I agree that the broadband internet speeds and uptake in Australia are unacceptable and that it is in sore need of an upgrade.
HOWEVER - what Kevin Rudd is proposing is already redundant technology and a waste of money.
In his Budget Reply speech tonight, he repeated his policy of rolling out a AUS$4.7 billion fibre optic cabling infrastructure which is meant to reach 98% of the population. It’ll be a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) infrastructure with a minimum speed of 12Mbps, which Rudd loves to repeat is “40 times faster than most current speeds” (link).
Oh gods.
The fastest internet speed you can get in Australia right now is 24Mbps although that’s not in all areas (including suburban areas) and is generally only with a bundled contract plan. The fastest commonly available speed is 8Mbps. This is available in metropolitan areas and larger regional centres.
Keep in mind, that these speeds - which are already almost as fast and in some cases twice as fast as what Rudd is proposing - come on copper telephone wires, which are already established and reach 99.99% of the population.
And yet, Rudd is proposing a rollout of fibre-optic cable which doesn’t give speeds much faster than what exist already on copper wiring.
Now let’s look at another country’s internet options that I’m familiar with - Japan’s. I should point out that I live in suburban Melbourne - about 20km from the CBD - a place that doesn’t get access to 24Mbps internet, presumably because there aren’t a lot of businesses here. When I was living in Japan I was in a similar situation: suburban Yokohama, all residential and about 10km from the CBD and little business around.
In Japan, the fastest broadband available on copper wiring is 50Mbps. That’s twice the speed available in Australia. Admittedly, because of the suburban area I was living in and the distance between my apartment and the telephone exchange, the speed I got in practice was 27Mbps. But that’s still nearly 20x faster than the 1.5Mbps I get in my suburban Melbourne home.
I could also get fibre optic internet connection - the fastest speed available in Japan is 100Mbps. It’s also a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure as opposed to Rudd’s FTTN proposal.
FTTN is daft. We get fibre optic cabling to the telephone exchange and then copper wiring the rest of way? All that’ll make is a bottle neck. Or it creates a huge upfront cost to any subscriber who wants to connect fibre to the home by paying for the installation of fibre optic cable to the exchange.
One more thing about Japan’s broadband: there’s no such thing as a download limit. The 27Mbps I got in Yokohama was also cheaper than the 1.5Mbps I get in Melbourne. By about $30 a month, too.
The proposal that Rudd has come up with is already redundant. He wants to pay $4.7 billion for something that is already outstripped by our fastest copper-wire speeds. It’s an upgradeable fibre optic infrastructure, he says, but how quickly do you think that will happen? It’ll be up to the ISP and telecommunications companies to upgrade it in their areas only, like they’ve been upgrading exchanges to be DSLAM enabled. It’ll take years to get faster fibre optic speeds on those cables and it’ll depend on customer demand, of which I imagine there will be little because a) we have faster on copper and b) it’ll only be FTTN and not FTTH.
Never mind the fact that Rudd wants to use the Future Fund to partially pay for this project (which he shouldn’t), but to pay $4.7 billion for something that is already redundant technology is just despicable.
The stupid thing is that the Labor party already knows how good other countries have it. They’ve written examples down in their official policy document.
Singapore is investing $5 billion so that every home and business gets at least 100Mbps. Similar money, but Singapore is a much smaller country.
South Korea has paid $50 billion in subsidies to get its fibre optic network - internet uptake in South Korea is probably best in the world.
The United States government doesn’t seem to need to do any investing; the corporations are doing it on their own: $5 billion by SBC, $25 billion by Verizon. The US obviously has a larger population and market share though. About the same size geographically, however.
Italy: $10 billion to provide 100Mbps to two thirds of the country.
Germany comes close to Rudd’s proposal; $5 billion to provide FTTN to 50 German cities at 50Mbps…..
All these examples are in the ALP’s own policy document, then they trumpet how good their plan of 12Mbps FTTN is?
It’s not good enough.
First of all, it’s too slow. 12Mbps has already been overtaken by copper wiring in this country, so why pay to build something slower? It’s upgradeable? So what? Make it faster to begin with.
Secondly, it’s FTTN. It’s only fast to your telephone exchange, then it travels at the same old speeds to your home over copper wiring unless you pay to get your copper wiring upgraded or replaced with fibre.
The only admirable part of this policy is its attempt to reach 98% of the population, because we all know how Telstra and other telecommunications companies are loathe to supply the bush with services. This proposal will only be good for the bush though. The cities and regional centres may as well stick with copper wired ADSL.
Rudd either needs to spend more serious money (in the order of AUS$30 billion) to get 100Mbps FTTH infrastructure to 98% of the population, or scrap fibre optic altogether and work on upgrading the existing copper wiring network.
The ISPs have been investing their own money in telephone exchanges to get faster speeds to satisfy customer demand but leaving it in the hands of companies means places like the bush miss out.
If every telephone line was capable of getting 50Mbps directly to the home, much like Japan, that would go a long way to getting Australia back on par with international broadband standards. It would cost less because the infrastructure is already there; it just needs upgrading. Also, the copper wiring infrastructure already covers this huge continent and the cost of rolling out fibre over thousands and thousands of kilometres won’t be there.
If fibre of 100Mbps is required after that (and I’m sure plenty would want it), then that could be something that is done by the ISPs, much like they invested in DSLAMs. Or, if Rudd really wants to win brownie points, invest in fibre in the bush and leave the cities to the private sector.
Consumer demand will ensure that fibre gets here eventually, with or without government investment. But investing huge amounts of money on something that won’t really help that much is unacceptable. You’re not going to get my vote with this proposal, Rudd.
And on a side note: I love the Internet. Doing a search for unchi turned up this completely useless factoid: there’s a children’s book called Minna Unchi, or, 
Good grief. I’m not sure that I believe that the author’s name was really Taro Gomi. It’s kinda like saying his name was “John Poopies”. Only in Japan.