Rupert Murdoch Wants To Destroy Australia's National Broadband Network

pcritter writes "With the Australian Federal Election looming, Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Australia's biggest newspapers, is looking to unseat the incumbent Labor government over its centerpiece National Broadband Network policy. The media mogul sees the NBN as a threat to his media empire and has ordered newspapers to attack the project at every opportunity. The NBN seeks to bring 100Mbps Fibre-To-The-Premises internet to 93% of the country with wireless and satellite for the remainder. It currently reaches 4% of the population and is slated to complete in 2021. The conservative opposition has promised to dramatically scale back the project."

Comments

Rupert Murdoch can die in a hole already.

[bartron]

Honestly, I'm sick of technological advances being blocked because it hurts someones bottom line. Something something stock whip makers.

If the NBN affects his business then his business is archaic and newscorp can adjust or die...preferably the latter

Re:Rupert Murdoch can die in a hole already.

[Nichotin]

It is both funny and tragic how these people, who can build such large conglomerates, fail to see the business opportunities that arise when 93% of the population has 100Mbit fiber...

Re:Rupert Murdoch can die in a hole already.

[Carewolf]

Well, he probably sees the opportunities, but also realize he is not the best person to take advantage of them, so he must destroy it to avoid his betters from getting an advantage there, since they might use that to bring light to the places his media empire currently rules.

Re:Rupert Murdoch can die in a hole already.

[erroneus]

Government does, on the other hand, understand infrastructure needs. Matters such as minimum standards, right of way and others help to prevent cherry-picking businesses from servicing and improving only the most profitable areas which leads to all manner of growth and development problems not the least of which are population densities in small and concentrated areas (which leads to high real estate/housing, high violent crime and many other problems) and extremely underdeveloped areas where the population cannot participate in modern life.

At first basic needs included roads, then sewage, then public water (not so sure that's as much of a great thing these days), then electricity, then telephone. We all agree these things are not just good, but necessary for a civilized area to exist today. And the internet? I think we've gone far beyond it being considered a novelty and no one uses FAX machines any more... (okay, almost no one) As far as I'm concerned, it's as much of an infrastructure/utility need as the rest and internet needs to replace the telephone and it cannot do that without first having efficient and usable broadband. Also, we need some open standards for internet telephony that doesn't mean paying someone or something like Skype or other commercial entities.

Anyway... I have too much to say on the subject, but while I agree we can expect waste and mismanagement from government, you have to understand it goes back to the motives of government. Ideally, government should not be for profit. (Invariably it is because business people help get government into office which supports their business interests... a whole other discussion)

Re:Rupert Murdoch can die in a hole already.

[fustakrakich]

The success of anarchy depends on self discipline and voluntary cooperation. It is possible that such a thing is unattainable in this physical universe, but it would be nice to make the effort. It would mean we are becoming human. What you described is not anarchy.

Sheesh!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they did things "upside down" not "backwards" in Australia.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Australian federal election announced today

[bigmadwolf]

The timing of this post on the front page is a little too timely. The prime minister Kevin Rudd today announced the date the federal election is to be held. It will be September 7th. Me thinks the poster is quite possibly a card carrying Australian Labor Party (ALP) member.

There seems to be a lot of scaremongering going on in regards to the Liberal National coalition's NBN policy. The ALP is promising fibre to the building in all cases except for where it is completely infeasible (e.g. remote towns out in the desert etc.). Sounds great but it will be expensive. Probably somewhere well over $50 billion. The coalition is promising fibre to the node with fibre to the building available at cost to the user for those that need it. Coalition's will be a fair bit cheaper as it won't be funding fibre to every building.

The ALP's NBN policy page

The Liberal National coalition's NBN policy page

Debate over which of the two policies is superior is healthy but blatant biased scaremongering is not.

Re:Labor Lie

[drsmithy]

As an American, I don't know enough about the NBN program to say.
In a nutshell, the NBN is a plan to deliver fibre-optic telecommunications infrastructure to most of the country. It will build (and own) the physical infrastructure upon which retail ISPs will deliver their products.
If Labour sucks then let Australian voters throw them out.
Labor does, indeed, suck, and Australian voters are probably going to throw them out. The problem is if they do they're going to replace them with a party that takes everything that sucks about Labor, and says: "You boys are just playin'. Let's crank this shit up to 11!".

Re:What is a 100Mbit connection good for?

[fustakrakich]

I know you're trolling (especially on the 'piracy' thing), but why does 100 megabit internet have to be of economic use?