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

nytimes.com

161–170 of 188 posts

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

#162
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seriously it is time for a citizens revolution. We need to take the country back from these idiots. Couldn't agree more. I've yet to meet a single fellow Aussie that has anything but disdain for politicians from any party. Labor, Liberal, Greens, One Nation doesn't seem to matter, they're all a pack of self serving con artists, and unless the major political parties take a serious look at themselves over the next fe…

I think there's lots of contributing factors. Not just the politicians. We should remember a lot of what the politicians say and do is driven by what will help them get re-elected -- i.e. by what the populace in general thinks is important. (I am not saying "oh it's not the fault of the politicians, it's the fault of the populace" -- see my opening sentence that I think there's a lot of contributing factors. And each…

For most voters, faster internet isn't one of their top concerns. Depending on the voter demographic it is more likely:

Young People * Housing Affordability * Uni Fees * Centrelink * Employment * Climate change

Middle Aged People * Super * Eduction * Health * Taxation * Infrastructure

Old People * Pension * Health

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

#163
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The budget was already blowing out beyond 2x the cost According to partisan figures that were often repeated but never justified. I don't doubt it would have blown out, world class infrastructure would have been worth it at twice the cost. Instead we have the current NBN who's costs have blown out just as much to delivery 20th century infrastructure.

> According to partisan figures that were often repeated but never justified. I mean if you pretend that the $30~ billion paid to telstra had absolutely nothing to do with the NBN then yea you can avoid the 2x figure but I still have no idea how you can say the two things are completely unrelated. > Instead we have the current NBN who's costs have blown out just as much to delivery 20th century infrastructure. How? I…

> with plans already been tested to allow people to complete the line to their house with fiber if your willing to pay for it.

As I would one be of these people, how / who do i talk to ?

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

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Gb, damn autocorrect haha.

Same question though. Consumer stuff rarely has over 1Gbit, WiFi doesn't go beyond that either.

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

#166

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 don't think you can really blame this on Tony Abbott. Malcolm Turnbull was the communications minister and is now the prime minister and he seemed to be the one driving his copper bullshit.

I hate Abbott as much as anyone but Turnbull seems like the real problem.

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

#167
post #89

Australian here. I was recently forced from my ADSL2+ service over to the shiny new HFC system. My quality actually degraded - although my bandwidth increased, my latency is off the charts, especially in peak time. I contacted my ISP to see if I could go back to my ADSL2+ service and they flat out said no. The future is bleak.

Which ISP and where is the latency though? It could be that your ISP has congestion on NBN but not on ADSL2+? Not necessarily the NBN's fault.

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

#168

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…

My family lives in the wealthy eastern suburbs of Sydney. My mother can only get ADSL and it caps out at around 3.5Mbit. She can hardly have a skype call. They say she won't be able to get NBN until at least 2020.

I live in Northern Thailand and have 100/30 uncapped fibre for about $70 a month. I've got a friend who has gigabit and he lives out in some rice fields and its all dirt roads.

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

#169
post #49
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post nationalistic rants here. I get that this one is probably the clean-up-our-own-house kind, but that subtlety doesn't work on the internet.

This is the place to comment on the article about how political incompetency hobbled Australia's broadband, right? I understand if you are Australian and find the criticism uncomfortable, but it's a fair reflection of my experience. My intent wasn't to suggest X is better than Australia, rather to inform the readership of HN that the political paralysis and ineptitude in this country is in no way limited to a single…

Right, and I get that your intention was positive, but "basket case...shit...crap" doesn't count as "inform", and it's only by chance that you didn't provoke aggrieved responses, a.k.a. flamewars. The thread went far off-topic as it was.

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

#170
post #78
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post nationalistic rants here. I get that this one is probably the clean-up-our-own-house kind, but that subtlety doesn't work on the internet.

Do you know what nationalism is? Because this doesn't seem to be it by any standard definition..

Grandiose rants about nations are close enough for internet purposes.
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