NBN Rollout Scrapped

Have been listening to 4 Corners. Stephen Conroy ramping up on free ABC advertising.Conroy just blowing his trumpet in an endeavour to justify this white elephant spending. He admits it will be a Government monopoly and you and me will have to pay the price whether you like it or not.

prawn_86 said:

You can, and a lot of the toll road operators have gone broke. Roads are too expensive to maintain for the amount of tolls charged and motorists are not willing to pay more as they feel they should be free (or paid for by our already high taxes)

Personally i think health, education, transport should all be available free up to a 'good' standard. I think the benefits outweigh the costs. But thats for another thread...

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Well, so long as you launder the idea by ignoring the nature of the payment for these services, all these things can of course be referred to as 'free'.
After all, we all have the option of obtaining things for free - pointing a pistol at someone generally helps.

Like I say, its hard to compete as a private enterprise when people are forced to pay for your competitor . Can you imagine starting a steel mill if the general populace could obtain steel for 'free'?

I only watched the first half of Four Corners, got bored and turned it off. It wasn't saying anything we didn't already know. Perhaps all the vital revelations occurred in the second half?

Julia said:

I only watched the first half of Four Corners, got bored and turned it off. It wasn't saying anything we didn't already know. Perhaps all the vital revelations occurred in the second half?

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Sometimes can be a fine line between what you already know and what you want to hear

Julia said:

I only watched the first half of Four Corners, got bored and turned it off. It wasn't saying anything we didn't already know. Perhaps all the vital revelations occurred in the second half?

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Yep a good program that presented the facts without political rhetoric and hysteria...not exactly what the ASF right wanted.

So_Cynical said:

Yep a good program that presented the facts without political rhetoric and hysteria...not exactly what the ASF right wanted.

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How would you know what any right thinking person wants or wishes.

gg

So_Cynical said:

Yep a good program that presented the facts without political rhetoric and hysteria...not exactly what the ASF right wanted.

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How can it present the facts without political rhetoric, when Conroy is involved and the the FACT is no one can give us a genuine costing. Add to that no business case or cost base analysis.
The saving grace is it is moving that slowly the next election will be here before we are over our heads in it.

Garpal Gumnut said:

How would you know what any right thinking person wants or wishes.

gg

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Easy have a read on ASF same people same argument day in day out.
Create a new thread same people same argument.
Better than stilnox
Go team Tony

While the four corners presentation seemed to be as old as the hill's and boring, the ABC NEWS site has come out with a major show on NBN.

Titled "NBN Special Presentation". it has 4 sections.

1 Evolution of NBN.
2 FAQ. The NBN.
3 Analysis: Is the NBN Esssential?
4 Infographic - How fibre works.

It appears the Labor government is in campaign mode on NBN, or finally realised
the true circumstances of the slow take up.

As the NBN footprint is being scaled back, the ABC is running a campaign to educate the voters on NBN.
It appears that NBN maybe Labour's last hope.

It is either that , or its a campaign to hold QLD for Labor.

Cheers

So_Cynical said:

Yep a good program that presented the facts without political rhetoric and hysteria...not exactly what the ASF right wanted.

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I watched some of it, but from what I could see the massive cost and potential further cost blowouts were not discussed.

It was a lovely touchy feely show about a school using it for teaching purposes, the CSIRO would like it, someone else wanted it for their kids to play games a doctor and patient having a less distruptive online consultation. But no mention of cost to the taxpayer - it came across as if it was going to be free to all. How lovely...

Some of the above scenarios would certainly be of huge personal benefit to have a more reliable internet and especially to people living in remote areas, but then I thought it doubtful that people in remote areas will get it anyway - aren't they going to be serviced with 4g wireless?

The show did point out that FTTN was the original plan and it sounds like the more sensible plan with such a low take up rate. But fears of Telstra undermining them has sent the government on this huge spending spree. Maybe they should buy Telstra back - might end up being less costly to the taxpayer?

So_Cynical said:

Yep a good program that presented the facts without political rhetoric and hysteria...not exactly what the ASF right wanted.

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Exactly what was to be expected. I especially enjoyed the "NATION BUILDING" catchphrase/rhetoric from both Rudd and Conroy. The other part that piqued my interest was the way that the Labor Guvmint has completely destroyed ANY possible competition for the NBN now and or in the future.

I laughed out loud when the "technology challenged" (we have satellite) farmers out in the sticks were under the impression that they were going to get the shiny blue cable to their front door. just LOL at that one. Nope ... not enough population. You are stuck with sarellite baby.

I smirked at the takeup rate of 13% for the Tasmanian populace for the NBN. "No need to panic Captain Mainwaring" could be heard in the background. They interviewed several Taswegians who did not even own a computer let alone know how to operate one as well as spent a "serious" amount of time looking for people who did. The response to this conundrum "Tasmania is a tough market but we expected this". ROFL.

The FACT that England has had a similar system for several years and less than 17% has taken up this wonderful opportunity to get high speed pr0n ...... ooops I meant info from the internet just really bought it home to me as to how important the proletariat places on this wonderful shiny blue cable and it's capabilities.

I enjoyed how Conroy explained the "behind closed door dealings" with Telstra to outmanouvre them so that they could not compete with the NBN. Hey wait a minute ..... didn't the Guvmint own Telstra but sold it? Now they are going into competition against it? Ooooopppsssssss ....... my mistake ........ NO COMPETITION IS ALLOWED. Shouldn't the ACCC be looking into this? *GOSH* ....... they did and found the Guvmint legislation is quite above board.

Yes yes yes the schools have benefits, the CSIRO have benefits, the hospitals have benefits. AND SO THEY SHOULD. Hook up the NBN to every single one of them and ALL the business's and make this part of society more efficient first. And all of this would be classified as a "Nation Building" exercise which would have the support of the people. THEN worry about Joe Schmoe in the street downloading movies and pornography LATER.

Be afraid ladies and gentlemen ........ VERY AFRAID.

Tasmanian populace and low uptake? The areas built with fibre are areas that generally have low broadband uptake. Build in the more central population areas and uptake would have been better. Also the areas built have had a lot of issues with companies closing in the last couple of years and are expecting more closures. Towns losing employment options are generally not going to start spending on extra services - they will conserve money.

Another issues why the low uptake is the people are confused. The opponents have put the wrong information in to the minds. People think a connection to the home will cost them. It wouldn't cost them until they start using a service on it. Also people thought it meant the end of their current copper line. That transition is years away and will force them to have the fibre anyway - and will probably cost them to be connected.

Politicians work out of Hobart. Scotsdale and Smithton are about as far as you can get from Hobart. Factual information seems to stop dead and opinions run wild. Governments have sent out so much propaganda in the mail that is sometimes not clearly written or have a meaningful point so now the citizens treat it all as any other junk mail. Straight in to the recycling bin, garbage or compost heap.

The same issues arrise from the gas rollout. Free connection to the home was possible but most didn't take it up.


England has a very similar system? Fibre is only recently started to be rolled out there. The Virgin thing is cable from memory. So it's the same issue as what Bigpong and Optus already have. Have you looked around the internet at what sort of issues various Virgin users have had? Many Virgin customers have no interest in the more expensive and faster speeds because Virgin do all sorts of throttling and conditions.

Infrastructure is a long term thing. When ADSL was first released to the Australian market the 256/64 and 512/128 plans were by far the most commonly used. Most people have now moved on from them in less than 10 years.

NBNCo's greatest impediment is how they manage wholesale.

Stephen Long summarized the 4 Corners NBN quite well on Mondays Drum, Malcolm Turnbull also made an appearance but had to talk over people as they quoted probability numbers at him in answer to his questions.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/04/11/3188432.htm

IFocus said:

Stephen Long summarized the 4 Corners NBN quite well on Mondays Drum, Malcolm Turnbull also made an appearance but had to talk over people as they quoted probability numbers at him in answer to his questions.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/04/11/3188432.htm

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Poor old Malcolm ....... reminded me of a Pink Floyd song called "The Thin Ice" from the album "The Wall".

"You slip out of your depth and out of your mind / With your fear flowing out behind you / As you claw the thin ice."

He was clearly out of his depth on this one and spouted nonsense rhetoric.

trainspotter said:

Poor old Malcolm .......

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I would prefer to see Malcolm in a shadow finance role with Joe Hockey put in charge of the Coalition's footy tipping competition, but that's another topic for another day.

drsmith said:

I would prefer to see Malcolm in a shadow finance role with Joe Hockey put in charge of the Coalition's footy tipping competition, but that's another topic for another day.

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Abbott as Prime Minister with Turnbull as Treasurer I still break out in a cold sweat re Abbott but that would be the best I could imagine for a Coalition Government.

IFocus said:

Abbott as Prime Minister with Turnbull as Treasurer I still break out in a cold sweat re Abbott but that would be the best I could imagine for a Coalition Government.

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Tony Abbott's biggest weakness (a bit like Julia) is you don't know what he actually stands for.

Even with Malcolm Turnbull as Shadow Treasurer, they would still have the formidable task of finding a Bill Gates amongst the rest of them.

drsmith said:

Tony Abbott's biggest weakness (a bit like Julia) is you don't know what he actually stands for.
.

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That's certainly true with regard to so called climate change in that he has changed his position multiple times.

But on other matters, isn't he quite straightforward? i.e. very conservative, devoutly Christian, anti abortion, anti euthanasia, anti illegal immigrants etc.

I think he's way more clear about what he stands for than is Ms Gillard who seems willing to change her 'beliefs' according to the politically expedient flavour of the time.

drsmith said:

Tony Abbott's biggest weakness (a bit like Julia) is you don't know what he actually stands for.

Even with Malcolm Turnbull as Shadow Treasurer, they would still have the formidable task of finding a Bill Gates amongst the rest of them.

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Hard to believe he was a lawyer, investment banker than the chair of OzEmail and Goldman Sachs ???

Lost me when he told futurist Mark Pesce he needed to “lay off the Kool-Aid” with respect to the technology. Harumph !

sptrawler said:

How can it present the facts without political rhetoric, when Conroy is involved and the the FACT is no one can give us a genuine costing. Add to that no business case or cost base analysis.

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sails said:

It was a lovely touchy feely show about a school using it for teaching purposes, the CSIRO would like it, someone else wanted it for their kids to play games a doctor and patient having a less distruptive online consultation. But no mention of cost to the taxpayer - it came across as if it was going to be free to all. How lovely...

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Perhaps its not about the money...perhaps its about a government actually delivering what's needed, what's impossible for the private sector to build/finance, perhaps its about a fair go for all Australians regardless of where they choose to live. :aus: