Australia's National Broadband Network To Go Ahead 222
angry tapir writes "After weeks of a hung parliament following the Australian federal election, the incumbent Labor Party has garnered enough support among independent MPs to form a minority government. Broadband was central to clinching the independents' support. Labor's victory means the $43 billion National Broadband Network will push ahead. The policy has generally been popular among ISPs and telcos — though some rebel operators preferred a policy that emphasized wireless technologies, similar to the proposals put forward by Labor's opponents. The primarily fiber-based NBN is set to offer Australians 1Gbps broadband."
Question for Aussies (Score:0, Interesting)
I have a legitimate question for any Aussies on /. Here in the US, the title "Liberal" refers to spineless douchebags who act like conservatives with their own money, property, etc., but who love to micromanage other people's money, property, and selves. Are Aussie Liberals the same as US Liberals?
Re:What's the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't have to get through the house of anything.
The department will argue that any filtering on it's own network is an operational issue well outside of the purvey of the house and completely under the responsibility of the department and minister.
Understand?
Government departments don't need legislation to enable them to make decisions regarding the technical operations of their departments so unless the law that allows the NBN *specifically restricts* the implementation of a filter the department can and will demand the ISP implement filtering.
They will simply say "you don't have a right to download illegal material over the public network" if you complain.
I really wish people understood how the public service / executive and government work under our system, it really is very important.
Re:What's the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
Go here http://abc.com.au/ [abc.com.au] and then here http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/ActCompilation1.nsf/all/search/2E7F5179D6598E8DCA2574730019A00B [comlaw.gov.au]. As for fibre broadband network legislation is required to enable it, and unless language stipulating censorship is included then it can't happen and that legislation is amended. Government departments can not act outside of legislation unless that legislation incorporates that out of bounds operation, as for freedom of speech in Australia that is more complex http://www.aph.gov.au/LIBRARY/pubs/rn/2001-02/02rn42.htm [aph.gov.au].
The biggest threat high bandwidth internet has politically, is an end to campaign contributions to pay for commercial broadcasting purposes. Every politician and every political party will be able to upload their message, speeches, supporting performance (on permanent record) to government hosted web sites (local, state and federal) which every citizen can freely access. No more for profit political commercials now that cripples the influence of the rich via mass media and promotes independent politicians as well as enabling smaller political parties to gain access to the electorate upon an equal basis. Additional every single sitting of any legislative body can be recorded, uploaded and accessed by anybody at any time.
Plus think of fun stuff it will enable, web hosted multi site parties, were web cams and big screen TV's can link together multiple locations around the world, for that family reunion Christmas (many sleepless day/night opportunities in there) etc.
Re:Question for Aussies (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the argument is in the sense that the Menzies Liberals represent the "true Liberals", and that Turnbull upholds this tradition more so than Abbott et al., who are far more in the Howard-post-9/11 Liberal mould.
The veracity of this judgement is left to your own political views as to what represents "true Liberal" and how closely Turnbull matches it.
Re:Help! Get the Vaseline! (Score:1, Interesting)
Sigh... How can people actually post on Slashdot and not have the slightest clue how this technology stuff works.
1 - You're pulling numbers out of your ass. From the accounts I've seen, they actually seem to have over-estimated the cost of this thing, by possibly a factor of 2. The deployment in Tasmania is under budget so far. Sure, I have no evidence or references, but neither do you.
2 - Based on what information, exactly?
3 - No. Just no. The copper phone network is based on technologies from 100 years ago. It's been upgraded by sticking new equipment on either end of the copper cables, at comparatively little cost. It's kept up reasonably well. However, it's a dead end - not only are we getting diminishing returns, but there won't BE any more development on ADSL and the like. Fibre is already way better than anything that can be delivered over a copper phone cable, and that's where new development is going.
A fibre network should have the same kind of lifespan as the old copper network it's replacing (verging on a century, basically), and can be upgraded the same way - just stick new equipment on either end. That's where that maximum speed jump from 100Mbit/s to 1Gbit/s came from - the equipment to do 1Gbit/s dropped in price significantly, to match the price of the 100Mbit/s equipment they budgeted for. And that 1Gbit/s is slow for fibre. 100Gbit/s is quite doable, with the same cables. The equipment to do so is just insanely expensive right now, but it will come down.
The alternatives (wireless) WILL be completely obsolete within 5 or 10 years, even if we deployed some pre-standard 4G network. There is no upgrade path - the entire network needs to be pulled down, and replaced. Every decade or so.
4 - First, it's replacing the copper phone network. That means there won't BE a copper phone network to stick to. Secondly, what gives you the impression that the NBN will be significantly more expensive? You're just pulling numbers out of your ass again.
5 - True enough, but this is fixable. Building or upgrading thove overseas pipes isn't nearly as expensive as the domestic NBN project. Besides, that's what caching and CDNs were invented for.
6 - Basically, that's a cost thing. Running fibre to every inhabited part of the continent is prohibitively expensive. That's why it has a secondary wireless footprint, where there's no fibre coverage. That wireless coverage still beats anything you could get out there right now.
Re:What's the point... (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:What's the point... (Score:3, Interesting)
Lol very naive, legislation creates the basic outline of an area that the government may move into. Anything reasonably in that area of responsibility if not specifically denied in the legislation is completely up to the department and minister, ceo / executive and minister *until the government says otherwise*.
The legislation doesn't mention the technical setup, the topography the subnets, how many switches, which brand of switches and servers, anti-virus policies and spam policies or anything else to do with the technical runnings of the network.
That's because it will be up to the department to come up with those policies and implement all those in the normal course of its operation.
Are you saying the ISP will offer no inline anti-spam, anti-virus measures because they're not specifically outlined in the legislation?
No?
The department can do anything it likes regarding the day to day operations of its area of responsibility, and I can well assure you having been employed in three federal departments, brother, sister in-law, ex-wife, father in-law, mother in-law and various friends currently employed by the Commonwealth Government, policy decisions far bigger than implementing anti-childporn filters on public networks are made by public servants in The Nations Capital every single day.
There will be a policy decision made to implement filtering on the public network, that's how these things work, they will justify it in front of the Senate the same way they justify most of the things that government departments get away with that they have no authority for, if the Senate doesn't like it they will ask the government to implement legislation to stop it.
That's way the Australian Federal Government operates.
Re:What filter? (Score:3, Interesting)
As stated on Q&A, the vast majority (at least 80%) of legislation is passed through the House of Reps unanimously. Only the contentious legislation is held up for debate.
The ignorant masses need to watch quality current affairs and quality interviews once in a while rather than Today Tonight "OMG the Murdoch media empire said something bad about Labor so it must be true we're all going to die thanks to Labor now lets see how Masterchef is doing".
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)