(Above: a joke for male nerd readers with a Stephen Conroy and xkcd fetish and a yearning for the good old days of dial up).Sure the luddites are in control of the asylum, and sure it's a defensive, paranoid publication, and surely fair and balanced means a fair and balanced loathing of the Labor party and everything and anything it might be doing, but then I remembered that the original luddites started as textile workings protesting the introduction of mechanised looms.
The Australian can't actually riot, burn and destroy machinery like they did in the good old days of 1811 and 1812, so instead it publishes tedious column after column with ritualised anti-NBN talking points, on an almost daily basis.
Surely the only motivation must be a love of the smell of newsprint in the morning, the trucks rolling out, the newspaper boys and girls still selling the rags on a Sunday for a sliver of cash, the fish and chip wrapping, the cockie cage lining. All destined to be swept away, and that much quicker when real broadband hits town, and people see the world open up before them. (And lordy how things do get swept away, as this Radio National documentary on the rise and fall of the eight hour day and the death of compositing as a trade reminds us).
Latest cab off the rank?
Michael G. Porter with Keep open all digital doors, which starts with this poignant summary:
Don't kill off cable and copper to make the NBN look viable.
Dear absent lord, where do they find these gherkins?
Won't someone think of the children, or the cable, or the copper, or the good old hand looms we had before the war, or the crispy bacon for that matter, or the car battery powered wirelesses, or the noble valve radio, or the four band eight transistor portable radio, or the narrow shearing comb we had before those bloody New Zealanders came along and ruined everything .... (ah, remember the wide comb dispute? Here and here for you labour historians).
Anyhoo, before I collapse from tedium, as a loon pond of record, enshrining loonish scribbles, we must point out that there all the usual talking points - wireless anyone - along with rubbery figures, and Carlos Slim talking about $7,000 a household, never mind that this figure in particular is as rubbery as Mr. Flubber in a Marvel comic.
A blathering acceptance of rubbery figures as a matter of fact while demanding a cost benefit analysis is one thing - since the deliberate ignorance rather proves the point and the need - but then delivering these kind of high faluting words - which don't in actual fact make technical sense - is entirely another matter:
Say what? That's like using a totally dumb metaphor to assist readers in concluding the writer only knows how to use dumb metaphors. Copper as a kind of tram ready to be born again in these troubled public transport times? Won't someone think of the copper?
And then we get this kind of gobbledegook:
Force-feeding fibre down city and suburban streets that already have cable (for example, Foxtel) that can offer 100 megabits per second is unnecessary and ahead of manifest demand, although that will come in its own time, as in the US and even India.
What on earth does it mean? Apart from the manifest demand for clarity, it seems it's just another paean of praise for the wretched cable system outside my home. Yes, we'd had another crash this morning, and now the tubes are as slow as a wet wick, and I'm in the mood for killing the next cable salesperson to front the door, but hey what's an actual manifest demand for broadband that actually works right here and right now ...
Technological advances soon will mean cable modems can deliver super-fast broadband to metropolitan homes, addressing the high-speed broadband needs of at least eight million Australians. And a probable saving of $10bn to $20bn from not rolling out fibre in the cities at this point would leave a lot for tailor-made assistance to the bush.
So this gherkin proposes to stiff me in order to save the cockies in the bush? Sod off. And while you're at it, take the clapped out stuffed up cable and copper running past this house with you ... as well as Testra and Optus, the bastards ...
I suppose at least he didn't mention how high speed broadband will only be good for downloading movies and music. When we luddites know it will be best for wrecking the newspaper industry, just as we'd have used it for doing down the hand loom and trams and narrow shearing combs if we'd had half a chance ...
It was all so tediously predictable ... how do readers of the soon to be swept off to the archives physical copy of The Australian pay for this regurgitated tripe on a daily basis? It's a bit like sitting down and starting each day with a bowl of porridge, blessed only by a dash of salt, and forgetting about the joys of rich brown Bundaberg sugar ...
So naturally we switched over to the combative Sophie Mirabella, punching on in The Punch with An unstable parliament is not a free pass for Gillard.
Sad to say, Mirabella turns me into a luddite, with a curious desire to wreck, trash and smash her flailing threshing machine style. She's still brooding about the election result - the majority of the voters voted for the Coalition stuff - and I felt like grabbing her and giving her a good shaking, while saying for the dear sweet absent lord's sake, get over it, and move along.
Someone must have tapped her on the shoulder however because after delivering all the standard talking points, about not being a rubber stamp, and how vile Julia Gillard and Labor were, and how nasty they were to sweet Tony, she suddenly remembered she should try to sound positive.
Mirabella trying to sound positive is bit like a valve radio trying to prove how the intertubes is yesterday's technology. She splutters a bit about a positive agenda, and how overturning the Wild Rivers Bill will be jolly good for all:
But she simply can't help herself. The effort proves too much, and so she rounds out her piece with the usual rhetoric, full of shill cries, and confected outrage and invective hurled at others for hurling confected outrage and invective her way:
Given the shrill cries from Labor, it appears that their idea of “consensus” is a quiet, compliant and muzzled Opposition.
But a robust and vocal Opposition is vital for a healthy democracy and that’s exactly what our role should be in this Parliament. No matter how much confected outrage and invective Labor hurls our way.
Vital for a healthy democracy? Suddenly it's Labor's fault that Tony Abbott lied through his teeth, in the manner of all used car salesmen, when he talked of a kinder, gentler polity? We all knew that was non-core blather ...
And what's this chatter about healthy democracy anyway? Democracy, it seems, has been ruined, as Mirabella herself cogently explains, by the way that the majority of voters voted for the coalition and somehow they've ended up in opposition. And now that strutting peacock of an illegitimate government saunters past, teasing and outraging Mirabella all in one tail feather waving move ...
Damn you healthy democracy, damn you to hell ...
So there you have it. A politician raging against the dying of the light, or more particularly against confected outrage and invective by deploying confected outrage and invective ... while across the way a luddite tells us how copper is roughly equivalent to trams, and no doubt just as they're planning to run light rail through Barangaroo, so it seems they'll be fitting out all the buildings with copper rather than fibre, as a pre-emptive precautionary strike, since once again copper will ride again ... along with the narrow comb ...
A kinder gentler polity? I'd settle for intelligent discourse ... oh, and some decent bloody broadband. Right here, right now ...
(Below: and now for a few old fashioned images of Sydney, found here, as we prepare to shoot through like a Bondi tram).
Dorothy
ReplyDeleteWe in the inner-west certainly need our fibre before the cockies get their hands on it. While you're in Melbourne why not try to get some of that fibre they are force-feeding – like some strasbourg goose – into the streets of Brunswick?
You won't be able to avoid the footy, but try to have a good weekend anyway.
Hmmm, "Foxtel" a cable tv company that hasn't done as well as expected in the Australian market, that will probably lose a lot of business to quick downloads of films over the NBN. Who was it that owns the parent company of this organisation?
ReplyDeleteYour criticisms on The Australian are a bitter pill to swallow considering their left-leaning source. It's really the pot calling the kettle black, but I digress...
ReplyDeleteThe concept of the NBN is utterly fantastic, but as always in Australian infrastructure policy, there's caveats. Aside from the inherently problematic nature of the NBN's conception in the fishbowl that was Rudd's 'Kitch Cabinet,' the actual infrastructure roll-out of the network can be considered excessive for contemporary broadband needs for most residences(and their needs for the foreseeable future). Let me explain my position.
Fibre-to-the-premises for 97% of Australian homes is unnecessary for what Labor has conceived the NBN to achieve. The expenditure is being justified to the Australian public by means of economic, educational and medical benefits. This is all undoubtedly true, yet I fail to see how individual private residents fit into this rationalised picture. There might be educational benefits for children, students and parents, but I can't really conceive of any pressing educational use that currently (or in the future) requires 12Mbps+ speeds. Children's online educational games are hardly bandwidth-taxing and video-heavy learning tools like Behind the News can be streamed virtually lag-free on an easily accessible and affordable 1500/512 connection.
The argument for fibre direct to homes is perhaps even more sketchy. Obviously the major benefit is high-definition streaming of video (no doubt a huge boon for Hollywood and the movie industry), but this hardly warrants a 43 billion dollar governmental spend. There are also question marks over whether most households have the hardware necessary to stream 1080p high-def video. Faster internet will also help push Australian money offshore. For instance, Australian gamers will be drawn in increasing numbers to game provider services like Steam and Good Old Games; a market where there is no Australian competitor.
What Labor should have done is propose fibre-to-the-node. This type of roll-out would have shaved billions off the cost of the NBN and allowed for future provisions. Along with the fact that roll-out to the node would not have opened the NBN up to as much criticism, it would have left money in the tank for investment into fibre alternatives (wireless). However, I do believe fibre should be piped straight to vital services, infrastructure and those businesses willing to pay the additional costs of running the fibre from the node to their building. This was the sensible option; instead, Rudd and Co. fired all their six bullets at once.
Sorry, that was Rudd's 'Kitchen Cabinet.' Apologies for any other typos present in the comment above.
ReplyDeleteYou do yourself no favours by arguing in a paranoid way about how Australian money will go offshore via gaming on the presumption that Australia will remain luddite. Since you introduced a political tone to the discussion, that's Liberal party thinking at its finest ...
ReplyDeleteAnd you show a remarkable lack of imagination regarding future options and uses.
I can however script what you might have said way back when, that decade ago, people started to look at future options ... which is that dial up is perfectly fine, and we can't see any pressing need for any further increase in speed or capacity, because no one will have need for it, and anyway BBS services are fine in their way, and all we need to be able to do is send emails, with no large documents attached, and must we really put up all this data on the net because no one will have any need of it, and what could possibly transform music, the newspaper game, movies, education, health and ....
As always sensible solutions are defined by their lack of vision, and by the way a moving world outstrips them ...
Truth to tell there is a demand for fast broadband in urban spaces. Why Optus promises us on their brand new plan 20mbps, more than enough to stream high def video 1080 or better. It won't most likely because of the number of users on the street. But here's a reality check ... within the next decade everything that can will have migrated to the internet for delivery, and it won't just be Blockbuster seeking a chapter 11.
The idea that audio visual is or will be the chief beneficiary in all this is just another canard, usually promoted by those who haven't paid attention to the potential of new technology, and always with the idea that home users will be content with limited options. As if they've been content in the past. You remind me of people explaining to me how a 27" CRT was more than enough, and all this talk of 60" 3D screens was just futurist nonsense ..
Urban Australia will get and use high speed broadband to the home one way or another, slowly if through current market forces, faster with government intervention and support. And some people will pay for the pleasure, and as prices drop, others will join in, and it will become economically viable, in much the same way as current ISPs are in no danger of going broke, and wireless will be a complementary system, bundled as current telephony services are bundled, because there will always be a hybrid of delivery systems.
Meanwhile, there are assorted hard areas of Australia that no commercial operator will want to wire or wireless, and yet they too would make substantial gains in terms of a capacity to connect to the world, and all that implies ....
So please, enough with the fibre to the node nonsense already. It's not all about consumers or movies, it's not just about selective businesses and facilities. It's about upstreaming, and fibre to the home will also mean access to fibre to the business at an affordable price. It's about businesses and services being directly hooked up to the home, and the home being able to upstream back ...
What on earth is the point of shaving billions off the cost, to allow for future nebulous "provisions", when the whole point is to have effective connectivity. And yes I live in a fibre home, and I'd like to be linked via fibre, not by current means. You're welcome however to take over our copper ... or why not take the cable connection. Please, take the cable connection ...
Finally you berate Chairman Rudd and his kitchen cabinet, but why not let a few arrows fly at a party dumb enough to announce as a slogan the idea that destroying high speed broadband in this country is somehow a sensible strategy.
Games going offshore is a reason not to have high speed broadband?
That's right up there with how the copper shouldn't be thrown away because it might come in handy ...
Oops, the gremlins cut off an opening remark that I was once involved in a report suggesting fibre to the home over fibre to the node. A decade ago. And very similar arguments were trotted out then, explaining how the internet was a limited thing with limited room for growth and limited functionality. I got tired listening to them then, and feel excessively righteous now. Since they got it comprehensively wrong, and at the expense of Australia's competitiveness ...
ReplyDeleteIf I live long enough, in a decade's time I anticipate being even more excessively righteous and obnoxious towards the doomsayers and the naysayers ...
OH WOWWWWWWW love the image of the O class tram... I was a paper boy in that era.... "Payur, payur"
ReplyDeleteI shall eventually build one for my own tramway, then I can put my steam tram on another route...