The OECD’s latest broadband report confirms what we already know: Australia ain’t exactly the leader of the pack.
In broadband penetration (December 2008 data) we’re in the middle, just below the US, at around 25 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. The OECD average is 22.5. The leading seven nations, in order Denmark, Netherlands, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Korea and Sweden, are all above 30.
The average monthly subscription price (October 2008 data) is US$56.21, well above the OECD average of $43.13. Sweden is the cheapest, a rather affordable $29.22.
For countries with data caps — and only 36% of advertised plans have an explicit data cap — the OECD average price is just US$0.02 per additional megabyte.
The 160Mb/s cable available now in parts of Japan is particularly drool worthy.
Yes, Australia’s broadband infrastructure is well behind our peers’ and we need to catch up. Whether that’s with Rudd’s $43 billion Wündernetzwerk, which now isn’t due to get out of planning phase until the first half 2010, or something else I don’t care but WILL SOMEBODY F-CKING WELL START BUILDING SOMETHING?
Sorry.
It’s just that we seem to have endless announcements of plans but nothing actually being built. Just like Sydney’s CityRail. But I digress.
Can the OECD numbers be trusted?
Analyst Richard Chirgwin, presenter of the podcast A Series of Tubes on which (disclosure time) I’m often heard, says the OECD figures are based on advertised subscription prices, a meaningless measure that fails to account for the distribution of users across different plans.
Chirgwin reckons the figure we should really be looking at is ARPU: average revenue per user). For Telstra, the largest ISP, that works out at $34.50 per month — more than US$20 below the “average” subscription price.
“We constantly encourage politicians to seek ‘OECD position’ in broadband policy, which is just nonsense. Moreover, since it’s so easy to play ‘spot the bollocks’ in the broadband data, why would I give any better credence to the OECD’s education, health, taxation, or any other of its pronouncements?” he said.
Meanwhile, NBN naysayers who claim Australia won’t have the international bandwidth to deliver all that extra data forget one key fact: new infrastructure is being laid all the time.
On Wednesday, the $200 million PPC-1 cable landed at Collaroy in Sydney from Guam. Midnight Update’s video report says it adds 1.792 Terabits per second of new capacity to an existing total of around 4Tb/s.
It’s our first telco-neutral submarine cable for broadband. Previous ones have been owned by Tier-1 telcos like Telstra and Optus. Yes, it’ll increase overseas capacity by 50%, but its builders claim it’s more about competition.
Roll on the price drops. Soon. Please.
Luddites weren’t against the introduction of new technology per se – they just wanted some kind of moderation in the speed and extent to which it was introduced, so that the social impacts could be more effectively managed. …
My point here is that I’m thinking about my acquaintance Edward. Once in the Navy, he’s a pretty smart guy, who nowadays spends ALL day inside in front of his computer. He’s grossly obese, and has a nasty attitude towards his neighbours when he does emerge, pasty and as mentioned, grossly obese. Sure, the internet, spore or whatever isn’t the cause of Edward’s decline into “Uggh, oh dude, look at yourself”, but it makes me wonder if all that money might possibly be better spent on something more socially productive?
Am I alone here?
You might not be alone but I’m not with you.
I don’t think people grasp how much new industry it will create having a high speed broadband network.
We have the technology to deliver rich media to the end user just not the infrastructure to support it. Once we have the infrastructure and the end user is online the developers can start providing this content with confidence that there will be a market to use it.
Internet services is very much a global marketplace but often the companies have to start local. Without potential local customers we lose our ability to develop the industries that we can export to the world.
And one last thing, why not? Because your friend has no self control?
Scottyea. No, I don’t agree with you on the basis of your acquaintance, Edward. Someone as addicted as this would merely find another form of addiction to whit…
A friend of a friend called Jim was a complete and total alcoholic. A gentleman, of the old school pata ti pata ta. He could still canter on three bottles of Scotch a day. One day (as it is said in fairy stories-although this is no fairy-story) A medico got the message through to him that the booze wasn’t doing his health a lot of good. Jim’s friend stopped dead in his tracks and hasn’t been seen to have a drink since then.
What do you suppose came to replace his alcohol addiction? Antiques. The last time I saw him was at a house auction. He had changed his house three times, each one larger than the preceding one to house his collection. Fortunately he had lots of money. And he kept a lot of dealers very happy.
Stilgherrian: The minute I read an article detailing Australia’s ranking to the rest of the world. I turn off. Why should Scandinavians living in a climate so diametrically opposed to Australia’s be of any relevance? Ditto our distances.
As soon as a writer resorts to saying, “Australia has more pollutants than any other nation on earth”, or we have more flying mice per population, whatever. I know the writer is being mentally lazy. Certainly I can accept broadband is good/bad/feeble etc. But to quote your own words back to you ‘a meaningless measure that fails to account for….’ accurate description of someone comparing the Swiss to Swine flu.
Scandinavia to Australia.