High Speed Internet across Australia
 

Dear Australian Forum Members

I've just read the following article that says the Australian Government is planning to roll out high speed broadband access throughout Australia:

BBC News - Australia strikes broadband deal with Telstra and Optus

Now a couple of thoughts crossed my mind, they are:

1) Is this a good thing for the Australian public or could it turn out to be an expensive white elephant?

2) Most experienced users in Australia realise that for some time their government has been trying to gain control over the Internet, i.e, monitor what their citizens are doing. Will this new "public spirited advance" finally give them the authority take over Australia's Internet?

Hopefully someone will cast some light on the government's eventual intentions.



UK Bob

I'm not so sure it's about government control. It's simply a policy to give accessible & upgraded options of internet country-wide. Brought in by the Australian Labor government. Whereas the Liberal party wanted to restrict fibre use to only city areas so the wealthy could use it.

Only comments I have at present are in regards to fibre's cost & improvements versus its price compared to ADSL2.

My ISP does have this option now. However price compared to limits is a little of a put off. My present ADSL2 plan offers 200 GB peak / 200 GB off-peak. Around 10-11 mbps down, around 800 kbps up. Speaking from a personal point of view, my present download speed is fine. Only advantage to the high speed network would be upload speed.

For the same price in Fibre, 25 / 2 Mbps, 30GB + 30GB peak / off-peak.

Would cost me AUD$20/month more for 50 / 4 Mbps, 30GB + 30GB or twice as much or more for either 100 / 8 Mbps, 60GB + 60GB or 90GB + 90GB.

If I'm using over 200GB / month overall then I'd find myself shaped down to 250 kbps if using fibre. At this point I do not see any big reason to change to fibre. Perhaps in the future the price of fibre will come down and/or the monthly bandwidth use will be more generous as happened with ADSL2 over time.

I do trust my ISP. More than I can say for Telstra Bigpond. And Optus has shown willingness to cave into government or business also. Unlike both Telstra BigPond & Optus, my ISP refused to trial out the censorship filters. They also fought in court against the RIAA to show them it's none of their business who shares what over the internet & the ISP is not responsible for it. I like the company's attitude in that regard. ;) Optus & BigPond let RIAA have what they want as far as I know. That's what happens when you have USA citizens working over here at the top of the internet company's executives. :(

BTW the senator who was pushing the internet censorship filters is a member of a very narrow religious group & political party in far north of the country. Similar regional area as the infamous racist Pauline Hanson.

The Australian Internet
 

LOTR

I understand that at this stage of the proposal for a country wide roll out, you are rightly worried about how much this will cost the end user, i.e. will it become disproportionate to the benefits offered.

Its just that if your future nation wide Internet network is government owned, rather than being owned by companies like your ISP, then any future government will be able to impose any policy (of the moment) without any public consultation or parliamentary debate.



UK Bob

The phone system over here originally belonged to the government via PMG/Telecom Australia. Telecom went independent & renamed Telstra. Government maintained 51% share for many years in Telstra, but now owns 17%. Also see BigPond & Fibre in that link for a further understanding. The ISP's lease the lines basically from my understanding.

It's a complex arrangement. Will NBC do worse than Telstra? There's always the potential for government interference with censorship or monitoring, etc., just as before now.