NBN spends another $12 billion of our tax money on nothing

Submitted by Peter on Thu, 2011-06-23 20:50

NBN is the Australian National Broadband Network company, a monopoly set up by our current federal government to spend 42 billion dollars to get 6 billion dollars of improvement to our current broadband Internet access.

When the current federal government was elected, one of their big promises was to break the monopoly of the main current telecommunications company. What they did not mention is the fact that there were two telecommunications companies providing broadband access in an expanding competition. What they did not mention was the NBN plan to buy the two existing broadband networks and remove all competition.

The previous Liberal government worked for many years to reduce the Telstra monopoly by introducing new competitors in the wholesale broadband market. The current Labor government has instantly trashed all that work and returned us to the bad old monopoly days of the 1950s.

The Labor Party had three major previous terms in office and did absolutely nothing because they just did not care about anyone other than themselves and a few voters in marginal electorates. In fact their first modern term in office, with Gough Whitlam as the leader, destroyed Australia's economy and focused on pushing women out of jobs to produce a fake temporary improvement in one economic indicator.

Those three Labor leaders were followed by the Liberals who spent many years turning the economy around and paying off the massive debt from the insane Labor Party spending spree. Now Labor is back in and spending big to create a few jobs for their mates.

Jobs for Australians

All these big government projects are sold to voters as a way to create jobs in Australia for Australians. The NBN started by asking permission to import foreign workers to save NBN spending a few days training Australians. A Labor party promise broken.

There was a mention of many jobs but, as usual, the big number is only a temporary number for a short term during construction.

High speed broadband

We were promised broadband faster than anything else available. Telstra already deliver the speed promised by NBN. NBN will not be faster. Telstra are delivering the top speed all over a major capital city containing millions of people. NBN delivered a few demonstration networks with a few thousand people in each demonstration area. NBN fails here and another Labor Party promise will drag out forever without doing what was promised.

Lower cost

Another promise was lower cost. The few Australians that have full time full pay jobs have to pay a 42 billion dollar subsidy for the NBN network, that is a 6000 dollar subsidy per taxpayer. The NBN should cost about $60 per month but taxpayers will be subsidising by $60 per month for many years. Does that mean the service will be free?

No, it will not be free. Will it be cheaper? Interviews with people in the demonstration areas show half the target market staying with their existing supplier because of cost. With all that subsidy, NBN is too expensive. Is it because they have a monopoly and are focwithusing on extracting lots of money from rich people instead of doing what was promised? Another Labor Party promise that is a lie.

Watch television

Australians have excellent free access to television for most people. When the Labor Party started promoting the NBN, the adverts showed a heap of people using the broadband access to watch television. Why would you buy expensive broadband to watch free TV?

Most Australians have excellent access to cable for both Internet access and television. Why would you pay a massive price for fast broadband then pay for all the cable channels on top of that when existing suppliers give you Internet access cheap with cable TV?

Fibre to the building

Years ago Telstra advertised fibre optic cables but supplied copper cable. Labor and NBN promised fibre to the building but NBN already stepped back from that promise and said they are planning to use wireless for remote areas. Wireless access was offered to Australia for 6 billion instead of 42 billion. We are paying 36 billion dollars for nothing extra.

Business opportunities

The NBN is offered as a business opportunity generator. The NBN is offered as a slightly faster version of ADSL. ADSL has fast download to help you buy stuff and slow upload, preventing the use for a Web server. The only thing the NBN network will do is to increase sales to Australians by foreign Web sites.

The NBN will make eBay, Facebook, Google, and Paypal richer. The NBN will either have zero effect or it will speed up the rate at which Australians are exporting our money overseas.

If the government really wanted to help Australian businesses, they would break the new NBN monopoly, they would make NBN compete with the two existing suppliers, and help Australians with low cost Web hosting, something not offered by NBN.