RSSAustralia's future is in broadband, says PM
By Tim Conneally | Published April 7, 2009, 3:55 PM
The Australian government has established a new company with the express purpose of building a national fiber-to-the-home broadband network. The project is expected to take eight years, and cost 43 billion Australian dollars, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in his announcement today.
The ambitious project seeks to connect 90% of all Australian homes to a 100 Mbps pipeline. Under the Rudd Government's national broadband network, "every house, school and business in Australia will get access to affordable, fast broadband."
To build the network, the government will engage in a 50/50 partnership with the private sector, where taxpayer money will be used for the initial investment, and then interest will be sold down five years after the network is fully operational. So the taxpayer's investment will not be recouped until 2022 if all goes according to plan.
Due to Australia's doughnut-like population dispersal, the non-coastal areas of the country are mostly wilderness. To reach the populace in these regions, the company will not be deploying a "Fiber-to-the-bush" network, but will instead rely on "next generation wireless and satellite technologies that will be able to deliver 12 megabits per second or more."
The Prime Minister sees this as an opportunity to build Australia's economic future.
"Just as railway tracks laid out the future of the 19th century and electricity grids the future of the 20th century, so broadband represents the core infrastructure of the 21st century,"Rudd said.
Currently though, Rudd says that the country is "a broadband backwater" due to years of failed policy. Indeed, the country's reputation for poor quality at a high cost is reflected by international price-per megabit rankings, disgruntled citizens, even by Betanews' own Aussie readers.
Despite its high cost, the Internet in Australia has extremely good penetration , with 60.4% of the population getting online, according to the International Telecommunications Union.
Where is Australia?, And, as FoxFart & PC_T would say who gives a flying binary?
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|This just in, We are going to provide 100MB to the home, but we are going let the ISP regulate you to 15Gb a ,month. This way, we will make you pay for the pipe, then allow the ISP to make money without investment! Its good for everyone!
Basterds (I misspelled on porpoise).
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|Here we go again. The opposition trying are now trying block national broadband network, they have no foresight for the future of this country. If The opposition had their way we be a 3rd world country working for peanuts. Just look at work choices and how they ripped off the Australian public to make them selves look good economically and nilly got a slave labour work force, companies were making massive profits while the average Aussie was suffering. The only thing The opposition is interested in is WORK CHOICES and lining their own pockets....
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|perhaps, the future is in broad band.
but why place the future in the hands of private broad band service providers?
nothing worse than having a simingly ethical company become greedy in the future.
it should be 100 percent government control to ensure its citizens will have affordable and reliable broad band.
as an information highway, its infra structure should be considered as streets and highways.
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|Telstra had the chance years ago to put Fiber optic network in but chose to the existing copper wire network but cause it was cheaper. If big business and Governments stop doing the cheaper option with things we mite be on top not only economically but technological too.
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|At around $4650 per every taxpayer this is not exactly a cheap solution. And that is just to build the infrastructure. Anyone with a simple accounting skills will tell you the government would need to charge double what Telstra charges for access to get return on investment. The government has already disposed of the surplus Liberals built and is already in the red (just after one year). So this "economic future" means a debt of $43 billion. Should I also mention this is the government, which intends to filter the access to the Internet with a secret list.
Update: according to opposition the monthly access would have to cost $150
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|This is simply the same lazy and misleading voodoo economics that the conservative opposition apply to all the initiatives of Australia's progressive government. This network (like the existing copper wire network) will be built to last for tens of decades. While the cost will be borne partially by taxpayers the benefits will last for more than fifty years. ZenMonk also conveniently omits the fact that the Government is committing only 4.2bnAUD to the project with the rest to be raised by investors buying equity in the new company. Its simply a lie to say that the 42bnAUD is a debt on the Australian tax payer.
The opposition (Liberals?) had an opportunity to fix this problem over ten years ago when they privatised Telstra. Had they split Telstra into retail and wholesale telecommunications suppliers at that point in time we most likely would have had a decent internet service. The current situation, created by the Liberals, is unworkable and guarantees that Australia will never have a decent communications infrastructure - why would Telstra build it if it has to then give access away to its competitors? A single backbone infrastructure provider (state or privately owned simply does not matter _ it probably does to ZenMonk) with lots of businesses competing to sell access and services - that would give Australia a technically good and economically competitive telecommunications industry. The Labor Government's network proposal has a very good chance of providing just such an outcome.
If you are going to argue the point then at least be truthful with your arguments.
Regards,
Peter
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|"This network (like the existing copper wire network) will be built to last for tens of decades."
You may want to revise that statements somewhat.
There's no way in hell it'll last 100/200 years.
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|the ZEROS are free but the ONES will cost you 5 cents each
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|I can't wait till this is all in (a few years though, I know). Lets hope the data caps are applicable, shall we say 500GB for AU$49pm? lol, sounds proportional to me, after all, what the use of all the speed if you don't get the opportunity to use it all?
Makes me wonder what they would cap your speed at if you went over...
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|Should of had this 10 years ago, but Telstra owned most of the lines and rented them out to other isp's that's why our prices are high. Telstra is mainly interested in the Corporate dollar not the little Aussie battler. We still wait to see is whether Telstra / sensis is keeping the good old Aussie phone book in this country or going over sea's to be made? Good on you kevin this is a step in the right direction for this country.
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|this is good, with that much money for the benefit of all
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|This is what the UK should be doing. It's been contemplated several times now, but no one wants to put up the money.
Considering it's a relatively small country I can't see why they keep putting it off.
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|The UK already has vastly superior broadband access when compared to Australia. I'm in a metro area, and the fastest speed I have access to is 1.5Mbps - with a download cap (15GB I have... for $55).
I'm SO glad we've ditched the stupid FTTN idea. FTTH gives a somewhat futureproof broadband network that won't be out of date by the time it's built. And it IS a nation-building project, and I'm glad someone is finally treating it as such!
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|That's no reason to sit on our laurels and watch everyone else do it.
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|You do realise that with only 1 ISP providing this network to start with, (the "Government"), it will make it so much easier to implement their rather draconian ISP-based Internet filtering. And any following sell-off of the network could be made with the proviso that filtering be kept in place.
Don't you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/...censorship_in_Australia
This country, (Australia), has gone downhill so much in the last 15-20 years. :(
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