Slashdot Mirror
Raising Doubts About Australia's Broadband Upgrade Plan
RcK writes "In addition to the rising controversy of the possible Australian version of the Great Firewall Of China already mentioned several times of late here on Slashdot; the viability of the proposed AU$5Billion internet infrastructure upgrade promised by the Federal Government during their 2007 election campaign is under fire. The MD of arguably Australia's leading internet company, iinet, has branded the proposal a waste of taxpayers money. Steve Ballmer, during his current Australian visit, has also weighed in on the topic and diplomatically indicated that Australia should get on with the job. Much of the current criticism appears to surround the likelihood of people in remote areas being left out of the proposed plan. Ironically, where I lived previously (remote town in central Aus — nearest town over 400km away) everyone had, at the absolute least, subsidized satellite internet, and most had ADSL. In my case a flawless 512k connection for ~4years. However, I now live 5 minutes from the center of a capital city and due to archaic telephone infrastructure cannot get ADSL, and even line noise is too great for dialup!"
Today's front page at
Whirlpool Broadband News also features several articles relating to the saga.
my house isn't even wired for a phone line.
Your choice. Perhaps the rent was cheaper for a reason?
Telstra demands $700 to connect the house to the phone line, and neither the landlord nor the tenants will cough up the money.
Who should cough up the money? Seconds after they install the line it will be on a naked ADSL2+ plan. Landlines are not a good investment for phone companies anymore.
One day, my girlfriend left LimeWire open on her laptop when she left for work in the morning; that month we had a $360 bill.
Perhaps your girlfriend should buy her doggie porn instead of steal it.
I apologise to the rest of the world for the minority of whinging Aussies.
Yes we have a hopeless government, bastard phone company and an awkward geographic location. But it could be a lot worse. This is still the best country on earth and those milliseconds of lag are distance between us and war, famine and countless other miseries.
You don't really give a crap about any of the issues you just mentioned.
The only thing which does matter to you is the orgasm you have whenever you see the word "Australia" on Slashdot.
"Oh my God, we're eeeeeempordeeend! We're sufeeeeeeteeeeeecateeed! We're reeeelly Amereeeeeeceeeeeens!"
L.O.L.