Fraudband

This could well be the issue that the Liberals use to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the upcoming election. The proposed broadband project they outlined is breathtaking in its total lack of long term vision. While it may cost 2/3rd of the NBN at first, and be rolled out faster, it will seriously stifle Australia economically and technologically for decades to come.

In addition it has a hidden much higher eventual cost due to required maintenance of the aging infrastructure it piggy backs off. Think about the difference in buying a laser printer and an inkjet. The inkjet may be cheaper to buy, but the cost per page of ink rapidly eclipses the price differential. The price of on going maintenance of the copper wire network the fraudband proposal will utilise will increase each year till eventually we have no choice but to scrap it and roll out alternatives anyway. This makes the "Total Cost of Ownership" of the Liberal proposal astronomically higher than the existing NBN system.

 For a usually forward thinking guy like Malcolm to be backing this nonsense is hard to reconcile. I know I'm a geek and pretty sensitive to smoke and mirrors in technology legislation, but surely anyone who uses the internet, 88.8% of the population,according to ITU, can see this proposal for what it is.

They've not even tried to hide the lack of significant improvement in performance. All they've done is play with the word faster. Yes, it'll be rolled out faster, but the end result is not faster, better or cheaper in any way shape or form than NBN. We're already a technological third world country, this lunacy only seeks to ensure that we fall even further behind the rest of the world.

Now, some people may think "Yeah, sure, but he's just a geek out for what's best for himself and not the country". Not at all. Under the NBN roll out plan, my sleepy little town wont get anything other than maybe, if we're very lucky, some second hand ADSL2+ equipment for our exchange. At 120 population, when I'm here, we're too small a town to register. While under the fraudband proposal, we probably would get an upgrade. I just don't believe  it's in the best interest of anybody to buy into an already rusty old banger that's a gas guzzler too.

In closing dear reader, I propose some further reading on the subject. The following link is an excellent article on the misinformation being spread by those opposed to the NBN:

The top 10 NBN myths debunked