| News You Can Use |
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| 04|May|10 |
| Abbot and the NBN |
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So Tony Abbott has declared the NBN dead, or at least fatally injured, if the Coalition wins the next election.
Only Tasmania will survive the purge, leaving it wired up like Korea, while people on the mainland consider becoming info-refugees.
Would scrapping the NBN be bad news for the development of independent online entertainment?
Critics of the NBN often pose the question " What would people in
outer suburbs or country towns do with 100 Mbit broadband? "
Yes, they are unlikely to send massive medical image files or huge databases to each other. For them, it's not a B2B proposition.
But give anyone a huge pipe to a river of entertainment with a Google-like interface to search for content on any number of parameters and they will jump in, bypassing the restricted offerings from current broadcasters and aggregators in the process.
Unbundled Content
In the world of unbundled screen content, consumers will choose on the basis of findability, ease of use, price and quality.
The NBN and the raft of IPTV platforms it enables, could give the independent content creator something like a level playing field.
That is, if creators give the end user a chance to find their content by getting it on to open platforms, not just walled gardens like iTunes and Netflix.
This is what the whole
OK Go fiasco was about.
Bad Timing
The timing of the election is bad for the NBN. Rudd could have a hard time defending any major infrastructure projects with the smell of burning batts still in the air.
And given Australian contractors' world-class ability to rort any government program, it would come as no surprise if there's some NBN funny business waiting to be unearthed.
What this means to you
The NBN is the glimmer of a new dawn for Australian screen content creators which could be snuffed out by the Libs. What will it take to get Abbott to change his mind?
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| Jennifer Wilson |
We have reports saying that that NBN will deliver the goods. We know that even without Telstra - it can work. We know that if Australia is to be a clever country (again/still) then digital is a major part of this - and digital is about speed.
We know that media and content consumption are changing and we know that with the NBN, we are taking a huge leap to, if not the front - at least nearer the front of the pack.
While Howard made us feel safe in the 50's, it seems that Abbott want us to feel linear and sit back (and still in the 90's) |
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| Nick Bolton |
The independent content
producer (ICP), is probably not high on the Federal Government’s
league table of ‘important-people-the-NBN-will-help’.
They would quite
rightly be well below health, education, security and other necessary
sectors requiring the benefits of the NBN.
I recall Rob Carlton, shortly after winning Tropfest a few years back,
telling me the biggest line item in his budget was, due to being
overseas in submission week, hotel download fees to see his last
draft.
Broadband should be like running water - ubiquitous, consistent
quality and cheap and hopefully NBN will provide that. |
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| Simon Curry |
The NBN was always going to be a political football but now with a closer election than we all expected, the ball is now slippery.
It would seem that the Opposition's main strategy to date is to object to just about every policy initiative promoted by Government without any real alternative position. This is of course the right of the Opposition, but is never particularly enlightening. The question is, what is the Opposition's alternative?
It is apparent that there is a certain amount of hope that it is "video" that will make the NBN service a "must-have". |
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| Anthony Palmer |
This country has a poor record of investing in its own infrastructure and, in more recent times, a somewhat patchy record of selling off chunks on terms that disadvantage consumers or shareholders or both.
Telstra is the classic example: predictably, the privitisation was designed to maximise the margin for the owners (the Government), but somewhere along the way in its desire to maintain overwhelming market share, Telstra was transformed into reviled corporate citizen and, despite it's Government-mandated market advantage, saw its listed stock go into a slow and steady decline.
Clearly, from a straight forward policy point of view, a roll-out of upgraded optical fibre to replace ancient twisted-pair copper networks and "future proof" the country's telecommunications needs for the next generation, is a good and grand thing. |
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