FastMail.FM's Jeremy Howard on Sunrise, 20061023

00:00:00.000 | Thank you. Alright, it's 14 minutes past 7 o'clock. Now, do you ever sit at home getting

00:00:05.440 | frustrated by the speed of your internet connection? Well, even broadband services in Australia

00:00:10.040 | are considerably slower than in many parts of the world.

00:00:12.600 | Are you tired of waiting on companies like Telstra? The Queensland Government is preparing

00:00:17.780 | to do something about it. It wants to build a cutting-edge fibre optic network that promises

00:00:23.120 | internet services 100 times faster than regular broadband that we're used to now. For more,

00:00:31.600 | we're joined by computer expert Jeremy Howard. Good morning to you. Now, let's start at

00:00:35.200 | the beginning. Why are we so far behind the rest of the world?

00:00:39.320 | Well, that's a good question. I think a lot of it is to do with... Well, in the end, I

00:00:44.100 | think, really, the government and Telstra have dropped the ball over the last few years.

00:00:50.280 | In the States, where I just spent three months, real fast broadband was everywhere. People

00:00:56.120 | were used to downloading video on demand and video conferencing. Productivity in the workplace

00:01:02.300 | was much higher. I think when it comes to having a monopoly supplier like Telstra has

00:01:07.700 | been, they can get a bit fat and lazy, to be honest.

00:01:11.000 | Because I guess a lot of us are surprised. We thought broadband was as fast as it got,

00:01:16.800 | but Premier Peter Beatty's saying that this new service can be 100 times faster than regular

00:01:22.280 | broadband. Is that right 100 times?

00:01:24.840 | That's right, Mel. In fact, elsewhere in the world, they wouldn't call what we have here

00:01:28.320 | broadband. Broadband is a service that allows people to access the kind of services I was

00:01:32.920 | talking about, like video on demand. We don't really have broadband in this country, except

00:01:38.880 | for a few companies like Primus and Internode, which have actually really innovated here

00:01:44.400 | and are providing that to very small parts of the nation. But it's people like the Queensland

00:01:49.600 | Government that need to step forward and provide this to the rest of the country.

00:01:54.440 | So how will their system work?

00:01:56.880 | Well, it's pretty unclear on the details at this stage, but one of the really expensive

00:02:01.440 | parts of this is actually getting access to places to put the cables. So what the Queensland

00:02:06.080 | Government is saying is that they're going to provide access to the power lines, the

00:02:09.840 | rights of way next to railways and so forth. So there's actually somewhere to put the highest

00:02:14.380 | bid fibre optic cables. They're talking about a cost of $550 million just to cover southeast

00:02:21.280 | Queensland. So that's a pretty big expense, and that's where the real question is here.

00:02:25.980 | And what about cost to consumers, Jeremy? Is it just going to be so expensive that none

00:02:29.440 | of us will be able to afford to have it?

00:02:31.440 | That's what I'm worried about. If you look at what Telstra's done with their NextG network

00:02:36.000 | that they're so excited about, they're talking about $200 a month to get reasonable amounts

00:02:41.160 | of volume on that. If it costs $550 million, that could end up being about $1,000 to the

00:02:48.600 | consumer. So I think this is the big issue, is whether this is actually going to be affordable

00:02:53.960 | for people to take advantage of it.

00:02:57.720 | Jeremy Howard, thank you for your time this morning and explaining it.

00:02:59.920 | Thank you.