Vint Cerf is a smart man. He also knows a lot about the Internet, which isn’t surprising considering he helped create it. So when he tells the Internet Society of Australia that he is “envious” of the Government’s push for a national broadband network, it’s probably a voice worth paying attention to.
Stuart Corner over at ITWire today quoted Cerf as telling the ISOC-AU meeting:
“I am so envious that you have a government that is willing to make the long term infrastructure investment of this magnitude and of this type [in the NBN] . I will be pushing very hard for similar activities in the US but quite frankly you guys are way ahead of us.”
Cerf also told Mitchell Bingemann at the Australian that he couldn’t predict the economic benefits of an infrastructure rollout like the NBN, but knew that there would definitely be some, claiming that “for these kinds of infrastructure like phenomenon it’s very hard to predict what the result will be”.
But he did also criticise the government’s proposed internet filter, claiming that it isn’t a technically feasible move.
For any geek unsure of their position on the NBN, this is a pretty high profile endorsement.
[ITWire and The Australian]
Image: Wikimedia Commons
John Roberts
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 5:37 PMyou listening to this, Tony?
DJ
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 5:38 PMAnd one that Tony Abbott will not get.
Roland
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 5:39 PMMost people would if they also didn’t have to pay for it.
MB
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 6:10 PMNice of him to think so considering he won’t have to pony up a cent for this “enviable” technology that will be outdated before they finish installing it. But, the naysayers will have the last laugh since those that are so very much in favour of this white elephant will be the ones paying for it for DECADES.
Hey, who needs better roads, better public transport and dams etc when one can download porn at 100Mb/s? Hmm, such a great use of $43 bil, yeah right..?
Travis New
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 6:43 PM…oh man you naysayers say the darnedest thing ya little tike.
Thomas Hambleton
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 6:47 PMThat you’re still using the incorrect $43 billion figure speaks volumes about how little you know about the issue.
Thomas Hambleton
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:19 PMAhh my apologies, that reply was a bit too snarky. Fact remains however that 43 billion is the top cost, not the paid cost. We clearly disagree on both the cost to the country, the potential benefits and the longevity of the technology involved.
Ed Hearsum
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 8:24 PMThe fact remains we don’t know how much it will cost, we won’t until it’s done. There is a speculative mark the government has put out but it isn’t complete. If anything can be said though is that there WILL be cost blow outs, it’s a government contract, and worse still it’s a Labor government contract.
I think a roll out concentrating on the areas that need it, Hospitals and Schools, then rolling out the cities, then the regional centers, then the regional towns. To have the biggest cash outlay at the beginning (rolling it out in the towns first) is crazy. That way you don’t get the sales from the big markets first which then help pay the interest WE ALL will pay. We will pay millions in extra interest based on the fact the role out is backwards.
Can’t wait for the high speed porn though.
Andrew
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:02 PMOpt out if you have that much of a problem with it, enjoy what will become cheap access via the existing copper network.
The NBN will pay for itself over time with or without you. In the mean time, it represents employment and business opportunities which actively stimulate the economy.
Also, if you think fiber will become obsolete any time soon, then you really need to check your sources.
Bern
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:06 PMSo, MB, is there anything specific that makes you think the technology will be outdated? You know, apart from something you read on a blog, somewhere…
The truth is, fibre optic communication has been the gold standard ever since it was invented, and put into service in 1977. Reading the Wikipedia article, fibre links were capable of 45Mbps back then, which is pretty damn impressive for 34-year-old technology, and twice as fast as our current “state of the art” ADSL2 can achieve. The current fibre capability is something like 1.5 *million* times faster than that.
If you know of some other technology that can achieve anything remotely close to those speeds, please speak up, I’d love to hear about it.
And to forestall any “But… but… wireless!” arguments, fundamentally fibre & wireless work the same way – you send a signal using ElectroMagnetic (EM) radiation – light for fibre, microwaves for wireless. In both cases, you get faster speeds by upgrading the equipment at each end – the medium in the middle doesn’t need to be touched. The difference is that, with wireless, you have one EM spectrum that must be shared among all users, and is subject to all kinds of interference. With fibre, *each customer* gets their own private spectrum, because there’s no crosstalk between fibres and no interference. The implications on available bandwidth per customer should be obvious…
matt
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:10 PMyou’ve come to the wrong site…
seriously… as far as I can tell, there would be two types of people who come to this site.
the relatively wealthy, who buy all the relatively expensive gadgets on this site, and thus, don’t care too much about the cost of things. and the nerdy sciency types who have the fore site to easily see how revolutionary this infrastructure could be.
generally a mixture of the two…
anyway,
does anyone else find it worrying that Tony Abbott is 14 years YOUNGER than this guy?
Tom Reynolds
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:10 PMHave you invented something that allows data to travel faster than the speed of light? A method that can beat the current record 100 Petabits per second.kilometer (equivalent to 100 million Gigabits per second.kilometer)” http://www.physorg.com/news173455192.html/
Because if you have, I’m ready to invest. Ig you haven’t well, oh, maybe umm, shuddup.
Andrew
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 10:17 PMPlease tell us how a network transmitting data at the speed of light will be outdated by the time its installed.
Last time I checked, we hadn’t broken the light barrier. And even if we did so in a laboratory tomorrow, it would be decades before that ability had any practical use.
boc
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 1:06 PMErr, won’t people against the NBN be paying this off too? Or is there some funky loophole you know about?
Regardless, you don’t make much sense.
Bazza
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 6:56 PMWhy is Vint Cerf’s opinion worth anything on this matter? All he did was invent a fairly unrelated communications protocol more than 30 years ago.
Ask the people who have to pay the bill what they think!
Andrew
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 6:57 PMIt will not cost $43B all up, it will cost under $20B for the Gov.
And it will not be outdated anytime soon!
Wireless will ALWAYS be slower than wired, it is called physics, learn it and get over it!
JT...
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 2:34 PMIt’s nice to think it wont cost any more but any work done for any government contract in just about any country is going to cost at the *least* another 20% of the quoted figure.
BC
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:11 PMporn at 100Mb/s? where do i sign!?! =D
attila
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:13 PMShock news – Google’s “Chief Internet Evangelist” is a fan of the NBN – pictures at 11.
Art
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:18 PMCorrection- he’s envious of the ‘theory’ behind the NBN. I doubt he’ll feel the same if (when) it all goes pear-shaped due to massive cost overruns and the service not delivering anywhere near what is promised…
Mike
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:33 PMHe wouldn’t be “envious” if he had to pay for it. Or wait for it. Then pay for it again via subscription fees. Then discover technology has overtaken it, rendering the $36Bn investment irrelevant. No sirree!
El Sax
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:47 PMStill looks like an uncosted populist exercise in pork barreling to me
Andrew Clout
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 7:51 PM“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
Dan Palin
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 11:14 AMThank you!
Richard
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 8:04 PMVDSL2 looks good. I would have it by now if it wasn’t for the NBN. Instead I will wait the next five years to maybe get the a few extra M of speed than I currently get (assuming we get 25 like Tasmania).
Iain Graham
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 8:26 PMYou have to upgrade sooner or later. Once the fiber is lain, you don’t have to change the actual fiber, which makes upgrading in the future so much easier.
Copper hit it’s limit. You can change all the equipment on either end all you want, but it won’t change the fact that copper is copper.
It’s the same as the stupid iPhone argument, update now, or wait for the next iPhone to come out. Except we aren’t talking months here, we’re talking decades, if not more.
Fibre is expensive, but you have to make the upgrade sometime, because what we have right now isn’t cutting it any more.
Scott
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 9:03 PMI agree with the concept of the NBN, however surely there would be a way to factor for innovation and future benefits. I understand and appreciate that our broadband speeds aren’t fantastic compared to other countries bit is it really that bad? I think the people that have a right to complain are those in regional areas – not those with ADSL 2+ connections in CBD areas. I read an article about a school principal in Tassie saying that the day NBN launched, speeds were great, but afterwards they weren’t much better than ADSL 2+. I have Optus cable and am overall pretty happy with the speeds. With the flooding across VIC, NSW, and QLD at the moment, my thoughts are to delay the launch of NBN for a year once there is significant recovery from the flood damage and go from there. If you don’t agree with this I’d then ask the question – are you’re willing to spend $2k in additional taxes this year to fund the flood recovery so the NBN can remain on track?
Dazza
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 9:18 PMCerf also says “he couldn’t predict the economic benefits of an infrastructure rollout like the NBN”
Also you need to ask WHY the TAS access speeds have decrease significantly after the promos stopped? Coincidence? The cameras are off!
It will also noted that money is being taken away from essential services, and now flood victims and rebuild damaged infrastructure, so we can have restricted, filtered, fully logged and controlled internet. The NBN is all about CONTROL not performance.
The Americans are starting on their GBit system at chattanooga as a cost of approx $15 to $20 per household for a system that could possibly serve 110 million households – fibre to block 1GBit connection.
Australias cost approx $1400 per person (man woman and child) and unless you live in the prime areas you are left out again. No NBN in rural SA, WA, NT etc.
Jason
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 9:29 PMTo all those people whinging about the ‘cost’ of the national broadband network, do you seriously think that this country’s infrastructure was built for free? Infrastructure improvements in this country have always cost taxpayers money.
And if you think $20 billion is a lot of money for a new state-of-the-art national broadband network that’s going to last 30+ years then obviously you haven’t been reading the federal budget papers recently. Social (and middle class) welfare dwarfes this.
BJ
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 10:58 PMTony’s gonna get in in two years time and wreck it anyway, so no use getting too envious too early. Just hope it goes past my house before the wanker gets elected.
Phil
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 11:50 PM43 Billion at 100Mb/s with a filter, yeah go baby! Atleast we know that if they do not build it, we will get better roads with speed bumps:)
Ian
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 12:04 AMI love how a number of people posting on all things relating to the NBN, are quick to criticise those who dare say anything negative about the NBN as ‘close-minded’ while are themselves not open-minded enough to acknowledge that this is not a black and white issue. Look at the above posts – anybody who supports the NBN has zero replies. One guy, MB, opposes it and gets 7 attacks. Ever thought that there are both positives and negatives involved and we should be carefully weighing these up rather than simply abusing those that dare disagree with you?
chaz
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 12:27 PMWorks both ways …
See the comments section in the article below for some “open minded” negative NBN views:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/01/abbott-demands-nbn-be-scrapped-to-pay-for-queensland-floods/
ozoneocean
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 5:24 AMBlah, blah, blah “if he had to pay for it” blah blah blah…
As a grown up I know that taxes will be collected regardless and they will be spent regardless. I would much rather they be spent on visionary and useful infrastructure like the NBN that will benefit the entire country for decades to come than upgrading a few crappy country roads outside of some teeny backwater town that will benefit a few thousand people tops over its lifetime and need repair again in another 5 years- and I’d MUCH rather pay for the NBN than the cost of the average large military procurement which actually costs about the same.
So all those rightwing Luddites repeating that “have to pay for it” idiocy should either think up a new more original slogan or just shutup and let the rest of us benefit.
Garth
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 6:34 AMI find it amazing that politics can blind people so incredibly. Just like climate change, the NBN issue has been hijacked by politicians spreading mis-information to gain political points. Light is the fastest information transfer medium known to physics. Fibre optic technology is fundamentally scalable. Any person still clinging to the “obsolescence” argument should really check their facts.
stevothegaddamneddevo!
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 12:51 PM@ MB
i’d rather the gov’t fork out this cash now, than having to rely on ISP and big business to do so when need and have to pay through the nose to ISPs and BIG Business because it’s needed then, and not done so now…
so, how much would you rather paid for your house? $100K 20 years ago, or $1M today?
there are other factors involved such as CPI and inflation…
El Sax
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 2:16 PMLet the market drive it.
And lets cut Telstra Loose at the same time.
What have they ever done but keep prices artificially high.
John Roberts
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 10:41 PMI don’t know if it’s been said already, but I’m pretty sure the government has other areas to pull money from for flood recovery, not just the NBN (like, I dunno, Tony Abbott’s salary, we can hope).