Comments on: Investigating broadband takes 11 years!

By: Stilgherrian · Review: The Crikey Guide to the 2007 Federal Election

Stilgherrian · Review: The Crikey Guide to the 2007 Federal Election — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 05:36:44 +0000

[...] Crikey paid me to write a story based on one of my blog posts, and will probably publish another on Monday. However I bought this book with my own money and [...]

By: Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:50:46 +0000

@Matt: You’re quite right. In 1995 I was working on multimedia projects (read: CD-ROM) which had to meet the Multimedia PC Level 2 (MPC2) standard, which was a minimum 25MHz processor, 4MB of RAM and 16-bit audio. I was lucky enough to be given a PC with 64MB RAM to develop on — the “cutting edge” PC I referred to. Wow, have times changed!

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:15:54 +0000

I find it hard to believe that a computer in 1995 had 64MB of RAM. My 486 had 8MB RAM which was good at the time considering that RAM cost about $90 per MB in 1995.

By: Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 07:59:49 +0000

@GuyMax: The Australian biased? Heaven forbid!

@Tobias: You’re quite right, it certainly makes a big difference to our economy and the health of our nation generally whether that 12Mb of bandwidth is used to watch yet another Hollywood movie or, say, collaborate on a 3D model for a new manufacturing process.

However I think the core issue is still there. Australia was up there with the digital elite a decade ago, and since then other nations have overtaken us. I think that’s an embarrassment.

A couple of percentage points either way probably doesn’t matter. But it’s the trend and the underlying attitude to policy that we should be worried about — and the minor fact that this was all promised as a priority more than a decade ago.

@John Ward: Whatever happened to the cloud seeding, I wonder?

By: John Ward

John Ward — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 06:42:29 +0000

We shouldn’t be surprised at the backward techno brians in charge.
After all it was the Great leader Menzies who told the CSIRO to stop working on computing in the 50’s, and cosentrate on cloud seeding to make rain.

By: Tobias

Tobias — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:55:39 +0000

The issue is surely what we are doing WITH bandwidth, rather than whether we’re first or third or thirty third in the broadband stakes, in traditional measures of teledensity (lines installed, call time per capita, residential calls pa) or in “computing power per head of population”.

The ITU and OECD both publish detailed statistics (vigorously criticised and defended) on teledensity and shipments of personal computers (”computing power”). Readers often infer that shipment = use = productive use rather than a $2,500 executive paperweight.

Sundry businesses and academic institutions offer international “e-readiness”, “most-wired”, “e-competitive” and “cyber-capable” rankings … pick a name, pick the figures, ignore questions about the quality of the source data and its interpretation

By: GuyMax

GuyMax — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:03:50 +0000

Why was this not the lead article in The OZ when Howard and his crew announced his hopelessly inadequate scheme to modernize broadband? Maybe the OZ is biased? Howard and Coonan are out of their depth and need to vacate the cow patch.

By: Stilgherrian · Coonan overdoses on WiMaX sales pitch

Stilgherrian · Coonan overdoses on WiMaX sales pitch — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:11:51 +0000

[...] writing an article for Crikey last night — the follow-up to yesterday’s post — I was “inspired” by this frame grab of communications minister Helen Coonan [...]

By: Bleeding Edge

Bleeding Edge — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:16:55 +0000

Coalition Broadband, 11 1/2 years late!…

To quote Roger Clarke yesterday from the ANU Link e-mail list, ‘It’s a cracker’ with a link posted to an article from the 21st November 1995 ‘Howard puts Australia Online’ Under the Coalition, more competitive prices and better quality o…

By: Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:24:43 +0000

Crikey has asked me to write an article based on this blog post, to be published in tomorrow’s edition. I know what I’ll be doing tonight — apart from configuring a computer to be installed at a client’s premises tomorrow.