This article Life in the slow lane by Scott Pape was sent to me by Fuyu (thanks!).

I’m not one to read technology articles by staff reporters in most mass-media newspapers - mostly they’re either just plain wrong, or slanted in such a way that I can find very little I agree with.
I don’t know any of the authors personally - but I can only guess that in most cases they’ve really got very little clue as to what they’re talking about.

So, to my suprise I found that Scott has written a pretty decent article which gets the technical bits right (for the most part).

I even found myself agreeing with Scott’s position on blacklisting or blocking people who send joke emails.

I can’t say much more on the article, since it gets pretty close to my work.

There is something, however, which I think the media should be focussing on: If companies such as iiNet, Internode, Optus, and various others are able to deliver a broadband product faster than Telstra’s (via Bigpond and Telstra Wholesale), and make a profit while they’re doing it. Why can’t Telstra?

Sure, ADSL2 or FTTN might take a while to deploy - but those of us on ADSL (ADSL1) already have the capability built into the network to go to 4, 6, or even 8Mbit - with comparatively little outlay.

What does this achieve? Well - it gives us an interm solution which would satisfy the bandwidth hungry masses for a while until the ADSL2/FTTN/etc solution can be sorted out.

Is it a “free” or “instant” upgrade? Heck no - but by the same token - it’s not an expensive proposition. Some ISPs that are at the limit of their interconnect bandwidth would have to upgrade - but that’s something they would need to do when/if they get access to an ADSL2 network too.

Here’s a question for the home user - Would you pay an additional $10/month on your current plan for an increase to (say) 4000/512 from a current 1500/256 plan? How about $20/month for 8000/1024? Surely that price increase would cover any cost outlays. (Edited: Revised data rates to those attributed to ITU G.992.1 according to Wikipedia)

Sure, some customers may lose out - those with poor quality lines even more so. So it’ll be a different case of “haves and have nots” that we already have.
We already have people who can’t get ADSL, either because their line isn’t good enough quality, their exchange isn’t supported, or they’re out in the middle of nowhere.
It’s not something that can be solved quickly, or cheaply - but it gives the vast majority of current ADSL users faster internet access.

Everyone seems to be avoiding asking these questions - and I’m not sure why.

Next time, I’ll talk about the whole chicken-and-egg scenario over why you’d want to have faster broadband.