In Queensland there is a miniscule amount of cable for FOXTEL. The altenative is AUSTAR, identical to Foxtel, except the signal is received from a small satellite dish on the roof, therefore, WIRELESS....... Mobile telephones, WIRELESS technology. We had ADSL in our last home, we moved to another home 2 kilometres away and there were no ports available in the area's 'exchange system', so we changed our account to WIRELESS with a USB modem plugged into the computer. This is as fast as ADSL, and, we can go anywhere with the laptop and connect to the Internet. The cost is similar to ADSL.

Satellite dishes are 'big-time' in Europe, as advised by a techie relative who works for Telstra. As he said, no way were millions of kilometres of cable going to be laid up and down the thousands of mountains there, also, millions of people have wireless Internet.

It is hard to imagine, digging trenches all over Australia, especially the outback, to lay cables.



All the Broadband 'pie in the sky' waffle from pollies seems to relate to cableing the country. Maybe I am dumb, but I have not heard any of the mention WIRELESS, yet they all talk on mobile iPHONES with an Internet connection........

Regards.............Gizmo........

Premier Bartlett spoke again last night on the TV news saying the opt in or opt out has yet to be decided but I think they will opt for every house to pay for it regardless.



After 21st August if Labor re-elected all will be revealed.



Scared still to tell us before as it might frighten the punters as the true cost to the taxpayer becomes available - even the 43 billion to roll it out will cost money to pay off - around 2 billion a year in interest payments without even paying down the debt. then if the opt in every household will have to pay the charge to try to cover the costs of borrowing for the roll out which will double or even triple over the years as these government projects always do - and then the monthly cost of connection will be higher than any other offered by private companies as Telstra was and still is - most expensive of the lot today. And they are in strife themselves too losing business and blaming it on land line being cancelled - when they have priced themselves higher than private companies. Still in government enterprise mode I reckon.



Nope only way to go is to make the private companies pay for any outlay of infrastructure and after all if anyone does understand how radio works then easy to understand that wireless broadband works exactly the same way only need the channels allocated same as Digital TV and Mobile Phones.



Still heaps of use out of the coppe network on which we can gt good speeds for reasonable layout anyway and these can be used for the digital whiteboards and other technologies for the schools and business still.



Really summing it up a heap of money wasted on old hat rolling out wires/cables that will not return enough for a private company to do today so why waste taxpayer monies.



Pop a satellite dish on the roof is far cheaper. Use local ADSL too.

Go wireless only need the modem.



Why are we even discussing this - oh yeah forgot Labor thinks it will make the election their own saviour - blind the buggers with science and let them find out after it is too late!



BTW Bob the USA has always had cheaper everything than we have after all we never had to pay land line rental costs when we lived there just for the calls and that was many years ago. Ma Bell!

As an update-- Apparently Labor is offering 100megabits when the NBN is eventually rolled out to every street in the country.



Currently WIRELESS is around 40 megabits and due to be increased within a year to around 80megabits, so why in the hell would you want to dig up streets, gardens, front yards etc to be tied to a bloody cable?



Could you explain what you mean by [i]Currently WIRELESS is around 40 megabits and due to be increased within a year to around 80megabits[/i]

I have BigPond wireless and my line speed is approx 1.7 Mbps (1699 kbps) which , depending on signal gets me a download speed of 212 KB/s (0.21 MB/s).



I would like to know where I can go to get that [i]40 megabits[/i]



Also if Telstra enter into the NBN agreement then they already have much of the infrastructure which should lower the cost of the rollout



These days to lay conduits, it is not always necessary to dig up the streets as a lot is done by boring under the footpath with directional bores.

I see several comments on why do you need something better than satellite service. The answer is that the fiber cables will be used for industrial, medical, universities, police, enterprises, and then also becomes a good thing for the homes to use if they want to pay a reasonable hook up and use fee. If you politicians are saying they are building this just for the home users they are foolishly spending your tax dollars or they are falsely telling about why they are building the system.



Now for satellite service where I live. They are often unreliable. If there is a snow storm the satellite dish gets covered and that breaks the service. Other times if a lightning storm is in the area the big charged cloud may get between the receiver and the satellite and service gets broken again.



When I signed up for the satellite service the company came out and installed a dish on my roof free of charge. If I move I just leave the satellite dish and they will make sure there is one where I move to. They once came out and removed the original dish and put up one they said was much better.



For those of you who worry about the high cost of this new cable system I would hope there is no reason to go that way. Just stick with your DSL or satellite service that you can afford. Unless of course your government decides to force you to the higher level of service.

.

On the face of it, bobagain, you are right. BUT, our Government is borrowing

$44 Billion to put in a system that, on past performance, will take 20 years &

cost $88 Billion. By the time it is installed, it will be 10 years out of date.

It wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for the fact that we are desparate for water &

it has been independantly estimated that we could install a pipeline from the

North West, for a cost of $15 Billion.

Extract from Laurie Oakes column.



[i]At Wednesday night's so-called "People's Forum" in Sydney a young woman named Cassie told Abbott bluntly that "wireless isn't as good" as optical fibre to the home.



Abbott in reply revealed his ignorance. "For me, broadband basically is about being able to send an email, receive an email," he said. For his daughters "it's about downloading movies, downloading songs, all that kind of thing".



Of course, the most important advantages of high-speed broadband are in business, education and health services. Cassie tried to explain that to the Liberal leader.



Abbott did concede at one point in the forum that broadband "is, I suppose, to this century what the railways were to the 19th century".



It apparently doesn't occur to him, though, that if our 19th century politicians had been of the same mind-set he is, horse-drawn wagons and bullock teams would have stayed in business a lot longer than they did.[/i]



[url=http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-reports/who-can-see-the-future/story-fn5ko0pw-1225905133142]Full story[/url]

fwed. read the full story, makes an interesting read,it shows that

tony doesn't seem to have a clue about the internet and what it

would mean to business, hospitals etc, in the future, the mish mash

he is proposing would make us the laughing stock in asia.

It doesn't matter whether you vote liberal or labor fast broadband

is what we need.surely that can be seen! if not blinded by politics.

As Seth says, take the politics out of it and just look at the question, is fibre optics a good thing for Australia? I looked up the definition of fibre optic cable.





Fiber optic cable: [color=red] a cable made of optical fibers that can transmit large amounts of information at the speed of light. [/color]



That's pretty damn impressive folks.

I am still waiting on a reply from Tanwin for his statement



Currently WIRELESS is around 40 megabits and due to be increased within a year to around 80megabits



Who is offering these speeds - [b]I want it.[/b]



What do you mean by "[i]Currently WIRELESS is around 40 megabits"[/i]

Do you mean wireless is currently 40Mbps ?