[LINK] The PLAN, and broadband speeds?

[Jan Whitaker]

At 09:42 AM 25/06/2007, Darrell Burkey wrote:

> > compromises is lack of political will to take the time and spend the
> > money to do it right. There are NO technical barriers. If we can get
> > gigabits across the trackless ocean between continents, we can get it
> > anywhere.
>
>Thank you so much for taking the time to post this. I am so very
>frustrated in trying to get this point across to people.

[sorry if posters got bounces; one of my mailboxes was full; clear now]

Of course it's technically possible. But the reason it is affordable 
is aggregation of traffic to make it worth doing. Aggregation via 
fibre/microwave hybrid to groups of people in regional towns may make 
sense, both for service access and cost. But to run fibre to the home 
of an outback station is ludicrous. I'd rather tax dollars support a 
paediatrician in the base hospital or a minimum standard 
school/teacher/accommodation and a doctor or two in an Indigenous 
community. The bigger picture view reveals a lot of competition for 
those dollars. Now if we could get John Howard to stop wasting money 
on advertising pitches to buy the next election, which is worse than 
FTTH to a sheep station, we might be talking a better use of funds, 
but just a little bit better.

Jan
[who is a big supporter of space exploration, owns a copy of the 
Shuttle Operation Manual, has visited both Kennedy Space Center and 
Johnson Space Center, hosted an astronaut program (many retire to 
Phoenix) which led to meeting both Ron Evans and another member of 
the Apollo 16 moon mission, and has an uncle who worked for NASA in 
Ohio at the John Glenn Centre for many years]


Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/

Writing Lesson #54:
Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for 
guests. - JW, May, 2007

'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, 
there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005
_ __________________ _