[LINK] NBN, education and health

[Richard Chirgwin]

On 7/04/11 1:50 PM, Robin Whittle wrote:
> I am replying to Tom Koltai, Kim Holburn, Richard Chirgwin and Bernard
> Robertson-Dunn.
>
> No-one has responded with concrete arguments about why the NBN goals,
> price and schedule are realistic, or why this is the best way taxpayer
> money can be used to acheive a range of goals in telecommunications,
> health and education, especially outside the major population centres.
Robin,

Don't shoot me, but you didn't actually ask those specific questions, at 
least not succinctly.

1. Are the goals realistic?

A: Allow first the observation that "realistic" is subjective. However, 
the primary goal - connect 93% of the population to the fibre - is 
achievable. We have, for example, connected more than that to copper. Is 
the goal realistic within a specific timeframe, at a particular price? 
Yes, to timeframe - although I personally consider it ambitious. Even if 
the time-frame blew out by five years, it would still be well within the 
usable life of the fibre that's installed (30 years plus).

So the key question is "is the price realistic?" To that I have no 
answer. So I didn't answer that question.

2. Why is this the best way to use the taxpayer money?

A: I don't know if it is, but I will observe as many others have that 
most of the funding is not to come from the taxpayer. The intention is 
to raise much of the money separately from "general revenue", via bonds.

Although oblique, I think my earlier post was responsive: it is 
simplistic to consider the NBN to be exclusive of other spending. It has 
not cut the education budget, or health, or defence, or welfare. Far 
greater damage is done by the "all government debt is evil" fetish 
promoted by ignorant commentators, than by devoting a couple of percent 
of government income to a particular project. I would also note that the 
instrument - bond-raising by NBN Co - is exactly how infrastructure 
*should* be funded: debt funding infrastructure pushes some of the 
payment burden into the future, when people enjoying the benefit of that 
infrastructure are also involved in paying for it (Gittins has written 
well on this topic).

3. Especially outside major population centres

There are only two ways I can see of parsing this question: utilitarian 
economics, or social. Maybe it's economically unfair to have one part of 
the population subsidize another, but that happens all over the economy, 
in a myriad of ways, and resenting a geographic distribution merely 
because it's easily visualised isn't completely rational.

All taxation is in some way redistributive. The redistribution may take 
various forms:
- kleptocracy, in which the taxes are redistributed to a very small elite.
- "socialist", in which the taxes are redistributed widely (but 
inefficiently).
- "oligarchist", in which the taxes are redistributed to a wide but 
powerful elite.
- I guess there are other models, but I'm not a social economist and I 
don't know the names of the models. My use of quotation marks indicates 
that I don't really have the academic words for what I'm describing.

My point here, Robin, is that in arguing against one particular form of 
redistribution, that which supports non-urban populations, you're at 
risk of being told to look to the log in your own eye instead of the 
mote in your neighbour's! The mesh of redistributive spending is too 
hard to untangle, but we are all in one way or another its beneficiaries.

Finally, I would point to Galbraith's (?) notion of private opulence and 
public squalor. Decaying infrastructure is partly a symptom of the kind 
of individualism that, regrettably, good infrastructure partly fosters. 
Having learned to take the comfort of our lives for granted, we end up 
whining about how much tax we pay instead, and carp at every attempt to 
improve any infrastructure; either because it doesn't benefit us 
directly (the "my tax should be spent on me" argument), or because it 
"should be private enterprise" (even when the market hasn't responded), 
or because it costs too much, or ...

... and so the infrastructure decays. Were the same money spent on 
public education, it would be criticised just as the NBN is, because it 
would be seen as undermining private education. Were it spent on roads, 
it would be criticised for not being rail. On rail, it would be 
restricting the private freedom of the car. And so on. Selfish 
individualism destroys public infrastructure, and that's tragic.

(A side story. When my great-grandfather moved from Palmer Street to 
Camden, the trip took TWO DAYS, because that's as fast as the Hume 
Highway allowed. It's hard to predict who will benefit by an 
infrastructure investment, but it's easy to say that it will benefit 
people who don't expect to benefit.)

So I can only cast my vote, which is in favour of the NBN, and register 
my dismay at the way it seems to be unravelling (although I don't 
consider the loss of one executive to be an insuperable problem anywhere 
but in the minds of those who believe in the Cult of the C-Class, which 
means the project collapses without the Star Executive).

RC

>
> Hi Tom,
>
> You wrote, in part:
>
>> Pardon me Robin, whilst I agree with the logic of most of your
>> posting, the above portion would appear to be a non-sequitur.
>>
>> In the first para above you want money spent on facilities training to
>> encourage medical staff to live outside of the cities.
>>
>> Then you state that people will always elect to live outside the
>> cities by choice and that the Australian Tax payers shouldn't pay for
>> their lifestyle choices.
> I also meant to say that the taxpayers may also choose to support people
> living outside the major cities, for a variety of reasons, including:
>
>    1 - To help reduce the strain on the major cities.
>
>    2 - To support farming and regional Australia for whatever reasons.
>
> I am not saying these shouldn't be done - but I am against the idea that
> super-fast broadband communications is something which taxpayers should
> fund for people, no matter where they live.
>
> There are limits to what can be done with specialised aspects of health
> care and education in areas of low population density.  So its not
> possible to have every country town with a hospital ready to do the full
> range of surgery, or every school or TAFE college ready to teach every
> conceivable subject.  Generally, once people are 18 or so I think they
> can and arguably should move from their homes to study specialised
> subjects - to make a break from their parents and to go to wherever
> their chosen subject is fully supported.
>
> I am more concerned about kindergarten, primary and secondary school -
> and basic GP, hospital care and care for the elderly.  I understand that
> it is very difficult to get an appointment with a GP even in major
> regional cities such as Bendigo.  AFAIK, there's no problem with
> broadband access in Bendigo, so I can't imagine the NBN is going to
> improve the desire of GPs to live and work in Bendigo.  So I think
> improving this vital part of health care can best be done by targeted
> funding.  Since I think health care should be publicly funded, and since
> we clearly want to support the health of people wherever they live (if
> only because it is cheaper to do so and avoid things getting worse) then
> I think that taxpayer funding to improve GP and other aspects of
> health-care is desirable.
>
> Likewise, I understand it can be hard to get teachers into country areas
> - yet we need good teachers there.  I think taxpayer funding of these
> improvements directly would be better than pretending that the NBN will
> somehow magically and cost-effectively attract the right kind of
> teachers, doctors and nurses away from the capital cities.
>
>
>> The NBN is bait to keep the farmers kids at home so that they also
>> become farmers.
> The NBN may be intended to do this, but I think it is an overly
> expensive approach and that the money could be spent better.
>
> I am not opposed to tax-payer supported improvement of communications in
> the bush.  We have been doing this, though as phone customers rather
> than taxpayers, for decades (as best I recall), with the Universal
> Service Obligation, which was and I assume still is a tax on
> telecommunications carriers to subsidise telephone services in country
> areas so they are approximately as available as in the city, with about
> the same cost.
>
> I would support this being extended to broadband Internet, via whatever
> technology makes most sense, which I think generally means DSL and 3G,
> or perhaps some other wireless technology for longer dedicated links.  I
> think it is overkill to try to get everyone on fibre, especially outside
> 1/4 to 1 acre block built-up areas.
>
> DSL and suitably provisioned 3G wireless can provide a broadband
> connection which is good enough for the standard I think taxpayers
> should support for all Australians, except those who choose to live in
> such remote areas that there's little or no 3G or GSM coverage.  We
> already have a subsidised satellite service for those people, which I
> guess makes sense depending on the actual data flows and the limited
> capacity of the geosynchronous satellite.
>
> It is a matter of judgement and taste - and if you want to pay more
> taxes to get everyone and their dog onto fibre, that's fine.  Its not
> what I think would be a good use of money - I would prefer to see more
> direct support for education, because it seems teachers (kindergarten,
> primary and secondary) have been starved of support in terms of salary
> for decades and that the standards of teaching have slipped.  It appears
> that we have large numbers of people leaving high school with inadequate
> English and arithmetic skills - inadequate for pretty much any job and
> arguably inadequate for life in general.   No doubt there are other
> problems to solve too, with the curriculum in general and the avoidance
> of phonics in reading.
>
>
>> You claim that existing DSL and wireless services can service the
>> country areas adequately.
> 3G covers a lot of areas and I think it makes sense to boost the
> capacity of these systems rather than run new copper or fibre all over
> rural Australia.  People can install directional antenna on a tower if
> they in a gulch and distant from the base-station.  Depending on
> spectrum and how it is divided between operators, I think its a lot
> easier to improve the capacity of the 3G system, such as Telstra's
> excellent long-wavelength (good propagation around trees, buildings and
> hills) NextG system, than to run new copper of fibre kilometres and tens
> of kilometres to a few houses.
>
>
>> Wireless?
>> Forget it.
>> Telstra, Optus and Vodafone all have towers.
>> Too many hills. Too much fog. No signal.
> Fog?
>
>
>> At Chris' house, if you want a signal [voda] you have to stand on
>> tiptoe on the front porch and face Mecca, lift your right leg etc
>> etc...
> OK - put in a tower.  People have been putting TV antennae on 10 metre
> towers for decades.
>
> Also, assuming there are other people in the area, bring a base station
> out that way.  That's easier and generally more useful than digging
> fresh ditches to every house in the area to get new copper or fibre to
> each home.  It is more useful because it provides connectivity to
> travellers in the area, and to people working all day on tractors.
>
>
>> The Carriers have eschewed the country folk providing the bare minimum
>> to maximise their revenues - cherry picking the profitable services.
> Sure - this can be fixed for a lot less money then the NBN.
>
>
>> The NBN is social repatriation for thirty years of "she'll be right...
>> They wanted to live in the country".
> Maybe so - but do people really want this, or would they prefer better
> 3G coverage, and more direct support for teachers, schools, GPs, nurses
> and hospitals?
>
>
>> Where I think the money is being wasted is duplicating the
>> infrastructure that already exists in the cities.
> On this we agree.
>
>> We already have LTE, ADSL-2, Cable etc in the City, why does that need
>> to be replaced ?
> I am opposed to the monopolistic nature of the NBN, turning off Telstra
> copper and HFC cable Internet services wherever it goes.  There's always
> 3G as an alternative to the NBN, which is good.  But it is so
> destructive and monopolistic - and especially worrying from a censorious
> government.
>
>
>> So I guess, I would argue, give the country an infrastructure boost if
>> only to maintain a level of minimal service in the country areas to
>> ensure that the lungs and bread basket of the city dwellers can
>> continue to function without farmers loosing their offspring to the
>> allure of iPhones in the city.
> I think it is a mistake to think the NBN can do this, or that this is
> the best way of spending money to support the retention of people and
> communities in farming areas.
>
>
> Hi Kim,
>
> You wrote, in part:
>
>> You know I don't agree with most of what you wrote.  We've been over
>> all this many times.  I find it amazing that the moment there's an
>> apparent hiccup with the NBN all the naysayers start naying.
> I have been naying for quite a while.
>
>
>> This is either not true or not relevant.  Most people I know who
>> understand ICT think this is a very good idea and well thought out.
> I think the ISPs have been pretty positive about the NBN, because they
> are keen to get an access system to all areas, without having to deal
> with Telstra.
>
> But what exactly is the thinking of these ICT people?  Why is this
> inadequately planned project, foisted on the nation by people who don't
> know much about ICT or big projects, such a winner?  Sure it would be
> great to have fibre to every home, or 97% of them.  But can it be done
> at the projected price?  It seems from the recent "hiccup" that it can't
> be done.
>
> Why spend all this money when a lot less could be spent in a more
> targeted manner, to achieve a range of outcomes in the bush?
>
> Is there some new zen of planning that less is more - just be bold and
> get the ear of the prime-minister, run with the ball, deny all critics
> as mere naysayers?  What's so good about planning a multibillion dollar
> project like this in a manner we might expect of a few people just fired
> up with self-confidence (regarding a field which is not their own) as if
> they had just done Werner Erhard's Forum, or whatever it is called these
> days?
>
>
>
>> Over the years our government has made some incredibly bad ICT
>> decisions.  One that springs to mind is selling Telstra - selling a
>> government monopoly that made billions for the government while
>> leaving its effective monopoly in place.
> I think it was fair enough to sell it.  To the extent that there was
> going to be really good regulation of the industry, and so a diminution
> of Telstra's monopoly, I think it would have been better if the
> government hadn't encouraged millions of mom-and-pop investors to buy
> the rotten shares.  People went to banks and borrowed money to buy
> Telstra stock - it was so silly, and as best I remember, the government
> did nothing to warn them that the value of Telstra as a business would
> and should be diminished by the new regulatory regime.
>
>> For whatever reason the NBN is not one of these bad decisions.
> Why not?  It has all the hallmarks of a white-elephant - starting with
> the goals, timeframe and and cost being created by people who had no
> proper way of deciding these things.
>
>
>>> Now a bunch of bright, hard working, people at NBNCo now have the
>>> job of achieving the outcome, according to the timetable, and within
>>> the $43B cost
>> Yes?  That's what companies do.
> Yes.
>
>>> - all of which were decided largely or entirely by the two
>>> insufficiently qualified people who devised the project.
>>>
>>> NBNCo try to get quotes from a bunch of companies on the most
>>> difficult aspect of the project, running fibre along streets and
>>> into individual homes - and connecting the requisite equipment.  I
>>> am not sure how they can they specify the difficulties of doing
>>> this.  So how could there be a contract, unless the tenderers are
>>> supposed to take enormous risk?
>> Australia has people and companies who can do stuff and reasonably
>> efficiently.  I'm sure they can manage.
> Then are the quotes realistic?  If not, then every one of these
> companies was price-gouging.  I can't imagine how they would all do
> this, since they want to get the work.
>
> If the quotes are realistic, then the fatal flaw is in the NBN plan
> itself - with its goal, timeframe and total cost decided arbitrarily by
> people who were way out of their depth.
>
> You may be sure it can be done.  But the companies which want to do the
> work are not sure.  I think they know more about the costs of running
> fibre down streets and into homes than you or I do.
>
>
>
>>> The quotes come back - the work of people who are presumably very
>>> well educated in these matters - and they are all too high for the
>>> spec, timetable and costs which have already been determined.
>>>
>>> Part of the problem is that these potential installation contracting
>>> companies don't have - and won't be able to get - sufficient numbers
>>> of suitably educated people to do the work.
>>>
>>> If the NBN existed today, it wouldn't help much in providing the
>>> sort of education required for doing a number of useful things, such
>>> as laying cable, installing and testing equipment etc.
>> There are already people laying cable along streets, so it's possible
>> to do and there are people with training and experience doing it
>> right now.
> Apparently there aren't enough of them for any of these companies to be
> able to quote a price which fits within the limits already set by Rudd
> and Conroy for NBNCo to operate within.
>
>
>> This is kind of a bleak view of Australian society: that we can't
>> even organise the laying a bunch of cable.
> Oh - so the reason these companies quoted prices which are too high for
> the Rudd-Conroy framework is because people like me say its all too hard??
>
>
>> If it's true we should just give up now.
> I think we should pull the plug on it and decide on a much more
> judicious method of improving communications in the bush, as one of the
> things which needs improving, along with education and health services.
>
> I am not at all convinced that we need to be ripping out copper and
> putting fibre into city homes - at least not if it requires massive
> taxpayer investment and therefore risk and/or costs.
>
>
>> Maybe we should get a bunch of Chinese companies to do it.  They have
>> laid fibre to most of rural China (probably a decade ago) and that's
>> a way bigger job than we have.  China is one of the most ruralised
>> societies in the world.
> I haven't researched it, but AFAIK, there's not a lot of fibre to the
> home in China, especially in the rural areas.
>
>
>>> It is arguably a result of insufficient education that:
>>>
>>>   1 - The whole NBN proposal was conceived, with its goals and costs
>>>       already decided - never mind alternative approaches to using
>>>       the money for health and education - and then taken seriously
>>>       within the government.
>> There are lots of things the government could do with its $26B share
>> of the money.  We could equip and send more people to invade other
>> countries and, you know, die and stuff.  We could fix our rail system
>> so it worked.  Governments of all persuasions have been cutting
>> funding for education and health.  Suddenly you want to change this?
> Yes - forget wars and improve infrastructure in a judicious manner.
>
> Many supporters of the NBN seem to believe it will all be worth it
> because of the nirvana-like benefits it will bring.  I don't believe the
> benefits will be that big, compared to what will naturally occur in its
> absence with DSL and 3G.  A fraction of the funding would improve 3G to
> the point where people in rural areas could use it for Internet access.
>   They wouldn't be able to stream whole movies etc.  But I don't think
> taxpayers should be funding the communications infrastructure just so
> people can stream movies.  I think a well provisioned 3G service is fine
> for web-browsing, email and MP3 music purchases and for all educational
> uses apart from streaming video.
>
>
>>>   2 - That anyone outside government took it seriously.  Even quite
>>>       well planned IT projects are highly prone to going over-time and
>>>       over budget and/or being obsolete or in some other way
>>>       inappropriate by the time they are completed.  Yet this is a
>>>       project far bigger than any other IT project, with far less in
>>>       the way of suitably informed planning.
>> I'm not sure I agree with any of that.  Except the part about
>> projects, but IT doesn't have a patent on projects going wrong.  Look
>> at the Sydney Opera house as a case in point.  This project is not
>> much bigger than the copper telephone system in its day.
> I wasn't suggesting that only IT projects go wrong.  The telephone
> system grew organically over decades - which is quite different from a
> taxpayer funded mad rush.
>
>
>>>   3 - That there is not a greater pool of people with general skills
>>>       of a suitable kind who could be brought up to speed in something
>>>       like cable-laying and telco installation.
>> I think there is just such a pool of people who have been laying
>> cable right up to now.  How did all the cable get laid in the great
>> Telstra-Optus cable fiasco a few decades ago?  My suburb was rewired
>> about 10 years ago in a couple of weeks by two different groups.
>> It's not a big deal really.
> Then why does NBNCo find the quotes from all 14 companies so unacceptable?
>
>
>>> I think some of the NBN money would be better spent on boosting pay
>>> rates of teachers - from kindergarten teachers to university
>>> lecturers - and ensuring that the best people for these jobs want to
>>> do this work and are well supported with training, professional
>>> development and good facilities.  The whole public education system
>>> needs to be a matter of national pride - and the teachers should be
>>> the sort of people who are widely respected.  Then we won't have so
>>> much of this pernicious splitting of student populations into
>>> private schools, leaving the public schools to handle only those
>>> whose parent's don't have higher standards and the money to send
>>> them elsewhere.  I understand this is the typical situation in the
>>> USA.
> I should add that schools in the USA depend greatly on local funding, so
> inadequate funding and low standards can persist in poorer areas.
>
>
>> I can't disagree with the principle of funding education as an
>> investment in society.  One of the best things the Labour government
>> did in the past couple of years was fund a building project for
>> schools.  My daughter's primary school got an excellent new library
>> out of that.  An extremely successful use of funding for education.
> I would be more impressed by improving the salaries and training for
> teachers.  It should be a high-status profession, but it never will be
> as long as governments fail to support them with good pay.
>
>
>>> I think very little of what is important in education - particularly
>>> kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and most of TAFE -
>>> can be conducted through electronic channels and/or be achieved
>>> without really good teachers.
>> Don't entirely disagree with this but I would say that electronic
>> channels of communication only open new means of people communicating
>> with each other.  There's nothing magical in the infrastructure
>> itself.
> Yet NBN supporters seem to behave as if there is something magical about
> ubiquitous fibre.
>
>
>>> Likewise, I think the contribution the NBN will make to health is
>>> minimal compared to whatever benefits are already achievable with a
>>> mix of DSL and 3G wireless.  These already exist where the great
>>> majority of Australians live.
>> And the mobile wireless is not going to go away, it will probably get
>> better as a result of the NBN.
> I don't see why the NBN is going to make it much easier to power and
> connect base-stations in the bush.  Power is needed and the links can be
> via microwave over quite long distances, if the towers are high enough.
>
>> DSL can die AFAIC, the sooner the better.
> What's so wrong with DSL?
>
> The limitations on my Internet use are very rarely to do with speed or
> cost.  The speed limitations are almost never to do with the DSL part of
> the path.  The speeds using a browser-based Java applet with a speedtest
> at my ISP Internode are:
>
>     4,261 kbps downstream
>       876 kbps upstream
>
> This is on a newly installed Internode DSL with about 4 to 5km of
> twisted pair from the Heidelberg exchange.  (Telstra's recently upgraded
> DSLAM was about the same speed, or maybe a little faster.)
>
> If I do a big file upload to a remote server, it takes a while - but it
> doesn't stop me from doing anything.  Likewise, I think, for the great
> majority of users.
>
> Speed limits are usually to do with TCP delays from my computers here to
> servers in the USA, Europe, Asia etc.  The round-trip time involves a
> longer session set-up and the data in transit involves slower window
> management.  For reasons of delay time, the data rate from a US server
> never gets as high as from an Australian based server.
>
> If Internode or some Australian provider was offering movies, then the
> 4Mbps limit would be crucial to deciding on the quality of real-time
> streaming video I could watch.  Fibre would be far better.  But I don't
> believe taxpayers should be funding the Universal Service Obligation to
> the point of Blu-Ray quality streaming video.
>
>
>
>>> Maybe putting in low-cost high-speed broadband will
>>> encourage nurses and doctors to live outside major cities, and so
>>> improve health outcomes in this manner.
>> Yes.
> To some extent, this will be true.  But how much encouragement will the
> NBN provide to them above what would already happen with DSL and 3G, or
> what could happen with DSL and 3G judiciously supported with a lot less
> money?
>
>>> Still, I think the money would be better spent directly on health
>>> outside the major population centres - facilities, salaries,
>>> training and professional development and whatever is needed to
>>> encourage sufficient numbers or doctors and nurses to live and work
>>> outside the big cities.
>> However the government spends our money, there will always be people
>> who disagree with their choices.
> Sure, but do you argue that health and education could be better
> improved by the bazillions to be spent on the cargo-cult-like NBN, or by
> more targeted and judicious support for GPs, nurses and teachers?
>
>
>>> If there was better education and healthcare outside the major
>>> cities, more people would choose to live there and there would be a
>>> stronger demand for broadband communications - which existing
>>> providers would be able to meet via DSL, fibre or 3G / WiMax radio
>>> links.
>> Yeah if there were no roads, the demand would just magically create
>> them?  The only reason we have DSL at all is because our government
>> built the infrastructure in a giant project much like the NBN.
> I disagree.  Copper was the only way to do telephony.
>
> The NBN's fibre-to-the-home is not the only way to do broadband
> communications.
>
> The phone system was built over decades, not in a single rush with a
> necessarily larger workforce, which then would have nothing to do.
>
>> Copper has now outlived its usefulness.
> I completely disagree.
>
> Copper works just fine for all the communications people need, provided
> this doesn't include streaming high-quality video or copper which is
> more than about 4km from the DSLAM.
>
>
>> Current DSL offerings are rubbish compared with what is possible and
>> being done around the world.  Have you used WiMax?  I have.  Give me
>> a decent fibre connection any day.
> Australian ISP's costs depend heavily on the cost of links to the
> outside world.  Right now, I guess they get a pretty good deal from
> Telstra for using Telstra's DSLAMs, or for using their lines with their
> own DSLAMs.
>
> "Pretty good" doesn't mean its perfect, but I reckon it is cheaper now
> than what it will be under the NBN, where the ISP's fees for using the
> NBN need to pay back all that fibre investment, much of which was simply
> replacing perfectly good, already paid for, copper.
>
>> On top of that there are people in the country still without a
>> phone.
> Only those people who choose to live somewhere outside Telstra's very
> wide-reaching NextG system.  That's their choice.  Only in remote areas
> of Victoria would this be true, such as in unpopulated areas, or in
> certain valleys I can think of, such as Walhalla, which is a town
> without cellphone communications.  (My friend who lives there tells me
> he can get 3G - I forget what company - from one road at the far south
> of town, Little Joe Hill, beyond where anyone lives.)
>
>> There's a reason why the government created the Universal Service
>> Obligation after it sold Telstra.
> I recall it existed before Telstra was privatised and before Optus
> existed.  Its just that then, there was only one carrier - Telstra - and
> Telstra was the company selected to do the USO work.
>
>> It knew that once Telstra was a private company it would have walked
>> away from country people without the government sitting on it and
>> twisting its arm.
> Probably before, as well.  When I was writing about telecommunications
> for the Australian Communications magazine in the 1990s, my impression
> of Telstra engineers was that they were generally very aware of the
> social importance of their services.
>
> The government used Telstra and now the multifaceted telephone industry
> to pay for a totally socialistic cost-levelling arrangement in the bush.
>   So people who wanted a phone (at least in the 1980s) could get one for
> about the same price as anyone in the city.  Never mind that a team of
> men worked for a few weeks with a ditch-witch laying cable out their
> way, with multiple pairs for any future inhabitants.
>
> That was all fine, I think.   I support extending this in some way to
> broadband access suitable for web-browsing, file uploading and MP3
> purchase.  I do not support extending the USO to cover 100Mbps access,
> because I think it is overkill, and because the cost and other speed
> limits of Internet access in Australia are not imposed, generally, by
> the speed limits inherent in DSL . . . unless you want to use it for
> real-time streaming of high-quality video from Australian servers.
>
>>> So directly funding health and education would arguably improve
>>> broadband in the bush, without the government needing to support any
>>> such IT project, or worry about exactly which technologies would be
>>> used.  Also, without the need to suddenly create or import a massive
>>> workforce of cable layers and the like for a once-off project.
>> So ... why hasn't it happened so far?  Because it won't happen
>> without government support.  Not in a country the size of ours.
> I am arguing for more direct support of education and health - to
> whatever degree taxpayers want to improve this in regional cities and
> smaller towns etc.
>
> I don't accept that the benefits of the NBN for health and education are
> so great that this should be a part of the justification for investing
> so heavily in fibre.
>
>>> That said, no matter what governments and corporations do, living far
>>> from major population centres will never provide lots of the
>>> benefits of living near them.  People make a choice about where to
>>> live, and I don't think it is the role of most taxpayers to spend
>>> excessive sums of money to bring every benefit to them, no matter
>>> where they live.
>> Aren't we a society?  People living in the bush bring us city
>> dwellers lots of benefits, like food for one.  Why should they have
>> to live in the dark ages?
> DSL and 3G are not the dark ages.
>
>
>>> Even with the best health and education outcomes for people living
>>> outside major cities, the major cities will continue to grow because
>>> many things are less expensive (good food,
>> Other countries have good food in the country, better than the
>> cities.  That's a peculiarly Australian problem created by our food
>> distribution system.
> "Good food" is subjective, but for me it involves fresh seafood, and a
> wide variety of good vegetables, fruits and packaged food items.  It is
> tricky to do this in areas of low population density.  So an hour and
> half's drive from here local country town's IGA supermarket (e.g.
> Trentham) is more expensive and less fruitful than the city Coles or
> Woolworths, or our own independent Leo's supermarkets in Heidelberg and
> Kew (with a sister supermarket in Castlemaine), which are better still.
>   The sole supermarket in Ceduna - hundreds of km from any other
> supermarket, was good - with a great range of fresh fish, fruit and
> vegetables.
>
>
>>> short commute distances to jobs)
>> Short commute distances?  I hardly know where to start with that one,
>> it's just silly.  You clearly have never lived in Sydney's western
>> suburbs.   Many people in the country live right near where they work
>> - like on their farm for instance.  It's the cities where you have to
>> commute in a contested space and time.
> I agree this is a very difficult thing to debate.  But if you live 30km
> from Bendigo and work there, its quite a substantial commute - although
> little in the way of traffic jams.
>
>>> and because a greater variety of activities, jobs etc. are
>>> available.  To the extent these attractions exist, we see the price
>>> of real-estate in cities going up - until these costs roughly
>>> balance out the benefits according to how many people weigh them up.
>> Australia is one of the most urbanised societies in the world,
>> especially when you consider the size of our country and the low
>> population density of rural Australia.  This is one way we can
>> encourage people back to the land and keep the people on the land
>> feeling part of our society.
> The high degree of urbanisation is perplexing.  In Germany, there seems
> to be a town or village every 2 to 4km, and many of them have a
> substantial factory, including some high-tech operation which leads the
> world.  I was searching for the source of Aaronia hand-held microwave
> spectrum analysers - Google Maps took me to a little town with about two
> dozen houses!
>
> http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&q=Euscheid&sll=50.141057,6.317638&z=16
>
> But Germany is less than half the size of NSW, is all fertile land, and
> has 81 million people . . .
>
>
> I recall reading that Australia's centralised wage fixing system is or
> was partly to blame for the urbanisation.  It prevents employers from
> paying less than a certain rate in areas of lower cost of living - and
> this means that they don't in fact open up factories in rural towns and
> cities, since they can't pay people less there than they do in the
> capital cities.  So they keep their factories in the big cities, where
> the pay rates are the same and there's a bigger pool of potential
> employees.  I am sure there's more to it than this, such as the cost and
> delays of transport etc.
>
>
>> You'd think from what you just said that there were no benefit for
>> people living in the country.
> Not at all.
>
>> For them or for us.  I don't think that's true at all.
>
> Hi Richard,
>
> You wrote, in part:
>> Of all the areas of government spending, the NBN is too frequently
>> thought of as exclusive of other spending in some way or other -
>> because we're spending X on the NBN, we can't spend Y on education /
>> health / whatever.
> Yes.  Unfortunately money can only be spent once.  The Magic Pudding
> could gloriously be eaten one day and be ready to eat the next day!
>
>> It may be just as true to say "because we have committed Z to the
>> joint strike fighter, we are spending less on the NBN" - and it may
>> be more accurate to describe the JSF as a waste, given that each
>> country  to withdraw from the project makes it more expensive to the
>> remaining countries and less likely to proceed. Moreover, we have
>> less control over the costs of such a project than we have over the
>> NBN.
> This may well be so.
>
>
>> So - why single out the NBN as somehow exclusive of other government
>> spending?
> In part, because of what I think is the over-selling of its supposed
> benefits, together with the downplaying of the benefits which can be
> achieved by DSL and 3G.  See Kim Holburn's message for examples.
>
> Everyone knows buying fighter planes is extraordinarily expensive and
> does not deliver much in the way of social progress.  To the extent we
> agree these things are needed, it is to head off an even more expensive
> development like not being able to protect our country, or not being
> able to protect a country we care about, such as PNG or East Timor.
>
>
>> [snip to avoid reviving the old debate about relative merits of
>> different technologies]
>>
>>> That said, no matter what governments and corporations do, living far
>>> from major population centres will never provide lots of the
>>> benefits of living near them.  People make a choice about where to
>>> live, and I don't think it is the role of most taxpayers to spend
>>> excessive sums of money to bring every benefit to them, no matter
>>> where they live.
>>>
>>> Even with the best health and education outcomes for people living
>>> outside major cities, the major cities will continue to grow because
>>> many things are less expensive (good food, short commute distances to
>>> jobs) and because a greater variety of activities, jobs etc. are
>>> available.  To the extent these attractions exist, we see the price
>>> of real-estate in cities going up - until these costs roughly
>>> balance out the benefits according to how many people weigh them up.
>> Well, yes. But it's also reasonable to ask "why these particular
>> cities?  Why so few cities?" As a counter-example - America's
>> population is very urbanised, but there's a large number of cities.
> The US population is about 15 times that of Australia, in a somewhat
> larger land-mass, which is generally more fertile and hospitable than
> most of Australia.
>
>
>> A long time ago, I was  told by Dennis Hayes (of the modems) that to
>> reach half America's population meant visiting 50 cities (the number
>> has probably changed  since then). In Australia, more than half the
>> population is in the Melbourne / Sydney / SE Queensland urbanisations.
>>
>> Partly it's water - that Australia offers fewer attractive sites for
>> large cities - but it must also be regarded as the outcome of policy
>> decisions. Is it reversible? - Probably, but it would be difficult.
>>
>> The idea that taxpayers should not fund "every benefit" to people
>> regardless of their location, in my opinion, over-simplifies the
>> debate.
>>
>> It seems to presume that the flow of benefits is unidirectional.
>>
>> "People will make a choice about where to live" - that is entirely
>> accurate. Part of the problem with a lack of (say) doctors in
>> regional areas is purely social and probably can't be solved by
>> policy: there's no cachet in living in Bathurst or Albury. When
>> people are acculturated to the idea that success in medicine means a
>> home in the eastern suburbs of Sydney (or Toorak) and a Macquarie
>> Street practice, how do you get a  specialist to work in the regions?
> Indeed - and I am not convinced that the difference between NBN speeds
> and DSL/3G is going to make a huge amount of difference.
>
>
>> Getting out of order, I want to address one more point:
>>
>>> If there was better education and healthcare outside the major
>>> cities, more people would choose to live there and there would be a
>>> stronger demand for broadband communications
>> You don't have to get far outside the cities for the infrastructure
>> to be inadequate; nor do you have to disappear into the Outer Barcoo
>> to get to places where competition doesn't go. Most of the exchanges
>> on the Blue Mountains, for example - which all up covers a population
>> of 75,000-plus - have no competitive DSLAMs in them. The attractors
>> to competition are more complex than population alone.
> There are many factors at work.  If we could somehow afford a wham-bam
> NBN, then it would have various benefits, including a generalised
> knowledge that almost no matter where we live, we can get high speed
> Internet access.
>
> However, I am yet to be convinced that the goals, schedule and
> pre-defined price-tag are feasible.  Even if they were, I think it would
> be better to have more targeted support / investment regarding health,
> education and broadband access in country areas.
>
>
> Hi Bernard,
>
> You wrote:
>
>>> There are several tragic ironies regarding education and the NBN.
>>>
>>> One of the big reasons the government gives for spending tens of
>>> billions of dollars on the NBN is to improve education for people in
>>> general, especially outside the major population centres.
>>>
>>> Yet the plan was devised by people who were uneducated in IT and
>>> infrastructure planning matters - the prime minister and the minister
>>> for (censored) communications.
>>>
>>> Now a bunch of bright, hard working, people at NBNCo now have the job of
>>> achieving the outcome, according to the timetable, and within the $43B
>>> cost - all of which were decided largely or entirely by the two
>>> insufficiently qualified people who devised the project.
>>
>> This was discussed on link almost exactly two years ago
>> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2009-April/082845.html
>> <quote from me>
>> At the moment, this project looks exactly like every other government
>> initiative that ended up being late, costing more and not delivering to
>> its expectations. I'm not suggesting it will fail, I just don't see
>> anything different from those projects that have failed.
>> </quote>
>>
>> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2009-April/082846.html
>> <another quote from me>
>> The project so far seems to have been all about politics and finance -
>> business as usual.
>> </quote>
>>
>> As I have said before, every solution creates new problems. It's a good
>> idea to put some thought into what those new problems might be when
>> planning a project.
> The "hiccup" over not being able to get installation done within the
> pre-conceived budget is an early sign of a project in big trouble.  It
> is exactly what anyone would predict of an ill-conceived project, which
> was propelled into existence by over-confidence and what I think amounts
> to a cargo-cult-like belief in a Nirvana-like outcome.
>
>    - Robin
>
>
>