Minister for misCommunication
A recent brain-fart by the Australian Minister for Communications, Helen Coonan, has exemplefied why Australia remains a relative technology backwater. She said that she expects people ought to be happy with existing Internet speeds.
“Well they ought to be in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, certainly and Perth,” she said.
“They should be reasonably happy with their speed of broadband, if they have ADSL 2 Plus.
“There are nine providers that already provide these speeds.”
This outburst happened as a result of an announcement by Telstra (the 51% government owned body responsible for maintaining the telecomms infrastructure) that it was pulling out of a proposed fibre optic upgrade to existing networks.
Indeed there is access to ADSL 2+ in these cities but no thanks to Government support. The roll-out has been excruciatingly slow and is only available in higher population density areas. It (the ADSL2 network)has been taken on by a consortium of private companies with the previous threat of the Telstra upgrade having the potential to render their effort futile.
For a Minister of Communications to make such a generalised and uninformed comment smacks of a level of ignorance that can only come from some-one whos’ tenure in the role is transient. Be warned, your communications minister does not have the best interests of Australian Internet users at heart.
Statistics from the OECD show Australia in 18th place in terms of broadband take-up. Although this is not a reflection of Internet speeds, it is a reflection on the perceived cost/benefit available to Australian consumers. Get your act together Minister!
For more information check out this article by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
