[LINK] NBN Inquiry Submissions

[Tom Worthington]

The deadline for submissions to the Australian Parliament's "Inquiry
into the role and potential of the National Broadband Network" now is 25
February 2011: <http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/ic/NBN/>.

The Australian Computer Society is preparing a submission and asked for 
input from members:
<http://www.acs.org.au/enewsletter/ceo/index.htm#policy>.

The second draft of my draft submission "Broadband for a Broad Land: The 
role and potential benefits of the National Broadband" is at:
<http://blog.tomw.net.au/2011/02/broadband-for-broad-land-draft.html>.

The submission addresses two issues: the environmental costs and
benefits of the NBN and the role of the NBN in education and in
education making the NBN useful. In this I have raised concerns that the 
NBN could result in an increase in e-waste from the equipment made 
obsolete and from backup batteries. I suggest that environmental 
benefits from the NBN will require training of people in how to use it.

For education, I propose that online educational materials be provided 
free by Australian Governments at all levels from pre-school, to post 
university. Also I propose that school buildings become community 
education facilities for use by all levels. The PM gave a speech on the 
need for "Skills for the future" Monday, which this approach would help 
achieve: <http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/speech-ceda-luncheon>.

I have offered this material to the ACS and so might not be making a 
separate submission.


-- 
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