[LINK] NBN chief seeks advice of US tech giants as broadband technology debate rages

[David Lochrin]

On 2016-03-22 12:23 David Boxall wrote:

>>> The Liberals used to plan long-term.
>>
>> They did?  When?
>>
> Menzies era. That was when much of the copper telecommunications infrastructure began. As I remember, it wasn't so much a plan as a process of continuing extension. The thought of choosing a direction and committing to it would terrify any modern-day Conservative.

I think Menzies also intoned that "The Liberal Party is the Party of Business".

The reason Australia had such an excellent telephone system in those days is that it was designed & built by a public organisation whose brief was to build and operate a national telephone network.  Nothing else...  The organisation was built around good engineering, it answered to the relevant Minister, and it was not required to make a profit.  (In case pedants are lurking, yes, it originally it had two arms, posts and telegraphs!!)

And most importantly, governments of the day wisely left the network engineering to engineers.  Lawyer MPs did not try to dabble in engineering over long lunches.

David L.