Survey: Most businesses don't understand NBN

"businesses will mainly spend money on their websites, while others will explore things like online purchasing and advertising."

Well, they will certainly need more speed to spend money on there websites, lol... and online purchasing! wow they will need 100mbit for that huh.... and advertising! thats the biggy! they will always need 100mbit to show 50kb ads to there customers...

Perhaps Gillards NBN thinktank will eventually find some real applications that need extreme speed.

"Perhaps Gillards NBN thinktank will eventually find some real applications that need extreme speed."

There's no perhaps about this. Anyone with even half a brain can see that in 10 years time - 20 years time and beyond, those applications will be commonplace. So what do we do? Wait 10 years to fix the communications system? Wait 20 years? We have a once in a lifetime...no a once in MANY lifetimes chance to do the job properly and your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, and possibly your great great grandchildren will thank you for it.

But you need more than half a brain to think beyond tomorrow.....

karlos just dealt himself out in the race to replace Steve Jobs. I doubt if he would even get the job of collecting the staff lunches.

I work at a major hospital in Victoria, and since we have already converted to electronic records, I'm able to look at a patients' scan, blood result and past history from any decent internet connection in the world when I am on call. Unfortunately, "decent" means at present only speeds such as Optus Premium Speed cable at home is good enough, and even that is only for downloading the data. Other hospital's wireless even fails miserably (read "peripheral hospital").

NBN allows similar speeds with less latency and cheaper prices compared to the Optus offering. People criticising NBN should just try to see from the other side of the technology divide in which everyone will be in the very near future.

Does anyone see a fixed/wired technology as the future ?
The future is wireless devices. The internet has evolved to be part of your everyday life, not just your home life.

Like Jimmy, a lot of people are wanting a premium / super fast internet for 'free'. We will all be paying for it, and all the new content that will be provided will cost too.

Simply put, if you want a premium service, and your not prepared to pay for it now, then you don't want the NBN.

I pay $19 a month and get 19Mb/s. I can watch video on demand in HD with zero stops for buffering. From what I've read, I'll need to pay closer to $60 with the NBN, and I'll get zero benefit.

Last point .. when it comes to the rural folk, I absolutely agree money should be spent getting fast and reliable internet to you all, however, that is where the NBN should stop.

Errr...sorry Ben, the future is wireless devices that are based on a fixed or wired technology. How, pray, do you think the "bits" get to the wireless transmitter? If you don't understand the science - which you clearly don't - then please try not to make a fool of yourself in public.

Oh, and selfishness seems to be an attribute you possess in spades, too. Yes, "I can get 19Mb/s - so bugger the rest of you!"

Foolish; shallow and selfish. Unfortunately appears to be an increasingly common trait amongst NBN naysayers.

re: Ben. He's not paying $20/mth for unlimited downloads. And probably has other services so perceives he's getting a discount on the internet when other services are paying the difference.

My internet usage has gone from about 500MB/mth 10 years ago to over 5GB per month and I'm not a heavy user. That's a 10 times increase for someone not downloading music and movies and I expect my usage to go higher. The revolution to society is still in the early days and we need the digital highways in place so that other people can develop applications that we will use.

NBN will become a great asset to Australia when implemented.

"Most businesses don't understand NBN" ...
Thats a no-brainer: its because most Australian businesses don't have an option of connecting to it as yet. It is available to such a very small percentage of the populated land-mass, in locations which seem like unlikely candidates for the early trials.
They should put NBN in growth corridors where there is currently lousy 'broadband' (I use the term loosely here) options. E.g. in the outer-East of Melbourne, from Berwick, through Belgave South, Emerald, Monbulk, Silvan then the Yarra Valley through to Healesville. There are SMEs dotted throughout, often with a local or tourist focus - hence potentially great early adopters of the NBN. I bet you the 'Business understanding' would then skyrocket in those locations, in a record short time.

Well if they put it in simple terms most of the business's would understand... The "Aconymisation" (my word don't steal it) doesn't clear anything up, few people really understand what the term NBN means - Seriously they could come out with some simple PR/ Branding adds - Like a home owner holding his hose watering the garden getting hammered by a fire hose from a fireman's truck with NBN on the side... there is loads more they can do from a public awareness standpoint. People that have not been involved in the growth of the internet really find it hard to understand why us older digitalhighway techs get excited by words like NBN.. The NBN so far has been short sold. In the early 90's I spent much of my time stringing modems together one early dev systems like Debian and FreeBSD with 4 and 8 port serial adapters - using the most woeful getty and mgetty serial software, just so people could get to the internet. We were an immedite bottleneck, It was so slow we struggled to consider it a beneficial business tool. In 20 years we have come so far - but we are very fast hitting the point were we are again becoming the bottleneck, in simple terms the NBN will solve that and more.....
It just needs to be represented in terms the general public can clearly understand. In simple terms - we will have a really really big hose! <- now that cant be bad, can it?

Dear Spandas

What I don't get is the title of the article. When does 23% equal most?

The benefits have been lost in the morass of misdirection given by the opposition and critics of the NBN and that the media in largesse has played to that criticism.

So if you make you assumptions based on articles in the media then you will be misinformed.

Dear Tom,

'Most' refers to businesses that don't understand the purpose of the NBN (23 per cent), those that think the only benefit will be faster speeds (58 per cent), and those that said the network will provide no benefit (12 per cent).

The survey also noted that 55 per cent of businesses only have a rough understanding of the NBN rollout. Around 12 per cent have little to no understanding of it.

Hope that helps.

Spandas

No!

When does >25% equal most?

I did read the article, what about the title, many people if perusing your article won't meaningfully get past the title.

Hi Tom,

If businesses consider faster Internet speeds as the only benefit or if they saw no benefit from the NBN then those businesses don't really understand what the network is about.

That was the point Mr Pownall was making.

Spandas