[LINK] NBN: a real need for speed?

[Richard Chirgwin]

Modesty would forbid me, if I had any, but in case anyone wants to know, 
here's my comment in full:

> While a peer-review process is beyond the scope of The Conversation, 
> some kind of editorial quality control is required, merely to weed out 
> egregious errors.
>
> Statement: “But at a university where I can get speeds of 100 Mbps 
> (the fastest speed promised by the NBN), I can’t guarantee a clear, 
> unbroken Skype audio session, let alone video, with someone else at 
> another Australian university on an equally fast connection.”
>
> First, 100 Mbps is merely the current top speed offered. The NBN kit 
> has already been tested to 1 Gbps and will go far beyond that. Second, 
> the performance on your segment of the university LAN has nothing to 
> do with the NBN.
>
> Statement: “Mobile broadband makes up 47% of the total Australian 
> customer base. 90% of new connections added between June 2011 and 
> December 2011 were wireless. Convenience and the post-PC world are 
> continuing to drive our usage of the Internet, not speed.”
>
> As the ABS data shows, in Internet Use in Australia:
> 1. Downloads on mobile networks make up 7% of total downloads;
> 2. Fixed users are already moving to higher speeds where they can; and
> 3. Mobile broadband makes up 47% of total services in operation, not 
> the total customer base, since customers buy more than one service. 
> Since fixed technologies serve households and mobiles serve 
> individuals, it’s dangerous to try and assess one against the other in 
> terms of consumer preference.
>
> Statement: “just this one feature that has been used to justify the 
> NBN’s $36 billion – $50 billion price tag.”
>
> Even a cursory understanding of the debate would tell you that speed 
> is not the only argument put forward to support the NBN. Others include:
>
> 1. Lifespan (the fibre has at least a 30-year lifespan, probably more);
> 2. Equity (the NBN attempts to equalize the gap between services in 
> urban and non-urban Australia);
> 3. Making services available to small businesses that were previously 
> only affordable to large businesses;
> 4. Productivity; and
> 5. Industry reform.
>
> With the exception of the fibre lifespan, all of these are legitimate 
> subjects for debate. However, David Glance doesn’t even consider them; 
> he merely ignores them.
>
RC

On 10/04/12 12:14 PM, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> At 11:30 AM 10/04/2012, David Boxall wrote:
>
>> Followed by an excellent rebuttal from http://twitter.com/R_Chirgwin.
>>   From<https://theconversation.edu.au/nbn-a-real-need-for-speed-6324>:
> Unfortunately because of the broken comments system on the website,
> one can only guess at Richard's reply. It started out good, though.
> Wait, if this is messing up anyone else, I just discovered that if
> you allow rackcdn script it will work. Rackcdn appears to be a cloud
> storage service in the US.
>
> 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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