Almost a year after the National Broadband Network was officially switched on in Tasmania, the State Government has been forced to concede that no public school in the early stage release towns of Scottsdale, Midway Point and Smithton have actually been connected to the next-generation fibre Internet the project will provide.
In parliament this week, Opposition Education Spokesperson Michael Ferguson asked Education Minister Nick McKim whether any school in any of the three towns had been connected to the NBN. “No school in any of the three Stage 1 towns are using a production NBN service,” McKim replied (PDF). This story appears to have been broken by Tasmanian newspaper The Examiner.
The Federal Government, in addition the Tasmanian State Government, have repetitively touted the ability to bring high-speed broadband to schools as a benefit of the NBN, holding demonstrations of the fibre-optic technology in schools in both Tasmania and other early stage release sites such as Armidale over the past year.
For example, in mid-May, groups of school children in Armidale and Tasmania were filmed in a joint rendition of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ sung over a videoconference link over what appeared to be a NBN link between the two states. School students using next-generation broadband services have also been regularly featured in NBN Co advertisements highlighting the benefits of the NBN to the national education system.
The office of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has been invited to comment on the situation, which appears to have seen NBN fibre rolled out to the schools’ premises — but with the schools’ infrastructure not actually being connected to a live service provider. All three towns appear to have schools located in their surrounds.
In Tasmania, the delay appears to be due to the fact that Internet service to schools is provided through the state whole of government Networking Tasmania contract, which is held by Telstra and is currently being tested in the market. Like other providers, Telstra is currently trialling NBN services in Tasmania.
“In early December 2010, the department reached agreement with NBN Co to trial an NBN service at Smithton High School until the State Government wide area network communications providers became registered with NBN as retail service providers,” said McKim. “The department connected this trial NBN service into one computer lab. The majority of Smithton High School still use the government wide area network.”
Smithton High School’s trial NBN service — to one classroom — is provided by Internode, and does not reach the full NBN speeds. It features 25Mbps downlink speeds and 2Mbps uplink.
In a statement, Ferguson pilloried the State Government over the situation. “Following questions from the Liberals, Education Minister Nick McKim has been forced to admit that there isn’t a single school in Tasmania connected to the NBN,” he said. “In fact, the closest many students come to the NBN is a single lonely computer lab in Smithton connected to the NBN in December 2010 as a trial.”
“The NBN is a tremendous opportunity for our communities and our schools, but the Green-Labor Government has completely dropped the ball. The benefits of being the first part of the country with the NBN are slipping away as the mainland roll-out commences, yet the Green-Labor Government has done nothing.”
“After all the hype and hyperbole, not even our kids are benefitting from the NBN.”
Image credit: NBN Co
This is surely a matter for the Department of Education in Tasmania, and not a federal DBCDE or NBN Co issue.
The responsibility for the whole of govt networking contract lies with TMD, a division of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, DoE has to go through them to provision access. So it’s very much an own goal at the state level…
+1
Tasmanian Education Department and their contracts carries responsibility for this. Even at the state government level, there’s no direct responsibility; cancelling what would be a major contract would probably be accompanied by huge penalties that would hardly be responsible use of public money.
Arm waving and pointing at the Tasmanian State government, DBCDE and NBN for not living up to “the promise” is a beat-up at best.
The Liberal Party beating up a story about the NBN? Well, I never…
…but you’re right. It’s the same as the usual rhetoric about “low uptake” in the trial areas. Not everyone is able to break existing contracts with their ISPs to go running to an NBN-based service.
@Micheal Wyres
“Not everyone is able to break existing contracts with their ISPs to go running to an NBN-based service.”
Well that’s assuming that is the primary reason why the longest running trial sites in Tasmania have a low uptake, it is only anecdotal evidence with no substance behind it at all.
The true test would be to survey residences that have it running past the door and ask them why they said no, the problem is the NBN spin machine only wants to publicise feel good stories on those that said yes.
I remember the Four Corners piece on the NBN where a few Tassie residents were interviewed as to why they said no, pro-NBN supporters hit the fast forward button or went out for a coffee at that bit, it doesn’t exist.
I hope Four Corners revisit the Tassie areas after the freebie pilot phase is over and full commercial NBN pricing is in place from a number of ISP’s and see how many went back to what they had before, or decide wireless BB is ok for what they need.
Why don’t you enlighten us then, Sol?
No, the State Government IS responsible, as I said, the buck stops with a division of DPAC.
The ed dept CANNOT select a carrier who is not a part of the Networking Tasmania supplier agreement, hence they are pretty much stuck with Telstra managing their connectivity.
The simple solution however would have been to have Aurora (which is a GBE AND already involved in the rollout!) become an RSP, and have them service those schools in the stage one areas.
(forgot to add, Aurora ARE on the Networking Tasmania supplier panel.)
“they are pretty much stuck with Telstra managing their connectivity”
And what, precisely, is stopping Telstra, which has access to the NBN in Tasmania as a retail ISP, from providing NBN services to those schools? Nada.
You think Telstra should provide Conroy and the NBN with a PR boost why?
:)
Nada.
Except contracts, maybe.
I guess the bottom line of this discussion is the Department of Education and Skills in Tasmania SHOULD be pressuring Telstra on the issue.
For all we know, they might be doing that already. You’re absolutely right that Telstra should be in the position to do something – whether they want to, or can is another question.
If I was Telstra I would be asking questions at the highest level about this, it is outrageous!
“Smithton High School’s trial NBN service — to one classroom — is provided by Internode, and does not reach the full NBN speeds. It features 25Mbps downlink speeds and 2Mbps uplink.”
Perhaps the kids liked the Internode free and fast access to the Internode Steam games server mirror!
LOL :)
I suggest his information is out of date.
http://www.internode.on.net/news/2011/01/213.php
“In a move that aligns Internode’s Tasmanian NBN speeds with those proposed for the full national NBN rollout, the upload speed of a 25 megabit per second (Mbps) service automatically increases from 2 Mbps to 5 Mbps. The 50 Mbps service upload speed increases five-fold from 4 Mbps to 20 Mbps while the 100 Mbps services upload speed increases from 8 Mbps to 40 Mbps. The upgrades will commence from this Saturday, and should be complete within two weeks.
This is dated 5th of January, 2011 – if their connection hasn’t been upgraded, talk to Internode – don’t blame NBN Co.
Yes I am sure that one classroom is suffering under those NBN speeds if they have not been upgraded, it would be interesting to know what they are doing on that one PC – I hope its 3D X-Rays to Harley St medical specialists in London, HD video conferencing across the world and not just Facebook and Google searches.
You really are an irrelevant proll.
You point out that he’s complaining that the speeds aren’t up to full NBN speeds, and then it’s completely demonstrated that either:
(a) he’s completely wrong;
(b) he’s completely stupid;
(c) he’s trolling on behalf of his party;
(d) he’s any combination of any or all of the above;
(e) it’s Internode’s fault.
…yet you come up with some fictitious bulldust about how it must be the school’s fault, or they aren’t sending X-ray’s to London?
And you wonder why nobody takes you particularly seriously around here?
It didn’t say it was the schools fault, the above comments were mainly tongue-in-cheek, especially pertaining to use of the NBN from one sole classroom in regional Tasmania, but of course you know that and it was a satirical link to the wider picture of the pro-NBN lobby constantly banging on about the ludicrous applications we will be able to use under FTTH in an attempt to justify its multi billion dollar existence.
“And you wonder why nobody takes you particularly seriously around here?”
I don’t wonder why at all actually, and you have polled everybody that reads Delimiter have you? – no I thought not, but hey let’s make it personal like you always end up doing when it gets awkward three or four posts into a discussion when you face disagreement, it’s as predicable as night follows day.
Don’t think I need to do a poll to figure that out… :)
No statistical evidence supporting your personal views has never been your strong point, and you are certainly not going to break your posting habit now.
Alain, you remind me of that annoying kid who was teased and hated by everyone in my grade when I was growing up. I used to try to protect him, but sometimes I felt like it just wasn’t worth it. He seemed to invite the treatment by acting like such a fool.
So that’s still a no then.
I guess they don’t call the responsible department “Fortress Telstra” for nothing…
I understand what you guys are saying about TMD … but the fact is that there is nothing to stop Telstra providing fibre services over the NBN to those schools THROUGH the TMD contract.
Furthermore, it is disingenuous for the respective governments to constantly feature the schools in their promotions regarding the NBN … when those same schools have not even had their NBN connections switched on.
Sure, you can argue this is a state government issue. But I would argue Conroy is implicated here because of the Armidale promotion. This is a clear case of the t’s not being cross and the i’s not being dotted; promotion for promotion’s sake, while real outcomes have not been followed up in the background.
“…but the fact is that there is nothing to stop Telstra providing fibre services over the NBN to those schools THROUGH the TMD contract…”
Maybe.
You’re right that Telstra SHOULD be able to do it, but it gets down to the tinny-tacks of the agreement, and whether contracts for individual service connections must be ridden out or not. There are lots of twists and quirks in many Telstra government contracts.
The Networking Tasmania contract is held by Telstra as the piece says so it is up to Telstra to provide the infrastructure service to meet the obligations of that contract.
Until such a contract states the infrastructure to be used MUST be NBN FTTH it is entirely optional on Telstra’s part if they feel the NBN rollout needs a PR boost from them in connecting a school up just for the sake of it, and also if actually connecting a Smithton school for example is viable as part of the total state contractual networking needs, including Telstra links to the mainland.
But of course the two biggest ISP’s in Australia Telstra and Optus being extremely tardy about trialling the NBN at all in the first place doesn’t help scenarios like this.
Quite amusing but not really unexpected. The ABC did a story on the NBN where a Christian (private) school was shown touting how good the NBN was for them and their small number of pupils. No mention was made of how the NBN was affecting the local Public schools which had the bulk of local children attending.
But what can we expect from the ALP and NBN?? It’s all just spin.
This is noise being made by the Tasmanian opposition Coalition parties, not the ALP.
Are you saying the Coalition are responsible for ALP spin? As has been correctly discussed above, this more relates to existing contracts the education department in Tasmania has with Telstra as part of its supplier panel. Not any particular political barrier.
I visited the Saint Peter Chanel Catholic School in Smithton. They love their NBN. That was the one on the ABC Tas news back then. Kids, iPads, bandwidth – a very positive story.
Convenient that none of the public schools were visited :(
“The NBN is a tremendous opportunity for our communities and our schools”
Irrespective of the rest of the misleading statements I can’t see the mad monk of demolitionus enbee-enusus approving of this part of Ferguson’s ramblings.
True, the Coalition is on a roll at the moment with Labor falling further behind in the polls today, although Gillard is still preferred PM over Abbott, just, and Gillard is lower than what Rudd was before he was rolled.
Yeah I picked up on that part too. Funny how they describe it as something with brilliant opportunity when it’s not being accessed, but something that’s a “white elephant” and not required at a national level.
This story is nothing but a beat up. The previous year has been all about testing and finalising the processes involved for a national roll-out. In addition Tasmanian public schools have limited budgets and lengthy processes for the introduction of any new services or technology, so 12 months on it’s hardly surprising that schools aren’t connected YET.
The Examiner is Tasmania’s equivalent of The Australian so this story is hardly surprising. It’s a shame to see it regurgitated here though. And what’s with the shouting in the headline Renai? Caps Lock get stuck?
Im sorry but this story is not a beat up
If Tasmanian schools cannot get on the NBN one year after it has been installed, its a massive problem for NBN, whether directly or indirectly.
What the hell is the Labor government (or Conroy) is going to say regarding this issue. “Oh, we kinda couldn’t actually get schools X connected because of Y?” Give me a break
Precisely. Let’s not beat around the bush, here, people. The fibre has been CONNECTED to these schools but not SWITCHED ON. That, frankly, is a travesty and a collossal waste of government funding.
Sure, but it’s not an NBN issue. It’s a Telstra/Tasmanian Department of Education issue which could quite conceivably – (and I’ve seen this many times in government telco contracts/supplier panels) – be a contractual issue.
This could be happening if they were on ISDN/Frame Relay, and trying to upgrade to ADSL.
So you’re telling me that between Conroy, Telstra, NBN Co and the State Government, all of whom have top-level executives, assistants and politicians on this highly public NBN trial in Tasmania, that they couldn’t sort this out … an issue that is no larger than the cost of providing a fibre connection to a handful of tiny schools in rural Tasmania?
I’m sorry, but this is an issue for everyone concerned. It goes right to the heart of the argument for the NBN. If they can’t get this basic stuff right in their first and most basic trial examples, it speaks volumes about the abilities of the various players to work together at all, and their joint willingness to focus on PR and marketing outcomes rather than actually making real interconnections work for real students.
Personally, I think this is a joke, and I’m glad the Opposition in Tasmania has highlighted it. This is *not* a simple contractual issue. Everyone concerned here was complicit in drawing the eyes of the entire nation to these three small towns … and then they were complicit in drawing the blinds shut on real outcomes.
No – I’m saying that having waded through many a government telco supplier panel contract, it’s not always quite so simple.
As I said elsewhere – I agree it SHOULD be that simple, but in the real world with contractual and ongoing sales commissions to BDMs who signed deals, and other similar things, it’s not always as simple as common sense might dictate.
I’m not trying to disagree with you at all – (in fact, I agree completely) – I’m just saying that I understand – (through experience) – where a lot of the red tape lies.
Perhaps, but it’s hard to imagine that a few phone calls slung around between the Minister’s office, the Premier’s office and Telstra couldn’t have fixed this. Let’s be realistic about this: There is no real profit to be made here, at this stage — the only thing which matters is the public perception of the NBN. And to not even have the schools connected, a year after it “went live” … that’s a bad joke.
Again – no argument with that. Not saying I like it, just saying I understand why this quite possibly is happening.
@Renai LeMay
“There is no real profit to be made here, at this stage — the only thing which matters is the public perception of the NBN.”
That’s assuming the public at large and especially those that read the Examiner in Tasmania really care one way or the other that no schools are connected to the NBN a year out of what everyone knows is still a product in the pilot phase from limited ISP’s.
Putting what is in fact ‘their schools’ onto the trial just for the sake of a bit of PR, not because the schools actually need a NBN connection urgently may also be detrimental to the public perception of the NBN, as they see the whole exercise as just Labor PR spin with Conroy pulling strings with Telstra pushing Labor’s multi billion dollar baby into state run public schools, and spin is exactly what it is in that case.
My father was head of the Tasmanian AEU for years so this is something I know a bit about. As much as Renai might like to think that Conroy has the power to push things through as fast as he wants, it doesn’t work that way. If NBNCo have already connected the fibre, but the schools aren’t utilising yet, clearly this points to red tape, contractual obligations, budget issues or even internal education politics. There is as much infighting in the education department about “what is best” and how to progress with new equipment, technology and services of any kind.
If you know anything about education, Its absolutely laughable that anyone think one year is a long time in regards to educational facilities utilising a brand new technology. The amount of hurdles necessary for these types of things to be implemented would boggle your mind. That’s one of the major problems with having separate state and federal politics. Even when there’s a Labor government in power for both, things still never go as fast as anyone wants them to. You could take any single education issue, that is nothing to do with the NBN and wonder why it has taken so long to roll out. There are so many factors to consider that none of us are qualified to comment on.
All I know is that listening to my father was a continual chain of frustration at the time taken for things he wanted to see implemented and the politics within the AEU and the education department. It’s also the busiest most stressful job he’s ever had, and he’s a very well known businessman in Tas who has been on the board of several large companies. Think 200 board meetings a year and you get the picture.
As a pro-NBNer it is a concern as to WTF or perhaps rather whoTF?
Now I do not have the insight in relation to this that Simon obviously has, but if whoever is in charge of this school has the same fervent and irrational, always negative, selfish and politically driven, anti-NBN mentality as some here (refer to the usual suspects above) that could well explain it ;-)
Renai at 15/06/2011 at 2:16 pm… you’re spot on, I couldn’t have summed it up any better.
Even if the schools concerned left their ADSL connections idle until expiry of the contract but used the NBN at a small extra cost, it’s a PR win and more importantly the students get a better service.
The supreme irony of your statement ‘left their ADSL connections idle’ to prove the NBN can work has not escaped you I hope?
:)
State government moving at a glacial pace*?SUPRISE!
*the non melting kind of glacier
http://www.zdnet.com.au/tassie-schools-still-not-on-nbn-339316816.htm
Refer to the first “talkback comment”…!
Perhaps we could organise two private school choirs singing, one end on ADSL2+ the other end on HFC and a third school watching it all on a iPad connected to a projector screen using Telstra LTE.
And you could sit back clapping at all the buffering and out of time singing due to high latency. You obviously have a fetish for loading bars.
I have seen HD Youtube and ABC iView at fullscreen on ADSL2+ it works well, no lag or stuttering, you also assume I take it products such as FetchTV are making zero sales until the NBN FTTH is rolled out.
Better still to promote and “truly reflect” the oppositions current comms policy you love so much, they could sing into 2 baked bean cans, paid for via multi $B “never to be seen again” taxpayer subsidies, gifted to their mates in private companies”.
As for the string, ummm, says the opposition… we need string too…?
Wow alain. You seem to have this nasty habit of speaking crap. You should see a doctor about that. Might be contagious. Have you been hanging around Alan Jones by any chance? :-P
Given iView [b]isn’t even standard definition resolution[/b] it amazes me that you’ve somehow managed to view a high definition stream that no one else in Australia has available! FYI iView is roughly half the resolution of 720x576i SD broadcasts or DVDs, which is why it can be delivered no problems on a 1.5mbps connection. Of course your eyes are clearly so poor that you think this resolution is good enough, but believe it or not some of us can see beyond today’s needs, and would dearly like to see native HD content delivered directly from the BBC via ABC, given they now shoot and transmit all feature shows in 1080i on BBCHD. ABC are unable to even broadcast BBC HD shows over the air in Australia, as they are constrained to a 20mbps spectrum in total, which they have crammed 4 channels into, meaning ABC1 2 and 3 are all very low bit-rate SD.
Wouldn’t it be nice if ABC could start providing HD content over the net for those of us that care? Only possible once the NBN is widely available? Given a decent quality HD stream of 1280x720p takes a min of 12mbps to look good, you won’t be seeing that over ADSL anytime soon. And that’s just basic HD resolution. Make the jump to the industry standard of 1920×1080 and you need in the order of 20mbps for a pristine artefact free picture (Blu-Ray goes above and beyond this with bit-rates up to 35mbps). I’m talking constant steady bandwidth that is required here too, not the wildly inaccurate burst figures often quoted by providers.
And of course the example above is just for one person in the house watching a feed on their TV! Have you got a family alain? If like me you do, you’d understand that families would like to be doing all sorts of stuff on the net at the same time! i.e. sharing bandwidth for a multitude of next generation devices! Crazy talk I know.
As for Youtube “HD”, you make me laugh. It’s widely known that YouTube compresses the hell out of any native 720p or 1080p material, meaning a massive loss in fine detail, a blurry picture and and macro-blocking galore. This looks good to you? LOL. Not to mention that even this crappy “HD Lite” (as it’s commonly referred to on the highly respected AV Science forums) usually takes quite a few minutes to buffer even on an ADSL2 connection. I wonder how many people change to the 1080p option, that are stuck on ADSL1 or wireless? Given it would take half an hour to buffer? Or do you think they just stick to the lowly 360/480p feed given their poor bandwidth?
And what about the future alain? That’s that mystical place that comes after the present! You seem to have a lot of trouble imagining it, and think that we don’t need to properly prepare for it, given all your comments come back to what we can do now. Or at best you crap on about what would only see us through for the next five to ten years (FTTN, HFC and all the other rubbish technology you have wet dreams about).
YouTube have already started accepting 4k resolution material for digital projectors and tomorrow’s digital displays (you probably have trouble imagining higher resolution displays will exist too?). YouTube will be upgrading to superior compression technologies and streaming at higher bit-rates as the market demands it. As the rest of the world transitions to next generation broadband, do you think Australians will be happy with the same grossly over-compressed 480p/720p feeds we have today? I think not somehow, but obviously you think it’s all good enough.
Enjoy your iView @ 240p @ 2mbps a second and your 720p “HD” YouTube videos alain. I feel very sorry for you that your eyes are so poor that you can’t make out a half SD resolution feed from a true HD stream. I also feel sorry for your lack of imagination and vision of the future. Maybe you should read more science books to understand where the world is heading. And check out concepts like Moore’s Law to gain a greater understanding of how rapidly the world of technology changes.
You know going by your attitude, I imagine your ancestors were fighting against the introduction of electricity at the turn of the last century. I can just hear Grandma alain shouting “gas lamps are good enough! That electricity thing will never take off!” :)
@Lag Lover
“Given iView [b]isn’t even standard definition resolution[/b] it amazes me that you’ve somehow managed to view a high definition stream that no one else in Australia has available!”
Given that I didn’t say that I saw iView in HD it amazes me why you said it, I know how iView works, but thanks for the mass education session anyway.
“You seem to have this nasty habit of speaking crap”
You should have said ‘I’ instead of ‘You’ in that instance, which means the next two paragraphs regaling us all on your wonderful knowledge of how iView works is totally redundant, but you needed a reason to ‘show off’ how tech literate you are – but that’s ok if that’s all you wanted to do and you needed a excuse.
“As for Youtube “HD”, you make me laugh. It’s widely known that YouTube compresses the hell out of any native 720p or 1080p material,”
I was using the term YouTube use for some of their video content as you well know, if you want to argue the semantics of how the term HD should or should not be applied to their content take up with them.
“As the rest of the world transitions to next generation broadband,”
What ‘rest of the world transitions’ are you referring to here, 4G LTE?
” do you think Australians will be happy with the same grossly over-compressed 480p/720p feeds we have today? I think not somehow, but obviously you think it’s all good enough.”
Progressing beyond that depends on a mass world wide rollout of FTTH does it? I guess the majority of the world including all developed countries that don’t have FTTH will just have to suffer without it then, and all those add ons that are being sold today like the Dlink Boxee, WD Live TV, and other media boxes and inbuilt Internet capability from TV’s from Sony, LG and Samsung etc and all those HDMI socket outs on laptops of all over the world are useless because according to you ONLY a FTTH rollout can cut it, and that’s what people want.
I noticed aslo you let my comment re FetchTV go through to the keeper.
BTW Seeing you are so ‘knowledgeable’, tell us all the technical details of that PR broadcast between the two private schools on the NBN at the Armidale launch, you are absolutely sure there was no compression or buffering at any stage?
Perhaps we should have that poll you asked for above, in reply to MW….alain. Because I can count a conservative 6 (not including myself) in the last few days, who all believe exactly what Lag-lover said to you first line…
And you can say 6 isn’t many… but for example in a my 2 years (iirc) of posting my facetious and playful comments, I have had 4 at NWAT (who were like that with everyone not all Telstra yeah anyway) and maybe 5 or 6 more, all up refer to me in such a demeaning way… so! Anyway…
us
Again as a pro-NBNer, it is a puzzling and I’m not going to make excuses (see one of has an impartial bone in his body and its not you) as to why these schools aren’t connected. Knowing politicians there is probably a perfectly “ir”rational reason why!
But I don’t know “and neither do you”!
But not knowing has never stopped you before, still doesn’t and probably never will, eh tiger!
Not that you addressed one single item of any of that discussion, but decided the best form of reponse is to try and concentrate on emphasising the personal attacks as per usual.
But a off topic desperate diverting agenda driven rant is about all you can add to any discussion anymore.
WAA (how apt) Wrong Again Alain…
If you actually read what others wrote and let it penetrate through the bias barrier, you will note that I clearly spoke about the schools (which was the topic) and even wasn’t so glowing on the NBN’s position.
IN FACT MY COMMENT WAS MUCH MORE ON TOPIC THAN YOURS…
So will I kick and scream, personal attack as you did? No I will laugh at you and again shoot you and your ridiculous bias down in flames with FACTS, simple…! You ought to try it… ooh sorry you have many times and failed miserably (not having any facts)… never mind tiges!
And in relation to the “discussion” as you asked, I even included reference to (and agree with) MW suggesting no one takes you seriously, this was part of the discussion, which included you, so. I even backed YOUR call for a “nobody takes alain serious poll”.
But please continue to sob “personal attack”, as it proves,you simply have nothing else!
“YouTube have already started accepting 4k resolution material for digital projectors and tomorrow’s digital displays (you probably have trouble imagining higher resolution displays will exist too?).”
Thanks for pointing this one out Lag Lover, technology is improving all the time in about 10 years from now 4k webcams will be cheap and common as will higher resolution displays, your stills cameras and will be capable of shooting these resolution for videos too but then there is the question how do you upload that much data? How do you have a 4k video chat with friends? If it were up to Mr Rabbitt and hi zoo crew chums the answer would be “SD is good enough” and we’d never make any progress.
lol
Fair point though!
It’s interesting to see how the commenters don’t understand Renai’s point.
The NBN and Federal government have chosen to show happy primary schoolchildren using the NBN yet the schools in areas where it’s available are not connected a year after the fibre was lit.
Once again, another free kick in front of goal to the opponents of the NBN project.
Given the political and media criticism of the NBN one would have expected the Department and NBNCo to have foreseen this problem and either dropped the happy Vegemites from the promotions or negotiated a connection with the various parties.
As a supporter of the NBN concept, once again I’m left almost speechless at the sheer ineptitude of the Federal government and NBNCo in selling this project.
Given the amount of money these folk are being paid I hope their Engineering skills are a damn sight better than their marketing abilities.
Bingo. People are too busy falling over themselves in their rush to defend Conroy and co. that they miss the point that if someone in the ministers office actually wanted the reality to match the advertising, they could get it done. The local gov is Labor and Telstra dealing with the feds etc, I’m sure something could have been worked out if the minister had given enough of a damn to get off his ass and try…
Too busy pressing big fake buttons with the Star Spangled Ranga…
When will you script kiddies learn that you are never going to get your fibre. Look at the political polls, the average Aussie battler doesn’t give a toss about the $50+ billion NBN.
Tru Dat Comrade.
Also surprise surprise, I think I fully agree with Renai.
M.W. is still clearly an NBNco stooge even when trying to back track and flip flop a little.
Likewise every single pro NBN supporter in this thread who couldnt digest the truth of the situation and all its meaning has clearly demonstrated their blind prejudice . . . . . . . and stupidity ;-)
Comments are closed.