As a follow up to our guest post on the numbers behind Labor’s broadband policy, here is a quick poll to see whose policy you prefer. Let us know what you think!
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Might not hurt to add the Greens, NBN + retain ownership as a vote option.
Robert: Done.
Robert – can you explain how your two options differ from Lab/Coalition options?
James Here’s the Greens’ broadband policy.
Hi Zebra
The Greens is NBN + retain ownership as I understand it so options 3 and 4 are essentially duplicates
1.I believe NBN should be gov owned but only develop trunk networks at 1 Gb/s. (fibre to the node). Individuals can then opt in by contract to extend fibre to own premises with fibre for heavy /important community users or copper/wireless for lighter (most domestic) users.
2, It would be a shame for us to spend $40bn + on a fibre to (most) homes to then have the bandwidth “Wasted” on IPTV and such. Homes should be able to buy this service as they presently may choose to do so with coax cable.
If you leave it to individuals to purchase their own FTTH, the cost will be prohibitive. Its only going to be close to being feasible if you roll it out to everyone in an area at once.
On a bit of an aside, how long to people think the copper network is going to last given its current state, and (quite reasonably) Telstras lack of interest in it?
Guys – thanks for comments – please put up on main post.
The poll is currently standing at Labor with 37% and Greens on 14%. In reality the only difference is that Labor will censor the Net in Aus and the Greens won’t. Other than that the policies are identical. Do people really want the Net censored by Labor?
To be fair to the Greens, there were a number of votes in the poll before the Greens were added as an option.
By all means let us have a fibre from the nodes to each home/business as new areas as they are developed or older areas as they are cabled with fibre through good old Telstras vast network of existing ducts.
These physical fibres are the cheap part.
The costly elemenrts are the trunk system and terminal equipment at major exchanges, local nodes and users, and new duct systems in developing areas.
Great savings can be reslised if these elements are sized for paying users /genuine needers and scaled up as user demand grows.
Yes, we would all like to have Labors 1Gb/s available at nearly every home – but for most this would be gross overkill – at a cost of $2000 for every man, woman and child in the country!
Stubborn,
This might be too late, but I would vote for “Beats me”.
Not unreasonable: even Zebra seems to have changed his mind on this!
I think it would make more sense to have fibre to the node and then Wimax (or whatever is the fastest wireless these days) from there. This would give a lot more flexibility as it could be used both for home and mobile, consumers could choose a bandwidth to suit them by buying particular wireless hardware, and it could be updated as faster wireless standards appear. It’s also cooler because it’s wireless.
When most rural areas struggle with a lack of GPs, I wonder what makes NBNphiles think Australia can afford 80B (cos the cost will blow out, probably triple if BER is a guide), or how many have ever needed a doctor and not been able to get one.
Further, can anyone tell me what great increases in productivity Sth Korea and Japan have attained with their world’s fastest broadband?
How does residential broadband contribute to Australia gaining a competitive edge in intellectual property, pharmaceuticals; medical, IT, and green energy tech breakthroughs…… and all the other stuff a developed nation can export?
Let’s face it, fibre to the home is just another “CONSUMER service” with little to no capacity to increase GDP per capita. In fact it is likely to decrease it, by engaging human capital ever moreso in fruitless time wasting recreation like online gaming, watching latest release movies, and puerile social networking.
It is interesting that the trend in maths acumen is inversely correlated with rising use of the internet in developed nations.
Anyone doubting the decline in numeracy in Australia can read the Group of 8 review. http://www.go8.edu.au/go8media/go8-media-releases/2010/184-group-of-eight-releases-maths-review