[LINK] Points, lines & curves

[Jan Whitaker]

At 09:30 AM 13/02/2011, David Boxall wrote:
>In the NBN debate, it seems to me that curve people are the ones who see
>the logic - and ultimate economy - in fibre.
>
>There are lessons here on our understanding of human population, water,
>air & soil degradation and global warming, but they're debates for other
>fora.

Interesting description of worldview. It somewhat equates to people 
who understand dimensional data representation: linear, matrix and 
database. I can do the first two quite easily (think a flat file 
document versus a spreadsheet). Where I lose confidence is with 
relational databases.

But I did get the answer to the exponential problem because I worked 
the logic backwards. That's fine for analysis after the fact. You 
know the result: the rats filled the room at a particular time. (What 
wasn't said was that was the exact time that the room filled and 
there was an absolute filling and rats don't squash, because if they 
did, the filling could have happened before the 1pm time given.) But 
in the real world, we don't know the end point of that filling. So 
then the whole thing falls into a risk management and diversification 
of investment space.

We've had a bit of exploration on link about the value of redundancy, 
a type of diversification (of access/service). We didn't have much 
redundancy before the mobile network, but now it's expected. So do we 
pull out the alternative connections? (copper and wifi in areas that 
can use fibre) Is it economically justifiable to maintain? Do you 
mothball these so there is a backstop?

Aggregation is another aspect of this: if you put all the comms on 
the fibre to a particular house (I'm not talking about the range of 
install for the particular range of houses by using wireless and 
satellite), and that single connection goes out, you lose the 
channels of communication. If TV goes to all-wired in the future, 
shut down the open broadcast towers, or radio goes all online instead 
of open airwaves because those frequencies can be better used for 
something else, then we are at risk.

Phasing out (exponentially?? ;-) ) is another consideration in the system.

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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