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No Universal Broadband for Australia

Posted on October 21, 2001

in News

by Martin Burns (MartinB)

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Martin Burns

Member info | Full bio

User since: April 26, 1999

Last login: March 30, 2010

Articles written: 128

Having unsuccessfully tried to outlaw pretty much everything (forwarding email, gambling, stuff not suitable for kids (except McDonalds, of course)) online, Australia's Senator Richard Alston has decided that the Australian Labor Party's plan to ensure that every Australian home would have cable Internet access by 2006 is a costly waste of time.

This wouldn't be a problem, except that Richie-boy runs the Oz Department for Communications and Information Technology, which essentially means that it's not going to happen.

Which is a little bit odd as he was a key mover in ensuring that all Australians had equal access to telecommunications in the first place.

Apparently the reason for stamping on the proposal is that Singapore's 98% cable coverage is only used by 2% of the population, and South Korea only uses so much bandwidth because of kids playing games. "There's no role for government in facilitating that roll-out," he said. "My kids don't need any help in that regard."

Nice to see elected officials thinking of the country first, eh?

Martin Burns has been doing this stuff since Netscape 1.0 days. Starting with the communication ends that online media support, he moved back through design, HTML and server-side code. Then he got into running the whole show. These days he's working for these people as a Project Manager, and still thinks (nearly 6 years on) it's a hell of a lot better than working for a dot-com. In his Copious Free Time™, he helps out running a Cloth Nappies online store.

Amongst his favourite things is ZopeDrupal, which he uses to run his personal site. He's starting to (re)gain a sneaking regard for ECMAscript since the arrival of unobtrusive scripting.

He's been a member of evolt.org since the very early days, a board member, a president, a writer and even contributed a modest amount of template code for the current site. Above all, he likes evolt.org to do things because it knowingly chooses to do so, rather than randomly stumbling into them. He's also one of the boys and girls who beervolts in the UK, although the arrival of small children in his life have knocked the frequency for 6.

Most likely to ask: Why would a client pay you to do that?

Least likely to ask: Why isn't that navigation frame in Flash?

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A waste of time?

Submitted by MauriceH on October 23, 2001 - 06:47.

Yes, people here in South Korea does waste a lot of time playing online games and yes, they chew up a massive amount of bandwidth and yes, I agree that from an economical point of view, technologies such as high speed Internet connections should be considered only if a clear benefit that matches the reality can be defined.

As an Australian, I do have to say that the current infrastructure and service offering are far insufficient and that we (IT professionals) need and welcome cheap, high speed access to the Internet. Our carriers such as Telstra and Optus will most probably retain their strong TELCO positions, which I believe, does not speed up innovation and progression.

Here in South Korea the DSL coverage is huge and the prices are extremely low (i.e. A$40 / month for an unlimited time and download at 800+KB/sec).

I am looking forward to return to the most beautiful place on earth, but I am not looking forward to return to our slow, unreliable and expensive Internet service.

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Submitted by paulnattress on October 23, 2001 - 09:44.

I wonder if this particular senator realises that the Internet is currently clogged up with kids playing games on it over 56kb modems.

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Someday politicians won't control technology

Submitted by spinhead on October 24, 2001 - 19:56.

Is broadband in Australia at stake, or is it just a government sanctioned rollout that's being killed?

It's painful to see useful technologies crippled because 'they're not good for the country.' In the US, government control (and sometimes lack thereof) has contributed to the demise of nearly all competition in the broadband market. I'm thrilled with my DSL connection. I won't be thrilled when Pacific Bell realizes they can charge me whatever they please because they no longer have any competition.

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Government sanctioned

Submitted by isaac on October 31, 2001 - 01:04.

Broadband is available (although expensive, and bandwidth costs a fortune for businesses), but the issue here is government sanctioned rollout, AFAIK.

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Senator Alson keeps his job

Submitted by MartinB on November 26, 2001 - 03:33.

Although the recent election returned Sen. Alston's party to power, it had been thought that he'd lose the IT portfolio in a post-election reshuffle. Alas, no such luck.

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:(

Submitted by isaac on November 26, 2001 - 16:54.

It's very bad news for an already dying IT industry in Australia.

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