NBN 'Reckless': Minchin
- 17 April, 2009 09:39
- Comments 8
Shadow minister for Communications Senator Nick Minchin has pointed to the findings of two studies as evidence of the “expose the recklessness” of the Rudd Government’s $43 billion National Broadband Network.
Senator Minchin today said the most salient findings of the October 2008 Australian Industry Group and Deloitte Survey of 526 CEOs: High Speed to Broadband – Measuring Industry Demand for a World Class Service had been ignored.
Specifically, Minchin claimed that 47.9 percent of surveyed CEOs indicated they would not pay a premium to access higher speed broadband, while 25.8 percent would pay a premium for higher speeds.
The same study found that almost 40 percent of CEOs did not know what their organisation’s current broadband speeds were, while just 17 percent believed faster broadband was likely to generate new products and services.
Minchin also pointed to the findings of the August 2008 Charles Sturt University’s Household Technology Survey of 700 households across the country.
He said the study found 67 percent of households said higher speed broadband was not a priority in their household budget, and that only 11 percent of households said they were certain or almost certain to upgrade to a higher speed broadband service over the next 12 months.
Just 18 percent of households felt the Federal Government’s broadband initiatives would help their household, Minchin said.
"These results hardly support the Government's dangerous assumption that customers will be prepared to use a premium broadband network and pay accordingly for the privilege, at levels which ensure its commercial viability," Minchin said in a statement.
"The Rudd Government has not conducted any cost-benefit analysis, cannot provide any projections of likely take-up, or give any indication of what consumers will have to pay to use this service.
Communications minister Stephen Conroy’s office was repeatedly contacted but did not respond with comment by deadline.
Update:
A spokesperson for Senator Conroy said there was a growing body of work supporting high-speed broadband as a potential driver for productivity across the economy.
The spokesperson pointed to prime minister Kevin Rudd’s statement on 7 April that the investment was expected to generate additional economic activity worth some $37 billion (Treaury estimate) over the life of the project. An additional quarter per cent of GDP every year for the life of the project.
The spokesperson also pointed to a number of supporting studies, including a study conducted on behalf of the European Commission and published in 2008 found that broadband has a positive impact on growth, productivity and employment levels.
The report found broadband led to improvements in labour productivity of 5 percent on average in the manufacturing sector and 10 percent on average in services. Broadband led to creation of 105,000 net new jobs in Europe in 2006, the spokesperson said.
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Comments
Anonymous
"11 percent of households said they were certain or almost certain to upgrade to a higher speed broadband service over the next 12 months"
It's a 10 year roll-out. 88% staying after tens years is just 27%, in other words 73% of people are likly to upgrade over the next decade.
"He said the study found 67 percent of households said higher speed broadband was not a priority"
So 33% did say it was a priority, that is a collosal market.
People can miss-read stats to prove anything they want.
Anonymous
Slective quotes
Minchin is guilty of selective quotes from a report which in summary, overwhelmingly supports an NBN. http://pdf.aigroup.asn.au/publications/reports/general_reports/7122_CEO_Broadband_web.pdf
From P10
"1. Two-thirds of Chief Executives (66%) believe their
business will benefit greatly from a faster broadband
network (page 24).
2. Almost three quarters of all businesses (73.5%) indicated
that they were likely to upgrade to high speed broadband,
if available (page 25)."
See Senator Minchin, it's so easy anyone can do it.
Anonymous
"11 percent of households
Also majority of all stats are actually not based on any data whatsoever, they come out of a hat
Anonymous
$37b of economic activity
How does a network costed at $43b only generate $37b of activity during its build? Where does the other $6b go?
Are we conclude that there is no stimulus effect from this, in that it creates less economic activity than it costs in its first eight years and, thus, has a net negative effect on the economy in that time frame.
Exactly what is the deal here? It fails its own test as stimulus, let alone as loss-leading infrastructure for the next generation.
Anonymous
Just because it only generates $37B of productivity doesn't mean it's less than $43B that it will be built for*.
Thats productivity (different from paying back the full amount), Thats probably not including any Tax thats on customers/business connections/any tax on data transfer/any tax thats from buying the Fibre, Hardware, hiring staff, labor/construction workers, etc.
Anonymous
and your point is?
So in the end after 8 years it will cost $6billion to build a national FTTP network that will last Australian's for many years longer than its initial built time? How is that NOT a bargain? If you cannot see that the deal is a bright future with more digital services than you can think of right now, you belong in the stone age with the rest of the luddites.
Andrew
Boom for Australian Economy !!!!
Will Help AU ECONOMY TO COME OUT OF RECESSION FASTER.
This is one of the bigest infrastructure project in Australian corporate histroy which directly benefits the consumers at a mass scale.
Amount of jobs and dollar transactions it will create is phenomenal.
Cheers
Sales and support
http://www.solidradicle.com.au
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baden
cant get worse
the NBN cant be any worse than anything telstra charges and the service assuming testra shareholders only own the name telstra corporation as the infrastraucture including buildings were inhereted under charter originally from (PMG)"post master general "changing to "telecom" and then testra now telstra corporation the network in the groundexchanges and buildings infrastraucture as it is on government land the government cant charge rent as under the constitution the government dont own it neither does telstra the people own it and that can only be changed by referendum THAT IS WHAT AFEW OF THE 62 CHANGES IN THE REFERENDUM ON THE REPLIC WERE NO ONE SEEN THE CHANGESEVEN THOUGH TURNBULL GOT 40 MIILLION TO RUN THE REPUBLIC SIDE FROM THE GOVERNMENT why were the changes so secret??? think about that
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