@daydream**believer wrote:
From what i understood, the Labor plan would take 10+ years to fulfil and cost heaps.
The Liberal plan would take less time and cost less and only be a little slower in internet speed than the Labor plan.
Further, the Liberal plan will not be a little slower. It will be hundreds of times slower and won't be as reliable or offer the same quality from premises to premises, street to street.
http://www.buddeblog.com.au/frompaulsdesk/hello-from-europe-travelogue-broadband-experiences/
When staying or visiting people in their homes some interesting observations can be made. There, without any doubt, the quality of the service is better in the developed economies than in the developing economies. But services vary greatly. Some houses already have FttH – I think I have encountered that a dozen times – and the quality there is always good. Mostly, however, there are cable or DSL connections and here again the service varies widely from street to street, suburb to suburb. But as I am finding out this week in the Netherlands, where I am at the moment, the HFC 50MB/s service fluctuates during the day, with sometimes getting worse than my 4-8MB/s in Bucketty.
Prices remain the most puzzling. In the USA a 50Mb/s can cost you $50 in one town and exactly the same service $100 in another place from another provider. Obviously lack of real and effective competition is an issue here. Also here in the Netherlands the 50MB/s I am using costs $135 (including pay TV), a new competitive service that is being launched now offer a similar service for less that half this price.
In general terms the reality of broadband access and broadband quality depends more on a very local situation. If you are in the right place, perfect services; two streets further on, big problems. This is basically the case wherever I travel.
Paul Budde
