From Dwight Walker
To Cobb, John (MP)
Date 14/9/2012 12:44
John
I am very sad how you are bagging out the use of technology to improve the lot of country people by using some dodgy wireless Optus/Elders network instead of quality fibre optics NBN.
Have a fibre connection to a major city then wireless to the outlying stations. That is what John Flynn did with pedal radio network. He integrated the wireless to the PMG phone system to deliver calls. See Flying Doctor Calling by Ernestine Hill, 1946. I discovered this amazing history of John Flynn when I was cataloguing someone's collection for sale on the internet in Orange.
Why must the Coalition bag out a perfectly good idea of increasing IT infrastrucure to outlying areas. Sure keep the cost down but don't build a stupid slow unreliable network like Vodafone have done and reaped the retribution of their customer base by losing 300,000 subscribers.
As for slow uptake, the councils where the NBN is being rolled out to are not up to speed re use of Web services, online education or remote health and it was pork barreling to have NBN rolled out to Armidale where they are not ready to do anything with it till December 2012. I wrote to them in February re Web work on the NBN platform for the council's services and they did not reply till August 2012 - 6 months! It was only because those two seats New England and Port Macquarie were independent that they were rolled out first when they are 10 years behind on how to use it. These councils need education from the State and Federal government to enable them to make adequate use of the NBN. The slow uptake is 1) cost and 2) lack of education on Web services.
I still get so much angst from Australians who say it costs too much. Australia is a lousy place to do IT business. No-one will pay for IT work on time or fully. They always want a discount or to rip the supplier off. This has been my experience for 15 years. USA is much better to do IT business with. They pay upfront and are literate and educated and give it a go, not like lazy uneducated Australian small businesses who try to rip off the IT supplier because they do not value IT as a service.
I am for the NBN and hope it stays in some form despite threats of being knackered by the Coalition when it gets in to save money and keep people in the Dark Ages of slow speed internet.
Dwight Walker
WWWalker Web Development Pty Ltd
0412405727
www.wwwalker.com.au