[AusNOG] NBN Legislation

[Bill Walker]

 The full study is available here:

 http://sites.google.com/a/commcham.com/www/publications/Overselling_Fibre_1127.pdf?attredirects=0


 On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 13:45:26 +1300, Bill Walker <bill at wjw.co.nz> wrote:
> Anyone read this, it questions the worth of NBN, thoughts?
>
>
> 
> http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/4403408/Benefits-of-broadband-questioned
>
>  Benefits of broadband questioned
>
>  The Australian federal government has been accused of misusing 
> research
>  to build the case for the national broadband network in an 
> international
>  study that finds the claimed benefits have been ''grossly 
> overstated''.
>
>  Released in London before the vote today on legislation paving the 
> way
>  for the NBN, the study found that the evidence to support claims 
> made
>  for fibre-to-the-home networks was ''surprisingly weak'' and cited
>  Australia as a key example.
>
>  ''All else equal, faster is better,'' noted the study, prepared by 
> the
>  British telecommunications consultant Robert Kenny and Charles Kenny
>  from the US Centre for Global Development. ''But faster technologies
>  don't always triumph; think of passenger hovercraft, maglev trains, 
> and
>  supersonic airliners.
>
>  ''Concorde (if it hadn't retired) would still be the fastest 
> passenger
>  aircraft today, having first flown in 1969. It turned out that the
>  incremental benefits of speed to most customers were not worth the 
> extra
>  cost.''
>
>  South Korea, cited as the world leader in providing fibre to homes,
>  enjoyed productivity growth of 7.6 per cent per capita per year in 
> the
>  decade before it began the program and 3.8 per cent in the decade 
> since.
>
>  ''Many factors played into the growth slowdown,'' the study says. 
> ''But
>  maybe the massive increase in online gaming, facilitated by the
>  broadband revolution, played a role.''
>
>  In launching Australia's broadband network in 2009, Prime Minister
>  Kevin Rudd said 78 per cent of the productivity gains in service
>  businesses and 85 per cent in manufacturing flowed from information 
> and
>  communications technology.
>
>  The study traced this claim back to two papers from Australia's
>  Communications Department referring to gains of 59 to 78 per cent 
> and 65
>  to 85 per cent.
>
>  ''What was an upper bound in the research has become a mid-point in
>  Rudd's speech,'' it says.
>
>  ''But more importantly, the research was looking at all 
> technological
>  factors. Thus the figures cited include the benefits of everything 
> from
>  biotechnology to the rise of containerised transport.''
>
>  Also, the research cited by Mr Rudd covered the periods 1985 to 2001
>  and 1984 to 2002, ''when the internet was in its infancy and 
> broadband
>  was pre-natal''.
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