John Linton The Cat's did in fact "c'arn'a" yesterday and a third premiership in five years is a more than remarkable achievement - so a truly great day. It is also a truly miserable long weekend Sunday in this part of Sydney pouring down with rain and bitterly cold and I had forgotten (not remembered) that it was daylight saving clock adjustment today so I am feeling that the day has sped past without me doing all of the usual start of Sunday things. I suppose that means I won't have time for them now so may as well just go out to an early lunch and watch the rain stream down the windows.
There seems to be an even more inordinate interest in the 'NBN2' going live yesterday than I thought was merited by a few hundred users in a few country towns moving from a free service to a chargeable service with nothing else changing either yesterday or for the forseeable future. I was interested to see the first of our NBN trialists ask us to switch off the NBN fibre service and I must find out why that was next week. Several 'journalists' contacted me via email for my comments which I provided to them via answering their questions but I can't see how they can make any sort of 'news story' out such a prosaic event. Doubtless they will do that - just as they made a story out of those infantile wankers at Internode "being the first to announce NBN pricing" as a mindless and totally stupid publicity stunt by setting the pricing way high and as I, and anyone else with a brain said at the time - they will be substantially cut before a bill is sent 'in anger' as they were just a childish foot stamping publicity stunt...difficult to slash prices you have never charged - or ever intended to charge.
So where is the 'NBN2' today after four years of Labor huffing and puffing? It's absolutely nowhere as you would expect any Labor government 'project' to be. Will it survive beyond any possible change of government? I wouldn't have thought so but then I never think the Australian electorate will ever elect the crooks, scam merchants, uneducated bums and just plain lunatics that comprise the Australian Labor Party in the first place - but am forced to acknowledge that continues to happen so anything becomes possible in this apocalypse approaching world we currently live in. Is it only me that vaguely comprehends that when you will have to borrow 20 billion or so to pay for something that has no return you will have trouble finding some entity to lend to you?
As predicted (at least by me and I'm pretty sure by everyone else with an IQ greater than their shoe size and two minutes reading on communications technologies) some four years ago the most expensive and most competition restricting way of providing communications services is by creating a government monopoly from the ground up thus ensuring that it is not only the most expensive and restricted way of proceeding but it will take an enormously long time in the event it is ever begun. Four plus years later what do you see?......errr....well......I mean.......absolutely nothing? Sorry, 1/10/11, you get an announcement that several hundred end users are now receiving a 'commercial service'....except they aren't at all.....they are receiving an gigantically subsidised service that cannot be replicated in to the future.
Over the time between today and the result of the next election (assuming there is one this time) it doesn't seem likely that a great deal of progress will be made on "building the most significant infrastructure this country has ever seen". What seems more likely is that Telstra will continue to delay any 'sign off' on helping the 'NBN2' in any way and the 'public' (even the ones promised super fast anti-social 'gaming' and copyright theft) will begin to realise that it will all cost much more than they thought. Perhaps even a few more people will actually look at the roll out time frames and realise that 11 years was a serious under estimate.....or maybe not because the number of people who think rationally about any aspect of life is a lot less than any community needs since the world's social engineering changes that have taken place over the past 60 or so years.....the Western version of cargo cult.
So having won my bet on the fearless and peerless felines yesterday I am inclined to double up that money on betting the 'NBN2' will be sold off to a commercial operator at whatever point it has reached come 2014. If I can't find a bookie I may make the book myself.
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