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Raising Doubts About Australia's Broadband Upgrade Plan

Posted by timothy on from the doubt-doubt-doubt dept.

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.

4 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Good job... by djupedal · · Score: 4, Funny

    > "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!"

    Must have taken hours just to type that sentence. That's what I call d e d i c a t i o n!!

  2. I think it comes down to... by Laser_iCE · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The point that they're playing on the fact that the majority of Australians have no idea how technology works, nor do they have any understanding about the terminology behind it. Simple things like you mention to someone, "I use a 512k connection" -- they would assume that you would be downloading at 512kb/s, not 1/8th of that.

    Couple this with the fact that IT has always been the sort of subject that kids used to figure out ways to get around their schools proxy (so they can waste time on bebo at school instead of actually hanging out with their friends), rather than learning how a computer works.

    This is also the reason why Australians get sucked into those stupid Nigerian scams so easy -- because a lot of us don't use common sense. Not saying that Australia is alone in any of these aspects, it just seems to be that because our Government has no idea how the series of tubes works, the rest of the country hasn't really taken any interest. Discussion about things like the proposed internet filter are great for the general public, because it gives them a chance to understand how intricate the internet and networking in general is...

    Or they roll your eyes at you and put their iPod headphones back in -- they won't have to worry about security with Web 2.0.

    [/rant]

    1. Re:I think it comes down to... by tick-tock-atona · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm not sure which Australia you're living in, but I think the general public here has pretty good tech knowledge. The government, on the other hand, is made up of idiots like Conroy and Fielding - who, from their public comments, are puritan Luddite's.

      The party's good intentions are there, it's just that those charged with delivering a product (Conroy) have no idea what they are doing. I think he's been so sidetracked with his little pet project of internet censorship, that he's forgotten what the "Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy" is actually supposed to do.

      And none of this is helped by the resident monopoly Telstra who, following privatisation, have abused their monopoly on telecommunications infrastructure in an attempt to keep competition at a minimum. The Howard government simply didn't ensure healthy competition was possible following the transition of Telstra to private ownership.

  3. Re:Huh? by Idiomatick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Steve balmer if you RTFA says highspeed internet is a good thing, he says that the future of computing is online. And he says 21mbps wireless is fucking awesome. All of these things /. agrees with. Try not to trash the guy when he's not throwing chairs thats just flaming.