Keating's Innovations statement

[Simon Vandore]

John Hilvert wrote:

> I suppose there is some connection between Community radio and the Internet
> - but I'd quibble with the suggestion that "community radio stations are a
> logical point of first contact for many people in the community".

Yes, I found the connection bizarre -- there I was, reading about the government's plans for the 
information revolution, and suddenly they're talking about community radio in the same breath. To 
me, those are two different generations of technology.

A bunch of community Internet servers running RealAudio and Web server software would complement 
the community terminals in the libraries and schools much better. Yes that's deliberately 
idealistic, but I know that the kids in the schools and the people wandering in off the street 
have something to *contribute* rather than just receiving information.

I came away with the impression that our government sees the need for information dissemination, 
but fail to comprehend the *revolution*.

We're still getting a lot about _national_ broadband infrastructures for the future. I like the 
sound of that, but it worries me greatly that the _international_ network of the present is paid 
far less attention than it deserves. We need to become a "clever country" on the Internet now in 
order to have the knowhow and well-developed industry to succeed in the future. At 30% packet 
loss on the primary link to the world, we're a backwater. Yep, thanks to that packet loss (I 
averaged 30.67% packet loss in tests of 100 pings each to around 20 different US sites at 
midnight and midday today, 6th December) I currently can't exploit the latest generation of 
Internet software coming out of the USA unless I open an account with a provider that has a 
private link to the USA with under 10% packet loss.

"By 1999, 97 per cent of schools will have ISDN digital links and half of them Broadband links."

Mmmm... very Hawke :) I'm curious as to what will be on the other end of these "links" and 
whether it will be as worthwhile as the Internet. I suppose it's EdNA, on which I'm not half as 
well-informed as most on this list.

Simon.

[I think I just deleted my .sig]