John Linton ....it's a beautiful summer morning without a cloud in the sky and no soaking humidity.
We got back around 9 pm last night to an almost Changi like reception - no-one ahead of us at immigration, bags off very quickly, waved straight out through a queueless customs and on the road home within 25 minutes of landing....maybe Australia has magicaly changed while we were away? Then I read this:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/nbn-and-tech-upgrades-critical-to-oz-report-339329847.htm
which has to rank as the most nonsensical BS yet published on the 'NBN2'. Heather Ridout is an estimable lady, good mother, devoted wife and bright enough to negotiate her way into a career that is both demanding and difficult and the only problem I have ever had with her (apart from her coziness with the current illegitimate federal government dross) is that her chauffeur parks while waiting to drive her to her office in ways that needlessly constrict the very narrow street we both live in.
To equate a giant mining company investing in technology (carbon fibre truck wheels, radio controlled ore movers, driverless trains etc) with a smaller company's need for the 'NBN2' is not just ludicrous it is wildly insane. In case it has escaped Heather's, the "journalist" who slung this piece together or anyone stupid enough to read it and believe any word of it - every word in it is total crap. Business already is the major user of high speed internet (the only thing the 'NBN2' may provide to smaller companies at some future time) and has done for the best part of a decade. In fact there would not be a single business anywhere in Australia within reach of a fibre, an ADSL or high speed wireless service that does not use high speed data services. The thought of a mining company being influenced in their 1,000 mbps data links selection by the questionable, vastly lower, speeds of the 'NBN2' years in to the future is as ludicrous as anything I have ever seen put into print.
Exetel is deeply interested in providing high speed data to smaller businesses around the country (all capital and large regional cities have had high speed data services available since 2002) but the 'NBN2' is not going to be any sort of 'break through' in doing that - assuming it ever gets built in places that don't currently have ADSL or will get access to high speed wireless......and don't bleat that wireless will never be a substitute for fibre - it already is in an increasing number of locations around the world....including visionary giants of technological use like Colombo! However that is not the point. The point is that someone like Heather would initiate this nonsense and then someone in the Australian telecommunications media would expand on her comments and print it.
Does anyone really believe that BHP-Billiton or ConZinc Rio Tinto et alia are just waiting for the 'NBN2' to eventually be delivered so that they can 'gain the benefits of high speed data transfer'? Is the NSW Education Department or the NSW Health Department going to shut down their current Telstra Statewide fibre networks to replace them with the eventual delivery of an 'NBN2' service? (despite the ridiculous lies of Stupid Stephen and co). Exetel is finding it quite difficult to convince our current residential ADSL customers to migrate to NBNCo fibre services and I would think that any business, of whatever small size, would be similarly hesitant....based on experience to date.....
......unlike our airport experience last night nothing has changed in the Australian telecommunications media.
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PS: The Disproving Of Yet Another Claim By Juliar Faustus:
http://www.theage.com.au/business/economy-shed-jobs-at-years-end-20120119-1q7fc.html