Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Australia Discussion Board
Sign In   Return to Topic Page
Subject: WTF - $43 billion bucks spent to improve porn download rates?!?!
Aussiegunneragain    4/7/2009 3:26:13 AM
So now that we are heading towards a recession with the prospect of a $100 billion dollar deficit over the next 4 years, our Dear Leader has decided to quadtriple the size of the National Broadband Network project to $43 billion bucks. Originally the project was "only" going to cost $9b, with $4.5b coming from the Government, but now the $4.5b will just be an initial payment. How much is the taxpayer going to end up paying for this monsterous white elephant of a project, $20b plus? WTF are people going to use all that bandwidth for anyway ... surely if the demand was really there then business would build it of its own accord? I don't know about you lot but don't want my taxes being flushed down the toilet by a Government making the old mistake of trying to pick winners. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Broadband price rise tipped under $43b plan Posted 2 hours 50 minutes ago Updated 2 hours 17 minutes ago Massive project: analysts are astonished at the upfront cost. (Reuters: Hannibal Hanschke, file photo) Video: PM announces broadband scheme (ABC News) Audio: Market rocked by Government announcement (The World Today) Audio: Press conference: Kevin Rudd unveils broadband plan (ABC News) Audio: Opposition slams Government plan (The World Today) Audio: Federal Government ditches broadband policy (The World Today) Audio: Tanner takes critics to task (The World Today) Audio: Dr Bill Glasson on the Government's national broadband network plan (ABC News) Related Story: Broadband plan 'a massive broken promise' Related Story: Rudd redraws broadband landscape Related Story: Tas gets first 'byte' at new broadband Related Story: Broadband network 'must accommodate rural needs' Related Story: Telstra defies downward market trend Related Story: Phone lines restored in NT Related Story: Disappointment over national broadband plan Related Link: Factbox: Key points about national broadband network Market analysts say broadband prices are likely to rise, after the Government unveiled an amibitious new $43 billion plan to build a national fibre-to-the-home broadband network. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has scrapped the broadband tender process in favour of forming a public/private company to build and operate a network which will cost over four times the amount of the original $9.4b proposal. Mr Rudd says the network will take eight years to build and give 90 per cent of Australian households download speeds 100 times faster than they currently experience. The 10 per cent of homes not covered by fibre-to-the-home will get upgraded wireless access. But analysts are astonished at the upfront cost and say they have concerns about the network's commercial viability. "I've got no idea what's driving the Government to do this," Ivor Ries, an analyst with EL and C Baillieu Stockbroking, says. "They're saying a network that will deliver 100 megabits per second, that would exceed current household consumption by a factor of 100 times. "[That] allows you to download several channels of television at the same time. "[So] what it will do is create a market for people selling downloads to homes - people selling movies for downloads to homes will obviously be big winners from this. "But is it going to provide some sort of magic shot in the arm to productivity? Probably not." Mr Ries says the new network is only financially viable if 80 per cent of Australians choose the access provided by the new cables rather than wireless internet access. "If they get only 60 per cent of the population using it, and people preferring wireless over this new cable, then the monthly access fee they're going to have to charge people will be prohibitive," he warned. "At the moment the average Australian household is spending about $40 a month on accessing the internet. "Whereas this proposal will require the average household to be paying somewhere round about $75-85 a month. "So you're talking there about a $35 to $45 a month increase in the cost of basic access for the average household." BBY Stockbroking senior analyst Mark McDonnell says it is hard to see how the private sector could make a return on such an expensive project, unless broadband prices rise significantly. "It's both audacious and paradoxical," he said. "The paradox being that if you can't find private sector support for a proposition around building a fibre-to-the-node network which might have cost $10 to $15 billion, let's up the ante and make it $43 billion and still ask for private sector support. "How's that going to happen?" But telecommunications analyst Paul Budde says Australians are getting top-level technology without waiting for a commercial company to provide it, even if home use will only be part of the new network. "You have to look at it in a totally different situation," he said. "You talk about the use of the infrastructure; not just for internet. You talk ab
 
Quote    Reply

Email Me When A New Comment Is Made
Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
Pages: PREV  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8   NEXT
Aussiegunneragain    Buzzard   4/9/2009 12:11:34 PM



Damn, you know in the U.S. stupid government broadband ideas are generally restricted to localities. Some city generally gets the bright idea that they are falling behind in connectivity and that the government has to do something about it. Much money gets spent after plenty of cost overruns, and then once it fails miserably since the ability of government planners to anticipate markets and technology is once again proved abysmal, so they bail on the project, dumping the infrastructure on someone else for a loss. Then, even the recipient often fails because the government acting at it's normal snails pace bought a load of gold plated buggy whips from some politically connected sorts so the tech is second rate.



 However doing it on a national scale- Wow, that's really a grand scale for stupid. 




 

Told ya that our stupid can be bigger than your stupid. You know the "best" thing? They are going to make sure that every hick town gets a broadband connection at everybody elses expense, either by this monstrosity of a network or by their own wireless service. This is in a country with a greater land area than the lower 48 and about 90% of the population in the major cities. You do the math ... or even don't and just guess how many connections per thousand of kilometres of cable and trench that those services are going to have. The answer is somewhat shy of not so many.


And once you've finished scratching your head about that, think about the way that our Government wants to lumber our highly energy dependent economy with an emissions trading scheme to reduce greenhouse gases before the rest of the world has even recommitted to post Kyoto targets and during a recession. This is from a country whose total GHG emissions are about the same as the increase in GHG emissions from China every six months. What that means is that if the rest of the World does not recommit to GHG mitigation in a meaningful way, we will be stuck with making environmentally meaningless reductions whilst screwing over our economy even more. I could go on to talk about how they are on a trajectory that might well lumber us with about $200 billion dollars worth of debt (again, quite a bit for us) by the time this recession is over but you get the picture that you aren't the only ones with problems.

 
Quote    Reply

Aussiegunneragain    Dropbear   4/9/2009 12:13:59 PM

The real point is however how much are you all willing to pay for that 100mbps? The estimates in the papers range between $75 and $200 per month, with the most sensible sounding independent estimate that I've heard being $100.
 

Absolutely. I'm paying Telstra $70/month now for their lousy slow 1mb/sec crap.

 Bring it on.
Good for you, pay for it yourself and stop expecting to be able to reach into my pocket to fund your video calls to your auntie in Gympie. .

 
Quote    Reply

buzzard       4/9/2009 2:30:37 PM
Good for you, pay for it yourself and stop expecting to be able to reach into my pocket to fund your video calls to your auntie in Gympie. .
 
You are forgetting the classic definition of a socialist- someone who is very generous with other people's money. 
 
 
Quote    Reply

Aussiegunneragain    Buzzard   4/9/2009 11:19:01 PM

Good for you, pay for it
yourself and stop expecting to be able to reach into my pocket to fund
your video calls to your auntie in Gympie. .

 

You are forgetting the classic definition of a socialist- someone who is very generous with other people's money. 

 

In fairness to Dropbear you couldn't consider him a socialist. I just don't think he's thought about the implications of the way the Government is doing this yet.
 
Quote    Reply

AMTP10F       4/10/2009 12:53:39 AM

 
I see it as a good thing, no a great thing. It wont be the fastest system in the world but it will be up there and above all it will be scaleable, i.e. its speed can be increased as required through upgrading the exchanges.
 
It will make copper lines obsolete and will not suffer the band width limitations a wireless network would.
 
This is probably the best thing the government has done since coming to power.
 
Here's the technical problem.
 
A 100mb connection is like a 3" drain pipe. The current international cable connections into Australia (which carries the vast majority of our internet traffic) is like a fire hose. The internet filter is akin to putting a garden hose nozzle on the fire-hose.
 
It isn't going to get anywhere near 100mb.
 
Then there all the other arguments re: price, government ability to deliver, viability, is it appropriate for the government to get into this business, etc...
 
Quote    Reply

Aussiegunneragain       4/10/2009 1:21:50 AM




 


I see it as a good thing, no a great thing. It wont be the fastest system in the world but it will be up there and above all it will be scaleable, i.e. its speed can be increased as required through upgrading the exchanges.

 


It will make copper lines obsolete and will not suffer the band width limitations a wireless network would.

 


This is probably the best thing the government has done since coming to power.

 



Here's the technical problem.

 

A 100mb connection is like a 3" drain pipe. The current international cable connections into Australia (which carries the vast majority of our internet traffic) is like a fire hose. The internet filter is akin to putting a garden hose nozzle on the fire-hose.


 

It isn't going to get anywhere near 100mb.


 

Then there all the other arguments re: price, government ability to deliver, viability, is it appropriate for the government to get into this business, etc...



Great, so it will only be any good for talking to your auntie in Gympie but completely frickin' useless for doing anything really productive, like running distance education overseas.
 
Quote    Reply

Volkodav       4/10/2009 1:25:52 AM
I am honestly looking forward to VOIP, IPTV, hiring cheap movies online instead of driving to the DVD shop. It will also be great to stream lectures as part of my external studies, while the other half works from home and Miss Muppet live streams Tokio Hotel into her bedroom at 3000000db.
 
After all this I could set my son up in from of a webcam to chat to his Nanna in Darwin and take one of the dogs for a run (something I don't have much time for at the moment).
 
The other possibility is I could use CITRIX from home for the unclassified part of my job for a more family friendly work life balance.
 
For all this I would happily pay $200 a month. Don't forget with broad band of this speed you will be able to get rid of many other services and items you currently have to pay for.
 
Quote    Reply

SCisback       4/10/2009 1:32:23 AM
If it were commercially and economically viable, it would already have been done on the back of private money.
 
Instead the government is being irresponsible by forcing something that isn't required and spending way too much money on something for which there just isn't really enough demand/justification.
 
 
Quote    Reply

Volkodav       4/10/2009 1:53:45 AM
IF the internet filter comes in and slows down the internet then this is even more reason to go for fiber to the home. A firehose with a garden hose nozzle still delivers more water than a garden hose with the same nozzle could.
 
Once the now net work is rolled out and people start to wonder how they ever lived without it the government can then sell the asset and recoup their investment plus some. Just look at the cable Telstra thought to be of little commercial value 5 years ago that Leightons now values at 1000% more than they picked it up for.
 
I would rather see the government building infra structure that private enterprise lacks the foresight to build than giving tax breaks to companies to fail to provide second or third best.
 
Quote    Reply

Volkodav       4/10/2009 2:05:04 AM
IF the internet filter comes in and slows down the internet then this is even more reason to go for fiber to the home. A firehose with a garden hose nozzle still delivers more water than a garden hose with the same nozzle could.
 
Once the now net work is rolled out and people start to wonder how they ever lived without it the government can then sell the asset and recoup their investment plus some. Just look at the cable Telstra thought to be of little commercial value 5 years ago that Leightons now values at 1000% more than they picked it up for.
 
I would rather see the government building infra structure that private enterprise lacks the foresight to build than giving tax breaks to companies to fail to provide second or third best.
 
Quote    Reply
PREV  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8   NEXT



StrategyWorld.com© 1998 - 2012StrategyWorld.com. All rights Reserved. StrategyWorld.com, StrategyPage.com, FYEO, For Your Eyes Only and Al Nofi's CIC are all trademarks of StrategyWorld.com Privacy Policy