[LINK] web: The NBN satellite Malcolm Turnbull never, wanted prepares for liftoff

[David Boxall]

On 2/09/2015 3:37 PM, Chris Johnson wrote:
> Sorry you cannot simply distinguish technical difficulties as being
> binary (everything is technically possible, or not) because technical
> solutions come with differing costs - which is not solely a political
> issue.   Doing the engineering for any problem means finding a
> technically feasible and sufficient solution at an acceptable cost (in
> dollars and on other bottom lines like human lives risked in
> construction, environmental damage, skills required). So "fibre
> everywhere" may be "technically" feasible but not at an acceptable cost
> - it's silly to call this politics alone, it's an real engineering
> consideration. (The Star Wars defence system was considered technically
> feasible (by some) but would have required a large number of technical
> breakthroughs at unknown cost and time required. That's political if you
> like.) But calling any consideration of cost "political" is itself a
> statement about expectations of politics as practised. Politics and
> economics are part of the collective toolkit for accounting and helping
> to make judgements about how much human effort we as a communityare
> willing to expend for something - and having fibre go past is not the
> same as terminating - unlike old coaxial cable ethernet, you can't just
> vampire-tap into fibre at any point along the way.
> ...
Things change. I've lived with a party line, served via bare, overhead 
wires. Subscribers on that party line now each have their own line, 
served via underground cable. You're missing a vital factor: time.

The questions are:
- what are we willing to spend?
- over what time-span?

We have problems with short-term thinking. Conservatives, in particular, 
seem hostile to forward planning.

Maybe we need an independent body for infrastructure, to get away from 
the short-term political mindset. I guess that's a forlorn hope.

-- 
David Boxall                    |  When a distinguished but elderly
                                |  scientist states that something is
http://david.boxall.id.au       |  possible, he is almost certainly
                                |  right. When he states that
                                |  something is impossible, he is
                                |  very probably wrong.
                                                  --Arthur C. Clarke