Australia’s NBN – the bigger picture

The NBN truck

The NBN. The National Broadband Network. You may have heard about it. You’ve probably heard it mentioned a lot, but actually heard very little of substance. You’ve perhaps heard wrong-headed claims such as we should the ‘new laser technology’, or, fibre optic cable will be outmoded  in “insert your own selection of a time in the near future”, and that we should put all of resources to using wireless.

The debate, or what has passed as a debate, has been stuck in he said/she said arguments about cost, stupid statements about the technology from such tech experts as Alan Jones and Piers Akerman. What’s been missing has been a big picture approach to what the NBN is, and what it could be.



That changed today, with the publication by Nick Ross, the Games and Technology Editor of the ABC Technology + Games site, of The great NBN fail. It’s quite  long piece, but I implore all those with an interest to give it a read. And really, we all SHOULD be interested, as the NBN is, in my opinion, the most important large-scale project undertaken in Australia. If nothing else, this article could well start the debates about the NBN that we should be having.

I should also add, that like Nick, I am pro-NBN – something I’ve declared on this site last year, in The NBN – why we need it. Now!

But please, read Nick’s article. It’s very good.