This is a tiring meme. The entire architecture was flawed from the beginning. It was a terrible monopoly plan that actively decided from the outset to use urban connections to subside highly expensive rural ones, essentially a flat tax on those living in metro areas. Successive governments have enshrined the monopoly status and keep having to make new laws to stop anyone else competing. When a private company is banned from building their own network infrastructure something is very broken. We have taxes on mobile broadband to protect the NBN from 5G, the CEO openly says Starlink is going to eat their lunch and wants taxes on that too so they are less competitive. New Zealand actually got it right by separating the buildout from the operators.The NBN was an utterly terrible design that was intentionally underquoted and deserves to be mocked by anyone with half a clue about it. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/government-urged-to-end-broadband-tax-588425 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/government-urged-to-end-broad...
  - nmfisher 3y ago
    Not to mention that the NBN was already over budget and years behind schedule by the time the Liberals decided to switch to MTM. The whole thing was a disaster from the beginning.
    - astrange 3y ago
      No reason to give up. Do you want to be under budget or do you want your internet to work?
      - nmfisher 3y ago
        I don't agree with the decision to switch. At that point, given the sunk cost, I probably would have continued with the original plan. However, that doesn't change the fact that the original plan was bad and should never have been launched in the first place.
shric 3y ago
I live in the Sydney Central Business District. 1 USD = 1.55 AUD. All other numbers below are Mbps. I pay 99 AUD per month for 250 down, 25 up. If I want 1000 down, 50 up, it's 149 AUD per month. If I want 1000 down, 400 up, it's 329 AUD per month. If I want 1000 symmetrical, well I haven't even bothered to check because that's a business service. Meanwhile I believe people in Zurich can get 10000 down/up for approximately what I pay for 250/25. Of course, Australia is much larger than Switzerland by area, but that's no excuse for such slow speeds in Sydney. I would much prefer 1G or 10G symmetrical even if it was shaped down once leaving Sydney or Australia.
- mmerlin 3y ago
  We likely also would have had approximately the same reasonably priced symmetric speeds if Abbott had not aborted the FttP rollout at 5%. Turnbull also helped to butcher the original FttP NBN horrendously and they spent 400% more than FttP would have cost, to get the much slower network we got lumped with... i.e the munted results of Murdoch protectionism and "stick it up the opposition" bully Abbott politics.
- antod 3y ago
  Not trying to rub it in further, but approx 900/400 can be had in NZ for about 85AUD even in relatively small rural towns (with higher speed options in more populated areas).
- senectus1 3y ago
  this bugs the crap out of me as well... though I pay 99.95 a month for 100/40 plus a static IP.
- rk1079 3y ago
  Actually inet7 in der Schweiz offers 25000 as their standard fibre package. Hardware for this is prohibitively expensive for most but it's great that they are pushing for more adoption by allowing those on a plan to speed up if they want to