I recently found a great article about the Australian NBN that is worth a quick read as it makes some fascinating points that don't seem to get much airtime amongst all the complaining.
I thought it was important enough to understanding what's going on in the internet world to share here. (the idea of this blog is to share trends, ideas and tips)
Here's a quick precis of some of the points:
- The NBN is like the Snowy Mountain scheme – will bring big changes, but it was harder to see clearly at the time why it was needed;
- It's not something that the private sector can do as it's just not financially profitable in the short term;
- The benefits are economic and thus hard to measure by a pure "cost-benefit" analysis;
- The myth is that no-one wants it; this is a little like arguing that nobody needs a telephone as they become more common suddenly everyone has one then suddenly wants one;
- Myth: "wireless could do it" – physically available spectrum just isn't enough, nor is it fast enough;
- Other countries have done it cheaper – yes, but they're geographically small and compact, we have a huge continent and widely spread populace;
- "The NBN being owned by the government is bad" – yet so is most of the road network
You can find the original article at: http://newmatilda.com/2011/04/18/seven-myths-nbn
Please comment if you'd like to add your thoughts …