If reading local newspapers is your only source of information, and it still is for many of the older generation, you might easily come to the conclusion that the Federal Government’s plans for a fibre-to-the-home $43b national broadband network are just an ill considered waste of taxpayers’ money.
And while it is true that for a very small number of people on the wrong side of the so-called ‘digital divide’ it will have no direct beneficial effect at all, the advantages for the overwhelming majority of the community are more than compelling.
At the seat of the problem of understanding the positives involved is the now infamous Donald Rumsfield paradox which basically asserts: “people don’t know what they don’t know!”
This can also be seen as the bridge builder’s dilemma which suggests: “you cannot estimate how many people will use a completed structure by counting the number of swimmers who actually cross at the same place.”
The bottom line is that unless you ask a person who is well acquainted with the new technology and its implications you are likely to elicit a response, which may sound reasonable and is usually plausible, but sadly is often down right wrong.
The number of high placed ministers in the Howard government who espoused for years that Australia was not only leading the world in broadband speeds and only required ‘fibre-to-the-node’ (technologically inferior to the planned fibre to the home model which is already in use in Japan, Korea and Singapore) was a continuing source of amazement and irritation to every academic or computer scientist I know.
Given that the IT community as a whole has been 110 per cent behind the introduction of very fast broadband for as long as I can remember, and the government of the day had ready access to their input, one can only wonder what their real motivation was.
So what are the benefits?
There are in fact many but, if you were to seek a single over-riding one, it would have to be productivity!
Can you imagine if every single information worker (even truck drivers have computers in their cabs these days) in the country saved just a few minutes every hour what the overall impact would be on our economy or GDP?
And just think of the burgeoning home based sector, where many live outside of metropolitan areas by choice and do not have access to broadband at all. People like journalists, consultants and obviously software developers would save hours of unproductive time every week just submitting their completed work.
Virtually every time you accessed information online, bank balances, whatever, you would save time.
And, what’s more, the size and quality of image would be vastly superior. No longer would you view video in a small window – it will be full screen, digital TV quality and no more buffering (won’t that be great).
I believe using very fast broadband versus the common garden variety is analogous to comparing riding a bicycle with travelling on a motorcycle – yes they both have two wheels, you do sit in the middle and also have handlebars … but that’s where the comparison starts and finishes.
Having said that, one of the more perceptive criticisms I’ve read recently is that when children inevitably spend more time online (I agree with this incidentally) it will have a negative effect on their real world activities (I don’t necessarily agree with this).
It reminded me of another prediction from my youth, when some of the futurologists of the day forecast that in the 21st century robots would be doing all the physical work so humans’ bodies would start to shrink and everyone’s heads/brains would also get larger – I get visions of Roswell and little green men here.
As we all now know, with the introduction of shorter working hours, the proliferation of gyms and better nutritional advice, the opposite has occurred and many of our young people are not only bigger and healthier, but a sight more fitter too!
It is my prediction that in the years ahead the ready access to more knowledge and enhanced communications provided by very fast broadband will in fact improve most people’s inner lives and also their social lives as well – but probably in ways we can’t yet even imagine! | 
