OzHub, the Macquarie Telecom-led cloud computing alliance, has come down firmly on the side of Optus over the copyright controversy surrounding Optus TV Now, warning that any moves to change the law "risk branding Australia a global luddite state."
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Renai LeMay
Saturday, 07 August 2010 20:45
IT Policy - Government Tech Policy
High-profile Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull has slammed Labor’s National Broadband Network Policy in impassioned comments to a Sydney audience, describing it as “a gigantic torching of taxpayers’ money” and claiming most of Australia doesn’t want 100Mbps fibre internet.
“The reality is, there simply isn’t demand at the household and every small business level for internet at that speed, at a price which would make it even remotely financially viable,” the former Opposition Leader told a forum he convened in Sydney today to discuss Labor’s mandatory internet filter policy.
“You’ll spend $40 billion plus dollars, and you’ll get an asset that’s worth $10 billion,” he said.
Describing the NBN as “a colossal white elephant”, Turnbull said he was fundamentally a “free enterprise” person – believing the market would provide most services that consumers wanted, and the Government should provide subsidies to aid the market where it could not provide needed services and make a return.
Turnbull said the market for universal 100Mbps fibre internet was not there – but there was explosive demand for wireless broadband – at which point he held up his Apple iPad device, on which he had been Twittering during the forum proceedings. “This requires a very different sort of architecture,” Turnbull said of wireless broadband.
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