Its Labor scare-mongering Toot2k, but I will explain to the best of my knowledge.



Labor's scheme which started about 3 years ago at a cost of $5Billion has now blown out to an amazing $43Billion >> think what this money could do for health, aged care and education? This is to enable fibre optic cables down EVERY street in the country which will supposedly take 8 years. As it goes past you property you will get a box on the front wall and must pay to have your house wired from there.



If you chose not to have this wall box, it will cost the earth to have it done later. In my area all cables are underground and because it was long ago much of them werent in conduits, so it seems my front yard will be dig up and driveway/paths smashed up etc.



The Libs plan (again, I think) is fibre to the node (exchanges) and a private-partnership will take it from there. Now how they do it is unclear to me (perhaps Wireless) but personally I think with technology galloping along with portable laptops and mobile phones being able to send emails etc, WIRELESS is the way to go, because you are not restricted by a piece of cable.



With Labor's record of failures in BER and pink bats etc any costs can only go through the roof as work drags on year after year with problems and costs escalating.



What HASNT been explained is what it will cost us to use this whiz-bang speed. My ADSL2 I'm more than happy with because its reasonably priced and being a pensioner I couldn't afford for costs to double or treble.

Thank you Tanwin, I too think that wireless is the way to go but I really don't have a clue.

I am no computer whiz but I do think that broadband replacement roll out

is what will be needed in Australia in the coming years, we only have to

look at what has happened in communications over the last 5 or 10 yrs.

I have heard where telstra has held back on faster broadband, who hasn't

complained one time or another at the slowness. Yes I am reasonably happy

with the speed, but then I am not relying so much on a lot of use.

I t would be better to hear from those who rely and depend on computers.

I'm sure no one complained about the improved cars coming out each year,

and dearer. or anything that has been modernised and improved though

the cost has risen. Isn't what Tony doing a mish mash of new and old?

There is an old saying, you dont put new wine in an old skin.

Better analogy is "you cannot educate pork".



Wireless is the way it is going even down here in Tassie where we have had a roll out but not many are taking it up and why - who knows most have fast enough ADSL already and anything rolled out by governments is always more expensive than private companies who compete. Cost of the NBN a month - haven't seen it quoted anywhere and dont know anyone who has been offered it.



Cost to set it up blown out to 43 billion and 8 years and old hat by then.



Coalition - not Tony he is but one man and the Coalition is a team of men and women working together unlike the Labor party gang of 4 who left out their other team members - Peter Garrett didnt know about insulation debacle cancelled til he read it in the newspaper - now a gang of 2 and the faceless men who knifed KRudd.



so the coalition will stick to private companies doing the paying out and limit taxpayer dollars to a minimum as they do have the reputation for not spending our money like drunken sailors but spending it wisely and always have to pay off the debts left by the drunken sailors of the Labor party who cant help but waste our money as they throw it about like it is not theirs and of course it is not - we pay for it twice over with them.



So all of you "Ruddites" - really a good analogy - go to Whirlpool and see just how many plans and speeds there are already today to pick from and if we could see 8 years ahead - NBN would be a dead duck if Labor did win back office as they would of course bugger it up as they every single project they try to handle.

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? Can you imagine the task involved? I suggest 8 years will be far from the completion date and the $43Billion will be a drop in the bucket compared to final costs. What could we do in Aged Care. Health and Education, Water and the like with in excess of $43Billions? Plus the additional cost of having one's house rewired with fibre optic. This is looming as another bloody pink bats scandal in the making.



Also remember we have satellite TV which works well, plus mobile phones which operate on sound waves, so why in the hell have cables?



One thing still not divulged is the COST to us >> the user. Ever priced super fast ADSL2+ from your current supplier? Cant afford it Right?? What makes you think NBN is going to be any cheaper? -- IT WONT



If Wireless is so slow and unsuccessful why then dont they have a cable connected to space ships when rocketed into orbit? Because its MORE Labor bullshit



And Labor say Abbott is taking Australia backward -- they wouldn't have a bloody clue folks.

This is a good article written in fairly plain language.

First of all, $43 billion is a ridiculous sum of money to spend on anything. It is even crazier when the country finds itself coming off a $22 billion surplus and staring down the barrel of $100 billion of debt. I don’t think this is at all right now about need, but is entirely about our ability to cover the cost of such a thing.





Our Federal Government, no matter who wins the upcoming election, is going to be spending about $5 billion — $6 billion per year just servicing that $100 billion debt — on the $30 billion of debt on the NBN, you’d be looking at close to $2 billion of servicing costs per year alone!



Why not get back into surplus, in 2012 and revisit this whole situation then? If the US economy fully recovers, Europe looks stable and forecasts for the Australian economy look good and project us paying off that massive debt, then awesome, let’s come up with a plan and build a world class network.

[url=http://delimiter.com.au/2010/08/10/do-we-even-need-a-fibre-national-broadband-network/]Source[/url]

My perception of the fibeIr optics system is to have a system so flexible and fast that it is able to serve industry, education, government, and personal uses all at once. It's main purpose is versatility. It is much more than just for the home user. With enough competition among the ISP's and cable providers will certainly allow the prices to be competitive. The access to this fiber optics system can be arranged and should be able to accommodate private use without extreme charges. I always use what I can afford and nothing more but I sure do like the various options available. Won't you folks still have options after the fiber cable is installed?



In my case I have a phone line ISP that gives me 24 hours, 7 days a week, year round service for only $9.95 per month. No limits on file size or hours of use plus storage where I have my own web things.



My other ISP is DSL but only the lower level It brings in most items that the phone service would be too slow to bring in but not fast enough for some of the films that people post for us to watch. I pay $10.95 for this service which is just like the phone ISP. No time limits, no file size limits, everyday year round. I also pay another fee to the phone company, I think it is about $19 for the use of another line. To get to the next faster DSL speed I would then be paying about $22 dollars to the ISP.



I certainly will look forward to having a connection on the fiber optics system. We have much of it out in this lonely part of the world. There is a cable that was laid many years back that connects Grand Junction CO, Albuquerque NM, and Denver CO, and many smaller towns like Durango CO and Cortez CO by companies that either failed to complete or went out of business. The cable is still there, ready to use. I hope some big company will get things going.



Here are a couple links to the PC Today magazine where they talk of fiber optics in the US and who the various companies are doing the building and expanding. The also mention Australia in one of the articles.

....................



http://www.pctoday.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2010/t0806/13t06&http;://www.pctoday.com/Editorial/TOC.asp?guid=EECD82DC42E445AF86FBD5DC5EDC6CE3&iid;=1743#x2f;13t06.asp&guid;=EECD82DC42E445AF86FBD5DC5EDC6CE3



June 2010 • Vol.8 Issue 6

Page(s) 28-29 in print issue



How Google Fiber Will Work

Dark Fiber Could Be The Key To Google?s Next-Gen Broadband Network

...........................



http://www.pctoday.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2010/t0806/14t06/14t06.asp&guid;=EECD82DC42E445AF86FBD5DC5EDC6CE3



June 2010 • Vol.8 Issue 6

Page(s) 30-33 in print issue



Clamoring For Google

Where Will Google Fiber Call Home?

.......................



[color=brown]EDIT: There seems to be a problem with how URL's are accepted on this forum. I tried several downloads and they all changed to just the Home page rather than the articles I though I was linked to. I even hand typed a link but after being saved the URL came out changed. Again to the Home of the magazine. I did not have this problem on another forum I posted to. I did not realize that this situation existed here and no one told me my links were not working. Let's try this one first before I get too involved.[/color]



http://www.pctoday.com/Editorial/TOC.asp?guid=EECD82DC42E445AF86FBD5DC5EDC6CE3&iid;=1743



[color=green]Now this link seems to work, at least right now. It is a link to the June 2010 magazine and actually if you select from the titles on this page under Google Fiber you have both links I posted and many more.[/color]

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Thanks Bob, it might be the best thing since sliced bread but how much is it going to cost me, will I be able to afford it?

Thanks Bob, it might be the best thing since sliced bread but how much is it going to cost me, will I be able to afford it?



Maybe not, but at least you should have some alternatives to choose from. I don't know how you folks in Australia are doing it but here in the US it seems that the industries of the country are the ones investing their money and not using taxpayer money. The investment seems quite large so if it doesn't produce profits then it is their loss, not mine.

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I think the main issue here is the total cost of the project. The new Labor government has commited so much money to so many projects, we are paranoid about the debt they have created. And it's a pity because some of their ideas as good ones, like this fibre optics project, probably great for the country if cost was no object but we opt for the cheaper option from the opposition.

Thanks Bob, it might be the best thing since sliced bread but how much is it going to cost me, will I be able to afford it?



Maybe not, but at least you should have some alternatives to choose from. I don't know how you folks in Australia are doing it but here in the US it seems that [b]the industries of the country are the ones investing their money and not using taxpayer money. [/b] The investment seems quite large so if it doesn't produce profits then it is their lose, not mine.

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My bold.

Bob, you have hit one of the nails on the head.

This current government first told us the plan was to cost under $5billion as Tanwin pointed out.

This has now blown out to $43billion of taxpayers' money...plus...the Govt has never presented a business plan or cost benefit analysis.

From the history of this current Labor govt in just the last two and a half years, every project they have initiated, has either failed or blown out cost-wise into the $billions, or both.

The opposition party wants to involve private enterprise as you have described, and with a more realistic approach.

The current unelected Prime Minister gravely described to us recently how she holds up to the light, and examines very carefully, costings for all programs!! [i]There has been no scrutiny of this program .[/i]

From reading various IT articles and comments from a few experts, this plan will benefit approximately 1% of the population, but we will all pay for it, either through taxes or a monthly cost if we take it on, or both.

Whether we'll have a choice or not, will make no difference, we will pay.

Seggie. Have tried to understand all that has been written but it's all beyond me. I very much doubt if the mult-vitamins I take will enable me to live long enough to see all the promises fulfilled. Am perfectly happy with ADSL2 and seriously, at my age, my life is not that busy that I need anything quicker. Maybe I'm just too down to earth or just too 'ordinary'. From what I see, most people are in such a hurry. I'm not but then, another maybe, I'm a bit of a bore? When the roses bloom, I've still got time to smell them. Love to you all.

Someone said on the radio that with the fibre optics system, there will be a flat fee charged to the householder like your water bill, regardless of whether you have it or not. This is a worry.

Someone said on the radio that with the fibre optics system, there will be a flat fee charged to the householder like your water bill, regardless of whether you have it or not. This is a worry.



That too is a bit different than here in the US. For us the cable companies install and then present the option to buy. Like our phone company and the electricity company and others, they install the service too the house no charge. But from the house junction box it becomes the home owners responsibility. If they need to change the meters it is free to us and a cost to the provider. If we choose not to have natural gas there are no charges, same with the phone or cable.



One place where we might get into a tax position will be if the community decides they need a fiber optics set up and call a vote to pay the way, if the vote agrees then we will start paying a tax for some number of years to pay off the purchase. But for my little town, we already have fiber optics installed to various sections of town. All we need now is to have some company offer the service to each home and then lay the fiber and connect where they are wanted. I assume they will do as the cable providers have done so far, and that is bring the cable to he corner of the lots and not connect till service is ordered. If you then cancel service they will come out and disconnect at their junction box. Since our connection is in the air they may take the cable from the house back to the junction box or leave it up their but disconnected.



Their are some differences from town to town or state to state due to local laws. In Arizona their cable connections were installed under ground to the house and then terminated in a junction box, sort of like the phone companies do.



I think having this technology handled by private companies puts more effort into the latest technology and competitive pricing which is better for the consumers. And frees up the burden on the taxpayers.



EDIT: I had mistakenly put Australia in where I meant Arizona. Now corrected.

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