John Linton
........I can't tell the difference.
We are staying in a recently built hotel in the centre of the Ginza which has internet connectivity via a 100 mbps fibre link (as does virtually every other building in Japans central districts and, as far as I know, most of Tokyo's residential districts. The result for an end user such as me? It works just fine but no better than my home 10 mbps ADSL2 service nor even my wireless broadband service in the places around Sydney that I use it. I very much doubt that there are that many hotel customers and staff using the internet service at 6.15 am but even if there are I don't detect any difference at any of the times I have used the internet over the past two days. I am not drawing any meaningful, or come to think of it any, conclusions from this untimed/unmeasured experience but it is another 'pebble on the beach' piece of 'evidence' that the cost of building a 100 mbps fibre network around Australia will need some more serious justification than getting a political posturer off the hook for involving himself in things he hasn't got a clue about.
When you subtract out all the clap trap about 100 mbps speeds being so useful for "on line hospital surgery" (the hospitals already have 100+ mbps fibre and those that don't (if there are any) can get it from Optus and Telstra (or if they want it at a lower cost from Exetel) or any of the other nonsensical scenarios that are 'winged' by people who write justifications for spending tax payer money on the 'NBN2' you have to reach the conclusion that the 'NBN2' is only being built to provide some percentage (and no-one can even estimate what that percentage is) of residential users with a facility that will only be used for 'recreational' purposes. I must be wrong in that estimate but I can't see where.
Business users in all capital cities and an increasing number of regional cities can get, today, data connections of up to 60 mbps at a non-taxpayer subsidised very affordable cost. Exetel has been selling 50 mbps links to large schools, student accommodation, medium sized companies and even a few government departments at a steadily increasing rate for over 6 months now. Telstra and Optus have been providing 100+ mbps services to Australia's largest companies and government users for many years. So it seems very unlikely that any of these business and government organisations will be eager users for the 'NBN2' service that is going to be limited to 100 mbps at a time when they are looking beyond 100 mbps for the larger operations and already have the infrastructure in place to deliver it.
I keep reading about how "Mrs Jones who runs a small business in West Galagagong will now be able to compete internationally because of 100 mbps internet" - but what will she be able to do with it that she can't already do? What new services will become available in the future that will require such speeds and why does she need to be subsidised by Australian taxpayers to run her own business? If she is inconvenienced by not having some facility to run a business then she should move to somewhere that has the facilities lacking in the place she currently operates from. I don't expect to have Mosman Council extend Mosman Oval so I can run a dairy herd and I'm prevented from doing that because Mosman lacks basic rural facilities (like 1,000 hectares of arable land) - I move to West Galagagong.
I realise I have used a wildly exaggerated comparison to sledge hammer home my point but FCS - its only to oppose the current stream of nonsense being used to justify an unknown tax payer expenditure on an unknown service at an unknown cost (and please stop describing it as a national 100 mbps network now the government has admitted that it will drop to 25 mbps (or less) in 'certain areas' meaning a lot of areas.
The point remains that 100+ mbps fibre is already delivered to most if not all of the users who want it at this time and those speeds will increase and those costs will decrease over the coming months and years on already established infrastructures. The CBA, The War Department and Mrs Jones do NOT either need nor should they want to be subsidised by me and you. If they want a facility they should pay for it and if they can't get it where they have chosen to operate (through poor planning) then they should move.
Now, I'm off to Kyoto for the day.