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Australia's National Broadband Network To Go Ahead
angry tapir writes "After weeks of a hung parliament following the Australian federal election, the incumbent Labor Party has garnered enough support among independent MPs to form a minority government. Broadband was central to clinching the independents' support. Labor's victory means the $43 billion National Broadband Network will push ahead. The policy has generally been popular among ISPs and telcos — though some rebel operators preferred a policy that emphasized wireless technologies, similar to the proposals put forward by Labor's opponents. The primarily fiber-based NBN is set to offer Australians 1Gbps broadband."
Of having broadband if you can't watch some good ol' small breasted porn?
Greens/Liberals/Independants hold the balance of power and are all dead set against the filter. It's a dead scheme stop mentioning it. There will be no mandatory net filter in Australia. The ETS and mining tax are probably also going to get blocked. They don't have the numbers to pass that sort of legislation anymore.
OK, so this seems like a good idea - but what can we do with it? Having that kind of speed is great, but only if you have infrastructure that can serve you data that fast. We're a long way from anywhere and have only a limited amount of fibre connections to other countries (where I imagine most data will come from), this is reflected in the silly high prices we pay for data already.
So whilst it's great that we will have these kinds of speeds, how are we going to get data services fast enough to take advantage of them?
We're a long way from anywhere and have only a limited amount of fibre connections to other countries (where I imagine most data will come from), this is reflected in the silly high prices we pay for data already ... So whilst it's great that we will have these kinds of speeds, how are we going to get data services fast enough to take advantage of them?
A lot of data/content can be cached on continent. Akamai claims that:
"Akamai routinely delivers between fifteen and thirty percent of all Web traffic, reaching more than 4 Terabits per second."
http://www.akamai.com/html/customers/index.html
NBN (Fibre Network) is supported by:
All independants
The Greens
Labor Pary
Therefore it is guaranteed to pass throught the upper and lower houses :)
Censorhip is supported by:
Labor
Therefore it will not be able to pass through either house of parliament unless the Liberal/National Coalition switch their position (which wouldnt surprise me)
Are Aussie Liberals the same as US Liberals?
No. Liberal here is supposed to refer to people with a somewhat Libertarian outlook. Small government, letting the market take care of things. That sort of thing.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yeah, it's so much better to be held at the mercy of a corporation that has no accountability to you, vs. the government that has at least some accountability.
Sent from my PDP-11
It's classical liberalism, so it's primarily referring to their economic platform. In the US it applies to social platforms.
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
But they aren't, that's the problem. They're neo-cons these days. Someone like Malcolm Turnbull would be a true "Liberal", Tony Abbott (the guy who knifed Malcolm Turnbull to run the Liberals) is definitely a neo-con. They run the party these days and cop a lot of shit from Malcolm Fraser (one of the Liberal greats) for it.
I have a legitimate question for any Aussies on /. Here in the US, the title "Liberal" refers to spineless douchebags who act like conservatives with their own money, property, etc., but who love to micromanage other people's money, property, and selves. Are Aussie Liberals the same as US Liberals?
Find out from the Liberal Party website. They have an overview of their party covering their beliefs, history, and party structure. They're conservatives who like liberal economics.
4. Australians will stick with their (possibly) slower current technology services when given the alternative of a faster, but significantly more expensive solution.
Not possible. Remember that "agreement" that the government reached with Telstra? They agreed to "sell" their customers to NBN Co. when NBN rollout is complete in an area. This means that once NBN is available in your area you will be forced to use it or use nothing, because all alternatives will be removed by law.
We don't say "coloured." That's African-American light, thank you.
Given that the many "corporations" (small businesses and small ISPs save four) that currently offer internet access in Australia are in vicious competition with each other and services are improving yearly, yes. I would rather be able to say screw you Telstra 3g I'm going with Optus 3G because it's better, wait now I'm going with Internode because they're better than both.
Then say screw you government monopoly NBN ISP who has implemented filtering I'm going with....oh, all the other are gone or eye wateringly expensive now that they've lost most of their customers.
You live in a fantasy if you think you have more accountability over the Federal Government in Canberra than over a tiny ISP. And if you don't like corporations go with one of the many local ISPs.
And here's a tip for you: The majority of Australians *want* the Internet to be filtered, and the government is accountable to *them* not *you*. So now what?
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Cant do jack against mother nature. With the ENSO event last year this has lessened somewhat. Perhaps if people stopped wasting so much water on lawns and washing their hotted up HSV we wouldn't have such a crisis.
Limited land, bad land releases and a few companies have a stranglehold on constructions. Do you suggest the government give land away or fix prices for private corporations (because that will go down well on SlashLibertarian). Point in short, problem is procedural and throwing cash at it wont help.
Every time someone utters the word "Nuclear" the NIMBYS are up in arms taking torches and pitchforks to parliament house on sixty minutes. The same NIMBYs who complain about housing prices, broadband costs and water crisies but cant stop washing their cars every second day and watering their lawns in the middle of the day (40+ C is not unusual in Australia folks).
Which will spur economic and scientific growth and get us out of this communications dark age we are currently living in. CLUE: we are competitive with Russia for broadband, that puts us at #42 in the world. Economically we are a first world nations about #12-15 from the top.
You criticise the government for not fixing problems it can do little about by criticising the government when it does do something to fix a problem it can do something about. Jesus H Christ, Australia doesn't need any more people like you.
Lets break down the numbers, out of that 43 billion, 16 billion is being contributed by private entities. So that's 27 billion. Divide that by 11 million households and thats less then A$2500 per household. Amortise that over a 20 year lifespan (20 year minimum, 40 more likely) and its $125 per year, per household. A bloody bargain at twice the price. OTOH, lets look at the Sydney harbour bridge. That cost 60 Million to build in the 20's, we didn't pay it off for 60 years... as long as we dont count the economic benefits of the North Sydney CBD created directly as a result of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (oh and theres a bit of tourism $$$ for that iconic structure).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I have a legitimate question for any Aussies on /. Here in the US, the title "Liberal" refers to spineless douchebags who act like conservatives with their own money, property, etc., but who love to micromanage other people's money, property, and selves. Are Aussie Liberals the same as US Liberals?
Actually, looking in from the outside, it seems to me that in the USA the term "liberal" is a meaningless epithet applied by the conservative media to anyone that they don't like.
In Australia the term "Liberal" means "a member of the Liberal Party of Australia", or a person who regularly votes for the same.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
That's Telstra. Their pricing has always been terrible.
We had someone post on the guild forums that they were planning to join Telstra Bigpond and they got this response:
Why god why!? What in the hell possessed you to decide to join _them_? Have you finally gone completely insane, are you punishing yourself for something you've done, have you been befuddled by evil little imps sent by _them_, what is wrong with you man!? Think of your wife and child, turn back from the dark side, telstra isn't really your father. Get out of there now!
The majority of Australians *want* the Internet to be filtered, and the government is accountable to *them* not *you*.
I call BS. I haven't met one person who actually said they want internet censorship in Australia.
The government couldn't even give NetAlert away when they tried - nobody wanted it, it was "cracked" by a kid inside of a week, and the few religious zealots who did get it now find themselves unsupported.
Unfortunately the not-quite-majority of Australians who voted Labor at the last election fell for the "look at the silly monkey" trick (the high-speed National Broadband Network) and failed to notice the venomous snake (internet censorship) in the other hand.
I think the argument is in the sense that the Menzies Liberals represent the "true Liberals", and that Turnbull upholds this tradition more so than Abbott et al., who are far more in the Howard-post-9/11 Liberal mould.
The veracity of this judgement is left to your own political views as to what represents "true Liberal" and how closely Turnbull matches it.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Senator Minchin pushed for the spill, with a view to getting Hockey into the top spot. Abbott snuck through as the surprise/compromise candidate.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Australia doesn't have the fuel processing infrastructure to make it worth it with the current technology (sad to say, without a military nuke infrastructure to leech off things are difficult with civilian nukes). That may change with technology that is under development or imported fuel could be used with current technology.
For most current designs it's not worth contemplating nuclear unless it's something really big to give an economy of scale (lots of steam), which is complicated because it is best to have small units for safety reasons (so you need a LOT of them). That really means one big plant between Sydney and Melbourne. I can't see anyone putting up that kind of money in Australia with such a small return and such a long wait for a return - government owned or not.
There is other stuff on the horizon that probably won't cost as much, but for now the NIMBYs are not the problem - bankers are.
Are you suggesting that the high price of speedy internet in Australia comes at "no cost to the nation"?
On top of providing first class internet access for Australians, it will bring the ongoing cost of accessing broadband down significantly. Already, the mere talk of an NBN has broken Telstra's anticompetitive back. Sol was arguably forced out of Telstra as a direct result of the NBN announcement. Until this announcement, Telstra was holding all Australian's back at 8mbps maximums.
You also clearly have no idea as to the cost of networking infrastructure for business in Australia. Have you ever wondered why a 24/1 connection can be had for under $100/mo, yet a business can expect to pay thousands for 2/2 symmetrical? Perhaps you didn't even know. This is because of the current monopoly practices of the telecommunications giants. Businesses need upstream as much as they do downstream, whereas your average punter has little need for upsteam.
The NBN will make Australia a more attractive home for big business than it presently is. A large company can expect to pay tens of thousands of dollars a month (or more) for acceptable interconnects between their offices. Australia has competitive tax rates, and there was talk recently about making them even more attractive. The addition of NBN may serve as an additional sweetener to bring business to Australia.
On a sidenote, I'm always surprised to hear people talking about governments wasting money. I would be pretty unimpressed to find out that the government was taking my taxes and hording the money for god only knows what. We pay taxes precisely so that the government can implement major infrastructure like this. Sure, I'm all for saving up a surplus for a rainy day, but over the past 15 years there's been room for more public spending in my opinion.
It is not really that dangerous ... for a couple of reasons
1. The mining industry is responsible for 80% of Australia's energy consumption (this is largely subsidised by taxpayers). 40% of that is just crushing rocks.
2. The mining industry hasn't always been our biggest. Primary industry was except for the last 13 years we've been in drought. The drought has ended and we are in for a bumper crop, once again. One of our biggest competitors, Russia, is in major drought.
3. Our services industry is actually huge (a big reason for the NBN).
4. Our education industry is huge (was number 2 bread winner for at least 30 years straight)
5. The mining industry has actually agreed to the tax.
.
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