NBN Discussion

[777]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Fair suck, what are people using 200 Gb a month for? Out in the Western Suburbs of the Marginal Electorates, it looks to me like we are subsidising piracy on a massive scale.

Volume of content is not the issue being addressed by the NBN. Volume is user pays under both models.

However, good luck finding a video store in 5 years time. There are now stacks of LEGAL services that provide high definition video on demand right now and once you start using them, the idea that you walk/ drive/ to the video store to pick up a physical disk, drive home again, watch and drive back to return it 24 hours seems kind of inefficient.

Sure it's an "entertainment" usage but the efficiencies in that alone amount to substantial savings in road wear and tear, potentially productive time in the hour(s) when you aren't driving to and from the video store. Lets say a household rents a video a week a year and it takes 45 mins each way to get one. Across the country, that's millions of hours of time being returned in efficiencies.

 

[Skyring]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Lets say a household rents a video a week a year and it takes 45 mins each way to get one.

I'm calling bullsh*it right there. Any figures based on those numbers are flawed.

My point, which you don't want to accept, is that the NBN isn't going to be used for futuristic nation-building activities. That's what the label says, but I say that if millions of households get lots of fast internet, they are going to use it for more of what they are doing now. Pirating movies, watching videos of funny cats, playing games and all that sort of stuff. Entertainment, in other words.

 

[777]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

I'm calling bullsh*it right there. Any figures based on those numbers are flawed.

I was using those numbers to illustrate a point they were used by way of example hence the "lets say" at the beginning of the sentence. You tell me how long it takes you to go to a video store, browse the selection and get home and we'll use that number?

My point, which you don't want to accept, is that the NBN isn't going to be used for futuristic nation-building activities. That's what the label says, but I say that if millions of households get lots of fast internet, they are going to use it for more of what they are doing now. Pirating movies, watching videos of funny cats, playing games and all that sort of stuff. Entertainment, in other words.

As an actual NBN user, sorry that's just cough. I have give a bunch examples already in this thread and elsewhere but let me run through a few: my wife works in an industry (web development) that is heavily media intensive. She now has access to the archives, files, media etc that her company uses across multiple locations (they have offices in several states) from home enabling her to work remotely. Before we had NBN access she had to travel across town to collect files if she forgot something, had an unexpected day being ill or caring for a sick child. She no longer has that problem.

Impersonally work in a field that involves a lot of presentations to clients both in person and remotely. I am able to edit 800mb + media rich presentations simultaneously at home with my colleagues in the office. It has created a significant competitive advantage and dramatically I proved how I communicate.

In my office building there is a tele health company setting up facilities for specialists to hold direct consultations with patients in GPs offices in local communities that are on the NBN, there are photographers and designers who are winning work in part because of the speed at which they can turn it around relative to their competitors.

Finally, and if its not obvious from the examples I used above, entertainment is a big industry. It is one that Australians spend massive amounts of money on and pay above the odds by world standards for because direct to home subscription TV or video on demand is highly monopolized. Right now, we are one of the few major countries with a monopoly pay TV provider and is reflected in the prices we pay.

It's a market ripe for efficiencies introduced by competition. Every time you read an article in the Murdoch press that slams the NBN as "entertainment" look at a typical foxtel bill, look at a typical US cable package price and remember who pockets the difference.

 

[Hvr]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

I support the NBN and want it at my home but it will be a few years away at least, probably permanently if Abbott gets his way.

Remember 56k dial up? Who thought that was awesome after 28k? The first lot of ADSL was considered faster than anything a reasonable use would ever need.

We don't know what the internet will be sued for in 10/20 years but with a little infrastructure building now we can have a great economic future.

 

[medhead]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Fair suck, what are people using 200 Gb a month for? Out in the Western Suburbs of the Marginal Electorates, it looks to me like we are subsidising piracy on a massive scale.

Fair suck yourself. My current ADSL plan includes 200GB a month. NBN is not about quantity. It sure as hell doesn't require NBN speeds to use 200GB in a month.

Volume of content is not the issue being addressed by the NBN. Volume is user pays under both models.

However, good luck finding a video store in 5 years time. There are now stacks of LEGAL services that provide high definition video on demand right now and once you start using them, the idea that you walk/ drive/ to the video store to pick up a physical disk, drive home again, watch and drive back to return it 24 hours seems kind of inefficient.

Sure it's an "entertainment" usage but the efficiencies in that alone amount to substantial savings in road wear and tear, potentially productive time in the hour(s) when you aren't driving to and from the video store. Lets say a household rents a video a week a year and it takes 45 mins each way to get one. Across the country, that's millions of hours of time being returned in efficiencies.

There is also the numerous videos you can buy these days that include a download token for the movie to allow portable viewing of the movie. Another legal use of downloads. I see that my foxtel box can be connected to the internet to allow me to access movies on demand. Another legal use of download volume.

I'm calling bullsh*it right there. Any figures based on those numbers are flawed.

My point, which you don't want to accept, is that the NBN isn't going to be used for futuristic nation-building activities. That's what the label says, but I say that if millions of households get lots of fast internet, they are going to use it for more of what they are doing now. Pirating movies, watching videos of funny cats, playing games and all that sort of stuff. Entertainment, in other words.

It would take 45 minutes each way to get to my video shop, it was 15 minutes before they moved. I used to ride my pushbike or walk to the shop pre move. Now I drive.

As for your point you actually claimed the NBN was

subsidising piracy on a massive scale.

That is false. You never made any claim about entertainment. No one has claimed it won't be used for entertainment. But it's an interesting point, are you really suggesting that legal entertainment is not allowed?

 

[Skyring]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

That is false. You never made any claim about entertainment. No one has claimed it won't be used for entertainment. But it's an interesting point, are you really suggesting that legal entertainment is not allowed?

Nice try, but no. Read my earlier posts here and elsewhere. I just now mentioned gaming and funny cat videos - both examples of legal entertainment, you will agree.

High speed and high volume - that's what the NBN promises, and to the average householder, that means entertainment rather than the nation-building Gillard and her fanboys are selling.

 

[medhead]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Fair suck, what are people using 200 Gb a month for? Out in the Western Suburbs of the Marginal Electorates, it looks to me like we are subsidising piracy on a massive scale.

Nope. No cat videos or gaming mentioned there. Gaming and cat videos are not piracy. Entertainment is not piracy. full stop. Otherwise, I think 777 has comprehensively covered off all the business related things that the NBN is currently being used to do. Productivity improvement isn't that meant to be good for the nation.

Nice try, but no. Read my earlier posts here and elsewhere. I just now mentioned gaming and funny cat videos - both examples of legal entertainment, you will agree.

High speed and high volume - that's what the NBN promises, and to the average householder, that means entertainment rather than the nation-building Gillard and her fanboys are selling.

 

[Skyring]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

I was using those numbers to illustrate a point they were used by way of example hence the "lets say" at the beginning of the sentence. You tell me how long it takes you to go to a video store, browse the selection and get home and we'll use that number?.

It was never a 45 minute drive there and a 45 minute drive back. Those are not figures that match the experiences of very many Australians, I suggest.

As an actual NBN user, sorry that's just cough. I have give a bunch examples already in this thread and elsewhere but let me run through a few: my wife works in an industry (web development) that is heavily media intensive. She now has access to the archives, files, media etc that her company uses across multiple locations (they have offices in several states) from home enabling her to work remotely. Before we had NBN access she had to travel across town to collect files if she forgot something, had an unexpected day being ill or caring for a sick child. She no longer has that problem.

Impersonally work in a field that involves a lot of presentations to clients both in person and remotely. I am able to edit 800mb + media rich presentations simultaneously at home with my colleagues in the office. It has created a significant competitive advantage and dramatically I proved how I communicate.

In my office building there is a tele health company setting up facilities for specialists to hold direct consultations with patients in GPs offices in local communities that are on the NBN, there are photographers and designers who are winning work in part because of the speed at which they can turn it around relative to their competitors.

Yeah, yeah. And these are what average Australians are doing or going to do? Pull the other one.

 

[drsmithy]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

My point, which you don't want to accept, is that the NBN isn't going to be used for futuristic nation-building activities.

Yes, it will.

It will _also_ be used for those horrible decadent things you find so offensive, but they do not detract from the "futuristic nation-building activities".

 

[777]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

It was never a 45 minute drive there and a 45 minute drive back. Those are not figures that match the experiences of very many Australians, I suggest.

Yeah, yeah. And these are what average Australians are doing or going to do? Pull the other one.

1. My maths was based on 45 mins to get a video and 45 minutes to return it. A video is a two way trip because you have to go back. If that doesn't add up then fine but I think that's pretty typical of my own experiences visiting a video store.

2. Have you not spent most of your life as professional driver and have actually been subsidising your career through my taxes for decades (apologies if I've mistaken you for someone else)? Your experiences as a driver or road user are not "average" but that's the whole point of an average it finds the point between various extremes of experience.

If you, as a road user, get stuck in traffic at a particular intersection regularly that is not a problem for the average road user. Most road users aren't stuck there. Or aren't using that road. Or don't need to travel at that particular time of day. The "average" Australian has probably never been to that particular road.

The reason we invest public money in improving the efficiency of infrastructure it is because every time anyone has to wait an hour to do something that could happen in ten minutes it costs *society as a whole* in productivity. Whether its people stuck in traffic for an hour or waiting an hour for their work colleague to get the file they are working on there is a cost. More efficient transport and communications reduces the cost.

If you think those cost should be user pays then let's to there but given I'm the one subsidising your business, do you really want to do that?

 

[drron]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Actually you would have been subsidising Skyring's passengers.
And I am sure you still do get a benefit from the roads-transport of food etc.

 

[777]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Actually you would have been subsidising Skyring's passengers.

I think there's a missing "and his" in that, but if so, then technically correct.

And I am sure you still do get a benefit from the roads-transport of food etc.

Just as everyone who uses a service or provider made more efficient benefits from the NBN does. That's entirely my point -- we all benefit from more efficient infrastructure directly and indirectly. Your argument seems to be "let Coles and the farmers pay for it if they want roads fast enough to deliver fresh veggies on." Personally, i disagree but my argument, unlike yours, has the benefit of being consistent.

 

[Skyring]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

1. My maths was based on 45 mins to get a video and 45 minutes to return it. A video is a two way trip because you have to go back. If that doesn't add up then fine but I think that's pretty typical of my own experiences visiting a video store.

2. Have you not spent most of your life as professional driver and have actually been subsidising your career through my taxes for decades (apologies if I've mistaken you for someone else)? Your experiences as a driver or road user are not "average" but that's the whole point of an average it finds the point between various extremes of experience.

If I'd spent most of my life as a cabbie I wouldn't be old enough to see over the dashboard. Five years, ending in 2011, most of them on city streets, with self government over twenty years in the past. Not sure how much of your taxes went to build Canberra's roads. I know a lot of my stamp duty and rates did.

"...driving to and from the video store. Lets say a household rents a video a week a year and it takes 45 mins each way to get one." I took that to mean driving time.

And you can't say now that the "each way" refers to renting it and then returning a week later. Not unless you only make one rental or return transaction per trip. Otherwise you are counting the same trip twice.

If the NBN were a road network, Gillard would be saying that only the ambos and posties were using it. Roads - and the internet - aren't like that. Everyone gets a go, and I dunno about your neck of the woods, but very few of them use public transport in Canberra. Mostly it's one car, one person, very inefficient, and they bloody do whatever they want to do, go wherever they want, even more inefficiency.

The average user of the NBN will use it for entertainment. Sure, a few will use it for lofty purposes, but as Avenue Q tells us, they will be outweighed by those using it for cough. But most - entertainment. Facebook didn't make Mark Zuckerberg a billionaire because it was being used to study Sanskrit.

[video=youtube;m5z5U_xd8EU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5z5U_xd8EU[/video]

 

[777]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

And you can't say now that the "each way" refers to renting it and then returning a week later. Not unless you only make one rental or return transaction per trip. Otherwise you are counting the same trip twice.

Do you care to address the substantive issue or are you really going to keep this up? I said 3 posts ago that you could nominate your own figure for how long it takes to get and return a DVD and you're still trying this on. The point is that the time it takes is an example of an efficiency dividend. Are you actually disputing that? Are you even trying to?

If the NBN were a road network, Gillard would be saying that only the ambos and posties were using it. Roads - and the internet - aren't like that. Everyone gets a go, and I dunno about your neck of the woods, but very few of them use public transport in Canberra. Mostly it's one car, one person, very inefficient, and they bloody do whatever they want to do, go wherever they want, even more inefficiency.

The average user of the NBN will use it for entertainment. Sure, a few will use it for lofty purposes, but as Avenue Q tells us, they will be outweighed by those using it for cough. But most - entertainment. Facebook didn't make Mark Zuckerberg a billionaire because it was being used to study Sanskrit.

I have literally no idea what your point is anymore. It's seems to boil down to: 1. There are no actual productive uses of the internet. 2. Any examples i've provided that are don't represent "average" users and they are the only one that the infrastructure needs to be built for. 3. "Entertainment", while an example of an actual use of the internet used by a lot people is actually illegal for the most part and therefore dangerous. 4. Where I can give a simple example of a productivity gain that is both legal and real it doesn't count because you want to distract me by arguing how long it takes to rent and return a video.

Basically, it's "Get off my lawn!"

 

[Skyring]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Do you care to address the substantive issue or are you really going to keep this up? I said 3 posts ago that you could nominate your own figure for how long it takes to get and return a DVD and you're still trying this on. The point is that the time it takes is an example of an efficiency dividend. Are you actually disputing that? Are you even trying to?

I have literally no idea what your point is anymore. It's seems to boil down to: 1. There are no actual productive uses of the internet. 2. Any examples i've provided that are don't represent "average" users and they are the only one that the infrastructure needs to be built for. 3. "Entertainment", while an example of an actual use of the internet used by a lot people is actually illegal for the most part and therefore dangerous. 4. Where I can give a simple example of a productivity gain that is both legal and real it doesn't count because you want to distract me by arguing how long it takes to rent and return a video.

Basically, it's "Get off my lawn!"

LOL! My point is pretty simple. I'll say it again. The NBN is being pushed through examples of productivity, education, health etc. You are doing this along with Julia Gillard.

But most people won't use it for that. Not just most people, but the overwhelming majority of users, the bulk of the bandwidth will be used for entertainment. cough and piracy will be high usage.

I like to point out the flaws in the advertising, that's all. Even McDonalds has stopped trying to sell their products as healthy food.

 

[777]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

I like to point out the flaws in the advertising, that's all. Even McDonalds has stopped trying to sell their products as healthy food.

Ok, i'm actually with you on this. BUT there are innovations and efficiencies that are real. As with the selling of anything the hype gets in the way.

 

[Skyring]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Ok, i'm actually with you on this. BUT there are innovations and efficiencies that are real. As with the selling of anything the hype gets in the way.

Of course. Better internet benefits everybody. Sorry to upset you.

 

[medhead]

Regardless of what "most" people will do, the NBN will still be used for work, healthcare and education. As per the examples given it is already being used to improve productivity in this country. The failure of your point is that education, healthcare, business and entertainment are not mutually exclusive uses of the NBN. All of these activities can happen simultaneously. Even entertainment will improve productivity, as per the example given, by allowing some of us to avoid driving to the video store.

I was listening to a pretty interesting chap on abc radio over the weekend. Some professor that has this whole time productivity theory thingy. He made a point to do with the cost of earning one hour of artificial light: today it takes about 0.5 seconds at the average wage to earn enough to pay for one hour of light, in 1950 it took 8 seconds, it the 1800s it took 6 hours to be able to afford a one hour candle. The guy put this decreasing time cost up as a measure of our affluence. I have 7.5 more seconds to do other things, to earn more or be entertained, that my grandparents didn't have, for each hour I turn on the lights at night.

In that way making entertainment quicker and easier improves the productivity of the nation.

Btw I didn't get the professors name, I was driving to the shops at the time.

 

[DaveB]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

The funny thing about making us more efficient is it gives us more time to procrastinate and waste time on pursuits and meaningless endeavours....
.
Surely the only argument about the NBN is the ownership structure and the cost/benefit of rolling it right to the front doors of every home.
.
Telstra has for at least 20 years not cared about the quality of its built underground network removing its QA department, local staff and depots and providing minimal supervision and control of its contractors. When Telstra pays on a per connection basis without quality controls, no one has cared that property connections are typically being achieved in a manner more befitting of south east Asia or Africa. NBN no doubt is already finding the Telstra ducting network has more issues than just asbestos with the problems magnified towards the end of each line.

 

[Limewood]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

NBN is coming to Cairns North, problem is not two last 4 blocks, we miss out by a mere 50m. My current ADSL +2 is pretty fast though.