[LINK] LINK] Four Corners NBN

[Tom Worthington]

Frank O'Connor wrote:
> Nice presentation ...

I thought the program was very informative and well balanced, if perhaps
a bit pro-NBN.

> Everybody seems to think that more bandwidth and better network is 
> good ... the nay-sayers tried to bring out the wireless turkey again, 
> but this was not accepted by the program. ...

The program did a good job pointing out the pros and cons of
copper, fibre and wireless.

> Turnbull and others pointed out that private enterprise is always 
> better and can do these things more efficiently ...

The producers did seem to set up the ex-Testra people by first
explaining how a national network had to be protected from rivals cherry
picking profitable inner city customers, who were needed to subsidise
rural customers. The ex-Telstra person then explained that the Telstra
plan was to do just that: keep the valuable city customers and leave the
government to subsidise the loss making rural ones. Obviously if I was
running a for-profit company that is what I would do, but it was
surprising to see it put so bluntly.

> Nobody pointed out that past major infrastructure projects ... from 
> roads and public transport, to telecommunications (in the days of the 
> old PMG), to hospitals and health, and the rest were all built by 
> government ...

That roads and other infrastructure was built by government was pointed
out in the program.

> So, was Four Corners a wasted opportunity?

No, I thought it put the points well and largely left it to the viewer
to make up their own mind.

> I liked the explanation of the possibilities of fibre using 
> 'colours' instead of 'channels' ...

Of course that explanation is technically incorrect as each fibre
channel is at a different frequency and so is "monochrome". ;-)

> ... experience of remote users with high bandwidth 
> fibre, of the difficulties faced by that cystic fibrosis lady in 
> Bendigo ...

The obvious solution for e-health was for a clinic in Bendigo to be
equipped with broadband, to communicate with the specialist in
Melbourne. There is no need for every home to be equipped with broadband
for this. And in many cases a local para-medic is needed to help the
remote specialist. A person sitting at home can't carry out detailed
medical examinations on themselves.

> ... bloke employing 600-700 people in the bush in a photo-processing company, 
> of how ADSL performance falls off ...

The business just needs one fibre link, not one to every home in the 
bush. Similarly, for educational applications, the schools need the links.

Businesses and teachers need to understand this is not all one way
traffic: businesses in the city (and around the world) will be able to
offer services and compete for jobs in the bush. In the case of
education, the local staff may become essentially child minders and
equipment maintainers, while the teaching is located remotely, in the
city or another country.

> But it was a reasonably good relatively unbiased coverage of the issues.

Just to make it clear, I am not anti-NBN. But I suspect we need more
wireless in the mix. Also the $42B is only a small fraction of the
investment which will be required to take advantage for the network.
That investment will be paid for by physical services being replaced
with online ones. Just as ATMs allowed bank branches to be closed in
rural areas, tele-health and e-learning will allow doctors and teachers
to be replaced with online equivalents. We need to make sure these
changes to business, government and social structures are in the public
interest.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/
Visiting Scientist, CSIRO ICT Centre: http://bit.ly/csiro_ict_canberra