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How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

nytimes.com

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Re: How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

#31

Post by beedogs »

d_t_w wrote: post #27
d_t_w wrote: post #26

Country is a basket case politically, lowest calibre of politician I have ever encountered. A profound paucity of talent across the board and absolutely no end in sight to the endless stupidity. You can think of the shit infrastructure, crap attitude in general, and intellectually bankrupt waste that make up the political class as the many layers of tax on any high cognitive business in Australia. Coal is the future…

Do you want to hear a funny joke by the Australian Prime Minister? The "cartoon that united Australians" - Malcolm Turnbull, PM, 2017 (his comment, he's not the cartoonist) http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/53a5099c7991c37bb152ddf53... Funny one, isn't it.

Thankfully, the unhinged racist who drew it just shuffled off this mortal coil. He had many more which were just as terrible as this.

Re: How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

#32

Post by stirlo »

d_t_w wrote: post #27
d_t_w wrote: post #26

Country is a basket case politically, lowest calibre of politician I have ever encountered. A profound paucity of talent across the board and absolutely no end in sight to the endless stupidity. You can think of the shit infrastructure, crap attitude in general, and intellectually bankrupt waste that make up the political class as the many layers of tax on any high cognitive business in Australia. Coal is the future…

Do you want to hear a funny joke by the Australian Prime Minister? The "cartoon that united Australians" - Malcolm Turnbull, PM, 2017 (his comment, he's not the cartoonist) http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/53a5099c7991c37bb152ddf53... Funny one, isn't it.

It should be noted that comment was made at the artists funeral and is not complete. The full quote is 'cartoon that united Australians in defence of freedom' referring to freedom of speech

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/17/turnbull-lauds...

Re: How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

#33

Post by beedogs »

flukus wrote: post #29
craigvn wrote: post #17

As an Australian, I think it can be summed up by two reasons. 1. All large scale infrastructure rollouts are difficult and subject to problems and blowouts. 2. It was made a political issue. New government decided to make major revamps for no reason other than it was different to the previous government so they could use it as an election issue.

> New government decided to make major revamps for no reason other than it was different to the previous government so they could use it as an election issue. The worst part was the nationals. In 2007 they were bitching that it needed to be fiber, by 2010 they were saying copper is the future.

Not just copper. 100-year-old waterlogged copper. We prefer our transmission lines to be well-aged down here.

Re: How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

#34

Post by d_t_w »

stirlo wrote: post #32
d_t_w wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want to hear a funny joke by the Australian Prime Minister? The "cartoon that united Australians" - Malcolm Turnbull, PM, 2017 (his comment, he's not the cartoonist) http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/53a5099c7991c37bb152ddf53... Funny one, isn't it.

It should be noted that comment was made at the artists funeral and is not complete. The full quote is 'cartoon that united Australians in defence of freedom' referring to freedom of speech https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/17/turnbull-lauds...

Out of interest, do you think the extra context ameliorates the Prime Minister's proud defence of base racism?

Re: How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

#36

Post by pserwylo »

The government who changed away from FTTP is the more conservative (and pro small government) of the two major parties. As such, although I disagree, I can see why they may argue that it is not the governments responsibility to deliver broadband infrastructure and that private industry should pick up any slack.

However they didn't argue this.

They stuck with the concept of a nationally funded broadband network, but one which was sub-par on almost every metric except cost. This just doesn't make any sense to me, especially because they tried to sell it to the public by suggesting that things like "Why invest so much in fibre when it may be surpassed by another technology in the near future". There was also a lot of clever wording around how their version would be "delivered cheaper, faster, etc than the alternative" - I have no doubt these words were chosen because it sounds like the data rates themselves would be faster, whereas they actually meant it the build could be completed faster.

Re: How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

#37

Post by flukus »

beedogs wrote: post #31
d_t_w wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want to hear a funny joke by the Australian Prime Minister? The "cartoon that united Australians" - Malcolm Turnbull, PM, 2017 (his comment, he's not the cartoonist) http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/53a5099c7991c37bb152ddf53... Funny one, isn't it.

Thankfully, the unhinged racist who drew it just shuffled off this mortal coil. He had many more which were just as terrible as this.

The cartoon wasn't racist, it's your own bias that makes you think it is.

Re: How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

#38

Post by marak830 »

moronicalox wrote: post #18
MichaelGG wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you wire up or use 2Gb/sec at home? Do you get a GigE switch and connect separate devices? Multiple wireless APs? TenGigE?

He has to be talking Gbps, not GB/s right? Right?! I might move to Japan.

Gb, damn autocorrect haha.

Re: How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

#39

Post by d_t_w »

flukus wrote: post #37
beedogs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, the unhinged racist who drew it just shuffled off this mortal coil. He had many more which were just as terrible as this.

The cartoon wasn't racist, it's your own bias that makes you think it is.

Your opinion is a fairly common one in Australia, or at least it is one commonly expressed.

Re: How Australia Bungled Its $36B High-Speed Internet Rollout

#40

Post by gaelian »

Smerity wrote: post #11
marak830 wrote: post #8

I was born and raised in Australia, I left for Japan just as the NBN was beginning to roll out. It's an absolute disgrace how much it has been butchered. I have thoughts about returning occasionally, but going from 2 GB/s unlimited for Aus$ 40 ish a month, back to those speeds and prices is a major factor for me staying here. It is a massive quality of life difference to have amazing internet.

As an Australian now living in San Francisco paying $55 per month for 100/100 (WebPass, which would be the same price but 500/500 or 1000/1000 if I moved to a newer building), I have the exact same feeling. When I journey back home and stay with my parents, it is impossible to get work done. Latency is the first killer - it'll never properly be solved if you're working with remote systems in the US or Europe - but th…

> but then upload speeds slowly rip at your soul

I know the feeling. I'm relatively lucky in that I live somewhere that has had VDSL for some time and my download speed is adequate, if not ideal. But my upload speed is atrocious, in fact actually slower now than it was in past years (before my ISP got bought out by a bigger ISP) and my ISP will not guarantee any particular upload speed for my connection. I make use of a cloud-based backup service to mitigate the possibility of local disk failure and it's just painful.

You hardly hear anyone talking about upload speeds in Australia. It's as if cloud-based services aren't really a thing and we're back in the early 2000s.

> That Australia didn't end up with a future proof fibre to the home system given the amount of money spent is an absolute disgrace. I get angry every time I have to discuss it.

I know this feeling as well. :) It is a massive lost opportunity that the country will be paying for in more ways than one for decades to come.

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