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

nytimes.com

61–70 of 188 posts

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

#61

The NBN is a tale of geography. If you live in the CBD mainland capital city you will get good coverage. Even that it's patchy. If you live more than 30km out access get mostly worse. If you live in the bush, the best you'll get is crappy satellite or your own jury rigged antenna to the nearest town. If you were lucky enough to a) live close to the city b) have telephone poles c) live near a telephone exchange and we…

Err, no, you don't? Most of central Sydney is on ADSL, NBN has been rolled out primarily in new housing developments way out in the boonies.

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

#62
post #37
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.

I'm not Australian, but I went back and looked at it again and I can't see any possible way to interpret it that isn't racist. Perhaps you could fill me in?

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

#63

If you posed the question "Who in the world would be the worst possible person to decide on how to construct a nationwide high speed computer network?", the you might come up with a list that included Tony Abbott. I genuinely believe that Tony Abbott really didn't even understand what purpose the Internet serves, apart from email and playing games - he saw it as some sort of frivolous discretionary spend - definitely…

I agree (and probably made it on to a list or two). Our government agencies don't even need a warrant to see our call/web/email metadata now. Even the RSPCA can access it.

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

#64

The NBN is a tale of geography. If you live in the CBD mainland capital city you will get good coverage. Even that it's patchy. If you live more than 30km out access get mostly worse. If you live in the bush, the best you'll get is crappy satellite or your own jury rigged antenna to the nearest town. If you were lucky enough to a) live close to the city b) have telephone poles c) live near a telephone exchange and we…

I live five minutes' walk from the Melbourne CBD, and we have no indication NBN is going to be rolled out here any time soon.

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

#65

The NBN is a tale of geography. If you live in the CBD mainland capital city you will get good coverage. Even that it's patchy. If you live more than 30km out access get mostly worse. If you live in the bush, the best you'll get is crappy satellite or your own jury rigged antenna to the nearest town. If you were lucky enough to a) live close to the city b) have telephone poles c) live near a telephone exchange and we…

I was pleasantly surprised my place had FTTN (100/50 I think I can get if needed). Absolute boondocks of Tassie, mostly agricultural/tradesfolk I'd guess. Seems odd but I'm glad they did.

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

#66
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.

I work in Australia from time to time on a project. It is superior in every way to the United States for my use cases except for Internet, which keeps me on the West Coast of the US. It's that bad. I'd love nothing more than to move there, but not if the Internet is that terrible.

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

#67
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not Australian, but I went back and looked at it again and I can't see any possible way to interpret it that isn't racist. Perhaps you could fill me in?

It's about remote aboriginal communities that have problems like this, not aborigines as a whole. Note that the cop is also an aborignal he's probably the type that is fed up with dealing with this shit.

I'd say the people that think it's racist are the racist ones, all they see is the skin color. They'd think it was a funny joke (or at least be indifferent) about rednecks of the characters were white, but lost their shit when the person is black.

For context, the two biggest issues are alcoholism and especially remoteness. Imagine a poor black community in the US just after segregation ended and then imagine that they were 300Km from the nearest corner store (or maybe this is a problem in the US?). Our welfare system could probably eliminate a lot of the problems in a generation or two in cities but it doesn't make much difference in remote communities.

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

#68
post #34
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As an outsider, sounds like he defended free speech, not racism.

So yes, the extra content makes a huge difference.

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

#69
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not Australian, but I went back and looked at it again and I can't see any possible way to interpret it that isn't racist. Perhaps you could fill me in?

You realize that you are implying that any negative cartoon with a black person in it is automatically racism.

That's why flukus said "it's your own bias that makes you think it is". If you weren't biased you would just see people being criticized.

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

#70

If you posed the question "Who in the world would be the worst possible person to decide on how to construct a nationwide high speed computer network?", the you might come up with a list that included Tony Abbott. I genuinely believe that Tony Abbott really didn't even understand what purpose the Internet serves, apart from email and playing games - he saw it as some sort of frivolous discretionary spend - definitely…

Imagine if Labor won.

* A robust FTTP that would be paid back nicely, and

* A carbon tax that would now be an "emissions trading scheme" doing it's part to reduce carbon emissions.

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