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So here's my tale of what happened: Party A was in power, and having infighting problems. Party B was headed by an absolute arse of a man, who used the tactic

by vacri 9y ago

So here's my tale of what happened: Party A was in power, and having infighting problems. Party B was headed by an absolute arse of a man, who used the tactic "Say No! to EVERYTHING". Didn't matter how benign or banal, the opposition party would say no. A flagship policy like the NBN was particularly focused on - and if you look at interviews with the opposition communications minister at the time (now our prime minister), it was clear that he was toeing the party line and didn't think changing the policy was a good idea. Fast-forward to the next exection, and Absolute Arse gets into power. Turns out he can't govern at all (despite 20 years on the front benches) and he definitely isn't going to backtrack on something he's attacked so routinely. He's kicked out by his own party. At this stage, the NBN has been gutted, and its doom is sealed. In steps the comms minister as the new PM, but he is now beset by factionalism. He knows what a turkey the NBN is, but he doesn't have the political power to do an about-face on his party's policies. In short, we're fucked. By the time any other party can get in, the NBN will be 'mostly complete'. The most annoying thing is that the folks who really need good internet is business, not residences (think graphic design, medical imagery, etc), and the party that fucked the NBN is the 'party of business'. Enterprises can already dictate their own network backbones, but small-to-medium businesses cannot.

prawn 9y ago
"Enterprises can already dictate their own network backbones, but small-to-medium businesses cannot." Before that election, I can remember having an argument about the need for the NBN with a friend who works for a very large company. He argued that the internet in Australia was fine because their teleconferencing video in the boardroom worked well. I told him that not only would they have had a very specialised connection, that in the very near future, households would see multiple, concurrent, hi-res video streams, and that business demands would be high too. We're a home of four. It's not uncommon for the kids to be streaming Netflix while I work (with a basketball stream running), and my wife uploads large photos and streams a TV show on her phone while she works. We're still a year away from getting NBN and our internet absolutely crawls.

by vacri 9y ago

prawn 9y ago

"Enterprises can already dictate their own network backbones, but small-to-medium businesses cannot." Before that election, I can remember having an argument about the need for the NBN with a friend who works for a very large company. He argued that the internet in Australia was fine because their teleconferencing video in the boardroom worked well. I told him that not only would they have had a very specialised connection, that in the very near future, households would see multiple, concurrent, hi-res video streams, and that business demands would be high too. We're a home of four. It's not uncommon for the kids to be streaming Netflix while I work (with a basketball stream running), and my wife uploads large photos and streams a TV show on her phone while she works. We're still a year away from getting NBN and our internet absolutely crawls.