[AusNOG] Long live the NBN. The NBN is dead?! [personal]

[Matthew Zobel]

You're missing the point.   If I proposed that the government built a 4 lane
highway (bi-directional) to every town in Australia for $100bn I'd be shot
down in a microsecond.  Why, because we just can't justify the cost.  No one
would argue that a small town in outback vic/nsw with a population of 100
needs a massive highway.  So why should we do the same for internet?

Your example below is rather apt for proving my point.  We build highways
when and where there needed.  We don't build them to every town on the off
chance that we might find a use for them at some point in the future.

On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 4:40 PM, Jeremy Begg <jeremy at vsm.com.au> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've been watching this discussion over the past couple of months both here
> and on LinkedIn and I continue to be amazed by the short-sightedness of
> some
> people.  If the country was left to the exceedingly "dry" economics being
> espoused by some here, we'd have no country at all.
>
> >> But if the true cost is $50k vs $5k for the NBN your effectivily saying
> >> it's not economical to run fibre to your house.  That pretty much kills
> the
> >> "business case" for the NBN right there.  Why should the tax payer
> subsidise
> >> running fibre to your house when most everyone else won't get any real
> >> benefit from it.
>
> On that logic there's no sense in paying for paved roads beyond a few
> arterials in each city.
>
> Remember, the cost is being amortised over 50 years.  And in 10 years time
> we *will* be wanting more than 12Mbit/second bandwidth.  Has anyone heard
> about something called "The Cloud" :-)
>
> I was at a Hewlett-Packard seminar today which included presentations on
> various virtualisation technologies (no surprises there).  What was
> interesting was the number of scenarios where remote access and remote
> management would be made much more practical by a solid, fast broadband
> network.
>
> >> No-one here has given even one compelling reason for FTTH.
> >>
> >> IPTV
> >> Smart Metering
> >> coverged phone line and data (VoIP)
> >> Teleconferrencing
> >> etc
> >>
> >> none of these offer any real value to the average tax payer.
>
> In terms of the taxes I pay I'm very average and I see value in all of
> those
> things.
>
> Regards,
>
>        Jeremy Begg
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