RcK writes "In addition to the rising controversy of the possible Australian version of the Great Firewall Of China already mentioned several times of late here on Slashdot; the viability of the proposed AU$5Billion internet infrastructure upgrade promised by the Federal Government during their 2007 election campaign is under fire.
The MD of arguably Australia's leading internet company iinet has branded the proposal as a waste of taxpayers money:
http://www.wabusinessnews.com.au/en-story/1/68044/Broadband-network-waste-of-money-iinet
Steve Balmer, during his current Australian visit, has also weighed in on the topic and diplomatically indicated that Australia should get on with the job:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Ballmer-tells-Oz-get-with-the-broadband/0,130061733,339293082,00.htm
Much of the current criticism appears to surround the likelihood of people in remote areas being left out of the proposed plan.
Ironically, where i lived previously (remote town in central Aus — nearest town over 400km away) everyone had, at the absolute least, subsidized satellite internet and most had ADSL. In my case a flawless 512k connection for ~4years. However, I now live 5min from the center of a capital city and due to archaic telephone infrastructure cannot get adsl and even line noise is too great for dialup!!!
A good roundup of the articles relating to the saga can be found at:
http://whirlpool.net.au/"
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