Debated started back in 2002 on National Broadband Network (NBN) for Australia and gained more traction during the 2007 election. Last year, the Australian government announced it was going to spend $43 billion on implementing the NBN – a fibre optic network with a speed of 100 Mpbs to 93% of population (in other worlds major cities and coastline) with the remaining areas to be serviced by a satellite network.  Recently the government announced the speed of the NBN would be 1 gigabyte.
So why is this network a white elephant?
Mobile devices are the fastest growing market and are changing the way we work, consume and produce data & information whether at work, home or play. For this reason alone the NBN should have been mobile technology based – people are changing the way they work and consume data and its not sitting at desk with a 17-24″ screen – its usually on a 3-14″ screen in their client’s office or boardroom or lounge room or shopping mall or farm tractor.  Another reason it should have been Mobile is the location of the data we now access is often through the cloud (gmail, youtube, facebook, games) and therefore people don’t need to be anchored to their desk or workplace to be productive. The cloud saves business money on purchasing network infrastructure, hardware and software. I’ll speak more about the cloud and mobile market trends in future posts.
The NBN is a fixed network that is going to provide huge amount of bandwidth to where people in reality don’t really need it. People use the internet for facebook, watching videos and reading the newspaper/news sites and the odd email – all of which do not require the enormous bandwidth that the NBN will supply. I can understand installing the NBN in Central Business/Activity Districts, Universities or other research facilities but spending $43 billion to install a fixed network to residences seems a large waste of taxpayers money.  Anyone who requires the bandwidth that the NBN will supply will most likely already have it – universities, banks, architects, designers, video production, etc. Overall, the concept of the NBN is too broader a scope and supplies people who really don’t need the bandwidth – I am I saying they don’t deserve the access – no, I am saying if they require it they can pay for it.
$43 billion is a lot of money to spend on one infrastructure project, there are too many other infrastructures that require the money including health and public transport – to areas in dire need of money.
Plain and simply the NBN should have been mobile by the time it is fully implemented be as relevant as a phone box and be one of the the biggest mis-allocation of funds by an Australian government.
IMAGE from Flickr 
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