Breaking News! Australia to get actual Broadband!

[weemadando]

KRudd's doing the presser on it now.

The tender process for the NBN has been binned and the gov't is going to re-create a public TelCo from the sounds of things.

And it's Fibre-to-the-home. Fuck yes...

More once an actual story goes up somewhere.

[Stark]

Oh man, the lolgasm. If only Howard hadn't sold Telstra to fund his 'look I've got a huge surplus' budgets? If only Telstra wasn't a model of corporate management that provides famously awful service and massive profits based on once-public infrastructure?

I'm only as bitter as how glowing the last Financial Review article about the brilliant Telstra management team.

[Singular Intellect]

It's about time we got around to pwning the Aussi's online.

[weemadando]

It's about time we got around to pwning the Aussi's online.

Oh no, they still haven't announced an upgrade to our international connectivity, so that will still be shit, but we'll totally be getting Aussie content fast.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Oh no, they still haven't announced an upgrade to our international connectivity, so that will still be shit, but we'll totally be getting Aussie content fast.

Maybe then Straya will just cut the lines out to the rest of the world so no more icky evil foreign internets can get in, and hope that the citizens will be satisfied with their really fast access to .au sites.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Being an American and not terribly tech-savvy, what's the deal? Is Australia only serviced by a single modem, or what?

[Stark]

Dude, your HOUSE isn't served by a single modem.

Really, just look at a map. AU is physically isolated, and I believe there are only two cables leaving the continent (once of which goes north into Asia). There's nowhere near the massive inter-connectivity of the US, and god knows nothing worthwhile is found locally here. I believe at one point there was a plan to lay more pipe, but no idea what became of it.

[GuppyShark]

More once an actual story goes up somewhere.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009 ... 536726.htm

[CaptainChewbacca]

Dude, your HOUSE isn't served by a single modem.

I know, that was a joke.

[fnord]

Dude, your HOUSE isn't served by a single modem.

Really, just look at a map. AU is physically isolated, and I believe there are only two cables leaving the continent (once of which goes north into Asia). There's nowhere near the massive inter-connectivity of the US, and god knows nothing worthwhile is found locally here. I believe at one point there was a plan to lay more pipe, but no idea what became of it.

Two major cables at the moment.

Australia-Japan Cable, which heads north, lands in Japan, then heads across the Pacific to the US.
Southern Cross Cable, which wanders off through Fiji, to the US.

They've been tootling along in a comfortable duopoly (SEA-ME-WE3 doesn't count, it's tiny, lands in Perth, and chockers) for roughly the last ten years.

PIPE International's PPC-1 faltered due to grand financial cockup, but they managed to retime customer and supplier payments to keep the venture going and they seem to be online for July 09 lightup. That's already put the cat among the pigeons, with just the credible threat enabling ISPs to score cheaper transit across the existing two cables.

The Bass Strait problem, regarding Telstra (who bloody else), Basslink, et al is a seperate saga - it's cheaper to transport data from LAX to Melbourne, than from Melbourne to Hobart at the moment.

[FSTargetDrone]

Link with animation/rollover map of the Southern Cross Cable.

More flash showing the Australia-Japan Cable.

[weemadando]

The Bass Strait problem, regarding Telstra (who bloody else), Basslink, et al is a seperate saga - it's cheaper to transport data from LAX to Melbourne, than from Melbourne to Hobart at the moment.

That's just Bass Strait in general. When my family moved from Canada it was cheaper for us to ship the container with our stuff from Dawson Creek (BC) to Melbourne than it was to get it from Melbourne to Tassie.

[Stuart Mackey]

Heh, by the looks of it Rudd is copying NZ governments policy on this..typical Aussies, always nicking things from next door.

[fnord]

Boy, didn't I bugger up my description of SXC.

AJC also lands in Guam, where PPC-1 is landing. They both seem to be third generation cables, as opposed to PPC's 4th gen stuff, which lets Pipe get away with fewer amplifiers en route.

Telstra, under the Three Amigos, had made noises about building its own transoceanic cable, but I'm not sure what's come of that.

[Scottish Ninja]

Heh, by the looks of it Rudd is copying NZ governments policy on this..typical Aussies, always nicking things from next door.

What exactly is going on in New Zealand right now? I only get the occasional tidbits from my brother in Christchurch, but I thought I remembered hearing something about National planning on improving the situation around the time of the election.

[Crown]

Heh, by the looks of it Rudd is copying NZ governments policy on this..typical Aussies, always nicking things from next door.

Actually (being an immigrant myself) I can safely say that Australia did not 'nick' this from NZ. It was proposed that we should follow NZ's policy by one of the many countless mass of New Zealand horde that have infested our fair island like the cane toad has Queensland and we thought the idea had merit.

[Stuart Mackey]

Heh, by the looks of it Rudd is copying NZ governments policy on this..typical Aussies, always nicking things from next door.

What exactly is going on in New Zealand right now? I only get the occasional tidbits from my brother in Christchurch, but I thought I remembered hearing something about National planning on improving the situation around the time of the election.

Same basic thing as Rudd has proposed a 'Public/Private' deal to put broad band to the door of some 75-85 percent of the country.

[Stuart Mackey]

Heh, by the looks of it Rudd is copying NZ governments policy on this..typical Aussies, always nicking things from next door.

Actually (being an immigrant myself) I can safely say that Australia did not 'nick' this from NZ. It was proposed that we should follow NZ's policy by one of the many countless mass of New Zealand horde that have infested our fair island like the cane toad has Queensland and we thought the idea had merit.

Well one supposes that a good Idea had to come from somewhere, as Australia sorely lacks the capacity to generate any of its own..hunnie.

[tim31]

A lot of bitching like this about the potential end user cost

Well, did anyone expect it to go smoothly?

Can't wait for basslink to come online so I can finally ditch fucking bigpond *rubs hands*

[The_Saint]

So sad when one realises that Telstra was one of the world pioneers in fibre optic cable and copper switching...... 15-20 years ago.

[tim31]

Yeah, because 15-20 years ago Telstra/Telecom were owned by The People, whereas now they are merely owned by people. Everyone's sick of them behaving like they're an underfunded government asset while gleaning record profits from the unreasonably high prices they charge for services as they bully smaller providers nearly out of the market.