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Obama Looks Down Under For Broadband Plan
oranghutan writes "The Obama administration is looking to the southern hemisphere for tips on how to improve the broadband situation in the US. The key telco adviser to the president, Sarah Crawford, has met with Australian telco analysts recently to find out how the Aussies are rolling out their $40 billion+ national broadband network. It is also rumored that the Obama administration is looking to the Dutch and New Zealand situations for inspiration too. The article quotes an Aussie analyst as saying: 'There needs to be a multiplier effect in the investment you make in telecoms — it should not just be limited to high-speed Internet. That is pretty new and in the US it is nearly communism, that sort of thinking. They are not used to that level of sharing and going away from free-market politics to a situation whereby you are looking at the national interest. In all my 30 years in the industry, this is the first time America is interested in listening to people like myself from outside.'"
I live in Australia. Our broadband *sucks*. Try Korean or Japan if you're after inspiration.
Is Obama going mad? Here in NZ we have one of the WORST internet "solutions" in the world! Its: -Slow -VERY expensive -Lots of area's don't even have access to internet -Heavily Data Capped (I pay $120 NZ for 10mbit (which is more like 7mbit) with only 40GB of data!)
Goodness, the $40B broadband plan will be a disaster.
Lets see.
About 10 Million possible connection points (Business + Households) with say 25% takeup (after they will still be competing with ADSL/Cable which is already > 10 Mbits/sec to most)
Thats $16k per connection. Lets assume cost of capital (6%) + maintainence(4%) is 10%/annum.
So it will cost $1600/annum or $133/month before we add any data costs.
So USA, don't follow our example.
Our dear leader K.Rudd is intent on sending us as broke as you.
46137
We have about 1/10th the overall US population density. OTH our urban population density would be quite similar.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
(no, I'm not a liberal, not even close)
To anyone who doesn't know, the two major political parties in Australia are the Labor party (left-center) and the ironically named Liberal party (right conservative). The term "liberal" in Australia is therefore rather ambigious a lot of the time.
The new broadband network is being proposed by our current Labor government.
It's Susan Crawford.
We're in the process of making the mistakes right now. Our new broadband plan is like a beautiful locomotive gliding through the air in super-slow motion, but if you have some foresight you can see you're watching a train wreck in slow motion
This is from the same guy who threw millions at stopping internet bullying with a mandatory nationwide blacklist of disgusting sites, then leaked the list of disgusting sites. Just the other day he released confidential figures revealing the confidential value of our main telecom company's assets, this is our telecommunications minister and I really doubt the US counterpart has anything to learn from him or his plans
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There is no 'natural' monopoly or duopoly. These situations are only created through Government intrusion into the market.
Based on actual history, you speak quite a bit of truth. However, it's not *only* created through government intrusion.
When a company is so successful that it can "get it" and "do it" for less... when a company offers something over an infrastructure that is so expensive and offering a product/service on a huge, national scale is the bar that has been set... That company will be so incredibly entrenched that it will never be rooted out by a startup. Ever.
It's the reason 100% free market capitalism can't work on it's own. It needs a little help from the big G, sometimes.
I totally agree the government effed up in the past and basically made AT&T a monopoly. They also continue to eff up in many ways, but without *some* government regulation, you'd STILL be stuck with AT&T anyway. In fact, their actual goal was to be *the* only telecommunications provider back in the early 1900s as they gobbled up the little companies in buyouts. AT&T would have been able to do it too, even without the government's help. I have no reason to believe AT&T or any other company in that position would feel any differently about the Internet.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
I like your sig.
Sometimes, something can be so ridiculous, that just pointing and laughing is sufficient.
Nail, meet hammer. To elaborate, there is still NO indication that Australia's fabled broadband network is ever going to eventuate. There's been a couple of years of blow-hard yapping about it, but the government has yet to come up with a single concrete proposition as to how it is going to go about it.
Don't get me wrong, I was one of those who helped this government get elected (and I'm all for the roll-out of a decent network), but while its members are nowhere near as openly malevolent as their predecessors, much of their policy to date has been the application of "spin" to somehow justify their lack of action.
>>>This is one of the textbook cases of how natural monopoly/duopoly arise.
Except in the case of cable television, which is most areas the monopoly did not arise naturally. It was *mandated* by the local government when they granted Comcast (or Cox or Time-warner) an exclusive license in the neighborhoods or counties.
The government should revoke that exclusive license, and let other companies to move-in. Imagine if the metal pipe under your street not only had Comcast, but also Cox, Time-Warner Cable, Charter, Apple TV, and so on. You could just pick the one you liked, the same way you can choose a Ford, Honda, GM, Toyota, Kia, or Dodge car.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Oh they would be able to afford it, just after they raised the prices for the goods and services that are PRODUCED in those rural areas.
City dwellers tend to forget, or like to ignore, that they share a symbiotic relationship with the rural hicks. Without the food and energy resources produced "in the sticks" city life would be impossible.
Tough to run a 40 Billion dollar trading company with no electricity. Tough to raise your family in a beautiful suburb when there's no electricity and nothing to eat. Oh you may have a power plant somewhere close to you, but go find out where the fuel for it comes from. You may have some farms somewhere close to your city but go find out what their production is and then divide that into your population.
You'll quickly discover that you'll be starving in the dark without those hicks in the sticks. On the other side of the coin those hicks in the sticks would be doing without life saving medical treatments and equipment, complicated machinery, and sophisticated technology.
Like I said, it's symbiotic but don't think that they couldn't afford it if they had to. They could, they'd just raise the cost of the food you're eating, the power you consume, etc, until they could.