On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 7:13 PM, Tony Wright <tonyw...@gmail.com> wrote:
[ ... ] The whole point of the exercise is to give the vast majority of the > population the ability to connect at high speeds. When there's a reasonable > saturation of high speed internet, new services and businesses become > viable. New applications become viable. High definition TV over IP becomes > viable (not quite the Back to the Future 20 animated screens, but you might > be able to get 2 or 3 screens in HD). When those applications and services > get patented, Australia wins as from then on, companies worldwide have to > pay us, and not the other way around. > I don't really subscribe to the 'build it and they will come' model of blind investment with no business plan. Plenty of providers are already doing triple play now on ADSL and you can watch movies pretty much instantly in high def using a $99 apple TV or Foxtel IQ today. So far the ads for the NBN show rainbows flying down streets and 3D dissected frog holograms floating above MacBooks. Really? Is this the pitch? > All the coalition are really promising is ADSL2+ to a connection point > closer to your house instead of the exchange, so that the loses between the > end of the street and your house will approach the theoretical maximum for > ADSL2+, which is around 24Mbps if you are damned lucky. You can barely get > a single channel and its grainy, blocky and skips - it's most definitely > not HD. > You can get Foxtel on XBOX today. The Samsung flat panel we have in the foyer at work has Foxtel over IP built in. I can watch movies instantly on my Foxtel IQ at home over IP (in HD). I can use Foxtel GO on the Mrs' iPad to watch Foxtel in real-time over the shitty ADSL connection at her parent's place in Broadmeadows. > A disgraceful waste of money that doesn't solve the problem of a degrading > copper network which will have to be upgraded to fibre eventually anyway. > And fibre doesn't degrade right? [ ... ] That's why I say either do the whole thing, or don't do any of it, but > don't blow $20 billion on a half-arsed solution. > If you ask me, neither party should be spending a single red cent on this. There is a sensible argument that can be mounted around removing blackspots, paying to get RIMs tophatted etc, but beyond that, this really is "I want a new pony" stuff with no business case. If there was a decent return to be had, Telstra or Optus would already be building it without anyone's help. Also, re 'half arsed solution' - the NBN is GPON. There are a whole host of business applications that are simply not going to touch NBN in favour of an active point-to-point optical connection. And I've not event touched on the fact that this will be a project management failure case study for students to write essays on for years to come. They are rolling out at 0.3% of the pace they are supposed to last time I punched the numbers (but we're ramping up, honest gov! It's only been 5 years to connect 15K homes but the next half million are nearly here!) David
