Australia’s big catch-up move
G’Day to the rest of the world! We here in Australia have just announced a 30 billion U.S. dollar national broadband network, the biggest ever infrastructure project in this country. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described Australia as a “broadband backwater,” and said the government understood the importance a national network would play in “turbo-charging Australia’s economic future.”
“Just as railway tracks laid out the future of the 19th century and electricity grids the future of the 20th century, so broadband represents the core infrastructure of the 21st century,” said Rudd, putting a new focus on the idea.
Rush out and buy new computers?
Does this mean that I have to rush out and get Payday Cash Advance Loans for me and my wife to buy new computers in place of these steam generated things we are using at the moment?
Life in the land of OZ
Life here in North Bondi is pretty good, despite our slow computers. As far as “turbo-charging our economic future”, take it easy Mr. Rudd. Things are fine as they are, the beer is good and needs no super-charging. The girls on Bondi Beach are just gorgeous and I doubt that supercharging can make any improvement.
As for the economy, well, we are drifting along much like the rest of the world at the moment. There’s not much to get excited about.
The project
The broadband project will connect 90 percent of all Australian homes, schools and workplaces with broadband services with speeds up to 100 megabits per second – 100 times faster than those currently used by many households and businesses. It will also connect all other premises in Australia with next generation wireless and satellite technologies that will be delivering broadband speeds of 12 megabits per second. The project is expected to directly support up to 25,000 local jobs every year, on average, over the 8 year life of the project
Great idea
On the face of it this project is a great idea. Not only will it update Australia, but it will initiate new business as all new major upgrades do and it will provide work and start money circulating.
Prime Minister Rudd himself describes the project as “the single largest nation-building infrastructure project in Australia’s history.” Construction will begin early next year and the government will sell its stake in the broadband company five years after the network is up and running.
Broadband
Broadband in the telecommunications industry refers to a signaling method that includes or handles a relatively wide range of frequencies, which may be divided into channels or frequency bins. Basically the wider the bandwidth, the greater the information-carrying capacity. Writing this article was the first time I took the trouble to find out what Broadband and DSL and those other words that I bandy about, really mean. Then I took a broadband test to see exactly where I was in the speed world. My speeds are: Download 1.58 Mb per second and Upload 0.16 Mb per second.
Am I in the right ball park?
I have absolutely no idea but everything seems to be working fine!
Wow – Australia gets broadband. I fail to see why the States doesn’t, but if we were it would be an effective use of tax dollars, and as I understand it, that isn’t allowed. Still, nationwide broadband…that’ll be something to rub in to the Kiwis!