Advance, Australian ... Fair?

A most extraordinary situation has arisen this week, with one of the country's major newspapers, The Australian, embarking on an apparent vendetta against Senator Stephen Conroy after he questioned the use of its stories by the members of a Senate Estimates committee inquiring into the National Broadband Network (NBN).

Reporting by The Australian has been targeted by the proponents of the NBN camp since the paper published a report claiming that householders faced thousands of dollars in expenses to wire their homes to take full advantage of the NBN. Positioned as it was on the evening before an election, the claims were quickly rebutted by Julia Gillard and others in the press, but that didn't stop them from surfacing time and again even from the likes of Malcolm Turnbull.

The claims were more firmly rebuked by NBN Co head Mike Quigley during his speech at the CommsDay Melbourne Congress last week, as were Turnbull's concerns that the NBN involved "compulsion" in pushing householders from Telstra's monopoly-owned copper network to another fixed-line monopoly.

Source: www.zdnet.com.au...

Hidden back-up charge for users in fast broadband service

NATIONAL Broadband Network users will not be able to use their telephones in a power failure unless they pay for a back-up system. Telstra copper lines will be replaced by NBN fibre as part of the $11 billion deal with the federal government. NBN Co has a hands-off approach to ensuring lines will be available at all times. Customers will rely on the fibre network for broadband and fixed telephone services. Each home and business will need a network termination unit for power. The unit needs a standard 240 volt, 10 amp power outlet and without that it cannot work. If the unit loses power, telephone lines will not work unless NBN users have a back-up battery system, an optional item under NBN Co guidelines.

The NBN, or National Broadband Network, will be the biggest boondoggle dinosaur project the globalist Julia Gillard government would ever embark on.

The project is unprofitable because Australia has a fairly small population (~22 million) spread out on the largest island continent nation in the world. The technology would be obsolete by the time it is completed and it would mire Australia into more and more burdening unrepayable debt.

Wireless broadband would be much superior, as 2GB radio show host Alan Jones and company visited towns in Utah.

One Utah town he visited was Hanksville, population ~200, and it had wireless broadband Internet access.

reply to post by ironfalcon


Conroy is a twit, he's also implementing a filter across all internet access in Australia. Which according to the leaks, blocks a lot more than "child porn". (ie: other political parties, religious sites, regular porn).

He's somehow worked his way into this position with a history of only working in political roles, he has no idea about the subject matter, IT & T, and has a fascist attitude.

Well I for one have my suspicions on just what else is being laid along side the NBN infrastructure.
It all sounds way too Internet2 to me.
The government is going to expect a LOT of control or else it wouldn't be investing this much money?.
I've also read that they expect 98% uptake when it's done and they sounded pretty confident of that.
Somehow in my mind GOVERNMENT and INTERNET reeks of CONTROL.

As for the article, I'm glad that The Australian is posing the other side of the coin.
It would be totally lunacy if everyone just rah rahed the whole thing.
I agree with The Australians cautionary approach to the reporting of this thing that a LOT of people are against.

I personally think Labour want this so bad because it's going to create some temporary jobs that will look good on their bottom line.

While I despise gillard & her back stabbing gang of union thugs, & I am sick & tired of them spending money we dont have, something needs to be done.

Telstra is getting out of control, charging huge prices for pathetic 'service'. This bill they decided that they would charge us not just what our bill should be, but thought they may as well throw in next months too !!

Unfortunately wireless is NOT the answer. It is the most useless piece of technology created, & rediculously overpriced. It is my only option & I wish I could get dial-up again, in all honesty dial-up would be quicker most of the time. If there is rain, cloud or even a breeze, it drops out. There needs to be a class action against these telco's.

reply to post by countercounterculture


I heard small breasted women are to be thrown on the cul pile too. As in porn, magazine adverts, and tv adverts involving women with small breast may be banned. That will help female body issues. Nice one Australia!

theweek.com...

Australian censorship gets stupider by the day. Check out this article;

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Are you effing serious?!!!!

Originally posted by SNAFU38
While I despise gillard & her back stabbing gang of union thugs, & I am sick & tired of them spending money we dont have, something needs to be done.

Telstra is getting out of control, charging huge prices for pathetic 'service'. This bill they decided that they would charge us not just what our bill should be, but thought they may as well throw in next months too !!

Unfortunately wireless is NOT the answer. It is the most useless piece of technology created, & rediculously overpriced. It is my only option & I wish I could get dial-up again, in all honesty dial-up would be quicker most of the time. If there is rain, cloud or even a breeze, it drops out. There needs to be a class action against these telco's.

Dial up would be quicker most of the time? Are you mad?

The amount of garbage embedded in webpages these days makes even being restricted to 256kbps IMPOSSILBE.

And you're talking 56kbps.

The NBN is a joke, conroy is a joke, and our whole ITC industry is a joke, but dialup is never going to cut it as an alternative.

Face it, we're just fracked...

Even my ISP snuck in paying for uploads without me knowing it - oh small print they say, yeah, I've been upgrading and downgrading plans for the last 3 years when money is tight...

Now they sneak that in, and also charge me $29 to downgrade if I need to.

And I'm on one of the better ISP's there is........ we just pure suck for net here.

And as I hear it, other countries are looking at us as a way for the future - people who used to get unlimited adsl2+ for $49 a month are now getting capped, getting charged for uploads etc...

Frogs in a pot I say... the people who say whats wrong with it now, will be the ones rallying against it in the next 5 years because they're too ignorant to bother now.

conroy... what a nub.

Originally posted by badw0lf

Dial up would be quicker most of the time? Are you mad?

edit on 22/10/2010 by badw0lf because: it's 256 bad, not 2568... learn a pair of glasses...

No, not mad, just telling you how it is where I live, not even an hour from Sydney.

I have had many days where I have just given up, even simple web pages give up. Wireless is useless, so is gillards solution.

All we need is for them to cut down the big players & set some limits. I dont know how they'd do it, they get paid to make decisions I dont, & internet, along with costs in power & housing going thought the roof, are things they need to act on yesterday or theres going to be a lot more than 10% of us living in poverty, & sooner than they think.

reply to post by SNAFU38


Wireless also gets easily overloaded during peak times. Fibre to the node will be lightning fast and inherently more resilient to extreme weather conditions than current wireless networks. Technological advancements may change this in the coming years, however in the short term fibre to the node will provides sufficient bandwidth for most people.

I can already get adsl but unless you've got a whole pile of other things to bundle with it, its very expensive.
I'm on wireless myself, and I know what the poster meant about dial up speeds. Sometimes it feels like I never crossed over to broadband at all!
Whats the point of having this NBN if it could possibly send the price of broadband through the roof where lower income earners won't be able to afford it?
One thing you can guarantee is it won't be cheaper. They have to recoup their investment after all.

Sen. Stephen Conroy went to the U.N. in New York to present his recommendations on a report about the National Broadband Network project.

The senator received this report about a controversial mandatory Internet filter project.