Whats to hide;

The Federal Government is refusing to comply with a Senate order to reveal documents relating to its national broadband plan.

...The Senate has passed a motion calling on the Government to produce documents relating to the tender.

The motion says any debate on the new plan will be suspended until Communications Minister Stephen Conroy complies.

Senator Conroy has refused, saying the material is commercially sensitive and can not be released.

What rubbish. Conroy is just scared of having his incompetence exposed.

Just like those wonderful Dodgy Brothers commercials from the 80's only frighteningly real;

A DISAPPOINTING thing happened last week. A couple of unlicensed share spruikers went on television imploring Australian mums and dads to invest in a company yet to be formed, with no business case, no feasibility study and whose viability is extremely doubtful.

The same guys paid no attention to the financial needs or risk profiles of their audience but simply asserted this was an investment not to be missed. They probably broke three or four critical sections of the Corporations Act, some of them carrying jail terms. Just the sort of corporate cowboys that our Prime Minister has condemned in his moral sermons about corporate excess.

The names of these chaps? Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Lindsay Tanner, all talking about the company that will run their national broadband project.

Seems the little people miss out yet again as Labor concentrates on just getting votes rather than delivering services to all Australians.

There are claims Western Australian towns with fewer than 1,000 people will be excluded from the Federal Government's $43 billion broadband network.

The federal Member for O'Connor, Wilson Tuckey, says Australians living in small towns will be excluded from the broadband commitment.

Mr Tuckey says that means a significant number of towns in WA will miss out on the benefits.

"Talk about second class or 10th class relations," he said.

"When one looks at the electorate of O'Connor, in its past boundaries and its proposed boundaries, there'll only be about four regional centres - maybe six - which will qualify for having more than a 1,000 [person] population."

How good is State built, owned, and operated Broad-Band Internet?

Ask the Chinese who suffer the worst page load speeds in the world;

Internet speed tests in different countries. Do you know what country has the fastest internet connection? Netherlands, Israel, UK, USA, Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy, Australia, France, Spain, India, Brazil or China.

ClickTale collected and analyzed data from over 1 million visitors during the months of May and June 2008, they measured Internet speeds using the average page loading speeds from each country.

Page loading speeds vary from 1.1 to 5.5 seconds. Israel and Dutch surfers have the quickest page load, while Chinese and Brazilian surfers have the slowest page loading rating.

Of course China also employs a wide ranging and intrusive Internet filter too, so we may just be looking at our future.... 

For me, I don't think a reduction of 1.61 seconds in a web pages load speed is worth $22+ Billions of debt.

Thanks to Greg for the details.

Kevin Rudd continues his inextrable march to Socilaism; 

THE Rudd Government proudly likens superfast broadband to a Snowy Mountains scheme for the 21st century. There's no doubt a $43billion network fits neatly into Kevin Rudd's broader narrative about governments having to make up for widespread market failure.

"It is time for government to step in and take the lead," he declared in Tasmania as he visited the state selected to begin RuddBand. "That's what this Government is on about. Just imagine, if you had had this kind of narrow conservative view of what governments should do, where would the railway network have got to in the 19th century? How far would the electricity (grid) have got in the 20th century?"

What a stupid comparison for Rudd to try and make...

EnergyAustralia is contacting building managers within Sydney's CBD about the possible need to use back-up generators for power on Monday.

Large sections of the CBD have suffered two power outages within the past week, the first occurring during the Monday afternoon peak and the other on Saturday morning.

Just in case you wondering;

The only surprising thing here is that Keating hasn't publicly claimed to be the Genius behind it all;

On April 6, 1995, PM Paul Keating promised a brave new world of telecommunications that would change our lives

THE government has agreed to implement a national strategy aimed for the adoption of new information and communications services and technologies, the so-called information superhighway.

These new services and technologies will change the way we live, work and play. Their effect on our businesses, our schools and universities, our hospitals, our governments and many other aspects of our daily lives will be profound. We have the opportunity to plan for a fairer, healthier, better educated and more productive information society, through a managed and consultative approach to the use of information and communications services and technologies.

We aim to address these issues in a systematic way and put in place, by the end of this year, processes and policies (that) will provide the leadership and framework for moving into the next century.

Incumbent PM Kevin Rudd promised it all again yesterday:

THE Rudd Government today announced the establishment of a new company to build and operate a new super-fast national broadband network. This new national broadband network will connect 90 per cent of all Australian homes, schools and workplaces with broadband services with speeds up to 100 megabits per second, 100 times faster than those currently used by many households and businesses. High-speed broadband is increasingly essential to the way Australians communicate and do business. It will help drive Australia's productivity, improve education and health service delivery, and connect our big cities and regional centres.

The initiative is a historic nation-building investment focused on Australia's long-term national interest.

It will fundamentally transform the competitive dynamics of the telecommunications sector, underpin future productivity growth and our international competitiveness.

just some rough figugues done on the back of an envelope to cost Rudds NBN proposal, the roughness is poor form I know, but its more detail than has been released by the Government;

NBN cost $42,000,000,000

Interest @ 7% - Yearly Int payment   $2,940,000,000

Capital repayment 15 yrs                  $2,800,000,000

Yrly running costs                            $500,000,000

Return on capital 13%                      $5,460,000,000

Total yrly cost                                $11,700,000,000

Subscribers 4,000,000

Avge yrly cost $2,925.00

Mthly cost per user = $243.75

and thats just for the base infrastructure (Wholesale cost).

You then have the ISP/phone company/pay TV (retailers) fee(s) to pay…