Blogs

By Paul Budde

Examples from around the world have indicated that it is very difficult to build a traditional telecoms business plan around a national FttH network.

If it is based on Internet access alone it simply would not be able to generate enough revenue from the traditional services to warrant such an investment.

By Paul Budde

In Australia, we are slowly winning the hearts and minds of people in relation to broadband. This is because the politicians have moved the debate into the media. This has opened it up to people like me to be interviewed and ‘preach’ about all the good things that broadband has to offer. Articles appear daily about broadband in the general press and an excellent national discussion is taking place on the issue. 

We are privileged in Australia. There are not many other countries where there is such a wide-ranging debate taking place about the benefits of broadband in economic and social terms - not even in countries that are more advanced in terms of infrastructure, such as Japan, Korea, Netherlands. And, despite the forward-thinking vision of Obama and his commitment to broadband, even the USA still has a long way to go to reach the level of understanding of broadband that exists in Australia. 

So it’s official – CeBIT in Hannover is like the Olympics – but with fewer muscles and more neckties. That is, it was until California’s well-muscled Governator dropped in to visit.

Overnight Australian time, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger brought a touch of Hollywood to the opening ceremony of the greatest IT show on earth. And for a venue that had seen all manner of heads-of-state do the opening formalities with varying levels of soberness and seriousness, Big Arnie gave the show probably its most memorable curtain-raiser ever.

Remember when the notion of a National Broadband Network first appeared on the national agenda? No? Well, that’s not surprising – you’d have to have a long memory to recall when the topic first surfaced.

So many words and arguments and much angst have been generated by the issue over oh so many years it’s almost as if it’s one of those perennial topics that have always been there and always will be. During the seemingly year-long election campaign of 2007, it was about the only technology topic that got the attention of pollies as a potential vote-spinner.

IT didn’t take long after the passing of PM Kevin Rudd’s latest economic stimulus package last week for the howls of outrage from the ICT industry to start.

Indeed, even the evening before the $42 million was package was passed, at the Internet Industry Association’s (IIA’s) 2009 annual dinner, a chief topic of muttering was how little (read nothing) was included in the package to help the technology industry.

IT’S only to be expected that when that if you asked the movers and the shakers of the local IT industry what they think of the prospects for the year ahead, their minds are going to be well and truly on the economic climate of the moment.

To that extent, it was much as expected when The Australian’s IT section brought out its annual early-year “Predictions” issue yesterday, giving CIOs, analysts and decision makers of the ICT industry in Australia their chance to gaze imnto the crystal ball for the next 12 months.

IT’S should be no wonder that President Obama managed to get technology so firmly wedded into his recently approved ec

IT’S the nature of our feelings towards governments that we tend to criticise them, whatever the political make-up, when they get things wrong but ignore them when they get it right.

We’re always only all-too-happy to bemoan our elected represenatives for not being in touch with our day-to-day concerns, with being out of tune with the common people, and of government organisations as being inflated bureaucracies more concerned with procedures and red tape than in serving the citizens.

IF it comes to a hard choice between economic survival or social responsibility, what would you choose?

It’s a tough choice facing many a company in these difficult economic times. And it’s not an easy one to answer. After all, what is company’ chief responsibility – meeting the expectations of its shareholders and staff, or to the future generations of the planet?