Hi Peter
at work I am involved in an upgrade of dedicated connections between Interstate offices. It is a very tiresome process involving new copper cables to the premises etc.
We acquired a company in Tasmania. Their speed is very very very slooow (I could read the websites for them so slow are they appear in their browsers), and for a "decent price" I may get 1M download / 256k upload speed. Not more.
My boss emphasises how important it is to have better connectivity.
Anyway, my boss is a staunch Liberal supporter. As soon as I mutter the word NBN he goes through the roof (duck;-)
Peter, you can handle this very diplomatically and correctly. In terms of stated policy, the Liberals don't actually oppose the NBN. They just want to do it cheaper using a variety of existing technologies. So they're arguing the how, not the whether. (of course that's already a major change from early on, and the results are still crap in tech terms, but heck you can't teach a dinosaur how to dance in a mere few lessons!) Anyway, if your staunch Liberal boss wants faster connectivity, then using NBN as the keyword is a perfectly valid thing as it refers to either. Basically "whatever gets built". Perhaps the site in Tas already has NBN access, in which case it can become a nice example of how FTTH works out well. If your boss is unhappy with the speed/connectivity/quality that a Liberal/Coalition network might deliver, then that is something for him to consider, in general or in the context of his business. Seems worthwhile. You don't need to point that out to him, that indeed is going to agitate. As a business owner and techie, I regard the current govt's NBN as a pretty cheap infrastructure investment. We can debate technical details as well as mishaps on the ground in terms of deployment progress, but the basis is quite workable and the rest is upgradeable. Others may have a different view, which can be valid from their perspective. In discussions, I find it has been valuable to point out that it's basic infrastructure just like roads, electricity and water, not an optional indulgence for consumer purposes. It is an enabler of other activity, and just like a road it pays for itself in terms of benefit for society. The economic benefit is clearly there, but it's mainly indirect. The direct costs are actually tiny in comparison. Imagine comparing it with a city that doesn't have a sealed road to it. This tweaks people's perspectives, which often changes other aspects of their opinion without specifically having to argue those points. Yes it's costing a lot of money to build. Indeed it will. Let's do it as quickly as possible. Regards, Arjen. -- Exec.Director @ Open Query (http://openquery.com) MariaDB/MySQL services Sane business strategy explorations at http://upstarta.com.au Personal blog at http://lentz.com.au/blog/