<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On 11/08/2010, at 3:58 PM, Matthew Zobel wrote:</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex; position: static; z-index: auto; "><div class="gmail_quote"><div>No-one here has given even one compelling reason for FTTH.<br><br>IPTV<br>Smart Metering<br>coverged phone line and data (VoIP)<br>Teleconferrencing<br>etc<br><br>none of these offer any real value to the average tax payer. </div></div></blockquote></div></blockquote><br></div><div>None of those examples actually need an NBN either :-)</div><div><br></div><div>Smart metering is my favourite. The power utilities clearly don't give a rats</div><div>about the NBN because they've been deploying smart meters for years</div><div>without it. They use something very much like WiMAX for the tiny quantity</div><div>of data that each meter requires.</div><div><br></div><div>The first smart meter I saw had a socket in it for a GSM SIM. It communicated</div><div>with base by using SMS messages.</div><div><br></div><div>There seems to be a special kind of reality detachment going on here. </div><div><br></div><div>The very same people who say, "We need to catch up with South Korea!"</div><div>should be able to provide examples of what the South Koreans do that's</div><div>different to what we do, so they can show us what we're missing out on.</div><div><br></div><div>What do the South Koreans do online that's different to us? Basically</div><div>nothing. They use web, they use peer-to-peer apps, they transact</div><div>commerce; All at 100 Mbps.</div><div><br></div><div>(One thing they do differently is use outsourced storage across the </div><div>network - your files follow you around 'cos they're in a datacentre</div><div>somewhere, and people don't care so much about big hard drives</div><div>anymore. Anyone who tried to offer a service like that in Australia</div><div>would end up at the bottom of a smoking crater with their torso turned</div><div>inside out and their carcasses being picked apart by AFACT's copyright</div><div>lawyers, so lets not kid ourselves into believing that our NBN will enable</div><div>anything like that here)</div><div><br></div><div>So where are their emerging apps? Where are the revolutionary uses</div><div>for this wondrous bandwidth that the Koreans are charging ahead with,</div><div>which is supposed to make us green with envy until we stump up $43b</div><div>on an NBN to keep up? </div><div><br></div><div>They're a first-world industrialized economy with lots of creative, inventive</div><div>people; and they don't have a government that's purpose-designed to </div><div>retard innovation like ours is either, so you'd think it'd be easier to </div><div>come up with new consumer broadband apps over there than it is here.</div><div>And they've had a huge head-start on us, because they already have it</div><div>and we have a Government that managed to get through an entire term</div><div>without passing <i>any</i> of the enabling legislation that'd let us even make a</div><div>start.</div><div><br></div><div>So where are their apps?</div><div><br></div><div>I reckon when you give a population of people near-ubiquitous availability</div><div>of quotaless high-speed network connectivity, they behave in pretty</div><div>much the same way that we behave now. Going from no internet access</div><div>to ubiquitous internet access is a transformative step; Going from </div><div>dialup to broadband is also transformative, but perhaps less so.</div><div>But going from broadband to faster broadband? Not so much. As a </div><div>species we seem to value the connections we can make with each other</div><div>a lot more than the volume of communication we can send over them.</div><div><br></div><div>I want to be convinced. I want people like Michael Biber to tell me </div><div>all about the (legal) things that people are doing with nosebleed-inducing</div><div>broadband speed in all these other countries that are supposedly better</div><div>than ours. I want them to tell me what non-imaginary things are we</div><div>missing out on.</div><div><br></div><div>And I want them to do it before I need to pay for it.</div><div><br></div><div>kthxbai,</div><div><br></div><div> - mark</div><br><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Andale Mono'" size="1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 9px; "><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">--</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Andale Mono'"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 9px; ">Mark Newton Email: <a href="mailto:newton@internode.com.au">newton@internode.com.au</a> (W)</span></font></font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Andale Mono'"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 9px; ">Network Engineer Email: <a href="mailto:newton@atdot.dotat.org">newton@atdot.dotat.org</a> (H)</span></font></font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Andale Mono'"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 9px; ">Internode Pty Ltd Desk: +61-8-82282999</span></font></font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Andale Mono'"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 9px; ">"Network Man" - Anagram of "Mark Newton" Mobile: +61-416-202-223</span></font></font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Andale Mono'"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 9px; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></font></font></div></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span>
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