Fast Broadband, Really? NO!
September 9th 2006 14:05
The way the populace is spread out in Australia isn’t really like anywhere else on the planet. We all like to live on the coasts leaving the massive center absolutely empty. This is both good and bad, good because the beach is a stones throw away (relatively), bad because it’s a pain in the arse for telcos to wire us up with good broadband cost effectively.
Yet that’s not an excuse for the government to deprive us of good high bandwidth (as in fast) internet. This includes regional areas, even if it may be at a financial loss initially we need fast internet and it will pay off for us in the end.
Currently my internet connection is a so called unlimited broadband running at 512kbps. It’s not really unlimited though as I have a set download limit. When I upgraded to this connection it was from a dialup one. My productivity shot up since my internet speed increased. It was literally a proportional increase, ten times faster internet meant I didn’t have to wait so long for every website to load when looking for answers on the internet. Pictures, videos, software everything.
However it’s disappointing to note that our friends living in rural areas don’t get our speeds. They deserve it as much as we do. There has to be something done about it, it’s unAustralian for people to have anything less than broadband internet connections, UNAUSTRALIAN I SAY!
Now that I have alienated a good 95% of you I have to say that there still is hope. There are apparently plans on both the state and federal level to wire up more homes with broadband soon. Yes, they are giving Telstra a disproportionate amount of money to do what they were supposed to have done YEARS AGO but at least they are getting somewhere, and by somewhere I mean some place. Not necessarily a very good places mind you, but it’s a start.
I don’t trust politicians, the same people who drafted these plans (aka legislations), they have a habit of being narrow minded, especially in the tech field. Richard Alston (former communications minister) is probably single handedly responsible for keeping Australia in the dark ages of broadband. This sorry excuse of a politician decided that broadband shouldn’t be a national priority because apparently one of the major reasons for it was to Really Long Link" target="_blank">look at pornography and play games.
He was basing these so called facts on something he was assuming, he went up to South Korea where he observed (in between café lattés and back rubs) something, what was that he observed? I have no idea, he doesn’t mention it. He claimed ‘people’ would tell us that was the reason, he himself says that he has no idea if his assumption is true or not, that he only visited that place once for a tax payer funded holiday.
What he said that was really outrageous was (on describing broadband internet) “it's pretty much more of same but a bit faster for most consumers” well DUH! That’s the whole point of it, that’s why it’s called FASTER INTERNET.
Because of this idiots backward thinking we have been relegated to yesteryears broadband internet. 512kbps is the average speed of this nation (or most of my friends anyway) and the fastest available connection to most consumers in Australia is 1.5mbps. Compare that with the average connection of 2.0mbps in some other countries with possibilities of going all the way up to 10mbps if you live in the right area!
It is about time for something, ANYTHING, to happen on our little chunk of the planet earth to further our internet connection speeds, it sounds silly when said like that (I admit) but it’s crucial we catch up. Our businesses are more and more depending on the internet, our lives are revolving around it now, and yet we are still set with sub par internet than the rest of the world.
These new draft plans (aka draft legislations) that are going through, god knows how good they will be, but lets hope they will be something smart, and not another half arsed scheme. We have had it up to our necks with that crap.
-References
*Koala picture taken from wikipedia.org
**Alston picture taken from Really Long Link
Yet that’s not an excuse for the government to deprive us of good high bandwidth (as in fast) internet. This includes regional areas, even if it may be at a financial loss initially we need fast internet and it will pay off for us in the end.
Currently my internet connection is a so called unlimited broadband running at 512kbps. It’s not really unlimited though as I have a set download limit. When I upgraded to this connection it was from a dialup one. My productivity shot up since my internet speed increased. It was literally a proportional increase, ten times faster internet meant I didn’t have to wait so long for every website to load when looking for answers on the internet. Pictures, videos, software everything.
Should Ted the Koala be deprived of a decent broadband internet connection?
Now that I have alienated a good 95% of you I have to say that there still is hope. There are apparently plans on both the state and federal level to wire up more homes with broadband soon. Yes, they are giving Telstra a disproportionate amount of money to do what they were supposed to have done YEARS AGO but at least they are getting somewhere, and by somewhere I mean some place. Not necessarily a very good places mind you, but it’s a start.
I don’t trust politicians, the same people who drafted these plans (aka legislations), they have a habit of being narrow minded, especially in the tech field. Richard Alston (former communications minister) is probably single handedly responsible for keeping Australia in the dark ages of broadband. This sorry excuse of a politician decided that broadband shouldn’t be a national priority because apparently one of the major reasons for it was to Really Long Link" target="_blank">look at pornography and play games.
The man responsible for keeping Australia in the dark ages. Shame on him.
What he said that was really outrageous was (on describing broadband internet) “it's pretty much more of same but a bit faster for most consumers” well DUH! That’s the whole point of it, that’s why it’s called FASTER INTERNET.
Because of this idiots backward thinking we have been relegated to yesteryears broadband internet. 512kbps is the average speed of this nation (or most of my friends anyway) and the fastest available connection to most consumers in Australia is 1.5mbps. Compare that with the average connection of 2.0mbps in some other countries with possibilities of going all the way up to 10mbps if you live in the right area!
It is about time for something, ANYTHING, to happen on our little chunk of the planet earth to further our internet connection speeds, it sounds silly when said like that (I admit) but it’s crucial we catch up. Our businesses are more and more depending on the internet, our lives are revolving around it now, and yet we are still set with sub par internet than the rest of the world.
These new draft plans (aka draft legislations) that are going through, god knows how good they will be, but lets hope they will be something smart, and not another half arsed scheme. We have had it up to our necks with that crap.
-References
*Koala picture taken from wikipedia.org
**Alston picture taken from Really Long Link
| 84 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Comment by charles
ZCars
Ponderous
For the price most of us are paying for 512Kbps with a download quota of say 24GB's with peak and off-peak times, people in other countries are getting 6-10Mbps and unlimited quota.
We are effectively on "dial-up" speed while they're on "broadband".
Disgraceful.
Charles.
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
He said that from what he understood broadband was simply the same thing but a bit faster. by that comment alone you know he's not suited for the job, not by a long shot.
Whirlpool even made an april 1st joke about alston going and taking over CEO of telstra. The mans a living joke.