Kellyville's node represents how the government turned a blind eye to the future of internet service in Australia, home to over 20 million internet users, favouring outdated technology considered cheaper and faster to upgrade. Ultimately, it shows why Australia's long-struggling National Broadband Network, the largest infrastructure project in the country's history, may be doomed to fail.
Akamai's most recent State of the Internet report ranks Australia 50th in the world for internet connection speed, with an average of In contrast, the US ranks 10th, with speeds averaging Those companies encountered problems of their own -- deploying fibre is expensive and doesn't generate the kind of short-term financial reward that those business are after. Verizon's highly-regarded Fios gigabit service is only available to around 12 percent of the population and Google pressed pause on their ambitious nationwide Google Fiber service in the US earlier this year, as they find ways to improve the rollout.
However, these deployments eventually led to some huge positives , including lowering network congestion and allowing more devices to be connected simultaneously. For fixed broadband services, FTTP is the future of high-speed internet access.
So why doesn't Australia have it? Politics got in the way. In , the average connection speed in Australia hovered around 2Mbps, and only 7 percent of Australian households had access to speeds greater than that. Back then, in the US, 71 percent of households were above that threshold, with 26 percent already seeing speeds above 5Mbps.
At that speed, most Australians wouldn't even be able to access Netflix in standard definition, whereas users in the US would have access to high-definition streams. Australians went to the polls that year and voted the Labor government in to power -- a resounding tick of approval for the network. Two years later, the government established NBN Co and promised the project would be complete by , delivering high-speed FTTP technology to 93 percent of homes and businesses nationwide.
But that rollout experienced delays and mismanagement that soured the Australian public's perception of the project. In response, the opposition party, led by Tony Abbott, countered with its own pledge, saying it could deliver a version of the network faster at a far cheaper cost.
The compromise: using the copper phone cables already in place and taking the more advanced FTTP off the table. In this plan, Australian houses would be connected to "nodes. Malcolm Turnbull, then working as the opposition's communications and arts minister, pledged the rollout would be completed by the end of Abbott's coalition won the election, ousting the Labor government and instating its own NBN plan.
Instead of delivering high-speed fibre, the coalition government promised a "Multi-Technology Mix" MTM that would see around 71 percent of Australians retain their copper wiring. The remaining 29 percent would use a mix of existing infrastructure, hybrid fibre coaxial connections or FTTP technology.
In , this compromised version of the NBN is still not even close to complete. It's a sore point, a failure so tragic it has become a punchline. In , a node was installed on Redden Drive in Kellyville, a minute drive northwest of Sydney.
Two years later, on a clear afternoon in July , I'm trying to locate the unlucky internet cabinet twice destroyed by wayward cars. Internet speeds across the country are also disappointing. In fact, Australia is now ranked 56th in the world, below countries like Trinidad, Tobago, Estonia and Bulgaria - all the more reason to make consumers are not overpaying.
Both Optus and Telstra have lifted prices since May. The telco giants blame higher NBN costs. Auto news: Ford's new ute is taking shape - drive. Last Name this. Email Address this. Gender Female Male Other Required. Postcode this. I have read and accept the terms and conditions. Are you human? The New Daily uses cookies. Then imagine them building out a phone network, and operating phones through the entire nation. Then imagine them building out data networks with dialup capability, and eventually DSL and Cable internet.
This is how Telstra came to be. Now all the USPS executives are ex-gov people who are in-the-know, in the boys clubs and whatnot, so they still hold political clout. They were removed from government mid project, and the new government Called the Liberal Party, but actually a very conservative party was elected partly on the platform of removing the funding for this system and preventing any further work being done on it, as the network has already been partially installed.
This platform was used for two reasons - firstly, many of the Liberal Party's supporters are of an older demographic that see the internet as a trivial, recreational tool and not as a vital piece of infrastructure for the future growth of this country's business enterprise. This also won over other swing voters in this area as part of the party's larger running platform of achieving a budget surplus again.
This means, from an internet point of view, it has been ADSL or nothing for the past decade for the vast majority of Australians. Add to this that Australia's telecommunications networks routinely cover very large areas and speeds below 10Mbps are usual.
0コメント