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Surely this guy doesn't think the answer is to vote in the liberals who will shut down the fibre to the home goal of the NBN? Is that really a good way to advan

by hoodoof 14y ago

Surely this guy doesn't think the answer is to vote in the liberals who will shut down the fibre to the home goal of the NBN? Is that really a good way to advance Australia's startups?

dr1337 14y ago
That's besides the point. FTTH is overkill and is absolutely not a requirement to build a technology industry. How is fibre going to a small town like Burnie in the middle of Tasmania going to encourage the creation of technology startups when its users are going to be technologically uneducated in the first place? What will most likely happen is all that bandwidth (paid by taxpayers) will most likely be used for Torrenting music, warez, movies and porn. As a pragmatist, the NBN rollout should have been targeted firstly for areas of high concentration of startup activity. That way, users most likely to benefit and create wealth from the increase of bandwidth will have first dibs that will eventually trickle down to the rest of the system. Unfortunately, for most short-sighted politicians, the main agenda of the NBN is to buy votes from rural and marginal electorates.
- angusscown 14y ago
  I'd rather more of my potential customers get NBN. Startups hubs tend to already have the broadband required. 'wealth' will be created by capturing a larger user base for new broadband/low latency applications.
- kerno 14y ago
  I think that people in Burnie in the middle of Tasmania would probably receive the greatest benefits from having fast and reliable internet access. With online education and MOOCs opening up education to those who want it, giving isolated and rural communities access increases the opportunities available to them at a far greater rate than giving the innner city the same benefit.
- Volpe 14y ago
  Tasmania is used for a testcase because it is a great 'micro-version' of Australia. So potential issues that arise can be dealt with at a scale of 500,000 rather than 20,000,000. > Burnie in the middle of Tasmania going to encourage the creation of technology startups when its users are going to be technologically uneducated in the first place? What will most likely happen is all that bandwidth (paid by taxpayers) will most likely be used for Torrenting music, warez, movies and porn. I'll paraphrase your words: Poor/socio-economically disadvantaged people don't deserve nice things, because they are too poor to understand them. Politicians are short sighted for ignoring the rich middle class. You're view point is exactly WHY the NBN should be rolled out.
- taligent 14y ago
  I don't say this lightly but you really are an idiot. The idea that innovation can only come from certain areas is completely baseless. The idea that people in countries towns like Burnie have no use for NBN other than music, warez, porn is offensive. And your concept of wealth "trickling down" has been shown time and time again to never happen. And the NBN is being rolled out everywhere so not sure where you get this ridiculous vote buying concept from.
stephen_g 14y ago
I really hope that sanity will prevail there when they get in (but by Abbot and Turnbul's comments, it may not be likely)... I mean, a big part of their plan is to not do anything in areas that have HFC currently, even though that cable is so over-subscribed that you don't get decent speeds in peak hour, and many apartment blocks just don't have access to it. So under the Coalition's plan, most people won't get even slightly better internet. How is that OK? Then, rolling out an inferior tech (compared to fibre) that is only marginally better to current ADSL to the rest which is going to run over an aging copper network that will require billions of dollars of maintenance over the years? All while maintaining the current telco monopoly... Really, their only selling point is the cost, but I haven't actually been able to find any evidence that the plan is actually costed - every reference to it being cheap is just based on rollouts in other countries with very different geography, population density and existing infrastructure. If they actually costed it, and then took running costs into account, I doubt it would actually be cheaper. And the current, superior NBN isn't even a cost to the taxpayer - it's an investment that will eventually pay itself back with a small profit. I think the biggest thing though is that even if it were double the price and didn't pay itself back, the economic benefits of having fibre generally available to businesses and homes, as well as having a network which provides open access to suppliers (instead of having to go through the Telstra monopoly) would make it worthwhile.
- lubos 14y ago
  Could you please explain how NBN will pay for itself? Not to mention, NBN Corp. will not be any different monopoly from Telstra Wholesale. And regarding speeds, how is NBN going to solve that? Australia doesn't even have enough international throughput in the current network. NBN will make speeds even worst as the demand will only increase. The bottleneck here is not copper, it is international capacity. What's the point of replacing copper if the weakest link of the network remains.
  - coopdog 14y ago
    NBN Corp would become a monopoly like Telstra wholesale (and I hope they don't sell it, just outsource the operation), but at least it would split Telstra wholesale and retail. There was some seriously strange things going on there, like when the retail price goes below the wholesale price and the fine is nothing compared to the dollars lost by competitors. The copper situation is ok in inner city areas (except some buildings where the wiring is corroded, or the two wires split to different lines which increases noise/slows the connection), but ADSL speeds also depend on distance. Many areas can't even get into an exchange because they're full, and when you do if you're too far away from it your speeds will be quite horrible. Not to mention upload speeds, NBN would make it possible to send virtual images, giant movie files, HD video and other big chunks of data person to person, rather than this many to one subscriber download model we kind of have at the moment.
ghiculescu 14y ago
Barrie is arguing that the Gillard government is increasingly going to restrict an Australian startup's ability to hire the people it needs to succeed. When that happens, what good will faster internet in rural areas do?
- Volpe 14y ago
  How is your statement related to your question?
jfoster 14y ago
The NBN will probably make little difference to startups. Not that the NBN isn't a good thing for Australia, but most Australian startups are likely targeting a global market, which Australia is only a tiny portion of.

by hoodoof 14y ago

Surely this guy doesn't think the answer is to vote in the liberals who will shut down the fibre to the home goal of the NBN? Is that really a good way to advance Australia's startups?

dr1337 14y ago

That's besides the point. FTTH is overkill and is absolutely not a requirement to build a technology industry. How is fibre going to a small town like Burnie in the middle of Tasmania going to encourage the creation of technology startups when its users are going to be technologically uneducated in the first place? What will most likely happen is all that bandwidth (paid by taxpayers) will most likely be used for Torrenting music, warez, movies and porn. As a pragmatist, the NBN rollout should have been targeted firstly for areas of high concentration of startup activity. That way, users most likely to benefit and create wealth from the increase of bandwidth will have first dibs that will eventually trickle down to the rest of the system. Unfortunately, for most short-sighted politicians, the main agenda of the NBN is to buy votes from rural and marginal electorates.

angusscown 14y ago
I'd rather more of my potential customers get NBN. Startups hubs tend to already have the broadband required. 'wealth' will be created by capturing a larger user base for new broadband/low latency applications.
kerno 14y ago
I think that people in Burnie in the middle of Tasmania would probably receive the greatest benefits from having fast and reliable internet access. With online education and MOOCs opening up education to those who want it, giving isolated and rural communities access increases the opportunities available to them at a far greater rate than giving the innner city the same benefit.
Volpe 14y ago
Tasmania is used for a testcase because it is a great 'micro-version' of Australia. So potential issues that arise can be dealt with at a scale of 500,000 rather than 20,000,000. > Burnie in the middle of Tasmania going to encourage the creation of technology startups when its users are going to be technologically uneducated in the first place? What will most likely happen is all that bandwidth (paid by taxpayers) will most likely be used for Torrenting music, warez, movies and porn. I'll paraphrase your words: Poor/socio-economically disadvantaged people don't deserve nice things, because they are too poor to understand them. Politicians are short sighted for ignoring the rich middle class. You're view point is exactly WHY the NBN should be rolled out.
taligent 14y ago
I don't say this lightly but you really are an idiot. The idea that innovation can only come from certain areas is completely baseless. The idea that people in countries towns like Burnie have no use for NBN other than music, warez, porn is offensive. And your concept of wealth "trickling down" has been shown time and time again to never happen. And the NBN is being rolled out everywhere so not sure where you get this ridiculous vote buying concept from.

stephen_g 14y ago

I really hope that sanity will prevail there when they get in (but by Abbot and Turnbul's comments, it may not be likely)... I mean, a big part of their plan is to not do anything in areas that have HFC currently, even though that cable is so over-subscribed that you don't get decent speeds in peak hour, and many apartment blocks just don't have access to it. So under the Coalition's plan, most people won't get even slightly better internet. How is that OK? Then, rolling out an inferior tech (compared to fibre) that is only marginally better to current ADSL to the rest which is going to run over an aging copper network that will require billions of dollars of maintenance over the years? All while maintaining the current telco monopoly... Really, their only selling point is the cost, but I haven't actually been able to find any evidence that the plan is actually costed - every reference to it being cheap is just based on rollouts in other countries with very different geography, population density and existing infrastructure. If they actually costed it, and then took running costs into account, I doubt it would actually be cheaper. And the current, superior NBN isn't even a cost to the taxpayer - it's an investment that will eventually pay itself back with a small profit. I think the biggest thing though is that even if it were double the price and didn't pay itself back, the economic benefits of having fibre generally available to businesses and homes, as well as having a network which provides open access to suppliers (instead of having to go through the Telstra monopoly) would make it worthwhile.

lubos 14y ago
Could you please explain how NBN will pay for itself? Not to mention, NBN Corp. will not be any different monopoly from Telstra Wholesale. And regarding speeds, how is NBN going to solve that? Australia doesn't even have enough international throughput in the current network. NBN will make speeds even worst as the demand will only increase. The bottleneck here is not copper, it is international capacity. What's the point of replacing copper if the weakest link of the network remains.
- coopdog 14y ago
  NBN Corp would become a monopoly like Telstra wholesale (and I hope they don't sell it, just outsource the operation), but at least it would split Telstra wholesale and retail. There was some seriously strange things going on there, like when the retail price goes below the wholesale price and the fine is nothing compared to the dollars lost by competitors. The copper situation is ok in inner city areas (except some buildings where the wiring is corroded, or the two wires split to different lines which increases noise/slows the connection), but ADSL speeds also depend on distance. Many areas can't even get into an exchange because they're full, and when you do if you're too far away from it your speeds will be quite horrible. Not to mention upload speeds, NBN would make it possible to send virtual images, giant movie files, HD video and other big chunks of data person to person, rather than this many to one subscriber download model we kind of have at the moment.

ghiculescu 14y ago

Barrie is arguing that the Gillard government is increasingly going to restrict an Australian startup's ability to hire the people it needs to succeed. When that happens, what good will faster internet in rural areas do?

Volpe 14y ago
How is your statement related to your question?

jfoster 14y ago

The NBN will probably make little difference to startups. Not that the NBN isn't a good thing for Australia, but most Australian startups are likely targeting a global market, which Australia is only a tiny portion of.